Raymond Lambert's page

I feel a little silly about it now but I recall many years ago wanting to eliminate another PC because he was taking the vast majority of all the gold we came across for himself only. Acutually, come to think.of it, I a very much expect to get Wealth By Level, WBL and would still get.really ti ked off about it being askewed today.

Little background, it was a White Wolf Dark Ages campaign. I was told.it would be vampire chronicle and bought said book. At the game, I then learned the ST/GM was useing a variety of monsters. One player made a werewolf in a group of mostly vampires. In this system, werewolves majorly kick vamp ass. I felt like the player was useing this knowledge of how heavily the math game mechanics were on his side and that he was a bully during the game. The player was cool but I felt that character had to go. I tried to make non aggression packs with others and was a little surprised that they were not well received, though nobody openly made trouble about it either. It slowed me down more but I still did not think.they would.actually come to his aid anyway and stilled planed to make a move at the right time.nobody seemed interested. I tried to build resores , a painstaking process as the ww took so many but I felt sure, he, the pc had to go, not the player. I grew tired.of.how often the group cancelled and how much time was wasted b!%*!~*@ing instead of playing. Especially how much time was wasted by people who did not.game and knew.we gamed at that time but came overanywY just to BS. A 2 hour commute EACH WAY did not help much either. I was dissatisfied with the chronicle (all the vs time, not nearly as much as the mo.ey/bully issue) and withdrew from it before I felt the character was ready to make a move. I still believe I would have made that move if I stuck in that chronicle.

You may also want to consider playing a Psion or Wilder, both of them are Psionic classes. Both can pick blaster powers = spells. Psionics do not have arcane spell failure so no worry there. They are not proficient in amor though, so they would suffer the armor check penalty on attack rolls, though that has no effect on area effects. I think they are much better blasters because they can easily use the psionic point system to choose both a shape like a ball, line, or cone, and energy type to suite the needs on hand. The vancian spell slot system is like trying to fit square pegs into round holes when you need to match both energy type vs resistance and immunity and a shape that will not hurt your allies.

Lastly, be careful walking around with a low strength blaster in heavy armor plus other gear. Depending on how weak you are, you might not be slowed down to 20 feet, you might only be able to move 5!

I concur with those who speak highly of it for 3/4 bab characters.

I noticed the young bear cubs are scared in 4/5. That is the name of a spell, not a condition. The spell refers to frightened, that means they would try to run away. What challenge is that? Other than maybe a knowledge nature check to know, give the cubs room to run away so the mama leaves you alone. aren't the cubs supposed add to the fighting difficulty if the pcs do not take the NPC away? At the moment, I am inclined to make the cubs shaken instead of frightened. Thoughts?

Running a game this week. I like the idea of collecting some secrete rolls from the players before the adventure begins, especially the knowledge, sense motive, and willpower saves. These sort of rolls are not always good for everyone at the table to know are being thrown around. Think of how bad the meta gaming gets when a sense motive roll is asked for. What worries me is that if a player has a reroll, shouldn't they be allowed to know what type of roll it is before deciding to use that reroll? I would expect to know what I was rolling for when I have a re roll available. So should I just not ask the players to write down a few rolls on a chart for me before the game so I can reference it at the right time. Advice?

Running a game this week. I like the idea of collecting rolls before the adventure begins, especially the knowledge or sense motive rolls. What worries me is that if a player has a reroll, shouldn't they be allowed to know what type of roll it is before deciding to use that reroll? I would expect to know what I was rolling for when I have a reroll available.

I think this would be good to know in general, not just this mod. I am going to open a thread about this elsewhere.

I would like to do 10 or so episodes of pod casting on both Pathfinder and 3.5. Maybe a bonus episode or two on board games and/or White Wolf.

I am strongly against doing a solo cast but would still be happy to do it with a different guest host each episode. So if you want to get your 2 cents out there, let me know by PM or replying to this post.

Currently, I was thinking about calling it Fair Play. Earlier today I thought it might be funny to subtitle it My 2 Cents Edition. Then I thought that might wave people off thinking it was specialized towards 2Ed or AD&D. What do you all think?

Willing to travel to midtown ManhAttan?
We host PAthfinder Society games every Wednesday night. We try to begin around 7pm. We try to run one low table.and one high table each week but sometimes we only have a judge for one table. Find us on the free to join Yahoo groups under Pathfinder_NYC. There you can sign up for a seat at specific games.

Raymond

I think lesser restoration would take care of the fatigue.

What I am curious about is the lack of dreaming. Anyone know if it us true that people can go crazy from lack of dreaming? Or is that.more about the fatigue of not sleeping?

No, just saw the math would.not work, that could only.get a 13 con, not tough enough to survive.

Maybe lower wisdom? No, still not good enough, the headband will already be too Damn expensive with the PF item stat boosting system forcing all mental and physical boosters into one cateGory. each. Depending on a headband for bonus speis too expensive. Way too much more when we cannot have a society legal +4wis/+2cha item. No, an ioun stone.is not a cost effective solution either.

Lower int? No way! I don't want to fail The Paracountess!

Oh and here is the kicker, as an evil diety, I would.have the next to good for.nothing channel neg. Nope, no point in wasting my time.any more with this idea.

While clerics getting channel energy for turn undead was awesome, the c is worse in melee than in 3.5.

The loss of heavy armor for a feat starved class was very costly. How often do you expect to strike when you keep.having to heal yourself? Even if you spend the feat or dip one or twolevels of another class. One handed weapons will mean you do negligible damAge.

Power attack gets you nothing but worse results for a mediocre strength & 3/4 class that now misses more often than hits.Byhe time you cn truely afford to.power attack and reap therewards, you would be exiting the level range of society play. Or do you expect to magically roll 15+ consistently? Or do you think it will be "fun & exciting" to gamble with that strength/BAB while your companions die.around you.

Do not plan on buying anthing expensive with a 7 int. With so few skill points, expect to fail most of your faction missions and have little access to anything but cheap junk found on chronicles. You can be the person people laugh and point fingers at when.they say he has to buy loot off of chronicle listings. Eeasyround that would be to either play the easy Andoran, I mean ASSASSINfaction. Or figure out whatother people ate playing and hope to ride their coattails.

I am pretty tired of recycling the very few classes I like in society play that are legal so I thought I might try a cleric just.for.the.sake of.playing something different. I thought something like:

extra channel and toughness, w-fo @ 3
God Zursvaater LE = LN as PC, greatsword
Picking 2 of 3; fire, trickery, war subdomain
Str16+2hu=1
Dex7
Con
Int 12
Wisdom 15
Cha 12
HE SHOULD DIE TO HIS FIRST RECEIVING END OF A FULL ATTACK. I will make sure never to foolishly walk him upto a full attacker.

With conquest and slavery as his portfolio, he should fit in nicely in Cheliax. Yes, he is allowed to do his thing in Cheliax. He knows how to play by the rules, so he knows where and when not to overstep any bounds.

Wow! Even though I have some disdain for PF melee clerics in society play(the strength need to make them worth while hitters and int for faction missions is too expensive to afford a 12 dex and both higher wis/cha so important to the class) I somehow got excited to play this now!

You are looking at the definition of int penalty where? A book with spell casters but no bomb makers, the Core Rulebook? Consider expanding you definition to include logical steps with new rules in later books.

I almost never use the bombs, I take the class for the discoveries and extracts. One thing the int penalty might mess you up with is the loss of a bonus spell or the level of extractyou can make. I always try to get around it by picking an.hour duraTion spell in the spot that bonus extract would be. Then I make sure to use it before drinking the mutagen.

I would.like to see it but I would prefer to see the book on the green planet with Psionics first, reason being, I love Psionics.

I like the look of cleavage armor with a wall of force protecting the supposed opening.
Glamor armor could also look like something it is not.

I would.find this to.be a waste if time. Think of how many things could be Searchef in the room and how much time that would take.

I believe something similar to the concentration checks when riding or on a boat in storming weather would be included.

I look forward to supporting that kick starter!

I feel that adventures, adventure seeds, side treks are very important to supporting the system. Give the GMs material to work with and the players will sit down to play. Keep the GM supplied with good adventures and the players will keep coming. Look how well adventures worked out for Paizo.

Raymond M. Lambert

Are you sure he was not giving out gold or platinum when he was suppose to give out silver or copper?

It staggers me that you claim these people have been playing for 20 years and they did not have red flags being thrown all over by at least half the people on how absurdly overpowered the gear was.

I concur that vital strike cannot be used with a full attack or any other full action like spring attack. Even though I hear an adventure path made use of combining those two, it was a mistake that got past editing in the hope of creating an interesting combat.

10 are weak characters with stats no better and sometimes worse than even simple NPCs
These characters will still be strong from levels and gear. This point buy would be like playing on hard mode.
15 is the same used by the iconics and I recommend the minimum for PCs.
20 is heroic as in expect the pcs to be the equal and often the better of every NPC stat wise. This is also the number used by Society Organized Play. I encourage this amount.
25 is uber power.

Have you pointed out to him that it happened to you too? That when you were DM, there were times when someone else critted and the fight ende
Have you pointed out that anyone with a dps build.might be doing the same thing.?
Can the two of you admit you madeake.allowing advanced firearms in the first place?
Have you pointed out your pc weaknesses?
Had he considered when a weak member easily goes down, others have to spend resources healing?
Are you doing 5 minute workdays with you doingall those buffs in a single fight beforecombat even breaks out?
You are remembering to take the feat taxes to avoid fireibg into melee ans the other feat tax to avoid firing through cover of an ally?
Maybe the two ox you need to recognize you should be playing with the wealgh by level table instead of the adventure guide thY Lilly assumesyou will miss some of the stuff.
Your group should have known better to think.you can let a crafting feat justify half price items for everyone instead of just the person who took the feaT.

The 1st problem is that Paizo failed to use the wording in 3.x (think it was in the monster manuals) that explained in those books that for the purpose of reach, the second diagonal did not count as or at 15 feet, but the 3rd,5th and so on odd numbered squares did count as 10 instead of 5. The second problem is that Paizo has failed to do a good job of correcting the error. I do not know if the problem is if that portion of the old rules are not open licens or if it is something else. Maybe they do not want to change the text in the books so much that it would be a pain to rework the lines of text.

In the better rules of reach, where you would just simply be able to attack there, all of those would provoke.

In society where you have to hope a GM is reasonable, expect table variation. I would expect most of them to say no. That comes from a society GM that uses many PC with reach himself. I find these actions that provoke do not happen often. Expect the GM to decide you do not threaten those squares and thus they do not provoke in those squares and they do whatever theynwant or they say it does provoke, in that case do not expect the NPCs to do such an action in those squares.

A good guideline to follow not to have any one item worth more than 1/2 the total wealth by level of the PC.

Thanks for the advice, now let us see if it can be used considering the faction cutting campaign leadership says is up for this week.

Please begin the podcast by stating which factions are going to go, and or have a shake up.

I would hate to see The Paracountess go. If she did, I would hope to be able to do anything I could to restore her to power. I am not even sure if I would want her promoted if that meant I no longer got to see and hear from her.

Hope all the hard work I did for Osirion pays off.

"Do you know what the last Blue Dragon said before he was killed?"
"AAARRRRGGGGG!!!!" With hand motions grabbing at the chest:)
I stole that from Babylon 5. Something about the Centauri killing the last of a sentient, dual evolution, competing race in their worlds history.

Recently, I said "You never forget your first." One of the ladies at the table said she wished she could.

Isn't this exactly what a ninja would do? To be more ninja-ing-ly:)

I guess it would be a good thing not to waste space printing a extra feat for extra ninja trick. Is that also what you are getting at?

Best case, my willingness to try something different leads to new fun.
Middle case, I rebuild using level one rules.
Worst case, I lose a few scenarios to a pc I decide to never play again.

I only want to make a lantern lodge pc for their trait called Weapon Style(page 16 of the V.4.3 Organized Play Guide) granting proficiency in a monk weapon. Any suggestions and explanations why that weapon is so good will be very appreciated. I may be way out off on this but the campaign coordinator for society play said he may remove one or more factions from the campaign, so I want to grab this while it is still available. It may not get grandfathered in, but I want to try.

Also, does the faction have specific skills that are common in their faction missions or classes that tend to work very well or poorly for that faction? I am not fond of the monk, ninja, samurai classes so I am more interested in learning if any class is particularly poor for the faction. I want to stress my dislike for the mentioned classes is strictly based on not enjoying them mechanically wise, I am NOT one of those people who wine about eastern themes in those people's western themed campaigns.

Thanks all.

Raymond M. Lambert

I want an armband with the Cheliax faction symbol.

I was just going to post about trying to grab a faction trait before it gets removed. I doubt it would e as simple as that but now we will see.

I wonder in Know Direction will have problems with too many people trying to download at the same time due to this form of info release.

Off to make that Lantern Lodge post, I hink they are on the chopping block. Anyone else wan to guess ans predict who goes ? I will be soarly saddened if I no longer get to continue to work for the Paracountess!

Forgot to add, I think this thread is funny in how it points out that the marked mechanic of 4e is pretty nice. If they do not take on the tank, they suffer a consequence. Would love to see the marked mechanic in Pathfinder. Anyone got a link for me?

Four of these PCs can heal but nowhere as effectively as a cleric. I would be more worried about that than the lack of a tank.

If the players each memorize a cure mod, a costly resource for these class lists, when someone gets hit hard, like a crit, there should be someone that can reach the wounded alley and heal to make things less dangerous for that fellow. Problem is, those casters might be better off finishing the fight, especially considering what they could have gotten for that level of spell.

If you can, I think each of those healing able casters should try to grab a wand of CMW and later CSW. I know they are extremely expensive, especially for several of those PCs to each get one, that is why I repeat, if you can, get some with only a few charges left so they are not so super expensive each. Convince the group they should all collectively put in money for them so slightly ease the cost. Think carefully who should carry them or it when you can only afford one. I would recommend it pass from player to player by who has the least spells or weakest attacks. Be warned that if the same player has to spend their actions almost always healing(spells per day or wands, whatever), they will likly get a little resentful. Try to spread that chore out.

I recently played with another player who had a skill focused rogue and I am not kidding when I say 95% of his combat contributions were the GM being generous, not realizing how much harder it should have been to do stuff, or making up stuff. He had one skill mission where he was integral. Player wise, he contributed more to the story than my tactical play style did.

I want to remind people it is much more difficult to deal sneak attack damage with a ranged weapon, especially trying to do it more than once per the same combat.

I believe at least some spells do simply let you pick a point in space as specified by distance, angle, ect

Area effect stuff should be able to go where the player wants. The real question is weather or not you can trust the player to not meta game the placement. You could argue it is fair based on last seen and doing so next turn right after but each round that goes by would make it harder and harder to know if it is gambling the spell is cast where they want it or not or if the player is looking at the map. Remember perception also includes hearing, scent, feeling a blast come at you from a direction. It might justify coming up with new rules about slight misplacing area of effect stuff. Maybe one square off for shot, 3-5 for beyond short but within medium. How big or far away for long range? Of course, they might still get it right. Use wisdom or intelligence?

I am shocked I do so well with my summoners.
very poor AC
Mediocre HP
Poor saves for the summoner:
Fort weak, Ref weak, even with will strong, who can really justify much wisdom to it for summoners?
It is a miracle they have not been killed or at least very often(it happens sometimes) knocked out.
My guess is that I was lucky with battlefield placement of my gnome summoner, makers call and transposition help with that.
I think the reach weapon my 1/2 elf uses leads GMs to seek other targets rather than provoke with

The eidolon itself has poor HP as it does not have a high con and less HD than PC level.
The eidolon has terrible saves since they are based on HD, which again is less then PC level. Who in their right mind would put a cloak of resistance on the eidolon instead of the summoner(well, maybe when scouting)? Alternate item slots like in 3.5 can help this but I do not find many of GMs besides myself who encourage the backwards compatibility aspect of the system. Most in my exp prefer Paizo or 3.5 exclusive to each other, not many are cool with mixing the two.
Unless you spend a bunch of points on: evolutions, items(valuable shared slots) and spells/actions, the eidolon does not have much AC either.

Maybe a good proposal for the summoner would be to have it require two days or a week to re summon a dead eidolon. Or have some sort of stat or level damage that is expensive to recover with each death. The fear of having to go a while without might give people less of a carefree attitude or willingness to use them as scouts and experiments. At the same time, prevent them from just using the spell to summon them again sooner.

Guilty of skipping some of this but had to add. Spell component pouches and holy symbols are so cheap, no spell caster should be without at least three of them. Doubt my DM will let this work in the future but when guards dis nit let my cleric ans another cleric visit someone with our holy symbols for fear of casting, we ahouwed him the part of our character sheets that said holy symbol x3 right then and there so he saw it was prewritten , not five minutes later, and we each took the openly displayed one off, took another out of a belt pouch and handed the 2 of them over and when we needed it, we took out our third with a move action that provokes, but after a 5 foot step into safe squares. Maybe dumb guards will slip up agin or maybe not. Always carry at least three, if not more. Nor all of them should.be easily seen on the outside.

I was distasteful of so many of them being +dex/-str. I wanted something to make a worth while mounted/lancer summoner but find all the races other than gnome poor choices for such. Even the gnome would be poor for such, just not as bad as others. I guess the ARG is the solution. Even than, only with a DM that allows such and then you still run the risk of the menu build being too nitch to be fair.

Poison is too easy to pass the DC for when you can actually afford them.
It is also a pain for the GM to recall the new modifiers.
Poison does not actually kill, HP damage does.
Apply the alchemical items to your weapons.

I do not have time to audit players. I would really like to, but I do not have the time. I do not feel many GMs would feel they had the time. I would rather the rule not be made than made and failed to be inforced.

I would be very disappointed if we needed 5-15 minutes to finish the game and lost them because the GM spent time auditing several players. I really wish I did have the time to audit PCs but not at the cost of games not being finished. Cheaters deserve to get caught and corrected but at everyone else's expense? Better to check that player after the game maybe?

I would dislike having to use a race boon within a year of it being released. Especially if I receive the boon a month before that boon was to be deactivated from rotation. I might not have an interest in it now or may really enjoy playing another low level character. I would not want to be told my race boon was no longer accepted because I waited two years to play a game with it.

I do like the concept on some level though, like issue boon A for a year or two and then offer boon B for a year or so before giving out boon C. Just make sure that boon never gets deactivated except for stuff like character level retirement or an extreme disruption to the campaign.

I say spend the prestige on stuff to avoid getting killed, if you are stocked up, then begin to save.

Potions(so anyone can use them) of 3rd level spells:
Protection from energy, Cure critical wounds, Fly, Gaseous Form, displacement

Some will argue between CLW and infernal healing, I think they should both be acquired.

I hate spellcasters who insist on blowing their load in the first two combats and act surprised when they cannot rest before having to take on the 3rd and maybe 4th combat of the day. Especially when they never spent money or prestige on wands/scrolls to continue fighting. Most especially when this happens to the same player at least twice and they are still surprised they can run out of spells after tossing them around carelessly.

To notice movement? Is that about moving from one square to another? What about actions like reloading a crossbow or pulling back a bow to fire? I would think the act of attacking would also count as movement for that turn, even if the player claimed they freeze after the attack while still invisible from greater invisibility. Anyone got answers for those?

Do I understand correctly that he lets you play any race/template without adjusting ECL? That sounds like the GM was inviting disaster.

Some of these do not fit right with me but I enjoy pondering the options presented. I look forward to viewing more of this.

I mostly concur with SlimGauge. Only difference would be that the Dwarven Waraxe would be treated the same way as the Bastard sword. There may be other weapons outside the core that also require more adjucating.

Are you talking about the prestige earned by the now dead PC or from a new PC?

There is a big difference between a magic bow +3 and a mighty strength +3 rating bow. The magic one would be way too expensive to buy via prestige, the other can be done. Not 100% sure but I think that type can also be made out of Darkwood and still fall under the 750 limit of those prestige points.

You may not use the resources of one of your PCs for another of your PCs.

I tend to be one if those players that prefer to spend group time in combat rather than haggling at the shop. Fact if the matter is, sitting in real life waiting for your turn to shop in the shop specializing in your class gear us boating. Consider doing an email or live chat one day during the week if you want to do that.

One thing I find might get a player's attention is when they are offered an adventurer's special. It is discounted in some way to make it worth the players time. Something like a group of useful healing supplies, various potions ans scrolls sold together at a minor discount, say maybe 425 worth at the cost of only 400. Making several allotments can also get the players attention because now they have to decide which is right for them. Try not to make more than 2 or 3 choices available, that can bog things down. Also consider having one non perfect item each week available at a discount. Something that has some minor penalty to it like a sword that always booms when drawn or a suite of armor with a greater than usual armor check penalty. A crossbow with tracers fire.

Another choice is to.have the store person act as a gossip. Sometimes it may be useful Intel, others just local news and rumors.

Have the shopkeeper murdered for selling paladin(cheaper) scrolls of lesser restoration. Now the competition could not let that continue. Maybe the adventurers will value the next shopkeeper they find with good deals.

I think a player who wants to play with kid gloves should.let thegm know privately. I would not want others feeling unchallenged. Nor would I want them to begin to take advantage of such by doing stuff like telling that player to take point to spring traps or suck up AoO figuring they might get knocked out but not outright killed.

Maybe what is really broaken is how weak the cote rule nook options are. Maybe if they were more up to snuff, less people would cry foul when another option works just as well.

For example, some say the book of 9 Swords was a fix for how weak classes like the fighter/monk/rogue were.

I dislike the idea that someone can begin casting a spell before you and you can finish yours in response to interrupt theirs. Without rules about some spells having shorter casting times, u really dislike this, except for maybe readied quickened spells.

I think he wanted a d10 weapon in one hand, without the problems of that weapon that covers the whole Hans, forgot the name of it. The bastard sword also has a better frit range I think.