A request for clarification from management wrt the SLA FAQ change


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Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

Nefreet wrote:


If a group shows a propensity for abuse, isn't the next logical step to rein in that abuse?

You're assuming all of the following

1) there previously was abuse
2) the proposals are open to abuse
3) the cost of the abuse is higher than the cost of stopping the abuse

As I've stated, I think that ALL of the above are questionable or false

Sovereign Court 1/5

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BigNorseWolf wrote:

Peacock is different for two reasons:

1) Even in a campaign as skill heavy as PFS skill ranks are pretty far down on the list in terms of character power. Its not the same ballpark as casting stat and caster level.

2) There was a bit of ambiguity in exactly how the ability worked: whether you were bluffing your way through seeming to know things or whether you actually knew them. Pageant didn't get banned till after the author clarified it was the latter.

3) Its a much, much easier fix.

I more or less posted the example of PotP to point out what I did in response to something I was using becoming not legal for play.

The reasons it was banned were irrelevant to me. The fact was I couldn't use it anymore. So I had to choose something different. ^.^

I'm trying to encourage those who feel shorted by the new ruling to try something different; not just chalk it up to a wasted character slot.

By the way, though, thanks for the info as to why it was banned. At the time I kind of just took it for what it was and really didn't ask much about it.

4/5

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It's a bit jarring to see how rapidly the change was made, given how utterly set the design team used to be in the exact opposite direction. Then, disallowing rebuilds really feels like an attempt to "punish" the vile miscreants attempting to "exploit" a "loophole" that the innocent devs never could have seen coming. I'm sure that wasn't actually their intent, but it feels punitive.

Luckily I have no eggs in this basket (a couple of planned eggs for future builds, perhaps), but I sympathize with anyone who didn't meet the unannounced "deadline." A lot of PFS players, myself included, are unwilling to play an atrociously useless character, so if this ruling decapitated your build, you can just burn the character sheet. I wouldn't even consider playing a Wiz 2/Clr 2 for a nanosecond if there wasn't an opportunity to make the character useful at a higher level. It would be disrespectful to my fellow players to bring an effectively useless character to the table, and given that the plans I had for it would have been obliterated, I'd certainly have no fun playing it as well.

I recognize the concerns with offering retrains, but for people affected in this way, it is crippling. Every scenario spent to level up the character is now lost, never replayable without expending an extremely finite resource, and the character it was spent on is effectively unplayable for many players. Some people might enjoy trying to salvage a wrecked build, others would hate doing so.

4/5

Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Although if you can parse the slightly wall-of-text-ish OP of this thread, there's a suggestion in there somewhere. I think there were others elsewhere as well.

I will paraphrase myself in less verbose terms :)

Permit use of SLA for PrC qualification iff:

  • The character was locked in as of the time of the FAQ change (had at least one XP post level 2 earned by an actual game)
  • The character utilizes no retraining between the time of the FAQ change and earning their first level in the PrC

If grandfathering were permitted with those qualifications, the only characters would qualify are those narrow set who are the correct race to have an SLA, the correct stats to work in the PrC, and the correct feats, levels, traits, and boons already locked in to start pursuing the PrC. That long set of necessary conditions defines the pool of those to whom this would apply so narrowly as to nearly completely eliminate everyone except those who were already pursuing the option.

As I mentioned above, I have concerns about enforcement. When auditing a Tiefling or Aasimar, you can simply look at the date on their chronicles. Does a chronicle exist prior to the cutoff? If so, 99% likely that it's ok.

So far, yours is the most simple-to-parse suggestion I've seen for grandfathering, but you start having to question intent of the player at that point, too. Just because I have a wizard with 4 xp prior to the cutoff means I can still early entry into MT? What if I just wanted a decent will save, so I didn't drop WIS?

I think free retraining causes the least auditing concerns, which is the area I'm most concerned about. Players frequently feel singled out when they get audited, even when they pass the audit. If the ruling ends up putting onerous auditing requirements into place to enforce the ruling, it creates a divisive play environment. Everyone wants to assume that players play legally and just get on with the game. I think that's how things would have continued had this ruling not been changed. Situations with grandfathering like this put the community in an awkward spot and I honestly don't know that there was any harm in the prior ruling anyway. What I do know is that this FAQ change has definitely harmed some members of our community and, if we want to actually enforce it, that impacts the attitudes of a lot of players and GMs.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Serisan wrote:
Just because I have a wizard with 4 xp prior to the cutoff means I can still early entry into MT?

I'm not sure I'm clear on what your worry is here. So imagine someone was planning to play straight wizard, and they're currently wizard2 and have 12-14 WIS. What exactly are you worried they'll do? Could you lay out the situation for me, and how it qualifies as "abusive"? Thanks.

4/5

Jiggy wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Just because I have a wizard with 4 xp prior to the cutoff means I can still early entry into MT?
I'm not sure I'm clear on what your worry is here. So imagine someone was planning to play straight wizard, and they're currently wizard2 and have 12-14 WIS. What exactly are you worried they'll do? Lay out the situation for me, and how it qualifies as "abusive".

It's not so much abusive as problematic. Bear in mind that I didn't think early entry was a bad thing. A grandfather ruling like the one proposed does, however, create a situation where a player could reasonably have a grandfathered character that does early entry into MT any time between now and the end of the campaign. Thus, if the player couldn't progress the character until next year for some reason (maybe they're out of scenarios to play or have some personal issues to address), you could find someone doing early entry into MT well after the established cut-off.

Again, not particularly abusive, but bear in mind that for a ruling to be enforced, someone actually needs to enforce it. It's this reason that pushes me towards offering free rebuilds instead of grandfathering characters that don't already have levels in MT.

1/5 *

Jiggy wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Just because I have a wizard with 4 xp prior to the cutoff means I can still early entry into MT?
I'm not sure I'm clear on what your worry is here. So imagine someone was planning to play straight wizard, and they're currently wizard2 and have 12-14 WIS. What exactly are you worried they'll do? Could you lay out the situation for me, and how it qualifies as "abusive"? Thanks.

Exactly. They would likely be missing the traits that one would want to take to be the most effective MT they could be. MT is an interesting one because taking the proper cleric domain meets the qualification, so it doesn't require a specific race. That said, I've never been in a group with an MT ever. It would be neat to see an MT in the group (ideally one that is actually effective) and that's very unlikely to ever happen going forward. I would love to see a few people decide to go in that direction that had characters that happened to have the stars align against all odds.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Brigg wrote:


I'm trying to encourage those who feel shorted by the new ruling to try something different; not just chalk it up to a wasted character slot.

I know what you're trying to say, but just because the response worked for such a small change doesn't mean that it will work for the much bigger change.


Serisan wrote:
Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Although if you can parse the slightly wall-of-text-ish OP of this thread, there's a suggestion in there somewhere. I think there were others elsewhere as well.

I will paraphrase myself in less verbose terms :)

Permit use of SLA for PrC qualification iff:

  • The character was locked in as of the time of the FAQ change (had at least one XP post level 2 earned by an actual game)
  • The character utilizes no retraining between the time of the FAQ change and earning their first level in the PrC

If grandfathering were permitted with those qualifications, the only characters would qualify are those narrow set who are the correct race to have an SLA, the correct stats to work in the PrC, and the correct feats, levels, traits, and boons already locked in to start pursuing the PrC. That long set of necessary conditions defines the pool of those to whom this would apply so narrowly as to nearly completely eliminate everyone except those who were already pursuing the option.

It's not so much abusive as problematic. Bear in mind that I didn't think early entry was a bad thing. A grandfather ruling like the one proposed does, however, create a situation where a player could reasonably have a grandfathered character that does early entry into MT any time between now and the end of the campaign. Thus, if the player couldn't progress the character until next year for some reason (maybe they're out of scenarios to play or have some personal issues to address), you could find someone doing early entry into MT well after the established cut-off.

Again, not particularly abusive, but bear in mind that for a ruling to be enforced, someone actually needs to enforce it. It's this reason that pushes me towards offering free rebuilds instead of grandfathering characters that don't already have levels in MT.

Auditing is as simple as seeing if you have a Chronicle (or Played chronicle) before the cutoff. Ignore intent. If you have a wizard with a Wisdom and an SLA that lets you get into MT, go right ahead.

The number of those who weren't already heading that way is going to be small. The number who grab their last chance will be even fewer.

With free retraining, what do you allow? Complete rebuilds for everyone? If not, where do you draw the line? It's the same problem.


Serisan wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Just because I have a wizard with 4 xp prior to the cutoff means I can still early entry into MT?
I'm not sure I'm clear on what your worry is here. So imagine someone was planning to play straight wizard, and they're currently wizard2 and have 12-14 WIS. What exactly are you worried they'll do? Lay out the situation for me, and how it qualifies as "abusive".

It's not so much abusive as problematic. Bear in mind that I didn't think early entry was a bad thing. A grandfather ruling like the one proposed does, however, create a situation where a player could reasonably have a grandfathered character that does early entry into MT any time between now and the end of the campaign. Thus, if the player couldn't progress the character until next year for some reason (maybe they're out of scenarios to play or have some personal issues to address), you could find someone doing early entry into MT well after the established cut-off.

Again, not particularly abusive, but bear in mind that for a ruling to be enforced, someone actually needs to enforce it. It's this reason that pushes me towards offering free rebuilds instead of grandfathering characters that don't already have levels in MT.

So? So a character doesn't get played for a year and then enters MT. So what? Is that really any more problematic than a character who's already got his first MT xp and then doesn't get played for a year?

Sovereign Court 1/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Brigg wrote:


I'm trying to encourage those who feel shorted by the new ruling to try something different; not just chalk it up to a wasted character slot.

I know what you're trying to say, but just because the response worked for such a small change doesn't mean that it will work for the much bigger change.

I'll concede to that, as I know this change is big for those caught in the middle. ^.^


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Jiggy wrote:

The more I follow the dialogues on this topic, the more perplexed I feel.

I mean, if the reply given to a proposed alternative is "But people abused the aasimar situation", then one would assume that the speaker is meaning to imply that the proposed alternative would allow similar abuse. That is, declining an idea because of past abuse suggests that the goal is to prevent a repeat of that abuse.

Except I don't see people actually saying that. Granted I've at times only skimmed some of the posts, but I haven't seen people explaining how a given solution would enable abuse. Meanwhile, the proponents of these alternatives have been asserting that their ideas would not be so abusable.

Yet still, the mantra against these alternatives remains, "But aasimar abuse".

So what does that reply actually mean?

If the proposed solutions actually do enable abuse in some manner that posters have overlooked, why not just say so? That would immediately clear things up, and I imagine the affected posters would be far more satisfied.

If the proposed solutions don't enable abuse, then why is past abuse being brought up at all? Are people just not really reading the ideas and assuming they'll be abusable? Does "last time there was abuse" mean something other than "we don't want to enable similar abuse this time"?

What is the actual message that's intended to be communicated by bringing up past abuse in response to proposed solutions?

I just don't understand what I'm reading here.

Maybe..."There was abuse in the past so we are not doing it at all anymore."

Dark Archive

Serisan wrote:
Again, not particularly abusive, but bear in mind that for a ruling to be enforced, someone actually needs to enforce it. It's this reason that pushes me towards offering free rebuilds instead of grandfathering characters that don't already have levels in MT.

I would be up for rebuilds as an equal option to extended grandfather with both being preferable to the status quo of "sucks to be you". That said, I believe arbitrating rebuilds would be more difficult. Grandfathering would be self-selecting; people's greed and self interest would only serve to more fully limit it. You're not going to get a 12 Wis Wizard going MT just because they have the possibility, outside of maybe a very stubborn person who is willing to create a weak character just to get an MT out of spite. But would such a character qualify for a free rebuild? Depending on how you define the rules they might, even though they never intended to go MT in the first place, allowing them to exploit the rules to get a rebuild they shouldn't have qualified for. Defining what is allowed to rebuild in this situation is complicated - I can't think of a clean set of 2-3 rules that could define the class of characters who would qualify.

I really don't fault Mike & co (too much) for making the original decision - there has been a lot of discussion on both sides to hash out the possible repercussions of doing it this way. That said, I really do wish they'd take our arguments into account and reconsider.

5/5 *

Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
That said, I really do wish they'd take our arguments into account and reconsider.

I think that they have. However, they have decided to stick to their original ruling.

Grand Lodge 2/5

Michael Brock wrote:


It was already advised why the decision was made Here.
John Compton wrote:

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.

Are you talking about aasimar/tiefling? Was that really a problem? I've been playing on average of at least once a week since then and haven't seen any issues with it here. Sure, I've got a practically-level-2 tiefling that I don't know what to do with and haven't played since--is that abuse? If there are people with a "stockpile" of these characters is it really affecting organized play?

*for what it's worth, this current ruling doesn't affect me at all, it just seems odd to not allow a grace period.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Carlos Robledo wrote:
Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
That said, I really do wish they'd take our arguments into account and reconsider.
I think that they have.

While others think that they haven't. (And I, personally, feel like I have no clue whether they have or not.) Perhaps if you could point your fellow posters to the thing that gave you your confidence of the above, then they could share your confidence?


claudekennilol wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:


It was already advised why the decision was made Here.
John Compton wrote:

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.

Are you talking about aasimar/tiefling? Was that really a problem? I've been playing on average of at least once a week since then and haven't seen any issues with it here. Sure, I've got a practically-level-2 tiefling that I don't know what to do with and haven't played since--is that abuse? If there are people with a "stockpile" of these characters is it really affecting organized play?

*for what it's worth, this current ruling doesn't affect me at all, it just seems odd to not allow a grace period.

As I understand it, they said "We're going to give a grace period, please don't abuse it." Whether or not that's led to any long term problems, people certainly abused the grace period. Enough so that they won't do that again. Won't trust the player base to not abuse things even when specifically asked not to.

4/5 *

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claudekennilol wrote:

[

Are you talking about aasimar/tiefling? Was that really a problem? I've been playing on average of at least once a week since then and haven't seen any issues with it here. Sure, I've got a practically-level-2 tiefling that I don't know what to do with and haven't played since--is that abuse? If there are people with a "stockpile" of these characters is it really affecting organized play?

Yes, it is. New players can't play two of the more powerful races there are, while some pockets of players have a half-dozen or more of them, generated by replaying a single module multiple times in a day (at about half-an-hour a pop since they could skip everything but the dice rolls). The races were removed in part because they were quite powerful, and now there's a bunch of them in the hands of the players most likely to exploit legal loopholes for personal benefit, while no new players can have them. That doesn't make new players feel very welcome, and further minimizes the impact they can have on the game when the more powerful options are denied.

PFS is a world-wide campaign, and sometimes decisions are made that don't make sense to you, because it addresses (or strives to prevent) an issue that is common elsewhere but that you haven't seen.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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GM Lamplighter wrote:
PFS is a world-wide campaign, and sometimes decisions are made that don't make sense to you, because it addresses (or strives to prevent) an issue that is common elsewhere but that you haven't seen.

...which is why communication is so important, so that people who don't understand why a campaign decision went one way instead of another can gain that understanding and thereby be more at peace with the ruling.

Communication is fundamental to any healthy relationship. The relationship between campaign management and the playerbase is no exception: fail to communicate, poison the relationship.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Gm Lamplighter wrote:
Yes, it is. New players can't play two of the more powerful races there are, while some pockets of players have a half-dozen or more of them, generated by replaying a single module multiple times in a day

I don't see how "I've been playing for a while and gamed the system" is all that different from "I got to a con and look at this shiny new toy i came back with" in that regard.


GM Lamplighter wrote:
claudekennilol wrote:

[

Are you talking about aasimar/tiefling? Was that really a problem? I've been playing on average of at least once a week since then and haven't seen any issues with it here. Sure, I've got a practically-level-2 tiefling that I don't know what to do with and haven't played since--is that abuse? If there are people with a "stockpile" of these characters is it really affecting organized play?
Yes, it is. New players can't play two of the more powerful races there are, while some pockets of players have a half-dozen or more of them, generated by replaying a single module multiple times in a day (at about half-an-hour a pop since they could skip everything but the dice rolls). The races were removed in part because they were quite powerful, and now there's a bunch of them in the hands of the players most likely to exploit legal loopholes for personal benefit, while no new players can have them. That doesn't make new players feel very welcome, and further minimizes the impact they can have on the game when the more powerful options are denied.

This doesn't really matter though. You could argue that they're not too powerful and you might even be right.

They decided to remove them from the game, rightly or wrongly, and left a grace period for those who were starting new characters. They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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thejeff wrote:
They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

And if the decision was down to a binary issue of whether to allow a grace period or not, then that would totally settle the matter.

But now people are suggesting an alternative that still honors the lack of a grace period.

This is what has me so befuddled at this dialogue: nobody's asking for a grace period, yet the past abuse of a grace period is being held up as the central issue.

Why is the past abuse of a grace period relevant to discussing an option that doesn't involve a grace period?

Past abuse of a grace period makes sense as a rationale for not offering a grace period. Past abuse of a grace period is nonsense as a rationale for anything else.

I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Dark Archive

Jiggy wrote:
I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Yep, it's getting kind of frustrating to argue in circles when people are missing one of the fundamental points of the argument, that what is being proposed is fundamentally different from the aasimar/tiefling thing.


Jiggy wrote:
thejeff wrote:
They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

And if the decision was down to a binary issue of whether to allow a grace period or not, then that would totally settle the matter.

But now people are suggesting an alternative that still honors the lack of a grace period.

This is what has me so befuddled at this dialogue: nobody's asking for a grace period, yet the past abuse of a grace period is being held up as the central issue.

Why is the past abuse of a grace period relevant to discussing an option that doesn't involve a grace period?

Past abuse of a grace period makes sense as a rationale for not offering a grace period. Past abuse of a grace period is nonsense as a rationale for anything else.

I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Agreed. And I've said the same thing.

I was just responding to questions of whether it was abused before.

I can certainly see that it might make them less likely to grant the community the benefit of the doubt, but I don't see the drawback to a more open grandfathering.

Scarab Sages 5/5

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While not all the early entry options comes from being an Aasimar or Tiefling, many of them them requires one of those two races - especially the really early ones.

So the Aasimar/Tiefling grace period issue is related. Apparently there was a lot of mass speed-running. If there was a grace period on creating early entry prestige class characters, they would essentially be rewarding those that generated a lot of banked aasimar or tieflings with a lot of potential early access prestige-class characters.

They could grandfather non-race related earlier access prestige class characters so the wiz3/cl1 trickery domain character could go forward but not the wiz2/cl1 tiefling.

4/5 *

Campaign leadership has said several times "this is what we're going with". I don't know how much more clear communication people need, or why people are unsure why their proposals are not being listened to. The decision has been made, it seems.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Jiggy wrote:
Carlos Robledo wrote:
Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
That said, I really do wish they'd take our arguments into account and reconsider.
I think that they have.
While others think that they haven't. (And I, personally, feel like I have no clue whether they have or not.) Perhaps if you could point your fellow posters to the thing that gave you your confidence of the above, then they could share your confidence?

The fact that Mike chimed in on this thread, shows that he at least read through it. And even if it wasn't deep, agonizing consideration, the act of reading a proposal, in and of itself, is a type of consideration. There would be no point to reading ideas, if you aren't going to at least think about entertaining them.

The fact that he said, "We are sticking to what we said," Indicates that he's made his decision. Of course barring any well-thought-out, proposition that isn't confusing or complicated, and didn't include some level of angst in the post, I don't expect he will change his mind. Expecting him to spell out his every inner thought (i.e. "I've thought long and hard on these proposals, and we are going to stay with what we've done") is perhaps asking too much. He did come on and say, "We are sticking with what we said." That in and of itself implies at least a cursory amount of consideration.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Jiggy wrote:
thejeff wrote:
They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

And if the decision was down to a binary issue of whether to allow a grace period or not, then that would totally settle the matter.

But now people are suggesting an alternative that still honors the lack of a grace period.

This is what has me so befuddled at this dialogue: nobody's asking for a grace period, yet the past abuse of a grace period is being held up as the central issue.

Why is the past abuse of a grace period relevant to discussing an option that doesn't involve a grace period?

Past abuse of a grace period makes sense as a rationale for not offering a grace period. Past abuse of a grace period is nonsense as a rationale for anything else.

I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Because the current solution is simple and clean.

Any of these other solutions require a certain level of trust that the player base will only take what's given and not more.

Any of these other solutions require calculation of XP vs what the player might be doing, and completely disregards the fact, that they can still build toward the desired outcome, it will just take 2 or 3 levels longer.

I like simple and clean. You may not see it, but whenever some ruling and grandfather period has happened since I've been a venture-officer (October 2011), that seemed to be quite explicit and clear, there were tons, and tons, and tons of questions asking "what about my corner case." And that's frustrating, because now I'm spending all my time answering corner case questions instead of helping to coordinate games for my region.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Akari Sayuri "Tiger Lily" wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.
Yep, it's getting kind of frustrating to argue in circles when people are missing one of the fundamental points of the argument, that what is being proposed is fundamentally different from the aasimar/tiefling thing.

That isn't the issue though. The reason this ruling is as clean and sharp and simple as it is, is to avoid a) the potential for abuse and b) to avoid corner case rulings. The easiest way to answer the question, is to refer to the aasimar/tiefling thing, because I'm going to wager that no answer is going to be good enough for those who really feel wronged by this ruling.


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Andrew Christian wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
thejeff wrote:
They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

And if the decision was down to a binary issue of whether to allow a grace period or not, then that would totally settle the matter.

But now people are suggesting an alternative that still honors the lack of a grace period.

This is what has me so befuddled at this dialogue: nobody's asking for a grace period, yet the past abuse of a grace period is being held up as the central issue.

Why is the past abuse of a grace period relevant to discussing an option that doesn't involve a grace period?

Past abuse of a grace period makes sense as a rationale for not offering a grace period. Past abuse of a grace period is nonsense as a rationale for anything else.

I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Because the current solution is simple and clean.

Any of these other solutions require a certain level of trust that the player base will only take what's given and not more.

Any of these other solutions require calculation of XP vs what the player might be doing, and completely disregards the fact, that they can still build toward the desired outcome, it will just take 2 or 3 levels longer.

I like simple and clean. You may not see it, but whenever some ruling and grandfather period has happened since I've been a venture-officer (October 2011), that seemed to be quite explicit and clear, there were tons, and tons, and tons of questions asking "what about my corner case." And that's frustrating, because now I'm spending all my time answering corner case questions instead of helping to coordinate games for my region.

I still don't see how "Played at 2nd level before X date" is any less clean and simple than "Played as the prestige class before X date".

Sovereign Court 1/5

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Andrew Christian wrote:
I'm going to wager that no answer is going to be good enough for those who really feel wronged by this ruling.

After reading quite a bit of both threads and learning more about this, this seems like one of the greatest truths in this entire debate.

Apologies if quoting just that part of the sentence takes what you said out of context.

1/5 *

GM Lamplighter wrote:
Campaign leadership has said several times "this is what we're going with". I don't know how much more clear communication people need, or why people are unsure why their proposals are not being listened to. The decision has been made, it seems.

People think it's a bad decision. They have every right to voice that. Are you suggesting that people shouldn't talk about things they disagree with? If everybody simply listened to the people in charge, we'd have one big happy world, right?

1/5 *

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Andrew Christian wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
thejeff wrote:
They specifically asked people not to abuse the grace period. People openly did so. That's all that really matters.

And if the decision was down to a binary issue of whether to allow a grace period or not, then that would totally settle the matter.

But now people are suggesting an alternative that still honors the lack of a grace period.

This is what has me so befuddled at this dialogue: nobody's asking for a grace period, yet the past abuse of a grace period is being held up as the central issue.

Why is the past abuse of a grace period relevant to discussing an option that doesn't involve a grace period?

Past abuse of a grace period makes sense as a rationale for not offering a grace period. Past abuse of a grace period is nonsense as a rationale for anything else.

I'd wager a guess that this is why the authors of some other solutions don't feel listened to.

Because the current solution is simple and clean.

Any of these other solutions require a certain level of trust that the player base will only take what's given and not more.

Any of these other solutions require calculation of XP vs what the player might be doing, and completely disregards the fact, that they can still build toward the desired outcome, it will just take 2 or 3 levels longer.

I like simple and clean. You may not see it, but whenever some ruling and grandfather period has happened since I've been a venture-officer (October 2011), that seemed to be quite explicit and clear, there were tons, and tons, and tons of questions asking "what about my corner case." And that's frustrating, because now I'm spending all my time answering corner case questions instead of helping to coordinate games for my region.

It strikes me that maybe you don't understand the proposed solution. It's exactly the same as the current solution, just the cut off is a game played at level 2 instead of a game played as the PrC. They are exactly the same difficulty of auditing/enforcing.

Liberty's Edge 2/5

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For those still arguing in favor of a greater change or allowance in regards to characters affected by this FAQ, I would offer the advice that being sarcastic, dismissive of opposing arguments, insulting the understanding of those with opposing opinions, engaging in hyperbole, or passive-aggressively asking the same question over and over with subtle variation after they have been answered, doesn't strengthen your cause or garner support.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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Dhjika wrote:
If there was a grace period on creating early entry prestige class characters,

^An example of what's wrong with this whole discussion.

Nobody is asking for a grace period.

Andrew Christian wrote:

The fact that Mike chimed in on this thread, shows that he at least read through it. And even if it wasn't deep, agonizing consideration, the act of reading a proposal, in and of itself, is a type of consideration. There would be no point to reading ideas, if you aren't going to at least think about entertaining them.

The fact that he said, "We are sticking to what we said," Indicates that he's made his decision. Of course barring any well-thought-out, proposition that isn't confusing or complicated, and didn't include some level of angst in the post, I don't expect he will change his mind. Expecting him to spell out his every inner thought (i.e. "I've thought long and hard on these proposals, and we are going to stay with what we've done") is perhaps asking too much. He did come on and say, "We are sticking with what we said." That in and of itself implies at least a cursory amount of consideration.

Djika, above, has also commented on the topic, yet has demonstrated quite clearly that it is absolutely possible to comment on a topic without having even read (let alone considered) the opposing idea. Others have done the same thing. A lot.

Heck, you yourself have often expressed frustration at people commenting on your posts while seemingly not having read/absorbed what you were actually talking about.

Posting a comment does not inherently show that the content of the idea was considered. Thus far, there's been little to no indication that anyone in favor of the current ruling - including campaign management - has truly read and absorbed (which are prerequisites to considering) the solutions proposed.

I mean, we don't know that Mike and John haven't considered these ideas, but there's been no indication that they have, and there's been multiple examples of other people thinking they've considered these ideas when they really haven't even read/absorbed them. If Mike or John made a post on the topic that actually referenced the real content of the ideas proposed, that would make a world of difference. But that hasn't happened yet, that I'm aware of.


Andrew Christian wrote:


The fact that Mike chimed in on this thread, shows that he at least read through it. And even if it wasn't deep, agonizing consideration, the act of reading a proposal, in and of itself, is a type of consideration. There would be no point to reading ideas, if you aren't going to at least think about entertaining them.

The fact that he said, "We are sticking to what we said," Indicates that he's made his decision. Of course barring any well-thought-out, proposition that isn't confusing or complicated, and didn't include some level of angst in the post, I don't expect he will change his mind. Expecting him to spell out his every inner thought (i.e. "I've thought long and hard on these proposals, and we are going to stay with what we've done") is perhaps asking too much. He did come on and say, "We are sticking with what we said." That in and of itself implies at least a cursory amount of consideration.

Did Mike chime in on this thread? I don't see a post. I'm curious exactly what he said. Could you link it?

Sovereign Court 4/5

Quote:
Did Mike chime in on this thread? I don't see a post. I'm curious exactly what he said. Could you link it?

2nd post.

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Dave Baker wrote:
For them to give us a play-by-play of what could possibly be dozens of conversations back and forth, as well as their continued personal musings on the subject, is unrealistic.

Nobody's asking for that. We're just asking for something like "We discussed your idea, but it has issue X."

Currently, for all anyone knows, the proposed alternatives never even occurred to them during their discussions. (They're human, after all.)

In the past, Mike has asserted that PFSers should feel free to lay out a thoughtful proposal for why a decision should be changed, and that's all anyone's trying to do here.

Silver Crusade 1/5 Contributor

Game Master wrote:

It's a bit jarring to see how rapidly the change was made, given how utterly set the design team used to be in the exact opposite direction. Then, disallowing rebuilds really feels like an attempt to "punish" the vile miscreants attempting to "exploit" a "loophole" that the innocent devs never could have seen coming. I'm sure that wasn't actually their intent, but it feels punitive.

Luckily I have no eggs in this basket (a couple of planned eggs for future builds, perhaps), but I sympathize with anyone who didn't meet the unannounced "deadline." A lot of PFS players, myself included, are unwilling to play an atrociously useless character, so if this ruling decapitated your build, you can just burn the character sheet. I wouldn't even consider playing a Wiz 2/Clr 2 for a nanosecond if there wasn't an opportunity to make the character useful at a higher level. It would be disrespectful to my fellow players to bring an effectively useless character to the table, and given that the plans I had for it would have been obliterated, I'd certainly have no fun playing it as well.

I recognize the concerns with offering retrains, but for people affected in this way, it is crippling. Every scenario spent to level up the character is now lost, never replayable without expending an extremely finite resource, and the character it was spent on is effectively unplayable for many players. Some people might enjoy trying to salvage a wrecked build, others would hate doing so.

I've never played PFS (maybe someday), so I'm a little in the dark here. Are PFS scenarios really hard? I hear on occasion about Bonekeep or The Waking Rune's Hard Mode, but I'd seen nothing to imply that such things were the baseline. That's why some of this rhetoric is confusing to me.

You use words like "atrociously useless", "crippling", and "wrecked". Is the optimization floor of PFS really that high?

You also talk about the effect on the party. Is there a lot of pressure from party members to optimize? Do other players get upset or abusive if your character isn't good enough for them?

As someone who has occasionally wanted to try PFS, you're making it sound like an extremely unpleasant experience. If I choose a concept or option for flavor over power, will I be abused by other players for not "playing correctly"? Will I be useless if my character isn't fully optimized?

A friend keeps asking me to play League of Legends, but it always looks like an unpleasant experience, for similar reasons. He and his friends get very heated about who's not "pulling their weight". I'm not competitive, and I like odd and not-always-optimal choices. It sounds like the PFS playerbase would be very hostile towards me - a suspicion I started to pick up after some of the CLW wand threads, and the rhetoric and insults I saw others using there.

I hope I'm wrong about some of this. I don't mean to single you out, either - it's more of a question for anyone who's spoken this way on the topic. Thank you.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Kalindlara wrote:
You use words like "atrociously useless", "crippling", and "wrecked". Is the optimization floor of PFS really that high?

The optimization bar is pretty low. That the standard mystic theurge doesn't hit it says a lot about the standard mystic theurge.

Dark Archive 4/5

Jiggy wrote:


Posting a comment does not inherently show that the content of the idea was considered. Thus far, there's been little to no indication that anyone in favor of the current ruling - including campaign management - has truly read and absorbed (which are prerequisites to considering) the solutions proposed.

I would say I have a very good understanding of the suggestions. I put a good amount of time into the first thread driving conversation (especially trying to encourage fully detailed proposal and justification). But the wheels have just gone in circles and this thread has been the same discussion again - so i've mostly stayed away.

Fox's suggestion is well worded - but it still has the corner case abuses.

Grandfathering all lvl 2+ characters allows for plenty of characters who were not intending to go this route, to be re-purposed into it. Small or large, potential for abuse is there.

The same issues occur with free retraining and free rebuilding - the corner case abuses, whether in large or small quantities - the ability is there. (Some people say - "who cares?" - the campaign staff does. and i'm glad they do)

For me - the biggest issue with grandfathering all level 2+ characters at time of announcement.. is it essentially allows a free pass to not follow the rules. Those characters can still go the route to the PrC if they chose. (whether the character is "effective" enough for the player is up to them)

edit--- follow up thought: the number of corner case abuses would be hard to predict unless someone memorized every pfs legal PrC that could use an SLA under old rules, and all the ways to take even standard 2nd level core/base classes setup and re-purpose them into fitting the mold without rebuild. just to start to guesstimate the scope of abuse case potential with 100,000+ players.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Andrew Torgerud wrote:
Grandfathering all lvl 2+ characters allows for plenty of characters who were not intending to go this route, to be re-purposed into it. Small or large, potential for abuse is there.

Baring cheating, it only allows someone to take this route if they meet a couple of hard to do conditions. You need to be a Caster with two good (and probably different) casting stats AND Some way of getting a spell like ability that they need. That its hardly every level 2 character and its definitely not every player that the tiefling floodgates were.

Quote:
The same issues occur with free retraining and free rebuilding - the corner case abuses, whether in large or small quantities - the ability is there. (Some people say - "who cares?" - the campaign staff does. and i'm glad they do)

What abuse is there and winding up at level 3 with the exact same character you could have made from level 1? If a rule changes you're supposed to get a rebuild.

Quote:
For me - the biggest issue with grandfathering all level 2+ characters at time of announcement.. is it essentially allows a free pass to not follow the rules.

No one broke the rules.

If i was willing to break the rules my wizard 3 cleric 1 would be a Wizard 1 cleric with the right domains 2 mystic theurge 1 after a date with an eraser.

Every person you are accusing of not following the rules has to watch a character get roflstomped with the nerf bat because they followed the rules explicitly laid out in the faq and they're still following the rules now. No one cheated, no one rules lawyered, no one this affects tried to worm in through unclear wording. In what way does it allow a free pass not to follow the rules?

It does not help things when you reward that honesty with baseless insults and accusations of cheating.

Quote:
Those characters can still go the route to the PrC if they chose. (whether the character is "effective" enough for the player is up to them)

But its not a fair choice. The deal was altered halfway through. If you want to know how many people would have made wizard clerics before the faq you can see how many (or few) theurges there were before then.


Andrew Torgerud wrote:
Jiggy wrote:


Posting a comment does not inherently show that the content of the idea was considered. Thus far, there's been little to no indication that anyone in favor of the current ruling - including campaign management - has truly read and absorbed (which are prerequisites to considering) the solutions proposed.

I would say I have a very good understanding of the suggestions. I put a good amount of time into the first thread driving conversation (especially trying to encourage fully detailed proposal and justification). But the wheels have just gone in circles and this thread has been the same discussion again - so i've mostly stayed away.

Fox's suggestion is well worded - but it still has the corner case abuses.

Grandfathering all lvl 2+ characters allows for plenty of characters who were not intending to go this route, to be re-purposed into it. Small or large, potential for abuse is there.

The same issues occur with free retraining and free rebuilding - the corner case abuses, whether in large or small quantities - the ability is there. (Some people say - "who cares?" - the campaign staff does. and i'm glad they do)

For me - the biggest issue with grandfathering all level 2+ characters at time of announcement.. is it essentially allows a free pass to not follow the rules. Those characters can still go the route to the PrC if they chose. (whether the character is "effective" enough for the player is up to them)

edit--- follow up thought: the number of corner case abuses would be hard to predict unless someone memorized every pfs legal PrC that could use an SLA under old rules, and all the ways to take even standard 2nd level core/base classes setup and re-purpose them into fitting the mold without rebuild. just to start to guesstimate the scope of abuse case potential with 100,000+ players.

By that standard, any grandfathering is a free pass not to follow the rules. The characters who'd already taken the first level in a prestige are also not following the rules.

Except that the change in the rules says they can, so they're not abusing anything.

I guess it's a matter of definition. In this case, you're calling it abuse if they change intent. Personally I find it hard to really think of as abuse at all. And doubt you'd see much of it, despite all the theoretically possible combinations and the large number of players. Probably not much more than the number of stranded builds.

I definitely agree that free retraining and rebuilding have far more problems. There you really do have to nail down exactly what can be done and that'll lead to problems.

That said, if there was an official statement that they'd considered this option and thought, as you do, that too many people would take advantage of it to do early entry they hadn't been planning on, that would at least be acknowledgment.

Silver Crusade 3/5

One data point: I have 12 active characters above 1st level. NONE of them would qualify for early entry to a prestige class. (As I mentioned before, my proposal wasn't about me and my characters.)

I'm not seeing the potential for rampant abuse that some are worried about under my proposal. At most, a small fraction of the characters who would end up in early entry prestige classes would be characters who weren't already headed that way anyway.

Who cares?

The trade-off is to satisfy the multitude of players who were on their way there already, but hadn't quite made it.

Dark Archive 4/5

@thejeff: John did state that... He made multiple posts to that effect... here's his third on the subject.
link

@BNW - i agree the scope is not every level 2+ character, but there is a scope no one can really predict.

Let me define "abuse cases" - abuse cases are characters who were no intended to take the PrC, but could and would be 're-purposed' with the intent of a free rebuild/retrain.

-I shall pass on the insult/accusations bait.

The rules changed(in a dramatic 180 degree way). It sucks for some characters. But most of those characters are still capable of continuing the path to a PrC - albeit delayed and "less effective" per some opinions.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Andrew Torgerud wrote:
Let me define "abuse cases" - abuse cases are characters who were no intended to take the PrC, but could and would be 're-purposed' with the intent of a free rebuild/retrain.

How common do you think that situation is? Unlike mordor, one does not simply walk into early entry mystic theurge. It is something you have to plan very carefully for. Someone that could serendipitously make a good mystic theurge out of their character without having been heading that way anyway is too rare a circumstance to build policy around.

Very few people want to walk that path. Very few people want to be with a party member on that path. It leads through a VERY long valley of dross.

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