Bim Mirak's page

I look at the different levels of points as different styles of play or difficulty levels. Your character is only going to be boring if you play them in a boring way. A 10 point limit will make a really gritty game with players having to more clever and careful. To me, that sounds more interesting than a character that has awesome stats and crushes everything head on as their "go to" solution. To answer your question more directly... it's only limiting if you don't want things to be tougher than they already are when it comes to random rolls. You can have a character that has awesome stats rolling all 1's while a character with 10 Str is rolling a crit every turn. The odds make it harder for the low stat character to succeed, but doesn't change their options.

Yeah, with 7 players, a bard will be everybody's best friend.

First off, I like Wind Chime's character concept. A guy that does everything in his power to do good, but with evil powers is pretty awesome. For that kind of character to work in Pathfinder, he would need to have an evil alignment for the purpose of game mechanics. A guy using only evil spells should exude an evil aura of some type. A paladin uses detect evil would zero in this guy and there's a lot of role playing potential there. Diplomacy vs Sense Motive. Will the paladin except the character's excuses for using evil? Would the paladin except his help? Would any decent person except his help?

Secondly, Ubercroz pretty much nailed it on the head about how I generally use alignment. Wind Chime's character just has a special circumstance.

Yeah, I definitely want to hear how this turns out too. I think you might to change the title to something like Fly-by-Grapple to attract more of the heavy crunchers on the blogs. It might be because of the hour, but I can't even begin to think of a way to get it to work all in one round, which I think is what you're after.

This is coming from the world of darkness, but I was a huge fan of nuwisha (werecoyotes). They are super-stealthy tricksters. As far as alignment, any chaotic.

Diablo Blanco

I've went between Ranger and Rogue for a long time, but my favorite class is always whatever I'm playing at the time. Right now, I'm having a blast creating a Druid and whipping all the possiblities. In my book though, Rangers are probably the most flexible class and who doesn't love picking out their favored enemies.

I've always played with rolls out in the open, even when DMing. I've witnessed plenty of people trying to cheat and were called out by both players and DMs. We all had a good laugh and damage was dealt.

Thanks guys,
I think I'm just getting used to playing with a different group. My buddies back in high school and college would have ate that bossy NPC alive and asked to burn the character sheet during the break. My wife and father-in-law definitely have a "tighter" form of play. It's not bad, but just different. I think I really need to figure out what interests them and how they interact with NPCs. I already agreed to running Rise of the Runelords and have been getting excited while reading through it. I think I'm going to play through the first book and suggest having a side adventure inbetween each book. Nothing too big, but maybe last a couple of sessions. If anyone wants to know more about my White Well setting just tell me and I'll send you an email with what I have written up. Thanks again! Venting is good!

Howdy,
I recently started playing Pathfinder with my wife and father-in-law. Honestly, the best and strangest group that I've ever been in... smallest too.

My father-in-law use to play AD&D like it was his job back in his younger days and taught my wife how to play while she was growing up. She has lots of stories of her characters meeting horrible deaths.

Anyhow, my father-in-law is a straight shooter with his DMing style. He runs APs and doesn't wander far from what is written. Which is naturally what one would want to do to get the most out of the AP, I suppose.

I've always been the type of DM to wing it or write my own adventures. Not that I think I'm a great writer, but because I like the sandbox feel and I'm to cheap to buy adventure books. I love playing in the APs and Modules, but I prefer to DM my own creation.

The first module we played was the Godsmouth Heresy and my father-in-law DMed. It was great and a lot of fun. Especially when my first character died and my wife had to run away to meet my new character.

Then it was my turn to DM and I wrote a Warehouse 13-ish setting. I was attempting to make a series of one-session adventures because, although my wife likes to play D&D, she tuckers out way before me and my FIL are ready to stop. We would keep playin until the adventure was over, if we could. We always stop when she wants though. Better to stop than drag along.

My DM sessions went well the first couple of adventures until I made a fatal mistake and introduced a bossy NPC that went with them on missions. I thought I was throwing them something to play around with, but instead they thought they had to listen to the NPC. I didn't notice until it was too late. I got wrapped up in trying to get the adventure done before my wife got tired and, with them following the NPC's every instruction, the NPC ran the show. I was in story-telling mode and not letting them play the game.

Needless to say, it came up after the session and they said that they like my adventures, but would prefer if I ran an AP instead. I understand, but my heart says "BOO!" My FIL already bought Rise of the Runelords AP and they're both excited to play it. I'm going to gladly run it for them, but...

How do I get them to want to play my adventures again? or should I even worry about it?

I get the concept, but I think anyone looking to be a bard wouldn't want to sacrifice essential bard abilities for the ones you written up.

The name is a little too steam-punky, but if that's what you are going for thats fine. I would lean toward something like Weapon Savant or Story Blade.

I really like the concept that every weapon has a story. Maybe you should focus more on the information the bard can get from weapons rather than them being decent at wielding them. Bardic Knowledge is a big deal so you want to replace with something comparable. Maybe by holding a weapon they can perform a Diplomacy check to Gather Information which ties into the concept that every weapon has a story. Plus, enhances what a bards are already good at.

The Arm Master ability has a comic appeal to me. I keep seeing moments in movies where a guy twirls a weapon around in an amazing display only to hit himself or the weapon going flying off in the wrong direction. I like it, but it needs some tweaking and shouldn't take the place of Lore Master. This could actually be a decent replacement for a bardic performance if done correctly and helps the whole party. The ability to give the whole party exotic weapon proficiency for a limited amount of time has a lot of fun possiblities.

I wouldn't replace Lore Master.

You have a lot of room to make new Bardic Performances. I would focus on working on those. Like in place of Fascinate, an ability that makes the affected creature take damage as though the bard is wielding a particular weapon to overcome damage reduction, but the performance is broken when the bard misses his attack or attacks a different target. I don't know..

You have an idea with a lot of potential and you should definitely keep working on it.

Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:

If you were going to build a PFS sunder specialist that is NOT a monk, how would you go about it?

I am already getting ready for a trip and disarm monk. I think that would be too much to add to it and too similar for another monk PC.

So I'm thinking barbarian, but would a fighter archtype do better so you can get the feats in place at an earlier level?

Basically take any build that makes good use of Power Attack, and give them an adamantine weapon and Improved Sunder. Simple as that.

If archetypes are legal in PFS play, I would look into breaker barbarian. My wife played one in our house game and had a lot of fun.

Basically the character I am going to create is a Monk - the more people I hear whine & complain about how bad Monks are the more I want to play one.

I felt the same way and saw it as a challenge, but the truth is I don't like playing my monk character. I don't know what it is exactly, but I everytime we play I wish I was just playing a fighter.