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I see this discussion being about three camps:
1) Characters who already have PrC levels
2) Characters who are lvl 2+ who intended to gain PrC levels
3) Future characters who want those PrC levels.
The current ruling allows group 1 to continue on their current path in order to avoid forced rebuilds.
It also allows group 2 to continue on their path, albeit a slower path under the rules.
Group 3 is unaffected either way.
Extending the grandfather'ing to group 2 has been explicitly rejected. (and i agree the tiefling/aasimar grandfathering was abused)
My earlier post about explicitly specifying a managable way for determining who in group 2 can rebuild and whether it was reasonable - i just don't see it as feasible.
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for the sake of perspective, loads of people played their Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge characters through the respective retirement scenarios before the season end / deadline, and nobody considered that to be shenanigans. Years ago, lots of people ran their PCs through the announced-to-be-retired Season 0 scenarios, before the deadline, and they weren't accused of cheating, either.
Mike Brock observed
There were also multiple, 28-minute runs of Master of the Fallen Fortress (up to 8 a day).
Well, that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
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I can sympathize, for this solution doesn't do a whole lot for the 2nd- and 3rd-level PCs who were aiming to employ the spell-like ability backdoor.
On the other hand, in the past the campaign performed at least one experiment tied to grandfathering in an option with a grace period. While it allowed some good-intentioned people to get in on a character option, it also invited egregious and now infamous cases of abuse. Grandfathering without warning is fair to those who at least played using that option. Grandfathering with a future grace period date was an invitation for abuse under a strict time limit.
The trouble is that I don't see a way to provide accurate recompense—at least without opening up lots of room for abuse—for those who had the glimmer of bloatmage initiation in their eyes but never got around to signing up.
Given the campaign's bad experience with grandfathering with a grace period in the past, this course of action seems like a fair solution to me. Thank you for your explanation, John!
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That sounds more like an issue with certain players who create characters that dominate the table. Not the options of the game itself.
There will always be players like that in any walk of life, especially in a "game" where there are perceived winners and losers.
To me this all boils down to a choice; do you want core classes or prestige classes to be the better option? Today was a clear winner for making core classes the better option.
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There were also multiple, 28 minute runs of Master of the Fallen Fortress (up to 8 a day).Does anyone know if the "grandfathering shenanigans" around aasimar and tiefling were all that prevalent, or were more of a messageboard phenomenon?
I know of three cities in the upper midwest where dozens of players ran through "The Confirmation" or "First Steps 1" with an aasimar / tiefling. Nobody considered it cheating or shenanigans.
for the sake of perspective, loads of people played their Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge characters through the respective retirement scenarios before the season end / deadline, and nobody considered that to be shenanigans. Years ago, lots of people ran their PCs through the announced-to-be-retired Season 0 scenarios, before the deadline, and they weren't accused of cheating, either.
Wow. That's just rude.
Yeah, if you saw a lot of that, I can understand why you'd be leery about grandfathering. That's a real shame.
On the other hand, to Chris' point about the retirement scenarios -- the entire reason I got sucked into PFS on more than an occasional basis is that my first character was Shadow Lodge, and I was determined to level her up so she could play Rivalry's End by the deadline, and I got hooked. So sometimes that sort of long lead time can build excitement and investment in a positive way.
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I guess I don't understand how such characters are "crippled", thejeff. A PC with a SLA is a perfectly legal, valid, PC; if it was a fun character last month, it still is.
Example:
This"I'm a wizard 2/cleric 1. Instead of having lv2 wizard spells I went cleric to get MT next level. Yes this puts me on the sorcerer track, but I'm okay with that for progressing cleric spells. This will be fun for me :D"
Is now
"I'm a wizard 2/cleric 1. Instead of having lv2 wizard spells I went cleric to get MT next level. But now I can't go MT next level. If I went MT still I'd have really bad wizard casting, and I don't want that. And if I just level up the rest wizard I have a 'dead' cleric level that doesn't meet my design anymore. I'd rather be a wizard 11 than wizard 10/cleric 1 :("
EDIT: Also from a role-play aspect it doesn't make as sense to have a cleric level with all your wizard
"Hey Joe, why did you train as a cleric?" "Well I was wanting to be this awesome blend of intellect and holy might" "Well are you? I haven't seen you go to church for ages" "Nope, it got shot down by the supreme beings that rule the gods. So I had to choose between my intellect, divine power, or being a half-smart half-holy thing. And I chose intellect."
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I guess I don't understand how such characters are "crippled", thejeff. A PC with a SLA is a perfectly legal, valid, PC; if it was a fun character last month, it still is.
...until they level up a few times.
The affected PrCs (EK, MT and AT) are ones which synthesize a multiclass combination which, on its own, doesn't work. At level 2, the difference between a good build and a bad one is pretty small, but it's the nature of the Pathfinder system that disparities get bigger with level. Continuing to level up without the synthetic aid of the PrC actually makes the character worse.
A fighter and a wizard with the same STR have almost the same attack bonus. It's only a difference of +1 in the fighter's favor.
So if a player made a frontliner wizard to stab people with, he wouldn't see much of an issue at first level. And if it was a fun character last month, it still is... right? He'll still be doing just as well with his stabby-mage concept at 10th level... right?
It just doesn't work that way.
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@ChessPwn
you have options.retrain the 1 level under current rules. or go wiz 3/clr 3 for MT
<sarcasm>
Because a lv3 PFS character would love to spend their money and whatever else it takes retraining that cleric level to wizard. It's not like they have limited resources or magic gear that they're wanting to get. right? And that trait I took to help the build out, I'm sure that I wont mind having that now but not really using it (as far as I know you can't retrain traits). At least I'll have these super awesome will saves, since I have nothing else to do with all my wisdom.</sarcasm>
Personally I'd just drop the character and make a wizard that was meant to be full wizard instead of a hybrid that never happened.
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But thejeff, that's the player's choice. There's always thing that can happen, that can lower a player's interest in a character. A favorite weapon can get sundered and destroyed. A PC could die, and need a raise dead and some restoration spells, which could cost a lot of gold or prestige. Or a friend whose character took the same teamwork feats might move away.
Things happen. The character can still be fun to play.
"The character designed for early entry who hadn't reached it yet is now stuck with stats that aren't good for sticking with the single class and probably isn't even what they would have built for the normal delayed entry prestige class."
A low attribute? That doesn't have to ruin a character; that decision is the player's choice.
This is part of my general philosophy: don't be upset when bad things happen to your PC. Bad things are supposed to happen to your PC.
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There's a bit of a difference between bad stuff happening to your PC in-universe (a nasty enemy kills him) and the laws of his reality being altered. One type of bad thing is expected to happen and is part of the fun. The other isn't.
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A low attribute? That doesn't have to ruin a character; that decision is the player's choice.
Yeah... no. Sorry. There's nothing to enjoy about none of your spells being effective and having fewer of them. I understand why they had to do this, but telling people that there's no correlation between enjoyment and having a character be effective at what they were made for is just denying reality. You cannot simply tell someone that the difference between filet mignon and gruel is what they choose to believe it is.
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To answer your question, yes, you can make 10 aasimars and play The Confirmation an equal number of times, but we're trusting you'll exercise some good taste and respect a decision made with the larger community in mind.
We didn't exercise good taste and respect the decision. Instead there were speed-running marathons, endless attempts to game the system, accusations of cheating and complaints about how unfair it is that 'someone somewhere can have something that I can't have.'
I think we as a community have shown that we can't handle something like an across-the-board '6xp just be cool about it' grandfathering policy.
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i am just not seeing the practicality in the argument on stats... if a character was going early entry mystic theurge... why isnt its stats still fine for standard entry mystic theurge?
I believe the general feeling is that the gstandard entry mystic theurge is so bad that for a character under 5th level simply hopping out of one or the other of your spellcasting classes via retraining is the preferable route.
Its one i[m considering but haven't decided
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Wholeheartedly agree. The whole fun aspect seems to be something oft overlooked in these discussions. This is a GAME. The purpose of a game is to have FUN. Every single change that is made should ideally be made in the interest of increasing fun, or at least be made to minimize any negative impact to fun.
Well, it's true that the game should be fun, but it should be fun for everyone, not the one player at the table who chooses some option that totally overshadows the others, renders the others useless, or in some way gains that character such an advantage that the game is not fun for the others.
Now, does early entry into this PrC spoil the fun for others? I don't know - I've never had an MT at a table I have run or played. It could, I suppose, but it might not. And it is important to keep in mind that this particular change isn't limited to the Mystic Theurge - it's a broader statement about SLAs and how they might meet certain spell casting requirements.
I'm only suggesting that the "fun" you talk about must apply to everyone, not just those who might be subject to changing their characters as a result of this policy.
What has been missing in this conversation, from my reading of it, is how this policy might impact players who don't have these types of characters. Does it make the game more enjoyable for them? Does it make it more fun?
Fun applies to everyone at the table, not merely the Mystic Theurge characters.
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Any time a signficantly-used feat, class, or option is banned or otherwise nerfed, these kind of difficult decisions need to be made. Invariably there are people who argue in favor of letting anyone who might have even thought of taking that option in the future do a full rebuild, while there are also people who argue that even thinking about using that option was bad and those who did so should feel bad, and anyone using the now-illegal option should at minimum be forced to rebuild into a legal character and be glad they're not being forced to retire the character.
So, reasonableness lies somewhere in between, and generally the PFS leadership has been pretty good at finding a way of threading the needle.
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i am just not seeing the practicality in the argument on stats... if a character was going early entry mystic theurge... why isnt its stats still fine for standard entry mystic theurge?
It's that you no longer want standard entry, so if you retrain the cleric level to wizard now you are a full Wizard that has stats for MT.
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Alright, I posted before of a proposal, and have refined it now. Please note that this post is my own:
"Any character that has been played at 2nd level or higher character at the time this was announced has a chance to qualify for the following ruling. Said character may utilize the old SLA rules to attempt to qualify for a prestige class. Characters that are built from GM credit that have reached 3 XP before this announcement are subject to the same rules. Any use of the retraining rules automatically disqualifies the character from being able to use these rules."
Still up for discussion. I really don't know how to handle the GM part of this, but I put it in there so we can discuss. Maybe not allow GM ones to continue since they were never played...not sure.
This means any characters before that is 2nd or higher is grandfathered in, and they cannot be rebuilt in any way to try to qualify or further optimize themselves for an affected prestige class they didn't intend to take anyway.
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.....
Unless you were specifically building towards early entry, the vast majority of characters won't qualify simply due to their character choices (such as race).
And how did they get that race?
I think an issue in this, that I have not yet seen discussed through the first several hundred replies, is that opening up grandfathering for people with characters not yet in the prestige class is in a way, rewarding those who got a lot of tiefling or assimars in the grand rush last summer. While those races are not the only way to early access PrCs, they are the most common way.
Aasimars and Tieflings are only legal with a boon since mid August 2014 (the only race boon I've gotten, that I recall, is for a Sylph - as yet not used).
PERHAPS Aasimars and Tieflings that started with a boon and are at least 2nd level MIGHT get so grandfathered, per a previous suggestion. Using a boon to get into a race for early access to a prestige class is a rotten experience - especially if you could have traded your boon for something different.
Non-boon Aasimar & Tielfing characters are quite likely among the characters 'banked' by some people, and to allow them a special grandfathering seems to be rewarding people for banking their planetouched. I am sure there are lots of people who not play so much in such a way, but there are quite a few.
(I do have characters affected by this - but luckily they are mostly GM credit babies - and still flexible - or have already played in prestige class)
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So, reasonableness lies somewhere in between, and generally the PFS leadership has been pretty good at finding a way of threading the needle.
Not that your conclusion is wrong, but the logic here is a specific logical fallacy known as the golden mean fallacy. You can shift the middle simply by proposing more outlandish arguments for one side or the other, such as stuffing all of the mystic theurge players into a giant blender to make banning their characters seem like the reasonable middle.
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Sooo....your saying I should put away the ACME blender away... ;(
Man no one ever lets me use the giant blender.
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Some day it will be the right solution, and they will call you a genius for your foresight :)Sooo....your saying I should put away the ACME blender away... ;(
Man no one ever lets me use the giant blender.
Someday....
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Alright, I posted before of a proposal, and have refined it now. Please note that this post is my own:
"Any character that has been played at 2nd level or higher character at the time this was announced has a chance to qualify for the following ruling. Said character may utilize the old SLA rules to attempt to qualify for a prestige class. Characters that are built from GM credit that have reached 3 XP before this announcement are subject to the same rules. Any use of the retraining rules automatically disqualifies the character from being able to use these rules."
Still up for discussion. I really don't know how to handle the GM part of this, but I put it in there so we can discuss. Maybe not allow GM ones to continue since they were never played...not sure.
This means any characters before that is 2nd or higher is grandfathered in, and they cannot be rebuilt in any way to try to qualify or further optimize themselves for an affected prestige class they didn't intend to take anyway.
There is already a thread discussing this idea here. :)
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Like ZanThrax said, nothing bad happened to the PC, he just suddenly, retroactively, never could have done what he was planning on.
To take a ridiculously extreme example, if they suddenly banned wizards above 5th level (unless you'd already reached 5th level), your 4th level wizard would still be a legal viable PC and you could just multiclass to something else and keep playing, so why fuss about it? It's just the player's choice.
Sure, some player's will be able to roll with it and have fun with the characters. Some will just shrug, put the character aside and play something else. Some will keep playing it but complain all the time. Some will probably get mad and quit.
Why is it necessary? Why not just let anyone who's played past 1st level (and thus can't rebuild) be grandfathered in? No new characters. No race to make new characters and get them leveled up before some arbitrary deadline. Just if you had a character in the works that you can't change, you can keep to your plan.
What's the drawback?
The only reason it has no in-world reason is that the player has not chosen to assign one.
I remember when AD&D went from 1st Edition to 2nd Edition. The game system suddenly didn't allow assassins, and bards were just as suddenly no longer members of a fighter/ranger/druid prestige class. And yet, TSR built an in-world explanation.
I've had characters affected by these decisions before; as one example, my first character changed from a fighter to a summoner when the campaign converted from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder. A couple year's later, my dhampyr Undead Lord had his archetype pulled out from under him. In each case, I came up with an in-world justification for the character's shift.
In this case, I don't see why the change has to be entirely out-of-character. The PC was intending to join whatever organization teaches the skills of Mystic Theurgy, and his application was put on hold, pending a broader mastery of the disciplines involved.
The example you posit strikes me as exciting, ridiculous or not. What happened to the ability to learn 3d-level spells?? Why are sorcerers and arcanists able to advance, but not wizards? That would be an intriguing campaign.
Why is this decision (to cut off some characters, instead of grandfathering everyone in) necessary? What is the drawback, you ask? The drawback is that every single character in the campaign could claim that he or she was at some point working towards an early-entry Prestige Class. The rule would simply not apply, at all, to the organized play campaign.
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@Zach - sub-optimized is not a crime. I'm sorry if the 'group two' characters who retrain would not be maximized/optimized on stats. but that does not negate they have the option to finish out the same PrC path via normal entry.
I am looking forward to high tier games with my standard path mystic theurge. I will be happy to tell you about it next February :D