Bill Dunn's page

Why should those that stuck with 3.5 in the form of Pathfinder even care?

I can only speak for myself but as much as I love Pathfinder as a game and Paizo as a company, there's still the fact that I have had a 20-year long D&D history before 4E put an end to my customer relationship with D&D. So while I certainly won't stop supporting Paizo/PF, there's still the wish that D&D Next will be a form of D&D I also will care about.

Churches holding slightly embarrassing, opinionated conservative views that don't gel with how society actually works is exactly how religion works in real life.

+1 to the Paizo team for verisimilitude.

Steve Geddes wrote:

I personally find it annoying when my clients try and tell me how to do my job better (they're nearly always wrong). If they began with an opening gambit of wishing me violence, I'd be even less inclined to engage with them.

The hell do I care? It's not like they're going to suddenly learn how to do math or care to produce a quality product.

Also, their forum interface is terrible.

Yeah, and their moderation policies are too lenient.

zagnabbit wrote:

Comparatively, AD&D isn't that well designed. It's really just a bunch of houserules with inconsistent math. It was fun but some of it just strains the mind.

I'd say that with all the stuff we've been through with 3e and 4e, I've come to the conclusion that AD&D was a lot better designed than a lot of people give it credit. It may have lots of varying subsystems, but the game still holds together really well.

I'd have to say that the biggest problems with pre-d20 editions of D&D weren't problems of game design, they were problems with organization and editing.

shallowsoul wrote:

Stubs McKenzie wrote:

In my last campaign the DM decided that the druid had to actually see what he wanted to turn into (I was not the druid).....

What that resulted in was the druid having very few forms he could wild shape into, and not being able to use many of the expanded features of his class ability as he leveled. Without completely derailing the campaign he couldn't learn those shapes either... if you decide to do this, I suggest having zoos exist.....

Wild Shape is a potent ability as it is. Boo hoo that the druid had to actually work for it. The Wild Shape ability doesn't automatically give you the ability to turn into any animal you want. I'm sorry that he didn't get to flip through the bestiary, make a Knowledge roll when he found something that he would like to try and turn into because it has some killer attacks, and add it to his list of Wild Shape options.

When you post asking for people's opinions then you make rude remarks about those opinions, well people are generally disinclined to help you.

My advice is discuss whatever house rules you wish to implement with your players before they make their characters. If a DM pulled this on me mid game, I'd be furious.

If you find disagreement rude then I would suggest you stop posting in this thread.

Stubs McKenzie wrote:

In my last campaign the DM decided that the druid had to actually see what he wanted to turn into (I was not the druid).....

What that resulted in was the druid having very few forms he could wild shape into, and not being able to use many of the expanded features of his class ability as he leveled. Without completely derailing the campaign he couldn't learn those shapes either... if you decide to do this, I suggest having zoos exist.....

Wild Shape is a potent ability as it is. Boo hoo that the druid had to actually work for it. The Wild Shape ability doesn't automatically give you the ability to turn into any animal you want. I'm sorry that he didn't get to flip through the bestiary, make a Knowledge roll when he found something that he would like to try and turn into because it has some killer attacks, and add it to his list of Wild Shape options.

When you post asking for people's opinions then you make rude remarks about those opinions, well people are generally disinclined to help you.

My advice is discuss whatever house rules you wish to implement with your players before they make their characters. If a DM pulled this on me mid game, I'd be furious.

Meh. I would prefer that players/GMs just use common sense, although to judge from the forums, that is akin to pulling teeth. Or possibly even open heart surgery.

If we do it your way, we need to find about a dozen synonyms for "level" since that word already has at least a dozen uses within the game.

Apparently there are two kinds of groups: "Band of Brothers" where the crafter never charges his fellow adventurers because they're like family and the "Band of Co-workers" where the PCs have each other's backs absolutely when out adventuring but don't feel beholden to spend their personal lives optimizing each other's builds for combat.

Different groups play different ways, neither is an indictment on your character and if you don't know how your group feels about crafting you should ask before taking the feat.

Once again, i'm gonna make a call for peace.

When this thread began, it was an honest and sensible discussion about the ethics of charging other PCs for crafting their magic items.

NOW, however, it has devolved into a farcical show of manhood-measuring, and any hope of reaching any meaningful concensus is long gone.

So, everyone, let's stop this pointless war, because anyone in here who still thinks they can change anyone else's mind is kidding themselves. Let's all move along, there is nothing more to see!

Just as the monk taps into the power of Law, the barbarian taps into the power of Chaos.

It's no different than a Good cleric being unable to cast Evil spells.

I'm going to go the other way and tell you the error of YOUR ways: group > one player (you)

If you go in with intent to exploit the system expressly to show them that they are 'doing it wrong" then you're being a dick. Don't be a dick.

I agree; the way some people express suspicion of everything WotC do, they were in a no-win situation.

If they had created a variant 3.5, even one identical to PF, they would have been lambasted for it, by many of the same people who are now the biggest cheerleaders for Paizo.
If they change the game in any more than a minor way, they get attacked for not keeping the game the same.

I have to completely disagree with you on this.

The people who moved on to Pathfinder and Pazio....the one you call 'Pazio biggest cheerleaders' are people who are happy with 3.5....sure it had it's problems(as any game system in the world will have) but would have perfered to keep the good and fix the bad...instead of what 4th ed which was to get rid of everything.

It would have been fans of 4th ed who would have been attacking the company for doing the same thing all over and money grabbing...like those same people did back when 3.5 first came out.

Letd not be TOO bias here...4th ed fans are equaly capable of emotional response as any other fan.

So what you are saying is if a broken element in the game is found, it shouldn't be changed because of fear what might happen to the other rules because of the change?

You seem to be the only person that finds a loophole requiring a 20th level character working tacitly with GM approval to purchase a massive volume of raw diamonds, fabricate it into an even more massive pile of diamond dust, spend 3.5 years of in-game downtime to craft a staff of wish and then pwn the world to be such a likely encountered game-breaker that they should rewrite a significant portion of the core rules just to go back to a crafting model the vast majority of players hated. That scenario is such an outlier it fails any sort of valid risk assessment.

The magic item crafting rules explicitly state that any custom item requires GM approval. This is not a design flaw, and requiring GM approval is not the same as rule 0.

Hmm. Thats an interesting read. And makes me think of a related question: what are the actual legal rights of a spouse when it comes to PDF use?

Generally it is assumed in a marriage that what belongs to one belongs to the other, but if it was to eventually be ruled that PDFs and other electronic files are not estate properties you can pass on to someone else, are you in legal murkiness when your spouse uses them or copies them.

Likewise, I share my passwords pretty freely with my wife, but is that technically a violation of the terms of the agreement you make with electronic distributors?

I'm really not comfortable with this type of discussion. We could spend a bunch of money getting a lawyer to write up what effectively amounts to a license for using our PDFs and strict Terms of Use for paizo.com, and then we can spend a bunch of time trying to enforce the letter of that law... or we could do what we're doing now, and just ask that people be reasonable and don't share their PDFs with the general public. The latter course of option provides less protection for Paizo, but in the end, I think it's a better experience for our customers. So let's all just all not do anything that makes Paizo *need* to codify this crap.

I've (as a player) been the party treasurer for years. My group defaults to me to help make choices of who gets what. For the most part all the gold and items go directly onto the loot sheet but if somebody wants it, all they do is say so. And then we just look at:
1) Can they use it?
2) Can another character (who wants it) utilize it better?
3) Do they have a similar item already (ie, they're wearing a Ring of Protection +1 and the item in question is a Ring of Protection +2)

Each character makes their case as to why they want the item, and then we as a group decide who gets it. Best way of doing loot IMO. We've had maybe one or two disputes over treasure in the last 5 years.

The original Castle Ravenloft, way back when... I was GM.

The party had entered the castle via a back door, and then proceeded to work their way through the horrors and tribulations that were that particular module.

In the end, Straad was defeated, but only one character managed to survive: a cleric (my brother's) with no spells remaining and single digit hit points...

As the sun came up, he staggered out the front gate, and over the drawbridge... the horrors behind him...

Only to have the board he was on break and collapse beneath him and he plummeted a few hundred feet to his death.

To this day, he still remembers that death fondly =)

Maybe he's thinking his shadow companion will kill everything? It being incorporeal and having an at will ability damage attack makes it quite formidable in many (but not all) circumstances.

I've had a shadowdancer in a game or two, and I'll tell you this: most Paizo modules are wholly unprepared for shadowdancers, or more specifically, their companions. I've had entire dungeons cleared out by a single shadow that went ahead of the party, avoiding all the traps and killing enemy monsters with impunity.

So it's your opinion that the GM should cheat? Changing the rules to suit him, doing things that the players could never hope to do (of which the OP is one example)?

I say sure they can. Not really cheating though, since the GM is sort of the rule maker/enforcer.

That being said, the GM is also the one that is responsible for the people in his group having fun. On of my players is always trying to beat me when I GM. He does not realize that he can't beat me, I have all the power. The problem is if I play his game, things could get out of hand real quick. Luckily I don't play his game. I try to design interesting, tough but winnable encounters, that my players find fun, interesting, and unique. If I succeed at that then I think everyone ends up a winner. So my question would be more: Why did your GM do it? If he does something to challenge the group every now and then, get them to change tactics on a fly, come up with creative solutions, enhance their game play, then I would not be too worried. I guess the other question is: As a player, how did it make you (and your party feel)? If it seemed frustrating and unfair then it probably was not the best call. It should never be exploited though. My group has a high armor class, so occasionally I through them up against Shadows or something similar to keep them on their toes. If I did this all the time then it would sort of be unfair them. As a GM you want to give the players what they want, which should be similar to what you want. Most often that means making them feel like heroes (In Pathfinder any how). Which sort of needs them to kick @ss sometimes and overcome adversity other times.

I was running my game this weekend and the party happened upon some slavers. The slavers were dispatched with little incident, but one of the slavers was left alive. The player who has a character history of being a slave began his interrogation and questioned the slaver as to where he was taking the slaves.

(I had not planned on this.)

As I struggled for an answer, I blurted out "Bartertown". The player got a smirk on his face as he asked "And who run Bartertown?"

I said.........."Master Blaster runs Bartertown."

So now I am getting ready to design a dungeon and a boss. I was thinking a troll Fighter with a gnome caster strapped to his back. This should be fun.

So you think the best time to alienate customers by requiring them to purchase a whole new set of expensive books is when your biggest competitor is alienating theirs as well? Bad, bad idea.

Heaven knows WotC has made it's share of mis-steps, but I simply don't think the oft-reported nefarious moustache-twirling ever happened.

True, true...

As for myself, I've never attributed to maliciousness that which incompetence is fully adequate to explain.

If they want something over the gp limit or that doesn't make the 75% roll, my players can either commission the item (if there's an NPC craftsman of sufficient level) and wait for it to be built, or they can do some research or gather some information about where a specific item like they want is to be found (or where a sufficiently-skilled crafter lives), which will generally lead to a quest rather than just a shopping trip.

This may surprise you, but marketing, as a field, is predicated on the ability to make generalizations about groups of people.

Incorrect. Marketing, as a field, is predicated on the ability to analyze trends in data gathered during market research. And, by definition, that sort of statistical analysis cannot be a generalization; to be fully defined, a sample-based statistical analysis must include a properly-calculated margin of error, at which point it becomes a statement that applies in full to an entire population.

So yes, I consider anyone making unfavorable generalizations (as in, statements not based on actual statistical analysis) to be a jerk.

Making predictions about how someone will act, based on their actions and choices to date, seems eminently logical.

Making predictions about how one particular person will act based on that person's actions to date is perfectly logical. Making statements about the behavior a hypothetical, supposedly-representative member of a larger population based on anecdotal evidence involving some other member or members of that group, on the other hand, is entirely irrational.

Not that anyone cares, but here's my test for whether of not someone making a generalization about a group of people is being a jerk:

Take that person's generalization and pretend they are describing a racial minority of your choice instead of the actual group under discussion. If, after making this substitution, the result is something that would lead the average reader to suspect that the statement's author is a racist, the author is being a jerk.

Sadly, there are enough posts in this thread proving the effectiveness of this test that I have neither the time nor the patience to go back and flag them all. So carry on, I guess.

gang wrote:

ewan cummins 325 wrote:

It is still a very poor marketing move, IMO. If that sort of thing becomes common, I will no longer buy Paizo products. Others have also expressed concerns about this political content.

Everything is political. It would be equally political to deliberately NOT include homosexuals or other minorities.

I wish it was not political. Deliberately excluding other races I get. I'm not feeling it with homosexuality. Its like sexual affirmative action (chuckle) Do you know what I mean?

Slightly off topic:
What do you say in regards to portraying the ancient Greek pantheon as diverse as Humanity? Not to say the "Gods" could take any form they wanted but the ancient Greeks portrayed them in their image.

You are not feeling what with homosexuality? That they are an oppressed minority? We have children in our society that commit suicide because of constant bullying from homophobes at school. We have gay folks getting murdered for being gay. We have rights not available to gay people that are available to straight people for absolutely no logical reason. Most people seem to think that calling a gay person a "F*G" to their face is okay.

You might say that those children chose to be gay. They chose to be socially ostracized and driven to suicide. As a heterosexual male I know this has to be false because I could never choose, under any sort of free association, to do anything sexual with another man. I am always amazed when someone says that gays choose to be gay and use that absurd argument to justify their belief that gays are not an oppressed minority. Perhaps if one believes that people choose to be gay they should start questioning their own sexuality.

It is still a very poor marketing move, IMO. If that sort of thing becomes common, I will no longer buy Paizo products. Others have also expressed concerns about this political content.

Everything is political. It would be equally political to deliberately NOT include homosexuals or other minorities.

This is my first (and likely only) post on this thread.

There are two uses for the Wealth-by-level guidelines. One: it acts, to the GM, as a measuring stick for your campaign as it continues, to see whether your PCs are geared appropriately to the challenges they might expect to face.

If the players note "Hey, we have half the amount of wealth we "should" have, by the WBL guidelines,

• your reply might be: "Yep. that's the low-fantasy kind of campaign we got."
• Or it might be "Well, have no fear, more treasure is just around the corner."
• Or you might observe, "Remember that ship you all bought, and how it sunk? That's your welth per level, right there."

Under that use, you might well allow a PC to trade a feat and time in exchange for the increase in wealth that crafting allows.

The other use, more germaine to the original post, is for GMs and players who begin a campaign in the middle of an adventurer's career. How much stuff does your 14th-level barbarian have?

Now, in this case, wealth-by-level is the least of your problems. A brand-new, no-dents 14th-level barbarian isn't going to have anything like the gear of a 14th-level barbarian who's been played from 1st level. For one thing, the experienced character has a lot of little crufty items that meant a great deal at 3th level, or 8th level, but don't do much now. Maybe she's sold back a lot of her loot for half-price in order to buy something else she wanted at the time. Maybe she spent money on long-downed healing potions that the brand new 14th-level character - who's never been struck in combat, and never been injured -- has never needed. Maybe she's needed to pay for a raise dead spell and a couple of restorations. The off-the-shelf PC doesn't have to worry about any of that, and buys the gear ideal for him as he currently stands.

(My solution: I don't just give out a lump sum of cash. I walk the player through an adventure per level, explaining what gear he found. The player decides how much he kept in usable items, and how much he exchanged for half gold. We also talk about what kinds of encounters he's had, and what sorts of decisions he's made. So he starts the campaign with some artificial dents and dings, and with gear that makes sense to him.

A quick guideline might be to allow the character two months of crafting time per level beyond first. (So, 26 months for the 14th-level chap.)

(I generally don't allow characters like that to buy crafting feats. If I were to do so, because it fit into a character's background, I'd give them the option to convert some of the stuff they find into other stuff at straight-on 1-gp-per-gp value.)

The biggest problem I have with half the population being CR 1 or less is that it basically says that most of the world is stuck with whatever they are at 18. You never improve, never get better at your job, and then you die of old age.

I prefer the idea of 18 yos growing and getting better, and it being the norm, not the exception. So I like my 'middle ground' to be higher than 1.

Furthermore, if tips were not factored into wait staff wages, food and drink prices would rise accordingly in order to make up for the increased wages management would have to pay wait staff.

Which is, of course, the proper state of affairs.

Irontruth wrote:

post

The thing with WBL is that its a gp amount given to characters of a certain level rather than a summation limit for the total market value for their gear. Look at the equipment section in the CRB. It states characters begin play with a certain amount of gp then goes on to reference the WBL chart for characters passed level 1. Crafting says all I need to craft an item is to pay one-third the cost, or one-half, in order to make an item. Mathematics says I then have my total WBL gp minus the cost of crafting materials left. Nothing states the total value of the item is deducted from WBL. All this is contingent upon GM approval. Which, if approved, should be throttled. However, per RAW it is also possible for me to pocket any remaining gold and to then do any crafting at the beginning of the first session. The end result is the same. However, allowing a character to come to the table with these items crafted is a way to not take that character away from the party and to get the show started.

That's a fallacious assumption. WBL does not represent a bundle of cash thrown at the players who are then told to go to MagicMart and buy stuff. It's meant as a relatively sane method of gauging the worth of the equipment and funds the character should have at creation to be handling a campaign at a given level.

What's clear from this thread is that some players are just competitive, even in a cooperative game like D&D. 3.5L and mdt especially seem unable to have fun without the opportunity to one-up the other players. Which is cool for them, and eye-opening for me.

That's a pretty heavy-handed assumption. It's not about one-upping other party members at all. It's about putting time into the hobby and seeing your character progress for it. Just because some of us track XP doesn't mean we are trying to out-do the other players, maybe we just like keeping marks for things accomplished, like a personal high-score.

EDIT: Submitted to early
For some players, we see XP, loot, gear, levels, etc as a kind of reward for time and investment. We were there; we solved the puzzles, beat the big bad monster, saved the princess, etc etc. It's frustrating seeing someone not have the time or investment in the game, walk away with just as much. It demeans and downplays the investment of the players who did make time for the game and come play.

If we're talking about one player missing one single session due to work, sick kid, etc, of course exceptions can be made. Or in some cases, the game itself can wait until all the players are present. Maybe even special exceptions for players who cannot make regular scheduled game sessions; I have one such player. He informed me at the very start of the campaign he could only make it to maybe half or less sessions due to school, so the rest of us are fine with that.

Really, go with the party dynamic. So many absolutionist extreme opinions in this thread for what's nothing more than an issue to be handled individually by the gaming group. It's really nobody else's business if you track XP or not, and looking down your nose at people just because they play differently is not helping.

Scott,
People might pay more attention to your views, or at least respect them more, if you didn't marginalize everyone who doesn't agree with you with every single post you make. You insult everyone who doesn't agree with you with every post, yet you take the moral high ground of saying you don't like to marginalize people in your games. Apparently marginalizing them in every single post you make is ok though.

I believe the appropriate quote is, remove the plank from thine own eye, before thou condemn the splinter in thy brother's eye.

give everyone 2 more skill points. Encourage people to use skills. It's a bigger deal for someone with 2 skills points to be bumped to 4 rather then someone who has 10 skill points being bumped up to 12.

I'm not sure if this was done already, but I created a summary of all the fame points a party can earn during Council of Thieves, just to get an idea of what would be a 'most likely' scenario, as well as to see what the max a party could get.

Does this make sense? Did I miss anything? I did a search in the PDF, so I think I caught all references.

In any case, hopefully this might be of some use to someone.

To paraphrased the top post:
"Haste sucks because its an amazingly powerful spell that makes spellcasters pointless."

As far as I'm concerned, haste is one of those rare class abilities that lets everyone else in the party awesome, for me that's a big winner.

[Counter-bullocks. I'm not lawful good and more importantly, I'm in the middle of the desert weeks away from any town. Sure, I'll send them back, when I get the chance, but that chance hasn't arrived yet, and I'd actually like to survive long enough for that chance to arrive. Letting that equipment languish in the portable hole is probably the single worst way I can do that.

I'm not talking about your character's alignment. I'm talking about some of the cardinal rules about being a decent player, one being not striking up such a prima donna attitude about your role in a group.

you have an oracle of the SUN god and she wants the SUN blade and ANGEL gave to your group, damn she must be insane! I mean what roleplayer would ask the adamantine katana wielding ninja for that weapon?

Sorry Blue Star, you've got good stuff, the oracle got fluff reasons (not the same as irrational) to want that weapon, let her have it and ask for something reasonable in return (not her holy symbol for example).

Fun Fact: CharOp forums breed people who think that if your PC can't do 70 damage per round at 3rd level you should never been born. They proceed to walk around and throw that crap everywhere they go. Anybody remember CoDzilla?

Because otherwise the "god wizards" (or whatever they are called) players would have b+!+@ed at Paizo until the end of days.

Obvious Troll Is Obvious wrote:

Original observation is original.

Cut it out. This is not 4chan.

It's a gaming message board. and gamers are posting.

Mature, reasoned content only comes as a bonus surprise.

The one I bring to the community is this: What good is a elf race for as a player?

The Elf has tons of fluff, a massive amount of history

You answered your own question here. Not everyone is in it for just the powergaming. Some like flavour. In fact, they will choose flavour over something that is the absolute very best.

All the time. Easy fights, particularly at higher levels, are fun for players and help enforce the sensation and perception that they are indeed actually growing more powerful. If every fight is equally edge-of-the-seat difficult it gets old. You never get to revel in your power.

In fact, I often encourage authors to put easy fights into adventures they write for us. And often put IN easy encounters anyway when they don't.

Why are people allowing so few belt pouches? Isn't it possible to fit, like, ten of those things on a belt?

Ravingdork is Rob Lefield CONFIRMED!

Disclaimer: I've never run a campaign primarily based around the journey. But I have run many campaigns that had journies in them.

Basically, think of vignettes to use.

But first, in order to get the license to go there, have a little back-and-forth with your PCs as you develop heavier and heavier vignettes.

First, mention something innocuous that doesn't directly involve the PCs but sets a mood. Try and rely on senses and sensations other than just the visual. And personification imagery can make things a little more interesting.
The sun sits low and pregnant in the sky. West. The sea is over there somewhere, but you can't hear any waves. The whirring of the cicadas keeps getting louder, as they create a symphony of scratchy noise to celebrate the end of the day, and the end of summer. One of the horses yawns and shakes itself out, seemingly in agreement with the sentiment.

Now that you've established a bit of literary genre, bluntly inform the PCs that the days are long and boring. Ask them pointed questions about what they are doing with all of their time. Don't accept gamey answers like "I'm crafting a Wondrous Item" - that doesn't take 100% of your concentration and time.
Example questions:
- who wakes up first?
- who cooks breakfast?
- how are you dealing with the heat of the day? the cold of the night?
- who in the caravan makes for a good conversation partnet? who is boring?
- name one skill you've learned from another character on this trip. And by skill I mean "now I can make a reed of grass make a farting noise by blowing into it" not "I picked up ranks in Spellcraft"
- does your character drink? does he know any good drinking songs? is he teaching anyone else these songs?
- what do you miss about home? what token gesture are you doing to remind yourself of it?
- what food are you really getting tired of eating day after day?
- what are you typically doing late in the day?
- how does your character behave when tired and hungry?

Hopefully they've given you something to work with. Even so, do this a few more times. Go back and forth. As GM, you describe some sort of tone-setting piece, then as PCs they tell you a little about their characters. Remember: you're not asking them to respond to your vignettes, they are only there to set the tone and to help draw people into immersion. Don't be direct! To use the previous example, don't ask the PCs "do you find the cicadas annoying?" (But if they go there on their own, awesome.)

Once you've established immersion and established a bit of the PC's routine, then it's time to grab the reins. Put the PCs in situations, and feel free to dictate their actions a little bit, so long as it is consistant with answers you've given before.
The wheel fell off the lead wagon again. At first, you responded to it like any mishap: you stopped the caravan and did a full repair. When it happened an hour later, that was a bit annoying, but you put it back on. But it kept happening! After you missed a caravan-wide game of Three Dragon Ante because you were putting the entire axle back together, you started to get upset at the damn wagon. At this point, raise your voice a little bit, and convey anger in your voice. But the f---ing thing just broke off again. The wagon hates you. The f---ing wagon is doing this just to piss you off. Desna d---it! Why won't this f---ing wheel just stay on?! Kick the leg of the table OOG. Then become calmer, and look the PC in the eye. You had an annoying time with the wagon today. How do you feel about it?

Your narration suggests a response to them, but they don't have to take it. They could talk about how time at the monastery showed them infiniate patience or somesuch. That's fine. You were showing them that they were in an annoying situation, not that they themselves were annoyed.

Once you build up PC trust, you can turn the game into a series of "what do you do in this situation?" questions.
"You finally caught Hank cheating at Three Dragon Ante..."

And of course, with all of this stuff, don't do it all at once. Have one or two back-and-forths, then have them fight a monster or explore a dungeon, or whatever it is that actually moves the plotline. Then do a few more back-and-forths, and then move on to do more plot. Interlace. And watch your PCs. If they're bored with it, then just play the LotR overland journey music and be done with it.

Hope that helps!

It's likely the developers feel that most questions about Take 10 are sufficiently answered by the core rules themselves and therefore don't merit further attention.

I think it's less that they feel the rules are clear in every circumstance, and more that they like leaving some things somewhat vague so that each DM can tailor it to his game.

For nosig:

Time required to take 10:
Sean K Reynolds (Developer): "Taking 10 requires only as much time as making one check."

Is the action I'm performing a distraction?
Sean K Reynolds (Developer): "Let your players Take 10 unless they're in combat or they're distracted by something other than the task at hand. It's just there to make the game proceed faster so you don't have big damn heroes failing to accomplish inconsequential things."

Can I Take-10 on opposed rolls, like Stealth?
Sean K Reynolds (Developer): "It's really no different than being a lazy player with a +9 Stealth rogue who thinks he can take 10 on a Stealth check past a guard because he thinks the guard is just some +2 Spot loser... except he doesn't know the guard is actually an important NPC with a +10 Spot. You take 10 when you believe an average roll will succeed; if it turns out that belief is wrong, you'll suffer the consequences."

***General Reply to Thread***

Some of the post people have made really seem to me bordering on almost rude. To use phrases like "Cheat" just because people are playing a game that goes a bit beyond the established norm seems a bit harsh. I mean how many people have house rules in their games? Are they "Cheating" because they have house rules?

And while yes taking a game outside of the normal balance equation can slant the numbers one way or the other it still seems that random chance would favor the Higher DC at some point.

It is the precise reason I don't get along with people with superiority complexes. To me they suck the fun out of the games I run.

Ravingdork wins the special award in the "Irony" category! :)

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

ProfessorCirno wrote:

Still waiting on that reason as to why certain characters "should" be mechanically inferior.

Still waiting on why you think all the options in the Core Rulebook are mechanically equal.

Did you just use "We were bad at developing" as an excuse for making a bad development choice?

No, I'm pointing out to you that "balance" in an RPG where you have healing classes and damage classes and support classes is an illusion. Is the cleric with the Healing domain "balanced" against one with the Travel or War domains? Is the healing cleric balanced against the fighter? Or the barbarian? Or the sorcerer? Or the bard? How do you rate how "balanced" they are against each other? By how much damage they do? By how much damage they prevent or cure? By their total skill point bonuses?

The game, dating all the way back to Basic D&D, isn't built for you to win, it's built for you to have fun. And if you're given different ways for you to have fun with your character, even if some of those ways mean you're not "balanced" against a character specialized purely in damage or healing or Diplomacy checks, you're still having fun. This isn't World of Warcraft where a bad talent tree for a class means you're overall damage is down 2.5% from the best spec and you get yelled at by trying to raid in that poor spec because you're making it harder to kill boss monsters. This is a cooperative game where the odds are stacked in the PCs' favor and you don't have to maximize a number to ensure survival of the group. You're allowed to make choices that suit the story of your character, even if those choices mean you're not the best at damage or healing or Diplomacy. The game has greatswords and longswords and short swords and daggers, and each has its place in terms of damage, utility, and character flavor. Yet I don't see you complaining that the dagger-specialized fighter isn't balanced against the greatsword-specialized fighter.

If you want every option to be mechanically equal, you need to play a different game.

Me, I'm going to write for, and play, a game where it's okay if you want to play a Indiana Jones-style wizard who starts with a 15 Dex and 12 Int and fights with a whip. And it's okay if you want to play a rapier-wielding swashbuckler rogue who multiclasses into fighter and cleric of luck because it suits his theme, even though it costs him BAB and access to some better feats. And it's okay if you want to play a dwarf fighter who's slow as hell, has a 20 Con and 100 hit points at level 7, and takes Great Cleave to finish off all the minions while his monk and barbarian buddies kill the leader. Because those are all fun character options. Even if the wizard is struggling to keep his Int in pace with the minimum needed for his higher-level spells... because sometimes the wizard pulls off an awesome move in combat that he couldn't do with a pathetic Dex. Even if the swashbuckler is always out-damaged by the lower-level paladin with a greatsword... because sometimes the swashbuckler crit-kills a beholder in one stab. Even if the dwarf only gets to use Great Cleave once in the entire campaign... because that one time he kills 8 foes in one round and convinces the campaign boss to surrender in the face of such might.

If you're not satisfied with your numbers, choose another options that makes you feel like more of a man. If you're not having fun, play something else.

To paraphrase my second post in this thread:
Basically, "worthwhile" is not solely defined as "something mechanically equal to other options."

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

ProfessorCirno wrote:

Still waiting on that reason as to why certain characters "should" be mechanically inferior.

Still waiting on why you think all the options in the Core Rulebook are mechanically equal.

Did you just use "We were bad at developing" as an excuse for making a bad development choice?

That's pretty hilarious.

Protip: I don't think all the options in the Core Rolebook are mechanically equal.

Protip the second: I think this is a poor decision to make if made intentionally.

Protip the third: The guy that created your edition agrees with me.

Making mechanically inferior options shouldn't be a point of pride, no more then I pride myself when a lesson plan for the day doesn't work.

I don't think that's actually what Monte was getting at. In the article, he comes out against what he calls "Ivory Tower Game Design" and he's not referring to mechanically inferior options with that moniker. He's talking about not laying out things, such as the fact that Weapon Focus is a better feat for Fighters than it is for most Wizards. The current rules require that you read Weapon Focus and think about how it's intended to fit into the rest of the game--Monte, in that article, at least, isn't sure this was the best thing for the edition.

The example about "Timmy Cards" (or in this case, "Timmy options," I suppose) is just to illustrate one thing they borrowed from Magic: the Gathering (with the other being things like descriptors on spells and the like). Nobody uses that article to argue that Monte doesn't like the fire descriptor; it shouldn't be used to argue that he thinks mechanically inferior choices are bad for the system, either.

In the case of the Separatist, what Monte (way back when he wrote that article, anyway) would like to see was a note bene explaining that it's meant for games where clerics of philosophy aren't an option because you have to worship a deity to be a cleric.

I normally find your posts insightful, Cirno, even when I don't agree with you, but you've misread the article here. And in fact, I misread it when I first read it too in the same way.

And defending the idea that separatists should get weaker divine powers doesn't absolve the Separatist archetype. it'd be perfectly reasonable to have the Separatist get weaker divine powers in return for something. Instead, they get weaker divine powers in return for nothing.

Here is the problem. You're looking at this at as fluff vs. crunch analysis with the point of view that only crunch mechanics have any value in weighing an archetype or a class. That roleplaying flavor options should be entirely off the table when it comes to making bargains about class power.

That's the irreconcilable difference you have with SKR and with those of us of similar opinions on this matter. The ability to be a cleric of a heresy has a real value to those who think that roleplaying considerations are more than just "fluff" to be dismissed.

As you might surmise, I really hate the use of the word "fluff" as it's tossed around in venues like these.

There's nothing forcing you to take this as a player. There's nothing forcing you to implement this as a GM. I do think that this archetype has value in a setting where godless clerics are not appropriate. Such as Golarian, or the Forgotten Realms, or any setting I create for my own use.

And don't bring up that "core rules" thing. Core rules is a tool box, not the holy writ on how every campaign should run. Not every campaign should be using all of the tools in that box.