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I have been recording anything that has any PP or GP cost whatsoever on my tracking sheets just for simplicity.
I also don't much care for the official sheets, primarily because they just don't have enough space for everything, so I've just been using a simple word pad document.
Edit: Tried to copy/paste the template, but it doesn't align well in this format.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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Our group ignores the sheet and the issue itself, viewing inventory tracking and GM double-checking as unnecessary busywork. Between chronicle sheets and WBL guidelines, it's pretty easy to spot anyone who's flagrantly carrying more expensive gear than they've earned; and anything below that level is, frankly, not worth bothering about.
And what would you, or your players, do if any of you showed up to a game run by another GM who asked to see those sheets? They (or some version thereof) are a requirement.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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My guess he would likely the same thing I would do if I showed up with my Crypt Braker Alchemist to a game run by another GM who asked to see my current copy of the Additional Recources document. Not play.
It would be unfortunate, I think, for a player to show up and then choose not to play because he or she either (a) wasn't able to comply with the rules of organized play [for example, they additional resource material, but left it at home] or (b) was unwilling to comply with the rules of organized play.
I think that's unfortunate. I am reasonably certain there are some pretty hard core GMs out there. I'm sure there are some who really don't much care. Most GMs, I think, are somewhere in between.
But I would hate to have a player choose not to play because of this item, but at the end of the day, it's a player's choice.
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Not play... which has not been an issue because most of the groups and events we've seen also ignore these sheets.
Seriously, it's hard enough to get employees to do pointless busywork when their job and paycheck depends on it--ordering gamers to do it as part of their fun-time hobby has even less of a chance of success.
While I can understand that sentiment, it took me all of 10 mins to type mine out, and that was for my 19th level monk.
If your life is too busy to devote 10 mins of tedium to a hobby you enjoy, then I would wonder where you find time to actually play anyhow.
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He could put x2 or x3 for the duplicate items (or just " " on consecutive lines) - there are easy ways of designating the expenditure of individual items (or simply purchase replacements somewhere else and expend those). And not the "Total Purchases from" line.how do you mean "simply purchase replacements somewhere else and expend those"? items purchased would be listed on the ITS on their own line right? In order to list the CR they were paid for on. And when used that item would be marked as used wouldn't it?
Majuba is using the same method as I. He's tracking the replacement of items used during a scenario on that scenario's Chronicle sheet (in the "Notes" section).
Again, all that matters is having a list of the items you currently have on your character. It's called an "Inventory Tracking Sheet". It is of no importance that you bought that potion of Enlarge Person back on Chronicle #4, or that you used it up on Chronicle #6 and replaced it. You still have one potion of Enlarge Person.
Having 20 crossed out lines reading "Potion of Enlarge Person" does nobody any good (and, I argue, actually makes auditing harder).
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Unfortunately not every PFS player reads the forums, and even those that do may not have seen those posts (I haven't, though I have seen posts that speak of such posts).
Indeed. Sadly campaign leadership seems committed to the idea of amending the rules through message board posts -- despite the inevitable confusion that doing so continues to engender.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I actually do not feel comfortable with doing this. It is to close to telling other people "how to play right".The "advantage" is that others are being held to the same standard you hold yourself to.But... the extra work...with no advantage...
That's the role you signed up for when you agreed to run a PFS table. The significant point, though, is that it's not your interpretation of what "playing right" is; you're there to run the table the way campaign management want it to be run. That means your're supposed to live by any rulings they have made, no matter how much you personally may disagree with a ruling.
That's setting the bar pretty darn high; in fact I'm not sure I know a single GM (myself included) who manages to live up to that on every table they run.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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do you carry a current copy of the Additional Recources document? (current date is dated Wednesday, April 2, 2014).
I have encountered a judge who did not like spring wrist sheaths, and this was his way of removing them. If you didn't have a current copy of the AR, you couldn't use them. (even if you did have the Adventurers Armory). I have sense started printing a copy each time I go to play... just in case I encounter him again.
That comes perilously close to crossing the "Don't be a jerk" line.
If anyone tried to pull that one on me I'd ask how many of the other players at the table were missing a current copy of the Additional Resources document, just to make sure we were all being treated equally.As far as I can tell from the GtPFSOP, an electronic (PDF) copy of the Additional Resources list satisfies the requirement. I always have one of those with me, so I'm unlikely to fall foul of that GM in any case.
the problem is not the creation of the ITS - it is in the maintaining it.I have yet to face such a problem. YMMV though.have none of your PCs bought anything sense you created your ITS? or used anything listed on it?
That's what maintaining it is all about. marking out all the wand charges used, marking all Alchemist Fires used with the correct CR number, adding any new upgrades to armor paid for, etc.
I believe that Lormyr was/is saying that they have not had a problem maintaining the ITS.
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Following the rules of the campaign is not being a jerk.
Mike has asked that we not encourage anyone to ignore any of the rules.
An electronic copy of Additional Resources most definitely counts.
You only need the AR if you are using non-Core items.
Which is what? 99.99% of characters that aren't the pregens?
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From the perspective of someone who gets asked to audit characters regularly, the ITS is a great addition because instead of having to go through each chronicle sheet tracking expenditures, there is just the ITS to look over and review.
From a player perspective, I forget what items I have quite a bit and so I use the ITS to track my consumables better than if it were written on the back of a character sheet or amongst my binder of chronicle sheets.
From the perspective of a GM, I haven't seen it take more than 5 minutes to fill out at the end of a game. I think most people spend more time writing a post on these forums than it would take them to fill out the ITS.
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I believe that Lormyr was/is saying that they have not had a problem maintaining the ITS.
Correct. I do not use a ton of consumables to begin with, but I find wand charges simple to maintain. During the session I keep a tally of how many I use, and mark it once on the ITS at the end of the session. Easy peasy.
As I said though, I don't use the default ITS. That thing is ugly for expendable resource tracking.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Following the rules of the campaign is not being a jerk.
From the original post, it appeared that the GM in question was selectively choosing when to enforce a particular rule to prevent players using an item the GM happened not to like. It's not enforcing the rule that's being a jerk: it's not enforcing it uniformly.
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Correct. I do not use a ton of consumables to begin with, but I find wand charges simple to maintain. During the session I keep a tally of how many I use, and mark it once on the ITS at the end of the session. Easy peasy.
I just have my ITS out and mark charges off directly as they are used myself.
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Correct. I do not use a ton of consumables to begin with, but I find wand charges simple to maintain. During the session I keep a tally of how many I use, and mark it once on the ITS at the end of the session. Easy peasy.I just have my ITS out and mark charges off directly as they are used myself.
Nothing wrong with that. The only reason I don't do the same is to prevent excessive smudging from occurring too quickly.
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If there were special lines on the ITS explicitly for consumables, then my problem with it would go away entirely.
Really, something that's a combination of the wand tracking and normal inventory tracking lines could be used. Something tabular like this could do it:
Item Name | Cost/Unit |
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BOL Scroll| 1125gp |Purchased:[15][17][19][21][24][24][33][33]
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|Used: [16][18][21][23][24][33][33][ ]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I might test that out and see how it goes.
EDIT: Sorry, formatting was lost. Just picture that the "Used" column lines up with the "purchased" column and it should make a little more sense.
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I can barely follow my own thread now....
All I, for one, really want is removal of the mandate and some kind of restoration of the old Items Bought/Sold boxes on the bottom of the Chronicles (and I've already suggested ways to compromise/improve on previous seasons' sheets) - the new sheets do nothing good for my bookkeeping.
The "audit" thing (which seems to be the primary argument for supporters of the new sheet) still bothers me - not only has my area never seen it practiced or needed, it does strike me as distasteful for reasons similar to those already expressed by others, and what's more, it seems like it really is just "security theater."
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The "audit" thing (which seems to be the primary argument for supporters of the new sheet) still bothers me - not only has my area never seen it practiced or needed, it does strike me as distasteful for reasons similar to those already expressed by others, and what's more, it seems like it really is just "security theater."
They're important to verify that people build their characters correctly. People do make mistakes, and its helpful for someone to do a spot check to verify that people are following the rules. Especially with newer players.
For instance, players building summoners often make mistakes while building their eidolon. This is mostly because the eidolon rules are complex and confusing, and because eidolons can become so overpowered its important to verify that they were built properly.
An anecdote I heard while a GM was explaining to another player the importance of audits was that he had once audited a new player who believed that all of their ability scores increased every 4 levels. A simple mistake, but one that caused the character to become way stronger than it was supposed to be.
There are a ton of rules in pathfinder so it can be difficult for one person to keep track. Having a second person to check helps.
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Only a couple ppl in this thread are in favor of auditing to catch cheaters. Nobody official has ever claimed that to be the primary purpose of the ITS, and many (including myself) believe that it's not even possible.
Once you GM some more games, however, you'll start to realize how useful the ITS is when you need to do audits for a scenario (especially Seasons 4 & 5).
The most common reason I've seen is whether anyone has a Lissalan Rune or Brand. There are several scenarios where that matters, and where there are detrimental (or beneficial) effects to players that do. Auditing let's the secret remain in place until it is revealed.
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If there were special lines on the ITS explicitly for consumables, then my problem with it would go away entirely.
Really, something that's a combination of the wand tracking and normal inventory tracking lines could be used. Something tabular like this could do it:
Item Name | Cost/Unit |
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BOL Scroll| 1125gp |Purchased:[15][17][19][21][24][24][33][33]
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|Used: [16][18][21][23][24][33][33][ ]
-----------------------------------------------------------------I might test that out and see how it goes.
EDIT: Sorry, formatting was lost. Just picture that the "Used" column lines up with the "purchased" column and it should make a little more sense.
You do know that you can create your own version of the ITS, including a section like this for consumables like alchemical items & potions.
So, one ITS for nominally permanent items, armor, shield, weapons, the Big 6 magiucal items, etc. That one might never get filled up completely.
Another ITS, especially for consumables savants, for handling/tracking consumables bought or crafted in "small" lots. Line X with a quantity box, a box for when they qty was bought/crafted, and a set of 10 or more checkboxes for tracking consumption of the items.
And, one last ITS, for those of us who use wands, arrows or other ammunition in job lots, with the 50 boxes for check off. For the "normal" PC, who only uses a few items like this, or small lot consumables, you can add a few of each line to a single ITS form, and not have different ITSes for different types of items.
And, yes, that will add some work, as you sort through your ITSes looking for the one you want to add something to.
Hmm. Makes me want to make a custom standard slot item ITS form for my PCs, with things like:
Armor:
+1 Enhancement:
+2 Enhancement:
.
.
.
+10 Enhancement:
And so forth...
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Only a couple ppl in this thread are in favor of auditing to catch cheaters. Nobody official has ever claimed that to be the primary purpose of the ITS, and many (including myself) believe that it's not even possible.
Once you GM some more games, however, you'll start to realize how useful the ITS is when you need to do audits for a scenario (especially Seasons 4 & 5).
The most common reason I've seen is whether anyone has a Lissalan Rune or Brand. There are several scenarios where that matters, and where there are detrimental (or beneficial) effects to players that do. Auditing let's the secret remain in place until it is revealed.
Okay, but how could it make that better? The new sheet does nothing but list inventory (saying it "tracks" inventory is too generous; at best, it lets you say "I bought a potion...then I drank it" or "I have this many charges on my wand now;" I, for one, have always been fine with just tracking that on my character sheet - if I buy potions or scrolls, I list the purchase on the Chronicle, write it on my character sheet, and erase it when I use it, and in the case of wands, I use the "item weight" box to track charges, since they weigh no more than 1 ounce) - if it's not something you buy (and is worth 25+ gp), it's worse than useless. In the case of Lissalan Runes/Brands, I'm not sure what those are - but if they're Boons or something, then they show up on a Chronicle, and having this extra sheet (or sheets, even) is just another obstacle (however small) to finding that Chronicle, and if they're noteworthy magic items, there's no reason they shouldn't be on the character sheet. Looking at the new sheet, I see nothing about it that improves on what already is for these purposes in any way.
How about this...On my character sheet I have:
- the total tally of all of the gold I have ever earned
- the total tally of all the gold I have left
- individual cost of every item in my inventory with sum total at the end
- all of the prestige I have left and all of the fame I have ever accumulated
- total missions accomplished
It seems like this satisfies the: "Michael is not cheating" standard.
If the whole point of the ITS is to aid the auditor, I don't really see what other information he needs.
Does he need to know that I just burned through my first wand of CLW?
But...as has been pointed out...
Only a couple ppl in this thread are in favor of auditing to catch cheaters. Nobody official has ever claimed that to be the primary purpose of the ITS, and many (including myself) believe that it's not even possible.
So maybe the ITS is not about cheating. If the ITS is a handy organizational tool for you, great use it! But maybe other people have systems that suit their personal preferences.
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Once you GM some more games, however, you'll start to realize how useful the ITS is when you need to do audits for a scenario (especially Seasons 4 & 5).The most common reason I've seen is whether anyone has a Lissalan Rune or Brand. There are several scenarios where that matters, and where there are detrimental (or beneficial) effects to players that do. Auditing let's the secret remain in place until it is revealed.
How is it easier to look at the ITS than the character sheet?
Especially since these items do NOT have to be on the ITS (some aren't purchased with money and some were acquired before the ITS became mandatory)
As far as I'm concerned the ONLY definitive record of what a character has is their character sheet. Even in the ideal world where all players keep their chronicle sheets and ITS rigorously up to date that would be true. And it most certainly is true in the world that I live inn where lots of players paper work is more than a little imperfect.
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some aren't purchased with money
Ah. So the rationale is that if it's worth 0gp, then it's technically under the 25gp mark? Okay, I'll give that to you.
some were acquired before the ITS became mandatory
This will have to be left out of the discussion, because it would be true for anything purchased before GenCon '13.
As far as I'm concerned the ONLY definitive record of what a character has is their character sheet.
Some CRSs had really neat equipment sections where an organized person could easily lay out their purchases by category and update regularly. Those are the types of sheets I used to use.
But not everyone did.
Creating the ITS meant I had to change all of my characters over to new sheets, and come up with a custom CRS all over again, so it was a big impact to me, personally, but for many people it was needed. Now when a GM needs to do an audit, presumably having people hand in their ITS is more orderly, because everyone will have their gear similarly laid out, in a similar format.
(leaving out my example earlier where everyone had filled out their ITS differently, and still legally)
EDIT: *sigh* in retrospect, after typing this up, you're pretty much right, and all I can say now is "it's the rules", and go with that.
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Nor does a character sheet.
All the ITS is, is a separate sheet to replace the small section on the CR where everyone was always supposed to be tracking all of this information.
A character sheet only shows what you have at the moment. No record of things used or money spent.
I don't know why we keep repeating this.
Its literally like bashing my skull into a brick wall is more productive.
They don't want to hear that their complaint has no merit, because their complaint is based on a false premise.
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The difference between a character sheet and the ITS is that the sheet doesn't track what the character has had, just what he currently has.
That makes it harder to check cash acquired against cash spent.
Either
1) The character hasn't made a lot of use of consumables, so the its is 1 page, in which case, the amount of gold would be too small to notice on a reasonable audit or
2) the character has used enough consumables to be a noticable dip in their WBL, in which case their consumption habbits are going to be spread over more tracking sheets.
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And a handful of tracking sheets is still simpler than dozens of CRs.
Neither is likely to give you a good idea that the wbl is off because of used consumables. Even if you can add up the entire sheet in your head, pfs is usually a bit over wbl to start, people can play up, and a level 7.0 has a good bit less gold than a 7 and 5/6ths.