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Audits are a messy process when you have mechanically intricate characters. People don't understand certain rules and are normally pretty adamant about being right even if they contradict what a rule says.
It can also be used as a screening process to reject people from tables. Experienced this. This thread even gave an example of when it would happen:
GM: *eyeballs Player 4's character sheet* - you've got a buffed AC of 30 and you do 3d6+10 damage on a hit. You could solo this scenario and that wouldn't be fun for the rest of the table. Please use a different PC with a more appropriate power level, or a pregen, otherwise my responsibility to provide a fun experience for everyone means I can't let you use that character.
So like many things it can be abused. It just happens to be handing an amount of power and responsibility to literally anyone who decided to GM.
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You have to take the good with the bad and hope the former well outweighs the latter. Are there GMs who will abuse the audit process? Yes, but most won't. Are there players who abuse the system knowing no one wants to audit? Yes, but most won't. The trick is implementing simple solutions that can encourage some measure of consistency, hopefully influencing the abusers from doing so and catching those who do anyway and correcting their exploitation without negatively impacting the rest of the players.
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My 2 cents, I'm not sure the rules are getting harsher so much that people are actually enforcing them and it seems more punitive as it hadn't been enforced before now.
re: auditing; At every single convention I've had my characters audited and I've been asked to play a pregen when I couldn't produce my sources (back before the guide stated that living in the same household counted as shared resources and my other half was at another table - Origins 2013). Now I have printed copies of the appropriate sheets (or more accurately, compiled PDF's) of my characters and have their resources right handy in one PDF for viewing.
It's in the guide, I've always presumed it could happen, and when I get audited IT'S OK.
I also generally audit characters at my table, my expectation is that people understand how to run their characters and I am consistently disappointed since rarely can my players actually tell me how they got 30 AC, etc. etc. etc.
*edited Origins year, it was 2013. How time flies.
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I'm the primary auditing GM in pH unbalanced's local group. I find it easy enough, and hardly time-consuming at all... although I'm almost certainly an outlier.
I know the system well enough to instantly spot when someone got a trait off of d20pfsrd without checking the religion requirement (aasimar tetori with Ydersius religion trait) or to identify an anomalous number in need of investigation.
The biggest obstacle to auditing, in my experience, is bad character sheet management. I've seen sheets with vital magic items scattered across three pages, hidden among scratched-out margin notes. We've helped those folks get things sorted, though.
And, to be honest? If I saw someone as desperate to avoid auditing as some of the folks in this thread, I'd be really uncomfortable running a game for their characters until I'd given things a once-over. I didn't get this title by looking the other way.
I have not seen people desperate to avoid auditing in this thread. But then I may have missed some posts
I have seen people who do not agree with you on some points, but I do not equate them with cheatersYou are quite welcome to audit my PFS character who relied somewhat on the previous Lorewarden to try and build a STR-dumping melee combattant with the Halfling Opportunist PrC, which is quite difficult and not OP at all (underwhelming would fit it better). Because it is a mixed bag of many classes and archetypes, it might take some time though
Too bad that the Halfling Opportunist did not get the redesign that the Lorewarden did
It appears that "unbalanced" only gets a redesign when it actually means "too powerful". Likely because more people will play the powerful options rather than the weak ones, especially in PFS there GMs cannot ban them just because
Who then chooses the target for a redesign ? I think the PFS leadership gets its voice heard on that point. With the weight of all the players and thus customers they represent
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Stability.I'm actually starting to audit my tables, now that you mention it.I never stopped but online is much easier.What do you look for when you audit a table?
Me?
I'd be interested in material, shape, how many legs, and if it's wood, wht species, cut, and stain...
Where can I sit as a GM so my legs are comfortable?
Where can I sit as a GM so my legs are comfortable?Stability.I'm actually starting to audit my tables, now that you mention it.I never stopped but online is much easier.What do you look for when you audit a table?
Me?
I'd be interested in material, shape, how many legs, and if it's wood, wht species, cut, and stain...
Gum with at least a little flavor.
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Running Lyrics of Extinction at the pre-GenCon slot, I pulled a real quick 'What sort of wonky things do you have' audit on my players, and was able to use a rarely-used class feature on one of the characters to impart information that they would otherwise have had no way of knowing, and do it seamlessly to preserve immersion.
If I had not done the quick spot-check, I never would have seen that option available.
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That's a pretty common one. The dm is basically asking whats weird about your build.
Responses:
FLutter: Standard action wild empathy check with absurd bonuses, cuddles animals plants vermin, magical beasts and Oozes.
Grr: Adorable bundle of fluffy death, flanks from inside the square and piles on penalties.
Nick: 9 tailed kitsune, likes to use shield other on the tank
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please define the phrase "'What sort of wonky things do you have' audit".
I believe this is where we say "use your common sense".
There have been plenty of examples in the thread about what to look for. The biggest one being "hey, what parts of your character use complicated or unclear rulings that I should be aware of, so we don't have to stop mid-combat to hash them out?"
but that is not what is being described by "an audit".
That's an audit.
So is reviewing chronicles and character sheets.
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10 minutes? wow... how? I could not possible do that.It really depends on what you mean by "audit." I've written about it before, but my pre-game audit procedure for returning players is very cursory. I'm not looking to rebuild their characters, just for things that are majorly confusing or glaringly out of scale. Barring a major issue I only glance at the chronicle and ITS to make sure they are filled out. The character sheet is what I'm looking at. I've got a quick mental checklist. Do the stats look about right? No more ranks in a skill than they have levels? Is the enhancement bonus on the primary weapon about right for the level? Feats...do I know how they are going to affect the game? Then look at the overall character for some RP fodder.
It's only if something tweaks as wrong that I focus on it. If it's something simple I just ask the player. "Your HP looks low. Did you add your Con modifier at every level?" "Wow. That's a huge Disable Device bonus. Can you tell me where it all came from?" If it's really complex and technical I usually say "we're going to play as you have this but after the game I want you to walk me through this. I think you may be misinterpreting something."
It's worth noting that at least 60% of the time, there is an easy explanation. And of the remaining items, over 50% are errors where the player has shorted themselves somehow.
Exactly.
So I'm a CPA...dealing with auditors is what I do. And an "audit" doesn't mean you check absolutely everything in complete detail. It means you use statistical methods to design sampling routines whereby you can gain reasonable assurances that nothing is materially misstated.
Which is to say...you glance at the important stuff to see if it makes sense. If they got the big stuff correct, odds are they got the small stuff correct, too. And even if they didn't, mistakes on the small stuff probably won't make any difference to the scenario outcome. (Who decides what's big and what's small? Why you, the GM do...you've prepped the scenario after all.)
At the end of the day, ninety percent of an audit is figuring out what you can ignore, so that you only spend time looking at things that matter.
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...10 minutes? wow... how? I could not possible do that.It really depends on what you mean by "audit." I've written about it before, but my pre-game audit procedure for returning players is very cursory. I'm not looking to rebuild their characters, just for things that are majorly confusing or glaringly out of scale. Barring a major issue I only glance at the chronicle and ITS to make sure they are filled out. The character sheet is what I'm looking at. I've got a quick mental checklist. Do the stats look about right? No more ranks in a skill than they have levels? Is the enhancement bonus on the primary weapon about right for the level? Feats...do I know how they are going to affect the game? Then look at the overall character for some RP fodder.
It's only if something tweaks as wrong that I focus on it. If it's something simple I just ask the player. "Your HP looks low. Did you add your Con modifier at every level?" "Wow. That's a huge Disable Device bonus. Can you tell me where it all came from?" If it's really complex and technical I usually say "we're going to play as you have this but after the game I want you to walk me through this. I think you may be misinterpreting something."
It's worth noting that at least 60% of the time, there is an easy explanation. And of the remaining items, over 50% are errors where the player has shorted themselves somehow.
Exactly.
So I'm a CPA...dealing with auditors is what I do. And an "audit" doesn't mean you check absolutely everything in complete detail. It means you use statistical methods to design sampling routines whereby you can gain reasonable assurances that nothing is materially misstated.
Which is to say...you glance at the important stuff to see if it makes sense. If they got the big stuff correct, odds are they got the small stuff correct, too. And even if they didn't, mistakes on the small stuff probably won't make any difference to the scenario outcome. (Who decides what's big and what's small? Why you, the GM do...you've prepped the scenario after all.)
At the end of the day, ninety percent of an audit is figuring out what you can ignore, so that you only spend time looking at things that matter.
And what was described just above does not fit this description in any way. Nosig was right to that it is not an audit.
Way I understand it, an audit is there to determine the legality of the character and if the player cheated or does not meet the criteria to play this character.
Which is quite different from telling the GM beforehand about non-standards abilities your legal character has
Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha
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And what was described just above does not fit this description in any way. Nosig was right to that it is not an audit.
Way I understand it, an audit is there to determine the legality of the character and if the player cheated or does not meet the criteria to play this character.
Which is quite different from telling the GM beforehand about non-standards abilities your legal character has.
One leads to the other. It's really easy to find feats and equipment not allowed by the AR if your player tells you about them directly.
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Legality is not the only item that can be audited. (It's likely the only one that determines if you can sit at the table, but not the only item.)
The only times I've audited a character were to determine that they did the math correctly. Yes--I doubt that you're swinging for +17/+17 when two-weapon fighting at lvl 9. No--it's not evil to ask why. Yes--you're supposed to apply that -2 penalty. Yes--you need to apply that every time you full-attack.
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Make yourself a page per character with odd things that are non core. Include page numbers and book titles. I have never been 'audited'
But I did go out to the car once at the end of the con to lug a hundred pounds of books to the table..to show resources. The guy knew I took rolling thunder (my book carrier) bk to the car and was trolling me. Kind of funny.
Poor old rolling thunder died at Gen Con.. victim of a failed fort save going up the escalator. The new one is metal....but that one plastic wheel is starting to go.
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The "asking questions" portion of an audit is the most important part.
You pretty much know after the first question whether you are dealing with someone who understands their character. You pretty much know after the second question if you are dealing with someone who is being evasive and trying to hide things. (Which almost never happens. We all *love* to talk about our characters and how they work, so it really sticks out when someone doesn't.)
If someone has system mastery, is forthcoming, understands their character, and can back up the math on the one or two most unlikely looking numbers on the sheet, then I can trust they calculated their Perception modifier correctly. At that point I'm just looking for common math errors and pet peeves.
The key phrase I used above is "materially misstated" -- an audit doesn't aim to ensure perfection, it aims to ensure that nothing is wrong enough to make a difference at the table.
Even an IRS audit isn't looking at *everything*. They have a checklist of things they look at. If everything on that checklist looks good, then they know that it isn't worth their time to keep looking, because the odds are they won't find enough in unpaid taxes to pay for exercise.
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Stop focusing on the word "audit" and what that means. Focus on the point of the endevour. Call it a "scan." Call it an "audit." Call it "french toast." Who cares. The point is the intent which is to try and make sure both the player and the GM are informed as to what the character can/not do, how, and from what source while also, helping to verify that the player has properly applied the appropriate bonus/penalty to their final modifiers. This could mean a single question as posed above, it could mean a scheduled session to dissect each and every aspect of the character, or something in between. Really this discussion is starting to sound like that ridiculous argument over what the definition of "is" is.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Last time I did an audit of sorts was when I sat down to GM high-tier Cosmic Captive with the creme de la creme of local powergamers. I asked everyone to disclove unbelievable abilities and weird rules ahead of time so they wouldn't lead to arguments during the game.
So I had to cut off some people from orating at length about how special their characters were. But we also identified the need for a clear ruling about whether big monsters (like, say, the PCs) could 5ft-step earth glide downwards and whether there would be half-immersed-in-the-ground cover shenanigans. Getting that settled at the beginning of the game saved us a lot of grief later.
I guess this thread and some recent experiences are motivating me to show up 15 minutes early and do a bit more sheet-scanning. I think the biggest source of errors might be conflicting archetypes.
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Last time I did french toast
There fixed it for ya :-D
Sorry, my previous attempt as humor has apparently been seized by numerous people who have decided that the activity of reviewing a character's records for the purposes of understanding the build and/or finding errors will forever now be referred to as a Western European breakfast treat. So, please pass the maple syrup.
A layperson usually hears the word "audit" when people are talking about financial transactions, and when said transactions need to be gone over in detail to ensure that nothing is wrong with them. It implies hours upon hours of carefully scrutinizing records for the slightest flaw.
So I can understand why for some people, the term "audit" means "carefully scrutinizing everything."
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Let's face it: many of us have an irratiional fear of audits. The very word chills the blood. You say audit, and I start thinking, "Oh man, what did I mess up this time?" Some of you may know that gaming math is not my thing. Some of you, who have played with me, may marvel at just how amazingly bad my gaming math is.
My fear of audits is so great that I have my boyfriend help me "self-audit" where we go through the chronicle sheets and my online sessions to make sure that everything adds up.
It's a good thing we do that. I've forgotten to give myself a GM chronicle for a character to which I was applying credit 8 times. Yes, 8 times. So then I have to fix it, do the math again, work back in the chronicle...
You'd think that this would not be hard, but for some reason I have trouble getting my own chronicle sheets done in the rush to make sure that the players all get theirs. It's gotten to the point where I've started not taking credit unless a chronicle really fits one of my characters.
The thing is that the few times I have done an audit because something looks hinky, over half the time I have found things that benefit the player that they haven't given themselves because they did not know they had it. Audits can help as well as harm, but maybe we need more friendly terminology.
Hmm
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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I used to be pretty anti-audit as a GM.
I want the game to be fun and light not make anyone feel like they are on trial.
But recently there are a number of players showing up and telling me their characters work in ways that are just...incorrect. And using items or feats I know to be not legal (or in the case of some First World stuff not yet legal) and for the good of the group and my storytelling I don't want to break the flow of the game to perform an audit.
But then it never gets done and because I don't feel like being the bad guy the problem compounds itself. But doing a routine audit every time, or at least every time I see a particular character should lessen the 'accusatory' nature of it and actually help several of the players.
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In the USA, the word "audit" conjures images of the IRS descending on you and, in the best case, causing you the headache of reams of paperwork and trying to convince them that the mistakes they made are their mistakes. In the worst case (imagined, at least), you end up owing thousands of dollars you can't pay, or you get hauled off to some hidden prison somewhere as Winston Smith starts erasing your name from all historical documents.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Stop focusing on the word "audit" and what that means. Focus on the point of the endevour. Call it a "scan." Call it an "audit." Call it "french toast." Who cares. The point is the intent which is to try and make sure both the player and the GM are informed as to what the character can/not do, how, and from what source while also, helping to verify that the player has properly applied the appropriate bonus/penalty to their final modifiers. This could mean a single question as posed above, it could mean a scheduled session to dissect each and every aspect of the character, or something in between. Really this discussion is starting to sound like that ridiculous argument over what the definition of "is" is.
No we are just being vague. The fact of the matter is you really aren't going to get any semblance of knowledge of what they do because Pathfinder is an absurdly complicated game.
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I always offer to show the GM my noncore stuff as soon as I sit down.Thats.. really a bit of a relic these days. I can't remember the last time i saw a character that wasn't sporting some non core stuff
It sounds like they mean noncore as in campaign setting or player companions.