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Does anyone know how long it usually takes to have a new books content be legal for PFS play? I have a PF2e character that just hit level 2, and plan on playing him at a convention this weekend. I'm hoping to use the Pathfinder Agent Dedication feat and Godless Healing feat on him, but I noticed that the Society Character Option page has not been updated yet to allow for Lost Omens World Guide content.
Anyone have any advice for how I should proceed? Better to play a pregen instead of my beloved character to be on the safe side, or just ask the GM at the convention if he'll allow it?
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Thanks Rob! Is just not selecting 2nd level feats even an option? Essentially leaving them blank until the Character Options are updated?
Correct, not selecting one is not a legal option. Your best bet, if your concept requires a not-yet-legal option is to either play a pre-gen or select a legal option, and start reading up on the Downtime retrain rules.
This page should get updated when any of Lost Omens World Guide becomes legal for play.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Thanks Rob! Is just not selecting 2nd level feats even an option? Essentially leaving them blank until the Character Options are updated?
Leaving them blank is not an option. However, the retraining rules are fairly forgiving, so you can put in placeholders and retrain to Lost Omens options later.
The only legal way I can think of to leave options blank would be to avoid playing the character until after Additional Resources gets updated.
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Thanks for the information everyone. I was hoping to play a pregen and apply the experience to the character, but it looks like if I play a level 1 pregen I can only apply it to a level 1 character. So retraining or postponing play are my options - I think I’ll have a second character prepped in case the additional resources page doesn’t get updated by Monday!
Spending 14 of 16 days of downtime after two sessions to retrain isn’t terrible either, agreed. But it would be nice if I could avoid it!
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How fast are they at updating it normally based on PF1 societies past?I plan to only play Society as that is what the groups in my area plays. If I can't use the books I don't see the reason to buy them right away and by then they will be on AoN. If that happens than I probably will only buy a book when I plan on using an option from that book and its already been updated to be usable.
A wise choice.
In PF1 there was often a gap of about 6 months between a product being released and sanctioned. Hopefully they'll do better in PF2 with a slightly less bruising schedule but they do seem to be extremely busy right now so I'm not holding my breath.
Nor am I buying anything that isn't legal.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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The nice part of subscriptions is getting the PDF along with the rulebook. Back when I was subcribing, I'd read the new rulebooks for previews, take notes, and then put them on a shelf for later. Once Additional Resources dropped, I would happily read the book through in more detail and start character planning.
I suspect that it will be far less than 6 months for new character options to be approved for Organized Play. The system is fresh and new, GenCon is over, and they want to get everyone excited about their options.
Hang in there.
Hmm
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The more usual updates to Additional Resources was that updates would come every 2-4 months (stretching to 6 in rare rare cases) and those updates often would carry multiple months of product (depending on how long since last time) - without there being monthly drops in addition to the big ones, and with the 'we don't need to wait to get through the formatting and art departments' part of the new web page plan, I expect it will come sooner. As noted, there's actually very little /so far/ that needs actual tuning for PFS, even if they still need to read through it all to be sure.
I will also echo Hmm's optimism that they have incentive to make like bread carts and haul buns on sanctioning things, and have little doubt they will have more for us soon.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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This has been my process for years. PFS can be quite draconian with what they do and do not allow into the campaign, and it has been my only pathfinder play for several years at this point. The PFRD usually has the rules up, so I can read about them without committing cash, then I wait on the additional resources, as some others put it, somewhere around 2-6 months from publication. Hopefully closer to the 2 now that they don’t have to “Wait for Website formatting”. A lot of the distress on the parts of players could be reduced by moving to a more inclusive than exclusive mentality. Allowing the player to assume the entire publication is allowed, and only update the few things that are to be excluded. Based on the current CRB listing on the site, only 1feat is restricted from PFS, this MAY be possible in the current setting. I’ve seen it work with another organized play setting that I participate in, but I have little hope that PFS is trusting enough to go this route.
One of the problems with PFS1 was they allowed far too much stuff into it and by the end of the cycle game play had gotten ridiculous. It was not balanced at all. I would much rather have an exclusive mentality where they prevented things from being in PFS2 at first and slowly fed things into it so as to maintain game balance.
Of course, all of this would be moot if Paizo strived to maintain game balance when creating everything to begin with. I am really hoping that min-maxing and optimizing never show up in PFS2. I really am enjoying running sessions where the players are role-playing personalities and not roll-playing stat blocks.
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The thing that most people seem to forget is that the designers and most developers are not creating content specifically for organized play. It is a specific campaign that has a specific theme. Most products are produced for the entire community and have nothing to do with a specific campaign, organized play or otherwise. They create what they think is cool and leave it up to the GM to decide what is/not appropriate for their campaign. The idea that the creators are required to limit their content to some perceived balance with respect to OP is ludicrous. That's like saying Paizo cannot release something cool for my campaign, because it doesn't work for your campaign.
The problem is and always will be that in order for OP to fulfill its purpose, that being a marketing avenue for Paizo to advertise and sell more product, they have to allow most rules so there will be an incentive for our community to buy the books. As the system matures, it is natural and nearly inevitable that rules will begin to escalate in power over time as they are designed to overcome limitations created by previous rules.
Game balance is a myth since it cannot account for relative issues such as player/GM skill, objectiveness, proliferation, etc. Most min/max issues are not due to rules balance, but to rules mastery. Within hours of the CRB being released, we already has started to identify optimized options. That doesn't mean the CRB is unbalanced.
For the Core Rulebook, they disallowed one item and modified another. From that, I assume that the plan is to allow whatever they can.
Of course, as was the case with PFS for PF1, there may be some general guidelines for what to expect. I would imagine, for example, that PFS players would not be able to become Red Mantis Assassins (because they are required to be evil) or members of the Aspis Consortium (because they are rivals of the Pathfinder Society that the PCs are members of).
On the other hand, they no longer disallow crafting, so that should create fewer automatic exceptions that they have to deal with.
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I would prefer that content will be legal at release, and then banned if it needs to be down the road. I don’t normally buy physical books, the only reason I subscribed was to get the content a bit earlier. But if I can’t use the content, then I would just wait until the content was sanctioned and only buy the PDFs when they are sanctioned. Hopefully there are enough people like myself who feel this way that Paizo dedicates the resources necessary to make the content be available sooner - ideally at release, as there is no reason I can fathom that the decision makers not receive PDFs of the content well before release, so they can review and decide and print their decisions the release date.
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One of the problems with PFS1 was they allowed far too much stuff into it and by the end of the cycle game play had gotten ridiculous. It was not balanced at all. I would much rather have an exclusive mentality where they prevented things from being in PFS2 at first and slowly fed things into it so as to maintain game balance.
Of course, all of this would be moot if Paizo strived to maintain game balance when creating everything to begin with. I am really hoping that min-maxing and optimizing never show up in PFS2. I really am enjoying running sessions where the players are role-playing personalities and not roll-playing stat blocks.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
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Game balance is a myth since it cannot account for relative issues such as player/GM skill, objectiveness, proliferation, etc. Most min/max issues are not due to rules balance, but to rules mastery. Within hours of the CRB being released, we already has started to identify optimized options. That doesn't mean the CRB is unbalanced.
Fortunately Paizo seems to disagree with you. One of the stated goals for PF2 was to achieve better balance between classes and characters, to reduce the effect of character optimization and rules mastery.
Can perfect game balance be achieved? Of course not. Can a game be a lot more balanced than PF1 was? Absolutely. And if PF2 doesn't end up far more balanced and far more resistant to character optimization than PF1 I will certainly be very disappointed. And surprised. PF2 Core is considerably more balanced and resistant to character optimization than was PF1
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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One of the problems with PFS1 was they allowed far too much stuff into it and by the end of the cycle game play had gotten ridiculous. It was not balanced at all. I would much rather have an exclusive mentality where they prevented things from being in PFS2 at first and slowly fed things into it so as to maintain game balance.
Of course, all of this would be moot if Paizo strived to maintain game balance when creating everything to begin with. I am really hoping that min-maxing and optimizing never show up in PFS2. I really am enjoying running sessions where the players are role-playing personalities and not roll-playing stat blocks.
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.
Fun is most important, and I sympathize that it's not fun to have your excitement for a new release get killed by a 6 month wait.
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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.
Fun is most important, and I sympathize that it's not fun to have your excitement for a new release get killed by a 6 month wait.
I'm afraid that I have to totally disagree (though I'll admit that my disagreement is based on what is obviously a subjective definition of "fun"). I don't think it is "fun" for either the GM or other players when one player's build trivializes scenario content and reduces the other players to bystanders. Unfortunately, this is something that was very possible with PF1, particularly with older scenarios.
Beyond any specific rules, the one element of PF2e that I think it is going to be most interesting in terms of its application to organized play is PF2e's intent to give GMs "more agency and power." (quote from post by James Jacobs)
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If their goal is to maximize the number of disgruntled players, then that is what they should do.
You're right, I underestimated how much of an impact that would have on the community. I still hope they can figure out a method where the sanctioning team can review the contents of a new book before release, and make what they deem proper legal on the release date.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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I'm afraid that I have to totally disagree (though I'll admit that my disagreement is based on what is obviously a subjective definition of "fun"). I don't think it is "fun" for either the GM or other players when one player's build trivializes scenario content and reduces the other players to bystanders. Unfortunately, this is something that was very possible with PF1, particularly with older scenarios.
I am curious to know how frequent this occurs. From my experience, it rarely happens that a party gets upset when a combination of options or a new class/ability "trivalizes" an encounter or easily solves a challenge. Usually, the variety of groups I play with tend to find those interactions fun and unexpected. After all, this is a game where each character has their moment to shine. Usually when this makes a player feel cheated, it's either the result of:
A) A disruptive player, orB) Multiple PCs sharing the same role or niche
I concede that what you describe certainly happens, but the more I hear details about the instances, the more I feel they're rare but vivid experiences.
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Game balance is a myth...Fortunately Paizo seems to disagree with you. One of the stated goals for PF2 was to achieve better balance between classes and characters, to reduce the effect of character optimization and rules mastery.
Can perfect game balance be achieved? Of course not. Can a game be a lot more balanced than PF1 was? Absolutely. And if PF2 doesn't end up far more balanced and far more resistant to character optimization than PF1 I will certainly be very disappointed. And surprised. PF2 Core is considerably more balanced and resistant to character optimization than was PF1
The only reason PF2 appears to be more balanced is because there is almost no content respectively. PF1 is perceived to be very balanced when it launch too, as most game systems are. It’s only after a few years of bonus material that more and more exploits become evident. Designers cannot possibly fathom how every rule they write will interact with every other rule that is written. Often times supplemental material is written specifically to bypass or overcome limitations in the core rules that was placed there to create game balance. If the core rules exist to limit certain options or effects for the purpose of balance, if later rules break those limitations they are their very nature unbalancing. That this exact phenomenon has occurred with every incarnation of every RPG just goes to show this is not some wacky theory. As time goes on PF2 will become exploitable. It will provide options that are clearly better than others (optimization). The “min/max” effect with expand. It’s unavoidable. This is why true game balance is a myth.
It’s also hugely important to note that game balance is more often than not in the eyes of the beholder. Get three gamers together and you’re likely to get four different answers regarding what is balanced and what is over-powered. Again, it’s why true game balance is a myth. It can only be achieved within a subset of limitations imposed by the GM for a finite campaign. He’ll the exact same players can determine that a rule in one campaign is perfectly balanced while in another it is over-powered. That’s why the designers assume and encourage GMs to determine for themselves what is appropriate for their campaign. Given the nature of OPF and the goal of using it to sell as much product as possible it’s also the reason why we have so many arguments regarding what is balanced in the campaign. If the OP team is overly limiting of a product, it is likely to significantly suppress the sales as most OPF players will not buy a book they cannot use.
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I would prefer that content will be legal at release, and then banned if it needs to be down the road
Actually that would be a bad system. Historically, the community has demonstrated that one of the most hated actions is when Paizo decides to ban a rule that has been in play or significantly changes how it works. People do not like their toys taken away.p, especially when they payed for the toys. It is certainly easier to allow everything and then just ban it later, but it creates a really bad customer service experience. Imagine the week after you bought your copy of Lost Omens, they banned it? You would be incensed. I agree that it can be frustrating having to wait for content to be approved and added to the additional resources, but it’s better than the alternative.
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Venture-Lieutenant
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If I had to hazard a guess is that the point system and cert buying system is still not working on the site and that is why you do not see any sanctioning information on the Lost Omens World guide.
If I remember correctly the goal with PFS2 campaign was to make almost everything common available in campaign, and then most uncommon and few rare options available through the points store. Since most (if not all) archetypes are uncommon, until the site is fixed you'll probably not see sanctioning.
The problem is that this system still requires the code monkeys (or at least the content monkeys) to import the information into the system, which is also supposed to generate adventure records for said options. This is the same fundamental design flaw that caused problems with the Wizards Eberron campaign during the LG years, since everything was tracked online, adventures were being delayed because of web issues.
They have taken something that is relatively easy, doing an up/down check on a book and made it relatively hard. Granted the Lost Omens World Guide only needs 10 items created, what happens when the Lost Omens Character Guide comes out?
So what is the solution? Move it to the OPF community page where it can be managed by volunteers. Some of it can be simple, like everything that is open access, even now that could be done. A simple background and common items are allowed, Uncommon and Rare: TBD. Moving the points system, certificate generation, and other uncommon/rare content in will require quite a bit of more work, and would require back end features on the Paizo website I do not know if they are there.
--Chris
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Venture-Lieutenant
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The only reason PF2 appears to be more balanced is because there is almost no content respectively. PF1 is perceived to be very balanced when it launch too, as most game systems are.
I am going to have to disagree with you here Bob, PF1 was never balanced, as its source 3.5 and 3.0 before that was never balanced. Look at the martial vs caster power curve, you pick it Basic D&D all the way up and through PF1. D&D 4e actually did one thing well was balance out all the classes against each other, there were only 4 but they were balanced against each other. I would go on to say later PF1 was actually more balanced than early PF1 as there were more options which were "effective" for more playstyles, but it did boil down to the flavor of the month category kind of like Warhammer 40K.
5e and PF2 use different approaches to fix the issues that D&D 3e had and subsequently PF1. All characters ACs, DCs, skills are going to stay in the general ballpark with the automated level bump. Everyone is getting approximately the same number of feats across the characters lifetime. As long as they don't deviate from that limited resource you should be able to maintain some sort of balance. Unfortunately that lack of deviation may have the problem that 4e had, was there really a difference between the leaders/strikers/defenders/controllers? If the system stays strict you may see the same problem in PF2.
But that is a stray off topic, on topic, looking at the core design of PF2 balance should be less of an issue as long as they stick with the current setup of the design structure they put in place and do not introduce new ways to add bonuses, unless there is a fundamental flaw that needs fixing.
--Chris
I'm afraid that I have to totally disagree (though I'll admit that my disagreement is based on what is obviously a subjective definition of "fun"). I don't think it is "fun" for either the GM or other players when one player's build trivializes scenario content and reduces the other players to bystanders. Unfortunately, this is something that was very possible with PF1, particularly with older scenarios.I am curious to know how frequent this occurs. From my experience, it rarely happens that a party gets upset when a combination of options or a new class/ability "trivalizes" an encounter or easily solves a challenge. Usually, the variety of groups I play with tend to find those interactions fun and unexpected. After all, this is a game where each character has their moment to shine. Usually when this makes a player feel cheated, it's either the result of:
A) A disruptive player, or
B) Multiple PCs sharing the same role or nicheI concede that what you describe certainly happens, but the more I hear details about the instances, the more I feel they're rare but vivid experiences.
I'd like to know this as well. I've played a good bit and I don't feel that I've seen any build that was out of hand, but I've definitely seen a few players that were.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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I'd like to know this as well. I've played a good bit and I don't feel that I've seen any build that was out of hand, but I've definitely seen a few players that were.I'm afraid that I have to totally disagree (though I'll admit that my disagreement is based on what is obviously a subjective definition of "fun"). I don't think it is "fun" for either the GM or other players when one player's build trivializes scenario content and reduces the other players to bystanders. Unfortunately, this is something that was very possible with PF1, particularly with older scenarios.I am curious to know how frequent this occurs. From my experience, it rarely happens that a party gets upset when a combination of options or a new class/ability "trivalizes" an encounter or easily solves a challenge. Usually, the variety of groups I play with tend to find those interactions fun and unexpected. After all, this is a game where each character has their moment to shine. Usually when this makes a player feel cheated, it's either the result of:
A) A disruptive player, or
B) Multiple PCs sharing the same role or nicheI concede that what you describe certainly happens, but the more I hear details about the instances, the more I feel they're rare but vivid experiences.
Been there, done that.
I vastly underestimated my kineticist's power and overestimated the level of the boss fight. Won initiative by rolling something like 35, proceeded to wipe out all the mooks and 2/3rds of the boss's hit points. Due to distance, nobody else really had a chance to do anything on that same first round. Could have obliterated the boss on the second round (but decided to hang back, which was good since the first attack nearly cost a team mate their faction boon >.>)
I've seen a couple of grapple builds shut down a big bad epic monster fight on their second round, turning an epic showdown into a rather disapointing end.
Slumber hex witches (had 2 or 3 in our lodge) shut down fights immediately in very anticlimatic way (although other save or die casters can also do this) while keeping up fortune with cackle for the duration of a scenario can trivialize any and all skill challenges (at least as long as someone actually has ranks in the necessary skill) (how long you can keep cackling is a different topic, and this is... Sorta fine, since it let's the other characters take the spotlight, while you just give them a considerable boost for their odds).
(I'm tempted to mention Gunslingers, but that depends a lot more on circumstances, and they aren't that flexible. They can pretty easily solo monsters with CR equal or higher than their level, but I don't think they belong into this list.)
Honestly though, it's less about the build and more about the player. Even an avarage or "okay" build can do just fine in PFS. If you build your character to be able to shut down encounters with the snap of his fingers, it's your responsibility to use that power responsibly. You don't always need to go "all out", even if it's nice to have that sort of power in your pocket, "just in case."
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...while keeping up fortune with cackle for the duration of a scenario can trivialize any and all skill challenges (at least as long as someone actually has ranks in the necessary skill) (how long you can keep cackling is a different topic...
I never allowed this and I’m really glad that 2E puts an explicit cap of 10 minutes on all sustained activations unless the specific ability description says otherwise.
But back to Lost Omens World Guide...
All the archetypes for Organizations seem to have an access condition of being from a particular region instead of being a member of that organization. For example you must be from Absalom to take the Pathfinder Agent archetype. Looks like this is going to make the Home Region boon particularly critical.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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For the Core Rulebook, they disallowed one item and modified another. From that, I assume that the plan is to allow whatever they can.
I wouldn't count on it. The core rulebook is the baseline against which you measure other options. So you take most of the CRB as given, except for a feat that's obviously not very practical in organized play. But for later books, you weigh them against the CRB to see if they're okay.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I would prefer that content will be legal at release, and then banned if it needs to be down the road.
It's an extremely painful process to ban something you previously allowed. People bought something expecting to get to use it.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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A wise choice.
In PF1 there was often a gap of about 6 months between a product being released and sanctioned. Hopefully they'll do better in PF2 with a slightly less bruising schedule but they do seem to be extremely busy right now so I'm not holding my breath.
Nor am I buying anything that isn't legal.
It may go a bit faster since one of the hurdles towards timely AR has been reduced - updating the website.
Just to give an idea about why it can take some time -
* Book gets made, contributions from all writers integrated
* Book is given to Additional Resources taskforce for review
* AR reports to campaign leadership what they think should be allowed/banned/clarified.
* Campaign leadership makes up their mind and submits a final list to IT
* IT puts it up on the website
All these steps take place sometime between when you see a product announced and when you can finally use it. If all goes well, the AR taskforce has the book well in advance of it actually being available to the public. But even if all of that goes fast, it still needs to go past campaign leadership (bottleneck) and IT (bottleneck). Hopefully with the external website that last bottleneck has gotten a bit wider. But it's not a cure-all.
For anyone who's truly fed up, you can always vote with your wallet: don't buy any book until it's AR is done.
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During PFS1, the team involved with reviewing content for the Additional Resources was us – the community.
Venture Officers volunteered time to comb through sections for review, and regular ol' players voiced concerns or jubilation here in the forums, bringing up discussions for Leadership to consider.
Since most of us aren't Paizo employees, that process is going to have to wait until after the products are released.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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I'd like to know this as well. I've played a good bit and I don't feel that I've seen any build that was out of hand, but I've definitely seen a few players that were.I'm afraid that I have to totally disagree (though I'll admit that my disagreement is based on what is obviously a subjective definition of "fun"). I don't think it is "fun" for either the GM or other players when one player's build trivializes scenario content and reduces the other players to bystanders. Unfortunately, this is something that was very possible with PF1, particularly with older scenarios.I am curious to know how frequent this occurs. From my experience, it rarely happens that a party gets upset when a combination of options or a new class/ability "trivalizes" an encounter or easily solves a challenge. Usually, the variety of groups I play with tend to find those interactions fun and unexpected. After all, this is a game where each character has their moment to shine. Usually when this makes a player feel cheated, it's either the result of:
A) A disruptive player, or
B) Multiple PCs sharing the same role or nicheI concede that what you describe certainly happens, but the more I hear details about the instances, the more I feel they're rare but vivid experiences.
I once accidentally proloy an unwinnable encounter because a level one spellcaster is still powerful enough to give a bunch of high level fighters trouble. Didn't actually know we weren't supposed to win until they went and got iteratives off.
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Seems like a flawed process to me, but hey, I’m not in charge. Kind of makes my point about priorities though. If this is the process, here’s to 6 month waits for updates, nothing more to be said or done about it.During PFS1, the team involved with reviewing content for the Additional Resources was us – the community.
Venture Officers volunteered time to comb through sections for review, and regular ol' players voiced concerns or jubilation here in the forums, bringing up discussions for Leadership to consider.
Since most of us aren't Paizo employees, that process is going to have to wait until after the products are released.
There is, actually!
You yourself can volunteer and speed up the process ^_^
Talk to your local Venture Captain to see what you can do to help!
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^ 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?
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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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.