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2. Keep challenge points and multiple level bands. As everyone on the ground is telling you, both are absolutely necessary to actually make legal tables go off.
You do know the game doesn't work correctly with the level band system right? I know people are clamoring for it but very often it either results in a wonky cases where either one player is completely dominating the encounters on his own or players are struggling to do anything.
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I guess there is still possibility for some kind of premium 1-20 hardcover book (or even going experimental and skipping some levels again whether thats 1-3 or some level skips between 1 and 20. *shrugs*), though 10 levels at once is probably better for lot of tables. I do still like having grand coherent 1-20 campaign even if it includes lot of sidetrips to fill space for 20 levels xD
Doing another 1st to 20th level Adventure Path has ALWAYS been a possibility, but...
We know it's something that some folks want. I know it's somehthing I'd like to do at some point. But they're going to be few and far between, becasue the shorter ones are more advantageous to do in pretty much every other way.
(And I should note that the feedback of "there's too many sidetrips in this Adventure Path that get in the way of advancing the plot and feel like space fillers" is a pretty well-heard and common complaint—I'd say that most customers do NOT like this sort of thing in an Adventure Path, and was one of the many many many factors we considered when we decided years ago to shift to shorter Adventure Paths.)
TL;DR: full 20 level Adventure Paths are possible, but unlikely and won't happen often at all.
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I'm really excited by this change. I'm not a big fan of small softcovers, and i've been having a blast with hardcovers for Kingmaker and Seven dooms at Sandpoint in the past.
I suppose that transition also covers Starfinder?
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I'm really excited by this change. I'm not a big fan of small softcovers, and i've been having a blast with hardcovers for Kingmaker and Seven dooms at Sandpoint in the past.
I suppose that transition also covers Starfinder?
Starfinder made this transition a while back, so... yup!
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TL;DR: full 20 level Adventure Paths are possible, but unlikely and won't happen often at all.Out of interest, what changed? These seem very solid reasons to move from 20-level APs to 10-level APs - but you guys did 27 consecutive 20(ish) level APs, 30 if you count the Dungeon APs. Wouldn't these reasons also have applied 10 years ago?
A not-complete list:
A 3 part adventure path gives buyers twice as many opportunities to get excited about an adventure path.
Producing 3 part adventure paths improves the quality of life of developers at Paizo and allows us to share the load easier.
It takes longer to play a 20 part adventure path, so they're more intimidating.
It took us a while to change because at the time it was going well and we were very much in a "this isn't broken, let's not 'fix' it," but with each year that progressed and Pathfinder as an RPG and campaign setting grew more and more solid and less fringe, it allowed us to get more and more experimental with the Adventure Paths. We tried the switch to 3 part ones in Starfinder and the results were promising, so a little bit later we did the same to Pathfinder and the results are also of the type that compels us to keep doing 3 part Adventure Paths (or should I start saying, 256 page Adventure Paths, starting next year) going forward.
Also, what changed? Customer buying habits, the devastating decline of the monthly magazine/periodical print market, Covid and its impacts on shipping, and more recently all this uncertainty and constant changing in the tariff and shipping scene.
In the end, the BIG savings for customers between a 3 part Adventure Path and a 1 part hardcover is going to be in the shipping costs.
TL; DR What's changed is the world stage, rising costs for production and shipping, customer buying habits and preferences, and a healthier work/life balance for Paizo employees.
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TL; DR What's changed is the world stage, rising costs for production and shipping, customer buying habits and preferences, and a healthier work/life balance for...
James, I know Gatewalkers was repackaged, along with a few others, as a hardcover ( I have a copy). Is there a plan to do the same with the upcoming Runelords AP, or will that be decided once the sales data for the softcovers is available?
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And I should note that the feedback of "there's too many sidetrips in this Adventure Path that get in the way of advancing the plot and feel like space fillers" is a pretty well-heard and common complaint—I'd say that most customers do NOT like this sort of thing in an Adventure Path, and was one of the many many many factors we considered when we decided years ago to shift to shorter Adventure Paths.
I feel this points to the "many sidetrips" having to be a feature of an AP rather than a bug, aka sandbox AP a la Kingmaker. This way it can be both extremely popular and go from level 1 to 20 as PF2 KM did.
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First off, I like the changes coming to APs. Also, to the people wanting a Remastered Extinction Curse, I agree!
Update the Shoony!
Update the Staff Acrobat (and allow a wider variety of staves)!
I admit, I'm not that invested in PFS or SFS, but it sounds like the shorter lengths could be good.
The other changes? Maybe not so much?
Like I said, not super invested in Society stuff, so my opinion doesn't really have much weight.
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You do know the game doesn't work correctly with the level band system right? I know people are clamoring for it but very often it either results in a wonky cases where either one player is completely dominating the encounters on his own or players are struggling to do anything.
Whereas now those tables -- not to mention many others -- won't be legal, and thus simply won't happen at all.
This does not feel like an improvement.
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James, I know Gatewalkers was repackaged, along with a few others, as a hardcover ( I have a copy). Is there a plan to do the same with the upcoming Runelords AP, or will that be decided once the sales data for the softcovers is available?TL; DR What's changed is the world stage, rising costs for production and shipping, customer buying habits and preferences, and a healthier work/life balance for...
Any of the previous Adventure Paths could potentially be repackaged as a hardcover. The latest one we announced is Season of Ghosts, which will be out early next year. It's years too soon to start considering plans like these for Adventure Paths that aren't even out yet.
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And I should note that the feedback of "there's too many sidetrips in this Adventure Path that get in the way of advancing the plot and feel like space fillers" is a pretty well-heard and common complaint—I'd say that most customers do NOT like this sort of thing in an Adventure Path, and was one of the many many many factors we considered when we decided years ago to shift to shorter Adventure Paths.I feel this points to the "many sidetrips" having to be a feature of an AP rather than a bug, aka sandbox AP a la Kingmaker. This way it can be both extremely popular and go from level 1 to 20 as PF2 KM did.
The complaints about "many sidetrips" and "lack of a central story" were among the greatest number of complaints we got from the first version of Kingmaker, which is a big reason why we never again tackled a fully sandbox-style campaign like that one in the Adventure Path line. They're a LOT harder to do (particularly in a monthly, serialized format) than plot-focused Adventure Paths too.
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Let's get Dead God's Hand published in AP format!
I'm looking forward to the shorter scenarios for multiple reasons, one being getting weeknight gaming going. The 4-hour scenarios just did not fit the time slots available.
I am also glad to see the level bands. While they might be problematic for some, I didn't like running games where 4 or 5 players were the lowest level for the scenario and one or two players were the highest level. It resulted in some unbalanced sessions where there was often no challenge. I might as well have just handed out chronicle sheets and played a game of Yahtzee.
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I've mentioned elsewhere, but from the office of Expectation Management: Dead God's Hand is going to be a standalone adventure, NOT an Adventure Path. It'll be a bit longer than the standard 128 page standalone length, but not up to the 256 page Adventure Path length.
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You do know the game doesn't work correctly with the level band system right? I know people are clamoring for it but very often it either results in a wonky cases where either one player is completely dominating the encounters on his own or players are struggling to do anything.
2. Keep challenge points and multiple level bands. As everyone on the ground is telling you, both are absolutely necessary to actually make legal tables go off.
While that's true, the alternative is that none of the players are able to do anything because the game doesn't run.
The gameplay would, indeed, work best if every PC were the same level. The downside is finding a critical mass of people with a character of that level, or, players needing to manage a stable of 20+ characters to make sure they always have one in level.
I can imagine this isn't a big deal for high volume players. For example, I currently have 16 characters, and I've got every 2-level block covered from 3-4 to 9-10. With these changes, I'll need to start 2 new ones for levels 1-2, and when my 12 levels up to 13, I'll need to move someone from 9-10 to 11-12, which may mean moving someone from 7-8 to 9-10, etc. It's complicated, but managable, for me.
However, this is going to be a problem for low volume, or even medium volume players. My kids "only" have 3 characters each and already struggle with 4-level ranges. We've had to pass on some games when we'd otherwise be free, because they didn't have an appropriately leveled character.
I don't run a lodge, but I suspect that, with these changes, many are going to have to offer a Season 1-6 Repeatable scenario as a backup game in case they can't muster a narrow band game.
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stuff about PFS2 stat blocks missing
I'd prefer to have stat blocks included, but I think people are overreacting to their absence.
One of the things that has really changed in the past 10-15 years (since PFS1 included them) is the availability of high quality cell phone data service, and the availability of AON as an official source.
It used to be dangerous to assume people could access the SRD at a game location. I think it's pretty safe, now. Most locations that have poor cell service have invested in those relays/boosters, and even in the depths of a convention hall, I've never had problems pulling up AoN, or Pathbuilder/Herolab, on my phone. And if AoN is down or slow, there are even a bunch of other non-official sites that are as good or ... uh ... better.
Like I said, I'd still prefer to have the stat blocks included, especially since these are PDF-only products so the number of pages is literally not a concern, but the 2-level blocks seems like a much bigger potential problem, and they're getting the same attention in the comments.
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Stuff about assuming 4 vs assuming 6 PCs
I don't think this is as big of a deal as people are making it to be, especially given the narrow level ranges. CP was more useful when scenarios could have had four Level 1s or six Level 4s. If it's four Level 3s or six Level 4s, I can see the case for less granularity.
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One of the things that has really changed in the past 10-15 years (since PFS1 included them) is the availability of high quality cell phone data service, and the availability of AON as an official source.
That's not necessarily the issue/ solution for us dinosaurs who prefer to run from paper because juggling PDFs and tens of tabs for spells on a tablet means we lose a lot of time finding whatever we need; Add prepping a tab for every creature to that, and the nightmare worsens. And many of the standard websites that offer monster statblocks are not printer-friendly.
As was mentioned previously, this really is a quality of life thing for GMs that I'd almost consider related to accessibility.
Quote:Stuff about assuming 4 vs assuming 6 PCs
I don't think this is as big of a deal as people are making it to be, especially given the narrow level ranges. CP was more useful when scenarios could have had four Level 1s or six Level 4s. If it's four Level 3s or six Level 4s, I can see the case for less granularity.
I don't know if you played during the PFS1 days, but TBH the 4-player adjustment was one of the things that I experienced as bad, due to more often than not being problematic.
I wonder whether Paizo considered balancing around 5 players instead. The impact of only 1 fewer or additional player compared to base assumption should be pretty minor while not having to change much about the originally intended encounter design.
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While that's true, the alternative is that none of the players are able to do anything because the game doesn't run.
The gameplay would, indeed, work best if every PC were the same level. The downside is finding a critical mass of people with a character of that level, or, players needing to manage a stable of 20+ characters to make sure they always have one in level.
I can imagine this isn't a big deal for high volume players. For example, I currently have 16 characters, and I've got every 2-level block covered from 3-4 to 9-10. With these changes, I'll need to start 2 new ones for levels 1-2, and when my 12 levels up to 13, I'll need to move someone from 9-10 to 11-12, which may mean moving someone from 7-8 to 9-10, etc. It's complicated, but managable, for me.
However, this is going to be a problem for low volume, or even medium volume players. My kids "only" have 3 characters each and already struggle with 4-level ranges. We've had to pass on some games when we'd otherwise be free, because they didn't have an appropriately leveled character.
I don't run a lodge, but I suspect that, with these changes, many are going to have to offer a Season 1-6 Repeatable scenario as a backup game in case they can't muster a narrow band game.
Yeah this is going to be a problem locally for us. It's pretty common that people only have a couple of characters and so having the full table in the same 2 level range is... difficult. I'd really hate to turn people away, and I'd REALLY hate if the split is such that we just can't run the scenario.
My family have 2 characters: level 8 and level 2. This change dramatically expands the number of scenarios they can't play, and its not like they can just create a level 3/5 character they way SF2 allows (which would help a ton and really should come over to PF2 ASAP).
I guess they just expect people to use pregens, but there are no pregens over level 5 so it's going to make running at 7+ even harder than it already is. Plus some of the pregens are frankly not very good and I wouldn't recommend people use them because it's just not a fun experience. (And then there's Korakai who just isn't built correctly for remaster rules even after a year.)
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You do know the game doesn't work correctly with the level band system right? I know people are clamoring for it but very often it either results in a wonky cases where either one player is completely dominating the encounters on his own or players are struggling to do anything.Whereas now those tables -- not to mention many others -- won't be legal, and thus simply won't happen at all.
This does not feel like an improvement.
I don't know as Xathos said the imbalance of Pathfinder Society tables can often be kind of not satisfying so its six and one half dozen of the other.
Also, I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a problem for people before because truth be told I never scheduled high level content for the same exact reason.
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Also, I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a problem for people before because truth be told I never scheduled high level content for the same exact reason.
So...if a problem already exists, there is no reason not to make it worse? Respectfully, that doesn't follow.
That said, this entire conversation is moot. If Paizo had been interested in our input, they would have asked for it before announcing the PFS changes.
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For where I stand, Strength of Thousands is the ideal 1 through 20 AP. The story justifies the range of levels, and the "side quests" are done in a way that makes perfect sense. The story isn't about
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Good move for so many reasons!
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I am surprised some people don't have an army of pcs waiting to be played. I have come up with so many characters using pathbuilder that my issue will be if I will ever get to play most of them, but it does mean that I can have a character for every season that comes up
As for needing to get a pc to level range I know that my tengu kineticist will have to be leveled from 7 to 9, and my awakened animal (leucrotta) champion from 5 to 7. Getting my newest pc, dragonblood athamaru ranger will be able to reach level 3 easily and hopefully level 5 as well
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The PFS part...ick. I sometimes wonder about getting back into PFS, but every time I do Paizo manages to dissuade me almost immediately.
You and me both. I come and go -- mostly go the last few years -- but I so want it to be good. It certainly used to be! Unfortunately nowadays Paizo just can't seem to get out of their own way with respect to PFS.
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Originally posted this in the Gatewalkers Remaster product page as a reply one of James' post, but decided to move it over here where it is more appropriate. Link to the post I'm replying to.
We often cut the secondary articles in Adventure Path compilations like this, especially in cases (as with the Findeladlara article) the material isn't directly "load bearing" for the adventure itself. This is one of the many ways we keep costs down for hardcovers (every page we save can translate into a significant cost savings, depending on overall page count), but also to be frank one of the benefits of buying the first run of an Adventure Path too.
This makes perfect sense to me in the context of the Gatewalkers Remaster. One thing I am hoping as I scroll back through this post-Hellbreaker announcement is that new APs still have a good chunk of backmatter in them. The world building that happens in Adventure Paths is one of the most valuable things for me... literally, that is often the value I get since Desna knows I don't run all of them. I know it was meantioned on the announcement stream that backmatter isn't going away... but I do hope new adventure paths error on the side of more backmatter rather than less. There are things I love about Stolen Fates and I know why it didn't get as much backmatter... but it is a bummer to me. And there are times I feel 2e already has less backmatter than 1e APs, but that may just be my perception.
So yeah, I get trimming the backmatter of Gatewalkers in this context. I really appreciate you took the time to explain it. But I really really really want to see that backmatter worldbuilding continue in the quarterly adventure paths!
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I am surprised some people don't have an army of pcs waiting to be played. I have come up with so many characters using pathbuilder that my issue will be if I will ever get to play most of them, but it does mean that I can have a character for every season that comes up
As for needing to get a pc to level range I know that my tengu kineticist will have to be leveled from 7 to 9, and my awakened animal (leucrotta) champion from 5 to 7. Getting my newest pc, dragonblood athamaru ranger will be able to reach level 3 easily and hopefully level 5 as well
GMs who run a lot of PFS or who run APs will handle this easily, as we probably have so many chronicles that we have characters we don't have time to play. But people who just play don't have armies of characters lying around unless they play a lot.
As I mentioned, my family have 2 PFS characters: a level 8, and a level 2. Right now that means the only scenarios they can't play in are the 3-6 ones and something high level (and once they hit level 3, 3-6 works). Under this change, that list expands massively. This is not a good thing.
For a GM trying to schedule a game, this means we're going to have to know in advance what is being run so we know if it's worth it for them to show up or not, because if they show up and get told they can't play due to levels, they will be extremely unhappy. Neither of them like to learn characters on the fly (an autistic reaction) so pregens are not appealing.
That's why I want the SF2 "make a character at level 1/3/5" change to also come over, and I really don't understand why its not. If the game at our local con is running at level 5 and we can just create a level 5 character for it a week in advance, we're okay. As it stands now there's no way the can go get a level 5 character, so they're probably just not going to go at all.
The PFS part...ick. I sometimes wonder about getting back into PFS, but every time I do Paizo manages to dissuade me almost immediately.You and me both. I come and go -- mostly go the last few years -- but I so want it to be good. It certainly used to be! Unfortunately nowadays Paizo just can't seem to get out of their own way with respect to PFS.
Yeah some of the decision making is really baffling. I can't overstate how offputting the way they handled Remaster Oracle for existing characters was, plus the ones who didn't have a rebuild because they were made after PC1 came out but before PC2 came out.
That was such an easy situation to resolve, and they decided to go the absolute worst way possible with every decision surrounding it. It made no damn sense at all.
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Also, I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a problem for people before because truth be told I never scheduled high level content for the same exact reason.So...if a problem already exists, there is no reason not to make it worse? Respectfully, that doesn't follow.
That said, this entire conversation is moot. If Paizo had been interested in our input, they would have asked for it before announcing the PFS changes.
First of all they did actually listen to us because this is the third time that this actually has changed. As I said earlier very often the previous encounter designs would result in unfun encounters and potential TPKs. And in one case resulted in a scenario I thought my friend was making up as a joke.
Basically my point is that you're swapping out logistical issues and lodge issues for horrible encounter designs.
I am surprised some people don't have an army of pcs waiting to be played. I have come up with so many characters using pathbuilder that my issue will be if I will ever get to play most of them, but it does mean that I can have a character for every season that comes up
Waiting to play is one thing. Having enough games and tables to get them to a high enough level is another thing. Some lodges don't really have the ability to support the amount of games where you can have such a character spread.
For a GM trying to schedule a game, this means we're going to have to know in advance what is being run so we know if it's worth it for them to show up or not, because if they show up and get told they can't play due to levels, they will be extremely unhappy. Neither of them like to learn characters on the fly (an autistic reaction) so pregens are not appealing.
Does your lodge not schedule events in advance? o.O Im only asking this because I've never heard of this and I've been on the organizing side of this for a while now.
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Does your lodge not schedule events in advance? o.O Im only asking this because I've never heard of this and I've been on the organizing side of this for a while now.
"Lodge" is a generous description given the size of the game in my area, since its really another GM and myself that will run events at conventions and such. Con games do tend to be scheduled with the level range advertised, but "1-4" covers a lot of ground and the system included an option for my level 4 to play alongside someone who has only played once before and has a level 1 (I'd just play a support and buff them up, and with the mentor benefits stacked on that they'll do alright).
So we could just adjust based on who showed up and what characters they have and know it'd work. Accomodating folks who don't have a lot of characters or really want to play a specific thing is getting harder now.
"3-4" narrows the band significantly by limiting what characters people can bring, and also makes fewer of the scheduled games look friendly to new players (since a level 1 game always looks more inviting for newbies than something higher up the level range).
It definitely feels like this change is being made to help folks running at big events like Gencon where there's lots of tables at every level, but in our situation where there's one table it's going to make everything harder.
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I am joining the dogpile. AP side of this announcement is fine. I too benefitted from spacing out my purchases, but it if the story consistency is better it is a change I will live with. I bothers me slightly our 1-20s are being turned into 2 parters which means less other stories in the year. I do understand this should be better for the writers editors as well that if their is a 1-20 there isn't also 3 other 1-10s coming out, but its something that's just nagging at me anyways. I'll get over it.
PFS though. What a doozy... I play a lot of PFS, GM a little. This is not a good change. I don't have anything more to say that has already been said but to give my support to those ideas I will list them briefly. Shorter sessions is less bang for buck. Please just reduce the use of subsystems and spongey enemies instead. Your level bands are to narrow, this makes organizing a problem. Assuming tables will be 6 strong is very Warhorn minded. As is removing stat blocks from PDFs. You've got tunnel vision for the online-VTT user experience and are making a mess of the in person experience for GMs, players, and organizers in one post.
And @MadScientistWorking, you say "assuming still four hours", but is that really realistic? You tell people its a 2-3 hour and plenty of people are going to expect it to wrap up by hour 3. Not everyone is there for an hour of RP. This is not a positive every table is going to care about. What tables will care about is if they fire and as has been said ad nauseum, to grow the community we want as many tables to fire, even if there is some problematic elements like the level 4 doing all the work for the level 1s.
"I’ll be lurking around in the comments for this blog and will be eager to answer additional questions folks have" -James Jacobs
Let me get salty here for a moment. I praise Jacobs for keeping his word and being here to answer questions about the AP changes which is his area of focus. It makes me all the more irate we can't seem to expect the same from the rest. The CEO, Butler, jumped in the answer a question about the subscription service. No one, is here to answer questions or give reassurances about issues we are having with the PFS side of this. Compared to Jacob the rest of the company doesn't even seem to care. They have made their decree and now we have to live with it. If it wasn't a question about the business no one else could be bothered to be in here with us. We have long time players, organizers, and GMs in here being highly consistent in their feedback and there isn't a sign anyone at Paizo is listening. I can't speak for people outside of my community, (though there are almost 130 other comments who are speaking for their own) but this will push people away from the game and you will lose business. Don't ignore this Paizo. Please say something! Even if it is just "Get over it".
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When it comes to answering questions related to what he does, James is awesome. Absolutely love the interaction and appreciate the time he spends on it.
I wish we could clone him.
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I just returned from a local convention. When told of the changes to PFS scenarios, one person said they would not run them any more. It took too much prep work, and didn't want to flip back and forth between the scenario and the rule books or Archives of Nethys. Lots of GMs had similar comments.
It's unfortunate that Paizo's silence on our concerns is dephaning.
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As many other GMs have mentioned, the removal of stat blocks in the adventure PDF is a big let down and may I say mistake?
It will increase the work prep for GMs greatly.
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{. . .}
Hellbreakers: A 1st- to 10th-level campaign involving the outbreak of the war between Andoran and Cheliax. Can your PCs make the difference in this violent clash that threatens two of Golarion’s most bitter rival nations?Hell’s Destiny: An 11th- to 20th-level campaign that continues the war-torn story from Hellbreakers and can also work on its own as a high-powered campaign. Can your PCs stop a truly diabolical threat from engulfing the Inner Sea region and casting the continent of Avistan into ruin?
{. . .}
These sound REALLY INTERESTING. I wish I could Favorite the original blog post . . . .
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I do have to say that having James and Jim come in and target-answer specific questions while a whole barrage of fairly well posed and thought out critiques of changes to PFS go completely unanswered is nothing new from Paizo.
@Jim/James: please ask Maya to ask someone who might be useful to address the fairly consistent negative drove of comments regarding the changes to PFS. Or ask them yourself. It really does seem as if these changes are extremely unpopular, and possibly likely to undermine the point of PFS in the first place. At least according to these PFS folk/customers.
Also, I’m not sure why either of you, as participants in the thread haven’t at least already said “I hear you, and although not my sphere of influence I’ll let the appropriate people know to look in….”
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Also, I’m not sure why either of you, as participants in the thread haven’t at least already said “I hear you, and although not my sphere of influence I’ll let the appropriate people know to look in….”
My excuse is that I've been on vacation for several days and won't be back to work until Wednesday.
And beyond that, this is also a holiday weekend too.
Please be patient.
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I do have to say that having James and Jim come in and target-answer specific questions while a whole barrage of fairly well posed and thought out critiques of changes to PFS go completely unanswered is nothing new from Paizo.
@Jim/James: please ask Maya to ask someone who might be useful to address the fairly consistent negative drove of comments regarding the changes to PFS. Or ask them yourself. It really does seem as if these changes are extremely unpopular, and possibly likely to undermine the point of PFS in the first place. At least according to these PFS folk/customers.
Also, I’m not sure why either of you, as participants in the thread haven’t at least already said “I hear you, and although not my sphere of influence I’ll let the appropriate people know to look in….”
It's pretty normal for James to not chime in at all if it's not something he can address. Aside from his own answer as to why, I suspect it's because "I'll go ping someone else" or "I'll get an answer and get back to you" is additional work but also means if he can't get an answer he's now stuck having said that and then not being able to respond with an answer.
See also: when Maya was new and xe responded to a couple of rules threads about trying to get an answer. That answer never came, and xe since stopped chiming in like that. We can only speculate what happened, but the obvious explanation is Maya asked and was told that no response would be forthcoming, so stopped offering to do it rather than get our hopes up.
I don't know why the people who actually can answer rules questions are so adamant about not doing it, but the fact is that they just don't answer the longest running questions and it puts anyone else who offers to try to get an answer in an awkward spot when it turns out they can't.
And thats how a year later we still don't actually know how many spells Oracles have in their repertoire. I'm picking on that one despite it not being the longest running point of confusion because it should be trivial to answer since it's such a basic class function, whereas something like the more complex instance of damage/multiple resist/multiple weakness questions will require some thought to give an answer that covers the necessary cases.
That's not on James/Maya, and I'd hate for the folks that do contribute here to be bombarded with questions unrelated to their actual jobs and get chased off.
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Yeah, there's a whole other topic of Paizo's lack of responsiveness to player feedback there. I know the RPG business is not as the same as the computer gaming business, but they are related in theme at the very least. And most computer gaming companies have a much better feedback model, especially the small or mid-size ones, where they take negative feedback from their customers into account and interact with them.
Paizo developers, outside of James and just a little bit of interaction from the others (except Maya, who is doing a very good job) have a very strange model of customer interaction, responding seldomly to player concerns (two errata cycles per years with indeterminate dates to boot) and erratic communication (this forum gets very little outside of James and Maya, Reddit gets more and then there is some on social media which most people don't even see). It has a very "put the train tracks before the running train" feel to it and doesn't seem well planned out.
That being said, James and Maya are heroes for their presence here and goodwill to us. I just wish the rest of the developers would follow their example.
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Having watched as much of the Pathfinder Quest recorded live play session as I could (not really a fan of the format) I am definitely even more of a fan of Maya than I was previously.
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And @MadScientistWorking, you say "assuming still four hours", but is that really realistic? You tell people its a 2-3 hour and plenty of people are going to expect it to wrap up by hour 3. Not everyone is there for an hour of RP. This is not a positive every table is going to care about. What tables will care about is if they fire and as has been said ad nauseum, to grow the community we want as many tables to fire, even if there is some problematic elements like the level 4 doing all the work for the level 1s.
Actually the funny and sad part is that despite all the complaining and whining this will actually accomplish its goal as it makes my life easier as an organizer.
And no. Having the level 4's doing the work for level 1s will not grow the community. That is a really stupid mentality and quite honestly I know that has pushed away people from organized play.
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I wander if some of the changes for Pathfinder Society will allow for annual hardcover compilations. I think it would be nice to have each season as a hardcover. I also get that this would be a bonus for those of us who like print media and isn't really necessary for Society play. But it would be nice to have a hardcover for each season.
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And @MadScientistWorking, you say "assuming still four hours", but is that really realistic? You tell people its a 2-3 hour and plenty of people are going to expect it to wrap up by hour 3. Not everyone is there for an hour of RP. This is not a positive every table is going to care about. What tables will care about is if they fire and as has been said ad nauseum, to grow the community we want as many tables to fire, even if there is some problematic elements like the level 4 doing all the work for the level 1s.Actually the funny and sad part is that despite all the complaining and whining this will actually accomplish its goal as it makes my life easier as an organizer.
And no. Having the level 4's doing the work for level 1s will not grow the community. That is a really stupid mentality and quite honestly I know that has pushed away people from organized play.
It isn’t worse than people showing up to a game to find there is no place for them! I cannot stress how wrong you are about how narrower level bands will hurt organizing and limit player inclusion into the space. And I don’t have to, nearly three pages of people have done it for me. Just read up.
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Actually the funny and sad part is that despite all the complaining and whining this will actually accomplish its goal as it makes my life easier as an organizer.
You know what will chase people away from organized play? When an organizer sees bringing up issues with the changes and calls them "complaining and whining."
Honestly the worst thing about PFS these days is how divorced from the folks on the ground PFS organizers seem to be.
And no. Having the level 4's doing the work for level 1s will not grow the community. That is a really stupid mentality and quite honestly I know that has pushed away people from organized play.
Neither will "oh I know you showed up with level 1 characters that you used last time, but this is a 3-4 game, so either play a totally different pregen or don't play."
Like I said before: these decisions and the way you're talking sound a lot like people at big conventions with lots of tables & lots of GMs solving their own problems with zero regard whatsoever for how it's going to impact small groups that don't have those kinds of numbers.
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I think I do like the change on the AP side. I also hope to see more "coupled" APs to have a possibility to have a consistent story with the same char from level 1 to 20 - I just like that.
I am sad about the discontinuation fo quests. I always liked them, not only for new players, but also for short adventures, and I very much liked the all-ages quests.
Especially if you include kids in the game, the shorter and more focused quests where helpful for the shorter attention span, and the all-ages quests where especially nicely themed. I still love the Dollhouse...
That said - will there still be all-ages content?
(I've never seen all-ages on something different then quests, if there will be all-ages scenarios, this will be at least better as having nothing at all there ...)
As for the changes on the scenarios: I have to say, I really don't like it.
The reduction of play time will - in my opinion - not help. Already, some scenarios more feel like a series of skill challenges, other special systems, and combats. I also think that people will expect them to finish in 2-3 hours then, so the "run them as long as you like them" won't really work out. I'd like it better if we'd still have the longer scenarios, and some months don't have a second one, but a short quest instead, that can fill shorter timeslots.
And last but not least: I definitely don't like the narrow level band. It will make it harder for people that don't have a lot of characters in different levels to find games with other people or join in on open slots in existing games, be it online or on cons.
And from an Organizer perspective, especially for in-person cons, it's much harder to find a game for someone with only a limited number of characters. It will also be harder to find players for irregular games at stores or gaming clubs, where people might miss out on some sessions and levels tend to drift ...
While the other change to scenarios might not hurt the program itself and the player base, I think this one will.
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And no. Having the level 4's doing the work for level 1s will not grow the community. That is a really stupid mentality and quite honestly I know that has pushed away people from organized play.
So, let's say you're right.
Why don't we just make single level scenarios, then?
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This kinda' screws up my existing practise of buying the first book in an AP, and only buying the next one if I liked the first. I don't mind going all-in on great content, but Paizo's output is... inconsistent. If a single product means less fluff, dross, narrative inconsistency, tonal dissonance and pointless sub-systems taking up pages of adventure space then "huzzah". I am sceptical this change will achieve that outcome, but would love to be surprised.