Pageant of the Peacock illegal

[Chris O'Reilly]

I have a bard who had the masterpiece. I still invested in knowledges so its no big loss but in general rebuilds should err on the side of being generous.
A small issue I have is that knowledges are often the only way for the gm to give players some of the pages of background in a scenario that they might not otherwise get and anything that encourages knowledges is a good thing in my book.
My main issue, however, is that of all the things to ban they pick this. Oh well, looks like there is some room on that double barrel gunslinger train.

[Sin of Asmodeus]

If one of my broken toys got taken away I'd understand and either retire the character or try and salvage it.
Listen, it sucks. Yes. But that's life. I was on the synthesis summoner gravy trained and it got needed into the ground.
At higher levels potp could emulate literally 1000 skill points. Sorry, but it's dead.
Just use some prestige and rebuild.

[Yiroep]

Sin of Asmodeus wrote:

Listen, it sucks. Yes. But that's life. I was on the synthesis summoner gravy trained and it got needed into the ground.

And synthesist got to rebuild completely out of synthesist and rebuild stats.

I remember when it was decided that synthesists wouldn't get a full rebuild of attributes, and how lots of people were glad that they would be stuck with their dumped stats of str/dex/con. What would a character do in that case? It would basically be an abandonment issue. Now, I was all for synthesist going away (for more than one reason...but mostly because 95% of people couldn't build it right and most of the rules on it were extremely confusing). I'm glad at least that didn't happen, as that would have been lunacy.

I'd much rather punish players who are actually cheating than those that are legitimately making characters. But I can see there's no changing your mind.

[Chris Mortika]

Sin,

You don't have to justify the masterpiece is banned, because no one is arguing otherwise. The question is, how much lee-way players ought to have to adjust the affected bards.

Sin of Asmodeus wrote:

If one of my broken toys got taken away I'd understand and either retire the character ....

There are people who play less regularly than you seem to. Abandoning a mid-level character is a bigger deal for some people than others. In most every case, though, it's disruptive.

Quote:

Just use some prestige and rebuild.

Even for people whose bards have built up prestige points, this requires the purchase of a hardcover book. Not to start a new character, but rather to continue playing their current PC.

This situation is not analogous to the mysterious stranger / pistolero issue from a year ago. In that case, Mike warned people well in advance that the build was not going to be legal for long. I don't have much sympathy for players caught in that.

Rather, it seems a better analog to the banning of, as you say, the synthesist archetype: suddenly banning an (over-powered) option that some PCs were built around. As Andrew notes: those players were able to adjust the characters (without buying Ultimate Campaign).

Quote:

Listen. It sucks. Yes. But that's life.

It doesn't have to be; these are human decisions.

[Paz]

Finlanderboy wrote:

The PFS management allowed it. They decided it was a good addition to the PFS community. The players can not decide whate is broken or not. We rely on someone else to decide that for us. Then when they recant because their job was not performed well enough in the first place they ban it.

(emphasis mine.)

I think you do Mike/John (and anyone else involved) a disservice. The fact that so few rules that are susceptible to player abuse slip through is a testament to how good a job they do.

[Pink Dragon]

Finlanderboy wrote:

The PFS management allowed it. They decided it was a good addition to the PFS community. The players can not decide whate is broken or not. We rely on someone else to decide that for us. Then when they recant because their job was not performed well enough in the first place they ban it.

It is up to the players not to abuse the rules just because they can.

It is not up to PFS management to know every corner case where abuse is possible, for the simple reason that PFS management cannot be omniscient, especially in a rule system such as PFS.

[kinevon]

Pink Dragon wrote:

Finlanderboy wrote:

The PFS management allowed it. They decided it was a good addition to the PFS community. The players can not decide whate is broken or not. We rely on someone else to decide that for us. Then when they recant because their job was not performed well enough in the first place they ban it.

It is up to the players not to abuse the rules just because they can.

It is not up to PFS management to know every corner case where abuse is possible, for the simple reason that PFS management cannot be omniscient, especially in a rule system such as PFS.

+1

Pathfinder, like anything that is not a simple system, suffers from the law of unintended consequences.

And, as a company that is smaller in scale than, say, UPS or Verizon, just doesn't have the man- and woman-power needed to test all the thousands of rules together, and make sure that every weird combination doesn't break the game.

Not to mention that, as an OGL-based game system, they inherited plenty of things that already can break the system. Stealth, the original rules for all of what are now classed as Combat Maneuvers, Invisibility, Concealment & Cover, Line of Sight vs Line of Effect, etc.

Heck, some of the most common magic item building issues stem from legacy rules along with the relevant specific rules being spread out between sections of the CRB that came from two separate books, a legacy of Paizo combining what, in 3.5 and 3.0, were two different rulebooks.

[LazarX]

I don't quite understand. I always thought that the purpose of the masterpiece was simply to help perpetuate a bluff that you had knowledge, not to give you the knowledge itself. Did the devs actually come out and say that it gives you real knowledge? If so, than this creation was a mistake that's being rectified at least for PFS.

[Acedio]

LazarX wrote:

I don't quite understand. I always thought that the purpose of the masterpiece was simply to help perpetuate a bluff that you had knowledge, not to give you the knowledge itself. Did the devs actually come out and say that it gives you real knowledge? If so, than this creation was a mistake that's being rectified at least for PFS.

The author of the masterpiece said that basically because its a supernatural performance, you're bluffing so well that you just happen to wind up being right (Kind of like most of my multiple choice tests in college ;)). Which really, is exactly how the feat was written. Having a better flavor text to indicate that might have helped people get past the illogical weirdness, and this thing might not have been banned.

Pretty interesting case here, we had so many GMs that hated it that they just made s&*! up to limit it.

[Charon's Little Helper]

LazarX wrote:

I don't quite understand. I always thought that the purpose of the masterpiece was simply to help perpetuate a bluff that you had knowledge, not to give you the knowledge itself. Did the devs actually come out and say that it gives you real knowledge? If so, than this creation was a mistake that's being rectified at least for PFS.

The designer of Pageant came out and said that was his intention. He even went so far to say that he intended 1 round of performance to work for as many checks as you could make in 10 min, though he admitted that it could be read as 1 round = 1 check.

His justification was essentially - 'it's magic!'.

If they came out with an errata changing it to what you (and some others) thought it did - I don't think that anyone would have a problem with it at all.

Edit: Ninja'd! (I should have left a magical trap so that I could only be rogue'd!)

[David_Bross]

I am an opponent of this masterpiece and I think that people who (ab)used this masterpiece should get a rebuild on their skill ranks, starting from the level they first took the masterpiece.

If you took an archetype that got rid of bardic bonuses to knowledges you shouldn't be surprised when that has a mechanically hindering effect on your PCs knowledge checks. Furthermore the Ultimate Campaign has rules for retraining archetypes if you find this at a disadvantage.

That said, the rules for retraining skill points will take enough prestige enough that without free retraining you will not get knowledges.

[wakedown]

I suspect there's a fine line in allowing imbalanced/hotly debated abilities to always grant generous rebuilds.

John: Man, I sure wish I could adjust some things on my bard. I really didn't build him just right.

Henry: Hey, you've got some GM credits on him right? A full level unspent?

John: Yeah, he's just such a confusion of stuff though I don't know how to select his next feat or spell or anything...

Henry (leans closer): Hey, you could say you had picked up Pageant of the Peacock. It just got banned, and folks are debating how extensive of a rebuild characters with it will be given -- you might end up getting to tweak all your skills and stuff.

John: Great idea!

Clearly, the above is in bad faith.

Pageant is just a feat or a 2nd level spell slot - so the question is what else are folks operating in good faith needing with a more generous rebuild? Are they looking for a level's worth of skill points to put into Knowledge skills now? Presumably they'd get this the next time they level up, right? Or, do they not want their Bluff so high anymore and have things like Skill Focus (Perform: Act) that they took and now feel as if it's not as useful? I imagine it would help Campaign Leadership if folks were to give examples of what situation they are in that would merit a more extensive rebuild.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed a post and the replies to it. This kind of comment really isn't helpful, let's try to dial back the grar in this thread please.

[N N 959]

Jeff Merola wrote:

Paz wrote:

(Reading comments from people saying they bought the whole book just to make use of this one ability is probably another warning sign.)

Buying player companions when they're on sale for access to an ability that makes you go "Oh, that looks neat" is not uncommon, and is definitely not restricted to things of a controversial power level.

I can't agree with this comment more. The entire purpose of PFS is to generate sales for Paizo. It is part of the PFS rules and Paizo marketing strategy to entice players to buy books based solely on an item in the book. Paizo has absolutely zero problem with someone buying a splat book for one feat/spell/trait, etc. In fact, Paizo would do backflips if every book had at least one item that was good enough to compel players to buy that book.

Claiming that anyone who bought a book for one item is somehow forewarned or at fault is absurd in the eyes of Paizo. It should be equally absurd in the eyes of PFS, whose very rules engender this activity.

I am firmly in the camp that Pageant of the Peacock is not appropriate for PFS. However, I am compelled to agree with those who think some sort of rebuild should be awarded.

1. PFS decisions should encourage people to play their characters, not encourage them to abandon them;

2. I did not see any official or unofficial warning form PFS that the ban-hammer was circling;

3. The manner in which this feat operated isn't even clear and was hotly debated. I'm at a loss for how a player "should have known better"'?

4. The nature of this feat did entice players to build around it. That is like offering candy to kids with cavities. Of course some players are going to eat it. We know Pathfinder attracts min/maxers. What did you expect them to do with such a feat?

5. It was published by Paizo and initially approved by PFS. It is an untenable position to expect the players to second guess Paizo and PFS. PFS does not benefit from players having to second guess whether any feat/spell/trait is going to get banned. That only serves to hurt Piazo's bottom end.

I don't have this feat on any of my characters. I don't own the book it comes in. The fact that a feat like his even exist is disappointing. But I cannot see how players who bought the book and did everything legally should be screwed.

Here's a suggestion:

Allow a full character rebuild if the player has a PDF/Hardcopy of the book. A GM will need to sign the chronicle sheet and must see proof of purchase.

if you don't have the book, then you shouldn't have the feat and you won't need a rebuild. Players who have the book still won't get a refund on a book they won't be using, but at least they won't feel like they got totally shafted.

[Vrog Skyreaver]

What seems interesting to me is that I find it hard to believe that one performance is the entire central focus of someone's character. I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but I can't think of a character who says "I don't use my bardic performance for anything other than making knowledge checks." Cause that's really what we're talking about here. It's a standard action to activate and lasts 10 minutes. that means that you would need 6/hour x 16 hours: or 96 rounds of bardic performance to have it always up during a day.

As opposed to the bard who has bardic knowledge and about the exact bonus to his knowledge checks, plus bardic performance to support themselves and/or others.

comparing bards:

To put it another way, a bard (we won't discuss characters who dip bard for our purposes here) had 3 options to be awesome at knowledge skills: max ranks with no bardic knowledge, max ranks with bardic knowledge, and max ranks in bluff with song of the peacock. lets say that the first 2 characters have a 16 int cause they wanna be awesome at skills. let's say that the 3rd character has a 20 cha, cause he wants to be awesome at bluff (which would be useful for his knowledge stuff and important cause he needs as many rounds of perform as he can get his hands on) and a 10 int, cause he feels that he doesn't need int as much (which, to be fair, pageant helps a lot with).

For purposes of this discussion, we'll compare 4th level bards, cause that's the earliest a bard is going to get the masterpiece. Also, to make the math easy, let's assume that the character is either going to be human or have favored class into skills. Bear with me here =)

The first character is going to have 10 skill points/level to put into skills. Let's say they don't care about anything else (like perform) and they just want all the knowledge skills. that's max ranks in all knowledge skills (4), class bonus (3), and int bonus (3), for a total of +10 to all knowledge skills at level 4. pretty respectable.

The second character is also going to have 10 skill points/level to put into skills. just like the first character, he's going to dump all of his skill ranks into knowledges. This gives him ranks (4), class (3), int (3), and bardic knowledge (2), for a total of +12. still good, but better than the first guy (plus bardic knowledge makes it more likely that he's going to be okay with just taking some ranks in all knowledge skills, since they get to make them with a scaling bonus).

The third character has to track knowledges twice, cause it's a standard action to activate pageant of the peacock, and depending on situation, you might not have it up. so without pageant, they have no ranks in any knowledge skills, no class bonus, and no int, which means that without pageant of the peacock, they have a bonus of 0. With pageant of the peacock, they have ranks (4), class (3), and cha (5), for a +12 bonus to knowledge skills. At 4th level, a bard with has 15 performance rounds, which means that he can sustain pageant for 2.5 hours a day. Every time he takes extra performance, he can extend that out for another hour, so if he had taken extra performance 3 times (as a human) he would have pageant for 5.5 hours a day. then he would go back to being a normal schmoo when it came to knowledge skills.

[Kurthnaga]

N N 959 wrote:

Jeff Merola wrote:

Paz wrote:

(Reading comments from people saying they bought the whole book just to make use of this one ability is probably another warning sign.)

Buying player companions when they're on sale for access to an ability that makes you go "Oh, that looks neat" is not uncommon, and is definitely not restricted to things of a controversial power level.

I can't agree with this comment more. The entire purpose of PFS is to generate sales for Paizo. It is part of the PFS rules and Paizo marketing strategy to entice players to buy books based solely on an item in the book. Paizo has absolutely zero problem with someone buying a splat book for one feat/spell/trait, etc. In fact, Paizo would do backflips if every book had at least one item that was good enough to compel players to buy that book.

Claiming that anyone who bought a book for one item is somehow forewarned or at fault is absurd in the eyes of Paizo. It should be equally absurd in the eyes of PFS, whose very rules engender this activity.

I am firmly in the camp that Pageant of the Peacock is not appropriate for PFS. However, I am compelled to agree with those who think some sort of rebuild should be awarded.

1. PFS decisions should encourage people to play their characters, not encourage them to abandon them;

2. I did not see any official or unofficial warning form PFS that the ban-hammer was circling;

3. The manner in which this feat operated isn't even clear and was hotly debated. I'm at a loss for how a player "should have known better"'?

4. The nature of this feat did entice players to build around it. That is like offering candy to kids with cavities. Of course some players are going to eat it. We know Pathfinder attracts min/maxers. What did you expect them to do with such a feat?

5. It was published by Paizo and initially approved by PFS. It is an untenable position to expect the players to second guess Paizo and PFS. PFS does not benefit from players having to...

This is a very concise post on the issues with the Peacock banning. The fact that many players purchased a book for PFS with one ability in mind because all of the other legal content is not nearly as exciting is not necessarily a bad thing, and campaign shouldn't punish players for doing what PFS encourages.

Also @ Vrog

Quote:

Vrog said some math stuff

You forgot the +4 Pageant gives in your math.

[Vrog Skyreaver]

ya, true. I did forget about the bonus to pageant, which would mean that at level 4 the third character in my example would be 4 higher for up to 5.5 hours/day.

[LazarX]

Vrog Skyreaver wrote:

What seems interesting to me is that I find it hard to believe that one performance is the entire central focus of someone's character. I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but I can't think of a character who says "I don't use my bardic performance for anything other than making knowledge checks." Cause that's really what we're talking about here. It's a standard action to activate and lasts 10 minutes. that means that you would need 6/hour x 16 hours: or 96 rounds of bardic performance to have it always up during a day.

As opposed to the bard who has bardic knowledge and about the exact bonus to his knowledge checks, plus bardic performance to support themselves and/or others.

** spoiler omitted **...

You must be new here. You've never heard of the Gimmick subspecies of munchkin? He's right up there with those who base their builds on telekinesis and the feat of being able to lug around 15 Colossal arrows.

[Finlanderboy]

Paz wrote:

Finlanderboy wrote:

The PFS management allowed it. They decided it was a good addition to the PFS community. The players can not decide whate is broken or not. We rely on someone else to decide that for us. Then when they recant because their job was not performed well enough in the first place they ban it.

(emphasis mine.)

I think you do Mike/John (and anyone else involved) a disservice. The fact that so few rules that are susceptible to player abuse slip through is a testament to how good a job they do.

Hey mistakes happen all the time. People can still do an amazing job while making mistakes.

My point is, I see the mistake on their end, yet the cost of adjusting thier mistake is being placed on the player that did not make mistake.

If I make poor judgement in doing something I make every practical effort to make sure those effected are bothered as little as possible.

Because I believe that is a moral thing to do.

Forcing someone to spend things off their character to correct somethign someone else made a porr judgement on I find immoral.

[Finlanderboy]

wakedown wrote:

I suspect there's a fine line in allowing imbalanced/hotly debated abilities to always grant generous rebuilds.

John: Man, I sure wish I could adjust some things on my bard. I really didn't build him just right.

Henry: Hey, you've got some GM credits on him right? A full level unspent?

John: Yeah, he's just such a confusion of stuff though I don't know how to select his next feat or spell or anything...

Henry (leans closer): Hey, you could say you had picked up Pageant of the Peacock. It just got banned, and folks are debating how extensive of a rebuild characters with it will be given -- you might end up getting to tweak all your skills and stuff.

John: Great idea!

Clearly, the above is in bad faith.

Pageant is just a feat or a 2nd level spell slot - so the question is what else are folks operating in good faith needing with a more generous rebuild? Are they looking for a level's worth of skill points to put into Knowledge skills now? Presumably they'd get this the next time they level up, right? Or, do they not want their Bluff so high anymore and have things like Skill Focus (Perform: Act) that they took and now feel as if it's not as useful? I imagine it would help Campaign Leadership if folks were to give examples of what situation they are in that would merit a more extensive rebuild.

Here is my solution. If you feel your character was effected by a rule change. A player can petition their VC. If the VC agrees the character was drastically effected the VC can allow more options to be rebuilt.

[sarokcat]

Honestly I feel more and more the sheer amount of arguing and such over this ability clearly shows how badly broken it was. Since I can't think of a second level spell that would 'totally break' a character build. I do feel that a skill reallocation wouldn't be out of line for some, with the related bluff feat bonus allowed as well (with gm signing off on it.) But to be honest, if you dumped your int to make a stupid bard and relied on bluffing your way through to take no penalty... well that was actually a character choice you were avoiding the consequences of... and if you chose to be a bit of a stupid bard, and not play it that way. Well then you are finally having to deal with the consequences of doing so just like everyone else had to deal with their starting stat allocation.

Banning peacock doesn't take away a single thing from your Bluffing capability, you still have the skill ranks there, and you can still lie like a forum troll all through a scenario.... you really can, you just don't have the supernatural means to use bluff for 20 some other skills anymore, you can still feint with it like mad and do all the normal things. Honestly if you traded away bardic knowledge and lore mastery, then you probably got some very nice survival toys to replace them which you can still use. Especially since it was not or should not have been (though there were ways to use it for breaking combat too theoretically) a major combat ability, you should still be as effective as normal, or more so now that you have that spell/feat back. You just can no longer have Every knowledge/craft/int skill/ other charisma skill. in the game run off of one single check.

So my point of view on the subject, is perhaps allow a limited rebuild to let them choose different feats if they had ones that directly boosted peacock, as well as reallocate skill points if they had potp... with a Gm auditing to make sure everything is kosher. Anything else, really should be a retraining option since if it is That useless without Potp, it was a choice that should have been considered carefully beforehand, or were avoiding the penalties of by using potp.

In many cases Pageant could easily be 'balanced' by appending the text, Can use bluff to replace int checks IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS. Unfortunately the dev that commented on it clearly stated it is very hard to get errata together for a situation like that, due to the number of people involved. So I actually do feel that the leadership made the right call in using what tools they had available to keep the game fun and balanced for as much of the player base as possible.

[sarokcat]

Finlanderboy wrote:

Paz wrote:

Finlanderboy wrote:

The PFS management allowed it. They decided it was a good addition to the PFS community. The players can not decide whate is broken or not. We rely on someone else to decide that for us. Then when they recant because their job was not performed well enough in the first place they ban it.

(emphasis mine.)

I think you do Mike/John (and anyone else involved) a disservice. The fact that so few rules that are susceptible to player abuse slip through is a testament to how good a job they do.

Hey mistakes happen all the time. People can still do an amazing job while making mistakes.

My point is, I see the mistake on their end, yet the cost of adjusting thier mistake is being placed on the player that did not make mistake.

If I make poor judgement in doing something I make every practical effort to make sure those effected are bothered as little as possible.

Because I believe that is a moral thing to do.

Forcing someone to spend things off their character to correct somethign someone else made a porr judgement on I find immoral.

In many cases I feel it was less a mistake they made, and most likely they read it like many gms did with the understanding it was a social situation tool as it states, not a everything rule. Unfortunately when people started abusing it, they had to take a second look at it. So if the players had played nice with it, or used it sparingly, it likely wouldn't have reached that point. Yes I feel bad for those who used it appropriately and did not abuse it, because those that did abuse it got it taken away. It is not something I see as the campaign leaderships fault however for allowing us as many toys as they could in hopes we would play nicely.

And to label them Immoral for not making super special exceptions to the rules for one level 2 spell equivalent... seems to be extremely sad to me. Not to mention they may yet make a statement or allow rebuilds on it, and I think Venture Captains have some leeway to allow some changes if a character has been drastically affected by rules changes.(not positive but they should.) So there is some current recourse, and if you wish to wait till after Gencon when the guide to society play and additional resources usually gets it's addendums and they answer issues that changes have brought up... You may actually get that rebuild you are so desperate for. As it is you are automatically allowed to rebuild everything that 'should' have been effected, ie anything spent on peacock, and if you talk to your Venture captain or contact campaign leadership through appropriate channels you may actually get some information on other options.

So lets reserve judgement a little and hold off on calling people who aren't even able to respond till after gencon Immoral because the rules currently in place don't quite fit your situation. They have been very good about being flexible in the past, and there's really no need for name calling or slinging mud around right now.

[Finlanderboy]

I am allowed to have an opinion on the morality of a situation.

I clearly stated it was my opinion, and I used polite terms to express. this. The word moral itself is by definition subjective.

If I feel cheated by a rule change, or understand why other feel cheated by said change then as a payign customer. It is is paizo's best interest I express this opinion.

Keep in mind this is not the first time paizo has made this type of ruling, and I have had characters I no longer play because they changed the rules. So this is a history of mistakes being made by them and costing their customers. it is insulting to acuse me of slinging mud when I express my politely opinions.

I am all for the staff changing rules and adjusting them into a more enjoyable game. Although the rules to do so punish the player that took them honestly.

A VC has no authority to allow a rebuild. i Have been told by 3 VOs I shoul just cheat my characters and illegally rebuild them because no one would notice. But that would bother me so I do not.

[wakedown]

Finlanderboy wrote:

Here is my solution. If you feel your character was effected by a rule change. A player can petition their VC. If the VC agrees the character was drastically effected the VC can allow more options to be rebuilt.

This always works for me. Thumbs up.

[Mekkis]

How many times did the following occur?

wakedown wrote:

I suspect there's a fine line in allowing imbalanced/hotly debated abilities to always grant generous rebuilds.

John: Man, I sure wish I could adjust some things on my bard. I really didn't build him just right.

Henry: Hey, you've got some GM credits on him right? A full level unspent?

John: Yeah, he's just such a confusion of stuff though I don't know how to select his next feat or spell or anything...

Henry (leans closer): Hey, you could say you had taken a level of Synthesist. It just got banned, and you'll be eligible for a full rebuild -- you might end up getting to tweak all your skills and stuff.

John: Great idea!

Clearly, the above is in bad faith.

I didn't hear that happen two years ago.