It will probably not be much of a surprise to you, but there have been some major changes to Society play for Pathfinder 2e. While the game itself has not experienced much change other than expansions for characters such as classes, ancestries, archetypes, feats, spells, and items, Society has had some major changes which definitely affect our characters. I think the changes have been pretty good overall, but they were not communicated very well to the player base. With that said, let’s look at each one of these changes so you know how they work. All of these changes were made to Player Rewards.
First of all, this information is in the Player Rewards section of the Society Guide. That itself has changed quite a bit since we were hit with the pandemic. They were preparing to place the Guide where it is now, but only recently completed the move. At the top of the page you see the Boons category. This explains what the boons are. Most boons used to be through the Chronicle Sheets, but that has been changed. A lot of the boons are going to be purchased with Achievement Points (AcP) which I will explain in a bit.
1. Rather than explain it all, let’s just copy and paste the relevant section right here:
Boons
Boons are rewards that can be applied to a character. Common types of boons include Achievement Points (AcP), Chronicle, or Faction. Boons often have traits that describe how the boon applies. There are some boon traits that deserve specific mention:
- Advanced: A boon with the Advanced trait is typically more powerful than other boons. Characters may only benefit from one advanced boon during an adventure.
- Ally: A boon with the Ally trait sometimes places a Pawn. This does not allow players to bypass the limits on the number of Pawns they can play.
- Promotional: These boons reward players for promoting the society, or for exceptional contributions to the campaign. Characters may only benefit from one promotional boon during an adventure.
Unless a boon states otherwise, you can only apply one of any given boon to a character.
Promotional boons are pretty much what they have always been, stuff worn by the player. There are also Promotional Service Awards. A PC can only benefit from one promotional boon per game. Keep that in mind.
2. The next category is my personal favorite, but then I have a ton of AcP!
Achievement Points
Players earn Achievement Points (AcP) by participating in and reporting Pathfinder Society games. AcP are an online currency used to purchase character boons. Currently, there are three levels of AcP events.The number of points earned depends on time involved, the event level, and the type of involvement as in the chart below. Event classifications are:
- Standard events: games played in stores, homes, or other locations .
- Premier events: games played at conventions and local events designated part of the Regional Support Program.
- Premier Plus events: Paizo-sponsored conventions and conventions running more than 75 blocks of organized play.
Table 6-1: Typical AcP rewards.
| Adventure XP | Player / GM | Standard Event | Premier Event | Premier+ Event |
| 1 XP (Quests, Bounties, etc) | Player | 1 | 1 | 1.5 |
| GM | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | |
| 4 XP (Scenarios) | Player | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| GM | 8 | 10 | 12 | |
| 12 XP (Some Adventures, Adventure Path books*) | Player | 12 | 15 | 18 |
| GM | 24 | 30 | 36 |
*Not all Adventures and Adventure Path books award 12 XP. See the individual sanctioning documents for details.
A list of Achievement Points rewards available for purchase lives on the Boon tab of your My Organized Play page. To purchase a boon, select a character from the dropdown list, then click the purchase button of the desired boon. A list of purchased boons appears at the bottom of the page. Each purchased boon generates a downloadable printable boon. AcP boons should be stored with Chronicles, either digitally or alongside physical sheets.
Please note the link to My Organized Play page. That is an important area because that’s where you use the AcP to buy boons. Want to play that Android? You need 120 AcP to buy the boon. Once you do that, download and print out the boon, and then place it with your character. You will need to show proof that you purchased the boon and can legally play that ancestry. That means everybody will need to create their Paizo account and use that PFS number. We report every game so many of you have AcP you don’t know about!
3. The Retail Incentive Program (RIP) and Legacy Backgrounds are also in this section. The RIP applies when we are running sessions at our Friendly Local Gaming Stores (FLGS). Your Venture Officers will have the information for how that works for each location as it is decided upon by the FLGS. Usually the retailer defaults to an amount purchased per slot to decide what level of a boost that entails. As for Legacy Backgrounds, that refers to players who played Pathfinder 1e. I often forget about them to be honest.
4. Here is a section that really confuses a lot of people because it is a major change that came about mid-season. The reason for the Faction changes are a bit complex, but basically the original faction system had some flaws and OP decided to make some positive changes to it. They pulled this system from the Gamemastery Guide with some modifications. I will paste in the Guide’s relevant section on this here:
Faction Reputation
By representing a faction during adventures or participating in adventures vital to a faction’s interests, a character gains Reputation with the represented faction. The greater a character’s Reputation the more respected and influential they are with that faction. Characters can represent more that one Faction in their career, but only one per adventure. Some scenarios grant bonus Reputation with particular factions; this doesn’t prevent characters from choosing to represent a different Faction.
Pathfinder Society uses the Reputation subsystem (Gamemastery Guide 164) with the following modifications:
Table 6-2: Reputations
| Reputation | Reputation points |
| Ignored | 0-19 |
| Liked | 20-59 |
| Admired | 60-119 |
| Revered | 120+ |
Reputation in PFS does not use negative values. Major infractions earn Infamy.
Character rewards unlocked by Reputation are found on the Boon Tab of your My Organized Play page. These rewards, called Reputation Boons, can unlock based on Reputation with a single faction, or the total amount of Reputation your character has earned across all factions.
There are also some very special charity boons, but those are pretty self-explanatory. You definitely know if you have one of those because you paid for it at a special event with actual real world currency.
There are a lot of expansions to the game with six Lost Omens books published right now and three more planned for the rest of the year. I will go over those in additional blog posts. Right now, I just wanted to get these changes explained to you because they affect both your existing characters and any characters you build from now on.
The League of Aroden 
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