It will be interesting to see what happens as the current arc ends and the next one begins. Given the focus on story, I'd be inclined to structure a leveling cert something like the following:

Arc 1
Hard Points (Yes / No) Rewards if yes: # XP, # Sc (other awards if appropriate)
Soft Points (Yes / No) Rewards if yes: # XP, # Sc (other awards if appropriate)

Arc 2
Hard Points (Yes / No) Rewards if yes: # XP, # Sc (other awards if appropriate)
Soft Points (Yes / No) Rewards if yes: # XP, # Sc (other awards if appropriate)

So a new character could start with a leveling cert where they get something for excluding all Arc 1 & 2 Soft Points. The goal for the character is to play through the main story threads, but exclude the SPs so they can get caught up more quickly.

If it's a new PC for a character who's already played everything, they could get credit for all Arc 1 & 2 Stuff so they can jump off and hit the ground running with Arc 3.

The campaign staff would determine what the totals are for each grouping. Maybe there are a few sub-groupings if there are relevant Arc 3 "feeder" story mods HPs, SPs or both that are most useful in being prepared for Arc 3.

I think we're still a ways off for this, and this is actually more a tangent from the threads purpose, so apologies for the distraction.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Rewards for con-only events is a debate that has been around in living campaigns for years, and it's not possible to please everyone. Is it fair that someone who can't afford the time or money to attend a con miss out? Is it fair that someone who devotes the effort to play at a special event at a con doesn't get anything special? What is best for the players and best for the campaign? It's a balancing act where staff has to be careful not to listen to one group over the other just because they're loudspoken.

Personally, I look at it the opposite way. Arcanis has 50 levels as compared to 3.5's 20 levels. The mechanics are completely different and they went with a different (better imnsho) feel than D&D.



I completely disagree with everything you said here.

Replaying (or rerunning) the same modules over and over gets boring. There needs to be a level-up cert (at least) per story arc. My complaint is that the 1.5 cert is too low (the xp gained by playing the HPs and SPs that are not 1.5 legal puts you at 1.8 or 1.9 - I'd like to see the 1.5 cert be 1.7 or 1.8).

An entire tier is a huge range in Arcanis. There needs to be stat blocks for half tiers.



I agree with your first part but don't fully agree with the second. The skills, defenses, stamina, and most other stats will be significantly higher on a 2.9 than a 1.3 so the trap/monster/whatever must be scaled to the appropriate level (then it is a similar challenge).

I see both sides of this and agree you won't be able to please everyone. But we should try to give those who can't go to a con (and I totally get the money issue!) something resembling the BI experience. While I do enjoy the BI I would be fine with something less intensive and hopefully less work for the staff. Perhaps that would be easier to package for home play. I liked the special we did this year at Arcanicon maybe use the time and energy saved by creating a shorter BI and use it for that sort of con experience instead. As for an abbreviated BI I would be okay with six fights either broken in half or perhaps four and two. Maybe do it in six to eight hour time slot? I like the special mission idea for con BIs as well.

P.S. Like Paul I am happy this is turning out to be a civil discussion of ideas.

Conplay vs. Homeplay is one of those things that I think is very difficult to manage, and in truth, I’m not even sure how I feel about it, because I hold these conflicting ideas to be important:

1. The campaign should be fair, and allow equal treatment of all players.
2. All characters should have equal opportunity to influence the plot line
3. Player driven plot change is desirable
4. Staff involvement and reaction to player actions is desired and the sign of a good campaign.
5. Good playing and special/dangerous events should be rewarded
6. Special events help drive convention attendance, and convention attendance is good because it help build a larger sense of community.

How are these conflicting? The equal treatment of everyone vs. encouraging/rewarding convention attendance. What are the rewards of the specials? More x.p., gold, magic, special options/recognition, and plot control. Some of these things can be handled “easily” by either reducing x.p./gold/magic (i.e. power in one form or another) rewarded or by releasing a separate module a character who played the module can’t play – either of these reduce the differential in power between characters who attended and those who didn’t. But reducing power rewarded by it also reduces the reward for attendance, and the reward for facing greater risk – which doesn’t seem like a “fair” action either. That is why I favor the extra module approach.

But all those corrections for power don’t address the other “plot control” issue. I’ve seen it in reading about the first campaign. I read a bunch of modules, and they clearly build toward an apex – but the resolution is missing – because that was done at a BI, and I don’t have a copy of it. It’s very unsatisfying – and that’s just in putting it all together later! Being a player in the campaign and missing the big game changing events must suck! But how else do you do it? Having campaign staff on hand to adapt and react to events as they happen at these crucial points is critical. It is amazing to here at the end of an event that our actions during the event mean a, b, and c will happen or not happen. And the possibility of something unique happening to your character because you did something unique is priceless. This kind of activity is what helps bring a more home-play feel to a shared campaign. It wouldn’t be Arcanis without it, in my opinion; but by its very definition it isn’t “fair.”

So, while I really do feel that I see both sides of the argument, I think at the end of the day I like the idea of special events continuing to be “special” effecting some of the big plot questions, giving special rewards, but I think that some things can be done to ameliorate the impact a little. Publishing the special afterward for home play with less reward and impact would be the ideal, since then players would still get to experience it, even if to only a lesser degree. But since that has been decided against (which I understand), I think the next best option is a SP module replacement that can’t be played by characters that played the special. If that is too much work for the campaign for too little reward, than I still think that special should be done, but we have to accept the situation that there will be a growing gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.”

Of course, I think that has already been accepted to some degree. After all, in the discussion of the level-up certs, it is my understanding that PCI does not intend to do any other level cert, even as the campaign level grows. That means that we will always have to have a lot of APLs for modules, so new players can play, secondary characters can play, and new characters of those who have died can play. After all, I’m playing every crusade arc I can get into, and in the last 6 months that’s been… 1.5 modules. At this rate I might get up to the current level cert before I (not my character) die of old age. So play of older modules doesn’t appear to be as viable as I think the campaign staff would like to think. (Shameless reminder of my proposal to play the first three hardpoints of the crusade arc at Ucon - to which I have gotten no responses...)

Wilcoxon I understand where you are coming from.

You believe that each Arc should have a minimum level requirement so everyone is on the same playing field, and be about the same power level. This allows writers to only ever have to make a single set of stat blocks for monsters and traps. It also means that player who never play to together but come to Convention shouldn't have a problem finding a table with similarity powered PCs. This means you never have to level secondary characters, and new players have to feel inferior to long time players.

I disagree with that arrangement for multiple reasons. I believe that people who spend time and money deserve to be rewarded for that by being higher level, having more gold, or having special certs that are provided from those events. But the story should not be denied to those who can't attend.
People who join the campaign later should not be given a leveling cert so they are same as someone who has been playing from the beginning, or just slightly lower. A new character should always start at 1.1 to learn how to use the character's abilities, and get a feel for where they want to go with own personal story.
More importantly I don't like that it denies them the prior modules and the great story that the prior Arcs have. They should be encouraged to play those modules and experience the stories themselves.
I know it creates more work for whomever does the monsters of the module, because it basically brings back Average Party Levels (APLs) but the Tier system I feel can handle that and I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that it was designed to limit it to 5 levels. 5 Tiers = 5 levels of difficulty for PCs.
There can be tables of Tier 1 characters, Tier 2 characters and Tier 3 characters, that are being challenged at their own level but going through the same story.

Dante you're 100% correct you can't please everyone. But I do hope that PCI changes some of it's current policies to promote it's strengths. The amazing story. Because we all love it together.

I strongly feel that we do need leveling certs that come close to matching the publicly released adventures in XP and (to a lesser extent) gold. If we use the 1.5 cert as an example, the XP is too low (in my opinion) and the gold is maybe a little low (it gives far less gold than playing the adventures). Even if the XP and gold were equal then there are still lots of items, favor, and special things on the adventure certs that aren't granted by a leveling cert.



There are two huge problems with this approach:

1. It can be very hard to find games for very old adventures. This will tend to drive new players away from the game if they can't find games/groups to play in.
2. (Some) established players will be bored replaying/rerunning the same adventures over and over just to try new character concepts. If a character died and then the player was forced to restart at 1.1, some players would then leave the game.

I know a lot of people that refuse to play in PFS at least partially because they force any character to start at level 1.

You do not need to start at 1.1 to understand a character's abilities provided you have a good grasp of the mechanics. Even a new player can have a pretty good grasp of the mechanics (it depends on the player).



As I said previously, I disagree. A full tier spread is too large for the mechanics of Arcanis. Given the multiple half-tier stat blocks, a GM can utilize different stats vs different characters but it is a lot more work for the GM.

I can personally attest to getting bored having run Into the Blessed Lands three times and played it twice. Replay does get old after a time, but can be useful to do a couple of times (see my comment below for clarification)

As the bit about the Pathfinder Society that especially applies to a tight knit group. Most places I have been including OP at home we start a group and once we tier out at say 6th level we start another group of characters. It's not possible to play every mod with the same character so there's plenty of incentive to try out new character concepts. But if you think you can run the same character all the way through Arcanis, well I suppose that's possible, but it's been my experience that not every character is a good fit for every mod. My Beltinian would never go to Canceri (unless I really wanted to lose the character. ). Granted the staff has been really good in making sure any character can play any mod but there are exceptions.

One thing I will point out is sometimes it's fun to replay a mod with a different character especially if their approach to things is radically different. I for one can't wait to play the Arcanicon mods just released with my hedonistic Ursula as opposed to the uptight/prudish Haakon. Fun times in Savona will ensue...

Actually I would like to hear for Matt Flinn on this since he does a lot of stat blocks. How much work would it be Matt to do stat blocks across say three Tiers of play?

Speaking as someone who does statblocks, at least for his own work and a few other people, it isn't so much hard to make the statblocks as it is EXTREMELY time consuming. It usually takes me almost as long to make my statblocks as it does to write the actual adventure owing to the more intricate process of filling in the Statblock format sheets and double checking to make sure all the numbers are correct (I admit, I usually fail at this). As an editor statblocks are also a pain to edit since they are very information dense and sometimes hard to 'reverse engineer' to ensure they are legal.

The other big issues with multiple statblocks is they massively bloat the document size, especially if you want the statblocks to be separated by scene, and that they mean you don't get as tight of a story. In the later case, if you are making multiple enemies across multiple tiers you cannot give them the same gear, talents, spells, etc across the board, which makes them more difficult for GM's to manage and at some of the statblocks will either have extra talents thrown in to 'boost them up' or have abilities you really want taken away to 'dumb them down.' Personally, I'd only like to do no more than 2 sets of statblocks per adventure, but the way the campaign is set up right now we really have to do a minimum of 3 (1.5, 2.5, and now 3.5) and rely on the GM to pick and choose stats appropriately.

Thanks Cody! That was what I was afraid of. I was hoping that Arcanis stat blocks might be easier to deal with than the old 3.5 versions but this does not seem to be the case. I know as a GM I hate having to deal with more than two sets of stat blocks. I think that's why I like running lower tier stuff be it Arcanis or PFS. Less stuff to worry about means I can focus on telling a good story and ensuring my players have a good time. That's been my experience in both systems.