The Concordance of Elements is “live,” as it were—as of February 28th’s blog post, it is a legal faction for any PFS character to select.
There are a few things to keep in mind as we start sifting through what this means, and we don’t have final answers for all of our questions yet and John Compton’s recent comment should clear up most of our questions.
The Free Faction Change into the Concordance Faction
When the Concordance faction was first announced, Organized Play leadership said that characters would get a free faction change into the Concordance faction. This has since been clarified:
- This change costs no Prestige Points.
- You keep any benefits earned on your previous faction’s Faction Journal Card, but after changing factions, you are no longer able to fulfill goals on the previous faction’s cards.
- You keep any faction-specific boons earned on Chronicle sheet as part of your previous faction.
- If you have a faction trait for your former faction, you have two choices: either keep the trait or replace it with any one of the Concordance faction traits.
- You lose access to any purchased faction-specific vanities.
- You should perform this change either by August 2nd, 2018 or at the beginning of the next adventure the character plays, whichever occurs last. If during this time you play a scenario that includes a Concordance faction-specific objective and reward, you may switch to this faction at the end of the scenario and potentially earn that reward. This allows a PC to experience what the Concordance values firsthand, make an informed choice, and switch to the faction without missing out on the reward.
Registering as a Member of the Concordance
The Paizo website does not currently list the Concordance as a faction. Hopefully this will change soon! Depending on how the original factions were coded, however, it might be particularly problematic.
Concordance Faction Journal Cards
The new Faction Journal Cards are live, and the Concordance have their own faction journal card.
Concordance Faction Traits
The Guide to Organized Play has been updated to 9.1 (from 9.0) and it includes some Concordance content! This includes new faction traits. (There are some other updates to the guide that will be covered in a separate post.) Remember that each character starts with two traits, can get more by taking the Extra Traits feat, and can never have two traits of the same type. (So you can’t have two faction traits, even if the two traits are from different factions.)
Here’s the list of Concordance faction traits:
Balanced Offensive
You can call forth a surge of elemental energy to strike against your foes. Once per day, you can target a distant foe with an elemental attack. This functions as one of the following cleric domain powers, chosen whenever you activate this ability: acid dart, fire bolt, icicle, lightning arc, or storm burst. Your effective cleric level for this ability is equal to your character level. You can use this ability one additional time per day at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.
Beastspeaker
You are skillful at communicating with animals as well as creatures with an affinity for the elements. You gain a +1 trait bonus on wild empathy checks. When you use wild empathy to influence a magical beast with the air, earth, fire, or water subtype, you do not take the typical –4 penalty for influencing a magical beast.
Natural Negotiator
Negotiating with other creatures, whether they be animals or people from far-flung realms, is second nature to you. Either Diplomacy or Handle Animal becomes a class skill for you. Add your choice of Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Sylvan, or Terran as a bonus language to your list of languages known.
Planar Voyager
Your experience with planar travel gives you an edge on your foes when you travel beyond the Material Plane. You gain a +1 trait bonus on initiative checks and saving throws when you are not on the Material Plane.
Scholar of Balance
You have studied the balance of the elements and its effects on natural and planar forces. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (planes) checks, and one of these skills (your choice) becomes a class skill.
Playing Concordance Faction PCs in Older Scenarios
The tables listing faction equivalencies for older scenarios have not yet been updated, so we don’t know what factions the Concordance will count as, if any. At the moment we’d recommend treating them as the Scarab Sages / Osirion faction in cases where the pre-season 5 faction missions are important.