The enemies in the campaign I ran had some bad Mojo that allowed them to do it, that the PCs had time to become aware through knowledge checks, spells, and NPC interactions. The one I can think of was able to do it because of an Artificat under his control. The other two was because they were becoming the avatar of a powerful being.
I run with a large group of players. I did what you suggested and sometimes have a BBEG act twice or even three times in a round. I asked my players their thoughts on it and they all thought it was a good idea. If they did not, I wouldn't have done it.
I didn't do it for every encounter and I had the actions occur on seperate initiatives. I used the same penalties as attacks. Regular intiative, -5 on the second, -10 on the last. The BBEG never got to multiple actions during a surprise round was my other rule.
I also did stuff that other people recommended, but as things got to higher level it got pretty nutty all the things I had to add and sometimes I wanted to keep my tracking down a little.
(I took around 6 to 7 other players in a campaign from 1 to 20.)
My favorite is to go, "Yeah, I know, it's weird. <Evil Laugh>"
I always punctuate an evil laugh with throwing a handful a dice between the screen whenever possible. (Handful of D6s = Thunder and Lightning in this case.)
I am curious and hopeful about Ultimate Campaign. It is nice to have someone make a mechanical frame work to help me define a characters interaction with the world around them. It gets tiring and well, overwhelming, to make my own.
I hope they revisited some of their AP mechanics, because Kingdom Building was easy to break. My group did it by accident really, so we just let it fade into the background. (We had to work hard to not break it at a certain point.) I am glad they tried it though, I just think that magic item generation became a little tooo uber, tooo easily.
I just learned today that dim light does not exist objectively, just subjectively.
Got (still have ) a friend who has almost pathological nightsight. Great partytrick when we were young- the guy could walk home on moonless nights with "glacier-glasses" on (those have around a 90%-95% dimming factor- or more) for 3 or 4 miles,. No stumble, no nothing, rough ground ( Alps). heearned a few hundred marks and lots of beer casks that way.
He never notices his carlights are not on (and has since had them automated to activate). That guy cooks in the dark - curries, roasts, the works ! No, he is not in fact blind. but he actually does not notice shadows as dimming, just as a variance of directly reflected light. Limited colour perception, too
Subjectively, that friend and in game terms has some (EX) form of nightvision (and before you ask, he has eyes which pick up on sideways movement very badly)..... And yes, put him on a boat in bright summer, he is blind (greened out) before noon. He had a prescription at the Bundeswehr to actually wear sunglasses at all times, even on parade etc.... and guess who got the nighttime watches ?
so "dim light" is a very subjective thing. Same for orks, dwarves, tieflings..... and Sahuagins. For some it exists, for many it doesn't.
Sooooo, because orcs, dwarves, tieflings and Sahuagins can't see "dim light", they would never be able to activate the Hide in Plain Sight ability of the Shadow Dancer.
It's funny, I had thought about digging up this thread so that its previous participants could be made aware of the new FAQ if they weren't already. Now here it is! :)
Reach and Objects: Can you pick up or manipulate an object in a square within your reach? Does this provoke an AOO? Does it provoke even if the foe can reach the object, but not your space?
The rules are a little hazy here, but to put it simply, you can affect objects and creatures within your reach. When picking up or manipulating objects, you generally provoke an attack of opportunity, but only against foes that can reach your space. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity from foes that cannot reach you, no matter what action you are taking, even if it includes reaching into a threatened space. Although it might seem realistic to allow an attack in such a case, it would make the game far too complicated.
This answer originally appeared in the 9/25/12 Paizo blog.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 03/01/13
After reading the thread, this was the way my thinking on how the rules would go as well. Thanks for posting the FAQ entry.
"Hey, <GM's name here>, I feel like we've kind of gotten off on the wrong foot. I tried to make a character within the guidelines you set out, but now it feels like everything I choose is getting rejected. I'm not trying to rock the boat, I just want to find a character that I enjoy playing and that fits within the group."
"Here's the general character concept I have in mind: a human cleric from <Albuquerque> who <worked at a car dealership and now> worships <Xenu>*. Does that fit with your campaign? If not why?"
Once that's ironed out...
"Here's the mechanical concept I have in mind: a cleric who <Trips>, <Drops Firballs> and <Buffs>*. Does that seem like something that will work? If not, can you help me understand which of those are a problem and why?"
Those "whys" are in bold because they're very important. It seems the GM has pigeon-holed you as an optimizing min-max crunch monkey and is now trying to keep you on a tight leash to avoid disrupting his campaign. You need to bring that out and come to some kind of understanding as to what it takes for both of you to have fun. If you don't deal with that root issue, anything you find to make you feel effective is going to be shot down.
*Insert your own stuff here.
This is probably the best practical advise on this thread at the momment.
There feels like there are social/relationship issues that are going beyond just the game and maybe it might be a good time to talk to some participants about issues you might be having.
If you really want to game with this group, it sounds like some basic social rules are being overlooked. I would sit down and discuss what they want from the game and what you want from the game. I would let them know how stressed out you are. Use I Feel statements. Find out who the players you want to GM are, and find out which players would like to play with you as the GM. Then, as a group, set-up some ground rules for the social activity. How is dinner handled, when does the session end, how does clean-up go, who hosts, etc., etc.
Sometimes, GMing requires you to calibrate your expectations a bit. I like roleplaying and conversations, I have some players that are uncomfortable with that. While I still include it in my campaigns, I attempt to make it easier for those players who are shy about it as opposed to those who aren't.
I also participate in character creation, because I find I learn stuff about rules I didn't know; and I tend to also know the most rules. This leads consensus on how things work. I also will remind people things that they can do, like make a list of options if they get confused. I have also used a timer.
Yeah, it is ok to call an idea stupid, but usually not a good idea to call a person stupid. It tends to dead end alot of conversations.
In regards to where do people pick up some of these people who tend to cause drama(GMs/Players). I do have a story about that. I came across it when I took up the hobby again after a decade hiatus. An old friend invited me to his group and there was a guy there that I am surprised that they put up with. He was argumentative, he was mean, and he cheated (after a situation arose where he was no longer with the table, I found out he stole from other people, little things and big things).
I wondered why people were willing to put up with it. Now, I never got any of it, so I just figured when in Rome. When I asked for a turn to DM Pathfinder, he disagreed with a ruling that I made. (I knew I was right as it was written in the book that way.) Where he began to yell and sulk. I didn't put up with this behavior and basically told the group that I was not interesting in DMing with this group of people. This pulled some of them away and we ended up reforming and continuing the campaign minus some of the socially inept people. Now that there is a new social group norm, it is easier to screen people before they come in.
(I guess the main thrust of my post is that sometimes we have to enter certain social situations blind and get a read before we can tailor to meet our needs. I can see a discussion between how a GM and player compromise as one of those norms that need to be established by the group.)
Actually, I can laugh at you once more. You shift goalposts, put words in other people's mouths and insult others indirectly and laugh at other people's responses to you in regards to the topic. How am I supposed to take you seriously? Even if we agreed on one thing, I still cannot agree with your stance as a whole.
Edit: If you can be so passionate about mocking other people's stances in regards to Pathfinder, what's stopping me from assuming you wouldn't do the same regarding video games, sports, writing, etc...
Who said I'm passionate. I'm doing these things while on the phone half the time. Lots of time on hold in my job.
I have a high level Rogue/Duelist/Chevalier that does that. Crane Style and Crane Wing work well. The PC was able to destroy a large group of mooks while parrying.
I will also add that the Scout Archetype for the Rogue works nice. You get your back stab damage when charging and moving, which works well with the Duelist abilities. (Spring attack also does nicely.)
I had a game where I was using disable device to diffuse some eldrich bomb. I could have died, infact, most likely would have. I would have raised the flag and made a new character. That would have been a pretty kick ass death. Now if this same character got crit hit by mook #5, I might have opted to be unconcious.
It really depends on your approach, I think the people who would be hesitant are the people who want to win, but as TOZ said there can be other penalities for "losing" other than death.
I haven't read the whole link. The only difference I would maybe add is that when one hits "death" and doesn't raise the flag, they are in a "coma". The "Coma" condition can only be cured outside of combat or some such. (Not sure how I would structure the rule, but whatever. Maybe it takes 5 Minutes for the heal to take affect or something.)
What we know is the group is tired of a player to the point they are planning an intervention, the player isn't adapting to the group.
Bye bye person who is making the game not fun for everyone else and isn't willing to change behaviors when asked.
We *know* nothing of the sort. We know the OP, who has posted here once and only once, has CLAIMED this. A "seagull" posting renders the veracity rating rather low, I think.
We don't even know if the OP exists, Sartre...
If you have to reject the premise of the OP to make your point, you have nothing to say about the OP.
As to the other issue, AD more or less nailed it, but I would also like note that IMHO posters were much "nicer" about solutions because she was female relative to what most people would have said if the person described was a male. Again, IMHO the "attack" (and it was an attack to ask if she was a girlfriend, because you are basically saying she should go, so why aren't you, because there is a male who you value to the point you would accept her behavior) was more backhanded than for most people than you normally see in these types of threads toward men.
In most of these threads, kick them to the curb (or worse) is the norm answer when dealing with men who exhibit this type of behavior, with fairly pejorative additions.
Here, it was "Can't you find a way to accommodate". Even when the girlfriend shot came (and again, it was a shot) chivalry charged to the rescue.
At the end of the day, (assuming the info is correct, which we must if we want to discuss the info) this player sounds like a jerk, and the normal suggestion of having the GM talk to them didn't work, yet...
Yet what? Be truly gender neutral, kick them to the curb.
I was the first response on this thread and my response is pretty consistent with whoever was in that situation, feel free to look through my previous posts.
You are projecting a lot here and while I normally agree with what you post, I think you are stretching in this circumstance.
No, the reasonable and probably less offensive question would have been, "Why does the table not get rid of her?"
One could also have asked, "Hey, is there some kind social commitment beyond gaming?" or something along those lines. When you go the girlfriend route you do make a certain presumption and that presumption aligns with certain negative stereotypes that get perpetuated. That isn't good for our hobby.
Good people can be executed for doing bad things by a legitimate and goodly law. Good people can have moral failings. While sad, it is not neccessarily evil.
The Paladin could use all those social skills and try to move the King towards Clemency. The Paladin can pray for the soul of the man who is to be done in by this "good and legitimate law". The Paladin can work with this system in attempts to change this law, to maybe head off this act or so it does not happen in the future. The Paladin can fail to change the course of this even, failing does not mean a fall as well. It is the attempt that matters.
I don't see where one is forced to help an evil King in the code, if one is a Paladin.
The problem with these conversations regarding the limitations of the code or what have you are that they do not take in account to how the code is set-up between a GM and Player. The only two real core obligations is that it exists and that at its heart it is LG. (There are other small nuances, but they have been posted about as well.) I don't see this as too much of a challenge.
It sounds like it is better to sit down and talk as a group instead of playing in session. Find out what she wants from the Game, what kind of game the GM wants to run, and let your fellow players express what they want.
Usually, trying to solve this kind of stuff in game, without a conversation before hand just blows up in everyone's face. And dice hurt at that velocity.
The jingasa is a little on the high side for the cheap list, but yes, definitely hits the next tier. It's one of the basic items to buy for increasing your AC.
A wizard doesn't need to rest for 8 hours if he wears a ring. 2 hours is treated as 8 hours for refilling.
==aelryinth
Incorrect. Per phb:
Rest : To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.
Again, its stupid and usually gets ignored, but that's the rule.
Edit: but I digress. We should stay on topic.
I think you are off. The description of the ring specifically addresses that issue.
Spoiler:
Ring of Sustenance
Aura faint conjuration; CL 5th
Slot ring; Price 2,500 gp; Weight —
Description
This ring continually provides its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment. The ring also refreshes the body and mind, so that its wearer needs only sleep 2 hours per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep. This allows a spellcaster that requires rest to prepare spells to do so after only 2 hours, but this does not allow a spellcaster to prepare spells more than once per day. The ring must be worn for a full week before it begins to work. If it is removed, the owner must wear it for another week to reattune it to himself.
A timer can help. You can use a litteral for real timer. I try to incorporate roleplaying into the timer.
For instance, in a campaign I ran the PCs found a secret entrance into the lower area of a keep. They got into the dungeons and freed some of the prisoners. They had access to a ship and they were able to befriend some of the prisoners who were soldiers and such. They armored the NPC capagin and troops with gear from the guards in the dungeon and asked him to get the rest of the people back to their ship. (They secured the root.) At the same time an alarm was triggered and some of the NPC troops were securing the door at the direction of the PCs.
They began to plan their interior attack and discussion got long. While they spoke I had the captain shouting orders to soldiers. The Soldiers holding the door yelling they couldn't hold it. It was good, it added tension and forced them to come to a decision quickly on what to do.
How do you think the DM feels when your character walks into the lovingly crafted BBEG fight and a character trivializes the encounter through either a freakishly lucky crit or the BBEG fails a crucial save against something like hold person in the first round?
I'd suggest that in order to keep your DM happy - you should put your best foot forward and nudge your d20... no, my fighter didn't crit with his longbow, it was a little wide... or no, I added up my concentration check wrong - turns out I didn't cast successfully.
It's a facetious comment and argument, but still holds in this case. Would you as a player fudge your own rolls to allow for a more cinematic and enjoyable fight with the main villain of a campaign? - I mean after all the experienced enemy with an indomitable will and an iron jaw shouldn't be forced to suffer from the randomness of the die roll should he?
Personally I find it really hard to actually kill characters in Pathfinder anyway. I have once fudged in the favor of a PC... mainly due to the exact reason you state - a x3 greataxe crit - I kept the crit and downgraded to a x2 slam instead. End result was dropped PC and not killed.
But I have never seen any of my PCs offer to fudge in the other direction when they obliterate the enemy in short order... Worst streak I've seen is a Dwarf Alchemist at 2nd level get two 9d6 crits in a row with an enlarged earthbreaker.
I think I have only fudged a die roll twice. When I was DMing a friend of mine was having a VERY bad day (wife just left him, she was crazy though, so good times) and was looking forward to playing. At the opening round, I threw some die and I would have killed his character. The structure of the encounter would have had him sit out for a very long time. He just took some arbitrary damage instead.
I rarely get to play, but someone stepped up to the DM plate. They made a good boss encounter. They were proud of it. He showed me afterwards, it was good. Good exposition and description everyone was in to it, I snagged a loaded musket at the start of the round. Rolled a critical hit and the damage I would have done was around 50hp. His BBEG was dead, in the first round. I knew this, instead, I hit, but failed the confirmation, he got to have his guy be scary and my friends (And I) had fun fighting it. I had the fun of blasting him with a musket and charging in. I wanted him to feel the fun of DMing, so I get the chance to play more, but to learn why I like it.
Is that something I would do again for him, probably not, but dice and the game are fun and are their to facilitate a social interaction. Sometimes, I can find a reason where the social interaction my trump the dice or the game.
From reading your post, it actually sounds not so much like you don't want to play on "Hard Mode" (i.e., increased challenge), but more like you don't want random risks that are completely separate from the "challenge" or "difficulty".
This is why personally, I'm okay with fudging a little bit in favor of a brand-new player in PFS games, but pretty much exclusively to filter out random, meaningless kills.
For instance, a certain halfling barbarian in a certain 1st-level-only PFS scenario only threatens on a natural 20, but a crit would deal 3d10+21 or an average of about 36 damage. Not even a 16 CON barbarian survives that. I will never let that happen to a new player. A player who is just finding out what Pathfinder is and runs into that will decide "Okay, so this Pathfinder thing is a game ultimately you win or lose based on someone else's dice, no matter what you do; no thanks" and they don't come back. They're not going to look at it as the exception, they're going to see it as the norm.
Once they're not "new" anymore, and/or they're higher than level 1 and therefore probably out of "crit = auto-death" range, then it's up to them to keep themselves alive. But as far as random, un-preventable death goes? I'm with you: that's not fun (at least for a beginner) so I won't let that happen. You can't not be squishy at 1st level, so I won't let a newbie get punished for that fact.
Yeah, I know that scenario and that happened to me when I DMed it. He failed his confirmation roll.
Personally, this is what I aim for when I DM and like to have when I play, I like to have Agency and be Heroic. I want to know that my actions have a shot at affecting what goes on. If I got that going, I am pretty happy. I ran a game where people wanted to make characters who leveled 1 to 20. I like a story, so the death thing became a little bit of an issue. Characters got central to the story, my players were invested in their characters and what was happening in the story. Death, instead of your character is gone, became well, why you were dead bad stuff went down on the things you care about.
I guess I am a little curious here. There are somethings that I don't like and would rather not have in a campaign I run, but I would be flexible with in the context of a given conversation.
There is something that I do not see myself bending on. I will never DM an evil aligned PC. I do understand that there could be a richness of themes and whatnot to explore; all of that, but it is just not something I wish to really get into. I am a mental health social worker and I get to experience alot of these themes and whatever everyday at work. I game to escape and maybe just restore a little faith in the universe. I encorage heroic games of good people triumphing over bad things. I have tried it, I burn out quickly. I get disgusted and I do not have any fun. I am not sure what "camp" this places me in.
Now, as a semi aside, I think that this discussion has really gotten off track in a sense. The issue surrounds with boundaries and expectations that people have when they game. These boundaries and expectations can come into conflict at times. This requires communication as sometimes one can scale one's expectations as one understands another's boundarise; or the reverse can be true one can be more flexible with one's boundaries when they understand the reasons for another's expectations.
At the end of the day there is a possibility of intractability between these two stances, when that occurs then the proposed social interaction is not possible. It happens all the time between friends and is not something that ends friendships, makes on a tyrant, or anything of that nature. You just move on until you have another opportunity to engage in that activity.
I the case of the Evil aligned PC, if I had someone wanting to play it. I would ask what they wanted to get out of their character, what was their goal. I have had it come up twice. One person wanted to make someone who was out to get slavers in any means possible. We were able to make this work. I made some pretty nefarious slavers, he was able to play a more good aligned PC while keeping his concept pretty intact. We were both happy. (I was able to flex my boundary and he was able to scale his expectation.) The other one wanted to do some evil things to what I would consider "goodly" people in my world and we were unable to reconcile my boundary with his expectation. He decided to attempt to find another group. (I helped him do this, I have a friend who DMs only evil PCs, he and I could never play together, but we do compare notes. I sent him that way, they are still playing. That worked out well.)
I played a Gnome Druid that whenever we rescued someone the true target of the rescue, for my character, was not the princess/prince what have you, but the princess's poodle or prince's horse.
Total aside and not really in the spirit of this, but have you ever thought of reskinning the Gunslinger, so that it used crossbows instead of gunpowder weapons? I have toyed with that thought to make it available for some of my players who like the idea of the Gunslinger, but don't want to monkey around with Gunpowder. I would give them profficiency in all "cross bow" weapons. They still have grit. They would target AC. I would allow them to craft ammunition, arrows, much like making bullets. I might allow them to have the effects of Master Craftsman, so that they could upgrade their arrows and such. I would have to look at the crafting rules better. Might be fun to be this dueling wielding crazy crossbow guy.
Anywho.
I have a problem with Summoners. The class is really nit picky and their are alot of unique rules to them. They are not "really" banned, but I have no interest in GMing. I could be talked into it, but it would be a really long conversation.
I do have stylistic things. I try to stay away from Sundering and Mage's Disjunction and that stuff. It is an option, but I tend not to go that way first unless the PCs go that way. If that happens, good times.
I would say that I have one real hard rule, one I would not even be willing to negotiate on. I refuse to DM evil aligned PCs. In real life, I am a social worker and I have to deal with a plethora of issues that I would rather take a break from during gaming. I want to see heros rise against the challenge (heck it helps me restore my faith in the world). I am pretty honest and upfront about this. I know people can make compelling evil aligned PCs, but I have no interest in DMing that character or exploring that that option.
I have no experience with MMOs, and am not familiar with the terms.
I find it odd that is assumed that all Pathfinder players are MMO players.
I wish it was not so.
I have no experience with MMOs as well. Mobs is just something I picked up to describe a mass group of monsters. When something Spikes it means you get extremes, I don't believe that has anything to do with MMOs either. I find that Vital Strike can add drama, especially when I have lots of dudes attacking.
I have used Swarms though for Humanoids. I have 19 level NPCs staving off multiple gigantic armies, so the grunt soldiers in an area are a swarm. Lets me put some risk and they have fun killing hundreds of dudes. Good times.
My NPC mobs, human and otherwise use vital strike all the time. Works great there. Damage gets spikey, lets my NPCs be mobile and makes for dramatic moments at time.
I know that when I begin a game, I ask people for their class concept and what challenges they hope to face. I ask about builds all the time, sometimes even make suggestions myself. I find that because I have that concept in place, multiclassing decisions my players may take don't really bother me as I understand the flavor quite well.
I do have someone who gets overwhelmed building characters, paradox of choice and all that. I, or another player, ask what he would like to play, build a character and let him tweak it. He is fun to play with in game and roleplay off of.
I find that because there is this dialogue, I never have the whole, why'd ya take a level of that.
I would have had fun. I would have been a human alchemist, gone the Master Chemist prestige class route. When the Master Chemist shape changes with its mutagen it looks like whatever the player wants, within certain class constraints, gets a different alignment, and you can build all sorts of abilities in it with Alchemist Discoveries.
I would have been a "cursed" serpent folk trapped in human form, however after much trial and error I have found a substance that will let me trap into my true form. Weave it into the campaign and there ya go.
This was my way of playing a werewolf in a campaign. I went Beast Alchemist and then Master Chemist. My color was to keep from changing I had to drink my "cure" when I wanted to change my character couldn't get to the "cure" soon enough and I changed. My bumbling took the length of time it would take to drink the Mutagen.
This is why I dislike Hero Lab. The sneakability and unreliability of it.
I had a player whose character was a wizard in my Jade Regent game. During one of the first encounters he cast Ill Omen-- and I immediately noticed and said, "Isn't that a witch spell?" and we looked it up, confirmed. He told us that he just took it because it looked cool, guess he didn't see it, etcetera, picked by accident in HeroLab, he'd choose something else.
After the game, the players told me I was kind of gullible. In HeroLab, he has sorc/wiz spells available to him only. To see ill omen, he has to actually go to the witch spell list, click on it, agree that he's not a witch, find ill omen, agree that it's not a sorc/wiz spell and that he's houseruling... and then it adds it to his sheet.
The worst part is you just can't prove it wasn't HeroLab because, who knows? It could have been. It's an excellent scapegoat for rules f&$%ery.
Huh. For Mutants and Masterminds I noticed it would put a warning on the character sheet if there was conflicts...Doesn't do it for Pathfinder, would be a good idea if they did.
As to the topic on hand, when I make a character I tend to come up with a positive attribute for each positive modifier a character has and a negative attribute for each negative modifier a character has. It gives me an idea about why his abilities are they way they are. I suppose that wouldn't work for the straight 10 character.....
Sukie just died. She is, or was, my PC in Kingmaker. She died heroically so that her friend didn't. RIP Sukie. : (
So I rolled some stats in front of the DM then went home to build a paladin. I had some really excellent rolls(!)...and I also rolled a 5...! According to helpful information in another thread, an Int of 5 is the equivalent of an IQ of 69.
Still, you take the rough with the smooth. I don't want to characterise him as the village idiot, drooling on the baddies; I want something more nuanced.
Luckily, it's been established that he comes from a mixed human/half-elf family. I'm also taking the Fey Foundling feat, so to match it I'll take the Silver-Tongued human alternate racial trait from the ARG and the Charming social trait from the APG. I'll build in a nymph/dryad/fey ancestry, and characterise his lack of intellect as being 'refreshingly uncomplicated'. His seeming lack of common knowledge (and lack of attention span) is because his attention seems half in the First World rather than Golarion. His fey ancestry is trying to influence him toward Chaos, and his constant battle to remain Lawful takes up his focus. He takes +1 damage from cold iron weapons, and although this doesn't stop him from using such weapons I'll have him wear a pair of cold iron spiked gauntlets so that the constant distraction keeps him from losing himself into Chaos.
What do you guys think? Plausible?
Also, can anyone provide a link to that thing I've heard about which details the different codes that paladins of different Golarion gods follow? He's a paladin of Shelyn, and any Shelyn-specific code would help me a lot. : )
It makes sense to me. I am reminded of Charlemagne who was a capable ruler and whatnot, he was insightful and charasmatic; but he could not learn to read no matter how hard he tried. I suspect he had some learning disabilities that made it difficult for him to attain a certain level of education, but he was insightful enough to make the connections he needed to make.
Hard Core History (Free Podcast on Itunes) has like a two hour lecture on this guy that you might find interesting. The title of the episode was Thor's Angels. (It was about more than just him, but you might dig it.)
As to Shelyn's code (Faiths of Purity as the major Golarian God's codes of conduct in it. Faiths of Balance has Abdars). Here is what was posted on Paizo's blog about Shelyn's code:
•I am peaceful. I come first with a rose. I act to prevent conflict before it blossoms.
•I never strike first, unless it is the only way to protect the innocent.
•I accept surrender if my opponent can be redeemed—and I never assume that they cannot be. All things that live love beauty, and I will show beauty's answer to them.
•I will never destroy a work of art, nor allow one to come to harm unless greater art arises from its loss. I will only sacrifice art if doing so allows me to save a life, for untold beauty can arise from an awakened soul.
•I see beauty in others. As a rough stone hides a diamond, a drab face may hide the heart of a saint.
•I lead by example, not with my blade. Where my blade passes, a life is cut short, and the world's potential for beauty is lessened.
•I live my life as art. I will choose an art and perfect it. When I have mastered it, I will choose another. The works I leave behind make life richer for those who follow.
I know that when I GM and the players came up with back stories for their Characters I would change names and places (My world was home brew) to fit the area a bit. All with their approval.
They make decisions, I describe consequences.
I know I audit character sheets frequently. I will make suggestions if I see someone struggling for feats, skills, magic items, and/or whatever. I ask them why they took certain powers or feats. (It gives me a sense of an adventure or obstacle they would like to try and face.)
Yes, AD tends to come across rather harsh to those who are simply adding another point of view.
I wasn't offended. I usually enjoy and agree with most of AD's post. I was just making sure that if there was disagreement with something I said he would have the opportunity to express it, while using a light hearted rejoinder to set the tone for communication.
His "I agree" makes sense. If I felt attacked, I would send him a message and discuss it in private.
Guy, as I and others have repeatedly stated, if the OP wants to do this, talk to the players to get their input before inflicting it on them. That appears to be what you did.
This can be done and can be fun, especially for a party where the players have anticipated and planned for this scenario. The sorcerer or wizard with eschew materials, still and silent spell is a classic example of a character built for this sort of thing.
Talk to the group and make sure they are OK. If so then go for it. But come up with something plausible then. I like the idea of the party agreeing to allow themselves to be "captured" and enslaved to infiltrate and sow rebellion from within. But that's different than "you lose all your stuff". Then the players can arrange to stow their good stuff and have replacement stuff to be taken from them so that when they do escape, they can get their real stuff back.
It's the rails that we are disagreeing with, not the concept.
Easy there big Dragon :)
I don't have a dog in this fight, was just sharing an example I could think of where it worked and what I did. Heck, it really wasn't my idea, except I saw that pattern in his feat list and learned of his desire. Good times.
Total aside, I realized I did it twice in that campaign. The PCs were trying to make political alliances and the PC ruler decided to trying wooing a female NPC who has been an antagonist to the party for a really long time. I thought she had bad guy tatooed on her forehead fairly obvisouly. (The fellow players/PCs were also questioning this decision, but go figure.) So I had the ruler PC get kidnapped and be slowly tortured to death, which forced the other PCs to save him. What was fun is that there were several NPCs to make these marriage alliances with and I had one who would have assisted the PCs tell them where the player was being held. The player who's PC was captured, took control of that NPC in the rescue. Everyone had fun that session too, made the female NPC (Now co-ruler) that much cooler and it made my bad guys much more bad.
This was a spontaneous one that made sense to me. (This group of villains were actually attempted to unify the world beneath one banner, so turning a ruler as opposed to killing him would have served there purpose much better. Silly evil NPCs should realize that Player's don't feel pain.)
PFS is a good option, heck even when I am tired of DMing my main campaign and no one in the group is in a spot to run; I will do a PFS Module. They are affordable, pretty easy to figure out, and I find them relaxing. It is like being a marathon runner and then suddenly going for a short jog.
I did it once. The Character in question was level 15. He was forced into a voluntary surrender, as an NPC they were protecting was caught by these dudes he was going to end up dead. He surrendered as a distraction. (It was in a civilized location, so continued fighting would also have a similar result.)
I set-up this scenario because this PC took several feats and abilities that would make this kind of situation interesting for him. When I asked why he took those, he said so if this happened he could use them. I asked if he wanted to use them, he replied he did, so I gave him an opportunity.
It ended in a three-way party split. He fought to escape, a part of the group went to free him, and another part continued with the plan/protected the NPC. The group had fun. I kept switching between them like some sort of cheesy show. I would switch to the other group right when something dramatic was going to happen. Good times, but I had player buy in, so that was why it worked.
You said you like plot, well death can be part of a plot. I have had characters die in my plot heavy campaigns, I even had a TPK in one. I just planned for it, so it gets incorporated in. For instance, I knew a TPK would happen, my worlds are sandboxy and the players were getting reckless, when it did, it let me introduce an NPC that would have long lasting effects on the end game.
There are also spells that alleviate death and have mechanical penalties. Point them out, get them used to the idea.
Or introduce Hero Points. That way, kill'em whenever, they can use their points to deal with that issue, plus feel kick butt about it.
We have a problem that our group is tooo big. We are around 9 players, with just one person who is THAT guy, but he is younger than the rest of us and it feels like an age thing. We have four people who can run a game and me who likes to GM. We just discussed breaking the group in half because my high level pathfinder game, while fun, takes a LONG time to run. Also, we are feeling like jerks having to say no to other people to join, especially when we have 5 people who can run a game.
I hope we survive the split, but other than that this group has been together for four years.
Bro you can split the group and still game together. I had a GM and 7 players for my STAP campaign and it's just too much. We split the group into two groups of 5 players + GM, with overlap between the groups for the individuals who want to make the commitment to play every Friday instead of every other Friday, and it's worked out great. Every so often, we'll have a one-off for the whole group, but since that's not regular, it's much easier on whoever GMs it than an every week large party. Each group is running through an AP at about the same pace. When we finish APs, we change GMs for the next pair of APs.
Old Group: CB (GM), HB, MW, AT, DN, TK, JK, JO
New Group 1 (1st/3rd Fridays): CB (GM), AT, HB, MW, DN, JO
New Group 2 (2nd/4th Fridays): AT (GM), CB, HB, MW, TK, JK
Thank you for that break down. I will present that. There is a second part I did not get into, typing in haste, and that is geography. We are getting spread-out and there is a geographical split forming. (Two hour drives for some people. Yech)
I was planning on purposing someone run a campaign straight for a couple of months. I DMed straight for three years every other Friday and it would have been nice to cycle more.
So.... I have been toying with the idea of making an Aldori Swordlord and have spent a week trying to make the concept viable. I agree with you on every single one of the "traps" and have now decided to go with a strength build.
I was looking at the Crowd Pleaser, as it is closest to what I was looking for, but I am confused by the part of the guide that recommends Maneuver Master in order to tack on disarms to a full attack...
The disarms will be at -2 due to the Flurry of Maneuvers and it says that you use your Monk level in place of your BAB. Monk level will never be higher than 1 so you start with a -1 to your roll? Combat maneuvers are hard enough to land already. Is this really worth it? Am I missing something?
Unless it was changed, I believe that you use your BAB progression for Flurry of Blows.
We have a problem that our group is tooo big. We are around 9 players, with just one person who is THAT guy, but he is younger than the rest of us and it feels like an age thing. We have four people who can run a game and me who likes to GM. We just discussed breaking the group in half because my high level pathfinder game, while fun, takes a LONG time to run. Also, we are feeling like jerks having to say no to other people to join, especially when we have 5 people who can run a game.
I hope we survive the split, but other than that this group has been together for four years.
The big disconnect is there are two definitions: "fair = everyone treated equally" and "fair = everyone being treated as they deserve to be treated based on past conduct". I don't think there is really a wrong definition here, except to say the former is an ideal, and the latter tends to be the reality of things. This is in large part due to human nature and our tendency to, sometimes subconsciously, inject personal bias into things.
Generally a good post and one I agree with, except one part in this section. Yes, I am going to quibble, but it is an important one.
Fair = everyone treated equally should only be the ideal setting when one meets a stranger, once one engages in a social interaction with a stranger this stance becomes detrimental. By subscribing to those stance "Fair = Everyone treated equally" you are saying that actions don't matter. That all actions should have the same response. The guy who punches you in the face should be treated the same as the guy who shakes your hand. This does not work.
Well yes, treating everyone equally regardless of past conduct is an ideal, not a realism. I mean, even if it is not as overt as a guy punching you in the face, people will subconsciously adjust their treatment of others due to past events. Potentially even things that don't really matter or register on a conscious level, such as manner of speech, dress, posture, etc., can have an impact. A complete "I treat everyone equally" philosophy is something that someone can aspire to, and even have relative success in achieving beyond the initial encounter (barring extreme conduct by other parties involved), but I view it as an idealistic impossibility due to human nature.
Sorry, I misread what you wrote. I thought you were saying it is ideal as in, the best way of doing things, not an ideal as in a way of thinking of things. Then disregard my quibble and thanks for taking the time to clarify.
In an unrelated note, we can maintain civility to people who are jerks. That does not mean we have to be accommodating or nice.
The big disconnect is there are two definitions: "fair = everyone treated equally" and "fair = everyone being treated as they deserve to be treated based on past conduct". I don't think there is really a wrong definition here, except to say the former is an ideal, and the latter tends to be the reality of things. This is in large part due to human nature and our tendency to, sometimes subconsciously, inject personal bias into things.
Generally a good post and one I agree with, except one part in this section. Yes, I am going to quibble, but it is an important one.
Fair = everyone treated equally should only be the ideal setting when one meets a stranger, once one engages in a social interaction with a stranger this stance becomes detrimental. By subscribing to those stance "Fair = Everyone treated equally" you are saying that actions don't matter. That all actions should have the same response. The guy who punches you in the face should be treated the same as the guy who shakes your hand. This does not work.
I get what Ciretose is saying about fair and I think people are really oversymplifying it. I know Ciretose is a probation officer, I am a social worker and dealing with the concept of "fair" is part of boundary setting that is required by ethical standards of our professions. I have to maintain a certain level of training on these issues and topics.
If you treat everyone equally, disregarding behaviors of the person, the past history of the person in relating with you, and the needs of the person then you are being unfair.
For instance. I treat my wife, an adult woman one way, I treat adult women, who are my friends, another way. If I treated my adult female friends and my wife the same way, I am willing to be that my wife would find that very unfair. (It would also be creepy).
What makes an interaction fair is if your reaction and behaviors are consistent across people based upon the behaviors they display and the relationship you have (relationships are based on the historic trends of behaviors that this person has had towards you). If someone is being abuisve towards you and someone is being friend towards you, I hope you are reacting different between these two individuals. Not only is it fair, but it is also healthy.
(I know that oversimplyfied some of this, but my brain is partially melted from reading commitment documentation. Legal Jargon, Medical Jargon, and Psychiatric Jargon all balled up into 36 page documents. Good times!)
This is a bad example. Your wife is not equal to your friends bt her very nature. None of the players are inherently more deserving than the others.
In other words your friends are in a way interchangeable. You could not exchange a friend for a wife. Your players may all be unique as people, but they all share the rank of "player". There's no "super player whom I like better" and if there is, that's a problem.
I assume you treat your female friends, basically, the same accounting for how they wish to be treated. If Karen...
Dude, how do you think affairs and whatnot start?
Your premise about the "player" rank assumes that there are no other social connections between us, that we do not form social connections upon interacting, and that we do not make judgements based upon social schema.
