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Scheduled to run both new exclusives at an upcoming convention and I'd kind of like to maintain my record of a hundred plus tables without reporting a PC as dead while staying within the rules of PFS.
It seems reasonable to me. I will be assigning the chronicles to a character and for the purpose of record keeping my characters will be said to have taken part in the adventure. I hope it shouldn't be an issue to simply reduce the gold my characters receive to help out players at the table.
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From the guide v8:
p10 "In cases where you simply cannot seat four players, you may run a table of three players, and play an appropriate level pregenerated iconic character in order to meet the minimum table size of four PCs"
p18 "Players are encouraged to share their physical resources in order to resolve any and all conditions."
p18 "Characters can also sell off gear, including the dead character’s gear,..."
p19 "Players are permitted to spend character gold to help a party member purchase spell casting services"
It's not clear whether the GM also counts as a player in this situation (first point). Their character (pregen) could sell off gear though, via the second point.
I'm unaware of any further clarification on the boards.
The PC that the GM would use to help isn't really there, so it suspends belief he/she just shows up at the end of the adventure to give out helpful gold like a strange angel. "How did you know what happened? Why where you spying on us without helping out? He's an Aspis spy - get him!!!"
Not to mention that GM's don't have the option of a Chronicle sheet if they're running the scenario for the 2nd or greater time. It's not fair to those groups that the first group have access to a resource they can't have.
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In addition, it could lead to some GM's being pressured into helping out ("Come on! You hit my X with Phantasmal Killer! Least you could do is chip in for a raise."). Not necessarily saying it would happen, but the possibility is certainly there.
I did feel bad about that DC 20 phantasmal killer at tier 5-6 but at least at that level the player had the resources to be brought back. We did have a good laugh about how the party had to wait for spider climb to run out before they could recover their ally. I do feel that there are situations in PFS where character death is less fair though.
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I'm still of the opinion that using a GM-run pregen's gold (and potentially selling off pregen gear) to help an unlucky PC clear conditions is within the letter of the rules in the guide. At least point 3 in my original list.
Further, the very addition of the pregen is an acknowledgement that the resources of a 3-person party are not sufficient for the scenario, so use of the resources on the pregen in this way is within the spirit of the rules.
When selling off pregen gear (from a pregen you played) to clear conditions on your own character, you don't record that as an expense against the character you apply it to (once you have contributed the minimum gold by level, p6), so I wouldn't expect the GM to record the gold contributed against the character they apply their GM chronicle to, if indeed they take one.
Have any of the above points about use of pregen gold/gear been stated somewhere by the OPC or in the guide, or is this just current 'culture'?
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Pregen gold and equipment cannot be used to help pay to clear conditions, else it removes the risk to non pregens.Fair enough :-)
I just reread my statement and realized it was not 100% clear.
The gold and equipment can't be used for real characters other than the one the pregen is assigned to. And if the pregen is the 4th GM character with only three real characters, thier wealth cannot be used at all.
