Fromper's page

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Who's Roy Greenhilt?

The character in my avatar. Leader of the Order of the Stick.

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Moral of the story: Enlarge Person is awesome for adding reach or increasing damage on a strength based, medium sized melee combatant. It's a debuff on just about anyone else.

Reverse that for Reduce Person. It's a debuff for strength based melee types, but the dex and AC bonuses make it a buff worth having for everyone else.

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Rankovich wrote:

'Paizout' claims that Amiri is a BINO (Barbarian in Name Only). She's got cafe curtains and track lighting in her yurt and knows the use of every fork in a placesetting.

I can forgive her anything as long as she doesn't eat Pizza with a fork.

It's basic really. You fold it, hold it on one hand, and use the other hand to wave away the paparazzi.

You've obviously never had Chicago style stuffed pizza. And I'm not talking the fake "deep dish" stuff that you see all over America. I'm talking the real stuff, with 3 inch tall slices.

But when it comes to New York style pizza, I wholeheartedly agree.

Ok, now you've got me craving pizza, even though I'm on a diet. I already know that's the first thing I'm going to eat in June (dieting through the end of May).

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Just as good clerics can prepare evil spells or spells that do negative energy damage (like the inflict wounds series of spells) so can evil clerics prepare good spells or spells that heal with positive energy (like the cure wounds series of spells). But do not be confused: positive energy spells are not spells with the good descriptor just as negative energy spells are not spells with the evil descriptor.

Actually, your first sentence is not entirely true.

From the cleric section of the Core Rulebook:

Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaotic, evil, good, and lawful descriptors in their spell descriptions.

So good clerics can't cast evil spells, and evil clerics can't cast good spells.

But your final sentence explains why that doesn't matter for the cure/inflict spells. They aren't good or evil, so any cleric can cast them.

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I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my personal belief is that the current system is ok, so don't change it.

But ideally, I'd like to see the current system adjusted so that people who play up only get a percentage of the extra cash from doing so. While those who play down only lose a percentage of the reward. Thus, it'll be like it is now, but with less extreme swings for playing up or down.

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Just gonna add a "me too" to the consensus here. See Invisibility cancels out the Invisibility for that bad guy. Thus, the +20 doesn't apply to him, and the Perception DC to spot you was 23.

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294. You got in on the Reaper Bones kickstarter not because you like painting minis, but so you'd have minis to use to represent just about anything in your Pathfinder games.

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As a GM, I'd start looking into rules to get tired if you tried to go over 8 hours. Maybe 12.

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On a personal note: if I know I will never have the opportunity to make up wealth by level, I will never play down. As there is typically only a single table running at my location, this means I'll have to choose to sit out. Playing down with a mixed group of level 1-2 characters is now permanently damaging to my characters progression. If this means the group no longer has a legal table, I am sorry.

I also have to say, I don't think this is something I would classify as a significant problem.

I know there are players that have gamed the system to have a good bit more wealth than my PC's (even more than my PC's that haven't died or failed missions). But that really doesn't effect me in any significant way.
Those players have a tendency to stick together in groups. We are not playing against each other like on some PvP MMORPG. Yes, they stomp through the later scenarios easily. So what? As long as I can still play, be effective, and have fun - it's all good.

To me it is very similar to the people that play console games with the cheat codes. Yes, they walked through on suicide difficulty and never had a problem. I might roll my eyes a bit, but if they are having fun and I am having fun...

I really don't have much to add, other than to say that these two quoted posts give a pretty good explanation of why I think the proposed "fix" to take place this summer is worse than the current "problem".

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Everyone seems to miss that sleep has a full round casting time. So the battle lasts at least a round, even if it works perfectly.

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Come to think of it, you could always see if you can find the old 1st edition AD&D book "Oriental Adventures" by Gary Gygax.

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And again, too many people are trying to cause conflicts where none necessarily need to exist.

Paladins may be required by their class to seek out the destruction of all undead, but that doesn't mean they're required to have impulse control problems that make them attack on sight. The Core Rulebook listing for paladins specifically says that working with evil in the short term for the greater good is allowed. And if the paladin who has sworn allegiance to the Pathfinder Society, and is trying to influence the Society to do more good in the world (usually Silver Crusade, but doesn't have to be), then completing Society missions counts as the greater good.

If my paladin was ever assigned to work with a necromancer who animated corpses, she'd complain about it and swear to smite the undead after the mission is over, but she'd grudgingly agree to work with the necromancer and "unholy thing" for the duration of the mission. It would be a fun role playing opportunity, with no out of character conflict. Why are some of you trying to make it a bigger issue than it needs to be?

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I play a lot of Pathfinder Society, and every spellcaster I play has scrolls of Comprehend Languages. We're constantly trying to read runes and ancient texts on Pathfinder missions.

Spiritual Weapon is a great cleric spell.

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Always prepare "Knock."

ALWAYS!!!

How you know name of me axe?

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They should have stated at the beginning that shipping would begin in May, thereby avoiding the conflict with the con entirely. They just didn't think it through, and the (relative) lack of communication about the delay isn't helping.

I did my part. I gave them the money they requested. I even ignored a month's delay. But they are two months late, now. They haven't kept up with their end of the deal. That's bad customer service. Period.
Obviously, your mileage may vary.

So getting 100 times the response to their kickstarter than what they were expecting isn't a valid reason in your mind for it to take longer to ship everything? There's no way anyone could have predicted that this would end up being the 3rd largest kickstarter of all time. They really didn't see it coming, and as someone who spent over a decade in the mail order industry, I know how overwhelming that type of sudden increase in business can be. I've seen several mail order companies go out of business from growing too fast like this! Remember the .com crash 10 years ago?

From what I've seen they're handling the sudden, unexpected 100,000% increase in business at least as well as any other company in the entire history of the mail order industry.

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There are situations where paladins can kill unarmed prisoners, but this doesn't sound like one of them. Killing just because something has an evil alignment, even though it's not an immediate threat to anyone, is an evil act.

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Ironically, I could see it as fairly easy for an Oracle. As Eric rightly pointed out, clerics are the priests/Rabbi's/whatever who are tied to the minutia of a religion while Oracles are the Prophets whose followers create the minutia about them after they're dead...and become clerics.

Oracles are just like non-divine classes when it comes to their religion. They don't have to be a worshiper of the deity that gives them their power. In fact, they don't even have to know which deity it is.

My battle oracle, Gorjo, thinks he was cursed by devils, because he has the tongues curse and can only speak Infernal in battle. In actual fact, it was Iomedae who cursed him. She knew that left alone, he would grow up to be some minor village warrior, living out an uneventful life where he accomplished little of consequence. But cursing him in such a way got him chased out of his home village, and he instead grew up to see the world and become an adventurer. Now, he fights the forces of evil, as she intended for him, but he still think that the curse that ruined his life came from devils, which is actually why he hates devils so much and wants to hunt them all down and kill them.

But back on the original topic, I think changing religion for a PC who doesn't get a mechanical benefit from their religion should always be allowed. But for divine characters who are required to have a patron deity (clerics, inquisitors, paladins), their identity is tied too closely to their religion. If they became an ex-cleric of their starting religion, I would expect them to have to start over in a new religion, not be able to pick up at the level where they left off.

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So, I really curious how this scenario is going to be followed up on next year or so. It seems about half the groups let the switch happen and half did not.

So the dilema is if you run into either of the sisters again are they switched or not, maybe it doesn't matter, they just took each others names, but if a PC was there at the time switch then in reality they would know that person knows they are acting as each other.

Maybe they can have the sister running wild get killed and the PC's can go off and collect her body as an adventure. Then it wouldn't matter anymore who the actual bride is. Or the groom can die and the sisters can go back to their original identies if they actually switched.

Maybe they'll do a followup 9 months later called "The Blackros Progeny".

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Jiggy wrote:

If a GM tells me I can't solve the puzzle because my PC has 7 INT, then next week I'm going to bring my 14 INT character and just wait for the GM to give me the answers.

@ 18 you can get the answer. At 14 you can get a hint.

Nope. I don't care if the int is 7, 14, or 18. If the PCs are stuck in the adventure because they can't figure out a puzzle, they can roll an int check. I've used this mechanic before, and usually someone in the group succeeds at the check and keeps the adventure moving along.

As an example, from the last time I ran The Disappeared:

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TheWarriorPoet519 wrote:

"Freedom begets weakness. Submit and be strong."

I had an Asmodean NPC use this exact quote in my game session last night.

Thank You.

I have a friend with a LN Chelaxian inquisitor of Asmodius in PFS. His favorite line is "The innocent have nothing to fear. Of course, no one is truly innocent."

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Yeah, I keep reading on these boards that healing in combat is a waste of time, and I don't know where that comes from.

I'll agree that some people (especially those playing clerics who think their only role is heal-bot) tend to heal every little wound in combat, when they'd be better off doing something to prevent more wounds - either attacking the enemies directly, buffing the party, etc. But not having in combat healing could easily be lethal. I've seen quite a few PCs saved by someone healing them while the rest of the party dealt with the threat.

And I've never played at a PFS table that doesn't have any in combat healing. More than half my PCs can use a wand of CLW, and I'll make a point of playing one of those characters if nobody else in the party can use one. It may not be ideal healing, but it gets the job done most of the time. As a GM, I can't recall ever having a party with no healing, either.

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"What the biggest fire you ever make?"

"How many other humans you eat to get so big?"

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I'll toss in my two silver's worth (inflation).

I agree that some of the faction missions we've seen in the past have been annoyingly specific things sent by omniscient faction leaders, and they tend to derail the main mission as people constantly ask if they spot the teapot or the woman with the hidden broach. I think we can all agree that eliminating generic "find the MacGuffin" type of faction missions, or at least limiting their frequency, is mostly a good thing.

And the season 4 faction goals as a way of replacing them is a step in a good direction, I think. But I really dislike how those have been implemented in season 4. I have characters in every faction now. I had 7 or 8 when season 4 started. I don't remember what all those seasonal faction goals are, and I almost always forget to use them when playing season 4 scenarios. The communication of getting a letter at the start of the season might be a fun one time thing, but expecting us to remember the details and use them in game 6 months later just doesn't work. I need a reminder at the start of my current session, or it just isn't happening.

Which brings me to my main point. I think having seasonal goals along the lines of the season 4 goals is a good idea, but I don't want to see faction handouts in every adventure go away. How about a compromise? Give us faction handouts in every scenario, which lets everyone (especially new players) have a steady connection to their faction leader, and helps with immersion in the faction system. But instead of specific "find the MacGuffin" missions, those handouts can just be reminders of the overall faction goals, both generally and seasonal, maybe with relevant scenario-specific information as appropriate.

For instance, Andorans would be reminded every scenario to free any slaves they meet, even if there aren't any in that specific scenario. Or if they're in a city where slavery is legal and common, they may need to be told not be overzealous, because they could get themselves in trouble. Silver Crusaders would be reminded to be kind to strangers, not kill anyone unless they have to, and help keep their party alive (all three of which are specific Silver Crusade missions I've gotten in the past), even if there's not something specific in that scenario that ties into those things. And there would also be reminders about the season-specific goals. If the member of the faction happened to find a way to advance of their faction specific stuff in a scenario, then they could earn their second prestige that way. Otherwise, they could still get it just by being a good Pathfinder, as proposed by the campaign leadership in the blog and podcast. More options is a good thing, especially if players don't actually know which option will be available in a specific scenario, so they have to get creative and really think.

Also, one thing I didn't like that was mentioned in the podcast last week was that the change to the faction missions would be retroactive, so people playing season 0-4 scenarios would no longer get the faction missions for those scenarios. I don't like that, either. While some of the older ones are mildly weird or annoying, there are also a lot of fun, memorable moments in those older faction missions. Who here can't look back on "I do this for Taldor!" and laugh? Anyone who played The Disappeared with a Silver Crusader at the table got to see them practically fall over laughing as they read their faction mission. And in some cases, the faction missions actually did tie in very closely to the main storyline (Qadira and Taldor missions in The Dalsine Affair, I'm looking at you). Do we want new players of those scenarios to miss out on those moments? I'd rather keep the bad with the good and keep all the older faction missions, rather than throw the baby out with the bath water.

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Usually, the bad guys are too busy going after the ones who are still standing. Personally, I can't recall ever attacking a downed PC.

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Mike Mistele wrote:

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Players love powerful builds...until they are used against them. So, I don't think the authors/developers are specifically aspiring to boost the death-toll, but it is a by-product

As someone who "survived" the arms race in LG and LFR (and who had never had this sort of recurring experience in any other campaign), my question, I guess, is this: if the campaign is now being written to challenge the players who appreciate (and exploit) the "powerful builds", is there room in the campaign for those of us who don't?

I absolutely believe you are watching the arms race come to fruition here too (albeit differently). As to why...well the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. In an effort to keep long-term players who complain about the scenarios getting "too easy", the developers have tried a number of fixes all at once (6-player table scenario designs, beefed up encounters using more material). The result is scenarios that can (and do) eat new, and inexperienced PCs alive. The pendulum has swung from one end to the other.

This is pretty much what I'm sensing, too. I saw a couple of PC deaths, though not a huge number, in earlier season scenarios. In season 4, I'm seeing a lot more, especially in the higher tier adventures. Actually, my level 8 cleric is starting to believe she's cursed, since she's seen 7 different PCs die (including herself once) in the last 4 missions the Society has sent her on.

Personally, I've reached 2 stars as a GM without ever killing a PC. I've let a couple off easy when I could have killed them, because I didn't want to scare away newbies. Not by fudging dice rolls or anything, just with borderline rules calls. But the only season 4 scenarios I've GMed are The Disappeared (the easiest of season 4 from a combat perspective) and Rise of the Goblin Guild, which was a little tough, but not ultra-lethal.

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Grog sad.

Now must find other faction that not trust masked men.

Join the Sczarni family! We have lots of "friends", but we don't trust anyone.

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The op said they wish to play in the game, they understand the that the dm is being a jerk, but want to try anyway and think they can have fun. A ton of people have said dont play in the game. The OP gets it, but that isnt what they are asking for. They are asking what to do with the stats they have. People get to make their own descisions in life, the op has made it. Lets move on and see if we cant help a bit rather then hammering the smae point over and over.

No.

The OP may have read the posts with people saying to leave the game, but obviously doesn't "get it", or we wouldn't still be having this conversation. Sometimes, people refuse to accept the truth, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't point it out, or should play along with their delusion.

The only correct answer here is "Get away from this abusive relationship". All other advice given in this thread is just plain wrong.

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Well, you can always start GMing and bring an adventure with you to GM on short notice if necessary. Then, the next time you're at a 7 player table, you can offer to be a second GM to split the party into two groups. That will give you a GM, 3 players, and a pregen at each table.

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I don't recall ever seeing a Silver Crusade mission to kill anyone. In fact, SC missions tend to be boring platitudes, rather than actual missions. I've actually gotten "Don't kill anyone unless you have to", "Be nice to strangers", and "Don't let any of your allies die" as SC faction missions. I actually failed that last one...

Andoran, on the other hand, firmly believes in killing every slaver. And my Andoren freedom fighter who was born into slavery in Cheliax doesn't have a problem with that.

I have been a little surprised that the Sczarni missions have been so mild, other than the one from Sewer Dragons of Absalom, which is more what I'd have expected from them.

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trollbill wrote:

Again, the problem is not how beatable the encounter is for experienced players. The issue is how beatable it is for newbs.

I disagree. In a situation where the combat isnt likely to be a pushover, like this one, and the party has new players, the GM and other players should be give helpful suggestions to the new players for things they could do that they may not already know (move into flank, target the guy who doesnt have cover, focus fire, etc).

The real problem is that scenarios are written for a certain tier. Even breaking them down to a subtier, the party is supposed to be at least somewhat challenging for a brand new character with 150gp all the way through a lvl 2.2 character who would probably have about 2650gp (over 17xs more) worth of gear.

Im not saying Paizo does a bad job, it's just difficult when you are trying to cover such a range. All scenarios suffer from this at times, though I think the discrepency is greatest at subtier 1-2.

Just let me say that yes, that scenario can be rough, I'm sorry the OP didnt have a good first play experience, and I empathize. I hope your next game goes better. :)

Agreed that subtier 1-2 is tough for this stuff. There are some adventures that are fine for a party of level 2 players, but too tough if everyone is level 1 (especially with just starting 150 gp worth of eq). Others are just right for level 1 noobs, but boring for level 2 PCs.

I agree with the earlier suggestion that 1-5 subtiers could be divided better as 1, 2-3, and 4-5. Or if that's too many subtiers for a single adventure, maybe they could start doing some 1-3 adventures with subtiers of 1 and 2-3. Or 2-6 adventures broken up by 2-3 and 5-6, so that level 1s wouldn't get stuck in adventures that are too tough for them.

Or at the very least, a disclaimer on some adventures that the subtier 1-2 might be too tough for a party of only level 1 PCs would be useful. There are plenty of 1-2 scenarios that would be fine for all noobs, but this is one of those that clearly isn't.

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I had a fun weekend at MegaCon. Most of the best lines came from the tables I was GMing, rather than the ones where I played.

My first session, I had a little girl who was maybe 8 or 9 years old playing an archer ranger and just wanting to go around shooting everything. At one point, they're trying to break into a warehouse in broad daylight on a busy city street, with a guard sitting on a barrel right outside. After explaining that starting a fight in the middle of the city might attract unwanted attention, she responded with such great lines as "It's not a fight if I just use an arrow" and "But he's asking for it. He's sitting on a barrel." That kid was hilarious, and young enough that she didn't understand why.

From a different adventure, and I won't give any details. The line speaks for itself:

"The chair attacks you."
"Good thing I took favored enemy: furniture"

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I think it's time for me to write a full review of a scenario for the first time.

I enjoyed this one when I played it. When I was looking at the schedule for MegaCon, I intentionally picked this to run multiple times, so I could get away with only doing prep work once and run it multiple times.

Now that I've GMed it twice, this is my absolute favorite PFS scenario. Given that I've probably played more than half of them, that's saying something.

Just a quick recap now, and I'll post more later:

1. The phrase "elephant in the room" took on a whole new meaning when a druid literally had her medium sized elephant companion march through the center of the grand ballroom as a distraction.
2. At both tables, it was worth looking up to watch the reactions on the players' faces when I said "The chair attacks you."
3. And the hilarious response from one of my players: "Good thing my ranger took favored enemy: furniture"

And two recommendations for GMs on this one:

1. Ignore the first paragraph of the intro box text. Just skip the "You think back to your mission briefing" and start with the PCs in the mission briefing with Ambrus Valsin saying that the paracountess doesn't exist. Then, give them time to buy supplies before the evening's infiltration. That first paragraph of him saying that is exactly what you need to grab their attention at the start of the session.
2. Don't draw the map in advance for the main section of the adventure. Or have each room pre-printed separately, and lay them out one at a time as appropriate. My GM drew it as we went when I played it, and as I was prepping, I decided to do the same thing. I usually hate drawing maps, especially in the middle of the game when you're under time pressure, so I draw or print most of them in advance. But given the nature of the exploration here, I think it's the best way to go.

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This just came up at one of my sessions at MegaCon. A druid wanted to bring her elephant animal companion (still young enough to be medium sized) to a fancy party where they were trying to sneak in undetected. I gave her the "You can do that, BUT..." speech to warn her that it might stand out like an... elephant in the room.

She decorated it.

That's right. She decorated it. She put streamers and stuff all over her elephant companion, then told it to march right through the center of the grand ballroom, thus serving as a distraction so the rest of the party would go unnoticed.

I was so stunned by the creative solution that I didn't even think to ask for a disguise check on it. I just gave them a bonus to their checks for the brilliant distraction and moved on.

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Just got home. Was well worth the trip down from Chicago! Thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful weekend!

And just for the record, Beasy in a dress wasn't the only elephant in the room this weekend. I GMed one scenario where one of my players literally brought an elephant (animal companion) to a fancy party!

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Snowball does 1d6 per level, up to 5d6 and requires a ranged touch attack.

No SR, and requires a Fort Save or be staggered.

Magic Missile automatically hits, no save, and is essentially ghost touch, and does up to 5d4+5 damage. Does allow SR.

Both do the exact same amount of average damage. 17.5 per hit.

They may do the same damage when cast at 9th level, but a 5th level caster gets 5d6 from snowball and only 3d4+3 from magic missile. Snowball would already be the best single target 1st level direct damage spell in the game just from that. Add in the possibility of staggering people, that it ignores SR, and that it works well with metamagic feats (unlike magic missile), and it's a pretty clear case of power creep.

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I'd say the downside of playing a pregen is that you have to play a pregen. I'd much rather play my characters.

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All right, let's ask a different question.

If a player is using a pre-gen, many GMs require her to designate which character will receive the credit for the game, before the session begins. In thsoe cases, a pre-gen's 7th-level death might impact an active character.

Does that character immediately die, or can she live till 7th-level? If the PC has enough prestige, but doesn't have the character at hand, can she pay for her raise dead at the beginning of her next session?

Any GM that forces a pregen death to apply to an active PC, rather than letting the player create a new dead character in a coffin, is violating the "Don't be a jerk" rule.

And Mike Brock agreed that this is legal.

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Wow. This conversation has gone on WAY too long.

From page 5 of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play:

In order to utilize content from an Additional Resource, a player

must have a physical copy of the Additional Resource in question, a name-watermarked Paizo PDF of it, or a printout of the relevant pages from it

Is HeroLab a physical copy of a Paizo book?

Is HeroLab a name-watermarked Paizo PDF?
Is HeroLab a printout of the relevant pages from the book?

I really don't see why Mike Brock needed to clarify this, but the fact that he did is just the exclamation point on an already pretty clear statement.

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Speaking of our local group, the one guy who most needs a copy of the stuff you were handing out actually showed up late on Monday, so I don't think he got a copy. Remind me next week to make sure he gets them, even if he's late.

Speaking of the laptop/tablet debate, that same player came to my table with his character on his laptop, not printed on paper, and then didn't turn it on. When I asked about it, he said the laptop wasn't working, but I should trust him because he remembers all the details. There aren't many players I'd trust to play their PC entirely from memory (not even myself!), and this guy is especially not one of them. So I made him play a pregen.

But I do agree that it's pretty silly these days for anyone to forbid laptops/tablets altogether. I definitely prefer paper character sheets, but I own too many books to carry them with me to every game. This is especially true since I have a bunch of characters and often decide at game time which one I'll play, so I need to bring the books that apply to all of them.

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Since it's fairly relevant, I'd appreciate it if people would FAQ this post. It's trying to get to the bottom of whether "cast" means just spells or includes SLAs. There's a lot of funktastic corner cases there.

Clicked and requested FAQ. Also, I clicked the FAQ button on the first post of this thread. Everyone join in!

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This reminds me of a game I was GMing decades ago.

There was this evil bad guy with armor that had a chance to sunder a weapon when you hit it. Really nasty armor. I probably wouldn't do the same thing now, but hey, back then it was a wild and woolly gaming world.

So my brother's dwarven fighter engages the bad guy. He had this awesome dwarven axe, sort of like the "axe of the dwarven lords" but a custom axe, like most of my high level magic items are custom. Anyway it was the dwarf's prized possession.

So he smacks the bad guy:

Me: "Make a fortitude save" I say.
Bro: "Why?"
Me: "Just make a fortitude save."
*Rolls his save, succeeds*
Bro: "OK, I hit him again".
Other player: "What! Don't do that!"
Me: "OK, you hit, roll your damage and make another fort save."
Other player: "Dude! Somethings wrong man!"
Bro: "Do I feel any ill effects from hitting the guy?"
Me: "Um... no, but you are having to save every time you hit him."
Bro: "How does my character know that?"
Me: "Uh... (frantically searches rule book)... Uh... "
Bro: (who was the rules expert) "He doesn't. I hit him again."
Me: "Make another save"
Other player: "Dude! You're gonna get killed or lose your axe or something! Stop!"

Eventually the axe was sundered.

I felt terrible. I had assumed that after one hit my brother would use one of his lesser weapons.

I still think that was one of the most awesome in character displays I've ever witnessed.

For something like this, I'd think a description of what was happening that he had to save against might be in order. ie "Your axe vibrates harshly from the clanging against the enemy's armor. You begin to suspect that the armor has some sort of magic that is affecting your weapon."

Similarly, when I'm GMing a spellcaster attacking the party, I'll give them a verbal description of what happened when they make a save against a spell. For instance:

GM: "The enemy wizard casts some sort of spell while looking right at you. Give me a will save."
Player makes saving throw successfully.
GM: "You feel a little tired for a second, but you shake it off."
Player: "Must have been a sleep spell"

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Jiggy wrote:

Fromper wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Whack-a-Rogue wrote:

I'm wondering what options I have as a player in a situation like that.

Throatpunch?

The player or the character?

It shouldn't matter; if only one of them feels it, you need to hit harder.

Get him to hold his character sheet about an inch away from his face then punch it.

Added bonus, he counts as blinded, so you get sneak attack damage!

Unfortunately, this only works if you make a bluff check to get him to hold the sheet up to his face. On the up side, it sounds like this guy's wisdom and sense motive could be pretty low.

But as for the topic at hand, I've seen a lot of things that borderline qualify as PVP in PFS. I've seen dominated PCs making lethal attacks against their allies, who then fight back lethally. I've seen the wimpy, low strength party witch in the back of the group try to grapple our feared cleric to keep her from running away after she failed a will save vs a fear affect. Then there are those instances of area of effect spells being used with an ally inside the fireball blast zone - usually with permission from the affected PC, but should the party fighter really be able to stop the wizard from using his most effective weapon by rushing into battle too soon?

The most obvious that's actually required by the game is a sleight of hand check oppposed by other party members' perceptions to complete a faction mission. Does that count as PVP?

As far as I'm concerned, players shouldn't be fighting to the death, but a non-lethal combat maneuver or some minor friendly fire is fair game, as long as there's a good reason behind it.

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Mazel Tov!

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This wasn't a mistake. This is a change from something that was fully intentional.

He intentionally left his ethnicity blank because of conflicting references in Paizo books about which ethnicity was appropriate for his character concept. Now that a book has been published which gives a definite answer, he wants to use that answer. Again, he's not exactly "gaming the system".

Anyway, I'm done here. Mike Brock gave his answer, and I explained why I disagree. No point continuing to debate it.

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Ask him to GM. He finally 'get it' when he sees how things are run from the other side.

Or he'll fudge enough die rolls to TPK, and the players will revolt.

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Technically, I think one of those might not be in the Tapestry's demi-plane, but it's still an adventure about the Tapestry and the fight to control it and its demi-plane.

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3-12: Wonders in the Weave 1
3-14: Wonders in the Weave 2
3-19: The Icebound Outpost
3-20: Rats of Round Mountain 1
3-21: Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment
3-22: Rats of Round Mountain 2
3-25: Storming the Diamond Gate
3-26: Portal of the Sacred Rune

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Why not reduce all DCs by 5 to represent Pathfinder training (Common races would be DC 0, et al)?

Or, for a slightly different approach, make a list of what creatures a Pathfinder would consider "Common" due to their training.

Or instead of a list, maybe scenarios could list identification DC (and knowledge skill, because sometimes we have to think about it) as part of the monster stats. That way, the Paizo staff could designate certain monsters common enough for PCs to be more likely to have heard of them.

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If you're the GM, just tell your players that you'll design the challenges around what they can handle, so they don't have to go the most optimized route to be effective. Let them know that they aren't going to get creamed if they go with a flavorful, creative option that isn't as effective as the optimized choices.

Also, maybe prevent dump stats or set a maximum starting stat, to encourage more balanced stats, instead of min-maxing.

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I can understand why the bard doesn't always get one. For the same reason a sorcerer or magus doesn't. It's not a defining characteristic of the class.

But I can see what you're saying - there should be a bard archetype that grants a familiar in exchange for something else. Dirge bards should get a raven that says "Nevermore". Buccaneer bards should get a parrot. Archaeologist bards should get a Tien child named Short Round.

As for Eldritch Heritage, are there any bloodlines besides arcane that grant familiars? I know another path for a sorcerer who wants a familiar is the Tattooed archetype. Any other bloodlines that do it, though?