Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Trying to check if Starfinder follows the Pathfinder policy of ignoring the pregens when determining APL. The Guide doesn't really say anything either way.
Tonight's game for me could wind up with levels 5, 6, 8, and pregen. If the pregen is counted, our average swings into high tier (6.75); without them it stays low (6.3).
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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There is no policy of ignoring pregens when determing APL in Pathfinder. The season 10 guide at long last makes this explicit:
The selection of pregenerated characters might
affect the APL. In some cases, there is one pregenerated
character level that is clearly more fitting to the PCs’
levels, such as when all or most of the PCs fall in the
same subtier. In corner cases, the GM should choose the
level of pregenerated characters to provide a fun and fair
experience for her table.
Previously, we already had some guidance that everyone, not just pregens, should try to be in the same subtier:
Within each tier, PCs or pregenerated characters should
be used in the subtier in which they fall whenever possible,
but they may be adjusted up or down, based on the Average
Party Level at the table, as outlined below.
So that's a bit of a chicken and egg rule. You should pick a character that fits in the subtier being played, but the subtier is determined by the character you pick.
That second quote also appears almost identically in the SFS guide; the first one doesn't. Anyway, there's nothing in either guide that suggests pregen levels aren't factored into APL.
Rather, the guides make it clear that you "should" aim for all characters (PCs and pregens) to be in the same subtier. (Should, not must: it's a guideline because in-tier tables tend to be better balanced and more fun. But there can be good reasons to differ, for example if a player would be forced to play a pregen instead of their regular character, or if it would break up a group that's been playing a series of scenarios together. It's guidance, not a rigid rule.)
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In your situation, that could be rough. I wouldn't really want to rely on the starfinder pregens to pull their weight if the party has to play up.
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Hopefully Guide 2.0 has more guidance.
This question came up at PaizoCon this weekend. A Tier 1-4 scenario with Levels 1, 3, 3 and three people who needed Pregens.
With just the three actual characters present, the APL was 2.33, which meant playing down, selecting Level 1 Pregens, and the two Level 3s being out-of-tier with reduced rewards. The two 3s didn't want reduced rewards, and the Level 1 liked the idea of increased rewards, so the group ended up being 4, 4, 4, 3, 3 and 1.
In PFS, there was only one Tier where the Pregen was known: Tier 7-11. Every other Tier you had the option of 2 (or even 3) different Pregens. In SFS, the only Tier where the Pregen isn't known is 1-4.
So we will likely need some new language.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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PFS also only has known pregen in 5-9. It's just the 1-5, 1-7 and 3-7 that have multiple options.
Regarding your PaizoCon situation: that seems exactly like the way it should be handled. Selecting pregens and subtier should go hand in hand, so that as many players as possible are playing in the right subtier.
There's enough wiggle room in "should" that you can diverge from that. I allowed someone to play a L7 Seelah in the low tier of Beyond Azlant Ridge. I got looks from my RVC from across the table, but after actual play he agreed that made total sense.
It's good that the PFS guide now explicitly puts the final decision on what level of pregen to permit with the GM, because previously a lot of discussion on this topic was by people worried that players would use high-level pregens to dominate low-tier games.
I would not take the absence of that language in the SFS guide as an indication that you should do something different. I attribute that to overzealous attempts to keep the guides compact, not to a desire to use a different rule.
Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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I agree, GM Discretion is nice.
I also talk to my players as well (and being somewhat over zealous) I generally have all options in our local games worked out (which level pregens and which level PC's would lead to what subtiers) and then just give them all the option of deciding.
I totally understand if no-one else does that, but I want to my players to have fun, and challenge them somewhat too!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I think the GM have discretion is good.
GM discretion is good to settle arguments (mostly in PFS). Some people were afraid people were gaming the pregens to have L4 pregens playing in low tier I guess. That lead to some mental gymnastics to contrive that pregens shouldn't be included in APL calculations but added afterwards according to the tier.
That's just not correct however. It's just not. in. the. text.
PFS pretty much solved it by giving the GM the last word and saying in-tier characters from everyone would be preferable. So you run a thought experiment. "What if we took the L4 pregen, where would we end up. What if we took the L7 pregen, where would we end up." The result that has most people in-tier is nicest.
It gives enough wiggle room. You don't have to exclude Tim, who really wants to play the last part of this three-part adventure with the same character that's played the previous parts, who's now in the high tier. You also don't want to exclude his friends, who are 1 XP behind and still on low tier, because he liked SFS so much that he brought them along after his first game.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Random thought: would things be easier if we had different-level pregens? What if we had pregens at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9?
You could reduce the "the pregen pulls us into high tier" angst. A pregen on the bottom side of high tier (3, 5) would not be so upsetting as one on the high side (4, 8).
Starfinder Society Developer
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Random thought: would things be easier if we had different-level pregens? What if we had pregens at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9?
*laughs until head explodes*
Seriously, I'd love to have a wider stable of pregens to work with, but it certainly requires time and resources in order for us to get going. My main focus, for the "soon-er-ish kinda" future, is making sure we get the new Character Operations Manual classes ready for when the book goes live!
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I've never seen it in the guide but I have been hearing people quoting this rule recently. I think it grew on it's own legs. And grew out of pregens should be selected in the tiers after the tier level is selected.
Just as mentioned above. If you are playing a tier 1 to 5 and the actual characters are in the 1 to 3 range, 4th level pregens shouldn't be selected to bump up the scenario tier played.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Just as mentioned above. If you are playing a tier 1 to 5 and the actual characters are in the 1 to 3 range, 4th level pregens shouldn't be selected to bump up the scenario tier played.
Well, that might not be too bad. Sometimes you have a party where the choice of pregen will break a tie. For example, you have a 1-4 scenario four players with levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 and a fifth suddenly walks into the store. If you pick a level 1 it'll be low tier with two high-tier characters (can be kinda lame), if you pick a level 4 you have high tier with two people playing up (can be rather spicy).
If you'd have a party of 2, 2, 2, 3, 3 already you could go high tier with a L4 pregen, or low tier with a L1 pregen. The low tier would be somewhat preferable because then you have 4/6 people in tier instead of only 3/6.
But what really shouldn't happen is that you have a party of 1, 1, 1 and someone picks up a L4 pregen.
(The elimination of the between-tier in Starfinder really reduces the amount of edge cases I could come up with.)
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Random thought: would things be easier if we had different-level pregens? What if we had pregens at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9?*laughs until head explodes*
Seriously, I'd love to have a wider stable of pregens to work with, but it certainly requires time and resources in order for us to get going. My main focus, for the "soon-er-ish kinda" future, is making sure we get the new Character Operations Manual classes ready for when the book goes live!
The other issue that arises is from an Organizational standpoint.
IN PERSON VOs and GMs
As a GM in a physical location, you've already committed to bringing pregens in levels 1, 4, and 8. This is alot to haul already when you add in Welcome to Starfinder Boons and Organized Play Numbers.
I could see a GM deciding that printing pregens as a courtesy is too much trouble if we were to add multiple new pregen tiers.
IN PERSON CONVENTIONS
The more we expand the levels available, the more we have print and have folders for. This takes up a number of resources:
Not to mention extra trips to the emergency room for Thursty's poor exploded head.
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PREGENS in 5-8 Scenarios
On the other hand, both my three person tables at PaizoCon wound up playing up because they had to take an eighth level pregen to fill the table. This made the scenario that I was GMing especially challenging for them. Thank goodness for the four player adjustment!