Out-of-Subtier Gold

[tivadar27]

Apparently this dropped off the radar, but I'd like to emphasize that I think it's silly to punish people who are between subtiers in terms of gold:
Average Gold for a 7-8: ~4350
Avarage of 5-6 and 8-9: ~3850

I understand you don't want to penalize people for playing down, but you've made it so:
* I get the same gold if I play 5-6 or 8-9, so no reward for increased challenge.
* The only time playing up is worth it is if I'm *far* out of subtier, which is exactly what you were trying to discourage
* I get more gold playing 7-8 than I do 8-9

I realize it's too late to change things now, but I think this is definitely something that needs to be considered for next year. If thought has gone into this, please explain. So far I've heard no explanation as to why you decided to go with this system.

EDIT: I looked back and saw that the discussion in the guide update revolved around 1-5 and 3-4, which got laughed off (deservedly so, as the difference was all of 30gp). I'm assuming a gold drop of over 10% at level 7 will be a bit less laughable, and other subtiers were not considered in this (like they should have been?).

[Mystic Lemur]

It sounds like it's working exactly as intended.

This change discourages people from playing out of subtier? Good. It also mitigates the "damage" of playing down, making it less likely that players will feel pressured to play up.

[Jiggy]

The topic has come up before, so I'll just drop in with the same comment I made then:

Jiggy wrote:

James Risner wrote:

There is no point [to playing up].

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that that's the intent.

My impression (and again, I could be wrong) is that the intent is for everyone to be playing in-tier all the time. The only reason it's even legal to play out of tier at all, and really the only reason subtiers even *exist*, is as a concession to the realities of scheduling issues, so that an imperfectly-leveled table can still fire.

If I'm correct in that understanding, then any motivation for playing up other than "out of the goodness of my heart so other people don't get sent home" is against that intent. Thus if players look at the new rule and then say "there's no longer any point in playing up", then mission accomplished. :)

[Thar]

Then what they need to do is have a subtier for every level the scenario covers 1-5 3-7, lets not penalize people.

[Undone]

Jiggy wrote:

The topic has come up before, so I'll just drop in with the same comment I made then:

Jiggy wrote:

James Risner wrote:

There is no point [to playing up].

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that that's the intent.

My impression (and again, I could be wrong) is that the intent is for everyone to be playing in-tier all the time. The only reason it's even legal to play out of tier at all, and really the only reason subtiers even *exist*, is as a concession to the realities of scheduling issues, so that an imperfectly-leveled table can still fire.

If I'm correct in that understanding, then any motivation for playing up other than "out of the goodness of my heart so other people don't get sent home" is against that intent. Thus if players look at the new rule and then say "there's no longer any point in playing up", then mission accomplished. :)

If the intent is to encourage playing down at every opportunity (while between teirs) It's simply disappointing that if you're 9th level playing a 7-8 or 5th and playing a 3-4 is more rewarding (due to decreased consumable/prestige expenditure) than playing a 10-11 or 6-7. Even more depressing is how little you'd need to be awake if it was anything but season 4-5.

[Aeshuura]

It is not true that there is no point in playing up, but there is significantly less of an advantage. In playing up, you should still get access to the items on the upper tier. Of course, that has never been an issue to me. I am happy with the change.

[Jiggy]

Thar wrote:

Then what they need to do is have a subtier for every level the scenario covers 1-5 3-7, lets not penalize people.

Then scribble out the words "out of subtier" on your chronicle sheet and write in "subtier 3" or "subtier 5" or whatever the "dead level" is.

Seriously, OOS gold is effectively a third subtier.

Remember folks: Pathfinder is built around "Wealth by Level", not "Wealth by Challenge" or "Wealth by Choice".

[Jason S]

You don't get to choose whether you play up or down now, so the point is moot. There's less advantage playing up, there's less penalty playing down. Assuming you play up and down an equal amount, it works out.

Yes, there will be differences like playing level 7 in a tier 5-9 compared to 7-11, but the differences are minor in the long run. If it really bothers you, schedule your scenarios so that you're not playing 5-9s at level 7. Problem solved. Most people won't notice or care.

[Taenia]

I think that Jason S put the main point into play here. The only time you ever choose is if you have the whole group between tiers and then they get a choice. Since this will be very rare, in most situations you will play whatever the tier ends up. I think for me this was worse than the out of tier situation.

I remember having to play down at a con because it was me and 4 level 7 signed up for a 7 - 11 and no other tables with that scenario, I had the option of sitting it out or playing down. Now that option doesn't cost you so much.

The other advantage is one I noticed when I ran this weekend, running a 5-9 where the inevitable discussion of to play up or down was bypassed by the simple ok level 7, 6 players play up, go...

[SCPRedMage]

Taenia wrote:

The only time you ever choose is if you have the whole group between tiers and then they get a choice.

Well, the whole party doesn't have to be in between tiers...

In order to get the choice as to which tiers to play, the party must:
1. Play a season 0-3 scenario.
2. Have an APL that falls in between the tiers.
3. Have enough players to force playing up (six or seven players).
4. Not have any players who belong to the higher subtier.

If you were to play a tier 1-5 with four level three characters, one level two, and one level one, the APL would come to 2.5, which would be rounded to 3. With six players, they would normally play the high tier, but with no level four or five characters, they have the choice.

But yeah, it kinda requires a "perfect storm" in order to come up in the first place, and the choice only comes up when they'd have a good reason to play down, so the "why would anyone ever choose to play up" question is kinda silly.

[Undone]

Jason S wrote:

You don't get to choose whether you play up or down now, so the point is moot. There's less advantage playing up, there's less penalty playing down. Assuming you play up and down an equal amount, it works out.

Yes, there will be differences like playing level 7 in a tier 5-9 compared to 7-11, but the differences are minor in the long run. If it really bothers you, schedule your scenarios so that you're not playing 5-9s at level 7. Problem solved. Most people won't notice or care.

You still have a character choice which more or less gives you a choice to go up or down.

[Victor Zajic]

You do realize that by the old rules that you got the low subtier gold when you played down, right?

[Undone]

Victor Zajic wrote:

You do realize that by the old rules that you got the low subtier gold when you played down, right?

There was a simple solution. Play up.

[Melavis Clay]

This came up last night and I want to make sure I did it correctly. We played a 7-11 senario on the 7-8 subtier. There were 2 lv 9 players and the rest were 7 or 8. I beleive the lv 9 players get whatever tier you actually play, in this case they get 7-8 gold. If one of them had been lv 10 he would have gotten 10-11 gold. The last thing is if they had played a lv 9 in a 10-11 tier, would he have gotten high tier gold?

[RainyDayNinja]

Melavis Clay wrote:

This came up last night and I want to make sure I did it correctly. We played a 7-11 senario on the 7-8 subtier. There were 2 lv 9 players and the rest were 7 or 8. I beleive the lv 9 players get whatever tier you actually play, in this case they get 7-8 gold. If one of them had been lv 10 he would have gotten 10-11 gold. The last thing is if they had played a lv 9 in a 10-11 tier, would he have gotten high tier gold?

If you play in a 7-8 subtier, then anyone who is not either level 7 or 8 receives the "out of subtier" gold. For Seasons 0-4, this is the average of the two subtiers.

[Jason S]

Melavis Clay wrote:

I beleive the lv 9 players get whatever tier you actually play, in this case they get 7-8 gold. ... The last thing is if they had played a lv 9 in a 10-11 tier, would he have gotten high tier gold?

If you have a level 9 PC playing in tier 7-11 (7-8, 10-11), it's irrelevant what subtier you play, you'll get out-of-subtier gold for both.

I think I understand Undone's comment. He's saying that at level 9 in this example, there's no incentive to play up, only incentive to play down, since you earn the same gold regardless. I suppose you could game the system like this, if you really don't like the challenge, but I guess that's your choice. Most of the time though, you don't get to pick who is at your table, so I'm going to assume that sometimes you play up, and sometimes down, unless you rig it somehow.

[Undone]

Jason S wrote:

Melavis Clay wrote:

I beleive the lv 9 players get whatever tier you actually play, in this case they get 7-8 gold. ... The last thing is if they had played a lv 9 in a 10-11 tier, would he have gotten high tier gold?

If you have a level 9 PC playing in tier 7-11 (7-8, 10-11), it's irrelevant what subtier you play, you'll get out-of-subtier gold for both.

I think I understand Undone's comment. He's saying that at level 9 in this example, there's no incentive to play up, only incentive to play down, since you earn the same gold regardless. I suppose you could game the system like this, if you really don't like the challenge, but I guess that's your choice. Most of the time though, you don't get to pick who is at your table, so I'm going to assume that sometimes you play up, and sometimes down, unless you rig it somehow.

How to "Rig it." Have two in range characters.

System gamed.

[Akerlof]

Undone wrote:

How to "Rig it." Have two in range characters.

System gamed.

That's easy in tier 1-5, not so much in tier 7-11, especially if you're in an area where there aren't very many 5+ tables going. Doubly so if you don't play regularly.

Last year this time I remember hearing my organizers lamenting the large number of people starting a new character every time their current character hit level 3 or 4, it was making it hard to get higher level tables together. Now, that's exactly what people are recommending, the system even rewards playing multiple characters at multiple levels instead of sticking to one character.

Effectively, you're saying that you shouldn't play one character through the season to experience the whole arc as a continuous story because the gold rules punish you for having a character in a dead level.

[Victor Zajic]

Undone wrote:

Victor Zajic wrote:

You do realize that by the old rules that you got the low subtier gold when you played down, right?

There was a simple solution. Play up.

Except that you didn't always get to make that choice at all, and when you did you had to come to an agreement with the other players. Not what I'd call a simple solution by any stretch of the imagination. Not to mention that bullying other players to play up was a real and troubling problem.

The original post was complaining about penalizing people for playing down. This problem was explicitly addressed in the rule changes, and the penalty for playing down has been greatly reduced.

The campaign staff has talked at length about why they have implemented these changes.

[Jason S]

Undone wrote:

How to "Rig it." Have two in range characters.

System gamed.

So you ask everyone else to play their level 7 PCs while you play your level 9 PC, in order to get the same reward with limited challenge?

1) You have nice friends.
2) If that's how you want to play, then go for it.

[Charlie Bell]

Cross-posted since it is on-topic to this thread and my own didn't get any answer:

In S0-S4, Out of Subtier gold is always the average of the high and low subtiers. In S5, chronicle sheets specify the OOS gold. On those chronicle sheets, is it always the average of high and low subtier gp, or is it possible for it to be a different value?

The reason I ask is that I'm working up a spreadsheet to calculate available subtiers, day jobs, and gold rewards. If S5 is consistent with S0-S4, it takes a couple fairly complicated functions out of the mix.

[Scray]

Since there's only a few season 5s, I guess you'll have to wait and see a while.

[FLite]

My understanding from the thread the developers were commenting, is that out of subtier gold is the average.

People came back and said that was too much like math, and could the oos gold be listed on the chron sheet, and the developers said sure.

Then people said great, can you publish a list of OOS gold on S0-S4 scenarios, and the developers said "do you think we have nothing better to do with our life? it's basic math."

[Thar]

Jiggy

Personally I will walk away from a table where I end up out of tier, if the table doesn't make oh well not my problem.

[TriOmegaZero]

Agreed.

Edit: How often does that happen? That you can only get four people together?

[Aeshuura]

For me, I can often only get 3 players together at a time, being stuck here on an island. We have 6 of us together, and usually we can only get 4 of us together at one time.

[redward]

Thar wrote:

Jiggy

Personally I will walk away from a table where I end up out of tier, if the table doesn't make oh well not my problem.

Well, it is all about you, so that seems reasonable.

[Mark Stratton]

When you are out of tier and play low, you get more gold than the those who play in tier, but you also get access to the lower tier items.

When you are out of tier and play up, you get less gold than those who play in tier, but you get access to the higher tier options.

I cannot for the life of me understand why this is such a big deal.

Mark

[thaX]

To me, it isn't a big deal, but the GM does need to remember who is getting what. I believe I had one player get higher tier gold when he should have gotten OoT gold. I believe I only made that mistake once.

[kinevon]

Thar wrote:

Jiggy

Personally I will walk away from a table where I end up out of tier, if the table doesn't make oh well not my problem.

A) You limit your playing options significantly.

At this point, in order to even have a hope of playing one ofg your PCs, you must fulfill the following basic conditions on sign-up:
Level 1 & 2 PCs: Only ever play 1-5s, or the older 1-7s.
Level 3 PCs: Only ever play 3-7s or the older 1-7s.
Level 4 PCs: 1-5, 1-7, or 3-7 scenarios.
Level 5 PCs: 1-5, 1-7, 3-7, 5-9.
Level 6 PCs: 1-7, 3-7, 5-9.
Level 7 PCs: 1-7, 3-7, 7-11.
Level 8 PCs: 5-9, 7-11.
Level 9 PCs: 5-9.
Level 10 PCs: 7-11.
Level 11 PCs: 7-11.

B) Then, after you muster, you get the option of trying to make sure the whole party is close to your level, so you play your PC's sub-tier, or you walk.

C) You have to convince the regular GMs you no longer play with, and cause games to potentially fail for, that it is worthwhile to invite you back in the future.

Honestly? You pull this kind of shortsighted BS on me as your GM, and I wouldn't invite you back. Your maintenance cost is higher than I would want to get involved in paying. When I GM, I want to enjoy the experience, just as much as my other players want to.

"Well, this is the third time Kevin has picked up his marbles and left, instead of either accepting out of tier gold or pulling out a sub-tier appropriate PC. I am sorry that we won't have a game, since he was our third player. He is off my list for potential players, since I don't enjoy this kind of shenanigans, either. Anyone for Fluxx?"

[Tim Statler]

You made a mistake Kinevon. You cannot play a level 5 in a 1-7. That is the float level.

[SCPRedMage]

Tim Statler wrote:

You made a mistake Kinevon. You cannot play a level 5 in a 1-7. That is the float level.

You are no more restricted from playing a level five in a tier 1-7 than you are playing a level three in a tier 1-5.

[TwilightKnight]

SCPRedMage wrote:

You are no more restricted from playing a level five in a tier 1-7 than you are playing a level three in a tier 1-5.

He was referring to the player who stated he wouldn't play if he was out of tier. A level five would be out of tier in a 1-7 so the poster is suggesting he would refuse to play even if it meant the table wouldn't make. Same thing for a level three for a tier 1-5.

Kevin was showing all the times when the poster would not be able to play and Tim was just saying that a couple of Kevin's list were wrong.

This conversation is not meant to be taken literally that there is any real restriction to players in an out-of-tier situation.

And as Mark stated, there are benefits to the out-of-tier system that players just seem to be ignoring.

[tivadar27]

I just wish there had been more of an explanation as to why they went this route. I understand the benefits, but there are some things about it that just don't make sense, namely that middle level.

@Victor: The original post was complaining about penalizing people for playing up... not down. And I may have missed the staff talking at length about why they made the decisions they did. A link would be great.

I understand you can't please everyone all the time, but some rationale as to why they went this way, specifically with regards to calling the middle level "out-of-tier" would be nice... There's no reason it couldn't be called "off-tier" and simply defined as "playing in a tier when your character falls in the level range for a different tier for that scenario", but they didn't, and I'd like to know why. Rather than just being told "this is how it is".

EDIT: Also, a simple solution would be to eliminate the middle level entirely, and just have the ranges, be 3-4, 5-7 (and say so in the guide). That way the middle level gets full gold for playing up, and OoT gold for playing down.

[SCPRedMage]

tivadar27 wrote:

EDIT: Also, a simple solution would be to eliminate the middle level entirely, and just have the ranges, be 3-4, 5-7 (and say so in the guide). That way the middle level gets full gold for playing up, and OoT gold for playing down.

Except for the part where the system was designed assuming that a characters would have a roughly even split on playing up/down when they fall in between subtiers, meaning redefining the tiers to make them "play up" would skew the wealth-by-level.

[kinevon]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

SCPRedMage wrote:

You are no more restricted from playing a level five in a tier 1-7 than you are playing a level three in a tier 1-5.

He was referring to the player who stated he wouldn't play if he was out of tier. A level five would be out of tier in a 1-7 so the poster is suggesting he would refuse to play even if it meant the table wouldn't make. Same thing for a level three for a tier 1-5.

Kevin was showing all the times when the poster would not be able to play and Tim was just saying that a couple of Kevin's list were wrong.

This conversation is not meant to be taken literally that there is any real restriction to players in an out-of-tier situation.

And as Mark stated, there are benefits to the out-of-tier system that players just seem to be ignoring.

Kinevon, not Kevin. Kevin was my mythical player who wouldn't play out of tier at all.

And, as mentioned, I messed up the table. Tired, at work, and absent minded.

Level 5 should only have 1-5 and 5-9 as in-tier options.

And I was trying to point out, in the table, that there would be some serious play restrictions, even before you count actual sub-tier, to where Kevin could play his PC in-tier only.

Options increase, of course, when you count in modules and APs, but those usually include increased play time involved, lower possible PP, and other possible oddities.

Indeed, given Thar's statement, I would suspect that he is the type thatm, if he plays modules/AP segments/etc., at all, prefers to play them at the lowest legal level, so as to get the most buck for the game he can. 3,711 gp is a much better "deal" for a 2nd level PC than a 4th level PC, for instance, for playing a Tier 2-4 module...