PFS2e Character Options - Lost Omens World Guide Legality

[medtec28]

James Anderson wrote:

You can read a bit more about the review process in last December's blog post. Only about a paragraph though.

What I can add is that I and others on the team had conventions last weekend that diverted some focus. But be assured that the book is being worked on.

I see nothing there that explains the process, sorry, did you place the correct link?

[David knott 242]

Maybe he is referring to the first two paragraphs of this blog?

[medtec28]

Nefreet wrote:

^ that was me being serious, but on another serious note, that very process evolved from a less efficient system of having only Paizo employees review content for Additional Resources.

It. Took. Much. Much. Longer.. To... Finish....

Not only that, but in their haste to complete everything by a deadline, things would get missed. Which lead to redactions, errata, bans, and the ensuing arguments about how to reimburse people.

Having more people available for discussion and cross reference really is a better system. I can personally attest to the pain of shelving characters who no longer worked as designed because one little cog of an item or feat no longer functioned as designed.

And organized play continues to evolve. Do you have any ideas on how to improve things as they are now?

I was going to be done with this thread. It was making me more annoyed, and I felt like I was sounding more angry, than I was providing actionable feedback. I already have a not-undeserved reputation as a malcontent here. I do hope people understand that comes from a desire to see things improve, but you asked and I shall answer.

How would I handle it? I would place a select group of volunteers under NDA with the intention of using them as my additional resources vetting committee. I would provide them with advanced access via watermarked pdf before street date of the product, to allow them sufficient time to review said product. I would adopt the general policy of “ All common options will be considered legal for PFS use within 30 days of street date for each product, or relevant update to the additional resources document, whichever occurs first.” There is actually precedent for this, I believe that the adventurers guid was announced as PFS legal prior to its release. The intention would to have the relevant update done prior to that 40day benchmark. This would allow the non-subscribers in the crowd to determine if we want to purchase each book prior to the newest shiny dropping. If the committee determines an item is not recommended, and it is uncommon or rare, then nothing need be done immediately, but on common items, a significant effort would need to be made to place it on a restricted list prior to the 30 day benchmark. Uncommon and rare options could be updated in a slower, more methodical pace.

EDIT:: A pre-requisite for this volunteer position could even be that one is already a subscriber to that line, as that way Paizo could be sure that the individuals were not getting something for free, but rather only advanced accesss.

If it were my campaign, and I am 100% aware that it is not, I would attempt to be as inclusive as possible with allowing options. I would only hold back things that were significantly beyond the power curve, or thematically inappropriate. I would not hold things back for their appearance on a chronicle sheet that will never be released, because it is a cool and interesting option that would be great to put there.

As far as your previous post about my volunteering to speed things up, I GM’d regularly at my local shop before the playtest killed our PFS group, and I’m working with my VL to revive it. Otherwise, I lack the significant blind brand loyalty Paizo seems to like in its fans. I am not a subscriber. I only purchase products that I intend to use, and currently PFS is my only venue for playing Pathfinder. As such, I purchase one or more books every 6 months or so when I find an already vetted option that I would like t9 use. I play in an other OP campaign where I regularly purchase books sooner because I am fairly certain I will be able to use the options in the book,

There you are, asked and answered. Your thoughts in return?

[medtec28]

David knott 242 wrote:

Maybe he is referring to the first two paragraphs of this blog?

That is indeed more clear, however it still seems like a game of “Catch-Up” rather than the proactive approach I am advocating.

[TwilightKnight]

We need to demonstrate some patience. The OP development team busted their ass to released nearly double the normal rate of scenarios leading up to Gen Con and now they are down a team member with Jon moving on to the Starfinder team. We have a new game system, a new set of Guide rules covering OP, a newly added product to the monthly schedule (quest). This all combines to strain the production vs hours in a day. There is plenty of content just in the CRB to tie us over for a few months at least while the team attacks the production schedule until a new member can be added to fill the vacancy.

[medtec28]

Bob, with all due respect, none of this was a surprise to anyone. The new product line, the staffing change, none of it. They knew all of this was coming. I understand being stressed by work, believe me I do. I think we all appreciate that they have a lot on their plates. But here is my question. Do they want us to buy anything before they get caught up?

I think we all can agree that the prior pace of AR updates was far less than desirable, and we are simply asking for improvement, or at least reasonable assurances of same. Nobody has heard a word from campaign leadership since GenCon 1 month ago. 3 guest blogs, lots of unanswered questions on the forums. But nothing from Linda or Tonya in response.

I understand you feel like you are being the voice of reason, and speak with some authority as a high level volunteer in the program. I think you opinion is both highly valued and valid, but it does not devalue the conflicting sentiments in this thread.

All we want is for things to be better. Maybe you are happy with the status quo, but many of us are not. For you to imply that that is somehow disrespectful to campaign leadership, or that we are ungrateful to have th “Pleanty of content in the CRB...” is, in my opinion undeserved. Paizo has produced another book, and people want to use options in it. If Paizo intended for us to be satisfied with the CRB for months, why produce anything else?

[Philippe Lam]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

We need to demonstrate some patience. The OP development team busted their ass to released nearly double the normal rate of scenarios leading up to Gen Con and now they are down a team member with Jon moving on to the Starfinder team. We have a new game system, a new set of Guide rules covering OP, a newly added product to the monthly schedule (quest). This all combines to strain the production vs hours in a day. There is plenty of content just in the CRB to tie us over for a few months at least while the team attacks the production schedule until a new member can be added to fill the vacancy.

The problem is that you can't avoid some being (way too) impatient and can't accept that slower burning things for a bit is the safer route after a hectic start.

[Nefreet]

medtec28 wrote:

I would place a select group of volunteers under NDA with the intention of using them as my additional resources vetting committee.

Check.

medtec28 wrote:

I would provide them with advanced access via watermarked pdf before street date of the product, to allow them sufficient time to review said product.

Check.

medtec28 wrote:

I would adopt the general policy of “All common options will be considered legal for PFS use within 30 days of street date for each product, or relevant update to the additional resources document, whichever occurs first.”

Tried that. Leads to the personal pain, anguish and arguments I referenced earlier.

medtec28 wrote:

There is actually precedent for this, I believe that the adventurers guide was announced as PFS legal prior to its release. The intention would to have the relevant update done prior to that 40day benchmark.

40 days is, I believe, too early. I am not sure of the actual number of days before release, but it's almost certainly less than a month.

medtec28 wrote:

A pre-requisite for this volunteer position could even be that one is already a subscriber to that line

That's getting Paizo and Pathfinder Society mixed up. Pathfinder Society is a subsidiary of Paizo. Not the other way around.

What matters more would be experience with the Campaign.

medtec28 wrote:

I would attempt to be as inclusive as possible with allowing options.

Check.

medtec28 wrote:

I would only hold back things that were significantly beyond the power curve, or thematically inappropriate.

There are other reasons to initially restrict an option. The most popular has been to reserve releasing especially thematic options for use as a scenario reward. After something has been restricted for a couple Seasons, it gets a universal release. A recent example in Starfinder would be the restriction of Legacy Races. You couldn't initially plan an Elf, Halfling, Dearf, etc until Season 2 began.

This was a common practice in PFS1.

medtec28 wrote:

I lack the significant blind brand loyalty Paizo seems to like in its fans. I am not a subscriber. I only purchase products that I intend to use, and currently PFS is my only venue for playing Pathfinder.

I can attest that this is absolutely not a requirement.

medtec28 wrote:

Your thoughts in return?

Seems we're mostly on the same page ^_^

[Gary Bush]

Cyrad wrote:

The importance of power balance is woefully overstated. Powerful options rarely become disruptive enough to ruin everyone else's fun while particularly egregious options are typically easy to spot.

I have to disagree with you. At a GenCon specail I sat at a table where there were two archer, on inquisitor and the other a ranger. Both optimized. It was a 10-11 tier table.

Get to the big bad and Inquistor wins initiative and proceeds to do over 400 points of damage on 4 arrow, 2 being crits. We move on to another big bad. Ranger wins this time and does over 350 points of damage on 5 arrows and two crits.

Needless to say the table agreed it was time to start chronicles while the house finished up.

[GM Lamplighter]

It's always interesting to hear how volunteers can be the solution to everything. As both a volunteer (for Paizo and various other organizations) and a not-for-profit manager of staff and volunteers in my day job, I've taken some courses and had a lot of experience in volunteer management, and I think the idea that volunteers can "fix" this is off the mark.

TL;DR - volunteers cost a company a lot in time and effort, and staff often have to re-do the work (or at least check it in detail) anyway. For most mission-critical tasks, it's easier to do it yourself. In most volunteer-organization relationships, the volunteer, not the organization, is (and must be) the primary beneficiary.

1. Volunteers are not free labor:

What you save in salary dollars is usually offset by someone else's salary dollars being used to recruit, vet, train, supervise, and support those volunteers. There is some economy of scale, but unless you have dozens of people all doing the same task, having a bunch of volunteers doesn't save much staff time. And more volunteers is a mixed blessing, especially if the volunteers don't agree on everything (like "what is fun?" and "what is overpowered?") In a lot of AR calls, I'd imagine Paizo staff would need to be called in to break the deadlock anyway.

2. Volunteers disappear:

Yes, even you, even though your best intentions right now are to dedicate yourself to this important task and help Paizo improve their AR timelines and help get content sanctioned faster. Why? Because you're going to get/lose/change a job, or have school projects or a baby due, or fall in love, or just get involved in too many Pathfinder home games that you just don't have the time to do what you offered. Or, it's a lot more work than you thought, or not as much fun as you thought, or whatever. Determining what goes into the biggest Pathfinder campaign in the world isn't something that someone can do part-time when they get around to it. Mistakes are far harder to deal with than delays.

Plus, as someone pointed out, unless sales drop because everyone only plays PFS AND will only buy a book that they want to use a PFS option from... this is a non-starter.

You can't please everyone no matter what.

[Cyrad]

Gary Bush wrote:

Cyrad wrote:

The importance of power balance is woefully overstated. Powerful options rarely become disruptive enough to ruin everyone else's fun while particularly egregious options are typically easy to spot.

I have to disagree with you. At a GenCon specail I sat at a table where there were two archer, on inquisitor and the other a ranger. Both optimized. It was a 10-11 tier table.

Get to the big bad and Inquistor wins initiative and proceeds to do over 400 points of damage on 4 arrow, 2 being crits. We move on to another big bad. Ranger wins this time and does over 350 points of damage on 5 arrows and two crits.

Needless to say the table agreed it was time to start chronicles while the house finished up.

But did the players have fun overall? That's the important question.

If you were a player and felt overshadowed by your comrades, I can sympathize, but..

Siege of Gallowspire:

..that special was almost entirely combat encounters and designed specifically for powerful combat characters. The final battle also took place in a huge map with flying enemies and almost no sources of cover. If I remember correctly, the encounter only had maybe two or three enemies, too. That's not a problem with power balance and power creep with new options. One-third of your party consisted of quality hammers and the entire scenario had nothing but highly vulnerable nails.

[medtec28]

I just would like to add to more points to my above ideas

1) Everything I have said is based on things I have seen work elsewhere, so telling me that they are impossible, as GM Lamplighter, states is patently false.

2) To paraphrase a popular Broadway show “ You don’t have a plan, you just hate mine.” Counseling patience implies that you think the status quo is good, I and many others feel it is not. If you don’t like my ideas, why not share your own thoughts on how to improve things instead of suggesting that my ideas will not work.

[Philippe Lam]

medtec28 wrote:

I just would like to add to more points to my above ideas

1) Everything I have said is based on things I have seen work elsewhere, so telling me that they are impossible, as GM Lamplighter, states is patently false.

2) To paraphrase a popular Broadway show “ You don’t have a plan, you just hate mine.” Counseling patience implies that you think the status quo is good, I and many others feel it is not. If you don’t like my ideas, why not share your own thoughts on how to improve things instead of suggesting that my ideas will not work.

On the opposite, it is only fair to say your ideas are also a risk and what you say on 1), the same idea can't be applief the same way from company A to company B. The mere fact a no small amount of users there are far more cautious should temper blind optimism. Someone can't offer a guarantee, nobody can expect decisions to be quick. Due process is to be respected.

I know on another company where the same mindset would be met with open disdain, on the contrary. Previous attempts to hasten things there hasn't been met with an overwhelming success.

[Nefreet]

Paizo is currently using many of your ideas, except for the ones they've already tried that didn't work.

In the end, the bottleneck comes down to having a Leadership staff of two people.

They cannot assure that things will be expedited when their staff was just reduced by 1/3.

Patience, for all of the reasons TwilightNight laid out up thread, should be our courtesy.

[medtec28]

I agree that what works in position A will not necessarily work in position B, but there is also no guarantee it will not. Perhaps you are in the camp where you do not mind the several month wait for options, and therefore feel no pressure to change the status quo. If you are, then I understand and respect your opinion, however I also disagree with it. The awesome thing is, that makes neither of us wrong. Maybe my idea won’t work in PFS. I however can offer one guarantee, if what you do is all you ever do, what you get is all you ever get. We have a new campaign now, and have a chance to make improvements, why such resistance to that?

[Xathos of Varisia]

medtec28 wrote:

We have a new campaign now, and have a chance to make improvements, why such resistance to that?

Do you have about $75K to pay another person to take on the job? If so, I will volunteer for it.

I would love to see the bottleneck involved with many aspects of PFS removed. That involves money which I don't have.

I would love to see things sanctioned faster, but I will also say that I would rather it done right instead of done wrong. Once something gets out into Society play, it's going to cause a lot of trouble to remove it if that something is detrimental. Pathfinder 2 is far more balanced than Pathfinder 1 is. I want to keep it that way. If that means I have to wait a few months, then I'll wait a few months.

I think things will be moving faster once the team gets their feet under them and address several of the far more important things that need addressing like the AcP, NDAs, finalizing the Guild Guide, and streamlining the reporting process along with the Chronicle Sheets. Once those get taken care of they will have freed up more time to deal with the sanctioning needs.

We just have to be patient even when we are tired of waiting for some things to get done that should have been done a while back. However, getting things out for the August 1st release of Pathfinder 2 PFS got the priority and justifiably so. Now they have to take care of the stuff that got put to the side.

[eddv]

Anyone who tells you there isn't optimization in Pathfinder 2 is lying to your face and probably trying to sell you on something that isn't true.

As more optimal options become available the balance of the game will shift and that's that. Because Paizo's business model dictates the need to release roughly 5 bazillion player options to sell to people, there will become increasingly optimal ways to build yourself over time. There just will.

Putting together an AR is not even really about curbing optimization, so much as its about curbing rules conflicts, weeding out thematically blah options that shouldn't be player legal for various reasons, and eliminating things that are egregiously imbalanced for either economic or other reasons. But the AR team is not the design team and if the design team wants to shift the game's power level around, that's on them, all the AR team is trying to do is make sure that its on purpose and that its appropriate for the campaign. Living optimization curves are a leading reason to play anyone's newest games systems, otherwise I am sure everyone has their favorite older RPG system that they'd rather be messing around with (for me its Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, 2nd edition).

We can only hope that that optimization is interesting (as it was in PF1) and not boring (as it was in 4th ed D&D).

[medtec28]

alright, consider me sufficiently shouted down. keep doing things exactly the same, don’t entertain the thought of changing anything, enjoy your echo chamber, I’m out. No further comments to be made

[Nefreet]

You haven't suggested anything they haven't already tried, tho...

[Gary Bush]

Cyrad wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

Cyrad wrote:

The importance of power balance is woefully overstated. Powerful options rarely become disruptive enough to ruin everyone else's fun while particularly egregious options are typically easy to spot.

I have to disagree with you. At a GenCon specail I sat at a table where there were two archer, on inquisitor and the other a ranger. Both optimized. It was a 10-11 tier table.

Get to the big bad and Inquistor wins initiative and proceeds to do over 400 points of damage on 4 arrow, 2 being crits. We move on to another big bad. Ranger wins this time and does over 350 points of damage on 5 arrows and two crits.

Needless to say the table agreed it was time to start chronicles while the house finished up.

But did the players have fun overall? That's the important question.

If you were a player and felt overshadowed by your comrades, I can sympathize, but..

** spoiler omitted **

It was not this years special. I did play this year. Didn't fair well and I was 16th level.

[eddv]

medtec28 wrote:

alright, consider me sufficiently shouted down. keep doing things exactly the same, don’t entertain the thought of changing anything, enjoy your echo chamber, I’m out. No further comments to be made

A good many of your suggestions have already been implemented.

I will say that very often the volunteer pass on things is done well well ahead of those decisions being published on the website, which all told seems to be the big holdup for most things.

[FLite]

I would like to remind everyone that Organized Play Foundation (OPF) is *not* run by Paizo. It is run by the OPF. A lot of the sugguestions in this thread for solving this problem seem to come perilously close to having OPF volunteers work for Paizo, under Paizo's direction, and to Paizo's time table.

[TwilightKnight]

Something that often gets lost in discussions about suggesting improvements to particular Paizo functionality is that sometimes, more frequently than people realize, they are perfectly aware of what the problem is and are simply unwilling or unable to do much, if anything about it. The timeliness of Additional Resource updates has been a topic for nearly as long as we've had Additional Resources. There have been times when it was updated immediately when a product was released and others when it was six months or more before it was added. Generally, it takes 2-4 months for a new product to hit the AR. Is that good enough? Maybe, maybe not, but since its not a recent development and there have been literally laundry lists of ideas from the community how it can be improved at some point its not an issue of brainstorming, its an issue of implementation. At that point it doesn't matter what we think SHOULD be done, its a matter of Paizo deciding they need to actually do something about it. So far, they have been unable or unwilling to take those steps. We don't know which is the case. We hope the former and that eventually they will overcome whatever obstacles are making them unable, but it is possible they are unwilling and nothing is going to change no matter how loud we scream about it.

Many of us that have been around a number of years could produce a list of similar topics that have received a lot of attention, yet no action has been taken to correct the reported problems regardless of how passionate the complaints are.

[Nefreet]

Jared Thaler wrote:

I would like to remind everyone that Organized Play Foundation (OPF) is *not* run by Paizo. It is run by the OPF. A lot of the sugguestions in this thread for solving this problem seem to come perilously close to having OPF volunteers work for Paizo, under Paizo's direction, and to Paizo's time table.

The class action lawsuit may have been dropped, but there's still at least one case pending review.

The OPF is new. For most of Paizo's history, volunteers *were* working for them, under their direction, and on their time table.

[Tomppa]

It's likely that Paizo would WANT AR to get updated in time because it would probably be good for the sales, but it's a resource issue. If you check threads/blogs/product discussions about sanctioning stuff, the usual reply is that it'll get done when time permits. The issue isn't that they don't want to, the issue is that they have more pressing matters (like pushing out new scenarios and books, probably currently revisiting and errating the 2e corebook, and on organized play side, implementing the reporting systems, reviewing the 5 nova rubrics and keeping venture officer lists up to date, providing convention support, and probably a lot of other recurring tasks. Problem is that all of these are important, and if they don't have enough hands on deck to dedicate time to all of them all the time, some of them may get neglected until they do have time to focus on them.

It's unfortunate, but I imagine that if paizo could afford to hire more staff to ensure -everything- is -always on time-, they would.

[TwilightKnight]

Nefreet wrote:

For most of Paizo's history, volunteers *were* working for them, under their direction, and on their time table.

Not to be too pedantic, but actually they were "volunteering" for them. The word "working" is the crux of the issue and to date, no one has been able to get that position sanctioned.

[eddv]

Tommi Ketonen wrote:

It's likely that Paizo would WANT AR to get updated in time because it would probably be good for the sales, but it's a resource issue. If you check threads/blogs/product discussions about sanctioning stuff, the usual reply is that it'll get done when time permits. The issue isn't that they don't want to, the issue is that they have more pressing matters (like pushing out new scenarios and books, probably currently revisiting and errating the 2e corebook, and on organized play side, implementing the reporting systems, reviewing the 5 nova rubrics and keeping venture officer lists up to date, providing convention support, and probably a lot of other recurring tasks. Problem is that all of these are important, and if they don't have enough hands on deck to dedicate time to all of them all the time, some of them may get neglected until they do have time to focus on them.

It's unfortunate, but I imagine that if paizo could afford to hire more staff to ensure -everything- is -always on time-, they would.

Yeah, hence what Bob said - either unable or unwilling to make AR something that gets regular attention vs. something that gets addressed irregularly. I know the website is some kind of mystical beast and editing it is a bear for reasons beyond my comprehension, but the blog gets updated like clockwork so it must be possible - just not something they're willing or able to make a priority.