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If I miss a DC check when using Contact Other Planes to contact an Outer plane, greater deity, the table for the spell shows that I reduce my Intelligence and Charisma to 8 for 5 weeks. How is this applied in Pathfinder Society when playing a series of scenarios?

In the Season 8 Roleplaying Guild Guide I can find a section on Dealing with Afflictions. It details how to record the gaining of the condition and the removal, but it doesn't reference how to deal with conditions that dissipate after a specified amount of time.

My other thought was to check the Downtime section for answers on how long PCs have between adventures, but there doesn't appear to be a set amount of time.

Does the ability reduction from a failed DC only apply until the end of the current scenario, or is there a rule somewhere governing how long the effect lasts?

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You must somehow remove the condition by the end of the session you cast the spell, or mark the character unplayable (dead). This is because being locked out of spellcasting and with significant penalties to abilities, your character would be mechanically hampered (which isn't fair to your next PFS group).

Roleplaying Guild Guide Chapter 4- Roleplaying Guild Basics (p18 of the PDF)

Unless noted otherwise, all conditions, including death, gained during an adventure must be resolved before the end of the session. A condition in this context includes an affliction, a negative effect, or an effect that is intended to mechanically affect your character in a negative way. If such a condition isn’t resolved by the end of play, the character should be reported as dead and becomes unplayable. However, a few conditions need not be resolved by the end of play, including permanent negative levels, ability drain that does not reduce an ability score to 0, becoming a fallen member of a class that requires an atonement spell to regain class features or spellcasting abilities, and conditions that impose no mechanical effect.

Emphasis mine.

One thing I couldn't find is if your GM can hand-wave, saying that x weeks pass before you ending the session (removing the condition). I'm not familiar enough with PFS to know how much say GM's have over the passage of in-gmae time.

In summary, don't cast Contact Other Plane.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Whether or not your GM handwaves it, you can handwave it as well. 'X weeks pass before we report the results of our mission to the questgiver'. Or 'As the party goes to do X, I spend 9 weeks doing Y' once the scenario is almost over. Remember that with this sort of organized play nothings actually time sensitive between modules, even if it should be. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 19, 2017 at 19:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @thedarkwanderer I haven't played enough Society to know if you could handwave weeks of character (in)activity \$\endgroup\$
    – Ifusaso
    Mar 20, 2017 at 12:30

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