PFS 2e Society Guide

[TwilightKnight]

Personally, I prefer to have the print options be divided by section like they are listed online. That way I can focus on character creation and maybe factions when spinning up a new player or the GM section when I am mentoring a newer GM. I don’t want to have to download the entire Guide.

[GM Lamplighter]

New players aren’t going to know what they need, though. I think it’s fair to say that VOs aren’t the most representative audience here.

Thanks, Jared, for all the work you’re doing on this!

[azjauthor]

Another point for consideration:

The character creation page details "Retail Incentive Program," but what is described there is the reward for having Pathfinder merchandise (faction pins, t-shirts, bags, etc), rather than what is recognizable as "Retail Incentive Program" in PFS1 or SFS, where there's a bonus for spending certain amounts in the store.

Is the intention that buying gaming product in the stores (unless it is Pathfinder branded merch) won't gain a reward at the table?

[Ascalaphus]

azjauthor wrote:

Another point for consideration:

The character creation page details "Retail Incentive Program," but what is described there is the reward for having Pathfinder merchandise (faction pins, t-shirts, bags, etc), rather than what is recognizable as "Retail Incentive Program" in PFS1 or SFS, where there's a bonus for spending certain amounts in the store.

Is the intention that buying gaming product in the stores (unless it is Pathfinder branded merch) won't gain a reward at the table?

Good question! The retail incentive has been pretty popular among the stores where we play. They mostly sell snacks and drinks to us, but people also tend to do their boardgame buys on game days because of it. It looks good to the store owners.

[Cirithiel]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

azjauthor wrote:

Another point for consideration:

The character creation page details "Retail Incentive Program," but what is described there is the reward for having Pathfinder merchandise (faction pins, t-shirts, bags, etc), rather than what is recognizable as "Retail Incentive Program" in PFS1 or SFS, where there's a bonus for spending certain amounts in the store.

Is the intention that buying gaming product in the stores (unless it is Pathfinder branded merch) won't gain a reward at the table?

Good question! The retail incentive has been pretty popular among the stores where we play. They mostly sell snacks and drinks to us, but people also tend to do their boardgame buys on game days because of it. It looks good to the store owners.

So much this. I’d like to continue to incentivize players to buy merchandise at the stores we play in — none of which sell the T-shirts, pins, and book bags that are being discussed in this section.

I’m not sure how to best do so under the new rules, but maybe something like 1 extra hero point if you (personally) buy $10 of merch and 2 Hero Points if you buy $20+. But that might put us at risk of giving out too many hero points.

[GM Lamplighter]

I think this is a matter of things being improperly named in the conversion... I'm sure it will sort out.

[Ferious Thune]

The problem with tying it to purchases by an individual is that it can make people without the means to spend $10-$20 every time they go to a game feel like it’s becoming pay to win. The nice thing about the existing incentive program is that it’s per table, so even someone who can’t afford to spend money can still benefit from it if the table is spending money. I’d hate to see it go away from that to being based on individuals.

That problem exists for the rerolls for shirts/folios/etc. , but a one time $10 purchase is easier to manage than $10 per session. And I’ve seen people gift folios to others before.

[Grim Ranger]

(Still not sure how best to report issues, so just dropping them here; please let me know if there is a better way.)

Typo in the this section:

"The Task Level of you Earn Income check ...", should be "your Earn Income check".

[Kurt Wasiluk]

For what it’s worth, one more vote for having an official full pdf available at all times. I don’t want to have to pdf multiple sections or rely on the fan community to create full versions. Full Pdfs are easy ways to show more casual players what’s going on without them having to click through a bunch of stuff. Why not keep the pdf but update more frequently than once a year?

[Ascalaphus]

Cirithiel wrote:

So much this. I’d like to continue to incentivize players to buy merchandise at the stores we play in — none of which sell the T-shirts, pins, and book bags that are being discussed in this section.

I’m not sure how to best do so under the new rules, but maybe something like 1 extra hero point if you (personally) buy $10 of merch and 2 Hero Points if you buy $20+. But that might put us at risk of giving out too many hero points.

The current retail incentive system works with $10 or $50 spent as a table, that's a really big price hike.

Maybe 1 floating hero point for whoever at the table needs it most, if the table has bought at least $10 worth of things.

[azjauthor]

I don't remember the Incentive for PFS, but for SFS there's a couple of healing bonuses and if those aren't used, a bonus for the Day Job check. So maybe something like:

The first time in the adventure that you lose the dying condition, you may use this benefit to avoid gaining the wounded 1 condition.

The Earn Income checks could be similar to in SFS - Roll twice and take the best result, and +50% for the $50+ reward - or something different, like allow them to use Level-1 instead of Level-2 for the Earn Income check Task Level.

[TwilightKnight]

I don’t want to see the retail incentive to have anything to do with hero points. They should do other things similar to their function in 1E. Bonus Hero Points is a nice tie-in for the promotional item program, but we have to cultivate more diverse bonuses than simply throwing Hero Points around like candy. It will devalue some of the rewards we already offer like campaign coins and such.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

I don’t want to see the retail incentive to have anything to do with hero points. They should do other things similar to their function in 1E. Bonus Hero Points is a nice tie-in for the promotional item program, but we have to cultivate more diverse bonuses than simply throwing Hero Points around like candy. It will devalue some of the rewards we already offer like campaign coins and such.

Sounds like you would be in favour of it granting something like the ability to prevent your dying value increasing once, and/or making the flat check to recover while dying a bit easier.

[Grim Ranger]

Also from here:

"Crafting: Some characters may choose to spend their time Crafting a piece of equipment. This works as described on pages 503–504 the Core Rulebook."

Crafting is described on pages 244-245 of the CRB.

[John Woodford]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Cirithiel wrote:

So much this. I’d like to continue to incentivize players to buy merchandise at the stores we play in — none of which sell the T-shirts, pins, and book bags that are being discussed in this section.

I’m not sure how to best do so under the new rules, but maybe something like 1 extra hero point if you (personally) buy $10 of merch and 2 Hero Points if you buy $20+. But that might put us at risk of giving out too many hero points.

The current retail incentive system works with $10 or $50 spent as a table, that's a really big price hike.

Maybe 1 floating hero point for whoever at the table needs it most, if the table has bought at least $10 worth of things.

Possibly-obvious question: how would/does that play out in PbP games?

[Ferious Thune]

It doesn’t apply at all online currently, as there’s no physical store at which to spend the money.

[FLite]

Ascalaphus wrote:

@Jared: I think key things we need to make this a success are:

* Ability to download as a single-file document. Searching through a dozen pages on a phone at the table is not workable.

* Ability to search exhaustively for a term and be absolutely sure you found all references to it. Note that a single-file or single-page solution automatically enables this through Ctrl+F.

* Clear versioning. If someone downloaded or printed the guide as a file I need to be able to determine if I'm looking at a current version. Given that individual pages might get updated, this needs some thought on how to version single-page/file representations.

* A changelog to help us see what changed during updates.

* A notification system that we can subscribe to so that we stay on top of updates. Maybe enable RSS on the changelog page or a mailing list you can subscribe to for updates?

* One clear place where we can report questions/issues, so that they don't get lost.

All of these are things we are working on.

[FLite]

Grim Ranger wrote:

(Still not sure how best to report issues, so just dropping them here; please let me know if there is a better way.)

Typo in the this section:

"The Task Level of you Earn Income check ...", should be "your Earn Income check".

For now, this is good enough. Eventually, we hope to have a better system.

Also, fixed the typo, thanks.

[FLite]

Grim Ranger wrote:

Also from here:

"Crafting: Some characters may choose to spend their time Crafting a piece of equipment. This works as described on pages 503–504 the Core Rulebook."

Crafting is described on pages 244-245 of the CRB.

the player half of the rules are in one place, the GM half are in another.

Added reference to the rules on 244.

[FLite]

If I have favorited your post, it means I am working on getting an answer.

[Grim Ranger]

Thank you for all of your hard work on our behalf, Jared.

[CanisDirus]

Jared, first of all, thank you for all your work on this project!

Do you know if the guide will be updated to contain further/deeper explanations on what the boons purchased with Playtest Points do? The wording on several of those are less than clear. (The way John wrote about a few of them in a Blog post was really good, but their current appearance on the paizo website is somewhat limited). I know this one may be out of your purview but I figured it never hurts to ask!

Also, would it be possible to either get all of the text from the guide on a single page and/or make the whole guide searchable rather than doing it section-by-section?

I see where the prefix headers at the top of the page are going, but my local players and GMs who have looked through the guide so far have found them to be more confusing than helpful - not sure if there's anything to be done there, though.

Again, thanks for taking this thing on!

[Netopalis]

Personally, I am extremely happy to see the guide moved into a new format. Having to add the Guide to your account and download it through Paizo's abysmally-slow digital content page is a real barrier to entry. With this change, we can easily pull it up on any internet-connected device in seconds.

[TriOmegaZero]

And once the download as pdf feature is implemented I think this will be the ideal format for the guide.

[FLite]

Mike Bramnik wrote:

Jared, first of all, thank you for all your work on this project!

Do you know if the guide will be updated to contain further/deeper explanations on what the boons purchased with Playtest Points do? The wording on several of those are less than clear. (The way John wrote about a few of them in a Blog post was really good, but their current appearance on the paizo website is somewhat limited). I know this one may be out of your purview but I figured it never hurts to ask!

I think that will need to be an update to the playtest purchase engine, but I can see if I can get a temporary clarification page.

Please, message me with the specific boons and concerns.

[Shawn Merrow]

I'm also curious about the change to the Retail Incentive Program. This program helps generate a lot of good will between us and the store. They have limited gaming space but we stay on their radar as the group that is always spending money there. The program as done for 1st edition and Starfinder not only rewards the players but also the store for giving them space to run their games in. I really want to see this continue in some form for 2nd edition.

[Ed Reppert]

Heh. My FLGS doesn't give space to PF games. Why? Because back when PFS first got started, the guy who convinced them to give space to him to run PFS then didn't show up to run the first two or three scheduled games. Left a bad taste in their mouths, and they didn't (and don't) seem inclined to take another chance on it.

[TwilightKnight]

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

Sounds like you would be in favour of it granting something like the ability to prevent your dying value increasing once, and/or making the flat check to recover while dying a bit easier.

Sure. I liked the may we did the retail incentive in 1E. I just don't want to see us get "lazy" and use Hero Points as a default reward for all the various versions of a promotional boon.

I wonder if there will be a change in how we adjudicate the character portfolio turned character sheet pack. Dunno how many people noticed, but it now has fields on the back cover for OWNER and PATHFINDER SOCIETY #.

[azjauthor]

I looked at the Faction boons and see promotional boons for t-shirts and other Pathfinder branded items are outlined there. So as written, it would seem a Pathfinder t-shirt can earn 2 benefits.

[Laran]

Will the guide be updated with both Legal and NOT legal status for releases?

For example, should we assume that both the Lost Omens World Guide and Character Guide will NOT be legal for PFS since the guide has not been updated?

[Xathos of Varisia]

Laran wrote:

Will the guide be updated with both Legal and NOT legal status for releases?

For example, should we assume that both the Lost Omens World Guide and Character Guide will NOT be legal for PFS since the guide has not been updated?

As additional releases are sanctioned for PFS play, they are supposed to be incorporated into the Guild Guide when necessary. In addition, the Org Play website will be where the information on what is legal and what is not will be updated (at least as far as I understand it).

As for LOWG and LOCG, most elements in those will be PFS legal at some point. We just have to be patient and wait until the sanctioning process is completed. This process is usually between one to six months.

Do I like the length of time it takes to sanction stuff? NO
Am I glad they do sanction the additional content? YES

Right now they have to get the third person hired, straighten out the issues that cause the idiotic bottleneck like sanctioning, and catch up the backlog of stuff that needs to be done while at the same time keeping up the release schedule of PFS scenarios and quests and other sundry PFS related tasks.

[TwilightKnight]

Generally speaking the Guide and Additional Resources are inclusivity documents, meaning unless something is listed as legal, it is illegal. So yes, until they appear in the AR, the Lost Omen books are not legal for play

[Gary Bush]

azjauthor wrote:

I looked at the Faction boons and see promotional boons for t-shirts and other Pathfinder branded items are outlined there. So as written, it would seem a Pathfinder t-shirt can earn 2 benefits.

I don't see where it says what Paizo branded items qualify. It could be there, I just can't find it.

A single t-shirt wouldn't give benefits in two different ways.

[Dragnmoon]

Gary Bush wrote:

A single t-shirt wouldn't give benefits in two different ways.

There are 2 boons that work with a shirt. But since you can only slot 1 of the boons that is fine.

[Gary Bush]

Steven Lau wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

A single t-shirt wouldn't give benefits in two different ways.

There are 2 boons that work with a shirt. But since you can only slot 1 of the boons that is fine.

Ok so it is a boon that allows the use of the shirt. What is interesting is that the player gets a +1 to the Hero Point reroll.

[Luke McWilliams]

TwilightKnight wrote:

Dork Dad wrote:

We got a new head of organized play

Incorrect. We have the same Organized Play Manager, Tonya Woldridge who oversees the overall program. Linda Zayas-Palmer was a developer and was promoted to the Lead Developer for organized play. She oversees the writing/development of the scenarios and quests. Essentially, the difference is that Linda directs the in-game aspect of the campaign, while Tonya directs the out-of-game aspect of the campaign.

Dork Dad wrote:

Having this beta version of the society's guide on a website is a bad call.

It is not a beta version, it is the official Guide for PFS(2). It was decided to move the Guide to a digital version to make it easier to access and update. Players and GMs who need to access the information will be able to link directly to the section they need with their digital device in real time rather than having to carry around a printed product or download it to every device they need. It is expected that the amazing community for OPF will extract all the information and create their own printed version which will be available for those who absolutely want it in that format.

I/you/we can certainly argue as to the philosophical ramifications of the "goodness" of the decision, but at least for the time being, that is how it will be presented. One of the major advantages of this is that Paizo is traditionally very busy with creative projects and not particularly quick to react to logistical changes within the OPF, meaning it can take a quite some time to update or upload materials for the campaign. By having the Guide located on the OPF website, the volunteer team can directly control the contents, fix errors, and update it in real time as changes or additions are rolled out.

This is clearly represented by the issues we experienced with the delay in the release of the Guide. Clearly, not having it available until the convention was in progress was not the intention and nothing to do with our organization. Moving to the digital...

I like the idea of being able to use points to buy additional races or heritages do you think they could incorporate that into pfs 1 since that seems to be going strong still. I hate having to go to a con and trying to get the race boon i want so this would be great for pfs 1 and you could give the point retroactively for players idk how much work that would take or give them a starting amount of points for legacy and they could use that and add more points for games after that

[TwilightKnight]

Very unlikely, most members of the OP team have expressed at various times that PFS1 is as developed as its gonna get. It would take quite a bit of effort to convert PFS1 boons to the AcP program which would take away from focus on PFS2 and SFS.