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Or do you not believe that the sudden removal of a valid option that people were either building their characters towards or were planning on playing in the near future does no harm to the campaign?
I don't know how someone could think that after 600+ posts about it.
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There is some distinction here.
Pathfinder as a game still legalizes those races. Pathfinder Society decided they were unbalanced and removed them from general use in a staggered manner.
Pathfinder the game has re-clarified(new faq) that the SLA requirement is illegal per the wording. Pathfinder Society has to implement that feature in a fair, yet manageable way.
I'm sorry the rules clarification changed, but that is the case. The SLA qualification no longer works. The campaign needed to implement it with the least amount of disruption. Sadly, an arbitrary cutoff is going to cause the least amount of managerial interference (no rebuilds, no date timelines, no abuses etc).
Mike and John have clarified their decisions in writing. If you don't like the Paizo developers' decision, put it on their forums.
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I think the difference is that the races are binary: you either are an aasimar or you're not.
Being a mystic theurge or other prestige class isn't that simple. Heading for that prestige class is something you almost have to do from day one, balancing your int and wis scores, picking your traits, leveling some wizard and some cleric etc. The change leaves you in a vulnerable period of transition where you can't go forward and you can't go back.
Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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There is some distinction here.
Pathfinder as a game still legalizes those races. Pathfinder Society decided they were unbalanced and removed them from general use in a staggered manner.
Pathfinder the game has re-clarified(new faq) that the SLA requirement is illegal per the wording. Pathfinder Society has to implement that feature in a fair, yet manageable way.
I'm sorry the rules clarification changed, but that is the case. The SLA qualification no longer works. The campaign needed to implement it with the least amount of disruption. Sadly, an arbitrary cutoff is going to cause the least amount of managerial interference (no rebuilds, no date timelines, no abuses etc).
Mike and John have clarified their decisions in writing. If you don't like the Paizo developers' decision, put it on their forums.
My responses where made directly to Mike Brock's posting of a comparison to the earlier race issue, supposedly as one of the reasons for his decision. Telling me to take it to another forum when I was not the one to bring it up here in the first place is not good form.
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I am going to chime in here on the speed runs of MotFF.
I participated in two different speed runs of that module. For me, both resulted in chronicles that became planetouched characters (and both were later rebuilt into core race characters anyway, but that's beside the point).
But that is not the whole story. I had been wanting to play in a speed run of MotFF for a while, probably at least six months or so before the announcement regarding aasimars and tieflings. I like that adventure, but there really is a pretty low upper limit on how much role-playing there is in there. It seemed like the perfect choice for trying something like this. And it had nothing to do with getting chronicles.
After the announcement, my friends and I got together to play MotFF with the intention of gaining chronicles to be made into planetouched characters. John and Mike had indicated that this was acceptable and asked us to not go overboard with it. My friends and I all decided that one each of aasimar and tiefling qualified as a reasonable number of such characters.
At the first meeting, we had set aside an afternoon to play. We had four players who had all played the module before, and we were all playing pre-gens. Since I had been wanting to try a speed run of this module (and I had originally deemed that pregens would be the only way to do this, from an aesthetics point of view), I suggested it to the group. We set ground rules for ourselves: pregens only, all of the box text needed to be read, and we could not skip any encounters.
We had a blast. It was a lot of laughing among friends. Our time was nowhere near that 28 minute mark quoted up thread. (I think it was more like 61 minutes.) But we thought it was really fast.
Afterwards, we spent the next hour or so sitting around chatting, we ate some food, and just hung out together.
The second time we got together, a few days later, was about the same. Four pregens, all of the box text, no skipped encounters. Our time was a bit longer, but we still had plenty of time afterward to eat some dinner, and hang out enjoying the company of our friends.
I'm not seeing the downside to this. Five friends came together and had some fun times.
I'd like to do another speed run of that module some day, and there are a couple other scenarios I'd like to try to speed run as well. It is a nice change of pace. Normally I really enjoy roleplay-heavy scenarios, but sometimes you just want to play a game where you kick in doors and smash things.
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My responses where made directly to Mike Brock's posting of a comparison to the earlier race issue, supposedly as one of the reasons for his decision. Telling me to take it to another forum when I was not the one to bring it up here in the first place is not good form.
That statement was not directed at you. I am all in favor of a productive discussion on the PFS implementation.
My statement was directed at the ire regarding the actual Faq change.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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My responses where made directly to Mike Brock's posting of a comparison to the earlier race issue, supposedly as one of the reasons for his decision. Telling me to take it to another forum when I was not the one to bring it up here in the first place is not good form.That statement was not directed at you. I am all in favor of a productive discussion on the PFS implementation.
My statement was directed at the ire regarding the actual Faq change.
Fair enough. Not everyone quotes when replying to someone specifically so it is hard to tell some times.
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I am going to chime in here on the speed runs of MotFF.
I participated in two different speed runs of that module. For me, both resulted in chronicles that became planetouched characters (and both were later rebuilt into core race characters anyway, but that's beside the point).
But that is not the whole story. I had been wanting to play in a speed run of MotFF for a while, probably at least six months or so before the announcement regarding aasimars and tieflings. I like that adventure, but there really is a pretty low upper limit on how much role-playing there is in there. It seemed like the perfect choice for trying something like this. And it had nothing to do with getting chronicles.
After the announcement, my friends and I got together to play MotFF with the intention of gaining chronicles to be made into planetouched characters. John and Mike had indicated that this was acceptable and asked us to not go overboard with it. My friends and I all decided that one each of aasimar and tiefling qualified as a reasonable number of such characters.
At the first meeting, we had set aside an afternoon to play. We had four players who had all played the module before, and we were all playing pre-gens. Since I had been wanting to try a speed run of this module (and I had originally deemed that pregens would be the only way to do this, from an aesthetics point of view), I suggested it to the group. We set ground rules for ourselves: pregens only, all of the box text needed to be read, and we could not skip any encounters.
We had a blast. It was a lot of laughing among friends. Our time was nowhere near that 28 minute mark quoted up thread. (I think it was more like 61 minutes.) But we thought it was really fast.
Afterwards, we spent the next hour or so sitting around chatting, we ate some food, and just hung out together.
The second time we got together, a few days later, was about the same. Four pregens, all of the box text, no skipped encounters. Our time was a bit longer, but we still had...
I may be mistaken, but I thought you had to actually play the tiefling or aasimar, not just simply assign a pregen credit to one.
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I may be mistaken, but I thought you had to actually play the tiefling or aasimar, not just simply assign a pregen credit to one.
yes you are mistaken
Beginning on August 14th, creating an aasimar or tiefling character will require a special Chronicle sheet, as was the case years ago. The exception is any aasimar or tielfing character with at least 1 XP; these characters are grandfathered into the campaign.
yes the discussion goes on to talk about making 10 aasimar or tieflings , and playing the confirmation an equal number of times
so there are some things that could be argued there (that's a bear I wouldn't want to poke tho)
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I may be mistaken, but I thought you had to actually play the tiefling or aasimar, not just simply assign a pregen credit to one.yes you are mistaken
Beginning on August 14th, creating an aasimar or tiefling character will require a special Chronicle sheet, as was the case years ago. The exception is any aasimar or tielfing character with at least 1 XP; these characters are grandfathered into the campaign.
He's actually correct.
Here are the chronicles for my -9, which was at one time an aasimar:
5/9/14: Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible.
I played a halfling that I didn't really care for, so I had already planned to rebuild that character.
6/21/14: Risen From the Sands.
That module is higher level, so I had to apply that chronicle later.
7/23/14: Master of the Fallen Fortress.
I played Amiri.
7/29/14: The Darkest Vengeance.
I played an aasimar barbarian.
After that, I GMed a couple of scenarios, then rebuilt the character into a Core race character.
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I may be mistaken, but I thought you had to actually play the tiefling or aasimar, not just simply assign a pregen credit to one.yes you are mistaken
Beginning on August 14th, creating an aasimar or tiefling character will require a special Chronicle sheet, as was the case years ago. The exception is any aasimar or tielfing character with at least 1 XP; these characters are grandfathered into the campaign.He's actually correct.
Here are the chronicles for my -9, which was at one time an aasimar:
5/9/14: Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible.
I played a halfling that I didn't really care for, so I had already planned to rebuild that character.6/21/14: Risen From the Sands.
That module is higher level, so I had to apply that chronicle later.7/23/14: Master of the Fallen Fortress.
I played Amiri.7/29/14: The Darkest Vengeance.
I played an aasimar barbarian.After that, I GMed a couple of scenarios, then rebuilt the character into a Core race character.
apparently I missed that post , tho it is on page 14 so one would have to be really OCD or watching that thread closley to find that(I wasn't)
Sorry Andrew
but either way .. hes 1/2 mistaken - GM credits count as long as there is a notation on the chronicle sheet
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I am going to chime in here on the speed runs of MotFF.
I participated in two different speed runs of that module. For me, both resulted in chronicles that became planetouched characters (and both were later rebuilt into core race characters anyway, but that's beside the point).
But that is not the whole story. I had been wanting to play in a speed run of MotFF for a while, probably at least six months or so before the announcement regarding aasimars and tieflings. I like that adventure, but there really is a pretty low upper limit on how much role-playing there is in there. It seemed like the perfect choice for trying something like this. And it had nothing to do with getting chronicles.
After the announcement, my friends and I got together to play MotFF with the intention of gaining chronicles to be made into planetouched characters. John and Mike had indicated that this was acceptable and asked us to not go overboard with it. My friends and I all decided that one each of aasimar and tiefling qualified as a reasonable number of such characters.
At the first meeting, we had set aside an afternoon to play. We had four players who had all played the module before, and we were all playing pre-gens. Since I had been wanting to try a speed run of this module (and I had originally deemed that pregens would be the only way to do this, from an aesthetics point of view), I suggested it to the group. We set ground rules for ourselves: pregens only, all of the box text needed to be read, and we could not skip any encounters.
We had a blast. It was a lot of laughing among friends. Our time was nowhere near that 28 minute mark quoted up thread. (I think it was more like 61 minutes.) But we thought it was really fast.
Afterwards, we spent the next hour or so sitting around chatting, we ate some food, and just hung out together.
The second time we got together, a few days later, was about the same. Four pregens, all of the box text, no skipped encounters. Our time was a bit longer, but we still had...
I'd like to just put forward the fact that this is not an isolated incident. The two times I have done speed runs, one was during a con after hours, when my friends and I were in my hotel room. We still did every encounter, and went through the box text, but we didn't really roleplay. Roleplaying is honestly a lot of effort. We just wanted to have some drinks and roll some dice. Another was the grandfathering of the planetouched. I showed up at a friend's place around noon, and I don't know whether he misunderstood the rule, or whether it was just the preference of those involved, but we worked towards getting characters with 5 exp, 2 from scenarios and then 3 from a module. But most of the day involved laughing at We Be Goblins antics, or trying to come up with new ways to deal with the big guy from the Confirmation. Later we went out to eat, and it was all in good fun. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a little irreverent and just laughing at the scenarios, messing around, and not really playing it out your hardest.
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There was a concern about it being bad for the campaign.We don't really know that, since they won't tell us a damn thing about the why, they've only told us what changed and how they're handling it.
If the "it" you're describing is the lack of a grace period, John explained it pretty clearly a few pages back.
I can sympathize, for this solution doesn't do a whole lot for the 2nd- and 3rd-level PCs who were aiming to employ the spell-like ability backdoor.
On the other hand, in the past the campaign performed at least one experiment tied to grandfathering in an option with a grace period. While it allowed some good-intentioned people to get in on a character option, it also invited egregious and now infamous cases of abuse. Grandfathering without warning is fair to those who at least played using that option. Grandfathering with a future grace period date was an invitation for abuse under a strict time limit.
The trouble is that I don't see a way to provide accurate recompense—at least without opening up lots of room for abuse—for those who had the glimmer of bloatmage initiation in their eyes but never got around to signing up.
Giving people a grace period had enough people abuse the option that they felt it was bad for the campaign to do it again.
If the "it" you're talking about is explaining the removal of allowing spell-like abilities to satisfy spellcasting ability prerequisites, that's not (and never has been) a decision of the PFS campaign. Rules and FAQs correction discussion is the domain of the designers. The PFS campaign must abide by designer decisions. That answer won't be found here.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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If the "it" you're describing is the lack of a grace period, John explained it pretty clearly a few pages back.
Not only did they give a grace period for the aasimar/tiefling retirement, my recollection is that John specifically asked people not to abuse that grace period, and then people brazenly posted on the forum about doing just that.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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How many people abused the grace period between Inner Sea World Guide being released, and Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting being retired?
How many people abused the grace period between the FAQ stating, if I recall correctly, several months in advance, between the announcement that APG staves were underpriced, and that it would be corrected?
I don't think that it's really healthy to make a blanket statement regarding 'grace periods'.
I didn't. I made a statement about a particular grace period.
EDIT: Those other grace periods were, AFAIK, also took place under different campaign management.
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I don't think anyone (well, at least not many) is asking for a grace period. People are mostly asking for a more logical cut off point that doesn't screw over any characters that are outside of free rebuilds.
However, my confidence that we'll hear any more about this from the PFS leadership is diminishing daily. If there's one thing that could turn me off to PFS, it would be dictatorial GM decisions without rational basis (ie. "It's this way because I'm in charge and I say it's this way"). This decision has that kinda vibe right now, but maybe they'll do what's best for the majority of players in the end. I suppose time will tell.
They already did what is best for the majority of players. It is a vocal discontented minority that is railing against the decision and insinuating that they're behaving in a dictatorial fashion.
They have to run the PFS campaign in accordance with official rules. They generally can add restrictions, but not overrule ones in place, such as this new FAQ. However, they still chose the course of least negative impact by allowing everyone who had already played as a PrC that benefited from the now invalid method of utilizing SLAs to gain early access to maintain those characters as is instead of retiring or rebuilding them... that certainly seems like they have the majority of player's best interest at heart.
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After Aasimarpalooza, I can hardly blame them. This is basically what happened:
JOHN: Everybody, please act like adults and don't go nuts in the last month Aasimars and Tieflings are legal creating a whole bunch of new characters.
MOST OF PFS: OK, cool.
A SUBSET: Let's do a million speed-runs of Confirmation and MotFF to have a whole bunch of aasimars and tieflings!
A SUBSET OF THE SUBSET: What? Why do you think there's anything wrong with that?
JOHN AND MIKE: *Facepalm* (Thinking: next time, don't trust people to act like adults.)
MOST OF PFS: This is why we can't have nice things.
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Anything that helps me not to retire a 12 xp character because I need to either gain another 6 xp or 10 PP to retrain would be nice =P
Granted, it's largely my own fault, for not playing her at level 5 and getting the chronicle sheet needed to keep the prestige class (Arcane Trickster) in the few weeks before this change went live.
At any rate, it doesn't seem likely there is going to be a change, so I'm simply retiring her for the time being. Maybe when I get a good enough reason to bring out a rogue with some spellcasting I'll play her again, but for now she's shelved.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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So, Inari is Kitsune Life Oracle 4/Sorc 1 who just today made it to lvl 6.... I told my buddy at the table I will take my 1st MT lvl now and he pointed me to this thread.
Inari's 1st, 3rd and 5th Feat were the magical tails feats to get him to cast 2nd lvl arcane spells, now how am I supposed to proceed ??? I am fine with Oracle 4/ Sorc 1, this is not too bad I can cast arcane spells from wands and scrolls, not much of a hit but I am playing with 3 less feats. Can some figure of authority please explain to me why I have to retrain all my feats now and pay my PP & GP for that ?
This is a huge hit for Inari, I would love to see a way to grant a grace period or at least granting a free rebuild...
Thanks for your comments and responses in advance :)
Cheers
Inari
Because you took a dodgy path, and the rules changed. Same thing with Bracers of the Falcon, vivisectionests, and other things that have changed.
Why no warning or grace? Ask the people who ran 30 minute MotFF runs to get 10 tieflings why.
Honestly? Make a new PC. There's a reason you look at my characters and see Dex 2.0 and Mayim 2.0. My recordkeeping has been less than stellar, so rather than prevailing on my VC to rebuild the missing sheets, I started over.
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So, Inari is Kitsune Life Oracle 4/Sorc 1 who just today made it to lvl 6.... I told my buddy at the table I will take my 1st MT lvl now and he pointed me to this thread.
Inari's 1st, 3rd and 5th Feat were the magical tails feats to get him to cast 2nd lvl arcane spells, now how am I supposed to proceed ??? I am fine with Oracle 4/ Sorc 1, this is not too bad I can cast arcane spells from wands and scrolls, not much of a hit but I am playing with 3 less feats. Can some figure of authority please explain to me why I have to retrain all my feats now and pay my PP & GP for that ?
This is a huge hit for Inari, I would love to see a way to grant a grace period or at least granting a free rebuild...
Thanks for your comments and responses in advance :)
Cheers
InariBecause you took a dodgy path, and the rules changed. Same thing with Bracers of the Falcon, vivisectionests, and other things that have changed.
Why no warning or grace? Ask the people who ran 30 minute MotFF runs to get 10 tieflings why.
Honestly? Make a new PC. There's a reason you look at my characters and see Dex 2.0 and Mayim 2.0. My recordkeeping has been less than stellar, so rather than prevailing on my VC to rebuild the missing sheets, I started over.
First, I don't think it was "a dodgy path" when there was a FAQ which specified that the rules allow it. It seemed like an endorsement from the PDT.
Second, you use vivisectionist as an example, but I believe they were granted a rebuild. The poster you are replying to is asking for the same.
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The problem is how do you define the limits of the rebuilds? How do you grant a one-time use to a portion of the player base based on the player's "intent" - and avoid abuse by another portion that currently is unaffected but might take advantage of more leniency.
There has to be a line in the sand. in this case, the line is 1 exp earned in the PrC. the consequences are the level 2-5ish characters who were working towards that path must decide if they want to continue to their goal according to the rules, or retrain or scrap. Clear cutoffs - no abuse.
I don't see it happening, but if someone can word the limitations of the rebuild, perhaps the campaign staff would re-consider it. It would have to apply to any PrC... and avoid abuse by players who just want a rebuild of their lvl ~3 characters
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Okay, I do not think I was abusing any rules,
Because you took a dodgy path, and the rules changed. Same thing with Bracers of the Falcon, vivisectionests, and other things that have changed.Why no warning or grace? Ask the people who ran 30 minute MotFF runs to get 10 tieflings why.
You absolutely were NOT abusing anything. The PDT were extremely clear that this was known and legal. The people who are saying this was dodgy are 100% wrong.
I totally agree that it is unfair that lots of characters got hurt by this. For reasons that I totally don't understand many people (unfortunately including Mike) seem to thing that rebuilds and grandfathering are inherently abusive.
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So if the master of many styles monk was banned tomorrow?
Apples and Asparagus.
In one case a rule changed and they made a decision to allow certain people to keep playing anyway (which they didn't have to do). In the second case they would be deciding to eliminate a legal option for a reason of their own, and we have no idea how they would treat existing characters so the comparison is even less valid.
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First, I don't think it was "a dodgy path" when there was a FAQ which specified that the rules allow it. It seemed like an endorsement from the PDT.With a specific clause stating 'this may change, use at your own risk'.
(1) I don't recall any mention of risk in the FAQ.
(2) The FAQ said that IF this ruling caused balance issues it MAY be revisited. A year and a half later no one I could see was reporting balance issues. There were still a bunch of rumblings about "the icky FAQ that tastes bad and I don't like it" going around but I can't get anyone to point be to a single build or instance where this ruling caused a balance problem.
(3) Could you show me where you saw the balance problem with the previous FAQ?
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(1) I don't recall any mention of risk in the FAQ.
(2) The FAQ said that IF this ruling caused balance issues it MAY be revisited. A year and a half later no one I could see was reporting balance issues. There were still a bunch of rumblings about "the icky FAQ that tastes bad and I don't like it" going around but I can't get anyone to point be to a single build or instance where this ruling caused a balance problem.
(3) Could you show me where you saw the balance problem with the previous FAQ?
I paraphrased. And no, since I did not make the decision, I can not show you anything.
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I paraphrased. And no, since I did not make the decision, I can not show you anything.(1) I don't recall any mention of risk in the FAQ.
(2) The FAQ said that IF this ruling caused balance issues it MAY be revisited. A year and a half later no one I could see was reporting balance issues. There were still a bunch of rumblings about "the icky FAQ that tastes bad and I don't like it" going around but I can't get anyone to point be to a single build or instance where this ruling caused a balance problem.
(3) Could you show me where you saw the balance problem with the previous FAQ?
Maybe since you don't even have an example of what might have possibly triggered the clause you were so happy to cite, you should instead accept that some people are not happy and back off telling them, "you should have seen it coming. Neener neener" (paraphrase, don't hold me accountable). Nobody saw this comming and it is completely unreasonable tell people that they should have known their builds were in Jeopardy.