Been gone for two years what changed

[hotsauceman]

So, been off to college for two years or so. I left just when year of the demon was wrapping up. So my friend took me to kublacon, I died like twice(Stupid spellcasting yetis and bonekeep)
But I noticed a few things changed. we just finished Year of the serpent and now Im loss. factions have changed or been dropped, when I left, Aassamar, Tiefling and tengu where legal and my soul wasnt crushed from hours of writing papers.
So I have some questions. What big things have changed? I have played a Gunslinger, an Inquisitor and a Barbarian.
What was the story of the two seasons I missed?
Who are the new factions and why did they change their names.
What happened to the shadow lodge?

[BigNorseWolf]

Aasimar and tiefling were removed. If you had played them or DM'd with the intent to make one with as little as one xp they're still good.

The old summoner is out. If he was played as a level 2+ character he;'s grandfathered. If he was below that threshhold, he's still a sack of rebuildable protoplasm and cannot.

Kitsune, nagaji, wayang, and tengu are in. And will still be in season 8

Faction journal cards are the new faction missions for when the scenario doesn't have anything for you, like a teacup in the mummys tomb that they somehow know about.

If you have a rogue you may freely swap them to unchained. Let me be clear. SWAP THEM TO UNCHAINED. Its a thousand times better.

Season 6 was year of numeria. It.. got mixed reactions.

Season 7 is/was all about that aspis. They hit skyreach hard and we're pushing back.

The lantern lodge became basically the grand lodge in goka after an epic battle and sendoff. The shadowlodge had a ... lets just say far less satisfying ending and its members were forced elsewhere.

[Jason Wu]

They changed the doilies on the dining tables in the Grand Lodge. I don't like the new ones, too much fuchsia.

-j

[Tamec]

About Unchained, if you haven't played your barbarian, depending on your build, the unchained barbarian is better and you can swap them to unchained too. Unchained barbarians tend to not succumb to SRDS (Sudden Rageless Death Syndrome) and that fact saved my barbarian at Megacon this weekend.

The reason I say "depending on the build" is some barbarian builds are not compatible. While other are not totally compatible but are workable. My aforementioned barbarian is a Mad Dog barbarian. the archetype is legal with unchained, but the barbarian powers that work with it are not, so my animal companion does not rage. I'm fine with that, especially since I was taken to -7. If I was still a chained barbarian it would have gone to -15 with a 14 Constitution. I was so happy to be an unchained barbarian at that point, and my animal companion was still able to rip into the BBEG.

[hotsauceman]

Mine was a generic barbarian. and I did play him. I played all my characters this weekend. He is nothing special, didnt make it through bonekeep. But he can handle his own in a fight, He did fine this weekend. and despite being the first character I ever made, he has somehow made it it lvl 9 without dying. Cept bonekeep. but we had like 2 pregens at the table.

[BigNorseWolf]

The UC barbarian isnt anything to regrest losing. its 6 of one halfa dozen of the other. The regular one does more damage, but explodes on death.

[Tamec]

Bonekeep and pregens do not mix...sorry man

[hotsauceman]

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"
And we had a half decent party. not power gaming, but if the wizard was better, we could have been destroying stuff.

[Muser]

Was sudden barbarian death really such a problem? I've seen it once maybe.

Many barbarians I saw usually took a good look at their hitpoints and stopped raging at some point.

[Ms. Pleiades]

Season 6 is year of the adamantine weapons.

Also, Weapon Master's Handbook is pretty much essential reading for fighters.

[GreySector]

Ms. Pleiades wrote:

Season 6 is year of the adamantine weapons.

I see a lot of people say this, however in my experience it is no more or less true than it is for any other season of PFS.

[Muser]

Yeah, there're six scenarios with bots, together they've maybe 14 fights with hardness altogether. It's also bots, they've got very mediocre hp.

[BigNorseWolf]

Muser wrote:

Yeah, there're six scenarios with bots, together they've maybe 14 fights with hardness altogether. It's also bots, they've got very mediocre hp.

the swords were also necessary to get INTO the dungeon, as no on could disable device the locks.

[Drogon]

hotsauceman wrote:

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"

Did they actually do this? Yet another argument against the "play a pregen at any tier" rule. I hate (seriously: HATE) that people can do this.

[Lucy_Valentine]

Two years? Minor point, but if you were planning to use an SLA to get into a PrC, they got rid of that.

[hotsauceman]

Drogon wrote:

hotsauceman wrote:

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"

Did they actually do this? Yet another argument against the "play a pregen at any tier" rule. I hate (seriously: HATE) that people can do this.

Yes, right when we sat down. It really upset me. Didnt even learn any other spells. we didnt make it past the crypt.

[nosig]

Drogon wrote:

hotsauceman wrote:

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"

Did they actually do this? Yet another argument against the "play a pregen at any tier" rule. I hate (seriously: HATE) that people can do this.

Why?

I played Bonekeep in CORE with a Pre-Gen.

A bit of background:

-
A number of my regular crew had played Bonekeep with regular PCs (non Pre-Gens) just after it came out, and had a very un-fun game of it. (The phrase from the judge "this is Bonekeep - so you should have expected to get 'BONED'!" sticks in my mind). It was a bad enough gaming experience that I said I wouldn't even consider playing/running any of the Bonekeep series later (and the only thing I need for my 5th Star is running specials - so drastically reduce my chances of getting that 5th star any time soon).

We had a Judge that needed to run one last Special for his 5th star - and so we offered to run a CORE game of it with several of players who had already played it. We all picked 7th level Pre-Gens and rounded up enough players (5 ultimately) and had a wonderful game of it. Enough so to perhaps change my mind on the Bonekeep series (I have run number 3 sense then...)... But most importantly, it was a fun game.

Which we could NOT have done if we had not been able to run Pre-Gen characters. (most of the players put the credit to a 1st level Core PC - and who knows, maybe we'll get them to play another Core game sometime...Now that they have a PC with XP and all...)

(edit) Is it possible to abuse it? yeah - like most everything, it can be abused. But please don't hate the option just because some people can twist it into something it's not designed to do. It's designed to give the players a little more flexibility... which often is a good thing.

[LoPan666]

The three Bonekeep scenarios are written to provide an extreme challenge and I think that most players feel that the pregens are not optimized to the point that they will be up to the task. A lot depends on the player making smart decisions and having a fair amount of luck. That said, having played through the series, I think the right pregens could be very well suited for success (no spoilers <g>). However, someone saying that they are playing a pregen only to avoid having one of their regular characters risk death is a bad sign. If they're not as invested as the other players, they're not as likely to be careful to make the best possible decisions and unless they're a good player or very experienced with the pregen in question, they're probably not going to make the best use of the resources they have. Personally, I would think twice about playing at a table where two players are taking that option for the stated reason.

[Drogon]

nosig wrote:

Drogon wrote:

hotsauceman wrote:

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"

Did they actually do this? Yet another argument against the "play a pregen at any tier" rule. I hate (seriously: HATE) that people can do this.

Why?

I played Bonekeep in CORE with a Pre-Gen.
** spoiler omitted **

We had a Judge that needed to run one last Special for his 5th star - and so we offered to run a CORE game of it with several of players who had already played it. We all picked 7th level Pre-Gens and rounded up enough players (5 ultimately) and had a wonderful game of it. Enough so to perhaps change my mind on the Bonekeep series (I have run number 3 sense then...)... But most importantly, it was a fun game.

Which we could NOT have done if we had not been able to run Pre-Gen characters. (most of the players put the credit to a 1st level Core PC - and who knows, maybe we'll get them to play another Core game sometime...Now that they have a PC with XP and all...)

(edit) Is it possible to abuse it? yeah - like most everything, it can be abused. But please don't hate the option just because some people can twist it into something it's not designed to do. It's designed to give the players a little more flexibility... which often is a good thing.

There are exceptions to any rule/stance/opinion/way-of-life. You, nosig, are often one.

To be clear: if you were to sit at my table and announce that you wanted to run a level-7 pre-gen while playing with four people at a sub-tier 10-11 adventure, you would get no argument from me.

However (and I dislike using your words against you) rules should exist not for the exceptions, but because most people will gravitate toward twisting things to their advantage. There are far more people who take advantage of that rule to make their own lives "easier" by virtue of being lazy than there are people who use that rule for the betterment of their fellow players. Thus, I hate the rule.

[nosig]

Drogon wrote:

nosig wrote:

Drogon wrote:

hotsauceman wrote:

I know. Its like "Im playing a pregen so none of out characters die"

Did they actually do this? Yet another argument against the "play a pregen at any tier" rule. I hate (seriously: HATE) that people can do this.

Why?

I played Bonekeep in CORE with a Pre-Gen.
** spoiler omitted **

We had a Judge that needed to run one last Special for his 5th star - and so we offered to run a CORE game of it with several of players who had already played it. We all picked 7th level Pre-Gens and rounded up enough players (5 ultimately) and had a wonderful game of it. Enough so to perhaps change my mind on the Bonekeep series (I have run number 3 sense then...)... But most importantly, it was a fun game.

Which we could NOT have done if we had not been able to run Pre-Gen characters. (most of the players put the credit to a 1st level Core PC - and who knows, maybe we'll get them to play another Core game sometime...Now that they have a PC with XP and all...)

(edit) Is it possible to abuse it? yeah - like most everything, it can be abused. But please don't hate the option just because some people can twist it into something it's not designed to do. It's designed to give the players a little more flexibility... which often is a good thing.

There are exceptions to any rule/stance/opinion/way-of-life. You, nosig, are often one.

To be clear: if you were to sit at my table and announce that you wanted to run a level-7 pre-gen while playing with four people at a sub-tier 10-11 adventure, you would get no argument from me.

However (and I hate using your words against you) rules should exist not for the exceptions, but because most people will gravitate toward twisting things to their advantage. There are far more people who take advantage of that rule to make their own lives "easier" by virtue of being lazy than there are people who use that rule for the betterment of their fellow...

lol!

why, thank you Drogon!
Though I can not really see myself playing a level-7 pre-gen at Tier 10-11... (but then I couldn't see myself playing Bonekeep again, and I not only played it, but I also RAN #3... scary what time will do to us...). If the table was a bunch of my friends, and we REALLY needed what Pre-Gen XX could bring to the table... maybe. But I'm going to bet most of the people I play with would switch off to another PC so we could play it at Tier 7-8 (Even if they needed to swap to another Pre-Gen...which is one reason I DON'T hate the "play a pregen at any tier" rule).

For the most part I think I agree with what you are saying. Though perhaps I would not say "most people will gravitate toward twisting things to their advantage", I am more likely to say "some people seem to gravitate toward twisting things to try to get what they believe to be an advantage...". I think that we just notice those people more (not that there are more of them). If we sit at a table and there's that guy who always views everything with his "me" glasses on, we often overlook the 3 or 4 other people at the table, who are there just trying to have fun. So we build a lot of rules about that one guy (who at times might even be us), sometimes really messing with the other people at the table and restricting the fun. It's a fine line to tread avoiding that. (I would like to note that PFS does a very good job of that, IMHO).

[UndeadMitch]

Nosig, it's one thing if a table all agrees to play pregens, and something entirely different to show up with a pregen, sandbag and get yourself and possibly others killed, then just shrug and go "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

[Drogon]

PFS does an excellent job of it. I have very few quibbles with its rules. This is one, is all.

Honestly, I feel like most rules (even in real world society) exist for the few, not the many. Theft is against the law not because *everyone* would do it if it were legal; it is against the law because the few who would do it would ALWAYS do it, to the detriment of society. Does the existence of the law always stop them? Obviously not. That, after all, is where "cheaters gonna cheat" comes in. But I'll bet it deters a lot of others from giving it a go.

[nosig]

Mitch Mutrux wrote:

Nosig, it's one thing if a table all agrees to play pregens, and something entirely different to show up with a pregen, sandbag and get yourself and possibly others killed, then just shrug and go "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

I have seen that attitude more with play above level 5. It's one of the reasons I prefer lower level games... down where getting your PC killed is much more ... noticeable? tangible? I think I have heard "Well, that's what we get PP for..." and things like that much more than I've anything like "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

There are players I will think A LOT about before I sit at a table with them. They tend to get other players PCs killed... all the while running PCs built to avoid the problems they create.

[nosig]

Drogon wrote:

PFS does an excellent job of it. I have very few quibbles with its rules. This is one, is all.

Honestly, I feel like most rules (even in real world society) exist for the few, not the many. Theft is against the law not because *everyone* would do it if it were legal; it is against the law because the few who would do it would ALWAYS do it, to the detriment of society. Does the existence of the law always stop them? Obviously not. That, after all, is where "cheaters gonna cheat" comes in. But I'll bet it deters a lot of others from giving it a go.

Yeah. My grandfather taught me "Locks are for honest people...". He did (mostly) lock his down when he left the house. His door know lock.

I then went to visit his sister, who had an apartment door with 7 locks (plus 2 chains, and a brace that fit under the doorknob to a notch in the floor). She lived in a Condo, behind 24 hour security guards. ???

[Drogon]

nosig wrote:

Mitch Mutrux wrote:

Nosig, it's one thing if a table all agrees to play pregens, and something entirely different to show up with a pregen, sandbag and get yourself and possibly others killed, then just shrug and go "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

I have seen that attitude more with play above level 5. It's one of the reasons I prefer lower level games... down where getting your PC killed is much more ... noticeable? tangible? I think I have heard "Well, that's what we get PP for..." and things like that much more than I've anything like "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

"Death is only a condition. Deal with it and get on with the adventure."

Sadly, I actually think that is true. At higher levels death is barely a speed bump.

That doesn't mean, however, that I am okay with players who take an active role in causing my characters' deaths. That, to me, is the epitome of selfishness. I want nothing to do with it.

[nosig]

Drogon wrote:

nosig wrote:

Mitch Mutrux wrote:

Nosig, it's one thing if a table all agrees to play pregens, and something entirely different to show up with a pregen, sandbag and get yourself and possibly others killed, then just shrug and go "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

I have seen that attitude more with play above level 5. It's one of the reasons I prefer lower level games... down where getting your PC killed is much more ... noticeable? tangible? I think I have heard "Well, that's what we get PP for..." and things like that much more than I've anything like "oh well, at least I'm playing a pregen."

"Death is only a condition. Deal with it and get on with the adventure."

Sadly, I actually think that is true. At higher levels death is barely a speed bump.

That doesn't mean, however, that I am okay with players who take an active role in causing my characters' deaths. That, to me, is the epitome of selfishness. I want nothing to do with it.

yeah. But they often do that with PCs other than Pre-Gens.

I have actually never seen someone with a Pre-Gen pull the party into dying. Poorly built, poorly run PCs letting the team down? yeah, seen that. Not so much from Pre-Gens. I actually can't think of one case of it with a Pre-Gen. I have also seen them "Take one for the Team" more than once... Dying so that someone else avoids buying the farm. "Kera jumps in front of the monster..."

Edit: "...players who take an active role in causing my characters' deaths..." I think the important part of that line is the word "players". It's the guy/gal, not the Character he's running. At least IMHO.

[rknop]

It's a bad thing that for a while, the only exclusives available were Bonekeep (as opposed to "regular" exclusives like Cyphermage Dilemma). I really think more people have played it than should have. They're designed to appeal to a non-trivial but small subset of PFS players: those who want a serious deadly challenge in which they can show off and test their system mastery and optimized build. Those who miss the kind of old school Gygaxian tournament play that gave us Tomb of Horrors. If you aren't looking for this experience, you should not play Bonekeep, either with pregen or your own characters. However, any 3 or 4 star GMs looking towards building their Exclusive profile for a long time had no option other than offering Bonekeep, so it got played too much.

(I did play it, and had fun, but it's far from my favorite sort of scenario. I was with a group that played together a lot, had at least moderately optimized characters, and had LOTS of pairs of First Aid gloves. I would not play it again, and never intend to run it.)

[BigNorseWolf]

It is what it is and its exactly what it says on the tin and the warning label. You don't show up to see avengers and then get annoyed that its not high theatre

[RealAlchemy]

I haven't gotten to play the original Bonekeep yet. I took a dwarven deep walker archetype ranger into Bonekeep 2 along with a fairly well balanced party, and the only death was the out of tier psychic character playing up. I'm looking forward to taking the same character into part 3, but then he is my specialist in all things underground.

[hotsauceman]

I am still wondering why ingame the factions changed. Why is my barbarian no longer a proud andoran?

[BigNorseWolf]

hotsauceman wrote:

I am still wondering why ingame the factions changed. Why is my barbarian no longer a proud andoran?

They wanted to move away from nation based ones and more to caused based ones.

Most andorans were in it for killing the slavers anyway.

And the free waterproof bag for the heads.

[Muser]

The Shadow War politics weren't relevant anymore. Global models and new takes were needed.

Nothing's stopping you from serving old masters though. You just don't get support for it unless the faction mission happens to be particularily Andoren.