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Hi!
So Season 5 is almost upon us and the Paizo Staff is hard at work finishing everything up to make this the best Pathfindery Gen Con ever (head to Scotty's if you don't believe me).
Sparked by countless past conversations and more recent forum discussion, I'd like to start an open petition and discussion on changing the layout and functionality of Pathfinder Society Chronicles starting with Season 6 (not 5).
Please review and address the following questions:
- What features of the current chronicle design to you currently enjoy?
- What features would you like to see removed?
- What features would you like to see added?
- What features would you like to see altered?
- How could chronicles be changed to make tracking a character's career easier for the player?
- How could they be changed to make tracking PFS legality easier for a GM?
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Feature to add:
I would like to see a brief synopsis of the adventure. All of us who used to play Living Greyhawk (LG) remember how some of those were done. I still have all of my AR's from LG. When I go back and look at them, those bits of information trigger my memories of the adventure. Sadly, I don't remember half of what happened in my PFS games, unless I ran them. It could be as simple as just reprinting the Introduction blurb or can be more creative to include the end result of the mission.
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The only problem I have is how small the buying and selling boxes are. Besides a couple of chronicles there is so much blank space for the items list when you only get a marginal amount of equipment from the adventure. That space could be made smaller and the buy/sell slot bigger. Other then that everything else is good to go.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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Here is a related question/issue:
My Chronicle for Siege of the Diamond City from PaizoCon replaced the Items Sold/Conditions Gained and Items Bought/Conditions Cleared sections with a big blank section labeled "Notes". Is this a quirk because it was a test run of the scenario at PaizoCon or is this a change for the Season 5 chronicles in general?
I will second Nebten's request for a short recap of the scenario on the chronicle sheet, that included what location the adventure took place. That would be nice.
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I'm in agreement with Todd that the right side is perfect the way it is now. Also, that there should be more room for bought and sold items (specifically 'bought' as I'm not usually selling that many items each scenario). A brief description of what went on would be nice or at least a spot to write down what happened while it is fresh in one's head.
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Not that I think this has a snowball's chance in hell of going anywhere, but I'm covering myself just the same.
Why wouldn't this spell work in Hell? :-)
BNW, this thread is for chronicle changes. Please direct scenario layout changes to another thread.
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So my first idea is to remove the lower priced items that aren't always available from the sheet based on the tier of the sheet.
For level 3-7's scenarios, another under 500 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 5-9, anything under 3,000 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 7-11, anything under 5,250 gp wouldn't be included.
Those are based on getting one fame per scenario.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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Rather than a synopsis, just put at the very top under the scenario name something like 'A Pathfinder Society scenario set in The Worldwound' or something like that. Much like the old LG ARs.
I'd advocate against having a GM notes section. 99% of the time it wouldn't be used. GMs can just write in the white space of the chronicle sheet.
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I saw a great idea for a new chronicle that comes with the Guide that is a 0 xp, 0 pp chronicle with 150 starting gold, the always available stuff (or at least the guide text) listed on it, and what not, for your starter chronicle sheet.
This is a great idea, though perhaps I'm biased since my area has a lot of newbies.
Count me as another who would like a little more line height for buying/selling. While I can write that small, if I'm in a hurry at a convention or something, as a player I might pencil it in then add up my totals later. Unfortunately, if you can't read your tiny, hastily scrawled handwriting, several months later you may realize what you thought was a 3 was actually an 8, causing you to have to go through and fix every one of your subsequent chronicles.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I saw a great idea for a new chronicle that comes with the Guide that is a 0 xp, 0 pp chronicle with 150 starting gold, the always available stuff (or at least the guide text) listed on it, and what not, for your starter chronicle sheet.
If we want to encourage more audits, maybe a "Total Career Gold" box would be worthwhile.
So my first idea is to remove the lower priced items that aren't always available from the sheet based on the tier of the sheet.
For level 3-7's scenarios, another under 500 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 5-9, anything under 3,000 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 7-11, anything under 5,250 gp wouldn't be included.Those are based on getting one fame per scenario.
+1 to all of these.
Also, an addendum to RainyDayNinja's idea: I think it would be fascinating to include, along with the "Total Career Gold" box, a small chart showing intended WBL for each level in the level range of that scenario.
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I'm in agreement with Todd that the right side is perfect the way it is now. Also, that there should be more room for bought and sold items (specifically 'bought' as I'm not usually selling that many items each scenario). A brief description of what went on would be nice or at least a spot to write down what happened while it is fresh in one's head.
I mostly agree, they work fine as is on their own. I would like the boxes of XP & prestige to be the same size. When I lay chronicle X next to chronicle X+1 I should be able to shift them and have final XP/PP/GP line up with starting XP/PP/GP just to make audits easier. I realize this means changing EVERY chronicle not just the new season's, but I threw it out there nowing how they are now is fine.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Baltic
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I would like the chronicle to be form fillable, so I can add event, eventcode, date and/or GM number before I print them out. (I'm lazy that way...)
I'd like to see the story arc symbol if a scenario is part of such an arc.
I'd like to see a blurb of the scenario.
With boons that can be gained in a scenario I'd like to see a GM initial box to idicate it was gained and another GM initial box to sign if it's used. (I guess I don't like striking things off)
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Not that I think this has a snowball's chance in hell of going anywhere, but I'm covering myself just the same.Why wouldn't this spell work in Hell? :-)
BNW, this thread is for chronicle changes. Please direct scenario layout changes to another thread.
Sorry, went to the dentist yesterday and got some of the good candy. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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I would like the chronicle to be form fillable, so I can add event, eventcode, date and/or GM number before I print them out.
The whole thing should be form fillable.
Online play is prevalent, and filling in chronicle sheets is something of a small nightmare, and that's assuming you have a PDF editor at all. Printing it out, signing, and re-scanning isn't a good solution (some people don't even own scanners; it's not fair to say you need a scanner to play PFS, and thankfully almost nobody is asking).
The GM signature is a really strange thing to have to validate on a chronicle sheet. I don't know what the logic is - to avoid cheating? There are ways to cheat with or without a signature. That's DRM logic; designed to stop the cheaters but only hampers people who are trying to fill them in legitimately.
So what's the real role (all the roles) of a chronicle sheet? Let's establish that first before we make any changes.
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Having said that, in relating to PFS, I add to my text-based character sheet:
- A list of scenarios I've played
- How much gold I got from them
- How much I got from a day job, or whether that scenario was GM credit
- How much I've spent on ammo to date
- How much I've spent on items to date
- How much I've sold to date
- How much I've earned total
My biggest concerns with chronicle sheets:
- Carting around a folder of up to about 10-30 sheets per character when playing in person, or even considering to show the PDFs to a GM online (online, it almost never happens) - in both cases, it's tedious to hand over and tedious to look through/audit
- If I fall behind with reporting my gold spent on items for a few scenarios, it's near-impossible to try and catch up without putting it all on one sheet, making when I bought them inaccurate according to the chronicles
- Filling them in online with a PDF editor - think of it like using MS Paint to fill in boxes on an image with text boxes and entering each part individually, except more tedious (so much so that it's often easier to use copy/paste on text boxes)
That's all I can think of on the spot, I'm sure there's more and there's a lot of good suggestions in this thread. I like the idea of a 50 word recap, but I don't know if the space is there for it.
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The chronicles need more unique items on them... They need more value. More wands with less than full charges. Items in different than normal slots. More actual Boons, instead of items most everyone can buy anyway. The rare overpowered item some people could try and buy earlier than they would normally qualify to buy it. But I think items in different slots would be the best.
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I definitely like the Scenario blurb and expanding "conditions gained" box to say something along the lines of Items Used/Conditions Gained. This helps players remember to annotate what consumables were used. i.e. tanglefoot bags, potions, scrolls, etc. during the adventure.
Also I would eliminate the items found on a chronicle unless they are unique, wands with varying charges, or not found anywhere else.
In all these years I haven't seen a player with less than the Fame needed to purchase the item outright.
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Here's my wish list and commentary:
- I agree that the right side is good and workable in its present state.
- I echo Andrew Christian's sentiment of a starter chronicle. You start with 150 gp, have 0 Fame, 0 PP and can list your start gear easily enough.
- I'd like to see more proof reading on chronicles, but that's because I'm a jerk and typos bother me (tiers wrong, a minor tattoo boon referencing its minor version so you aren't sure which one you really got).
- I also like the small blurb idea. Something very short like (using First Steps as an example): "As an up and coming new Pathfinder, this character was introduced to several Venture Captains and assigned various tasks in Absolom to win favor. On the way back to report various levels of success, this character and his/her companions were ambushed by criminal elements of Absolom." This would be short, and can fit into a small area, but mention the where, what and who of the scenario. The "This Chronicle Certifies That" section still has a lot of white space that could be reclaimed (better now than previous seasons), and this text could be put below the player & character info.
- I very much want a notes section. This can be for outstanding actions, alignment infractions, significant interactions with NPCs, vanities 'purchased' and so on. White space on existing chronicles has been mentioned, but not all chronicles have white space to be used, or well allocated (see below) and it just looks sloppy.
- Fillable PDF. I want to be able to fill this out beforehand, with GM info, tier, and so-on. Or after the fact for PBP online games. If it means the chronicle has to be a separate PDF, well I'm OK with that, honestly. Everything we download from Paizo is zipped anyway, what's another file in the zip archive?
- Fewer items that I don't need to see. I can buy a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, cool. Oh, again. Oh, ok, I get that one again. Sweet, another potion of Invisibility. Actually, can we just make those always available to just get them off of the chronicles?
- More items which are special and noteworthy. There's a chronicle out there with moderately cool Dragonhide armor. It's never available except by chronicle. That sort of thing is neat and special, a prime example of what I mean. Being able to buy something special is great. Heck, even finding a +1 flaming composite longbow of [+5 Str] is neat. Just make the items seem a bit less cookie cutter and more interesting and valuable, not just standard stuff we can find already fully printed in books. Even partially charged wands work well for this.
- Compact the white space. 4-01, Rise of the Goblin Guild, for example, has 7 items in Tier 1. It has space for 11 or twelve. Take out this space and use it for a notes section.
- A consumables used section. Wand, charges used, count remaining. Arrows used, number used, count remaining.
i.e.: Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds; -3; all eleventy hundred I've gathered from each chronicle minus 3.
- Rename "Scenario Chronicle #" to "Character Chronicle #". It's a small nitpick, but it is straightforward and perhaps clearer.
In fact, I want to reiterate the point that getting items at a tier where my minimum possible fame should cover the cost of availability is kind of insulting. First off, it's not at all special or neat. It's an item straight out of a book. Second, it's something I could already buy if I wanted to. So what this really says to me is the scenario author phoned it in and didn't want to put anything of substance there. With a lot of these scenarios I could erase half of the items on the chronicle sheet and just have more available usable white space, and I wouldn't lose space to "gee, another potion that I could already buy".
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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The chronicles need more unique items on them... They need more value. More wands with less than full charges. Items in different than normal slots. More actual Boons, instead of items most everyone can buy anyway. The rare overpowered item some people could try and buy earlier than they would normally qualify to buy it. But I think items in different slots would be the best.
This is something people have been saying for a while, and in theory campaign management is listening. But it still needs work; I was super-bummed out when my archer played [REDACTED], and those 3 +1 abberation bane arrows didn't show up on the chronicle.
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In fact, I want to reiterate the point that getting items at a tier where my minimum possible fame should cover the cost of availability is kind of insulting. First off, it's not at all special or neat. It's an item straight out of a book. Second, it's something I could already buy if I wanted to. So what this really says to me is the scenario author phoned it in and didn't want to put anything of substance there. With a lot of these scenarios I could erase half of the items on the chronicle sheet and just have more available usable white space, and I wouldn't lose space to "gee, another potion that I could already buy".
It's possible to acquire zero fame throughout your career. You have to really work at it, but it's possible.
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That would be a nice idea. I give players a circumstance bonus to knowledge checks if they can show me a chronicle sheet with the monster on it and a GM initial (+1 per chronicle).
However, I would prefer to just have the bottom of the sheet be a nice big notes section. This way different people could use it differently to record. Knowledge buffs want to track monsters, spellcasters buy and scribe spells, swiss army knife guy wants lots of items, low fort save guy keeps getting baleful polymorphed. Each has there own needs and I don't think there is enough space for separate boxes.
One way to make the space would be to ditch the items costs (unless it is something special) since the costs never differ from RAW. You could then print the items in two columns rather than 1.
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Very small change that I think would help a lot of new players:
Edit: Ah - ninja'd by Bardez.
So my first idea is to remove the lower priced items that aren't always available from the sheet based on the tier of the sheet.
For level 3-7's scenarios, another under 500 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 5-9, anything under 3,000 gp wouldn't be included.
For level 7-11, anything under 5,250 gp wouldn't be included.Those are based on getting one fame per scenario.
If this is done, I would base it on ~2 fame per level. Not everyone averages 1+ Fame per scenario.
That would be:
3-7: still 500 gp.
5-9: 1,500 gp.
7-11: 3,000 gp.
Also remember scrolls/spellbooks are important to wizards, regardless of level. Frustrating that the spellbooks stopped being put on the chronicle sheet.
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The unique items and unique traits or whatever are great on chronicle sheets. However, there needs to be something to make me care about what standard gear is on there. I've proposed this before, but how about a small discount of non-consumable items? Is cloak of resistance +1 for 925 or something like that really going to break a game where people can legally play Tetori monks and Zen archers? As it is, I just completely ignore the actual gear listed on the chronicle sheet, because cash money is always my limiting factor, not access.
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For the most part, I think the chronicle sheets are fine. I would like to see some more room in the conditions/items area, and to facilitate that I would recommend this:
Currently, items obtained are listed as such:
item (cost)
item (cost)
item (cost)
item (cost)
If instead, we listed them like this:
item (cost), item (cost), item (cost)
It should allow for some more room towards the bottom of the sheet to make the afore mentioned areas a little more roomy.
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The discount is likely never going to happen but for a few select boons here and there.
There is enough issue of the WBL curve being circumvented, we don't need more ways to do that.
Seriously? Then just take items off in my opinion, because the fame system completely circumvents the whole "its on my chronicle sheet" thing. Completely. I've said it before, and WBL is a trivial issue compared to character builds. This is demonstrably true by generating theoretical characters and comparing them. Whomever is on the WBL warpath I feel is really chasing their own tail.
Even amongst my own characters, my most combat effective characters are NOT the ones with the most WBL.
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Agreed, but still it would make the items listed more worth while.The discount is likely never going to happen but for a few select boons here and there.
There is enough issue of the WBL curve being circumvented, we don't need more ways to do that.
The intent is that the items are not a reward per say
But rather it is all the items not always available that are found in the scenario.
With that intent known, you can't look at them as a reward. Its just a list for accounting purposes.
Occasionally you'll get access to something that isn't always available that you wouldn't be able to get by Fame yet.
The idea isn't to have a bunch of "cool" items on your chronicle sheet (although season 4 is doing much better on this).
Its just an accounting page showing you all the items found that are not always available.
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Occasionally you'll get access to something that isn't always available that you wouldn't be able to get by Fame yet.
Yeah, but if you don't the fame for something, you likely won't have the cash for it anyway. It would be a lot more useful to be given a slight break on the affordability end than the access end.
I find it weird that the items are not intended as any kind of reward at all. I mean in my homebrews, its always a bonus to find something someone can use because that means they don't have to go fence it and take that hit on money.
This isn't is horribly big deal, because I'm not proposing very big numbers here, but it would just make people actually pay attention to that part of the sheet.
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Warnings, #4-22 Spoiler alert!
Taking a stab at it here, incorporating some feedback from this thread.
Changelog:
- Removed any item under 3,000 gp (for a assumed 5th level Pathfinder getting at least 1 fame per level).
- Changed Scenario Chronicle # to Character Chronicle #
- Added a GM Notes section.
- Made Item/Purchases and consumables used area more general and unlined.
- Added Career Gold Total box.
- Made Event space bigger than Event Code.
- Added website blurb for scenario.
- Fixed the subtier 5-6 typo that is normally on this chronicle.
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And to address the worthwhile items thing:
What is considered worthwhile and what isn't?
Consider:
NPC needs more AC, more to hit, more savings throws and some healing.
So giving them a +1 NA, Protection, Resistance and CLW potion is pretty standard fair.
Especially at lower levels, you give them all this, and your budget for equipping the badguys becomes maybe one or two small cost items that are unique to the badguy's story in question.
So if you want some cool item, like boots of the cat or belt of the weasel you gotta get rid of one of the above items (NA, Deflection, Resistance?)
And even those items can just be bought anyways...
And I don't think we should expect unique and new items created just for the scenarios. That requires some major development time that isn't just about developing a scenario. Now you are talking about game mechanics for item creation, which as we see in RPG Superstar, is not an easy thing to do, at all.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Taking a stab at it here, incorporating some feedback from this thread.
Nice!
The one concern that comes to mind is that truly unique things (like an intelligent item, special magical tattoo, jar of magical body parts, etc) wouldn't have room for a stat block/writeup on that sheet.
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Taking a stab at it here, incorporating some feedback from this thread.
Doesn't give a lot of room for unique items that have been showing up somewhat frequently in season 4, or boons.
I also like the idea of having a sorta accounting form for costs and gains.
Perhaps divide the inventory management box into two boxes one on top of the other for costs and gains with little boxes in each one showing spent gold and the other showing gained gold. With lines to the appropriate boxes on the right.
Additionally, I think since there is a PP spent box on the right, there should be a box to account for PP spent with a line drawn to the appropriate box on the right.
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Taking a stab at it here, incorporating some feedback from this thread.Nice!
The one concern that comes to mind is that truly unique things (like an intelligent item, special magical tattoo, jar of magical body parts, etc) wouldn't have room for a stat block/writeup on that sheet.
Keep in mind that the Items Found area can actually be two columns, which might leave enough for unique items. Also, the GM Notes and Inventory areas can get squished down if the Items area needs to be expanded. There are quite a bit of "unique" items on this chronicle. Look back at other 5-9 chronicles and remove the <3k gp items and see how much room you have.
Also, I was thinking that GM Notes could incorporate boons, potentially.
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Doesn't give a lot of room for unique items that have been showing up somewhat frequently in season 4, or boons.
I also like the idea of having a sorta accounting form for costs and gains.
Perhaps divide the inventory management box into two boxes one on top of the other for costs and gains with little boxes in each one showing spent gold and the other showing gained gold. With lines to the appropriate boxes on the right.
Additionally, I think since there is a PP spent box on the right, there should be a box to account for PP spent with a line drawn to the appropriate box on the right.
If we're capable of calculating the attack bonus of a 7th level fighter, do we really need lines and arrows pointing the the correct box? The idea of a more open, free form area for tracking things is so that people can do it the way they prefer.
For example, a GM can write in the notes section: "Death, raise dead 16PP. 2x restoration - 2,560 gp"
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Feature to add:
I would like to see a brief synopsis of the adventure. All of us who used to play Living Greyhawk (LG) remember how some of those were done. I still have all of my AR's from LG. When I go back and look at them, those bits of information trigger my memories of the adventure. Sadly, I don't remember half of what happened in my PFS games, unless I ran them. It could be as simple as just reprinting the Introduction blurb or can be more creative to include the end result of the mission.
A lot of the other suggestions are nice but this is one that I've wanted for a long time. After you've played so many it becomes hard to remember the details of some of them and I hardly ever remember key NPC names unless I make a note of them on the chronicle sheet afterwards. A brief blurb to jog your memory and give you the names of the NPCs would be great.