Arnwolf's page

Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, Cleric, Wizard, Monk, Bard

I still use 2E rules for firing into melee because I find firing into melee very stupid from personal experience. I allow a sniper feat where the attacker rolls his chance to see if he has a clear shot. If he fails the chance to hit then he knows he doesn't have a clear shot and holds his attacks. Basically it could take multiple rounds to get a clear shot. I like it. I don't like coward PC's sitting at range while the melee people get their ass kicked. It also discouraged wizard PCs from making ranged touch attacks. I just can't overcome the suspension of disbelief for firing into melee. And since most of the people I play with used to be 1E/2E or BECMI players it is generally accepted.

I would not do that to a new player without letting them know about it before the game ever starts. If I do anything that is not by the book I always let everyone know up front.

Personally I tend to prefer the darker grittier characters...

Mr. Knight in shining armor is just utterly boring and has been played out way to many times. Additionally, Mr. Do-Gooder-for-the-sake-of-goodness is so utterly bland. It is kind of the reason why I hate superman. He is dull. When you are the epitome of boyscout, your character has no character and you are just kinda... a cardboard cut-out...

Amazing, because I feel the opposite. I find good character to be the ones with the great roleplaying challenges and character development. Not the CN greedy guy who wants to kill and then wonder why the village fears him (or doesn't care).

There was nothing about 2nd that I didn't enjoy and it all made sense to me. Thing is, some people were just interested in optimizing and wanted to ignore all the flavour, which was actually part of the game. "Fluff and Crunch" were not separate and you had to respect and use both. The class/race restrictions were explained if you read more than the crunch bits. Main reason being, races were not just different flavours of human. They were totally separate species that evolved from/created from totally different things. Therefore, genetic predisposition to certain alignments/personalities were understandable and that would prevent some from being certain classes. For the dwarves wizard thing, their bodies were not designed to be able to handle arcane magic and rather were able to resist it. Blame Moradin for that. I get why people didn't like THAC0 but it took me about half a session to pick it up. I wont call 3E or PF or 4th better or worse though as they are totally different games. WOTC wanted a simple game and TSR wanted a game with a lot of detail and development for immersion. However, the race/class thing did change depending on what plane those races came from. That was in the splat books in 2nd. I don't know where my elves book is but I think spelljammer elves could be paladin or something. You could always write off the race/class thing by saying your character came through planescape.

Thank You for this post.

I kind of look at pathfinder and 2E as checkers and rummy. Two different games that I enjoy for different reasons.

Liking older editions has nothing nothing nothing to do with Nostalgia. It is nice to play systems that do not take hours for character building. I play 1E/2E and BECMI when I want character driven adventures and not wargame driven players who are obsessed with the build of their character.

I am actually worried about pathfinders inability to allow women to express their sexuality. I think pathfinder should adopt a policy to stop repressing women and to allow them to wear more revealing clothes as an expression of their femininity. We need to stop masculinizing women.

There are no loop holes, only the law as written. There is no fine print only the law as written. I kind of get tired of people saying a business or person is taking advantage of a loop hole like they are dishonest. Now there are unintended consequences of laws, that does happen. And sometimes the unintended law was not unintended.

During the Roman Period Britain was so warm that it had the great wine vineyards that are now in France. As the Ice melts in Greenland we find the farms and villages of the Vikings. Climates naturally change and shift over time.

Arnwolf wrote:

It has been making me very successful.

Then maybe stick to that instead of pretending to know the first thing about climate change.

Is the American Meteorological Society also a bunch of right wing fanatics?

There is nothing wrong with certain classes being better or worse at fighting certain creatures. I don't see the big deal.

I am saying. I been to New York in the past year. It is not underwater like the pictures they showed me in school.

The motto of Forbes magazine is "The Capitalist Tool".

I could not have put it better myself.

Anti-Capitalist is Anti-Freedom. Without Capitalism all we have is a totalitarian state where all power is concentrated in the government and a few people make decisions instead of 1000s of companies and free workers making decisions.

You know what's more powerful than a group of caster? What is more powerful than a group of martials? The answer is a group of casters and martials working synergetically together.

I do like the Bloodrager. It fits well with a theme in my homebrew setting. There are several kingdoms ruled by Sorcerer Kings. Each kingdom a different bloodline out of the core book. These are the nobility of these kingdoms. I been wanting a good Warrior Sorcerer class, and I don't use the Barbarian at all for this setting. But I like the Bloodrager as a warrior sorcercer with a type of primal/divine rage. Very Olympian in my opinion.

Insain Dragoon wrote:

Pretty much the only way to keep a super 9/9 spellcaster from ruining your game is gentlemen's agreement or enemy spellcasters.

Yep. And using Enemy spellcasters is really difficult to balance since the idea is generally to challenge the players not just flat out kill them.

And considering how binary a lot of spells are, especially at higher levels, a lot of fights end up becoming coin tosses.

I am very old school. Every encounter does not have to be winnable. I always try to include encounters that will cause TPK if the party does not try to avoid it, or bypass it through noncombat means. I always try to include situations where players can not play using their optimal abilities. Do I do this every encounter, of course not. But I try to throw those end at least once per session, and we average more than 4 encounters per session.

It's all about developing clues, foreshadowing, plots, and nice twists.

Yes, the poor are ignorant and should work hard, make money, buy property, then vote. It is far better than poor people voting themselves breads and circuses from the state coffer, which eventually destroys all democracies.

Politics aside, they should just stop giving the Nobel Peace Prize to world leaders and politicians in general.

Arnwolf wrote:

Minimum wage does not make life better. I believe that it makes it more difficult for unskilled laborers to get entry level positions and get trained cheaply on the job.

These statements are not mutually exclusive. One does not demonstrate the other. How difficult it is for unskilled laborers to get entry level positions is not the only consideration here.

In fact, there are so many competing and interactive considerations that I think its impossible to sit in your chair like a philosopher and say what would happen if there were no minimum wage. There's no NEED to. We had laisez fair capitalism in the 1890s-1930s and it sucked. The businesses colluded, wages were starvation or lower, the corporations rolled in the money and the unwashed masses breathed in asbestos and died like flies.

You want to go back to that so.. what? Billionaires can roll around on more money?

I disagree with you. The 1890s to 1920s were a period of great economic growth. But regulations creeped in during the 1910s and 1920s. The first few years of the Great Depression were not the worse, in fact we were very close to recovering in 1931, but then we elected FDR who regulated everything, everything got worse, and kept us in the depression until our entry in WW2 pulled us out of the depression.

Right now, Switzerland has no minimum wage, also there median income is much higher, and their unemployment around 3%. We could also learn much from their banking system, as they have had the most stable banks and currency in history. There are things I don't like about Switzerland, but banks, minimum wage, currency, and immigration they do well. Just my opinion.

Minimum wage does not make life better. I believe that it makes it more difficult for unskilled laborers to get entry level positions and get trained cheaply on the job.

I'd rather people who work be able to earn enough to support themselves and not rely on government assistance, especially when they work for employers who receive tax breaks and subsidies to the tune of $7.8 billion/year (claims some group called Americans for Tax Fairness).

[Looks to the left]

Ohmigod, did you see that? Some dude just sold his EBT card for a six pack!

I am against subsidies as well as minimum wage. Minimum wage and licensing requirements keep many young unskilled labor workers from getting their foot in the door and getting on the job training.

When I did the math of the DC Universe MEGS 2E game, I came to a strength around 120.

I am in a quite similar boat. I really enjoy the AP's. I am not too much into their complex character builder culture. I am also quite good at taking an AP or module and converting it to any rule system. I like being able to create a character in 5 minutes or less. And I dislike encounters where the wrong build or not having the right feat means the encounter is impossible (or close to it). I dislike that having maxed out ranks in a skill is useless without all the feats and high ability score making it useful. However, I have learned much about building encounters and creating adventures from Paizo. I feel they do a good job.

I am, however, done with creating medieval settings, I do high tech settings now, with wizards and magic. Magic and high tech does not need to be mutually exclusive. I been playing and working on a setting that takes place between 200,000 BC and 70,000 BC where humans built a giant galaxy spanning empire with colonies and high technology. It was eventually destroyed with the mass extinction event at 70,000 BC that put the whole galaxy in a great depression and people forgot about Earth's location. So I understand what you mean.

I just want government out of the free market. Let people make their own decisions and contracts for what they will work for and what conditions they will work under. If you don't like it, don't work their. Dowm with OSHA, EPS, DOT, FMCSA, and other political regulation systems that keep hard working people poor.

Azathoth isn't even aware we exist, that is why he is nonevil. He s the child that unintentionally steps on an ant hill (we being the ant hill). He would probably destroy us unintentionally if he ever became aware of us, because his power is so great that just the act of actively perceiving us would bring unimaginable destruction, if not extinction, to humanity.

My real opinion is that their needs to be two versions of the game. One with miniatures and one without miniature. A good pathfinder ruleset without mini's is the holy grail for me at the moment.

I DM Ravenloft,

Nuff Said

My group does 15 point buy and we do not let players drop ability scores below 10 (that's just cheesy).

So far I am liking the setting. I am trying to learn the new social rules. But what I don't like is the background and lettering. It is very hard to read on my desktop kicked back in my chair. I am not talking about font size. It actually hurts my eyes to read.

What exactly can't a 20th level fighter do with wealth by level and magic shops everywhere?

Before we know it players will be chopping off the head of a Medusa to kill a Titan. That would be total cheese.

In response to Set,

Yes I agree, Prisoners are slaves. That is why I am opposed to prisons and a justice system that has prisons. Since liberty is more valued that life. And freedom more valuable than slavery. I support the death penalty for all criminals that are so dangerous that others would think them needing imprisonment. Basically, I would send criminals to counseling and/or pay property damages, and if that couldn't solve the problem I would put them to death since slavery is worse than death and I believe cruel.

The only thing I would want done in pathfinder 2.0 is a simplified feat system. Too many feats, and too many feats needed to do the same action. Now I do love feats, I really like the unarmed style feats in Ultimate Combat.

Sometimes you just have to take a break and unwind so you can start back fresh and ready.

Why isn't the greatsword a double weapon. The fighting style used the pommel as much as blade, and had lots of kicks.

The same way Conan, HP Lovecraft, Michael Morecock, and Fritz Lieber handled homosexuality.

We, as a gamer society, have greatly moved away from the concept of player knowledge advancing our characters vs character knowledge advancing the characters.

We have rules for knowledges so that our little lowbie fighter doesn't automatically whip out the torch and oil against a troll and so our wizards don't whip out fireballs when they see white dragons. At least- not without the appropriate checks.

Our characters check for traps rather than WE the players having to figure out whether they exist, and our characters use skills to disarm them rather than us trying to figure out the widget to let us go by.

And in fact when someone wants break down a door we roll a strength check. When our character needs to remember something we roll an int check. If we want to convince someone of something we roll bluff checks or diplomacy checks and the general presence (or lack thereof) for any given character is determined by their charisma score rather than our own force of personality or presence.

However when it comes to what spells to prepare- be it for a wizard, druid, cleric, ranger, paladin- well you get the idea.
When it comes to this its directly an issue of player knowledge. WE have to figure out what spells to cast in the future despite the fact that its our characters who are living in the world and who, at least in theory, are far more intelligent than we our selves are.
When you consider 20 is the theoretical human maximum (human 18 +2) and magical items and level bumps its possible that your witch or wizard especially could be far more intelligent than anyone who has ever existed on our earth. And yet we- the players- are expected to look into the game world and select their spells.

Its the very essence of metagaming.

Now spellcasters are already the most powerful of the lot and the prepared ones (wizards, clerics, druids) are the most powerful of that set. So making them more powerful isn't really something I advocate. Rather I'm curious as to the discussion about this. Am I wrong...

So when we order a beer in a tavern should we have the player roll a diplomacy check. If a player remembers something mentioned earlier in the adventure should we have him roll an intelligence check and if he fails tell him that he did not remember that. Knowing the monster manual is just knowing the game. It is separate from the knowledge checks. If someone can find a trap without the disable skill check through being observant or cleaver. Great, that is what the game is about. If someone finds a secret door through roleplaying than great. Skills are guidelines to enhance roleplay not straight jackets.

ALMOST every ability for every class and feat in the game is 10+1/2 level+ ability modifier. I don't see why it should be less for spell casters.

I think you are looking to closely at the alignment system. It is not intended to be a straight jacket. It's just a roleplaying aid. I've never had any problems with it. I don't think anyone is every truly 100% any alignment, but your general actions and intentions will be within some alignment boundaries. I think the earlier editions of D&D did a better job of explaining alignment as a roleplaying tool rather than a roleplaying limitation.

I like the way they do it now. You can multiclass for diversity or stay in one class for alot of power in your given field. Pathfinder does multiclass better than anyone.

If all the lady is wearing (and I certainly hope it's a lady we're talking about) is the chainmail bikini I'd hazard to say that it would offer as much protection, perhaps less so, than a regular set of clothes; that is to say +0 AC. That is unless it's magical; then the AC bonus is whatever one can afford up to +5.

This is a fantasy game... and you are ruining mine. Chainmail Bikini should give a full +6 armor bonus and a bonus to all charisma related checks, including feint checks. Thank you very much. OH.. that is only if a hot chic is wearing them.

Ring of Mighty Fists

Boots of Mighty Fists
Hairpin of Might Fists
Robe of Mighty Fists
Paper Airplane of Mighty Fists

Now you can use an Amulet of Natural Armor...
or:
Ring of Natural Armor
Boots of Natural Armor
Hairpin of Natural Armor
Robe of Natural Armor
Paper Airplane of Natural Armor

we really really really need a low magic version of this game (sigh), when was the last time someone had a bottle of air, bag of tricks, or something just cool. I like magic items, but when they are just something for buffing your character it becomes redundant, just have your character. I like 3.x rules but i prefer 1e and B/X styles of play. Hmmm, really wonder if I could redo CR of critters for a low magic item world, that's the key I think.