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You can run them with PFS characters like normal, or in Campaign Mode for anyone.
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I believe its a mistake to reference Campaign mode at all in regard to bounties, though I know the initial roll-out suggested that and it was amended.
You can either run them for PFS credit with PFS rules.
Or run them as home games (which is not the same as Campaign Mode).
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Oh shoot can you no longer run them with mixed groups? I was literally just telling a GM that you could. I thought that was the huge selling point of switching from Quests to Bounties.
EDIT: I just checked the online Guide and I still don't see rules for running the Bounties. I haven't GM'd one yet, so I'm not sure if those rules are contained in the Bounty itself.
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Yeah we all thought that, and got excited to run the Magus/Summoner playtest in bounties and were told no/campaign mode was a misstatement. And its been continuing to evolve.
My current understanding for Bounties for PFS Credit:
1) must be PFS legal characters
2) yes hero points
3) no school items
4) no downtime
Its a complicated thing thats its own thing, not really society mode or campaign mode. I think Reduex has the best summary of the current state I've seen, but couldn't find his post.
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Yeah we all thought that, and got excited to run the Magus/Summoner playtest in bounties and were told no/campaign mode was a misstatement. And its been continuing to evolve.
My current understanding for Bounties for PFS Credit:
1) must be PFS legal characters
2) yes hero points
3) no school items
4) no downtimeIts a complicated thing thats its own thing, not really society mode or campaign mode. I think Reduex has the best summary of the current state I've seen, but couldn't find his post.
I'm reasonably sure this is correct but don't have a good single source to confirm.
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The Season 1 Quests were:
(1) must be PFS legal characters
(2) yes Hero Points
(3) ? School Items (weird as it is, I never played a Quest with a non-Field Commissioned character, so it never came up, and when I GMed, I assumed everyone had a school item but the question never came up)
(4) yes Downtime
Correct?
So a Bounty is a Quest minus Downtime? Or are there other differences? (I haven't played a Bounty yet.)
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You don’t get school items for bounties. Since bounties give 4gp, locally that’s led to the running joke that we’re paid in healing potions. More than a few times there’s been a choice of using a healing potion and essentially getting no treasure for the bounty or trying to succeed without in combat healing.
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So a Bounty is a Quest minus Downtime? Or are there other differences? (I haven't played a Bounty yet.)
You're not involved with the Society when you do a Bounty. There's no briefing, School items, Downtime, explore/report/cooperate, or Boons of any kind (which means no Wayfinder), and the GMs I've come across have been split on whether to issue Hero Points (and/or GM Glyph Hero Points).
As compensation, you get more gold than a Quest would have handed out. And they're all Repeatable.
It always leads to that weird first time introduction of "Why am I here?", though, since most other times, you're there because you were summoned.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Bellevue
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Quests and Scenarios are adventures written specifically for PFS. Bounties, Adventure Paths and stand alone adventures were not written specifically for PFS. They need to be sanctioned.
Bounties: Short one-hour adventures aimed at introducing new players to the game or representing what characters do in between Pathfinder missions. Bounties are sanctioned for use in the Pathfinder Society campaign. As a sanctioned adventure, bounties do not give down time.
Sanctioned adventures operate in Campaign Mode, which does not use Pathfinder Society rules. GMs set the rules on character creation and may freely modify the encounters and story.
Reference:Org Play Guide
Normally, sanctioned content can be run outside PFS rules and structure, but we get credit to an existing character. Bounties have a little bit of extra status from a blog.
Bounties - These adventures are not part of the Pathfinder Society line of scenarios/quests, but they are produced by the Organized Play team. Thus we are able to auto-sanction them at time of production instead of issuing sanctioning documents. It is our intention that Bounties run at Society events are for PFS legal characters. GMs running Bounties outside of Society credit can choose to run in PFS mode or Campaign mode. We’ll get this language updated in the Guide shortly.
Reference: Year 2 Blog
So based on these two sections:
- bounties require PFS legal characters
- bounties do not grant downtime.
What is left open is the question about "campaign mode". Is the intent that bounties be run in a modified "campaign mode" limited to PFS legal characters? Or is the intent that they be run by PFS org play rules? I would say the later, based on ".. run at Society events.."
If in a modified "campaign mode", then the GM can make whatever decisions they prefer. If in a "Society event", I would say GM glyph hero points should be awarded and any resources the character has acquired through ACP should be available.
The school free item may be a grey zone. Your character is not on an official Society mission. That said, as GM I'm not going to take away the free skill you get from your school, why should I object to a minor healing potion from your friends at the Society?
From a mechanical sense, if the target audience is new players, I want to make sure they have Hero Points and a free minor healing potion. I want them to enjoy the experience and not walk away with a dead character. Both of those give the new player a measure of survivability.
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Yeah I think having an up-to-date clarification in the current Guide would be helpful.
Seconded. Currently, there is no language in any of the published bounties or the guide saying that boons are not allowed, for instance. Another GM pointed out to me that some characters require boons in order to be played, depending on what language is (or may be) used in this regard.
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I believe the language is no "slotting" boons, which is a process that doesn't occur any longer. Things like wayfinders and ancestries obtained from boons were never slotted to begin with, so the playtest wayfinder--maybe all playtest boons that don't raise you past level 1--and ancestries ought to be OK.
But I'm going off memory.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I believe the language is no "slotting" boons, which is a process that doesn't occur any longer. Things like wayfinders and ancestries obtained from boons were never slotted to begin with, so the playtest wayfinder--maybe all playtest boons that don't raise you past level 1--and ancestries ought to be OK.
But I'm going off memory.
I think that may be crossover thinking from Starfinder, which doesn't have a default rule (IIRC) that quests don't allow boon slotting, but it just so happens to be that each quest pack has that as a special rule.
For a quest pack it makes some sense to avoid boon slotting; for example, if you run a quest pack across four sittings with separate GMs, how should you handle a once per session reroll boon? Better to dodge/invalidate the question.
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I believe the language is no "slotting" boons, which is a process that doesn't occur any longer. Things like wayfinders and ancestries obtained from boons were never slotted to begin with, so the playtest wayfinder--maybe all playtest boons that don't raise you past level 1--and ancestries ought to be OK.
But I'm going off memory.
The particular issue that you hit upon is that there is no language in the current guide or in any of the published bounties that says "no boons" - even though a bunch of people (myself included) remember that being mentioned at one point.
There is language detailing no free consumables / no downtime, though, so whether or not this is on-purpose is unknown at the present time.