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re: No longer using Challenge Points and tighter banding on the level ranges for scenarios
How's that going to play out where Mentor Boons are concerned? I have found "High" games to always be profoundly unfun to go through, even with stuff meant to come into play for games on the high challenge point tier.
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I always appreciated having the full stat blocks of monsters in the back of each PFS scenario. I'm pretty upset that's going away.
Not having to flip between bookmarks for each monster was such a godsend, especially for multi-table specials.
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So is the (stand-alone) Adventure line going to still be a thing or is it getting combined with the Adventure Path line?
Convention and Organized Play Manager
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re: No longer using Challenge Points and tighter banding on the level ranges for scenarios
How's that going to play out where Mentor Boons are concerned? I have found "High" games to always be profoundly unfun to go through, even with stuff meant to come into play for games on the high challenge point tier.
Reviewing Mentor boons is on our list for when we have some time this fall!
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Convention and Organized Play Manager
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Will PFS mirror SFS level creation rules? Can start at 1st, 3rd, 5th, or 7th?
Not at this time. The same applies to any other rules reflected in SFS2: all PFS2 scenarios are not repeatable, we will still be sanctioning Adventure Paths for PFS2, and so on.
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Creative Director
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So is the (stand-alone) Adventure line going to still be a thing or is it getting combined with the Adventure Path line?
The standalone Adventures are still very much a thing. They're shorter and offer different styles of play, and will continue to do so alongside the now-in-hardcover Adventure Paths.
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Creative Director
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I wish there were plans for occasional (biennial?) cohesive level 1-20 APs.
Just saying.
While we don't have any announcements for a single book 1st to 20th level Adventure Path... the first two Adventure Paths of next year, "Hellbreakers" and "Hell's Destiny" are designed to be parts 1 and 2 of a single larger story that lets you play the PCs from the 1st one in the 2nd one relatively seamlessly and that continues the overarching story. Hopefully this sort of two-part thematically linked offering will delight folks who have been waiting for another chance to start at 1st level and play all the way to 20th!
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Question: if Hellbreakers and Hell's destiny are the 2027 books, what are the 2026 books?
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My biggest concern with the narrower level bands: you level out of it so quickly, it can be difficult to figure out which scenarios to schedule for in-person venues.
Case in point: We offer 2 tables every Society night. We have several level 5-6 characters who want to play the new 5-6 adventure...what do we do for the other table? If some players have a level 7 and some have a level 4...they both have to suffer and just make first-level characters to even be able to play? Or somebody can't play at all? Or they have to use pregens?
I'm hoping this isn't how it'll work out in practice, and it's possible that the changes are reflecting the massive shift in how Society is being done these days (I get the feeling in-person non-convention games are fading), maybe this will better serve that new format.
But for how our program current operates, it's making me sweat a bit.
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My biggest concern with the narrower level bands: you level out of it so quickly, it can be difficult to figure out which scenarios to schedule for in-person venues.
Case in point: We offer 2 tables every Society night. We have several level 5-6 characters who want to play the new 5-6 adventure...what do we do for the other table? If some players have a level 7 and some have a level 4...they both have to suffer and just make first-level characters to even be able to play? Or somebody can't play at all? Or they have to use pregens?
I'm hoping this isn't how it'll work out in practice, and it's possible that the changes are reflecting the massive shift in how Society is being done these days (I get the feeling in-person non-convention games are fading), maybe this will better serve that new format.
But for how our program current operates, it's making me sweat a bit.
That's my fear, as well. Scheduling. No question it's easier to prep. But what good is prepping a game that doesn't have enough players?
Also, are in-person non-convention games on the decline? I hadn't thought about that, and I only have my area to go off of, but is that other folks' experience?
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Will adventure path subscriptions still include a free pdf? I have never subscribed to a hard cover book line at Paizo so am hoping someone who is more knowledgeable can inform me know. The quarterly subscription model might also give folks more time to subscribe or unsubscribe. However, that will only be the case if adventure release dates are relatively consistent.
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I love the change, and have been a big proponent of this idea since the Runelords anniversary edition! As a forever-Varisia fan it'll be sad to see that the hardcovers don't start with Revenge (it'd sit well next to the old Runelords one!) but I'm almost equally as excited for Hellbreaker's/Hell's Destiny
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My biggest concern with the narrower level bands: you level out of it so quickly, it can be difficult to figure out which scenarios to schedule for in-person venues.That's my fear, as well. Scheduling. No question it's easier to prep. But what good is prepping a game that doesn't have enough players?
Also, are in-person non-convention games on the decline? I hadn't thought about that, and I only have my area to go off of, but is that other folks' experience?
Our local games are seeing a surge in popularity! Fortunately, our local store expanded to a larger location and the in-person non-convention games have gone from every other week to nearly every week there is not a convention nearby. Additionally, for PF2e games we’re starting to fill two tables pretty consistently.
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Will adventure path subscriptions still include a free pdf? I have never subscribed to a hard cover book line at Paizo so am hoping someone who is more knowledgeable can inform me know. The quarterly subscription model might also give folks more time to subscribe or unsubscribe. However, that will only be the case if adventure release dates are relatively consistent.
Yes the hardcover product lines still offer free pdfs
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My biggest concern with the narrower level bands: you level out of it so quickly, it can be difficult to figure out which scenarios to schedule for in-person venues.
Case in point: We offer 2 tables every Society night. We have several level 5-6 characters who want to play the new 5-6 adventure...what do we do for the other table? If some players have a level 7 and some have a level 4...they both have to suffer and just make first-level characters to even be able to play? Or somebody can't play at all? Or they have to use pregens?
I'm hoping this isn't how it'll work out in practice, and it's possible that the changes are reflecting the massive shift in how Society is being done these days (I get the feeling in-person non-convention games are fading), maybe this will better serve that new format.
But for how our program current operates, it's making me sweat a bit.
That's my fear, as well. Scheduling. No question it's easier to prep. But what good is prepping a game that doesn't have enough players?
Also, are in-person non-convention games on the decline? I hadn't thought about that, and I only have my area to go off of, but is that other folks' experience?
I agree with both of you! Part of the appeal of PFS was the inclusivity and the wider level ranges helped that! Since we are not getting the SFS2E character creation rules, I feel like we are going to be pushing out more people. Theres only so many games that can be run and now cutting the player pool in half. I fear newer players will be the ones that miss out.
Encounters being scaled for 6 people, I am not sure that is the majority of tables so will you always have to use Easy mode? I feel the ambiguity or arbitrary of Easy and Hard mode will lead to much more table variation. The consistency of PFS was another big draw for me. Very little GM fiat was a big destressor for me running games.
Changing the rules mid season will be confusing as well.
I love the shorter scenarios, I would love if they were repeatable as well. I am just concerned with the removal of CP.
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We are also seeing growth running 2 slots every other weekend at our store. It does have a table fee but it's a daily fee so that was one of the perks of having 2 slots, they get a bit more bang for their buck. Little bit of bummer they'll be going back to getting the same amount of play time in 2 slots as they were in 1... But the 2 level bracket is my biggest concern. We don't frequently have situations where a 1 and a 4 playing together but we do often have 2s and 3s. We typically run a 1-4 and then something either 3-6 or 5-8 so the highers can play. But yesterday we did a 5-8 and had a 6,7,and 8. Added the 5th level pregen based on the calculations and everyone got to play. In the new setup that couldn't happen. Plus with no 7th level pregen it couldn't have happened at all if it were just a 7-8 adventure. I figured this would happen when it was announced for SFS but I honestly thought there'd be more a Gencon's worth of data to base the decision on.
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Chiming in to say I'm honestly not a fan of the PFS-side changes. Many times, a scenario feels too short and rushed as it is, with players leaving scratching their heads over what happened and whodunnit. Cutting out a quarter of the time not only means authors (and players) can invest less time in building a proper scene and story, but also players who like roleplaying and developing their characters have less time to do so.
Besides that, restricting tables to a strict 2-level band, with a six player expectation no less, sounds like scheduling hell for the GMs and VCs. In my immediate local area, there's already a shortage of players, and this sounds guaranteed to kill that off. Then you have the other option of driving 45 minutes one way... to a game that now ends in three hours?
I'm sorry, maybe I'm just being negative, but this sounds like a really bad plan.
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I always appreciated having the full stat blocks of monsters in the back of each PFS scenario. I'm pretty upset that's going away.
Not having to flip between bookmarks for each monster was such a godsend, especially for multi-table specials.
I am not upset by this, but I am pretty darn disappointed. In 1e, a lot of venture-officers pushed hard to get all stat blocks included. This made prepping scenarios a LOT easier and take less time. But, I guess neither of those factors and how they will impact GMs were at all taken into consideration.
It’s almost enough, but not quite, for me to cancel my society subscriptions and stop GMing society play altogether.
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Hardcover APs. As someone who has been subscribing on and off since Dungeon Magazine. I'm looking forward to this change. It is better for shipping costs, environment as well as the shelf space. I like the fact that everything is all in one book versus needing to pull out multiple books when I'm trying to prep either forward looking or reverse looking. Huzzah!
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Hardcover APs. As someone who has been subscribing on and off since Dungeon Magazine. I'm looking forward to this change. It is better for shipping costs, environment as well as the shelf space. I like the fact that everything is all in one book versus needing to pull out multiple books when I'm trying to prep either forward looking or reverse looking. Huzzah!
I'm probably cancelling my subscription for the AP line. The main reason I was subscribing is to one, not miss a volume, and two, get something in the mail once a month that wasn't junk or a bill. I'll probably just switch to buying them as they hit the shelf of my flgs. It'll be cheaper anyway. So this a good change for me, but I wonder if it's an intended consequence.
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I always appreciated having the full stat blocks of monsters in the back of each PFS scenario. I'm pretty upset that's going away.
Not having to flip between bookmarks for each monster was such a godsend, especially for multi-table specials.
I am not upset by this, but I am pretty darn disappointed. In 1e, a lot of venture-officers pushed hard to get all stat blocks included. This made prepping scenarios a LOT easier and take less time. But, I guess neither of those factors and how they will impact GMs were at all taken into consideration.
It’s almost enough, but not quite, for me to cancel my society subscriptions and stop GMing society play altogether.
I remember when that happened, Mark. It was widely celebrated.
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I'm hopeful that this change to the AP format might also have a bit of a quality boost. Since typically all three books were being written separately (and what seemed to be simultaneously), there would sometimes be kind of a thematic disconnect between AP segments. With APs now being one full book, is this going to result in a change to the collaborative nature of the writing process as well?
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As someone who runs a lot of PFS the change to remove stat blocks is a complete retrograde step. Making it more difficult to run PFS scenarios makes no sense. Making it harder for newer GMs to run games is rubbish. Claiming it is to save space on products which are only ever produced in PDF smacks of being an outright fabrication.
The issue is one of time spent editing stat blocks and trying to ensure formats are correct, as it's been explained to me.
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I was frustrated enough seeing the changes to Starfinder Society (shorter scenarios, infinite replay, players making characters higher level than they can competently play) but was glad it wasn't impacting Pathfinder as well... but here we are.
The reduction in level bands will make it harder to schedule. The reduction of time will water down the scenarios and make them less deep and exciting. The removal of stat blocks means I more often have to reference a separate book or document. The "GM fiat" is the exact reason Society is good - consistency and prescription of difficulty.
(I was also around when we won the Appendices for Pathfinder Society - it was so great! It was such an improvement! Gone were the days of waiting for a couple of key volunteers to build out a separate document of statblocks for us!)
Just like I said with Starfinder: Maybe we should be doing one or two changes, seeing how they work, and then deciding if we need more changes, rather than turning this into a completely different organized play environment overnight? There's barely been enough time to see if any of this is good for Starfinder, let alone decide that this is the healthy and good choice for Pathfinder.
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I was frustrated enough seeing the changes to Starfinder Society (shorter scenarios, infinite replay, players making characters higher level than they can competently play) but was glad it wasn't impacting Pathfinder as well... but here we are.
The reduction in level bands will make it harder to schedule. The reduction of time will water down the scenarios and make them less deep and exciting. The removal of stat blocks means I more often have to reference a separate book or document. The "GM fiat" is the exact reason Society is good - consistency and prescription of difficulty.
Just like I said with Starfinder: Maybe we should be doing one or two changes, seeing how they work, and then deciding if we need more changes, rather than turning this into a completely different organized play environment overnight? There's barely been enough time to see if any of this is good for Starfinder, let alone decide that this is the healthy and good choice for Pathfinder.
Agreed. The changes to SFS2 guaranteed I wouldn't be trying it out, at least not immediately. I'm not sure I understand where this new direction is coming from, but most (if not all) people I talked to at GenCon about it had a similar viewpoint as me.
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Adventure path change seems overall like a win, though it might be time to drop the "path" moniker. It's really just a big adventure at this point, no? Especially since pretty much everything will be hard cover now. The name "Pathfinder" is recognizable as its own thing; you don't need the name "adventure path" around. Overall, this seems like a great opportunity to simplify your branding.
The PFS changes I like much less. Removing stat blocks from scenarios means either extra prep work, more books to carry, or both. But my bigger concern is that this is 25% less content for the same price -- and said content only supports half the level band. I'm sure they'll be easier to produce, but this is, in effect, shrinkflation (and therefore really yet *another* price increase for PFS scenarios in the last few years, tripling down on the fundamentally misguided, not to mention baffling, strategy of trying to make a promotional tool profitable). Scenarios were already relatively overpriced at $9; now they'll be 25% smaller, and less flexible to boot. At the end of the day, these changes make things more painful and costly for society GMs, which seems very unlikely to end well for anyone.
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Publishing in one go seems like a better approach. One of the reasons i've never really bothered with APs that i've picked up in humble bundles or whatever is that they feel really disconnected.
That being said, not putting the stat blocks is a severe misstep. Running in organised play is pretty stressful, and anything you can do to reduce that load is really important. I would urge reconsidering, or at least adding a free download for each one that gives you the statblocks in one place, since i suspect this is being done for space reasons.
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Sooooo happy to hear this change! I hope Starfinder will take a similar model with adventures. I'm appreciating yall's flexibility!
Starfinder led the way with Scoured Stars and Mechageddon! as the last two SF1 APs.
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I was frustrated enough seeing the changes to Starfinder Society (shorter scenarios, infinite replay, players making characters higher level than they can competently play) but was glad it wasn't impacting Pathfinder as well... but here we are.
The reduction in level bands will make it harder to schedule. The reduction of time will water down the scenarios and make them less deep and exciting. The removal of stat blocks means I more often have to reference a separate book or document. The "GM fiat" is the exact reason Society is good - consistency and prescription of difficulty.
(I was also around when we won the Appendices for Pathfinder Society - it was so great! It was such an improvement! Gone were the days of waiting for a couple of key volunteers to build out a separate document of statblocks for us!)
Just like I said with Starfinder: Maybe we should be doing one or two changes, seeing how they work, and then deciding if we need more changes, rather than turning this into a completely different organized play environment overnight? There's barely been enough time to see if any of this is good for Starfinder, let alone decide that this is the healthy and good choice for Pathfinder.
I agree with everything you said. I think the GM fiat piece is being overlooked with all these changes. Thanks for calling it out also.
And I didnt even realize about the stat blocks! I play all online so its not a big deal for me, but I agree lets not make it harder for GMs!
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I like the AP change. No opinion on the PFS changes, at least not yet.
I just recently decided to change my approach from "buy everything Paizo publishes and hope I can find someplace to put it" to "no subscriptions; just buy the pdf as it becomes available". So how much will the pdf for these eighty dollar APs cost?
