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Oh, and if you have no interest in playing Core Mode... why are you posting so much in the Core Mode threads?Don't do that.
It was a legitimate question that I needed an answer to before I could continue to address his concerns. He gave a reasonable response, that I felt I reasonably responded to.
But I can't give him a response worth my time if I don't understand where he's coming from. Now that I understand where he's coming from, he and I can have a reasonable discussion.
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Oh, and if you have no interest in playing Core Mode... why are you posting so much in the Core Mode threads?Partly expressing my concerns, partly letting people who think that it's a fix to "power creep" and "power builds" know that that's likely not the case.
I thought that Paizo might found have found this part interesting:
" Either I'll run them myself, or failing that, stop playing this game and in the process quit giving Paizo money. Paizo needs to be careful with this.
A month ago, I thought nothing could ever make me try 5th ed DnD. But I'd play that over Core Campaign in a heartbeat."
But clearly, I was wrong.
I've found that threats of "I'm gonna quit and take my ball home with me if things don't go my way" type of comments don't go real far.
I hear your concerns. I understand the concern that this would potentially split the player base, and that adding options for a Mode of play you aren't interested in could potentially take away options for a mode of play you are interested in.
I completely understand how people are particularly concerned with small player communities and/or small game days. If only one or two tables are happening just once or twice a month, then you are probably going to run either Core or Normal, and not an equal offering of both from what you were offering of just Normal before Core became an option.
As a Venture-officer and organizer, this is certainly a concern that I need to deal with logistically when organizing game days. I need to take the temperature of my player base and find out what they want as a whole and do my best to accommodate as many interests as I can.
But starting out with, "I just might take my ball and go home if you don't do it the way I want you to do it," isn't going to make me want to accommodate you at all.
My post wasn't intended as such. At the same time, I'm not asking for special accommodations. I'm just saying that if I can't get a normal mode game anymore, I'll go do something else. I think you guys are messing with the golden goose here, but maybe PFS really is a small part of Paizo's business model. In which case they literally don't care.
"Oh, and if you have no interest in playing Core Mode... why are you posting so much in the Core Mode threads?"
Trust me, I won't be after the initial furor has died down.
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I thought that Paizo might found have found this part interesting:
" Either I'll run them myself, or failing that, stop playing this game and in the process quit giving Paizo money. Paizo needs to be careful with this.
A month ago, I thought nothing could ever make me try 5th ed DnD. But I'd play that over Core Campaign in a heartbeat."
But clearly, I was wrong.
You have formed that conclusion (that Paizo doesn't care to hear from you) in the 28 minutes since you posted that, despite no comment from a single Paizo employee to that effect?
I suppose I conflated VOs for speaking for Paizo. I don't think I'm the only one who makes that error, though.
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My post wasn't intended as such. At the same time, I'm not asking for special accommodations. I'm just saying that if I can't get a normal mode game anymore, I'll go do something else. I think you guys are messing with the golden goose here, but maybe PFS really is a small part of Paizo's business model. In which case they literally don't care.
"Oh, and if you have no interest in playing Core Mode... why are you posting so much in the Core Mode threads?"
Trust me, I won't be after the initial furor has died down.
Understood. And were my opinion the same as yours, I would probably choose another avenue for my favorite hobby as well. I've done it before when I quit playing online roleplaying games. That avenue no longer satisfied me, so I moved on.
I'm not suggesting you move on. But if you are unhappy you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you did not.
As to whether Paizo cares, I think this particular option proves exactly the opposite. Here's why I think so.
They had a huge meeting between Eric Mona, Lisa Stevens, Mark Seifter (you might remember him as Rogue Eidolon), Mark Moreland, Mike Brock, John Compton, and perhaps someone else I am forgetting, for 6 or 7 hours one day to address several serious concerns folks had on the state of the campaign. And they have made several changes to the way PFS works (see Faction Cards) to address some of the biggest concerns people have.
The fact that this particular option seems to be as divisive as it is, shows that they are willing to take a huge risk to do something to help bring in new players and bring back old players who have run out of things to play (or have grown bored with too many options.)
So I know that they care very deeply for PFS. And I know, should this option not work as intended, that they will do whatever they need to to fix it. But its a bit early to be calling for the final curtain before the show even opens, don't you think?
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We'll see. The local VOs seem super happy, but I'm not sure about the players. I can image problems where there supply of Core and the demand for normal might be in conflict. Forgive the conjecture, but a big part of gaming is conjecture. Plans might not last contact with the enemy, but planning itself is essential.
" And I know, should this option not work as intended, that they will do whatever they need to to fix it."
You have way more confidence in this than I do. I hope you're right, because I dislike 5th ed DnD quite a bit.
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2) Hyperbole (see bolded above) is especially not helpful.
I don't see this as hyperbole at all. Dividing the player base is the first step to self destructing PFS.
As to 1 the solution is literally a tech solution. Mike has already stated the only reason Core Only is one direction is because the reporting system cannot handle it. I assure you it could be made to do so. If that was fixed I'd have zero issues with this and would think it's a good idea.
The solution to the problem is hire a better tech guy because if you don't know how to include an additional radio box on the sheet and log it to a new variable I'm not sure what to say. As a coder adding a variable and tracking it is not a terrifyingly hard task.
Calling for the impending doom of the campaign before an option even really sees the light of day is the very definition of hyperbole.
Secondly, without seeing the code they currently use for their website and database, you really have no basis for that claim. None.
Yes, I know many tech guys who could write a new web-based and database code to do whatever they wanted. But in many cases it would require more than a patch, but rather an entire overhaul, which would have many unforeseen potential side-effects.
Like breaking the reporting program entirely, erasing or seriously corrupting the player and character database, damaging their web store.
So before you see what state their current code is in (I've seen many situations over the years where the state of a particular program is nearly unfixable or modifiable by even the best of programmers, because its been programmed and patched and parsed together with several different programming languages by several different programmers with a different dialect and signature.
So lets leave comments about things we don't know out of the conversation please.
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We'll see. The local VOs seem super happy, but I'm not sure about the players.
" And I know, should this option not work as intended, that they will do whatever they need to to fix it."
You have way more confidence in this than I do. I hope you're right, because I dislike 5th ed DnD quite a bit.
Your VOs have been VOs for quite some time. This means they have Mike's confidence that they are doing a good job. I'm sure if the player base shuns Core options, they won't continue shoving them down the player base's throats.
That would not be a solid solution.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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it will have vast potentially organized play ending impact.Dun dun duuuuunnnnn. Kudos on this measured and reasonable approach to a new option that hasn't even been tried yet.
I will now step away as I see many others more wise than me have done before me.
I see this as a repeat of Living greyhawk, Living FR, and Eberon competing for players and going from a thriving LG scene with 3+ tables a week to a single group of 4-5 people trying to scrounge up a single table a week and eventual death.
The reason Living Greyhawk died is because they ended the campaign and started Living Forgotten Realms (this happened with the transition from 3.5 to 4E).
The reason Living Forgotten Realms ended is because new players had a massive barrier to entry (specifically, because certain players were able to hog all the seats on any given schedule due to unlimited replay and the ability to build to tier rather than have to worry about actually gaining experience points - people got sick of playing the same game with the same people over and over). Plus, you know, 4E.
The reason Eberon ended...wait, there was an Eberon living campaign? Sure don't recall that...
There was a brief attempt at a Living Athas game. Too little, too late. And the Dark Sun campaign setting for 4E was outright terrible.
Introducing something like the Core Campaign was most certainly not the reason any of these campaigns died. And none of those campaigns existed in conjunction with each other, so they were never competing for each others' players. Maybe the argument can be made that LFR and Living Athas existed at the same time, but Living Athas came along after D&D Next was announced and LFR had switched from being run by WotC to being run by an outside group, so I doubt that this argument applies, either.
Edit: By the way, in case you are wondering, I had first-hand experience with all these systems as a player, coordinator, and DM. During its heyday LFR was bigger than any system has ever been for my store (including PFS), and I was very in touch with those players and DMs and their wants and desires. My store's survival depended on organized play, and losing LFR could have buried me. I needed to know why it was struggling, and made it a point to find out from the players why they weren't coming anymore.
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You asked for a solution and I gave you literally the best solution. It's the best of both worlds. The only reason it's not being done is because it would cost money. If this is a good long term idea it stands to reason that spending money to make it work instead of driving groups to extinction it would be a good idea.
Stop with the hyperbole please. You are already ringing the extinction bell before this even starts.
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I suppose I conflated VOs for speaking for Paizo. I don't think I'm the only one who makes that error, though.
I agree. It is an understandably common error, but an error nonetheless. We are just volunteer gamers, who are impacted not at all by a person dropping subscriptions etc., but we do care about the game because we play it and devote a lot of our free time to it, and have a duty to promote and grow it.
Which is not the same thing as a customer-business relationship. If you are looking for customer service you are probably barking up the wrong tree. Ha ha.
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Might be a little late, but I do not really think gms have the right to strip people of their druidic powers for "ill treating" their animal companions. Most animal companions (at least the ones I build), have more ac then what passes for front liners. Especially those who use 2 handed weapons. So why should they not take point? Many also have abilities that can hamper others, especially spellcasters, ie, grab. Why should they not be in front to take best advantage of it?Next - if the place needs to be chokeholded so the party can escape, even 2500 gp for attonement is cheaper then 5450 gp for a raise, is it really bad enough to punish a party for an already bad situation?
Next...trap setters. Now I dont really approve of this use for animal companions, but can understand the rationale behind it. A lot of traps rely on reflex saves. With evasion, an animal companion with their good saves is pretty likely to get pass unharmed. If there was no one with the ability to disarm traps, then the person with the highest reflex save would take one for the team. (Based on assumption the group cannot/does not want to use summons).
The only requirement for druids is to be on one line of neutral of the alignment axis. As such, nature is red in tooth and claw. There is no reason why a druid cannot go for a "survival of the fittest" philosophy. It is valid rp.
Also, I don't like the idea of class features being invalidated on GM whims. Probably why I do not play paladins, and used to avoid divine casters.
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While I think you have understandable concerns, I don't think this is the place to just say, "That won't work." If you have concerns about local scheduling of Core vs standard PFS, you need to speak with your local organizers, so that they can work with you on what is going to happen.
Yes, smaller play groups may see more impact from this. My area will be affected by it, as I am one of the local organizers, and I am thinking about seeing if I can get a group together to do a Core run up to Eyes, with the "proper" Season 0 & 1 scenarios for PC background....
So, if I do that, as we currently just have a single table at the games I organize, that will impact it so that, on the weeks I am running Core, I won't be running Standard, and vice-versa. I will be taking the temperature of the local gamers carefully, but there are several local gamers in the same boat I am, where, other than the newer stuff, we have a very small playable for credit list.
I play a PFS event at one of the local shops in my area about once a month. There are at least a dozen on the schedule each month.
Last fall I have seen at least 3 people who explicitly stated they didn't want to give it a try because it seems like you have to spend several hundred dollars to really give it a shot.
I can see this helping tremendously with that.
Many of the events in my area have 4 or more tables fairly often. I think they could easily fill 6+ tables if they had more GM's. Also there are some players that only show up when the newest scenarios they haven't done are being run.
I can see this helping tremendously with that.
Will it be for everyone? No.
Will it hurt normal mode players? Potentially, if the CORE games were replacing normal mode games (especially in the smaller events). But I don't really expect that to happen too often. I would expect that CORE games will only be in addition to the normal mode games and only if someone asks to run/play them. So I don't see this as likely to hurt the normal mode players. At least not in my area.
I will (and I'm sure some other will also) have a few intro scenarios prepped in my pack. So if there are some new players I can run a CORE game for them with no advanced scheduling.
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Its unfortunate that your local community seems to have a prevailing attitude that you suggest
Ohio has a lot of optimizers, and many of them have very strong system mastery. That aside though, I haven't run into the disregard for animal companions in-character like David suggests. There are out of character jokes about things like "It's ok, Fluffy the 3rd is right around the creek!", but I have yet to see the jokes reflected IC.
But in his defense, David plays in a wider circle than I.
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Its unfortunate that your local community seems to have a prevailing attitude that you suggestOhio has a lot of optimizers, and many of them have very strong system mastery. That aside though, I haven't run into the disregard for animal companions in-character like David suggests. There are out of character jokes about things like "It's ok, Fluffy the 3rd is right around the creek!", but I have yet to see the jokes reflected IC.
But in his defense, David plays in a wider circle than I.
The druid nightmare is mostly over in the play groups here. As far as I can tell, at any rate. I'm 100% positive this will not be the case in CORE. No thanks, I've been humiliated by Fluffy enough.
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I find the core idea interesting. Not really my cup of tea since I enjoy a wide range of options for my optimization, but I won't object to having a character or two on standby to play with. You can still make extremely strong PCs with core only, the loss of options affects monks more than anything. Core would seem to do a fair job of addressing the reply issue and too much splat issue. Time will tell if it becomes popular or not, and I expect those results will very drastically from community to community.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I see a lot of talky talky about this and never any doey doey. It's fine. I'll continue to hate druids and animal companions will continue to show up my PCs and everything will proceed as normal. Druid population alone makes me not want to touch Core Campaign with a 10-foot-pole.actually, it can make them an ex-Druid.Really? No one sees forcing a friend and trusted companion to die for you because you're too lazy to do it yourself as an evil act? There is a mechanic for that...I've never seen this enforced. That makes it a non-rule. Give the druid some temp neg levels or SOMETHING.
What would happen if the animal owner would allow you to ride their animal companion, that is pretty much free pounce for you isn't it ?
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What's the story on kitsune barbarians?
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What's the story on kitsune barbarians?** spoiler omitted **
That is indeed annoying, but tricked out animal companions are essentially the same thing, but don't even have the decency to be PCs. They are a) unhittable and b) have natural attacks with a large attack bonus. Granted, a raging barb probably has a better will save, but that's what suppress charms and compulsions is for, isn't it?
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I'm pretty sure that the level 4 Fighter, Cleric, Rogue & Wizard would TPK in the Silver Mount collection. That scenario is murder, even if you bring weapons that work against ** spoiler omitted **.Try the silver mount collection with 4 level 4 pregens, if you select the wrong 4 iconics....I hope that is not the case. There should never be a non-hardmode PFS scenario that cannot be handled by a table of nothing but Core Iconics, let alone one that is composed of well built Core characters.I highly doubt that people who cry about over powered characters will have a fun time in any season 4-6 high tier stuff (6-7, 7-8, 8-9, 10-11) because they will highly probably die.There are a very small number of scenarios that perhaps can't be handled by a group of decently built core characters.
This is somewhat moot. You can find yourself in trouble in a lot of adventures if you have a bad party balance even if you aren't playing iconics.
You should theoretically be able to do any scenario with the Fighter, Cleric, Rogue & Wizard iconics. This is the cornerstone balanced party configuration that D&D has revolved around since AD&D came out.
Yup! Sure looks bad on paper. Now give me an experienced group of players and try it. I find players can surprise you a lot of the time.
If it is true that such a party cannot succeed in this scenario then this is bad adventure design that should be an anomaly and something that Paizo should be striving to avoid. Not a standard by which the Core Campaign should be measured.
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Not in Core only it isn't.Yeah, but there are no Kitsunes, either. But there sure are still pounce kitties.
Big Cats get pounce at 7th correct? and they get large at the same time and have to squeeze in 5ft corridors - which means if any movement is squeezing they can't charge and thus can't pounce (any movement restriction prevents charge -and no narrow frame in Core).
I have not found the pounce kitties as you express them to be that much of an issue in Normal - the highest armor ACs have all been non-pouncers but there were ways to add pounce-like outside of Core I suppose. the problem is with higher than level Oracle pets and they were all dinos before they fell off the Additional Resources or Rocs.
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Not in Core only it isn't.Yeah, but there are no Kitsunes, either. But there sure are still pounce kitties.Big Cats get pounce at 7th correct? and they get large at the same time and have to squeeze in 5ft corridors - which means if any movement is squeezing they can't charge and thus can't pounce (any movement restriction prevents charge -and no narrow frame in Core).
I have not found the pounce kitties as you express them to be that much of an issue in Normal - the highest armor ACs have all been non-pouncers but there were ways to add pounce-like outside of Core I suppose. the problem is with higher than level Oracle pets and they were all dinos before they fell off the Additional Resources or Rocs.
At 7 I prep reduce animal and air walk in all my games so my animal can always pounce. It costs a net 1 damage for 2 AC and lets you always charge. Both of these spells are core. This doesn't fix the issue it exacerbates it.
So it is the druids at 7th level and higher which is the issue - because before 7th level they don't have pounce and large.
Actually - I haven't seen to many druids who can tap the DC25 Handle Animal check to get them to Air Walk, either (I believe that trick is not Core either).
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Not in Core only it isn't.Yeah, but there are no Kitsunes, either. But there sure are still pounce kitties.Big Cats get pounce at 7th correct? and they get large at the same time and have to squeeze in 5ft corridors - which means if any movement is squeezing they can't charge and thus can't pounce (any movement restriction prevents charge -and no narrow frame in Core).
I have not found the pounce kitties as you express them to be that much of an issue in Normal - the highest armor ACs have all been non-pouncers but there were ways to add pounce-like outside of Core I suppose. the problem is with higher than level Oracle pets and they were all dinos before they fell off the Additional Resources or Rocs.
At 7 I prep reduce animal and air walk in all my games so my animal can always pounce. It costs a net 1 damage for 2 AC and lets you always charge. Both of these spells are core. This doesn't fix the issue it exacerbates it.
So it is the druids at 7th level and higher which is the issue - because before 7th level they don't have pounce and large.
Actually - I haven't seen to many druids who can tap the DC25 Handle Animal check to get them to Air Walk, either (I believe that trick is not Core either).
That trick is part of the description for the Air Walk spell, so it is Core.
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GMs, generally speaking, don't enforce the handle animal rules.Well, they do if they've played a Druid. At least the ones with whom I've played.
Indeed. When I hear complaints about ACs being abusive*, what I hear is "GMs where I am allow players to control their PCs animal companions as if it were a 2nd PC".
Maybe it's not always true, but I suspect it often is.
*= not including those cases where the effective Druid level of the PC in question is higher than the total character level. It's amazingly stupid that particular shenanigan is legal in Vanilla PFS.. at least it won't be legal in Core.
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I'd just like to point out that this makes it essentially irrelevant. You effectively get to take a 20 on known tricks by RAW since you're not limited to free actions.
actually...
Taking 20: When you have plenty of time, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, if you roll a d20 enough times, eventually you will get a 20. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.
I'm gonna go ahead and wave the flag on insisting take 20 is appropriate for combat situations, by RAW.
You won't get that to fly at very many tables, I'd wager.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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There is no limit to the free actions you can take in a turn by RAW.
Free Action: Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free, as decided by the GM.