Admiral Jose Monkamuck's page

Now for the survival forecast:

Mara – Jojo – 80%
Fed, rested and sitting the cab of an air-conditioned bulldozer that I know she is not getting out of if she can help it.

Syth - Ryuu – 50%
The player promised to be there next week, he only missed because of a miss understanding.

Josh – Richard James – 75%
He's got an axe and a shield, which is the combination he specializes in.

David – Lilly – 75%
Laura – TBD – 55%
Not much change from last week.

Ray – Ogg the Caveman – 35%
This one may be saner than most of his characters. Still.....

Brandon G – Ramias Von Jaggermeister – 55%
He wised up a bit recently. Of course depending on how loyal he is to his lady friend he might be in for some hard times.

Dave – Lady O-Bei – 60%
I continue to realize I underestimate this player and character. We'll see what happens.

Garland – Damien Parker – 35%
He has gamely decided to continue playing a character with no legs. Will it's an interesting RP decision, not being able to run away is dangerous here. Very dangerous.
Sean – Loriannasha Boling – 40%
She has better survival skills than I thought and the player was more focused than usual. Let’s wait and see if this trend continues.

Amber unfortunately won’t be able to start next week either as work scheduled her until 9:30, but she will eventually.

I need to start doing up character sheets for the NPCs and give them exp too as we go along.

So now the question is what was the rest of the group doing all this time?

Well first they took some time to try and rest and do a head count. They realized that Ryuu, Jojo and the Buisiness Man were all missing. They didn’t even bring up trying to go look for them, something to bear in mind.

Then they started planning what to do next. Hot, tired and thirsty they had to go back to the city, but they wanted to spend some time circling it first. After half an hour heading east around the city they finally spotted something interesting. Lying on its side was what several of the characters recognized as a fire truck. This seemed a good reason to go back into the city. Unfortunately at the mention of walking back in the airline stewardess panicked. She did NOT want to go near those things again. Luckily Damien was able to calm her down, at which point she started following him closely.

As they got closer they could see a woman lying in the road with yet another perfect circle burnt into the ground around her. This is would be Loriannasha who wasn’t introduced during the first game. Damien and a few others took the time to check on her while others went and raided the fire truck. They quickly located 4 axes, many of the fireproof coats and a couple of fire extinguishers.

More importantly they found the tools to take off the top of the nearby fire hydrant which produced the water geyser Jojo saw. Ah water, it doesn’t seem like much, but just wait until you don’t have it. Lilly made an improvised canteen by taking one of the fire extinguishers, emptying it out, ripping the top off and then washing it out a little. She then took one of the fireproof coats cut some strips to make a carrying strap and used one of the buttons and some cloth to make a cap for it. Obai followed Lilly’s example and made another one.

It was now that Damien made a rather costly mistake. He saw that the airline stewardess was quickly wilting in the heat and so he decided to escort her into an alley where she could get some shade. It’s too bad for them that the alley was inhabited by 3 of the critters. As they turned to run the three critters sprang at them. One of the missed entirely, the second got the airline stewardess in the butt (I rolled groin AGAIN) and the last one got a hold of Damien’s right leg. This proved disastrous as it took it only a couple of second for it to chew all the way through his leg and start working its way up his hip. A moment later the other one got his left leg and did the same.

The first to react was Richard James (“Josh”) who in true knightly fashion rushed to the aid of the damsel in distress. He pulled it off her and became the first person to get a really good look at the underside of one. The underside is just a mouth running lengthwise with dozens of little spindly pincher arms to push food into it. In a flash of insight he realized if he cut it in half length wise it wouldn’t be dangerous anymore as it is really hard to chew with only one jaw.

The fight descended into chaos as the players tried to save Damien and cut the little buggers in half with improvised weaponry. While they weren’t fast enough to save Damien’s legs, they did save his life. Unfortunately his healing power only works on others. They had almost finished off the three critters when two more rushed out of a nearby alleyway attracted by the noise. One of them started chewing on Obai while another went for Ramias who was barely saved by his danger sense.

Once everything was over Ramias provided first aid for Damien and the stewardess. This made her very grateful and being the lecherous b@stard he is, he took advantage of it to get closer to her.

Once the party had soaked up their losses they could hear what might have been the sound of an engine from further down the street. They started heading that way and met up with Jojo, Ryuu and Og in their nice spiffy bulldozer, which they were using to knock over and look vending machines.

The single most disruptive element was the fact that I moved last Saturday. That plus a lot going on at work has eaten up my time. Thankfully things are smoothing out.

I want to apologize to all the readers for the lack of updates. Of course I’m like apologizing to thin air, but a guy can hope. Last week the game was canceled due to real life problems on many people’s parts, but the week before that did happen. I swear the game wasn’t intended to be every other week. There was almost a post about it the week before, but the computer ate the word document I was typing it in.

So last session no character deaths, but a good maiming did happen. Think I’m going too easy on them?

At this point the heat is beating down, and I’ve looked up the rules for exhaustion, dehydration and heat. Unfortunately for me everyone has a high HT score and pretty much all of them make their roles to not lose fatigue.

When last we left off Ryuu and Jojo had been separated from the rest of the party. It took the entirety of the session for them finally rejoin the group. I switched between the two groups as the game went on, but for ease of explaining I’ll recount all of Ryuu and Jojo’s adventures first.

Unfortunately Ryuu wasn’t there, but he had left his character sheet with me (a standard police with him as he has shown a tendency to lose them). I’ve decided that will the policy for everyone. After all one of the things I told them is that not being here does NOT keep your character alive. If you aren’t here they are effectively an NPC for the session.

Even more unfortunately before the end of last session Ryuu’s player had made abundantly clear he wanted to try and raid the sporting goods store for protective gear and Jojo saw no reason to talk him out of it. So as he began sneaking in Jojo stuck her head in enough to take a good look around. This is when Jojo saw something that she couldn’t from the street. There were 6 more of the critters on the ceiling. Jojo quickly but quietly grabbed Ryuu and pulled him back.

At this point Jojo decide to use Ryuu to her advantage. Instead of telling him what she had seen, she asked him to sneak back in and go for the drink cooler she could see. Its back was to them, but what they could see of it was intact, and even plugged in, although the rubber covering the metal wires was damaged.

So back in went Ryuu sneaking quietly over to the cooler. He actually made it all the way there and had started taking out some heavenly looking one liter water bottles before our friends on the ceiling spotted him. Thanks to Jojo keep an eye out and shouting “RUN!” when they dropped Ryu was barely able to avoid the attack.

At this point the two book it away from the shop with all the little nasties inside it chasing them. I had Jojo roll for Ryuu’s extra effort check to outrun what was chasing him. Needing 7 or less on 3d6 is not good odds, but Jojo roll just low enough to pull it off. So the two of them managed to escape.

At this point Jojo looked around and saw two interesting things. First was that off to the West was what might have been a thin plume of smoke, or it might have been her imagination. To the East there was a dump truck with missing wheels. Since the dump truck was much closer and possibly a safe place to rest Jojo and Ryuu headed east.

As they climbed in the cap of the dump truck to rest and drink some of the precious water they had acquired Jojo noticed that further East there was a gap in the buildings that her urban survival instincts told her was likely to be a construction site.

As their break ended Jojo was just about to head for the plume of smoke she might have seen when a sudden geyser of water from the North East caught her attention. Jojo figured that it might have been caused by the other people she had met, and of course water is water. Plus the construction site was on the way.

The construction site proved to be a treasure trove of goodies. The first thing that caught Jojo’s eye was the Bulldozer. Now unlike everything they’ve come across so far the bulldozer has metal treads, not rubber tires. So from what she could see it was intact.

The first thing Ryuu naked (and rather hairy) man laying there inside a perfect circle burnt into the dirt. When woken up this would prove to be Og, the new character brought in to replace our first fatality. Jojo left him to Ryuu to deal with while she inspected the bulldozer. I must say that leaving the Mute NPC to deal with introducing the new character was an inspired choice.

When Jojo checked the underside of the bulldozer she did see one of the critters under there, but backed off before it could return the favor. Still she was willing to cautiously and quietly climb into the cab, which had apparently been sealed and so it still had seats, a very good sign. The roar as she fired it up was an even better sign to her, but so much to Og who freaked out. He might have calmed down better if someone who could talk to him was there, but Ryuu did the best he could.

There was some excitement as the critter that had been under the bulldozer climbed onto the tread and tried to eat it. At this point Ryuu tried desperately to get Jojo to drive backwards and crush it with the tread, a task at which he failed mightily. Og slowly calmed down and then noticed the creature on the tread. In true caveman fashion he promptly grabbed a club (the extra bat Ryuu carried) smash it into a bloody pulp. Which amusingly enough is right when Jojo finally understood what Ryuu had been trying to tell her.

There were also a few lockers set up on one side of the construction site. These proved to be treasure trove as they produced a couple hard hats, a maglight with extra batteries, a smaller flashlight and a rather tattered pair of pants. Jojo tried to have Og put on the pants, but discovered the inherent problem of trying to have a large cave man wear the pants from a small Japanese man. The pants were hastily converted to a loin cloth. Then the group headed out to find out what caused the continuing jet of water.

If you're willing to put in the work and make it REALLY fun don't bother scaling down from 1-30 to 1-20. Just grab the good old Epic Level Handbook and have at it.

I've always liked Big Eyes Small Mouth, but it might be a bit crunch light for what you are looking for.

The crossbow stock is for amusement/coolness value of course.

And yes, she does mean that.

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Gurps, becuase you can do any kind of game.

+1

Can do it all, Just like Hero System, but easier and less time consuming!

Really? I found Hero System the simpler and faster of the two. of course it has less for non-combat stuff....

Gurps, becuase you can do any kind of game.

You seem to want to compare the 1-year old Pathfinder RPG published by a fairly small company equally across the board to 3.X D&D, which existed for 8 years and had a MUCH larger staff.

Actually if anyone has or knows the location of a product time line of 3.X it might be an interesting idea to compare them. I suspect that if you look at what had been published for 3.0 and 3.5 after 1 year you'll find that a Pathfinder exceeds them in quantity and quality.

I would probably add that animals, vermin and unintelligent magical beasts' starting attitude to the character becomes hostile once the character's scent is picked up. Domesticated animals - and most prey / herd animals - will do their best to escape the characters' presence. Predator animals will generally attack, although this obviously depends on the animal and its relative size to you.

I would also say that the character cannot be conveniently descended from a herd animal. No one has heard of a "weresheep", "werehorse" or "weregoat". All lycanthropes are either ominivorous or carnivorous that I can ever recollect.

.....Oh god. Now I just have to have the party attacked by a weresheep. "Baaa means no b!tches. How do you like it?"

Belated Congratulations Killer_GM. I do hope you manage to sneak out and game occationally.

Turin the Mad wrote:

Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:

Okay, here it is, the Beast Blooded. Hope you like it.

Is all of this in addition to the base race's stuff ?

Yeah, it is supposed to be... but do not you don't get all the feats, just 1. The feats should to par with other feats in the APG. The only feat that has not been done before for other races in the APG is the form changer, which grants a spell like ability. Not sure if that is balanced for a feat or not.

Summary here:
Bonuses
* +2 to one physical stat, but not past 20
* One Racial Feat
* +2 diplomacy check with one animal type

Minuses
* -2 to Int
* -2 Silver Damage Vulnerability.
* -4 to diplomacy and ride with prey animals.

Personally I would say that the -2 int alone does not balance out the +2 to a physical stat.
I would say it is worth about half of what is needed, but the silver damage Vulnerability with worth the other half, and half the value of the feat. The -4 to diplomacy and ride with mounts and prey animals might not be what I really should state. Looking at it now it should be handle animal and ride checks, and maybe it should be a greater number, like -5 to 7, considering they are around something the spells and looks sort of like a predator animal. But with those changes, yes it is worth the other half of the feat and the ability to use diplomacy with one type of animal with a +2 bonus.

However I did forget to add Lycanthropic Blood ability. I will add that now. It is where they qualify as a lycanthrope for magical items, spells, special effects, feats, and classes as a lycanthropy except when it requires them to be able to shape shift. Leaving mostly the negative effects like bane and slay weapons, and class abilities like favorite enemy the main effect from the ability. What is your thoughts on this?

Please, suggestions would be great.

I'll put my two cents in since this has gotten to the point of being almost reasonable. The only thing I would change is to drop the free racial feat. It is fine for them to qualify for a few racial feats, but giving them a free one is overpowered.

Remember this is supposed to be a +0 template that is added on top of a regular race. It is NOT supposed to be as powerful as one of the starting races. In fact every bonus it gives should be pretty much exactly balanced by drawback so that once it is applied the character isn't any more or less powerful than when they started.

A +2 to a physical stat is NOT balanced by a -2 to intelligence. The only class that will really give a d@mn about the intelligence loss is a wizard. I promise you that 95% of the nonwizard characters I play would almost cream their jeans to get a +2 to Str or Con in exchange for -2 Int. This is a point you yourself acknowledged.

That being said +2 to a physical ability is moderately well compensated by a -2 Int and Silver Vulernability, particularly if +3 or better weapons count as silver for the vulnerability.

+2 Diplomany, ride and handle animal for a specific animal, Qualifying for feats the character otherwise wouldn't and Lycan Blood are all moderately well compensated by a -4 or -6 penalty on ride and handle animal checks. I'd say a -6 as they probably REALLY don't like you.

I'm reminded of a bit from the Onion movie "How to Host a Rape".

I remember one that had my players almost begging me to stop describing it. They ran into a swarm of roaches with a hive mind. It suffocated one guy by crawling down his throat. I think one of the players actually retched at the description.

Geistlinger wrote:

That said, realistic =/= good, realistic =/= fun.

Don't get me started.

A role playing game must be realistic!

When was the last time one of your characters used the bathroom in scene?

Blank stare.

I've had it happen. And I've had them take a bath, smoke a cigarette, etc. Being realistic doesn't mean that you minutely detail every minute of the life of the character.

16) The lich has built a huge necropolis underground. At the bottom level the central pillar of the structure serves as his phylactery to attempt to destroy it would bring the entire structure down upon the head of the lich's enemies.

I've never even looked at the details on the official setting, but I've been able to use everything in the Core books for my campaign without any adaptation (beyond a different list of gods). Pathfinder NEEDS to put out setting specific books so that they are supporting the setting. They also need to put out non-setting specific books such as Advanced Players Guide.

Honestly I think they have a very good mix of both.

A note, it was actually a deck of wonderous things. I just relocated my hackmaster books and had to test it out.

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

You seem unable to see my point, which is too bad.

Thanks for the insult. I'm not 'unable to grasp your point', I just don't agree with you.

Almost any broken system can be washed over with DM fudging. This doesn't mean its not better to strive for a working one...

I did not intent it as an insult, and have been trying not to take any of your comments as suck.

You seem unable to see my point, which is too bad. I have never had a player complain that they felt excluded by any part of my running, and that includes any skill system I have used.

I hope you figure out and use a system that makes you happy.

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

How about using the skill check to assist roleplaying rather than replacing it?

Don't change the topic. Please answer my question. You have to set a DC for the skill check when 'replacing' roleplaying as well as when assisting it...

Instead of say the DC is X number and anyone who doesn't make it fails. I have those who decide to chime in on the discussion make a roll. The highter they roll the more favorable a light the NPC will look at their statements/comments. From there it will depend on what they actually said to the NPC.

If the Bard said "suck my c*ck" then rolled a nat 20 he still is probably in trouble. Unless of course he is negotiating with a hooker, at which point he'll probably get a discount.

If the Fighter starts talking reasonably and making fair suggestions, then a bad roll on his part might mean the NPC gets greedy and starts demanding more then is fair, at that point how the fighter and other party members react will make a huge difference is the direction the negotiations take.

That is an example of letting skill assist roleplaying instead of replacing it.

If you absolutely must go with make X DC get to get what you want then some people are going to have a harder time than others, sometimes drastically so. Of course that bard has spent years polishing his ability to operate smoothly while the fighter was spending those years learning to put his sword where it does the most damage. Frankly letting different people do different things is one of the reasons there is more than 1 person sitting at the table.

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Please don't confusing rewarding specialist with punishing/excluding everyone else. If that's been your experience I'm sorry, you should look to whoever is GMing the game.

So how do you set a DC for a diplomacy challenge that works equally well for a bard or rogue with maybe +15 on diplomacy and a fighter with -1?

How about using the skill check to assist roleplaying rather than replacing it?

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Except that your system means that everyone is good at all skills. There is not specializing at all. Frankly it isn't unreasonable for a character to have something they are good at, and when it comes up for the other characters to let them handle it.

Your system just reduces it to "who has lucky dice tonight" with the characters who have a bonus being a little luckier. Honestly I think your system is a worse system then the current one.

It's a bad system for someone with your goals, namely, rewarding specialists and punishing/excluding everyone else. Its a good system for someone with the goal of including all players and punishing/not overly rewarding specialists.

It's not only lucky dice, though. Look at the numbers. With 3 as spec bonus, the specialists get 15% bonus on their skill rolls, with 5, they get 25%. This is enough so they have a reasonably better chance at succeeding, but not enough to make them the only sensible choice to use certain skill.

As already mentioned, the skill system has fulfill your goals. If the default 3.5/PF skill systems meet yours, no need to change. But for many people, they don't...

Please don't confusing rewarding specialist with punishing/excluding everyone else. If that's been your experience I'm sorry, you should look to whoever is GMing the game.

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Honestly the only really, really good skills systems I've seen are employed by point based systems. I think a level based system simply doesn't lend itself well to skills, especially with a) the degree of specialization encouraged and b) the difference between low, middle and high level characters. How if you can come up with a system to prove me wrong I'd be happy to hear it.

That's exactly the point - 'the degree of specialization encouraged' is just another way of saying that most characters don't get to play when it's not their specialization.

A good level-based system (e.g. something similar to what I proposed above) does not give the specialized character a huge advantage (which some people might not like), but on the other hand allows all players to participate in all skill-based tasks.

For me, the inclusive aspect is far more important than rewarding the specialist with options exclusive to him....

Except that your system means that everyone is good at all skills. There is not specializing at all. Frankly it isn't unreasonable for a character to have something they are good at, and when it comes up for the other characters to let them handle it.

Your system just reduces it to "who has lucky dice tonight" with the characters who have a bonus being a little luckier. Honestly I think your system is a worse system then the current one.

3.5e D&D. At higher levels this game just plain sucked (as a DM). From levels 1 to about 12 a good game, then complete poo-on-a-stick. Even the original writers (of 3e) said some not nice things about the direction 3.5e took. We never got high enough level under 3e to see if the same thing happened, but I know that under 2e the game ran fine at levels 16+. Not sure why they decided to break things so badly?

S.

Never had that problem and I ran a game all the way up to level 26-28 range.

Honestly the only really, really good skills systems I've seen are employed by point based systems. I think a level based system simply doesn't lend itself well to skills, especially with a) the degree of specialization encouraged and b) the difference between low, middle and high level characters. How if you can come up with a system to prove me wrong I'd be happy to hear it.

If you ever find yourself in Virginia Senator let me know, I'd be happy to let you sit in on my table. Unfortunately I doubt you are up to comuting down to Virginia on Saturdays.

And let me echo those who've said "please post your stories". It can be a lot of fun to hear what others have gotten up to. I consider my greatest achievement as both a GM and a player that stories I have told have been repeated to those who've never met me by people who were never in the game the stories come from.

For a +2 modifier sickened for 1 round sounds a hell of a lot better. The damage would be fine it was only on a crit. Remember if it's every hit then the enemy probably has to make the save multiple times per round once the fighter gets to decent level. A high level fighter with two weapon fighting can get in a LOT of hits in a round.

You also need to change it to read "living creatures that have lungs wounded by" as just saying any creature means that undead, oozes, plants and constructs would be affected. All of these either have no lungs, no need to breathe or both. Even some kinds of aberations would fall into these categories.

bugleyman wrote:

Bill Slavicsek seems quite perturbed in the current Ampersand by the continued use of the "4.5" moniker.

Here's the deal: Despite Bill and others repeating the "Essentials is not 4.5" mantra, all the information they release makes Essentials look more, rather than less, like a significant revision (i.e., a 4.5).

If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and looks like a duck...

..it's clearly a Mimic - or some other assorted monster designed solely to ambush and devour PCs. :)

Seriously though, I see no real support for any claims of "4.5". The current material will exist completely alongside the new material. The Essentials material isn't replacing anything - just providing new builds, just like books like Martial Power did. A handful of things might be getting changed in this - Magic Missile, for example, and some racial stat modifiers. Changes, WotC has made clear, would have been made with or without Essentials, and that don't particularly invalidate any existing characters.

I mean - I certainly get the worry about 4.5... I just don't see anything to really support it.

For me, the issue with 3.5 was that my previous books had to be replaced, and were likely to have compatibility issues with new products. Existing characters had significant updates to bring them in line with the new rules. Core design rules of the game were changed.

I don't see any of that here. Does '4.5' mean something differently to you? Or are you seeing something else that I am missing? I'm genuinely trying to understand here, because while I'm seeing some interesting products that provide cool new rules, I'm only seeing a few minor things that actually revise any existing content.

I heard the same thing said about 3.5. It never actually happened. Time will tell, but words beforehand will never settle anything.

Personally if the trap goes off in their face, unless it was because of a botched disable check, no xp.

Alright, here’s my 3.5 contribution to the downfall of your players.

Enjoy and let us know what exactly you use and how it went.

I still remember on encounter I ran with an Arrowhawk. It never really did anything to the party except try to eat the ranger's pet hawk. It managed to limp away with 1 HP and they were more than little pissed when I informed them of this.

The full story is awesome enough to be quoted by people who weren't even there.

Senator wrote:

I've only played the original books from the time I started in '75.

You started in 1975? Nice. I started in 1980. Welcome home.

Good grief, I was only BORN in 1980.....

Admiral Jose Monkamuck wrote:

Modera wrote:

It all depends:

For example: During one adventure, I had a sorceror who started a fight with a fireball, and then teleported away. I didn't give extra XP when they fought him before, counting it as if the other creatures in the fight had used a necklace of fireballs.

In the first example you gave they didn't defeat the guy. He simply ambushed them and ran away before they could really do anything. That's more like a trap than a fight.

Correct, save his minions fought the group after he fireballed them to "finish them off". I believe the creatures they fought were a lower CR than what would normally be challenging, so having a sudden fireball trap didn't hurt them too much, thus why I didn't give them double the XP for the BBEG

Perfectly reasonable, although it would get mighty frustrating for the PCs if you pulled that trick more than once or twice.

cibet44 wrote:

Thats too bad but from what I read in these recaps it sounds like your DM did it to himself as far as burnout goes. It looks like he took you guys waaaay of the rails with this AP. I DMd all 12 ST adventures so I am seeing stuff in these recaps that is totally home grown.

It's a shame you won't get to see the end of ST. If your DM would have stayed on (or even near!) the AP path you would have finished over a year ago I bet. Better luck next time.

Thanks!

There are 3 things that burned out our DM:
1/ He doesn't like playing at high levels, mostly because the fights take too long and are too complex mathematically and rules-wise.
2/ He got bored of being a mere "narrator" who presented to us what was written in the modules. He wanted to use his own creativity as well.
3/ He got bored of playing the same campaign for almost 3 years in a row.

So when he added some of his own material, it was in an attempt to get rid of point #2... But as you said, it increased the duration of the campaign and made point #3 worse.

But really, the worst thing for him was point #1. He absolutely despises the length and complexity of high-level (by this I mean roughly above level 10) combat in D&D. Many fights take about 2-3 hours of real time to go through for our group.

I don't mind it as much as he does, but I agree that even I have gotten frustrated lately that it takes 15-20 minutes in between the time when my characters can actually do something (and then typically my actions get resolved in less than 10 seconds, as in, "I cast Heal on Raguhl").

While high level play can take longer (not that I consider level 10 high level play), it shouldn't take that much longer. It sounds more like poor time management and the bane of being a healbot. I've seen the same problem at level 2 if the GM isn't careful about what he is doing.

Makarnak wrote:

To be fair, there ARE games that balance realism vs. playability fairly well. Personally, I think that 'realistic' wounds would be important for any horror/terror game (such as an Aliens game), to capture the feeling of desperation and fragility that the movies created.

And, see? If someone wanted to put it thusly, I would have no problem. It is not so much realism as a different feel. Then we can agree that we prefer different feels.

A lot of people want to say their game is more realistic because, in their mind it seems, it makes it a 'better' game. The truth of the matter is that it is little more than preference. But few want to admit that.

The level of realism does refer to realism, but you are definately correct in saying that realism only makes a game better if it helps create the right feel for a game.

I'm using GURPS for my current horror campaign because it is more realistic than PF or other systems I could be using. Of course I'm still running a PF game. The two are really not similar in feel. Despite what some people on the board have said the differences in systems are important in that they lend themselves better to different styles of gaming.

In the end most important point is to game in a way that is the most fun for yourself and the other players.

I may be a little late to this party, but I have to find it ironic that I stumbled on this thread when one of my players wanted to start an Aliens vs. Predator game (with us playing the hapless space marines caught in the middle...hmmm maybe I can get an Avatar crossover in there too :) ).

Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.

I read passages to my group, and the moment the words 'cross reference the two tables' came up under the damage rules, everyone exploded in laughter. They kept asking me what the damage on pulse rifles was, and I explained that it depended on range, ammunition and the armor being hit (not to mention the part of the body). The damage listing was a TABLE, and the weapon had different effects against armor depending on range. Each weapon had its own table.

So, while it may be 'accurate' or 'realistic' it was also 'unplayable' in the sense that each combat action took ten minutes and several tables to resolve.

Game over, man. Game over.

Sounds a lot like chartmaster. Not unplayable if you have someone who REALLY knows what their doing.

3) I use 3.5 monsters every now and then, when there is not a published Pathfinder version of them.

How has that worked so far? I've only recently started running PF and I'm leery at the moment about mixing critters in, although I would really like to.

I also kept concerntration, although I don't require spell casters to have it. It's more used for monks and a few other classes.

4e is a VASTLY different game from 3.0, 3.5 or PF. While I do acknowledge it as a good system in it's own right I will never acknowledge it as D&D.

3.x is more similar to 2e then 4e, in all the ways that can be taken, but that doesn't mean it is the same as 2e. If you couldn't get into 4e before trying 3.x, you probably won't be able to after. If you really want to try something similar to 4e I'd recommend picking up a copy of WoW for your computer.

Just try different systems and see what you like. There are many ways of handling things and a lot of ways to have fun.

I admit that my game notes tend to be VERY minimal. Some people can run a good game making things up on the fly. Others cannot. Nothing wrong with either kind.

It all depends:

For example: During one adventure, I had a sorceror who started a fight with a fireball, and then teleported away. I didn't give extra XP when they fought him before, counting it as if the other creatures in the fight had used a necklace of fireballs.

In another game, I had a returning, ongoing villain who leveled with the group. I gave xp each time they defeated him.

In yet another game, I had a bone dragon construct that re-animated once every 1d4 hours, so when the players tried to retreat and whittle down the dungeon's denizens, they always had that creature to deal with. I only gave XP once, as it was meant to discourage them from multiple fights.

In the first example you gave they didn't defeat the guy. He simply ambushed them and ran away before they could really do anything. That's more like a trap than a fight.

Mmwahahaha, the ideas are already percolating. This will be fun.

Just one last questions, is it PF or 3.5?

Charlie Bell wrote:

I'd reward it if the players defeat the threat decisively. If the bad guys don't come back after running away, that's decisive. If they do come back, the players should only get XP for defeating them once.

Now if it's a recurring villian who teleports in, lays some havoc, and teleports back out again, I'd give the PCs experience for surviving the encounter even if they didn't strictly defeat it, just like you give XP for traps whether the PCs disarm it or just take the damage.

Your supposed to give XP for traps that the PCs fail to stop in any way, I'm sorry, if that's the rule i'm houseruling it out. If you fail in every way to stop the trap, then you shouldn't get XP for it.

True, I certainly wouldn't give out xp for a trap that blew up in their face.

I would be very happy to whip up some sort of vile and horrid monster to torment your players with. I just have a few quick questions:

1) Does it have to be a wizard, or can we swipe core/prestige classes from other WoTC books?

2) What value of gear can we play with?

3) Any OGL books allowed?

4) Any specific race we have to use for the base?

5) Are the players supposed to have fighting chance?

6) Can we design any minions to help him out?

Okay, number 5 is a joke, we both know the players should never have a fighting chance, but let me know about the others and I grab my various splat books and have a party.

mearrin69 wrote:

Ick...I made that mistake once.

On the "maybe not so bad but I never thought much of them" side of the aisle, I've got a few on my shelf that failed to impress me much: R. Talsorian's Mekton, a Palladium game called Recon, the Palladium Fantasy RPG, SPI's DragonQuest, maybe a few others. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever (they all had elements I liked or I wouldn't have purchased them) but I just never could get enough fire under me after reading them to actually put them into play.

If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M

Ninjas & Superspies. Erick Wujick had some great ideas but marrying them to Palladium's system did not work out very well. I have no real idea how to run that game or make a useful character.

I've never tried to run an actual Ninja's & Superspies game, but I still love the book and pull it out anytime I'm doing Rifts. Most flavorful and unique way of doing martial arts I've seen for any system.

That guy should learn teaching ain't preaching.

Perfectly said. I need to remember that one.

Orthos wrote:

I kind of eyeball it. I keep a running tab of all "successful encounters" then hand out combat XP at the end of a session; if I determine that an encounter for one reason or another should give no/less XP I just dock that amount from the final total (or rather, don't add it into the calculation).

Generally it's not a problem though. The only times really that enemies flee from my players and survive the escape is generally when the players let them go for one reason or another. Having an enemy break ranks and run screaming during an engaging battle is a rare incident.

If you use the morale sections in the APs it happens all the time. Sometimes creatures will run if they have 40 or 50% hit points left. Not to mention it makes sense, not everything is willing to fight to the death. Especially smart wizards and such that can easily teleport and dimension door away.

True, how many animals would realistically fight to the death? Is it he smart move for an intelligent creature to fight to the death when it could run?

If they beat an enemy they should get full xp.

So what if he resurfaces later? Is he suddenly not dangerous? Will you pull your punches and say that it is now impossible for him to kill someone simply because they've already been given xp for him?

You are telling them that this enemy is attacking to kill them, so they have the risk of their character dieing, but no reward for it.

Think of it this way if a CR10 Ogre shows and the party kills it you would give them xp. If another CR10 Ogre shows up 2 days later you wouldn't consider denying them xp for it just because it isn't any more dangerous than the first Ogre. It is the same case here.

Of course as Are suggests if the enemy isn't at full strength, then he isn't as much of a threat. If he's limping around at 1/2 HP and most of his spells/special abilities missing then drop his CR a point or two. If it's immediate (and I mean like a minute or two to follow him) then it really isn't a second encounter.

Malaclypse you have to remember that apparently only core classes count for multi-classing, at least as far as this rant is concerned.

I agree with these two. He was being a d*ck.

Discarding the rules that don't work and making house rules for the ones that do has been around probably longer then he has been gaming. I'd bet money there are rules that you didn't use in your old campaign and house rules that you did. I've yet to see a game without at least the mention of such. Not a damn thing "modern" about it.

Hell go look at Palladium books. They've been printing for a long time, certainly a LOT longer than 3.5 or even 3.0. They claim to purposefully make the rules vague so that the GM can run them how they want. (I think it has more to due with laziness and bad editing.)

Your "friend" has an idea in his head about what "modern" and "obsolete" gaming is. While it is true that people have come up with new ideas as time has gone on, I don't see how that makes it "better". From the sound of it he is a poor GM who had no real understanding of 1) how you probably run a game or 2) what you were asking him for help with.

My recommendation is to go to your local gaming store and talk with a few people currently running a 3.5 game. Then maybe sit in on one or two. They will probably understand what you are trying to find out much better. Or you can always ask questions around here. We're happy to answer and most of the people here are polite, friendly and knowledgeable.