Creating Society Characters

[DruidBrod]

Hello and let me begin with my apologies for this thread. I and a few of my fellow tabletoppers have recently began the process of getting Pathfinder Society started at our local game shop. The only hitch we have hit however is the character creation process. I played some Society at GenCon over this last year and had a blast. While doing this I learned that Society does have some restrictions as to what you can and can't use in the character creation process. So if I may inquire as to where I may find such a list or file. Again I realize I am making a very big stupid thread simply out of my and company's ineptitude so for this I apologize. Please forgive me for this and if necessary I would understand if this thread is taken down.

[Kigvan]

You can find the guide to organized play at this link:

Player Resources

Best of luck to you and don't feel bad about asking questions.

Another useful link will be:
Additional Resources

[terry_t_uk]

The two important documents to read when creating characters are the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organised Play and Additional Resources, both of which are on the page Kigvan linked to.

[Dhenn]

Welcome aboard. As Kigvan said, the Guide to Organized Play is the most important thing to read for PFS play. It lays out the character creation rules. The Additional Resources he linked go into more detail about which parts of each Paizo book are and are not legal to use. Make sure the people playing with you read it as well. It's a pretty big document, but it should answer lots of your questions.

One other resource to keep in mind, especially if you're interested in having games open to the public, is your local Venture Captains and Lieutenants. They're volunteers who help coordinate the game in their area, and should be happy to help you as well.

[BigNorseWolf]

The guide is kind of dense. Additional resources is a LOT of cross checking.

archives of nethys has a bit of a wonky search engine but is pretty good for double checking if something is legal or not. PFS legal items have a funny white X thats the glyph of the open road.

The Basics: Core rule book races +nagaji, wayang, tengu and kitsune.

20 point buy. Be sure to figure the point buy and THEN add the racials.

Most feats are allowed except for item crafting.
Most classes and archtypes are allowed: No synthesist summoners, vivisectionist alchemists, most gun using archtypes for non gunslingers, and be careful if the archtype can't read.

You get two traits at creation.

[DruidBrod]

Thank you very much guys. Now that we have this we just need to get our Captain registered. Here's hoping we get it off the ground before Sunday!

[Zach Klopfleisch]

DruidBrod wrote:

Thank you very much guys. Now that we have this we just need to get our Captain registered. Here's hoping we get it off the ground before Sunday!

You don't need any official venture officers to run games, if that's what you mean. Just register an event, which is actually pretty easy:

Whomever is taking charge just needs to go to http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety then follow the link in the gray bad up to for "My Pathfinder Society."

Assuming you have a PFS account set up (it should prompt you if you don't), you will there will be three tabs under the blurb about the Pathfinder Society: "Player," "GM/Event Coordinator," and "Sessions." Pick the GM/Event Coordinator and click the "Create Your Event" button.

This pulls up a page that looks big and intimidating, but there really isn't all that much to worry about.

1.) If this is just a few friends getting together for a home game, make sure to uncheck the "Event is Public" check box in the Restrictions section. That way it won't be advertised on the Paizo site and you won't have random people showing up.

2.) Aside from having a name, date and location, you don't really need to enter much info. It's best to be as accurate and descriptive as possible if you want to create a public event that will attract strangers, but if it's just a group of buddies, that's about all you need.

3.) Once you've entered the information that you want to, hit the "Save Changes" button and you've created your event. The event will now show up in your "GM/Event Coordinator tab of My Pathfinder Society."

4.) After the event, you'll want to report your players' participation. You need their PFS number, their character number (-1 for first character, -2 for second, etc.), their faction, how much prestige they earned, and whether or not they died. To report this information, just click on the "Report" link and fill the information in in the blanks provided. Make sure to choose the correct scenario name at the top.

4.a) Each scenario has a session sheet that you can pass around for players to fill this out (the GM fills in the prestige at the end). Or you can print those session sheets out by clicking the "Download Session Sheets" link next to the event name in "My Pathfinder Society." Or you can just have people write their info down on a piece of paper, or report it while everyone's at the table. Whatever method works for you.

5.) Finally, make sure everyone gets a chronicle sheet. There are instructions for filling those out in the Guide to Organized Play. (Pages 35-37, they have pictures!) The chronicle sheet is always on the last page of the scenario. If you're running an AP or module, the chronicle sheet can be downloaded from Additional Resources. Modules will be in the side bar on the right, Adventure Paths will be in their entry of the Additional Resources.

I wrote a lot of words here, which makes it look complicated. But that's mainly because I can't use pictures here. If I could show you my computer screen, it would take about 30 seconds to explain. It really is trivially easy to both set up and then report.

[Rerednaw]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

The guide is kind of dense. Additional resources is a LOT of cross checking.

archives of nethys has a bit of a wonky search engine but is pretty good for double checking if something is legal or not. PFS legal items have a funny white X thats the glyph of the open road.

The Basics: Core rule book races +nagaji, wayang, tengu and kitsune.

20 point buy. Be sure to figure the point buy and THEN add the racials.

Most feats are allowed except for item crafting.
Most classes and archtypes are allowed: No synthesist summoners, vivisectionist alchemists, most gun using archtypes for non gunslingers, and be careful if the archtype can't read.

You get two traits at creation.

Welcome Welcome!

BigNorse did an excellent job of listing the guts of character creation.

Second the nod towards Archive of Nethys. It's an excellent website if you wonder "is this PFS legal or not." Plus I just like it in general because it heavily utilizes internal links (as opposed to the actual Paizo reference the PRD which is still good) and the site doesn't have the full-page adspam that other sites favor which crash my tablet all the time :)

I would only add that PFS uses a flat 150 gp for wealth at character creation.

One more thing: Don't fret if your first character isn't everything you wanted after a playing him for a game, every character is allowed a full re-do/rebuild after a given session. The character isn't locked in until he plays a game at level 2 (which is usually after 3 standard Society adventures OR a single full blown module that has been sanctioned for Society Play).

Future concerns: in Pathfinder (and allowed in Society Play) there are retraining rules if you want to make some changes to a character after he's level 2 or higher.