Pathfinder Society Prestige Awards Basics

Beyond XP, you will also gain Prestige Awards (PA) based on the number and difficulty of missions you complete. PA earns you special rewards. A character’s PA is an abstract way to track his growing renown and reputation within a faction. PA are covered in greater detail below.

Total and Current Prestige Award

Just as a character has a maximum hit point value when fully healed and a current hit point value when injured, that character has a Total Prestige Award (TPA) and a Current Prestige Award (CPA). TPA represents the character’s overall reputation within a faction. CPA represents how much influence the character currently has within that faction in terms of favors owed to him and his ability to influence others and make use of the faction’s resources.

Characters may spend CPA to acquire goods or services (see below), which means that a character’s CPA is usually less than his TPA, just as an adventuring character’s current hit points are usually less than his total hit points. CPA can never be higher than TPA.

Earning Prestige

As the core of the Society’s functioning is venture-captains giving other Pathfinders assignments, earning prestige with the Society is a matter of completing these missions without destroying anything priceless along the way. Members may gain more prestige if they are members of one of the factions described in the following section.

At the start of every assignment, players may be assigned missions according to their faction. Each of these missions comes as a missive from the leader of each of the five factions describing their needs and the tasks laid before the characters loyal to them. These missives send the heroes on one or more seemingly inconsequential side quests during the course of the mission. For each secondary mission completed, you will be awarded one or more PA.

Spending Prestige

A character’s CPA total reflects the goodwill, political capital, and personal favors she has built up through service to the organization. While a character’s TPA can provide certain titles and privileges, most tangible benefits of faction membership are acquired when a character spends his CPA on temporary boons, favors, aid, spellcasting, or other services (see below). Regardless of whatever honorific titles a character has earned through his TPA, the cost for obtaining boons remains the same.

Once a character’s CPA is spent, it is spent permanently; it is not recovered automatically like lost hit points or ability score damage. The character can, of course, earn more PA, which adds to both her TPA and her CPA, but spent points are gone.

Characters may not spend CPA during combat, and for the sake of simplicity characters are limited to spending CPA once per gaming session (this keeps players from saving up their PA in large amounts and spending it all at once, making an adventure too easy). It is possible for a player to spend his character’s PA even if the PC is dead; in essence, this represents the PC having made prior arrangements with his faction to perform certain actions on his behalf, such as recovering his dead body and returning it to a specific location or having it raised.

The monetary equivalent of 1 point of PA is approximately 375 gp, though characters are only able to spend PA on services, not physical goods.

PCs may not pool their earned prestige to obtain services, or for any other purpose, even if they are members of the same faction. As a general rule, PA is designed to be spent by characters on themselves; PA costs increase by 1 when the benefit is to other characters instead of to the member of the faction.

A character’s ability to spend PA is dependent on his being in contact with other members of the Pathfinder Society, and unless noted otherwise, the Society tends to have agents, contacts, or headquarters in settlements that are at least the size of a large city. To reflect the difficulty of contacting an agent in a smaller settlement, PA costs increase by 5 in communities smaller than 5,000 people.

In addition, your faction rewards your diligence and excellent service with an expanded list of services available for purchase. These services, once achieved, will always be available for purchase as long as you’re still a member of that faction.

The rewards and their costs are listed under each faction entry below. Some abilities, such as the ones without CPA cost, are free.

Pathfinder Rewards

The Pathfinders have access to strange magic and mysterious rituals derived from half-understood lore.

1 TPA: When in the Grand Lodge library, gain a +5 circumstance bonus on one Knowledge check. The check takes 1 hour, reflecting the need to reference the appropriate materials. This bonus does not stack with the +4 bonus on one check listed below.

1 CPA: Transcribe a spell from the Grand Lodge library into a wizard’s spellbook or alchemist’s formula book. This benefit does not require a Spellcraft check or any additional transcribing costs.

1 CPA: Mounts (light riding horse, camel, mule, or pony) for the PC and up to one companion per level (1/week).

1 CPA: Boat travel (freshwater or coastal transport for the PC and up to 10 others; includes a crew of four 1^st level experts) (1/week).

1 CPA: Work detail of 50 1st-level commoners (1/week).

1 CPA: Skilled craftsman (expert of 1/2 the Pathfinder’s level) (1/week).

1 CPA: Dispel magic.

1 CPA: Gentle repose.

1 CPA: Lesser restoration.

1 CPA: Make whole.

1 CPA: Remove blindness/deafness.

1 CPA: Remove curse.

1 CPA: Remove disease.

1 CPA: Remove paralysis.

1 CPA: Sending.

1 CPA: +4 to one skill check.

1 CPA: Wealthy cost of living for 1 month (cost of living covers 1 month and is detailed on page 405 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook).

2 CPA: Bodyguard (warrior of 1/2 the Pathfinder’s level) (1/week).

2 CPA: Ship travel (deep water transport for the PC and up to 20 others; includes a crew of 10 1^st level experts) (1/week).

2 CPA: Squad of 10 1st-level warriors (1/week).

2 CPA: Combat trained mounts (light or heavy warhorses or riding dogs) for the PC and up to one companion per level (1/week).

2 CPA: Break enchantment.

2 CPA: Cure critical wounds.

2 CPA: Divination.

2 CPA: Greater dispel magic.

2 CPA: Neutralize poison.

2 CPA: Overland flight.

2 CPA: Scrying.

2 CPA: Extravagant cost of living for 1 month (cost of living covers 1 month and is detailed on page 405 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook).

2+ CPA: Atonement (8 CPA to restore cleric/oracle/druid powers).

2+ CPA: Restoration (4 CPA to dispel a permanent negative level).

4 CPA: Regenerate.

4 CPA: Analyze dweomer.

4 CPA: Greater scrying.

5 CPA: Commune.

5 CPA: Contact other plane.

5 CPA: Legend lore.

5 CPA: Retrieval of a dead body to a Pathfinder-controlled location.

7 CPA: Teleport object.

7 CPA: Vision.

10 CPA: Teleport.

15 CPA: Plane shift.

16 CPA: Greater restoration.

16 CPA: Raise dead.

18 CPA: Discern location.

20 CPA: Greater teleport.

32 CPA: Resurrection.

75 CPA: Soul bind.

77 CPA: True resurrection.

5 TPA, 1 CPA: Exchange one character trait taken at character creation for a new trait. The character must still obey the normal trait system rules (such as not having more than one trait from the same category); however, the new trait does not need to be from the same category as the trait it replaces.

5 TPA, 5+ CPA: Gain a contact in a particular city. The character can consult with the contact for local gossip, news, and advice; this benefit grants the character a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks to gather information, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), and Knowledge (religion) checks regarding the contact’s city made within that city. The character must wait 24 hours for the contact to provide the desired information. For an additional 10 CPA, the bonus from the contact increases to +4. A character may have contacts in multiple cities, but multiple contacts in the same city provide no extra benefit. If the contact dies, the character can spend CPA to find a replacement contact.

10 TPA: Purchase spellcasting at 1 CPA less than normal (minimum 1).

15 TPA, 2 CPA: Access a special section of the Grand Lodge library for 1 week and gain a +10 circumstance bonus on any one Knowledge check. This bonus does not stack with the +4 bonus on one check listed above.

20 TPA: Gain free passage on caravans and merchant vessels that are friendly to the Pathfinder Society.

20 TPA: Purchase any magic item worth up to 10,000 gp value from a Pathfinder lodge at a 10% discount.

20 TPA, 6 CPA: Access a hidden cache of supplies in a wilderness area. These supplies consist of survival gear such as dried food, clean water, spare weapons, rope, sunrods, spell components, and other nonmagical equipment. Spending CPA on this resource represents finding a cache within 2d6 x 10 minutes from the character’s current location; the character does not need to plan ahead for this cache or know of its existence (it is, in effect, a plot device for acquiring emergency items). A typical cache contains up to 375 gp worth of these goods, and many times they are found near sites the Pathfinders planned to explore at some point. This resource does not incur the +5 CPA increase for being outside of community of at least 5,000 people.

40 TPA, 1 CPA: Gain a reputation as a famous and successful Pathfinder. The character is in effect a celebrity adventurer and is well known in several countries (though whether this is fame or infamy depends on the history and personality of the character). This reputation grants the character a +2 circumstance bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks when dealing with someone who knows of her fame. Many Pathfinders with this level of prestige go on to become venture-captains (though the Decemvirate selects venture-captains based on qualities other than prestige).

Note1: Services requiring NPCs or animals include appropriate gear for their class and level and all living expenses for them. For double CPA cost, these NPCs serve for up to 1 month. The character is expected to return any NPCs or mounts and their gear to the faction when finished with them. If the PC returns less than 50% of the mounts, gear, or NPCs acquired, she loses 1 TPA (and 3 TPA if none are returned).

Note2: Spellcasting is at minimum caster level.