Suggestion for Adoption of Rule Changes

[tivadar27]

So over the last year we've seen a lot of thrash with newly printed rules, particularly with respect to the Advanced Class Guide (Flamboyant Arcana, Arcane Deed, everything with Parry/Riposte, Slashing/Fencing Grace...).

I'd agree that these changes are probably necessary, but the retrain rules we have in place now, particularly for Feats, don't actually cover a lot of the cases terribly well, and there are cases of characters being rendered useless, particularly if they can't currently afford retraining or things that their now new feats require.

This is a hard thing to handle generally, and you don't want to give any character with a particular Feat a full rebuild every time there's a Feat change. However, in *many* of these cases, I believe, a little bit of advance warning would serve to at least give the players time to build their characters in a way that could account for the rule change. So I'm going to suggest the following:

Changes to Additional Resources/Campaign Clarifications:
When these documents change, new material will be shown in red for a period of N (2-3?) months. During that time, that new material will be considered optional on a player-by-player basis. After that period of time, the new material will be considered mandatory. During any time during that period (or when a character is first played after that period), a character will be granted (INSERT NORMAL FREE RETRAIN/RESPEC RULES HERE).

Yes, this gives people time to "abuse" these rules for a little longer, but I feel like erring on the side of giving the players some advanced notice might be better, even if some will choose to abuse it. After all, they were abusing it previously anyways...

EDIT: This could also be something like "after gaining a level, the rule is no longer optional", or "after the character has played 3 adventures from the time the rule was changed", but these seem harder to track.

[Tonya Woldridge]

Thank you for taking time to put your idea in a clear and concise form. I'll put this on the docket to discuss with the rest of the team.

[BigNorseWolf]

A clean tear of the bandaid is best. If the feat is changed, let it be changed and be done with it but...

Sometimes a change wrecks a finely tuned watch of a character. Characters are often built with multiple interacting parts and it bites to have the gear between a cog and a sprocket taken out, and being left with a cog and a sprocket that can't work together anymore.

[Tamec]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

A clean tear of the bandaid is best. If the feat is changed, let it be changed and be done with it but...

Sometimes a change wrecks a finely tuned watch of a character. Characters are often built with multiple interacting parts and it bites to have the gear between a cog and a sprocket taken out, and being left with a cog and a sprocket that can't work together anymore.

Agreed, making things optional puts more of a pressure on those of us GMing. "Is this expiring (no longer optional) yet? What's expiring next month? What expired now?"

Like BNW says better to rip off the bandaid all at once. I say this as someone who has been effected by faq/errata. I had one character going for early entry into bloatmage (SLA faq change) and one fighter who used to always wear boots of the earth (clarification document).

[DM Beckett]

All in all, I really do not see any benefit from it, but I can see a few potential issues.

1.) It could just lead to even more confusion if there are essentially two forms of a given option around in play.

2.) It will probably lead to even more frustration, being able to taste the old version a bit, but knowing it's going to change soon, and also leading yourself to begin to form a false sense of how the character plays.

3.) While the intent seems partially to be to allow characters to build up a little more resources to begin to purchase swap-outs (rebuilding/retraining), it seems like it might cause even worse and much more expensive issues at the same time. If you are given the opportunity to gain a few more levels, retraining can get more expensive, or you might paint yourself much more into a corner needing to retrain/rebuild even more.

4.) It also seems like it would slow down some of the PFS leaderships off the books discussions on what needs to be looked at or changed, and make it much more difficult to look at or playtest these options.

5.) It also seems like it would lead to a form of abuse beyond just what the option on the chopping block allows. Like encouraging more people to look for ways to game the system. As a very basic example, lets say that Weapon Focus is on the chopping block for 3 months, after which everyone is forced to take Power Attack. Well, generally speaking a minor bonus to Attack rolls is a lot more important at lower levels than a minor bonus to Damage, as DR hasn't really begun to kick in, Attack rolls generally are much more dependent on the die itself, etc. . .

But, a few levels later, that bonus to Damage becomes a lot more important, and it scales, while Weapon Focus is a lot less relevant overall. So who wouldn't want to pick Weapon Focus, and three months later, when they have probably started to hit those midlevels where their importance swaps, get Power Attack for free?

Or, alternatively, encourage people to go for those options that are being changed/removed in hopes of scoring a free rebuild or swap.

6.) For those options that are problematic, especially for the GM's, it would just lead to more frustration all around to keep things around, and probably worsen it as people know they need to "get their abuse" in before it's taken away.

[BartonOliver]

Personally, I'd be a fan of grandfathering over any optional period, but past grandfathering hasn't worked that well and it leaves a lot of extra things out there for the player and GM, especially when a character may be played again years later.

[James Risner]

I'd put my vote to don't do this. Do allow more liberal rebuilds if you can demonstrate the change invalidates a significant number of choices made.

[tivadar27]

DM Beckett wrote:

1.) It could just lead to even more confusion if there are essentially two forms of a given option around in play.

Sure, I suppose this is possible, but I'd imagine GMs are going to see this anyways. Players won't be up-to-date on the latest changes, and will need to be informed that a rule has changed. In *most* cases, the character won't have to scramble to respec on the spot or lose it. They can take some time to figure it out.

DM Beckett wrote:

2.) It will probably lead to even more frustration...
3.) ... it seems like it might cause even worse and much more expensive issues at the same time.

If you paint yourself into a worse corner, you paint yourself into a worse corner. At least in this case, PFS/Paizo didn't do it themselves, and they gave you more time to paint yourself out of it...

DM Beckett wrote:

4.) It also seems like it would slow down some of the PFS leaderships off the books discussions on what needs to be looked at or changed...

Totally a fair concern. I think the time frame needs to be small enough to not have this impact be significant, but large enough to be relevant to players. But either way, there's going to be an impact.

DM Beckett wrote:

5.) It also seems like it would lead to a form of abuse beyond just what the option on the chopping block allows. Like encouraging more people to look for ways to game the system...

Sorry, but in my view this argument gets old extremely quickly. There's *always* going to be ways to game the Pathfinder system. Worrying about a few bad eggs is not a legitimate reason to not provide a good option to all the rest who aren't (NOTE: doing my best not to wax political here... sigh)

[tivadar27]

James Risner wrote:

I'd put my vote to don't do this. Do allow more liberal rebuilds if you can demonstrate the change invalidates a significant number of choices made.

I'm totally for this, I just figured it would be the less preferrable/more permissive option. Honestly, something along the lines of "If the feat itself or a prerequisite feat is specifically granted by a class your character has, follow the rules for a class feature change" would be great. It wouldn't cover all cases, but it'd sure hit upon a lot in this instance.

That being said, I suppose this is simpler from a GMs perspective. I just didn't think a phasing in period would be that difficult either, but there does seem to be a lot of push-back here regarding it, so perhaps I'm wrong.

[Belafon]

I am in favor of this as an abstract idea because more than once I've had a player show up and have to spend the first 20-30 minutes of a game making her character legal per new rules. However the big problem with a "grace period" is that even then not everything could be eligible.

Take the FAQ change to spell-like abilities (qualifying for prestige classes). The PFS change was immediate. You had to have already played at least one session with the "early-entry" prestige class. From that point on you had to use spells to qualify. As John Compton specifically said this was to prevent people from exploiting the change. Previous changes with a grace period had "invited egregious abuse" (removal of Aasimar and Tieflings as always available options) as players worked to circumvent the intention of the change.

So you'd end up with "Change A is OK for a grace period but change B has to take effect immediately." Or "Change B has the following additional rules concerning the standard X week grace period." It would end up being an even more complex set of rules governing the changes.

[WalterGM]

As reasonable as this sounds, I'd like there to still exist an option that allows for a clean break from "really bad" rules as they come up from the future. As an example: if an item like swift runner's shirt was ever made legal, I'd advocate it's banning outright with no grandfathering. Should any mechanic fall into this category, I'd request no grandfathering for it.

Otherwise, I don't have an issue with a policy similar to what the OP suggests.

[Ascalaphus]

I'm in favor of keeping things as simple as possible. That means to me:

• As few rule changes as possible. This is more on the development team than PFS leadership, but please don't try to continuously tweak things to perfection. Focus on getting things right the first time, fix only the stuff that's actually causing real problems afterwards. The game is too complex to keep track of hundreds of minor balance fixes.
  
• No or only very short grace periods. I'm thinking two weeks or so. Enough that if a rule change comes out just before a convention, people can play with the old rules. But short enough that GMs don't have to have a calendar of rule change grace periods with them because there should basically never be more than one in effect.
  
• Prefer generous rebuilding over grandfathering. Grandfathering requires an effort of everyone to keep track of.
  
• Everything that does get grandfathered should be codified as such in the Clarifications, so that there is an exhaustive list of exceptions you can consult. All the information should be in once place.
  

[Kurald Galain]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

A clean tear of the bandaid is best. If the feat is changed, let it be changed and be done with it but...

Yes. I see no need for a "grace period" or "transition period" and it strikes me as overly complicated and bureaucratic. We need the updates and errata to be clearer, not more complex.

[Hayato Ken]

Yeah yeah, lots of stuff has been written about complex systems and close couplings, all of the agreeing that it´s not good.
Mainly because of unforeseen interactions which lead easily to desaster and catastrophe.
While that´s from organizational studies regarding high-risk technical systems, recent developments have me believe it might also be good to avoid in game systems ;)

[GM Lamplighter]

Past grandfathering periods have generated poor behavior to make as many aasimars (or whatever) before the deadline. (It happened in my Lodge, so this is not theoretical.) Doing this with every change will also be very difficult for GMs.

I like the spirit behind the suggestion, but maybe this extra time is best spent before the items are released and mage legal. There are probably business reasons to update AR with new products as soon after release as possible, though.

Probably the best solution is a more lax rebuild for changes - although this can also encourage abuse, it's probably the easiest fix.

[BretI]

A small grace period would be nice. It reduces the chances of catching someone unaware and not able to play their character because of it. A week should be enough.

The rebuild rules have become more lax. I'm having trouble figuring out how to cover something like Fencing Grace since it tends to have a cascading effect and the change didn't render the feat useless, just much less useful.

I think Dex to damage would be less of a problem without Piranha Strike.

[Hayato Ken]

I tihnk there´s a lot of players who don´t get to play PFS every week or even every month, who most probably don´t watch this stuff like it´s the stockmarket feed and they have billions in there.

Catching someone unaware is therefore a relative term.
Language like "within x timeframe or untill after the next played game" would be better. Yet it still could happen that both player and GM might be unaware of any changes, so things are complicated.

[Preston Hudson]

First, I must applaud the Original Poster as the presentation of the suggested change not only provided the issue but a potential solution to that issue. That being said, after the abused pre-expiring Tiefling and Aasimar options, I am actually happy with having these changes come with no warning. We, as a community, were given the flexibility to deal with (provided you had the proper resource) the loss of one of the most versatile races as an always available option as long as it was not abused. Unfortunately, in a lot of areas it was abused resulting in the state we are in now of no warning when a major change affects the campaign. It is my hope that if we do get the opportunity to be given a grace period to adjust to a change, we do not abuse that opportunity. As things stand right now, I would prefer the quick removal of the "band-aid" instead of having to keep track of when a particular change expires and what changes with a grace period are on the books at a particular time.

Now, speaking of books, there was a mention of off the books discussions by campaign management of things that need to be looked at or reviewed. This is just theory here but how is it an off the books discussion when campaign management reads our posts on these message boards, sees where there might be an issue. discusses all sides of the issue, and finds the solution? It is my thinking that the thread being created and people responding to that discussion on what the campaign as a whole sees as a potential issue is not really off the books (although what campaign management discusses when arriving at a solution is probably what is meant by off the books?).

My apologies for the small wall of text and thank you for reading.

[tivadar27]

Preston Hudson wrote:

First, I must applaud the Original Poster as the presentation of the suggested change not only provided the issue but a potential solution to that issue. That being said, after the abused pre-expiring Tiefling and Aasimar options...

Walter Sheppard wrote:

As reasonable as this sounds, I'd like there to still exist an option that allows for a clean break from "really bad" rules as they come up from the future. As an example: if an item like swift runner's shirt was ever made legal, I'd advocate it's banning outright with no grandfathering. Should any mechanic fall into this category, I'd request no grandfathering for it.

Otherwise, I don't have an issue with a policy similar to what the OP suggests.

I think it's fair to say that "clean break" rules should be possible as well in specific situations. Also, my intent in stating this was that it was to allow characters who had something already to change, not for people to buy into it afterwards.

I think "if you already have a character with a feat/feature/item that has been changed, you may continue to play under the old rules for a period of time." would fix the problem in all the cases. People couldn't buy new quickrunner shirts and they couldn't make new Tiefling/Aasimar characters.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious hole in the suggested rule here!

[Kurald Galain]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Past grandfathering periods have generated poor behavior to make as many aasimars (or whatever) before the deadline. (It happened in my Lodge, so this is not theoretical.) Doing this with every change will also be very difficult for GMs.

Yep, here as well. We had at least one guy who played about a dozen level-1 scenarios last minute so he could stockpile Aasimar and Tiefling characters, in what he would proudly explain was a clear abuse but nevertheless technically legal.

So this leads me to conclude that grace periods (where adherence to new rules is "voluntary") are a bad idea.

[BigNorseWolf]

Kurald Galain wrote:

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Past grandfathering periods have generated poor behavior to make as many aasimars (or whatever) before the deadline. (It happened in my Lodge, so this is not theoretical.) Doing this with every change will also be very difficult for GMs.

Yep, here as well. We had at least one guy who played about a dozen level-1 scenarios last minute so he could stockpile Aasimar and Tiefling characters, in what he would proudly explain was a clear abuse but nevertheless technically legal.

So this leads me to conclude that grace periods (where adherence to new rules is "voluntary") are a bad idea.

Damn. My emergency kitsune pile took years to build up.

[GM Lamplighter]

Apparently Fallen Fortress can be run in 17 minutes if you've already run it 5 times that day.

[Jason Wu]

Grace periods should really only be a problem if combined with grandfathering.

-j

[Azothath]

many of the rule changes seem late to the game or arbitrary from a casual players point of view, I don't think a 2 month grace period is going to affect that.

I'd like to see the rebuild apply AFTER the scenario so we don't spend 20min rebuilding the character and delaying the game or play. Just note on the chronicle that X is now banned and must be swapped out/sold so it can't happen again... A catch and release policy at the GMs discretion...

What might be more practical is a statement that the feat/class/item is under review. This would discourage people that read the additional resources from taking the item and lower the impact of a banning without grandfathering. Rules/things under review don't necessarily get banned. If there's grandfathering then no warning is required. Generally there's feat substitution or item sell back at full.

As far as races go, it's a minor thing. There's always going to be the flavor of the year. Boons from conventions have historically opened access to races and sometimes just ahead for a year or two. With the races being swapped out some people are going to bank what they prefer - no biggie. Boon trading allows non-convention goers a shot at those boons. I'd like to see GM Star attainment or chronicles from specials do the same for new characters.

[BigNorseWolf]

No, but the DM giving a character a break if they have to re arrange their character isn't out of the question.

[tivadar27]

Stephen Ross wrote:

I'd like to see the rebuild apply AFTER the scenario so we don't spend 20min rebuilding the character and delaying the game or play. Just note on the chronicle that X is now banned and must be swapped out/sold so it can't happen again... A catch and release policy at the GMs discretion...

So at the very least this, though I'd still like a longer grace period for retraining. RAW, the character can't retrain for free after they've played the character with a rules change. I don't think we want to encourage GMs to skirt RAW.

As I said, more permissive retrain rules would also be a great thing, but that might lead to more permissive retraining than desired, and probably requires a more case-by-case approach.

[MadScientistWorking]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Past grandfathering periods have generated poor behavior to make as many aasimars (or whatever) before the deadline. (It happened in my Lodge, so this is not theoretical.) Doing this with every change will also be very difficult for GMs.

I like the spirit behind the suggestion, but maybe this extra time is best spent before the items are released and mage legal. There are probably business reasons to update AR with new products as soon after release as possible, though.

Probably the best solution is a more lax rebuild for changes - although this can also encourage abuse, it's probably the easiest fix.

Im assuming that scenario is why they made it a requirement for 4 XP to actually be grandfathered in for the Summoner.

[tivadar27]

Re: Grandfathering: That's not what this is about. This is specifically to discuss rules changes that aren't grandfathered and will cause a character to lose a feat/whatever. Aasimar/Tiefling doesn't apply here.

[GM Lamplighter]

Sorry for the derail re: grandfathering.

The optional implementation has issues as well, though. It's already hard for a GM to know all of the rules, now they have to know two versions of the diciest rules. Plus, we don't really need to flag which items are admittedly broken but still legal for a few more months.

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm worrying about the extreme folks, while not giving enough credence to the folks who legitimately got caught out by a rules change. In my experience, those extreme folks can ruin a lot of tables for other players and drive away both GMs and players in large amounts. There isn't a solution that both addresses the needs of the latter while protecting the campaign from the former.

[tivadar27]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Sorry for the derail re: grandfathering.

The optional implementation has issues as well, though. It's already hard for a GM to know all of the rules, now they have to know two versions of the diciest rules. Plus, we don't really need to flag which items are admittedly broken but still legal for a few more months.

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm worrying about the extreme folks, while not giving enough credence to the folks who legitimately got caught out by a rules change. In my experience, those extreme folks can ruin a lot of tables for other players and drive away both GMs and players in large amounts. There isn't a solution that both addresses the needs of the latter while protecting the campaign from the former.

That's fine, though I'm mostly thinking changes to Feats/Class Abilities. My initial wording here was probably poor. It should be along the lines of "Any time a rule change would require a character to respec either a class feature or a feat, they may continue using the old version of that class feature or feat for a period of.... Any time during that, or before the first adventure they play after that period, they may respec their character..."

The above gets rid of any worries of people opting in after the rules change, which I don't think we should allow.

So the one complaint I'm hearing that's totally valid is the whole "two versions that GMs need to keep track of." I'd agree this will happen, though it'd be remembering only what rules got *changed* in the past 2 months.

As for those gaming the system vs those legitimately caught off-guard, we come from different perspectives here. I'd like to assume a majority of people aren't those trying to game the system, and while I agree it's important to recognize that some are, I don't think it's a good idea to make rules to deal with them that hurt those who aren't.

That being said, more generous respec could work as well. I can only imagine what would happen if they decided to ban "agile" at this point. Under the current rules, you could sell back that agile weapon for something else at full price... which would probably still mean your character is unplayable if you've built a Dexterity build... I don't think they'll *actually* do this (agile really isn't unbalanced), but I think that PFS should realize that swapping a single feat/item/whatever out when it might be the core part of a build oftentimes is simply not enough.

[TimD]

I like the concept, but I'm not sure on the execution. It addresses what is to me, the very worst part of PF gaming - how rules changes are implemented, communicated, and executed; which leads to the degradation of the sense of community that PFS normally tries to foster and maintain.

What the OP seems to be asking is that the same consideration be given players who may not be able to update as quickly as others as were given to the players and GM's at GenCon last year who were not forced to update their characters on-site for the ACG/ARG errata which released the same week.

[Vinyc Kettlebek]

A change to the rules by the development team by, way of errata or FAQ, should only be delayed long enough for PFS leadership to determine if the rebuild rules, outlined in the Campaign Guide, are adequate or need to be expanded for a given change.

[tivadar27]

Vinyc Kettlebek wrote:

A change to the rules by the development team by, way of errata or FAQ, should only be delayed long enough for PFS leadership to determine if the rebuild rules, outlined in the Campaign Guide, are adequate or need to be expanded for a given change.

So you're in favor of more expansive rebuild rules, but against a grace period, correct? What does "adequate" mean in this context?

[Vinyc Kettlebek]

tivadar27 wrote:

Vinyc Kettlebek wrote:

A change to the rules by the development team by, way of errata or FAQ, should only be delayed long enough for PFS leadership to determine if the rebuild rules, outlined in the Campaign Guide, are adequate or need to be expanded for a given change.

So you're in favor of more expansive rebuild rules, but against a grace period, correct? What does "adequate" mean in this context?

Personally I'm not in favor of more expansive rebuild rules than those already outlined by the Campaign Guide. However PFS leadership has in the past expanded the rebuild rules in reaction to certain changes issued by the developers, and there isn't any reason to expect it won't happen again.

As far as an example of a timeline for delays. Paizo issues an errata or FAQ. If it takes PFS leadership an hour, a day or a week to figure out how the changes are handled by PFS. The ruling goes into effect once the ruling has been made, and be enforced in any PFS game started after the announcement.

[Hmm]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Apparently Fallen Fortress can be run in 17 minutes if you've already run it 5 times that day.

17 minutes? I'm now imagining this.

MISSION BRIEFING: "Welcome to the Pathfinder Society. Kill EVERYTHING!"

NPCs: "Aiiiiiiiieeeeee!" ::Death rattle.::

PCs: "Waffle."

"Total waffle!"

GM: Hands out pre-printed chronicle sheets, and screams, "Next!"

___

Mind you, I haven't read or played the module in question, but this is what I'm imagining now. And to think, just three tables of this and I'd have my second star...

No, Hilary. No. Stop listening to the Dark Side of the Force!

Hmm

[nosig]

Hmm wrote:

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Apparently Fallen Fortress can be run in 17 minutes if you've already run it 5 times that day.

17 minutes? I'm now imagining this.

MISSION BRIEFING: "Welcome to the Pathfinder Society. Kill EVERYTHING!"

NPCs: "Aiiiiiiiieeeeee!" ::Death rattle.::

PCs: "Waffle."

"Total waffle!"

GM: Hands out pre-printed chronicle sheets, and screams, "Next!"

___

Mind you, I haven't read or played the module in question, but this is what I'm imagining now. And to think, just three tables of this and I'd have my second star...

No, Hilary. No. Stop listening to the Dark Side of the Force!

Hmm

I've run this a number of time (6 or 7 I think) - it's actually one of my favorite evergreens. I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours - even skipping the briefing, and the players sidestepping all the encounters they can sneak past. I know I often run long with it... Even with mostly players who have played it before.

[Hmm]

I will have to take a look at it. The reason I haven't run it is we have a small shop, and try make sure that our tables span at least 1-7 between the two tables so that as many people as possible can play. With it being limited to level 1, that cuts out some players right there.

Hmm

[pH unbalanced]

nosig wrote:

I've run this a number of time (6 or 7 I think) - it's actually one of my favorite evergreens. I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours - even skipping the briefing, and the players sidestepping all the encounters they can sneak past. I know I often run long with it... Even with mostly players who have played it before.

My understanding is that if you know the layout you can just skip to the end, without fighting anything but the end boss.

Spoiler:

By climbing up the outside of the tower to the top level.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

pH unbalanced wrote:

nosig wrote:

I've run this a number of time (6 or 7 I think) - it's actually one of my favorite evergreens. I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours - even skipping the briefing, and the players sidestepping all the encounters they can sneak past. I know I often run long with it... Even with mostly players who have played it before.

My understanding is that if you know the layout you can just skip to the end, without fighting anything but the end boss.

** spoiler omitted **

Seems fishy.

[Tamec]

um, is it just me or does that sound like only one encounter instead of the three needed for xp....

Spoiler:

unless dropping the tower counts as the other two

[tivadar27]

Once again, derailed. As I said very early on, it's easy to abuse PFS, pointing that out doesn't help anything. As I mentioned later on, the benefit I mentioned in the opening post should *only be available to characters who already have the ability/trait*, and has nothing to do with grandfathering.

[GM Lamplighter]

nosig wrote:

I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours -

The situation I believe involved the same players sitting at the table for all five games, running through it over and over to get that 1 xp on a bunch of aasimar/tiefling PCs before the deadline expired.

You know, the exact thing campaign staff asked us to not do when they announced the upcoming change, even though it was "technically" legal.

(Sidebar: this is why I now weigh in heavily on rules to prevent abuse, rather than just letting players and GMs be reasonable and use common sense.)

[GM Lamplighter]

tivadar27 wrote:

As I mentioned later on, the benefit I mentioned in the opening post should *only be available to characters who already have the ability/trait*, and has nothing to do with grandfathering.

"Already" as defined by... what? The only thing we have to check is dates on Chronicles.

My first level PC hasn't been played since before the announcement, so there's no Chronicle with a date that is too late. Can I rebuild into it? Who would know? It would let me use a feat/etc which is about to be banned for X more months, gaining the advantage and then getting a great rebuild to further optimize my PC, using any newer options that come out in the meantime (some of which will likely have the same issues).

I made up this new PC before the announcement, and he has the about-to-be-banned option. I actually made it up yesterday, but again, there's no way to know since there is no paperwork yet. Now I can use an option that campaign staff have said is too powerful, for X months and then get a rebuild. How many games can I ruin in that time?

The grandfathering incident is relevant because it shows what players are willing to do to gain advantage for their characters while skirting the edge of the rules. I wish there was a way to address the OP's concern while still preventing this, but there isn't. That's why I don't favor the proposal, and I can't see a way to make it work without allowing more abuse.

[tivadar27]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

As I mentioned later on, the benefit I mentioned in the opening post should *only be available to characters who already have the ability/trait*, and has nothing to do with grandfathering.

"Already" as defined by... what? The only thing we have to check is dates on Chronicles.

You know what, arguing against this is a waste of time. I could also just lie and say my character had whatever's getting changed, thereby gaining a free respec. You can always cheat, thanks for telling us all the ways this can be done.

Why don't we just not allow people to play Pathfinder at all? That seems simpler, it would block all the cheaters out there!

Seriously, if you want to discuss ways people can abuse the rules I've suggested, fine. If you want to suggest ways people can break the rules so as to further abuse the rules I've suggested... I've got nothing.

GM Lamplighter wrote:

The situation I believe involved the same players sitting at the table for all five games, running through it over and over to get that 1 xp on a bunch of aasimar/tiefling PCs before the deadline expired.

You know, the exact thing campaign staff asked us to not do when they announced the upcoming change, even though it was "technically" legal.

Report these players to PFS. They should have, at the very least, a good chunk of their characters deleted. Perhaps even a ban on their account. There are ways to deal with cheaters. Punishing non-cheaters shouldn't be one of them.

NOTE: I've also said that I don't think it's inappropriate that if something is completely out of whack, PFS should reserve the right to ban it immediately without a phasing in period. In honesty, I don't think that includes any of the recent changes I've referred to.

[GM Lamplighter]

With respect, I'm pointing out why I believe your proposal doesn't work for the campaign at large. I'm doing so respectfully and I'm trying to give reasons that aren't just theorycrafting. If that offends you, I'm sorry. If you don't want your ideas to be scrutinized by others, they're probably not going to get adopted.

[BigNorseWolf]

"i'm going to try exploit the hell out of this idea" is not only a legitimate but even neccesary test in a group of gamers where thats basically what a good segment of the population does for fun...

[godsDMit]

pH unbalanced wrote:

nosig wrote:

I've run this a number of time (6 or 7 I think) - it's actually one of my favorite evergreens. I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours - even skipping the briefing, and the players sidestepping all the encounters they can sneak past. I know I often run long with it... Even with mostly players who have played it before.

My understanding is that if you know the layout you can just skip to the end, without fighting anything but the end boss.

** spoiler omitted **

Response to the Spoiler:

That should result in a chronicle with 0exp (3 encounters not encountered), very little gold (only the stuff from the end boss), and whatever the appropriate amount of PP is for just fighting the end boss (whatever that would be here, but probably 0).

Of course, the GM in question has to actually care about it being done correctly for that to matter, though, so :(

[godsDMit]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

nosig wrote:

I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours -

The situation I believe involved the same players sitting at the table for all five games, running through it over and over to get that 1 xp on a bunch of aasimar/tiefling PCs before the deadline expired.

You know, the exact thing campaign staff asked us to not do when they announced the upcoming change, even though it was "technically" legal.

(Sidebar: this is why I now weigh in heavily on rules to prevent abuse, rather than just letting players and GMs be reasonable and use common sense.)

These are the kinds of people I wish would just go play something else.

[Ascalaphus]

godsDMit wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

nosig wrote:

I've run this a number of time (6 or 7 I think) - it's actually one of my favorite evergreens. I have no idea how it can be run in less than two hours - even skipping the briefing, and the players sidestepping all the encounters they can sneak past. I know I often run long with it... Even with mostly players who have played it before.

My understanding is that if you know the layout you can just skip to the end, without fighting anything but the end boss.

** spoiler omitted **

Response to the Spoiler:

That should result in a chronicle with 0exp (3 encounters not encountered), very little gold (only the stuff from the end boss), and whatever the appropriate amount of PP is for just fighting the end boss (whatever that would be here, but probably 0).

Of course, the GM in question has to actually care about it being done correctly for that to matter, though, so :(

So you clear out the ground floor as well. There's enough encounters there to earn the XP (which is clearly the only thing you care about if you're rushing to grandfather).

[tivadar27]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

With respect, I'm pointing out why I believe your proposal doesn't work for the campaign at large. I'm doing so respectfully and I'm trying to give reasons that aren't just theorycrafting. If that offends you, I'm sorry. If you don't want your ideas to be scrutinized by others, they're probably not going to get adopted.

As I said, I don't have an issue with pointing out ways the policy can be abused. Preston Hudson did this early by pointing out the abuse that people could pick up skills/items after they were banned to gain access to them for a bit/gain a possible respec. I mentioned afterwards that that was a valid point, and that including that this was only for characters who already had the relevant feat/item/... when the rules were changed were necessary.

What you've pointed out is ways people can cheat to abuse PFS, and specifically the rules I stated. I don't think that's a particularly useful discussion, as there are a million ways to do this from fudging chronicle sheets/wealth tracker info, to just outright changing your character after each event. Dealing with cheaters is a separate issue from dealing with people who are trying to find rules niches to their advantage. You can fix the second problem, you can't fix the first.