General questions from a newbie

[Martain]

Q1: I'm assuming that NPC Boons and NPC Contact rules are excluded from Pathfinder Society organized play correct?

Q2: PFS Resources indicate various adventure path content legal for PFS play. How does this work though?

Looking through one of the chronicle sheets involved shows a set of tiers starting with 1 and ending with say... 13-15. I thought the max level for PFS characters is 11 or something?

Does this mean an adventure path is designed to take someone from level 1 all the way to level 13/15? Does this mean that playing an adventure path would consume the entire life of one of my characters and thus prevent me from using that character for content outside of that adventure path?

Q3: Outside of allowing others to catch up with you or allowing you to use a character longer, are there any other benefits to using the slow experience path?

Q4: Do Alchemists/Investigators get to take a day roll check in addition to a alchemy crafting check?

Q5: I read how items created using this crafting skill can not be resold or given permanently to others and I understand why they made it this way but what I don't understand is how much time it takes to create these things and how much I can validly create in between sessions. What are the guidelines for how long it takes to craft alchemical items?

Q6: If one is playing the Silver Crusade faction and obtains their special pathfinder, how does one obtain one with multiple Ioun slots?

Q7: Since I currently am unable to attend PFS events locally due to work hours, is there anyone that will start up a few good ranked beginner modules as PbP? I can post 1-2 possibly more Mon-Sat but not on Sun.

[Jiggy]

Welcome to PFS! :)

Martain wrote:

Q1: I'm assuming that NPC Boons and NPC Contact rules are excluded from Pathfinder Society organized play correct?

I don't know what those things are, but basically if you have a book, you can look it up in Additional Resources to see what (if anything) is legal for PFS.

Quote:

Q2: PFS Resources indicate various adventure path content legal for PFS play. How does this work though?

Same as anything else: if you have a given book/publication, you can use whatever content from it is listed as legal in Additional Resources. Anything that either you don't have or isn't listed as legal, you can't use.

Quote:

Looking through one of the chronicle sheets involved shows a set of tiers starting with 1 and ending with say... 13-15. I thought the max level for PFS characters is 11 or something?

"Scenarios", which are adventures written specifically for organized play, go through level 11. However, much of Paizo's other adventures are sanctioned for PFS credit despite being written with a more general audience in mind.

Quote:

Does this mean an adventure path is designed to take someone from level 1 all the way to level 13/15? Does this mean that playing an adventure path would consume the entire life of one of my characters and thus prevent me from using that character for content outside of that adventure path?

I believe you can find more info on how APs work in the free Guide to Organized Play; have you read that yet?

Quote:

Q3: Outside of allowing others to catch up with you or allowing you to use a character longer, are there any other benefits to using the slow experience path?

Nope, not really.

Quote:

Q4: Do Alchemists/Investigators get to take a day roll check in addition to a alchemy crafting check?

Not quite sure what you're asking here.

Quote:

Q5: I read how items created using this crafting skill can not be resold or given permanently to others and I understand why they made it this way but what I don't understand is how much time it takes to create these things and how much I can validly create in between sessions. What are the guidelines for how long it takes to craft alchemical items?

There is an undefined/infinite amount of time between scenarios. So anything you can legally do between scenarios, you're guaranteed to have enough time to do.

Quote:

Q6: If one is playing the Silver Crusade faction and obtains their special pathfinder, how does one obtain one with multiple Ioun slots?

Hm, I don't know, but I bet someone else can answer that one.

Quote:

Q7: Since I currently am unable to attend PFS events locally due to work hours, is there anyone that will start up a few good ranked beginner modules as PbP? I can post 1-2 possibly more Mon-Sat but not on Sun.

There's lots of online play that goes on; I'm sure someone more familiar with that scene can point you in the right direction. :)

[BigNorseWolf]

Martain wrote:

Q1: I'm assuming that NPC Boons and NPC Contact rules are excluded from Pathfinder Society organized play correct?

Hello, welcome to the institution.

Never heard of those, so I'm going to say yes (what are they out of by curiosity?)

Quote:

Q2: PFS Resources indicate various adventure path content legal for PFS play. How does this work though?

Short answer: Short, dungeon crawly chunks of the AP are hacked out and used as a shorter adventure.

Long answer: see chapter 6 in the Guide to organized play

Quote:

Looking through one of the chronicle sheets involved shows a set of tiers starting with 1 and ending with say... 13-15. I thought the max level for PFS characters is 11 or something?

Its a soft cap. Normal play ends at level 12.

Quote:

Does this mean an adventure path is designed to take someone from level 1 all the way to level 13/15? Does this mean that playing an adventure path would consume the entire life of one of my characters and thus prevent me from using that character for content outside of that adventure path?

If you did the entire thing i THINK you would normally "hop out" of the adventure path and into regular play at a few points.

Quote:

Q3: Outside of allowing others to catch up with you or allowing you to use a character longer, are there any other benefits to using the slow experience path?

More dayjob rolls? By and large its a less advantageous option.

Quote:

Q4: Do Alchemists/Investigators get to take a day roll check in addition to a alchemy crafting check?

Eyup.

Quote:

Q5: I read how items created using this crafting skill can not be resold or given permanently to others and I understand why they made it this way but what I don't understand is how much time it takes to create these things and how much I can validly create in between sessions. What are the guidelines for how long it takes to craft alchemical items?

You have effectively an infinite amount of time for creating stuff in between scenarios.

Quote:

Q6: If one is playing the Silver Crusade faction and obtains their special pathfinder, how does one obtain one with multiple Ioun slots?

You can't. You need to buy an absurdly expensive wayfinding to get multiple slots.

Quote:

Q7: Since I currently am unable to attend PFS events locally due to work hours, is there anyone that will start up a few good ranked beginner modules as PbP? I can post 1-2 possibly more Mon-Sat but not on Sun.

There are play by posts on the site, as well as online games for people with odd work hours.

[Akerlof]

Martain wrote:

Q1: I'm assuming that NPC Boons and NPC Contact rules are excluded from Pathfinder Society organized play correct?

If you're talking about NPC boons from Ultimate Campaign, then that is correct. The campaign is designed under the assumption that there is no continuity between play sessions because players can play not only under different GMs and players, but in vastly different areas where there is no way to know without looking through paperwork what the character did previously. It's also designed under the assumption that scenarios are played in limited time slots, often at conventions, where there's little time for anything other than plying the scenario at hand.

Quote:

Q2: PFS Resources indicate various adventure path content legal for PFS play. How does this work though?

Looking through one of the chronicle sheets involved shows a set of tiers starting with 1 and ending with say... 13-15. I thought the max level for PFS characters is 11 or something?

This is complicated. The short answer is that there's "campaign mode" where you play through the adventure path as normal, ignoring all PFS rules, and then get a chronicle sheet that you can apply to a legal PFS character after you complete each volume. Then there's "module mode" where you play only a small section of an AP volume with actual PFS characters, using PFS rules, and that character will receive the chronicle sheet at the end of the session.

Long version: See chapter 6 of the Guide to Organized Play.

For the higher level stuff: Regularly published scenarios only support play through level 11. There is a "retirement arc" that takes a character through level 13. You can continue playing sanctioned material beyond that, in exactly the same way you can play sanctioned modules and APs at levels 1-11, but there aren't going to be any normal scenarios released outside that level range.

Quote:

Q3: Outside of allowing others to catch up with you or allowing you to use a character longer, are there any other benefits to using the slow experience path?

Some builds have a sweet spot at a certain level where they're most powerful or fun to play. Going slow track can let you extend that for as many sessions as possible. Basically, any reason you have to play that character twice as long as normal at a level is a reason to slow track.

Quote:

Q4: Do Alchemists/Investigators get to take a day roll check in addition to a alchemy crafting check?

Craft Alchemy _is_ their day job check. (Probably.) If you mean, can they take a day job check in the same scenario where they crafted alchemical items, that is also a yes: The two things are completely unrelated.

Quote:

Q5: I read how items created using this crafting skill can not be resold or given permanently to others and I understand why they made it this way but what I don't understand is how much time it takes to create these things and how much I can validly create in between sessions. What are the guidelines for how long it takes to craft alchemical items?

The time it takes to craft an alchemical item is explained in the Craft () section of the Skills chapter of the Core Rulebook.

I don't know of any ruling on how much you can craft between scenarios. Since time between scenarios is indeterminate, most of the GMs I know will allow you to craft as much as you want between scenarios, but that's a gray area so table variation can happen. Crafting during a scenario depends entirely on the adventure: Some have weeks of travel time built in, some are over in less than an hour of game time.

Quote:

Q6: If one is playing the Silver Crusade faction and obtains their special pathfinder, how does one obtain one with multiple Ioun slots?

I assume you mean Wayfinder? You have to buy a Wayfinder with multiple slots. They cost a lot and can be found in Seekers of Secrets. (The Pathfinder Society Field Guide and the Pathfinder Society Primer both have Wayfinders in them as well, but I don't think either of those have Wayfinders that allow multiple Ioun Stones.)

Quote:

Q7: Since I currently am unable to attend PFS events locally due to work hours, is there anyone that will start up a few good ranked beginner modules as PbP? I can post 1-2 possibly more Mon-Sat but not on Sun.

There's an entire forum for PFS online, the Grand Lodge for Online Play.

[Martain]

Clarifications*

NPC Contact rules are found in the Ultimate Campaign resource
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/campaignSystems/contact s.html#_contacts

NPC Boons are found in the Game Mastery Guide
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/nPCBoons.html

QNew: Is there any way in pathfinder society organized play for a PC to take the test of the star stone or is that something a gm would have to hand craft if someone wanted to do that.

My lvl 1 PC on a take 10 roll would have a 24 on a crafting check.

So this means I could in essence purchase any craftable alchemical item at 1/3 the price so long as my take 10 crafting check meets or exceeds the DC?

Do I need to use the take 10 roll option or could I roll in front of a GM in order to see if I successfully roll so as to craft higher items (at the risk of failing quoted below)

"If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again."

[Nefreet]

The Additional Resources has the answers to those questions as well. It is a dauntingly large document, I agree, but doing a keyword search for the source book (like "Campaign") will lead you in the right direction.

Since the Game Mastery Guide is not even on the Additional Resources list, nothing is legal from it.

There is nothing in that document about Contacts, either, so they are not legal.

And I am unfamiliar with what book the "star stone" is in.

EDIT: you edited your post twice. If you're editing to correct spelling/grammar, that's one thing, but if you're editing to add or remove stuff, either make a new post or add an "EDIT" tag at the bottom, like I did here.

[Martain]

The Star-Stone is what was used to make the City of Absalom in the first place and resides at the center of the city.

I'm referring to the flavor text/history held in the Pathfinder Society Field Guide,

"Aroden himself, Cayden Cailean, Iomedae, and Norgorber all conquered the otherworldly mystery of the stone and gained divine immortality, and
every day hundreds of truth-seekers, visionaries, prophets, and madmen flock to the district with audacious hopes to add their names to that august list."

where it also talks about the first portion of the test requiring you to cross the chasm without using a bridge.

[Jiggy]

If you're looking for a campaign in which you can become a god, this is not it. In this campaign, PCs are mortals who have elected to enlist as field agents in the in-world Pathfinder Society with a motivation that (one way or another) ties to the Society's activities of exploring, gathering relics, finding knowledge, occasionally intervening in international crises, etc.

[Akerlof]

Martain wrote:

...

My lvl 1 PC on a take 10 roll would have a 24 on a crafting check.

So this means I could in essence purchase any craftable alchemical item at 1/3 the price so long as my take 10 crafting check meets or exceeds the DC?

Do I need to use the take 10 roll option or could I roll in front of a GM in order to see if I successfully roll so as to craft higher items (at the risk of failing quoted below)

"If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again."

You need to have a GM sign off on any alchemical crafting you do, so you cannot simply put "Crafted 200 alchemists fires" on your inventory tracking sheet and be done with it even if your take 10 is high enough.

That being said, if you explain to a GM that your take 10 is enough to craft an item, there's no reason they won't sign off.

And yes, if for some reason you're rolling dice to craft, the GM does need to witness that and sign off on it. You can choose to roll any of your crafting checks, not just the ones you can't take 10 on. But you're aware of the downsides.

[Raymond Lambert]

Q.3 slow teak is almost like hard mode. You go through expendables twice as fast because it takes you twice as many games to level. You do not get any more prestige points to account for this so expect to have less of them to cover costs like a raise dead or free wands/potions/scrolls. This is nit much of a cost on wands if CLW(a single clr with positive energy will reduce that cost at least a little) but if you use 8 charges a day on a wand of mage armor, it will last you half as long since you take twice as many games to level. The bigger cost is stuff like how often you need to purchase and use something like an expensive potion of fly, gaseous form, Cure Serious Wounds, or expensive scrolls like dim door, water breathing(x2), Cure Serious Wounds. If you die and use prestige to get a free raise dead/ restoration(whatever the next step is), do not expect to have another 16+ prestige to pay for your next raise dead right away. That lack if resources is what leads me to find it a hard mode.

I want to emphasize I think it us far wiser to spend many prestige points on consumable goods and use them to overcome challenges(avoid getting killed) than save them for a raise dead. It is one thing to spend a few on a title you get RP enjoyment out of but why bother to hoard 30 pp for an island you will never really get any use out of.

[Jiggy]

Raymond Lambert wrote:

I want to emphasize I think it us far wiser to spend many prestige points on consumable goods and use them to overcome challenges(avoid getting killed) than save them for a raise dead.

On the other hand, I've been in a situation where the group teleports into a location, immediately rolls initiative (enemy is RIGHT THERE), and the baddy's first action is to disintegrate the party's wizard.

Boom. Pile of dust. Nothing he could have done; certainly nothing that Prestige could have bought.

Just sayin'.

Quote:

It is one thing to spend a few on a title you get RP enjoyment out of but why bother to hoard 30 pp for an island you will never really get any use out of.

I always figured that big-ticket vanities were ways for folks who did save PP for a raise to say "DIDN'T DIE WOO!"

;)

[Nefreet]

I want my Saurian Shaman to purchase an Island when he reaches level 20.

I'm thinking of calling it... JURASSIC PARK!!

[Martain]

Thank you everyone for your informative posts! They've helped!

Here's a further followup question regarding Craft (alchemy) though.

So I read how you could craft by the week or by the day with individual rolls which since the time is in essence infinate between scenarios, as long as I have the gold, and I can succeed via a take 10 or via direct rolling in front of the GM, I can make my stuff.

What I'm wondering is this...

The character class 'Investigator' has a class ability called 'Inspiriation' where they can add to their skill checks a 1d6 and later on a 2d6 or even 2d8 at higher levels. Various investigator talents (think rogue talents but for a different class) even allow you to use inspiration on crafting/knowledge checks without expending the use of one of the points from your inspiriation pool (think like ki pool)

So what I'm thinking is this... since the crafters fortune +5 bonus can be used, wouldn't that make it legal to use my 1d6 inspiration skill die as well and add that to my crafting?

If so, would I only get to add a 1 to my take 10 (since a 1d6 will always roll at least a 1)? Could I add a take 3 to make it a take 13 on a craft check?

Basically my question is how I would use my Inspiration class skill on downtime crafting and while we're at it, day roll checks =)

[Martain]

Posting the addendum question as a separate post~