Gallo's page

If someone wants to decide to not have sex until marriage/death/sign of gods, its his or her or its choice, no problem, as long as it is informed and voluntary choice. However, choice cannot be really called informed and voluntary when is based on erroneous, false or incomplete information (and even more when based on malicious misinformation). Thus, sexual education should be provided to everyone. Its unfortunate that a large group of close-minded idiots is dumb enough to think that mere education about sexuality will immediately and irrevocably will turn their children into raging, shameless sluts and force them into prostitution.

A dad pushing her to accept one does, however - her. Her sexuality is not for him to shape, or try to strangle when she can't defend herself.

I would like to mention a few things:

1. There are tangible health benefits to having sex. As well as tangible health risks for not having sex. If you consider STDs and pregnancies "taken care of" then the bottomline is that sex-havers are healthier than sex-not-havers.

2. People can get pregnant and get STDs when successfully abstaining. This usually involves rape, and is more common than people let on.

3. There's a tangible benefit for couples that do have sex before marriage: their relationship deepens and becomes more intimate. (And should they find themselves sexually incompatible - everybody involved is glad that it got sorted out before wedlock.)

After 19 of them, there ought to be a prestige class called Tourist. Requirement: Character level 19, BAB 0.

Two-flower!

Clearly, I'm a roleplayer in a room full of gamists. You're all about metagame strategy, party builds, and such. I'm thinking of it all from the perspective of the character. If he can protect his comrades in arms, he will, but he's got to protect himself first. A dead tank doesn't even make difficult terrain, much less help anyone else.

This is the way real world life guards think: if it comes to them or the person they are trying to save, they will put the drowning victim in harms way to protect themselves (such as a rescuer putting the victim in between himself and the jagged rocks in river rapids). After all, if the rescuer dies, the victim most certainly will too.

In our games, the party doesn't all stand around saying "we need a tank and trapfinder rogue for this quest" or "let's go to the nearby Goblin Wood and grind some easy XP by slaughtering a few tribes." They are usually hapless people who got thrown a strange lot and thus became adventurers. They deal with things as they come, and adapt when able. They don't kill monsters for loot and XP. That's what PC gamers do. Roleplaying characters have lives and goals. A gamist's character is all about the numbers, gear, and leveling up for bragging rights. Our party kills living creatures to save themselves, to save others, or as part of a fight for a cause, not because they can.

In short, gamist characters are all about the mindless grind towards the top. Roleplaying characters CAN be about that, but they have a story to tell too.

Whatever it is worth, this thread has convinced me to take Combat Expertise for my next character.

Removed some posts. Just because you can type stuff like rapey sexualized "metaphors" into the little box and hit "submit post" doesn't mean it's OK. I've also edited the thread title. Wishing violence on actual human beings is not cool here, ever.

Enchanter Tom wanted to hit Jason Buhlman. Jason Buhlman used Combat Expertise to improve his AC. Enchanter Tom failed.

It is much harder to increase your ac in this game than to increase your att. There are better ways of making yourself difficult to hit i.e. concealment, blur and so on. But this feat has its place. You can’t just have one required feat lead to all of the combat maneuver feats that would make things too easy to specialize in multiple things. I love tripping and disarming I figure it is much better than sundering so it makes since that I have to take a feat that is not as impressive as power attack to gain access to feats that are (situationally) more useful than sunder.

I will however point out your way of handling yourself online leaves much to be desired. Try approaching it from a different angle. From your first 2 posts I honestly placed you in the age bracket of 12-16. Complaining to mom and dad that you don’t want to eat your dinner to get desert and that it was stupid because desert has nothing to do with dinner. Or even better I don’t want desert so I refuse to eat dinner also. Have your tantrum in Microsoft word. Wait 10 minutes read it out loud and if you come across as a snide jerk hit that old backspace key until you get to a point you feel you can functionally build from.

I’m not trying to be rude and I’m not trolling. I will agree there are several "feat taxes" in this game but as most tax paying adults know we pay taxes so we can have the things we want.

If they fit the definition of dogma, why would they not be

That would be the crux of the matter. They don't. Here is a list of the parts of the definition that the above do not fit.

It is not a doctrine held by a religion
It is not a doctrine held by a particular group or organization.
It is not a religious belief accepted without evidence.

and most importantly it is not an opinion. They are facts. You are trying to equate ANY idea, at all, with dogma and thats simply not what the word means.

and more importantly, why are you getting so bent out of shape about this

Support your claim= bent out of shape?

not to mention insulted? Even assuming you had assumed dogma means religious stuff only, I am failing to see insult or the definition of the word is putting you off here.

Its part of the strategy I outlined above about trying to equate religious ideas and scientific facts so that they're equal, and ones just as silly as another. Its a disingenuous side step to rational discourse based on reason and evidence.

I self-sacrifice without religion.

Same equation without religion and I can still perform the same way meaning religion isn't needed.

Since we are talking religion anyway other quotes by fiction writers should be good too:

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent — it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another — but which one? Differences are crucial.

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful —just stupid.)

The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.

What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

My personal favorite for the issue of self sacrifice:

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.
But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck —
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free ... and the train hit them.
The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.
The husband's behavior was heroic ... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
This is how a man dies.
This is how a man ... lives!

Self sacrifice (and the all the virtues for that matter) have nothing to do with religion! Philosophy was distilling them out without the need for pageantry and the bunk of religion even when religion included multiple gods of multiple things.

a "radical atheist" will say "lets go drink mircobrew and talk about outer space."

I prefer coffee but outer space is cool.... I think we should can this conversation about what is and what inst the definition of atheism....

All this conversation will achieve is a demonstration of high-level philosophical wankery as people who get their jollies by telling others how wrong they are, mouth off.

Lets talk about space instead.

LazarX,
And the puddle said "Wow, this depression in the ground is perfectly fitted for me. It must have been made with me in mind." We are as we are because of the constants of the universe, not vice versa. If they weren't 'just right' we wouldn't exist to observe them. Well. we might but we'd be very different beings with a very different set of physical laws to understand.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Most definitions of religion that I've seen call it a system.

What you are describing might more precisely be called 'organized religion'. However, let's say a single person has a view of 'God' which is unique to themselves with no formal institutions, possibly even just a simple belief in a 'higher power' with no further detail. Is that not a religion?

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Atheism is, at most, one part: There is no god.

I take it you haven't met many 'secular humanists'. There are groups that have organized belief and value systems extending well beyond disbelief or uncertainty about the existence of 'divinity'. Some are very much like any organized religion... right down to community outreach, spreading the faith, congregational meetings, et cetera.

Quote:

(other types of atheism wouldn't even have that)

Another part of the problem... 'atheism' means a lot of different things to different people.

Thus, it really becomes a matter of how we define the words 'religion' and 'atheism'. Personally, I prefer;

religion - 'belief in something on faith'
atheism - 'belief that there are no divine or supernatural powers at work in the universe'

By these definitions, 'atheism' is a 'religion' because the belief that 'there is no God' is based on faith rather than something which can be proven. However, other equally valid definitions of either term exist which would change the analysis.

This is therefor a wholly semantic question and can be truthfully answered with both "yes" and "no"... it's all a matter of framing. Arguing the answer without understanding each person's perceptual framing is thus pointless.

To be clear: atheism is not a religion. It is not a "belief" that the divine does not exist. It is a statement, proven by observations and backed by facts, that any given supernatural explanation for existence, life and the universe does not suffice in light of a natural existence.

That the understanding most atheists have that a natural explanation for all the universe will emerge sooner or later (taken as a matter of faith) is simply because our understanding of the natural world continues to expand over time, and the room in our worldview for gods continues to shrink. To say that a god handles the unexplained means s/he handles the gaps of our understanding until we fill those voids ourselves.

I agree, let's get a consensus on the terms. If anything can be placed in the religion pile, organized or not, you can also probably place passionate hobbies of any kind in there, too (Paizo-ism), and that weakens the definition IMO.

So, given your starting point of "this is a bit of a distraction", tell me again why you started this post?

(I'm a militant atheist, believe that anyone with a faith is irredeemably stupid, am prepared to be convinced by actual evidence that there is a divine being but even if I am will hold to my philosophical position that if there is they deserve no worship and I will therefore be consigned to whatever creative and unpleasant afterlife they have prepared for the irredeemably stupid who refuse to bow down to the great tyrant in the sky).

I really hate the line of reasoning that it's the "gm's fault". He's working ten times as hard to bring something to the table, he has to know the stats to every monster, pre-read and re-read the module or prep his homebrew, a gm has to make entire encounters up on the fly when pc's run off-grid, aaand hope he enjoys doing it as much as the players do.

And then someone calls him out for something he really cant control. I don't understand this ridiculous notion that the gm is there for nothing but catering to the pc's, and damned be he who fails or is perceived failing.

Look at it realistically. Yes the player's being a chode. grats to him. Yes, you as a player, as well as the others, should voice your opinions to each other. This situation really falls to the person who invited the issue player in. That person takes the responsibility recommended here, and to talk to the person, explain what's happening, and ask for the player to think about what he's after in the game.

If that fails, uninvite him. Directly, maturely, and without anger. Not everyone meshes, and that's just tough cookies. You do more harm to the entire group allowing him to play the way he plays, because the frustration's going to grind everyone down. Not telling him he's a problem means that he will never understand there's changes to be made personally.

I don't have any quotes, but I do have a working understanding of the English language.

Provoking attacks of opportunity wrote:

Moving: Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack—the 5-foot step and the withdraw action.

They key word here is out. If you continue forward to meet the troll, there is not one point in your movement that you stop occupying a space that the troll threatens. You may be moving to redistribute mass within the threatened square but not "moving out of".

He is moving out of the threatened square. Part of the Auroch's body moves out of the threatened square, while part moves in. Just because the creature is "large" doesn't mean part of his body isn't moving out of a threatened square.

definitely provkes an AoO.

The rules are a bit different because large creatures occupy multiple spaces, so part of them would in fact move out of the threatened squares to reach the closer squares, even if the back half of the creatures would just be entering the threatened area.

It is illogical to suggest that the auroch moved and got closer but did not move at all when regarding the threatend area. You can't simultaneously move and not move. Its binary.

Did it move? Yes. Is the area it was occupying (even partially) considered threatened? Yes. Did it move out of a threatened square? Yes. That is how it became closer to the threatening creature.

This is the trade off of being of a larger size, you present more area to attack.

I have an old book from "graphic design college" that goes on at length why doing projects for your friends, much less for free, is a TERRIBLE idea. In short, it's precisely because of your close relationship they they, intentionally or not, are more apt to abuse your services than complete strangers (the are simply more comfortable with asking for more, for less).

This thread, and the sheer number of people in it that actively oppose my viewpoint, is proof enough that this is indeed the case. There are SO MANY people here who don't seem to have any trouble at all with asking their close friends to work for them, for 8 hours a day, every day, for months (that, or they simply don't realize how much investment they are really asking for).

Why don't more people see just how obscenely wrong that is?

*scratches my head* *reads the posts of the thread again* *reads your post*

uhhm. Actually, we're not advocating that at all?
Myself, I'm an attorney. I'm the poster child of knowing how stupid it is to do work for friends- free or otherwise really. Generally its a bad idea. No one ever thinks you charged them little enough, and no one realizes just how much work it is you are really doing.

But, as a graphic designer, (or anyone with a skill) if you go into business with others where your skill is in use, its probably expected that you use it. And that you also get paid for it, as part of getting paid for the business venture.

No one has suggested- or I certainly haven't suggested- that the wizard be tied down and made to work for free.
I'm suggesting- actually flat out saying that the payment a wizard receives is in how well the group proceeds with their help rather than without, as opposed to monetary renumeration for that work.

You say: Omg working for free is evil!"
I say : You are right.. but there's more than one way to get paid. And going into business with several other people and using your skillset to make sure the business works as well as possible doesn't entail you getting paid *extra* for doing your part in making the business work.

I totally agree that getting a wizard and binding them hand and foot in the basement to be your personal crafting slave is evil as hell and should not be allowed.

I also promote however that a crafter of any stripe who is a full contributing member of a party should expect to also craft for that party when they have time and when the funds are available, when the opportunity arises. Not 24/7. Not without break. But when there is time available for it to be done. Why? Because it makes the party stronger, better, faster. Yanno, the party. that group of folks the crafter is with trying to save the world. (or whatever). Not some random bunch of strangers, but the friends and comrades in arms of said crafter.

Gilfalas:
if my buddy was a contractor and I asked him to make me a building then I'd expect him to bill me fully.

If I instead went into business with him for the purpose of buying land, building buildings, promoting them and then selling them- or if I went into the business with him of buying houses, renovating them and then finding buyers, then I'd expect him to split the profits with me rather than charging me for his services in addition to splitting the profits with me.

Crafters are already getting a split of the profits. They are also getting the benefit of the expertise and ability of every single other person in the party for everything they do. They do not pay for that benefit. When they craft for the group, they are *already* getting paid to do it, and also reap the future benefits.

They should no more charge extra for it than the other party members should start charging for the things -they- bring to the table.

-S

Rules-As-Written, it probably doesn't work.

Rules-As-Sane, if a fighter archetype's +x attack damage weapon training replacement DOESN'T work with gloves of duelling, congratulations. You've just made that archetype functionally obsolete! Mundane Fighter is now better w/ your specialty weapon group than you are! RAS dictates this should not freaking happen.

PFS obviously uses RAW. Any decent DM in a home game should be using RAS.

DC 10 will save for my game dose not sound bad but my players always have 2 people up rather then risk it

I actually did mean DC 0 (zero) -- basically it takes bad luck (rolling a natural 1) or unfavorable modifiers to fail this save.

As for the monopoly, he's pricing 10x the normal price? Why aren't there any other entrepreneurs who see this as a profitable market, enter it and start undercutting him? Are there no NPCs at all that decide to react to this by starting new businesses, or travelling merchants who see a way to make some great profit and head over to that town?

There's no way the player could get a long term monopoly on those things AND use such high prices without others deciding to start up new businesses. The PC can't keep buying up those new businesses either without firing some of his employees since supply would simply start to exceed demand and he'd eventually start to run a loss instead of a profit. Those people he'd have to fire after having bought them out would simply use that money to start a new business again, and so on.

Now if the entrepreneur PC used realistic prices, 1-10% above market or so, then I could see it being possible for a while, but 1000% of the market price? No way the world would not react to that by creating new competition in order to grab a share of his market.