Portland is a place where once I was sitting at a sushi bar with a buddy of mine talking about his D&D campaign, and the girl in her early 20′s sitting next to me interrupts us, “Are you guys talking about D&D? I love playing D&D, I just moved here and can’t wait to find a group.” Portland is a city populated with geek culture, and thrives upon it.

Now, D&D (OK, Pathfinder version there of) comes at us from the school system??? I present you, Sandpoint!

On November 21st, a veritable gaggle of gamers and many of the Paizo staff, ascended upon the da Vinci Arts Middle School for the last of four performances of Paizo’s very own Burnt Offerings. Fellow gamer and amazing player, Tom Beckett is the Drama teacher at da Vinci Arts Middle School. Being a huge fan of D&D, also of Paizo and the adventure path series, he wrote a request to Paizo for permission to write a screen play based off of Burn Offerings. I believe it was an extension of the OGL which allowed this collaboration, and what a fantastic performance it was!

You can read about it here on the Paizo Blog entry from James Jacobs as he shares a few pictures. You can also see a few more pictures of the event at Tom Beckett’s photo site for the play(where I found the image above).

Why bring this to you, the gamer, for attention? It was a great reminder to me that there are gamers everywhere. Our culture is alive and well, and not like the early 80′s where such a play would be ill-conceived, today a Role Playing Game is the basis of a middle school play! As a community, we Gamer’s need to shine where we can. I wish you could have seen the support this event had. Even a local game store, Guardian Games was on hand selling the latest wares of the RPG industry (and afterwards was on hand offering to buy beer at a local brewpub).

Enjoy the links, be jealous you don’t live in Portland, and perhaps find a way to get your community involved with our hobby.

-AndoZane

There were no surprises in any of the answers.   Regardless of the new name, it is a “living” campaign in the vein of “Living Arcanis” and “Living Greyhawk.” Characters are tracked, modules released on a regular basis and there is a long-term storyline.

One item I found unusual were  factions.  Factions are secret societies with their own goals that the member PCs must advance.  These factions also are in a sort of “race” based on player success or failure in modules to “win” the campaign.  I like this a lot as it actually makes the PCs behavior impact a larger goal. I am curious to see the final implementation of this, as it could lead to some PVP issues unless handled very carefully.

As with other living games, PVP is banned. Too bad, a campaign that included the ability to kill other players would be fun. I understand that it is difficult to implement, but I can always hope.

The key item for me that distinguishes Pathfinder from other living games is the cost. Paizo will charge somewhere around $5.00 for a module, probably less. This is the single most important aspect of the campaign, for me at least.  It forces the campaign to have the one thing  all the other “free” living campaigns lack.

Market-driven quality control.

Downloading and playing a free module that sucks is tolerable, so long as it is free.  At least you earned experience for your PC.  Spending money on a module, even a token amount is another matter entirely. Paying for the priviledge of bad editing, railroading plots and TPK encounters will kill the Paizo campaign almost instantly.

We shall see if Paizo is up to the challenge.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

This is not edited, so do not blame me for any typos. I also had some technical issues, so I might have missed something, but this is a pretty accurate account of the questions and answers.

I wanted to get this up fast, so I will comment on it tomorrow.  Paizo will also post a complete, edited version on their message boards in the very near future.

Q:First of all, do we have a definite date for the Player’s Guide/GM’s Guide? I know several are anxiously awaiting material and scenarios.

Nick Logue› The Player’s Guide should be ready and rolling by August 1st if memory serves…that’s Friday!  That still good to go Josh?  Josh has the most updated eye on the status.

‹Joshua J. Frost› The drop dead is August 8. If we can have it out before then, we will. We’ll be sneaking a few key items into Friday’s blog, though, as a way to stave off the ravenous hunger of the early devotees of Pathfinder Society.

Q:How soon after GenCon will the scenarios be released for home play?

Nick Logue› The day after Gencon.
Joshua J. Frost› Literally the day after.

Q:As a current registered Paizo subscriber, what do I need to do to “register” myself and others for a home group?

On or before 8/8, we’ll have a system go live at paizo.com/pathfindersociety where folks can sign up for PFS and register their first PFS character. The GM of your home group will need to register as the “coordinator” for that home game and then will be responsible for reporting the scenarios.

Q: Can your group change factions along the way? (Or can this only be done after they retire at 12th level and players start over a 1st level with new characters?)

Nick Logue› In the interim between Seasons anyone can switch the allegiance of their character to a different faction if they like.

Q:How would I organize some PFS adventures to be played at a small local con?

Nick Logue› If Mothy is willing to coordinate them, all he has to do is put the con director in contact with us and register as a coordinator, at which point we can make that month’s Scenarios available to them.  If he needs help tracking down volunteer GMs our messageboards are a good place to get the word out.

Q:Is smack talking to be encouraged in-character as the factions try to outdo one another?

Nick Logue› Banter is always fun.  As long as banter doesn’t become direct confrontation, it is to be encouraged.  Then again, you might not want to let the other players know what faction you are (up to you really).

Joshua J. Frost› We won’t allow PVP, first off.

Joshua J. Frost› So we have to be careful that PFS isn’t a “my team” sporting event where a raiders fan smashes a Jets fan in the face with a chair.

Q:Do people have to be PFS members to sign up to play PFS adventures at a con (stupid question)?

If you just want to get down on an event and have some fun, we’ll have pregens available (the Paizo iconics most likely), or you can whip up a character and play and never register them, and that’s okay too.  The only thing is that your Faction Prestige won’t be tracked.

Q:Any PFS members in Australia so far?

Nick Logue› I believe so!  I’d have to check with Josh on that one though.  I know a few people from Down Under have expressed interest in involving themselves with PFS!

Q:Has the fee for pdf downloads been determined yet?

Joshua J. Frost› The price point has not yet been put through Lisa’s magical pricing calculator

Joshua J. Frost› Under $5 is the target, though

Q:My question regards the modules. Will these be produced entirely in-house or will ou be using the “volunteer writer” system used by other persistent campaigns?

Nick Logue› The first several are in-house, but there will be chances to get involved in the writing.

Q:Will scenarios contain spoilers for other scenarios? Could a group have 1 DM one scenario, and then another DM for another scenario? (I am thinking in the context of a home game here where we have the same group of people from game to game.)

Joshua J. Frost› You may find something in one scenario that rewards you again later for having it, or making the right contact earlier — we reserved the right to loosely link scenarios with easter eggs.

Q:How level dependent are the scenarios going to be. Assuming one levels up after three scenarios, the four (?) level one scenarios per season will remain the same, and anyone starting a new character in, say, January would be using a 6-month-old scenario? Or will there be scaling information to use scenarios from any point in the season for any level of play?

Nick Logue› The scenarios are in tiers.  The first four are written both for Levels 1-2 and Levels 4-5.

Q: How does one get their local FLGS involved?

Joshua J. Frost› Look for that info after Gen Con UK — but they’ll be able to do so via paizo.com/pathfindersociety and someone at the store will have to act as a coordinator for any sessions of PFS run in-store.

Q: You referenced the home GM earlier for home play. What about home games where people take turns GMing?

Joshua J. Frost› Each time someone acts as GM, they’ll need to be responsible for reporting results at paizo.com/pathfindersociety — at least for season 0, though, someone has to eat the scenario with no rewards.

Q:Can GMs play in scenarios they’ve ran, or is that a no-go?

Nick Logue› No go
Joshua J. Frost› You can play then GM a scenario, but you can never GM then play a scenario.

Q:How will players in a game know their faction objective for that scenario?  Will there be handouts for the GM to give out?  And will each player know the goals of the other factions, or just their own?

‹Joshua J. Frost› Handouts and they will only know their faction’s objective.
And the objectives are generally designed to avoid bizarre entanglements that will lead to the PVP realm

Q:How do you foresee players from various factions interacting at the gaming table? How do you see the faction rivalry enriching the Pathfinder Society organized play environment?

Joshua J. Frost› But we expect people to get along. You character is a Pathfinder first and they’re a pathfinder because they want to be. How they’re embroiled in the secret shadow war is entirely up to character background, but they’re pawns in it and are just doing small favors for a faction boss in order to gain access to greater rewards.

Q: How does it work to have characters from different factions adventuring together?  Wouldn’t the characters know if someone was from a different faction?

Joshua J. Frost› When your boss says, get me the red mcguffin and three dudes including you all try to get the red mcgufffin … you’ll know.

Q:If a character is taking a 20% reduction in experience because of multiclassing does it effect the progression of one level every three adventures?

Joshua J. Frost› Anything that imposes an XP penalty to leveling, is just simply not allowed in Season 0. This is on the list of things that PRPG may fix for Season 1.

Q: Will there be rules for Raise Dead or is it when a character dies just make a new one?

Joshua J. Frost› There will be rules for raise dead as well as a variety of other spells you can purchase to have cast on you.

Q:How long do you have to play a game once you order it?

Joshua J. Frost› There is no time limit to scenario play.

Q:If being part of the winning faction is advantageous, what’s to prevent everyone to switching to the “top” faction between season n and n+1?

Joshua J. Frost› There will, indeed, be a small advantage to being on the winning team after each season. Right now, we’re thinking about a unique chronicle reward. But that’s not set in stone.

Joshua J. Frost› You can switch if you want … but you lose your Prestige Reward and have to start over on a new faction’s gear reward chart.  And also every faction goes back to 0 Prestige when I new season begins.

Q:Cpt_kristov wants to know if there will be a Pathfinder Society Scenario subscription?

Joshua J. Frost› Answer unclear, ask again later.

Q:  Why aren’t we using the PFRPG rules to make characters for Season 0?

Joshua J. Frost› Scenarios are PDF only
We’re using 3.5 in season 0 because the beta isn’t a final rules set
Players also get cranky when we change their characters every month because of beta errata  so PFS is going to use 3.5 to playtest its own season and then we’ll go PRPG with Season 1

Q: If you order a scenario can you run it several times or do you have to re purchase it for each running?

Joshua J. Frost›  I think requiring people to buy a scenario multiple times to run it multiple times is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Q: How detailed will the Pathfinder Society rules be (using the set of Living Greyhawk rulings as a benchmark)? Who will make rulings? Is there the equivalent of a Living Greyhawk “triad”? Will there be a large list of Limited or Restricted spells, items, etc.?”

Joshua J. Frost› I don’t know how to answer the first, other than: read the Guidebook. Rulings will be made by GMs and coordinators onsite — any outside-the-con drama will go through me and a yet-to-be-announced system of super volunteers. No triad. There will be restricted and limited stuff for Season 0 — see the guidebook on 8/8.

Q: How are magic items and loot going to be handled in Pathfinder Society? It has already been stated there will be no crafting of magic items in the society, but will there be opportunities to purchase minor magic items i.e. potions, scrolls, etc.?”

Q: We have seen some pretty graphic content in the AP’s will Pathfinder Society be younger gamer friendly?

Joshua J. Frost› PFS will be PG13 and we won’t push the envelope like Pathfinder does. (And for the record, I love it when PF pushes the envelope but, yes, we’re shooting for a younger

Q: PFS modules will be distributed as PDFs, correct? Can you make them with clear background and limited graphics for ease of printing?”

Joshua J. Frost› yes and we already have

Q: Is Pathfinder Society planning on using Adventure Sheets (like the current implementation of Living Greyhawk) or log-sheets and certs (like Living Kalamar, Jungle, Death, Force, etc.)?

Joshua J. Frost› We’re basing ours on the current LG sheets that Paizo’s own Jason Bulmahn designed.

Nick Logue› We are using Chronicles which are similar to Adventure Records from Living Greyhawk.

The first change is simplified skill point acquisition.  For example, a paladin now receives two skill points, plus his intelligence modifier at each level, including first level. This removes the annoying math at character creation to figure out how many skill points you have.

There is still a maximum based on your level, but it is greatly simplified. You cannot have more ranks in a skill than hit dice.  So a 7th level fighter cannot have any skill with more than 7 ranks in it.

A key change is the removal of “cross-class” skills. Each class can take any skill it likes for the same cost. The “favored skills” mechanic replaces the old “class skill” system from 3.5.  As long as you put at least one rank into  a “favored skill” you receive a +3 bonus when using this favored skill.  You do not receive any bonus on a favored skill check unless you have at least one rank in it.

Skill checks remain essentially unchanged. Assign a DC to a task, pick the appropriate skill and roll a d20. If your d20 roll and ranks (plus favored skill bonus, if any) exceed the DC, you succeed. Although, there are some skills also include a “level of success” mechanic.  Disable device being the classic example. Beat a trap’s disable DC by 5 and you can turn disable the trap. Beat the DC by 10 and you can bypass the trap without disarming it, leaving it for the next poor adventurer to find.

Which brings me to the skills themselves.  There  is the pattern I noticed for many of the Pathfinder skills, increased detail. I  am not a huge fan of very complex rules, but I do prefer specific examples and DCs to help me determine a task’s difficulty. No skill represents this better than the new version of spot and search, called “perception.”

Perception’s detail level is amazing.  There is a helpful DC chart for each sense(hearing, taste etc), including modifiers for distance and environment. Also listed are several  example DCs for each sense.  I think many gamers will find this very useful.

One new skill  I really enjoyed was a “fly” skill. The only requirement to take it is a “reliable” way to fly every day, whether it be magical or natural (wings.) It allows special maneuvers by flying creatures, including DCs to perform said stunts. Now, a PC with a flying habit can actually get better at it, instead of being limited by a “maneuverability rating” on his chosen flight method.

Overall, I am very pleased with the Pathfinder skill changes.  They added flexibility, eliminated some redundancy and reduced ambiguity, making  for a better game. I look forward to further refinements in future versions.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

This is not an in depth review or analysis of the rules, just a quick summary of the key differences that caught my eye. It is not comprehensive, so if you think I missed something important, post in the comments section.

The latest release is 125 pages long, so I am only going to cover the “Races” and “Classes” sections in this post.

Pathfinder Races:

The usual suspects are all present.

Dwarf

Halfling

Elf

Human

Gnome

Half-Orc

Half-Elf

I found a few slight modifications to the 3.5 versions, but nothing of real note. Dwarves still move at 20 regardless of load and half-orcs get a strength bonus/intelligence penalty.

The main change I noticed is in the favored classes. First, even if you have two favored classes you must pick one and stick with it forever. Dwarves can be fighters or clerics, but they cannot have both as a favord class, one or the other is chosen at character creation. The other classes follow this same pattern, but the humans and half-elves get to pick their class from the entire list, not just two.

Also, choosing your favored class gets you +1 HP per level.

Experience Points and Advancement :

An interesting addition here. There are three paths, slow, medium and fast. To reach second level in the slow path requires 3000 xp, medium 2000 xp and fast 1300 xp. Interestingly, 3.5 is slightly faster than the Pathfinder fast track at only 1000 xp. A very nice option for campaigns that want to get to the higher levels faster.

Classes:

Barbarian:

A few changes here. Primarily “raging” time per day is now determined by constitution, rather than a flat number. Your constitution determines “rage points” and you burn those each round you rage. Rage also gives you spell-like abilties (rage powers) or combat abilities as you advance, such as darkvision when you rage. Not sure how I feel about this, seems tacked on and the spell-like abilties seem very strange. I hope they replace them with all physical combat advantages.

Cleric:

No surprises here. Main difference was the “domain powers.” Domains now offer cooler abilties as you advance. Some of the higher level ones are formidable. Makes that domain selection a much more “playable” part of you character. Trask like.

Druid:

Wild-shape, animal companions and cannot wear metal armor, does this sound familiar? Nothing to see here, move along.

Fighter:

I liked the changes in this class. Fighters are still feat machines, but they now get “weapons and armor training” at various levels. Basically, they give you either an AC bonus or a +1 to hit with a specific group of weapons. Choose the same package of weapons repeatedly and you get bonuses with weapons in that group. I like the elegance. Use the same type of weapon for a long time, you get better. A 20th level capstone ability to “auto-confirm-critical” is a nice target to shoot for, pun intended.

Paladin:

So similiar to the 3.5 version, I am going to skip it. Small changes, but nothing of note.

Rogue:

Big changes in this class. Sneak attack will work on almost anything now, including undead. The only requirement is some “weak spot.” I always thought it was odd that a rogue could not find a “chink in the armor” of creatures like golems or undead. This should be better explained, seemed a bit fuzzy in the class entry. There might be more in the combat section.

There are also “rogue talents” similiar to the old monk list of special acrobatic or combat abilities that rogues earn about every other level. Bleeding attacks, spell casting ability and the ability to stand up and not draw an AOO are all on the list, yeah! I really like this one.

Hit dice is now d8!

Sorcerer:

Sorcerers are now the “X-Men” of pathfinder. They get the usual spontaneous casting, but now have a bloodline. You can pick from a variety of twisted family trees, including dragon, elemental or undead as the source of your power. As you advance, the bloodline gives you powers or physical changes. Nothing major, but very fun as flavor for the character. I liked the aberrant bloodline that lengthens your arms, so you have a 10-foot reach! Hit dice is now d6.

Wizard:

Spellbook and familiars are still there. Tweaks include a “bonded object” that makes it easier to cast spells (DC 20 + Spell Level spellcraft check or lose the spell when casting without your bonded object) and serves as an item you can cheaply (XP and GP) upgrade with powers. Hit dice is now d6.

That is all the base classes in “Pathfinder.” In the next few days I will take a look at the skills and spells.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

I just received an email from Paizo indicating the Alpha 2 release of the Pathfinder system is available. You can check out the entire project on the Paizo site.

I hope that projects such as this become a model for future game development.  I am very tired of games with poor rules, game balance or endless post-publishing errata documents. Hopefully, the internet gamer base make for a better game.

Trask, the Last Tyromancer

Pathfinder Announcement

I am excited about this announcement for a couple of reasons. Primarily, I am thrilled that Paizo is beta-testing the rules in the real world for a year! If there is an issue with the underlying system, either in execution or explanation, then a year of real-world testing is sure to catch it.  Using a “wikipedia” model is sure to clean up some of the more annoying things in the 3.5 OGL system. A unified grapple/disarm/trip mechanic being one such candidate for improvement. There are many other examples.

I admit, I am a Linux geek, so letting the internet “crowd” contribute to the game’s development really lights my fire. I have seen it work with an OS, so a game system should be easy.

To a lesser extent, I applaud Paizo’s chutzpah at not following the “Wizards of the Coast” crowd. Most gaming sites on the net obsess about the hype machine that is 4th edition. Paizo is really laying it on the line charting its own course. A course that involves backward compatibility. I really think the game sites and bloggers are underestimating the appeal of going to a game system that does not involve obsoleting my substantial  3.5 game book collection.

As to 4th edition support, Paizo explicitly stated they will support fan efforts to convert to the new system.  Flexibility with their copyrighted material is sure to increase their player base and footprint on the net. A refreshing change from companies using flesh-eating lawyers to protect their intellectual property.

Again, I am really looking forward to seeing what they do with a 3.5 rule set after a year of testing.  Unless 4th edition takes my breath away, I might consider a “Pathfinder” 3.5 rules set for my gaming.

Trask, the Last Tyromancer