Does Second Chance in the AcP work on characters already reported dead?


Pathfinder Society

5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, North Carolina—Raleigh

Asking for a friend

"Second Chance - Gain the benefits of a resurrect ritual. Each additional purchase adds 10 points to the total cost. 40.00"

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

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Usually, I would say no, in that you should buy it and resolve the death condition before the end of game.

Since AcP weren't available when characters died, and that is not the fault of any player, having the option to resurrect them would be nice.

Taking this to the team to discuss and will have an answer tomorrow.

2/5 5/5 **

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

That would be nice.

Lose your favorite X but don't have the money or Fame to resurrect him, and you've spent your AcP so you have less than 40, but if you just keep playing, you could bring him back...

*fingers crossed*

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I think it will always need to be a little retroactive, since "Boons must be purchased in between scenarios, to not slow down gameplay."

Which seems to imply that the session has been reported (with the character dead) and then the player spends the AcP when they're home/back at a computer/etc to mark them un-dead. Now how long that window should be is a good question, as is the feasibility of extending a longer retro-active window now at launch.

If instead Second Chance is an exception to 'purchase between scenarios' then it should be called out and some standard practice should be established. Ie something like the GM indicates Dead on the chronicle with a note that the player indicated a plan to purchase the boon. Character isn't reported as dead, but should an audit occur and the next applied sheet wasn't the boon..... bad things.

2/5 5/55/5

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Eric Nielsen wrote:
If instead Second Chance is an exception to 'purchase between scenarios' then it should be called out and some standard practice should be established. Ie something like the GM indicates Dead on the chronicle with a note that the player indicated a plan to purchase the boon. Character isn't reported as dead, but should an audit occur and the next applied sheet wasn't the boon..... bad things.

Should it be slightly more lenient than this? Like, what if you're at a game day with three slots, and your character dies in the first slot. Should someone in this situation without a smartphone then need to drive home because they can't buy the boon at the venue?

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Good point, I'm not sure what the answer is -- the online accounting doesn't mesh well with the normal chronicle based for 'in-real-time' purchases for non-mobile devices or areas with weak/overwhelmed networks. And I would be sad to see Second Chance be removed as its a great insurance policy for expensive AcP ancestry characters in the low levels before they have fame for a fame based raise-dead/resurrection.

I still feel that keeping AcP boons outside the session boundaries keeps from muddying the two accounting systems. Assuming the backend technologies does (or could do in a fast/reasonable timeframe) a have the ability to mark a character not-dead. But how to square that with game days/convention play without connectivity is a tough aspect.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

I think the bigger issue is that there is no way for the backend to mark a dead character not dead without human intervention by the error handling team.

And making them do an error check any time someone dies seems like a really, really bad idea.

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If that's true, it feels like a bad fit for an ACP boon. (Sadly).

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

That's why the boon is supposed to be bought before the game is reported, so the backend can be kept out of it.

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So if a character dies, and doesn't have internet at the store/venue (not an issue in the current online play environment), the GM can't report until some confirmation from the player that they've spent the ACP or have declared the intent not to purchase the boon?

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If it's just a simple matter of asking the event organizer "hey, can you please wait until tomorrow to report this so I can buy the resurrect boon online tonight?", that seems reasonable.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

That could get *extremely* unwieldy for cons.

2/5 5/5 **

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

The problem is two parts, right?

The big part: the system can't undead (ha!) your character outside of manual editing above the access of a reporting GM, so it needs to be purchased before scenario reported.

The other part: you might need to show proof within an hour.

The first solution--not a fan of, but it is a solution--you buy the boon ahead of time to use later like the Debt to Society boon. I feel like the price would need to start lower because it is then more like insurance and more would be bought to insure multiple characters.

The second part I'm not sure how to fix without internet other than with the first solution.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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In old PFS, the player who died would say to the GM, "Hey, I am paying for a resurrection with prestige points" and the GM would say, "Great! I am marking that on your chronicle!"

For venues without wi-fi, here is how I see this conversation.

Player: I have enough AcP to bring myself back from the... Oh crap. There's no wifi here.

GM: I'll mark on your chronicle that you spent the AcP for a resurrection. When you get home, I'm trusting you to purchase the boon.

Player: Oh, that works!

I think this works well if we just extend a little trust.

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I think that can work, the player will need to remember to leave a gap in their chronicle number to fit hte ACP boon number in between (or go decimal/fractional with the AcP boon, which might look suspicious on the surface, but with the GM note on the previous one is probably something an audit would understand). However I feel in general OP tries to be a little stricter on these things in practice -- but this is a place that being more trusting would work better.

4/5

Hmm wrote:

In old PFS, the player who died would say to the GM, "Hey, I am paying for a resurrection with prestige points" and the GM would say, "Great! I am marking that on your chronicle!"

For venues without wi-fi, here is how I see this conversation.

Player: I have enough AcP to bring myself back from the... Oh crap. There's no wifi here.

GM: I'll mark on your chronicle that you spent the AcP for a resurrection. When you get home, I'm trusting you to purchase the boon.

Player: Oh, that works!

I think this works well if we just extend a little trust.

I do know not all players care carrying a laptop with them or like to use the Paizo site from their phone, and thus do any ACP stuff at home. So this approach would probably work best.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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What Hmm said. Isn't that basically why we have chronicles that we can write stuff on?

4/5 **** Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown

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Lau Bannenberg wrote:
What Hmm said. Isn't that basically why we have chronicles that we can write stuff on?

You mean the notes section??? Gasp

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

You don't need to report an "error", though, right?

Just contact the GM and have them change the session to "not dead".

It's just a single checkbox; you don't even need to contact Paizo.

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Except for many live venues and cons, the GM isn’t the one reporting and so can’t edit anything.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/55/5 ***** Regional Venture-Coordinator, Great Lakes

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Blake's Tiger wrote:
Except for many live venues and cons, the GM isn’t the one reporting and so can’t edit anything.

True, which makes it all the more on the onus of the player to have an idea of how much ACP they have stored. I guess it would be a thing to just check the number you have when you do pre-con prep, and be like if "X" dies, I have enough ACP to cover that" and go back to ensuring the gm to make the note on the chronicle and not check the dead box on the reporting sheet so that the HQ team at the event doesn't mark the character purchasing the boon as dead.

The other idea would be for the site to be coded to remove the check when the boon is purchased - BUT I think that is asking too much of the site coding.

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