PFS-Chronicle Sheets

[GreySector]

Dustin Knight wrote:

If GMs just crossed them out, sure. But some feel the need to practically react the information, aggressively scribbling as though they accidentally wrote their social security number on the chronicle. "Chronicle gore" would be an amusing thread.

I would suggest taking it up with those GMs, rather than altering the chronicle sheet format. A simple strikethrough is sufficient.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Michael Eshleman wrote:

Dustin Knight wrote:

If GMs just crossed them out, sure. But some feel the need to practically react the information, aggressively scribbling as though they accidentally wrote their social security number on the chronicle. "Chronicle gore" would be an amusing thread.

I would suggest taking it up with those GMs, rather than altering the chronicle sheet format. A simple strikethrough is sufficient.

Expect Table Variation

Seriously, I've had everything from a casual 'x' drawn through a boon to someone who went through with a ruler and crossed off each line in an almost machined fashion.

[crashcanuck]

What about an initial box next to boons like with xp, prestige and gold?

[Sebastian Hirsch]

Trscroggs wrote:

I too am on the "make loot matter' faction. I also like the idea of more general items. I wouldn't mind specific loot, if in some ways it was special. It doesn't have to be a true unique, but if I am going to be forced to buy a +1 Flaming long sword, give me a discount, or let me achieve it earlier than normal, as opposed to a less specific +1 Flaming X.

I know the specific items matter to Core players, but not everyone plays Core, and even the pre-Core Chronicles are similar.

I would really like the ability to transfer certain boon specific unlocks to other characters. To go back to the earlier example, I too have the Axebeak boon (twice: once as a DM and once as a player) the problem is that I didn't have characters that could befit from the axebeak to attach it to. Similarly the two intelligent magic items that am aware that have come up have both been attached to character non-proficient in them, and thus unable to benefit from them (and the RP opportunities) unless I completely changed the way the character was to develop or almost totally retrain the character.

Another example would be the Oread rebuild boon. Its neat, I really like it, but it would completely wreck the build of the character that achieved it. Instead I would have much preferred to the option to use it to make a level 1 Oread, or to give the option to another character, even if the character who earned the boon still had to pay for it.

There are player boons out there that let you transfer specific unlocks, so you could make an argument to make them part of the PFS boon system and allow transfer for a number of PP.

More importantly, Oreads are already a legal race you can create as many as you wish.

And you might want to take a loot at recent SFS scenarios, it looks like they are pretty much already doing what you asked for when it comes to racial unlocks.

[Cirithiel]

Dustin Knight wrote:

Michael Eshleman wrote:

Dustin Knight wrote:

4. Notes: I wish the chronicle sheets had a space on the bottom to encourage note-taking. For practical purposes, players can use it to track what items they found in the scenario, what items they are purchasing, what enemies they fought or just what city the scenario took place in. It also always warms my heart when GMs write notes on my chronicle sheets, and makes them special records beyond telling me when I played a game.

There is nothing stopping people from noting this kind of information on the current chronicle sheet format.

Not all sheets have space. See: Beyond the Halflight Path.

All sheets have space: The back of the prior chronicle. :)

[Take 10]

Janice Piette wrote:

Dustin Knight wrote:

Michael Eshleman wrote:

Dustin Knight wrote:

4. Notes: I wish the chronicle sheets had a space on the bottom to encourage note-taking. For practical purposes, players can use it to track what items they found in the scenario, what items they are purchasing, what enemies they fought or just what city the scenario took place in. It also always warms my heart when GMs write notes on my chronicle sheets, and makes them special records beyond telling me when I played a game.

There is nothing stopping people from noting this kind of information on the current chronicle sheet format.

Not all sheets have space. See: Beyond the Halflight Path.

All sheets have space: The back of the prior chronicle. :)

sometimes I actually print the scenario briefing or an outline of the scenario on the back of the chronicle. that way, years later when you check on what the PC did, it brings back some memory of the game.

I admit I'm not typical in this though...

[Aristophanes]

Given that PF2.0 is reducing the need for magic items, the ones that do appear will most likely be important, and thus on the chronicle. That said, I would like to be able to use prestige points to purchase, or reduce the price of, some magic items.

[pjrogers]

Trscroggs wrote:

I too am on the "make loot matter' faction. I also like the idea of more general items. I wouldn't mind specific loot, if in some ways it was special. It doesn't have to be a true unique, but if I am going to be forced to buy a +1 Flaming long sword, give me a discount, or let me achieve it earlier than normal, as opposed to a less specific +1 Flaming X.

Myself also, something like items not on a chronicle sheet cost 50% more or a discount for items on the chronicle sheet, whatever is easiest to implement.

[Belafon]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Even more radical: allow in the field purchases for things like scrolls on chronicle sheets. Spend the money and "look what I happened to hold on to", and then cross it off the chronicle sheet because you just bought it retroactively.

As long as there aren’t character options to do that.

My Kalistocratic merchant has the Brilliant Planner feat from UI. And my core character is a Pathfinder Chronicler with deep pockets.

[Ninjamancer]

Besides the standard "make the items found on the sheets matter", the main thing I'd have to say is when you're making a repeatable scenario, for the love of god, lump the items into the treasure packages, don't make me go through the maaaaassive list of items and cross out lines in the middle of other ones that the players are getting (I'm looking at you halflight path!)

[Sprada]

Tallow wrote:

Change the way you can buy treasure. Stop allowing PCs to buy whatever they want. Building items into 20 level build plans is part of what makes PFS overpowered in my opinion. So somehow limit what can be purchased by what is found in adventures plus a small list of other things based on what's found.

With that said, if a flaming short sword is found, make sure a PC can apply flaming to whatever weapon they want. So its the enchantment that's found, not the weapon itself.

I agree. Many sheets in PFS have items listed that aren't necessary. Allow them to be accessible from the beginning (core book) and special items on the chronicle sheets

[treidenb]

One of the most common topics I hear discussed from players is that the vast majority of gear listed on chronicle sheets is not relevant to the player’s character that earned it. Either the character has earned enough Fame to be able to buy an item of that cost without the chronicle sheet or it is gear the character has no use for.

Since the Pathfinder Society (in game) is a collective group with a tenant to cooperate, I would like to see more shared between a player’s pool of characters. If your fighter acquires a partially used wand of magic missile, assume it is returned to the lodge for your magic user to later use.

The same would hold true for some boons based upon new knowledges acquired or NPCs influenced. If a player’s -1 character discovers a safe path through the mountains, assume that he/she mentions that in his report and if the player’s -2 character returns there, he/she would know about said safe path. Also, if character -1 influences an NPC, then the NPC may have more respect for other Pathfinders, including character -2.

If gear is going to be printed on chronicle sheets, then making it available at reduced cost would have an impact on the items that are kept after an adventure. That would add extra flavor to characters’ stories, because they can share exactly how they acquired the items they’re using. Rather than simply buying a cloak of resistance, they will have a story of the item being taken from an orc chieftain. With the few sessions of 5e AL I’ve played, the magic items all had stories to them.

[defectivecandy]

Janice Piette wrote:

While I like the idea of not wasting paper, I am against a digital-only solution.

The reality is that many games already never get reported online, or are reported incorrectly. Increasing the number of things that need to be reported will only make for more opportunities to get things wrong.

As a GM, I don’t need the extra burden of reporting detailed data, and dealing with players who dispute the online record. As a player, I don’t want my characters’ rewards to rely on the reporting accuracy of someone that I may never see again.

As someone waiting on two conventions worth of missing stuff as both a player & a GM I concur with this sentiment.

[Gozer "Bone Splitter"]

I have almost never bought an item from a chronicle sheet and think besides having it for special items not normally found or out of fame level items, and items like wands with charges it should go. I would love to see a boon/ability/token whatever on every chronicle instead of some of the ones I have that have nothing but unusable loot. I literally have multiple chronicle sheets I wish I could throw out because they are all loot and provide no benefit to my characters.

[nosig]

Todd Reidenbach wrote:

One of the most common topics I hear discussed from players is that the vast majority of gear listed on chronicle sheets is not relevant to the player’s character that earned it. Either the character has earned enough Fame to be able to buy an item of that cost without the chronicle sheet or it is gear the character has no use for.

Since the Pathfinder Society (in game) is a collective group with a tenant to cooperate, I would like to see more shared between a player’s pool of characters. If your fighter acquires a partially used wand of magic missile, assume it is returned to the lodge for your magic user to later use.

The same would hold true for some boons based upon new knowledges acquired or NPCs influenced. If a player’s -1 character discovers a safe path through the mountains, assume that he/she mentions that in his report and if the player’s -2 character returns there, he/she would know about said safe path. Also, if character -1 influences an NPC, then the NPC may have more respect for other Pathfinders, including character -2.

If gear is going to be printed on chronicle sheets, then making it available at reduced cost would have an impact on the items that are kept after an adventure. That would add extra flavor to characters’ stories, because they can share exactly how they acquired the items they’re using. Rather than simply buying a cloak of resistance, they will have a story of the item being taken from an orc chieftain. With the few sessions of 5e AL I’ve played, the magic items all had stories to them.

Along with earlier posts, this post sparked an idea... (and quite honestly it might be creating to much paperwork - but heck, PFS does stand for "Paperwork, Forms and Signatures" right?)

What if we split what is tracked on the Chronicle into two parts?

Part one we'll call the Experience Tracker, and it's something like the ITS. It has entries for Adventures (maybe just a Code Number like #2-09), EX., PP, and Money gained. Basically what is on the right hand column of the CR now. Along with a place for the judge to sign-off on it. A number of these adventure tracking lines or boxes would be on each XP tracker, say 6... so you would need a XP sheet every two or so levels.

Part two we'll call the Loot Tracker, and on it is listed any items recovered by the PC. A player could then just transfer the Loot captured from one of his PCs to another by moving the Loot Tracker from one PC to the other ... - perhaps even allowing the PC access to buy items listed on the "Loot Tracker" at a discount. So if your character #1 "Sir Chopsalot" recovered a partially charged wand of Magic Missile, he could drop it off at the Lodge, where your character #4 "Bookish the Wizard" could buy it at a discount and perhaps even gain knowledge of the Exploits Of Sir Chopsalot and what he encountered when he recovered said wand... (and the Lodge would clearly take a cut off the top, after all, they provided a service...).

So with each of your PCs you would have one or more Experience Trackers, used to determine what level, and how much money and fame/prestige your PC has currently. You would also have any "Loot Sheets" he had bought from the lodge, and perhaps any he recovered himself....

I'm sure someone smarter than me could refine this idea even more...

[Michael Hallet]

I think the only time I've bought an item off a chronicle that I could have waited for sufficient fame was a purchasing a cloak of resistance +1 before I had the 9 fame required.

[Friendly "Fire"]

Gozer "Bone Splitter" wrote:

I have almost never bought an item from a chronicle sheet and think besides having it for special items not normally found or out of fame level items, and items like wands with charges it should go. I would love to see a boon/ability/token whatever on every chronicle instead of some of the ones I have that have nothing but unusable loot. I literally have multiple chronicle sheets I wish I could throw out because they are all loot and provide no benefit to my characters.

and as I run a number of Exchange PCs who gain discounts (yeah 5%!)on items found on CRs I often pay close attention to the mundane items that appear...

[Angel Hunter D]

Rather than limiting availability, I think having cool stuff on chronicles would be more fun - a butchering axe, Gamin, Amnesis, getting bleached by wayangs - those are things I get excited about.

those boxes for tracking sales and purchases were a lifesaver and I miss them.

[Dustin Knight]

So if we run an AP in campaign mode using Pathfinder II rules, we can assign Chronicle Sheets to Pathfinder I characters?

Likewise, if we run a future AP written for Pathfinder II using Pathfinder I rules, we will be able to assign Chronicle Sheets to Pathfinder II characters?

[ElterAgo]

I agree the 'rewards' system on the chronicle sheets rarely met with much satisfaction. I have purchased a few of partially full wands, small groups of arrows, and I think one scroll. That's about it.
By the time I can afford it I could buy it anyway.
The very small number of unique items were never on the character that could use it unless I replayed or GM'd it specifically to get that item. A lot of players don't like doing that. To them it feels like cheating.
Almost none of the other benefits have ever applied either. Got a +1 vs. dragons, +2 vs followers of Lissala, +x with Cheliax nobility, -X% to purchase in city Y, many etc... Not a single one of the characters that got those ever encountered another one of what the boon applied to.

I've really almost stopped even examining my chronicle sheets when I get them. Let alone looking back over them to see if I can get any use out of them during a scenario.

I would also like it if there was a bit of a description of what the adventure was about on the chronicle sheet so I would ave a better chance of remembering the scenario.

[NightTrace]

A lot of this has been touched on, but I'll reiterate it.

Make Chronicle Sheet loot matter, either from Discount or unique creation.

Watermark everything so we don't have to worry about jerks running black market boon/chronicle sheet trades.

I would like to see more Faction benefits on Chronicle Sheets that aren't a +1 or equivalent unlock. There is a real opportunity to flesh out inner organizational structures and introduce subgroups/sub-factions by use of Chronicle Sheet choices.

More Vanities, always more Vanities ;)

[Kurald Galain]

I have only two issues with the way chronicles work now.

The first one is that lots of chronicles devote a LOT of space to listing items that you can normally buy anyway. This strikes me as a waste of time and space. Don't give (e.g.) a Pearl of Power III as loot when the rules clearly state that anyone can buy those already anyway. Also, don't give out loot that is WAY above what characters can afford at the adventure level.

The second is that many of the newer ones are just too darn long. Instead of giving five separate small results that you all get at the same time, give a single one that's big and more meaningful. Narrow situational bonuses are annoying (e.g. +1 to bluff checks against elves in Lastwall, or whatever); basically too fiddly to bother remembering.

I love reputation boons, i.e. such-and-such faction (or person) loves or hates your character now, and this will impact future scenarios. Related to this, I love mutually exclusive outcomes, i.e. depending on your choices in the scenario you get either this boon or that boon (or either the love or hatred of such-and-such faction).

Finally, I completely disagree that players should do their shopping under the supervision of the GM. Slot time is limited, and when we've got the PCs together I want to adventure, not watch other people think of what items to buy.

[Gozer "Bone Splitter"]

Kurald Galain wrote:

Narrow situational bonuses are annoying (e.g. +1 to bluff checks against elves in Lastwall, or whatever); basically too fiddly to bother remembering.

This... So much this!

[GM Thrawn]

Tallow wrote:

I think I'll revise an original opinion of mine. Not because it was wrong at the time, but rather because I think the culture of org play has changed. At least in MN, I don't think boons entice GMs anymore. Either they will or wont.

I can say for sure that boons entice GMs in my area. It's always a struggle to get GM's here, but it's usually easier to find convention GM's where there are boons than game day GM's when there are no boons. Our venture officers end up GMing far too many games in my area due to other GM's not stepping up.

[crashcanuck]

The RSP has been a big help in my area with getting GMs, to the point I'm now 2 months ahead in terms of scheduling games.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

[BigNorseWolf]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

*headscratch*

Okay, walk me through that thought process..

[Gary Bush]

Dustin Knight wrote:

So if we run an AP in campaign mode using Pathfinder II rules, we can assign Chronicle Sheets to Pathfinder I characters?

Likewise, if we run a future AP written for Pathfinder II using Pathfinder I rules, we will be able to assign Chronicle Sheets to Pathfinder II characters?

Good questions. I am sure answers will be coming forward.

[Gary Bush]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

Are you saying that you don't play at a retail site all? Are all your games home games?

[UndeadMitch]

Gary Bush wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

Are you saying that you don't play at a retail site all? Are all your games home games?

Online play is a thing. There are plenty of people that aren’t able to play PFS in a retail location.

[Deane Beman]

Janice Piette wrote:

While I like the idea of not wasting paper, I am against a digital-only solution.

The reality is that many games already never get reported online, or are reported incorrectly. Increasing the number of things that need to be reported will only make for more opportunities to get things wrong.

As a GM, I don’t need the extra burden of reporting detailed data, and dealing with players who dispute the online record. As a player, I don’t want my characters’ rewards to rely on the reporting accuracy of someone that I may never see again.

True...but I'm my opinion it is problematic that we are currently utilizing two systems of keeping track of things that don't work well with one another. While I'm sure that the online reporting provides useful marketing information for Paizo, as one half of the checks and balances system for organized play it fails miserably.

If I were charged to rebuild the reporting system from the ground up it would look like this:

1. Campaign Journals: A player would be responsible for keeping an accurate campaign journal for each of their characters. This could exist in paper or electronic form. (If you choose an electronic form and for some reason it malfunctions congratulations...you're playing a pregen!) The first few pages of the journal will contain your character sheet and inventory sheet. Instead of a single chronicle sheet for each scenario multiple scenarios will be reported on each page (look to the PACG tracking sheets for inspiration.)

2. GMs will be responsible for reporting their games online similar to the way they do now; but the data will be for Paizo alone to see. GMs will receive incentives for timely reporting. (Quarterly rewards based on a point system perhaps?)

3. Pregens would be available for each tier of play.

4. Do your shopping on your own time...just make sure your inventory record is accurate. (It is insulting to think that players need supervision to accomplish simple arithmatic.)

Much of this requires a heavy reliance on the honor system which I realize some people are going to be uncomfortable with; but in practice our current system relies just as heavily on self policing as any other one would.

[rooneg]

Deane Beman wrote:

Janice Piette wrote:

While I like the idea of not wasting paper, I am against a digital-only solution.

The reality is that many games already never get reported online, or are reported incorrectly. Increasing the number of things that need to be reported will only make for more opportunities to get things wrong.

As a GM, I don’t need the extra burden of reporting detailed data, and dealing with players who dispute the online record. As a player, I don’t want my characters’ rewards to rely on the reporting accuracy of someone that I may never see again.

True...but I'm my opinion it is problematic that we are currently utilizing two systems of keeping track of things that don't work well with one another. While I'm sure that the online reporting provides useful marketing information for Paizo, as one half of the checks and balances system for organized play it fails miserably.

If I were charged to rebuild the reporting system from the ground up it would look like this:

1. Campaign Journals: A player would be responsible for keeping an accurate campaign journal for each of their characters. This could exist in paper or electronic form. (If you choose an electronic form and for some reason it malfunctions congratulations...you're playing a pregen!) The first few pages of the journal will contain your character sheet and inventory sheet. Instead of a single chronicle sheet for each scenario multiple scenarios will be reported on each page (look to the PACG tracking sheets for inspiration.)

2. GMs will be responsible for reporting their games online similar to the way they do now; but the data will be for Paizo alone to see. GMs will receive incentives for timely reporting. (Quarterly rewards based on a point system perhaps?)

3. Pregens would be available for each tier of play.

4. Do your shopping on your own time...just make sure your inventory record is accurate. (It is insulting to think that players need supervision to accomplish simple arithmatic.)

Much of this...

FWIW, this is fairly similar to how things work in 5e Adventurers League (minus the GM reporting bit, there's no centralized reporting at all there). In practice it works fine. There is clearly cheating that happens, but when it's blatant a DM can audit the logs. If players are particularly motivated they can craft logs that stand up to an audit, but honestly I've DMed for several years now and never even been in a position where I felt the need to audit someone. If a player is cheating that's unfortunate, but if it's done in such a way that I don't notice and everyone at the table still has fun I'm not going to get upset about it.

[Gary Bush]

UndeadMitch wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

Are you saying that you don't play at a retail site all? Are all your games home games?

Online play is a thing. There are plenty of people that aren’t able to play PFS in a retail location.

Ok, didn't the online community get something similar to the RSP?

[Saint Caleth]

I think they are still working out how that will happen. But fingers crossed.

[Gwenn Reece]

I want a good way of having digital chronicle sheets accessible via Paizo's website as a player so that if I lose anything I can just go online and print off a copy of what I had from that mission.

I don't know that there is a good way to do this, but it's something I would love to have available.

Having my character in hero lab lets me grab my character sheet from anywhere, but if I want to play that character at a convention I need to drag a load of binders with me.

[Swiftbrook]

It’s been almost 10 years, but I still remember the excitement I felt every time I earned an Adventure Record (aka Chronicle sheet) with Living Greyhawk. I didn’t actually remember why I was excited, so I took a job down memory lane, dug up my tracking sheets, and this is what I found:

PFS turned special (as in special materials) into mundane, common, mediocre. Everyone is walking around in a shiny new mithral chain shirt. The dwarf fighter has an adamantine war axe as soon as he can afford it. They are so common that they are boring! And it makes them into a must have.

So my suggestions, in no particular order ….

General Ideas:

Lower the gp value of items that you can purchase according to fame. This makes items on Chronicle Sheets more appealing.

When purchasing via Fame, make it a per faction limit, not a total Fame limit. So if I have 12 Fame with the Grand Lodge and 6 Fame with the Shadow Lodge, I can only purchase up to the 12 Fame limit, not the 18 limit.

Limit special materials that are “always available” to Cold Iron or alchemical silver.

Limit the size of items purchased to the PC size only.

Add items to Chronicle Sheets such as allowing specific weapon and/or shield upgrades. Don’t list the item as a +2 Mithral, Bashing Heavy Shield for 10,520 gp. Instead offer upgrade any one shield up to +2; add the Bashing ability to any light or heavy shield; you found enough Mithral for 1,500 GP of weapons or armor/shield. It also avoids the problem of ‘well I’m playing a wizard, so these will never be of use to me.’

Specific Ideas:

Boon: You have aided the Hellknight cause and they are willing to help you. By spending 1 prestige point, you may increase your limit to purchase an item by ______ (10%, 1,000 gp, your level time 1,000 gp). You may use this friendship up to three times, all of which may be on the same item).

Boons/Access like ‘the Queen of Paizo Land offers you one of the following’. Then there are four lists of items. A martial type list, a spellcasting type list, two spells added to your spellbook for free, and finally a list of a few rare cool items.

I really liked this one for one of my LG ARs: "One weapon of at least masterwork quality was touched by the essence of Silvermane. The celestial energies imbued the weapon with latent power that can only be coaxed out by a spellcaster. If the weapon is currently nonmagical, it must be upgraded first to a +1 enhancement before applying this benefit. For 1,000 gp, the celestial power of the magic weapon can be brought forth. Once this is done, the weapon ever after functions as good-alighted for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. If this weapon is lost, destroyed, or sold, this benefit cannot be applied to another weapon."

[eddv]

I want to echo that - there should be an easy digital version of the chronicles. Making them pdf fillable would be a huge boon to the growing online community and I know a good many players that would love to be able to have everything digitally so that they can bring a single tablet with all of their information across all of their characters on it.

As it stands now I literally have two accordion files full of character sheets and chronicles and a third with RSP boons and frankly it really is just too much and there should be a better and more modern way to handle it.

[Belafon]

Gregg Reece wrote:

I want a good way of having digital chronicle sheets accessible via Paizo's website as a player so that if I lose anything I can just go online and print off a copy of what I had from that mission.

I don't know that there is a good way to do this, but it's something I would love to have available.

As a player I really like the idea of downloadable chronicle sheets.

As a GM and organizer, I can see that downloadable chronicle sheets would either result in blander chronicles or require far more input work.

Right now if you report an event, you put in each character number, name, faction, and fame gained, along with up to four boxes for scenario tracking (choices the PCs made). (With a checkbox for "dead" that is rarely used.) If I wanted to completely report a current PFS chronicle, here is all I would need to enter:

• Character Name
  
• PFS Number
  
• Faction
  
• Fame gained
  
• Gold gained (because you don't always get max)
  
• Gold spent
  
• Day Job result
  
• Any chronicle-specific boons gained/not gained. (The most efficient way to implement this is checkboxes for the reporter. However this would require someone on Paizo's end to customize each reportable entry. It would also require some way of passing the information from the GM to the reporter if they are not the same person – this is very common.)
  
• Scratch out all equipment on the chronicle that was not found. (See last item, this is an even bigger problem if the GM is not the reporter.)
  
• Notes for allowable carryover conditions (permanent negative levels, ability drain, nonmechanical effects.

That's a lot of work, particularly the boons and equipment bits (the boons gained can even vary within a party for some scenarios.) In order to allow the game to function there would have to be vast simplification in what the chronicles do.

[Arnim Thayer]

I wanted to discuss some of the finer points of what Dustin Knight and others have said, specifically...

Dustin Knight wrote:

3. Loot: I feel like the list of magic items you find in the adventure is unnecessary. They took up a ton of room on the sheet and I've had several (new) players think they could only buy items from chronicle sheets. This doesn't apply to things like limited charge wands/ammunition or otherwise restricted items, of course. Maybe if they were discounted because you found them, people might want them. But merely “unlocking them” isn't really a great award: by the time you can reasonably afford them, you'll have the fame.

This mirrors a lot of feedback I receive as well. Make loot matter seems to be a common rallying cry. While I understand the reason items are listed on the Chronicle (because they are listed as treasure throughout the scenario), anything commonly available should never be listed. This makes a little more sense with the Core Campaign, but I expect to see that fade out with 2E (a discussion for another time) and see no need for a Core 2E campaign immediately on release of new rule set. Unless Paizo sees a need for that campaign mode in the future, eliminating the commonly accessible items frees up the Chronicle for other ideas.

Dustin Knight wrote:

4. Notes: I wish the chronicle sheets had a space on the bottom to encourage note-taking. For practical purposes, players can use it to track what items they found in the scenario, what items they are purchasing, what enemies they fought or just what city the scenario took place in. It also always warms my heart when GMs write notes on my chronicle sheets, and makes them special records beyond telling me when I played a game.

At every game I've ran, there is someone taking notes... even if ALL players should be. Having a space on the Chronicle encourages the player to do so, but that means giving out the Chronicle (with its list of potential loot!) to the players to hold onto from the beginning of the scenario. This idea has merit though. With the idea of Boons being treated much like they are in Starfinder, I can see less space needed for Boons on the actual Chronicle sheet, giving us more room for this,

Dustin Knight wrote:

5. Circles: I wish the boons all had circles the GMs could check off instead of having to cross out boons players didn't earn. It makes more sense to me and feels more positive that a GM should verify a boon was "earned" rather than "lost". It makes the sheets look less sloppy to have paragraphs crossed out by hand. It would also help players without access to the adventure to read the boon they missed, potentially luring them into GMing it for others.

I agree with this. Crossing out items on a Chronicle makes the Chronicle itself look sloppy and unprofessional, no matter how much care a GM takes. Making everything a positive instead of a negative is a great way to move the campaign forward and gives a consistent feel to each Chronicle.

One suggestion I'd like to add to all of these: As a frequent PFS GM, I've had the advantage to run quite a few different scenarios including the Bonekeep series. One innovation used in Bonekeep was a Tracking sheet for not only the afflictions/negatives a player might accumulate, but also each individual item of value found, with a check box for "Found" beside it. In the future, it would be helpful for potential Afflictions (Poison, Disease, etc.) to be listed on the Chronicle, so GMs remember to have the condition resolved by the session's end. A check box for "condition resolved" would move that forward, while not having it checked means such as a detriment might play forward through another adventure. In a home game, this might happen; in PFS, it often gets hand-waved at the end by the use of GP or Prestige. In addition, adding a "item found" column to the magic items might be more helpful and cleaner than a simple list that gets crossed off otherwise.

That is my thoughts. YMMV

[Cyrad]

1) Design the chronicle sheet in a way where a GM only needs to quickly write vital information.. The chronicle sheet process in the guild guide is so tedious and time consuming that almost no GM I met actually follows that process strictly. We don't have time to waste shuffling 6 documents back and forth between players and the GM, especially at a convention when there's a rush to vacate the table. Worse is that the guide says players are supposed to make all purchasing decisions at the table, which is completely infeasible. The only vital part of the entire process is the GM writing who the sheet is for, what rewards they get, and their new permanent conditions (if any). Purchases don't need to happen at the table and would be better tracked on a ledger (see below). Change the guild guide and the chronicle sheet accordingly.

2) Use a ledger, not a tracking sheet. Tracking every purchase/change on a pile of chronicle sheets and a poorly laid out tracking sheet is a book keeping nightmare. Replace the tracking sheet with a sequential ledger and have all earnings, purchases, character changes tracked on that instead of chronicle sheets. This centralizes your character's progression to a single document and makes it easier to audit because discrepancies become much more obvious.

[Fabian Stretton]

Chronical Sheet items - hope for a better system.

This isn't exactly on topic, but this is the nearest location I can find for what I wanted to raise.
The chronical items you have made available from organised play are rarely of any use.

First, almost without exception they are items your character can simply go shopping for and buy. So of no benefit at all in any way at all.

Second: They cost what it would cost to go buy them new. Comes back to the same point - This is NO benefit whatsoever.

(The one exception is partially charged wands - cost per shot is higher, but makes overall cost lower}

In 40+ games, I have seen two sets of items that actually had any value.
- A non-magical mask that boosts intimidate rolls by +2, excellent item.
- A range of poisons (noting that poison is often not available)

I did see an intelligent weapon once - usable by less than 10% of players, noting that Lawful Neutral is a less common alignment.
It cost a fortune and simply wasn't that good. None of the powers was likely to see much use.

Solutions include:
Chronicle items should be half price cos that's what you SELL them for
- This would would single handedly resolve the main problem.
- Chronicle items would be better than the ones you can go and buy.

For boons. Almost all are waaaay too circumstantial. MY characters between them have 40+ "boons". Never had the opportunity to use one.
e.g. half price healing in Lower Lichtenstein west - who goes there.
e.g. +2 on bluff when lying to hell nights (way to get yourself killed)
Make these actually worth remembering and less circumstantial.

The only one that was any use was a full day adventure that gave you a permanent +1 Fort save vs Poison and Disease. Not big, still circumstantial, but it worked ANYWHERE, and was actually worth noting.

[Ascalaphus]

Kevin Willis wrote:

Gregg Reece wrote:

I want a good way of having digital chronicle sheets accessible via Paizo's website as a player so that if I lose anything I can just go online and print off a copy of what I had from that mission.

I don't know that there is a good way to do this, but it's something I would love to have available.

As a player I really like the idea of downloadable chronicle sheets.

As a GM and organizer, I can see that downloadable chronicle sheets would either result in blander chronicles or require far more input work.

Right now if you report an event, you put in each character number, name, faction, and fame gained, along with up to four boxes for scenario tracking (choices the PCs made). (With a checkbox for "dead" that is rarely used.) If I wanted to completely report a current PFS chronicle, here is all I would need to enter:

• Character Name
  
• PFS Number
  
• Faction
  
• Fame gained
  
• Gold gained (because you don't always get max)
  
• Gold spent
  
• Day Job result
  
• Any chronicle-specific boons gained/not gained. (The most efficient way to implement this is checkboxes for the reporter. However this would require someone on Paizo's end to customize each reportable entry. It would also require some way of passing the information from the GM to the reporter if they are not the same person – this is very common.)
  
• Scratch out all equipment on the chronicle that was not found. (See last item, this is an even bigger problem if the GM is not the reporter.)
  
• Notes for allowable carryover conditions (permanent negative levels, ability drain, nonmechanical effects.

That's a lot of work, particularly the boons and equipment bits (the boons gained can even vary within a party for some scenarios.) In order to allow the game to function there would have to be vast simplification in what the chronicles do.

This could be a lot simpler though if you see the adventure as a sequence of encounters that the players either succeed or fail, pretty much completely. For each succesful encounter, check its box, and your online sheet gets loot and gold filled in for it.

[BigNorseWolf]

I really don't see the point of trying anything online.

1) every week the new guy shows up here and says "hey, my game didn't get reported i'm still legit level 2 right?" Reporting is what, around 50ish percent?

2) which means... you need to keep track of your own stuff anyway. Imagine if not having the games reported WAS a big deal.

3) reporting is a big enough pain as it is.

[TimD]

Any wish list I would have would depend on how much effort Paizo would be willing to expend in revising their online system.

Kevin brought up a lot of good points about the issues in reporting.

My ideal would be to have an option once a game is reported is to have a form for each chronicle sheet that I can go in as a player and select / deselect things on the chronicle sheet and put in my own notes for posterity / future tracking with no onus on the GM / reporter to do anything with it, but that would allow me an option to digitally track (or recreate if necessary) what happened on those adventures. Add in something similar if the GM wants to log notes (and have the GM log in using their PFS # as a player so that it isn't driven by the reporter who may not be the GM), but again with no required onus on the GM to do so.

Paizo could also add a review system or some other commonly requested metric (complexity / time to completion / etc.) that might also encourage more feedback from players / GMs than scenarios normally get.

That said, I wholly admit it's probably a bit of a pipe dream because I'm sure the coding resources necessary would be far from negligible for the web team, who already seems perpetually strained.

[Neriathale]

I would like to see a couple of lines added to the chronicle that say "This took place in Katapesh, the VC who sent you was Drandle Dreng and the mission involved locating the missing daughter of a grippli diplomat". Something more than the title of the adventure as a memory jogger. when trying to think which character it was that had a specific experience.

[Belafon]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Kevin Willis wrote:

...stuff...

This could be a lot simpler though if you see the adventure as a sequence of encounters that the players either succeed or fail, pretty much completely. For each succesful encounter, check its box, and your online sheet gets loot and gold filled in for it.

I mostly agree with you here Lau. There's the rare occasion where one party might do something off the wall that invalidates part of a reward. And there are some encounters/areas where parties that don't have the proper skills aren't going to get full loot, such as getting an enemy's +1 shortsword and masterwork hide armor, but failing to notice the loose flagstone concealing 128 gp. A slight simplification of the rewards system could take care of most of those issues.

However the big problem is that it requires someone on Paizo's end to go through each chronicle and tie the loot and gold for each encounter to a particular check box. Is that impossible? Of course not. But it would require Paizo to dedicate more resources to the campaign.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not everyone has their weekends off, and this sometimes gets missed in the RSP calculations.

*headscratch*

Okay, walk me through that thought process..

The Not-So-Local Friendly Gaming Stores have PFS/SFS events on the weekends.

I work in retail (non-gaming store).

This locks out 99% of weekends unless I take a vacation day to play, and I'm typically trying to save those for things like PaizoCon, GenCon, and other local conventions I may GM at.

As a result, in the past year or so since RSP began, I've had *one* opportunity to play at a NSLFGS.

Had one opportunity to GM a Special table, but came down with winter flu bug for a week and had to cancel.

Most of my play has been either conventions or online, and thank goodness that it was at least an option.

[Ascalaphus]

Kevin Willis wrote:

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Kevin Willis wrote:

...stuff...

This could be a lot simpler though if you see the adventure as a sequence of encounters that the players either succeed or fail, pretty much completely. For each succesful encounter, check its box, and your online sheet gets loot and gold filled in for it.

I mostly agree with you here Lau. There's the rare occasion where one party might do something off the wall that invalidates part of a reward. And there are some encounters/areas where parties that don't have the proper skills aren't going to get full loot, such as getting an enemy's +1 shortsword and masterwork hide armor, but failing to notice the loose flagstone concealing 128 gp. A slight simplification of the rewards system could take care of most of those issues.

However the big problem is that it requires someone on Paizo's end to go through each chronicle and tie the loot and gold for each encounter to a particular check box. Is that impossible? Of course not. But it would require Paizo to dedicate more resources to the campaign.

I don't think that's very different from "if the PCs don't win this encounter reduce their gold by X" that we have right now.

Current rules for creative solutions/succeeding at encounters without slaughter already allow for the party to gain all the loot that they would have otherwise plucked from corpses. Formalizing the process wouldn't be that hard.

[Gary Bush]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

2) which means... you need to keep track of your own stuff anyway. Imagine if not having the games reported WAS a big deal.

Not like we have any examples of a major con not being completely reported a few months after it was over.

[Belafon]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Current rules for creative solutions/succeeding at encounters without slaughter already allow for the party to gain all the loot that they would have otherwise plucked from corpses. Formalizing the process wouldn't be that hard.

That's not exactly what I meant. There are some scenarios where an encounter has multiple "levels" of rewards possible. Such as:

1. If the PCs succeed in making the tribefolk

• Friendly, they give the PCs [treasure worth 500 gp each].
  
• Helpful, they give the PCs [treasure worth 1250 gp each].

2. If the PCs search the room,

• A DC 20 Perception check reveals a safe with [treasure worth 78 gp each]
  
• A DC 30 Perception check reveals that the safe has a false bottom, concealing [treasure worth 211 gp each]

I've GMed scenarios that have rewards very similar to those examples. I'm not saying it's impossible to do this as a series of checkboxes. I'd love it if it was done that way. But it's going to require more effort on Paizo's part to set up the reporting forms and ensuring the scenario reporting instructions match up. My first wish would of course be that Paizo could commit to hiring the resources needed to do so.