Robert Carter 58's page

Heck, I'm still playing 3.5. Unfortunately, sorry Pathfinder fans, Pathfinder isn't COMPLETELY backwards compatible. So I never switched over. I have hundreds and hundreds of dollars in a perfectly playable 3.5 game that my sizable group enjoys playing. If I could just smoothly import Pathfinder supplements and classes into my 3.5 game, I'd buy more Paizo stuff. But I can't, so I enjoy the material I have- which is still more material than I'll ever have time to actually use.

5th EDITION! Give me a break.

I almost NEVER take profession skills as a player. I'm a professional in real life. As a character, I'm the Barbarian who would forge his own kingdom in blood, the Wizard who will create a mystic gate and wrest knowledge from the gods, a prophet cleric and miracle worker who will forge a new temple to his lost deity. So I'm going to take ranks in Profession: Baker? Yeah, right. I'm an epic hero, damnit. Or at least on my way there.

I have a friend of mine who plays this way. Always with the profession ranks. He cooks, he cleans. He's a scribe, a smith. He knows how to make a house. Whoopdie doo. That's now how I play. I cast spells, and wield weapons, I make friends and seduce beautiful women. I fly on winged gryphons. It's a fantasy my friends, and I suck the life out of every second I play, and I'm not sewing the buttons on my tunic with Profession: tailor. My two coppers.

Karlgamer,

You are correct in that the player's intelligence will always have a bearing on real life. We play the game during the course of real life, so their knowledge and skill with the game will impact that. This is similar to pointing out that your ability to see will have an impact on your ability to drive a car IMO.

Here's a scenario:
I'm GM'ing for my nephew, it's a solo campaign.
He's 10 years old and of average intelligence (goes to a normal school, not in any special classes)
He's playing a wizard with a 30 Intelligence who is 50 years old.

Which of the following is the most prudent course of action:
-pretend that the intelligence of an average 10 year old is the near pinnacle of intelligence of mortals in my campaign world
-treat the wizard as if he made all the mistakes a normal 10 year old would make
-give my nephew information I might not to another player in the same situation to help simulate his high intelligence

Irontruth- you're stuck in a bad situation there no matter what you do: If you DON'T intervene and help out, you've got a 50 year old 30 int wizard who can't act in character with the int and maturity such a character should have. If you DO intervene, your nephew will likely feel that you're railroading his PC. My suggestion would be to give your nephew a younger wizard character with a closer to normal int score. Why would a 10 year old be playing a 50 year old? If you're set on this path... don't intervene, it will just ruin his fun, and you'll have to be content to have a 50 year old wizard who acts as if he's 10. If it's a combat centered game, it probably won't matter anyway.

Alignment is annoying. So I play Neutral whenever possible. Or Chaotic Good otherwise- because it's "good" in a "I do good in the way I like to do good without following orders or authority". Neutral is easiest. I think Alignment is kind of corny and for children- sorry. When reading a novel, you don't hear a novelist refer to a character's alignment- why should our character's be held to lesser standards? So I ignore it whenever possible as a player and as a GM save for game mechanics purposes- this spell is "evil". I like absolute evil and good for angels and demons and so forth, but mortals should not be bound to such standards/categories. The alignment debates on the boards are ridiculous. As if good and evil can be defined, much less law and chaos.

Jeez. Wow, a parrot must be incredibly unbalancing to cause so much drama. Not directed to the poster, but to rulebound GMs who would enforce such nonsense on players.

I have to say, when I want to play a wizard/sorcerer type, I WANT to be a Blaster. It's because when I play D&D, I don't play D&D to play D&D... I try to have a "cinematic" experience. I want to do something similar to what movie and comic book wizards do. Which is blast the S^%& out of their enemies, more often than not, dispel stuff, or banish them, or ward them... cast illusions from time to time. But I'm not much interested in battlefield control "god wizard" tactics. Basically, if it's cool, and dramatic... I want it. Of course, it has to be effective. Does it have to be the most effective thing on the board. No, it doesn't.

Of course, I'm starting to get a little bored of D&D. My group is still on 3.5 and my PC was running in fear for 7 rounds. 7 rounds! About one hour of game time, I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Bored out of my brain. When I run mutants and masterminds, things don't go down this way.... battles are quickly resolved...

From reading these forums I've come to the conclusion that most GMs are Richards.

Using a bit of Hyperbole, this is the game Many GMs on this board I think would want to run. (Of course what the players want is inconsequential)

*Any race is allowed, as long as it provides the character with absolutely no benefits.
*Classes are right out. I mean, they all allow the characters to do stuff. SO everyone can only be a commoner.
*Stats are another sticky problem. All stats have to start at 8. and you only have a point buy of 5. I mean a 15 point buy is so overpowered. Also no stats above a 12 are allowed. Characters are not supposed to be able to shine after all. they would have a chance of being able to do things on a roll below a 20.
*HPs are fine. They need them to survive the monsters the characters are having to face.
*Spells. Spells are right out. I mean they can cause damage, or do things, other than slog thru whatever encounter the Gm planned 5 seconds before the game starts.
* Equipment: The only equipment the characters are allowed are a broken pointy stick, and rags for clothes. If they actual weapons they might be able to hurt things. Even KILL the precious GMS monsters.
* Alignment: No evil allowed. But ANYTHING a character does except feed orphans and pet puppies is pure evil, and will be tracked. BUt good acts aren't no matter how big they are. And heaven forbid you attack the monsters attacking you. That's pure 9th level Hell evil!

From reading threads on these boards. Combining many of the gripes, b$@!@es, and whining. This is (with a lot of Hyperbole), the game many want. If this hits a little to close to home, don't flame me, examine your play style, and MAYBE Pathfinder is not the game for you if this is truly the game you want to play.

I agree with your points.... a lot of people whine here about EVERYTHING. Whiny whiny whiny posts about how everything is overpowered. I find as GM few things are actually overpowered. Its all about how you incorporate stuff into your game. Of course, I'm a great GM.

Ugh, the alignment system. It doesn't work for any character as complex as a real human being or a sufficiently fleshed out psychologically complex fictional one in most cases. It's just corny. I make most of my PCs Neutral so I don't have to deal with GM nonsense.

My view on optimization goes hand in hand with concept. a) what is my concept and b) how do I use the rules to realize this concept. So in 3.5 I wanted a Conan type fighter that could do whatever Conan could do. Did I make a Barbarian. Well sure I did... for one level. The rest was Warblade, with Able Learner so I could buy all those stealth skills without paying for them cross-class, and Track. I was trying to make Conan. And so on for all my characters. Concept, Rules, optimiztion AND Roleplay. No problems. (Actually, I get to play this dude next week... so we'll see how it goes!)

Stefan, this is some tedious stuff you've cooked up here. Yikes. To be sure, most of the the halflings should be fighters and thieves in a given game setting and then the halfling wizard should be the odd ball. That's the charm of playing such a character... It's AGAINST type. Wow. I'd hate to play in game you're GMing. Or a halfling Paladin. Yes, such a character is perhaps the ONLY ONE in existance in a game world. That's how I like to imagine such things anyway.

Yes, of course the reality is that many players across the world have their own versions of halfling paladins, because everyone likes to buck the tropes. But let the tropes be the tropes, and then buck them, and everyone can be merry. To say one shouldn't buck the tropes is just odd. That's the whole essence of fantasy, and heroism, to be the person who goes beyond what is expected of him, outside the norm, who does the thing that nobody else would, could or should do...

96) Roll percentage for psionics and have a chance to get free bonus powers. Awesome.
97) If you want to be a bard, you have to be a Fighter and a thief first, not so awesome.
98) Characters in your campaign had titles like "Grandfather of assassins" and "Grandmaster of Flowers" "Ranger Lord"
99) Rangers cast magic-user spells.
100) I had a crush on Glasya... she was hot.

I want that partially because I like psionics, and partially because it would really piss those naysayers off. People with that "I don't like it so nobody should have it" mentality must be annoyed and punished as often, as hard, and as cruelly as possible! :P

+1

I'm sure there will be psionics. Plenty of settings had psionics and guns and worked just fine. Greyhawk did, at least had optional rules for it. There were gods of mental ability and power (Xan Yae, Zuoken), and also a god whose paladins and clerics used guns (Murlynd). The setting will be just fine with psionics, it is a different flavor than magic and spells. Sure it's sci-fish... um, so what. Plenty of the classic tales of sword and sorcery weren't afraid to get a little sci-fi mixed in with their magic. For "purist" GMs (I pity your players) you can always leave it out.

The fix:

I guess I would do the following:

1) It's been mentioned before, and it's an important first step - give rogues back the ability to SA with alchemical potions

2) Allow SA against concealed opponents

3) Better, more useful talents. Talents that allow the Rogue to do really unique and useful things in or out of combat. Here's a few quick ideas:

- A tumble ability allowing full speed when tumbling and a bonus to tumble through enemy squares

- Ability to hide where there is no cover and/or while being observed

- Ability to hide as a swift action

- Ability to do a 5'step as an immediate action

Just some thoughts.

I like these, I'd add something like Bluff as a swift action in melee. If you beat the opponent's sense motive, he is flat footed to your attack and you can get full sneak attack damage. They had a mechanism like this in another 3.5 class- I think it was a knife fighter. This opens up many more sneak attack opportunities.

Well, my GMs use a 1 is a "fumble" on a skill check, no matter how high your skill... so it's possible to fall on your face with a +20 jump check trying to jump 5 feet. Yeah, I LOOOOVE this rule. Three stooges meets D&D...

0gre wrote:

Jeranimus Rex wrote:

I'm a little confused, what happened to heirloom weapon/other things?

Also, don't be afraid to buff when needed either, some things need a little love.

If you aren't in PFS I wouldn't worry about what happened to Heirloom weapon. If you are in PFS, you can read about it here.

Or just go to the Adventurers Armory page and download the errata.

I don't play PFS, but my group is a strict RAW group. We have a number of very experienced players, so mechanics and fluff are equally balanced in their importance in our campaigns. With that being said, I have seen more and more rule clarifications that seem, a little extreme compare to the potential abuse the "un-clarified" rule could have caused. Every time I see such a clarification, its justifications are firmly rooted in PFS play. I don't know if PFS games are filled with powergamers, or if one marginally better build at a table would invalidate the fun for the rest of the group, but I am not thrilled with the end result.

Character building is half the fun of a rpg for many of us. If feat or build options ran the gamut from good to average to bad in the past, many of these PFS driven changes seem to be eliminating any of the 'good' options in the name of avoiding abuse. The bad options remain, because we are told not every character should be optimized (I agree). But when the paths that yield mechanical synergies are eliminated for the sake of PFS play, it is a little frustrating.

I know, the standard answer is 'ignore the rule in your home game', and for some rules, we might. I guess I just don't enjoy the perception (warranted or not) that the minorities of Pathfinder players who participate in PFS seem to have a disproportionate degree of impact on...

This kind of stuff is the EXACT reason why I prefer to play 3.5. As a dead system, all the rules are what the rules are. So I don't have to deal with this stuff, as a GM who could give a rat a$$ about this stuff and who wants to actually tell, you know, a fantasy story rather than worry about who has the most legal or optimized build. Their are the posters who go on about optimization, and the anti-optimization posters. Where are the pro-story posters, who think that all this stuff is a bunch of hooey? That the rules should be the perogative of the GM to modify and state, "No, I think that build is a little too much for what I'm trying to do, could you try something else?" Polite respect should rule at the table, and the story should be paramount.

I'm planning on doing an E8 game with 3.5. I know this is slightly off-topic, but any thoughts about this. I think it should run pretty well. I'm doing it this way so it allows a little more flexibility in multi-classing to create the concept that a person wants. So you could be a Rogue/Fighter and still get iterative attacks, for example and be nearly at the top of your game. I'm fine with 4th level spells, so it would be a slightly higher level game play than E6, but that's okay with me, I just want to keep the really high level craziness off the table. I too am curious about hearing folks experience with running E6 style games, from either Pathfinder or 3.5 systems.

My opinion, expressed below, comes from the perspective of being a purist when it comes to presenting books as movies or TV shows. I discovered that this is especially true in regard to what I see as the greatest works of fantasy ever presented. Fortunately The Hobbit and previously LotR were not done by the Pan's Labrynth guy (horrible movie) or the Raimi boob that f@#%ed up the Sword of Truth series with Legend of the Seeker.

I can see by the Peter Jackson additions to the cast, that once again, no matter how well he is able to bring Middle-Earth to life, there are going to be elements that are going to piss me off. It happened with LotR, so I'm not all that surprised - the contest of wills between Gandalf and Saruman in the movie for one. IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. Gandalf told Theoden King to stand up from his throne for it had been too long since he had walked among his own people...and he did...and it was as though Theoden through off the pall of Saruman...WITHOUT THE NONSENSE OF THAT SCENE IN THE MOVIE. ALL OF THE RIDERS OF ROHAN WERE AT HELM'S DEEP for the battle. When Theoden decided to make a charge out of the keep, the orcs starting freaking out because TREES appeared and all you could here were orcs screaming, presumably dying. There wasn't a huge calvary charge down into Helm's Deep lead by Eomer and Gandalf. There are more. It was those creative license bits that Jackson made that ticked me off. Sadly, he's doing it again.

As far as the cast goes, Fili and Kili look like elves, not dwarves. Also, I really don't like that Richard Armitage was cast for the role of Thorin. He was mediocre at best as Guy of Guisborne. And yes, the stunning physical similarity between how they have him done up as Thorin and the klingon Gowron is just bad.

I'll still go see the movie and watch Jackson butcher and throw in his own tweaks to my much beloved and favorite childhood novel.

Movies are not novels. If you want the pure form, keep to your books and stay out of the theatres and spare the world your outrage. There is no movie made from a written source that does not undergo significant change. Once you and all the other ranting fans out there can realize that, you will live happier lives. The book is one thing, the movie is another. All of you seem to feel that if you did it yourselves, it would be PERFECT. Well, pick up a camera. We'll sit back and criticize. Actually, I wouldn't. I would probably enjoy your interpretation for what it is... an interpretation. Just like what Jackson is doing. Choices are made. Jackson's choices aren't the choices you would have made if you were behind the camera. Which aren't the choices I would make. Which aren't the choices Joe Schmoe would make. Etc, etc.

Was Conan a tracker? He may have been, I don't claim comprehensive knowledge of the stories, but I don't recall him having tracking skills. I'd actually be curious to know if he could track. So if someone knows, feel free to enlighten me.

What a terrible class.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

This reminds me of the endless threads on Vital Strike + charge.

One camp (including Jason Bulmahn) says "OMG IT'S CHEESE DON'T LET ANYONE DO IT OMG!"

Another camp (including James Jacobs) says "What's the problem? It's not in any way game-breaking, and it allows normal people to get some use out of an otherwise lacklustre feat."

In this instance, there's no question of whether the RAI were obvious, because the game designers themselves disagree over the interpretation.

I was going to say that as a designer, Jason's job is to be conservative on rulings. James answers these sorts of question from a "I'd allow that in my game but ask your GM" caveat and is inclined to be more lenient.

But then I got to thinking of them as supreme court justices with one of them writing the dissenting brief. We totally need a Pathfinder Rules Supreme Court. With written briefs on rulings. ;)

This is what I'm talking about... along James lines... why don't you guys just do what you want for your games. I don't get the fuss. Truly. That's what the role of GM is for. Every game is going to be different because every GM is going to run a different Game. The idea that you guys are going to create the "ONE TRUE GAME" is a fallacy. Yeah, maybe there's that incremental chance that some of this stuff here will shape the game in some small degree, and that's all fine and dandy. But who gives a rats @$$, the chances of it affecting your home game are likely zilch. Go have fun with your game. Or, of course, arguing could be your fun... so of course, feel free to continue. :)

I think this whole thing is funny... RAI or RAW... who cares, really. I will bend and twist the rules until they nearly break, and put 15 classes on my character sheet if I have to. I don't usually. All that matters to me is my CONCEPT. I want my CHARACTER to have the abilities and powers that I imagine he or she should have, and usually that falls in line with a character from fantasy fiction.

So, if I wanted a Conan type, I got my GM to let me create a Barbarian/Warblade who was able to block swords and do all kinds of funky stuff. I wanted a Rogue/Mage type caster, I created an Elven Beguiler/Conjurer/Ultimate Magus. I wanted a character who was like a dark paladin, who dabbled in forbidden magic, a LN Cleric of Wee Jas/Crusader/Ruby Knight Vindicator and summoned undead on a whim.

I follow the rules when building my PC, I'm not a power gamer, but I don't really care if I have to use 50 different source books to create my PC either if that's what it takes to build my concept. Who cares about RAI, or RAW? Are we playing with the rule developers? Are they sitting at our table? Nope. Character is all.

I like the way that paizo does their art and hope they never change. The thought that they might bow to conservatism and cover everything up the sexy girls (and guys) or change demons to tanar'ri like TSR did in the 1990's is a step in the wrong direction. D&D... excuse me... pathfinder, is supposed to be, in my POV, a little sexy, a little rock and roll, fun and chaotic and mad. So, keep doing what you're doing.

I'm lucky, I guess, my wife likes to look at attractive, even scantily dressed females, so she doesn't mind my cheesecake art that I have or draw. Of course, I wouldn't have it any other way!

My friend plays a stinky half orc monk named NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). He never bathes. He also has no possessions running around with a raggedy robe. We use the 3.5 rules and he has vow of poverty and he uses Iron Fist to great effect. He has a monstrous con and touch of golden ice having a chance to do dex damage to any living being he hits. It's a fun character with a great build. The holy, stinking monk.

With Nymph's Kiss bonus feat... so he talks about his Nymph lover in the woods that he hooks up with between adventures (he's borderline Lawful Good... more like Neutral Good, but who cares, it's fun!) He glows in the dark when he wants to due to his holy aura. But my character is loathe to let him into the Rope Trick for the night... he'll stink up the damn extra-dimensional space. It's only so big!

As a GM I was asked by my players not to invite another (relatively new) player back to our games just because he created and wanted to play a rogue 1/sorcerer 1/gunslinger 1.

I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in my players.

Wow... what a bunch of gamist losers. No spirit of "just sitting around enjoying the game" Yikes! Sorry to say it, but there it is.

M&M is a a very good and easy to run Supers game, based of the d20 engine but streamlined and simpler (only one attack per round, for example) and really easy to run.

Or you could just have a cool GM who lets the monk have... god forbid 3.5 material in the game... (oh noes!) and then he can have good stuff...

If you pick a slot, it could help balance issues. Call it a chakra enhancement. Each Ki techique focues on a specific chakra. Weapon enhancements would focus on the hands (perhaps the feet in some cases), natural armor enhancements might focus on the body chakra, resistance on the cloak or "aura" chakra enhancing one's aura, etc, etc. If a magic item is in place of that, it messes up the ki flowing through the chakra. So, you can have something a little more balanced, and have some pretty cool flavor too.

There's plenty of balanced non-pathfinder ways to create the character you want to create a non monk kung-fu master, but you have to look to 3.5 material, and not have a tight-assed DM. If you are stuck with the latter, you are SOL and have to wait for the powers-that-be to create the class for you.

I never understood this mentality, myself. If I want to create a Kung-fu master, and he's called a swordsage with improved unarmed strike and greater improved unarmed strike... well then that's what he is. In game, when asked what he is, he'll say he's a martial artist, and move on. As a GM, in a game that rotates GMs, we're pretty liberal with what we allow into the game, and don't get into the sticky thickets that a lot of the posters get into. We try to allow the players to create the concepts that they imagine and give them the tools to do so.

LilithsThrall wrote:

Valcrist wrote:

The monk is an interesting alternative to a fighter, but one that needs pages of class abilities to be the same power level of a fighter.

The monk is every bit (and no more) an alternative for the fighter that a Rogue is.

Valcrist wrote:

My only real issue with the class is the fact that it doesn't fit. it is an obviously eastern flavored class shoved into a western setting.

I didn't realize that there are still people out there working under the delusion that the default world for DnD is European.

I guess you got rid of Elementals (which are nothing like the Elementals from European myth), Druids and Bards (which are nothing like the Druids and Bards from European history), polytheism, most of the Beastiary (everything from puddings and oozes to Rakshasha on and on and on), Neutral planes of existence beyond the Astral, all the core non-human playable classes (none of which are as in European myths) and on and on and on.

Fair, but read my previous post and note that I do say I have no issues with people who play monks that obviously come from the parts of the world where they would be common.

Polytheism was common in europe, and I wont debate religion here. If the Greek gods proved their existence we'd still be worshiping them.

The Bestiary reflects the world, not just one part.

Bards are rather close to the european idea, and yes the druids are more like native american shaman.

Elves are common myth in france and england. Dwarves are NORSE, which means Germanic.

In the end all of DnD is based of the writings of J R R Tolkien. It was intended to be an english myth, as they had few of their own. All of the game stems from this, making a majority of it european. If you elect to play somewhere else that is your call, but you'd probably use a sourcebook, like the eastern one that will soon be out.

In the end all I can say about the Monk is "One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just...

Actually, Gygax was inspired by Tolkien, Conan stories, Fritz Lieber stories, and the writings of Jack Vance among others. So yeah, tolkien was a big inflience, but so was Conan, and so was Fritz Lieber. Look at the alien artifacts and weirdness among them (artifacts created by alien gods, etc.) and Conan regularly dealt with if not far east cultures at least near east cultures. The Monk was in the AD&D waay back in Gygax's vision. So... it was always supposed to be a weird stew. And thank god, because I want my clash of cultures and weird cthulu-esque alien creatures that man was not meant to know, and extra-dimensional jaunts, and fireballs... none of which is Tolkien, good sir. None! And the monk is, and has always been, part of that weird stew that Gygax cooked up.

But, that's the good thing, you can create your own version. If you want a pseudo-Tolkien version of the game you can do that. Though Tolkien's vision of fantasy hardly resembled the weirdness that is D&D.

So asking him to lower one 16 to a 14 and the 12 to a 10 was wrong?

Yes, I could have used a point buy. I just never have done so.

In the future, I will be more prone to considering going that route.

Telling me use the point buy system does not answer my questions. Neither will it help to use a point buy system now. The stats are already rolled and the characters made.

But seriously, I ask again:

Was I wrong in asking him to make the change?
Was the suggested change unreasonable?
Is there such a thing as ability scores being too high at 1st level?

Edited:
I remembered I have seen someone roll higher stats then that...

I think you are wrong in asking him to lower the scores. That is what he rolled. The game engine is not so fragile that having one character that has a few more pluses on his character sheet will throw everything out of whack. Yeah, this guy will be a bit tougher than the others. But that what rolling dice does, it gives you the chance to get high scores.

Many people I have encountered who gave their kids "unique" names were themselves fairly "unique" people. Naming your kid something weird because you want them to turn out a certain way is just wrong. "Merlin" might sound like a cool name on a Pathfinder message board, but do you really think his resume will be taken seriously in 25 years? Maybe he's not going to like fantasy at all; maybe he won't be anything like how you want him to be. Naming him John isn't going to handicap his uniqueness, but naming him after a Lord of the Rings character could certainly affect his chances at being something he might want to be. why potentially burden a child with a weird name simply for your own amusement? That sounds pretty selfish to me. It doesn't matter if you think the world should be a place where people don't get judged based on something like an unusual name. The world is a cruel place, why create one more obstacle to overcome?

I knew a kid named Merlin. His family was welsh. His name wasn't about magic at all, it was just his name, and he was a pretty cool kid. I never thought of teasing him about it. I thought it was kind of cool actually.

Not sure if the system is "under rated" but the best new system I've had to try with an actual group (not just read the book) is Mutants and Masterminds 2nd ed. This game plays like a dream, it's streamlined, simple, fast paced, but with enough flexibility in character creation that you can create pretty much any character you can imagine. I could take this system to a D&D type setting, or to the Rifts setting and it would work fairly well in either situation... which is pretty cool.

GravesScion wrote:

That is, to me, pure Dungeon Master cheating.

Dungeon masters can't cheat...they can only be good DMs or bad DMs...

+1

Berselius wrote:

This might be a bit far fetched but if your PC's are supposed to the protagonists of the campaign then how about you (as the GM) encouraging them to act like the "HEROES THEIR SUPPOSED TO BE" instead of make believe mass murderer/rapists. Just food for thought.

Protagonist does not mean good person.

+1

Robert Carter 58 - Your example with the NPC Paladin is fine - an NPC should not override a PC in virtually any circumstance.

And you say +1 to GravesScion's post. Which lead to the obvious question -

You're running a game. The group is together for creating characters. Jack wants to make a Paladin of Sarenrae. Jill wants to make CN Necromancer casting loads of evil spells.

Considering casting an Evil spell is an evil act, how would you balance these different tastes?

JamesJacobs May 2011 wrote:

As with all spells that have the [evil] descriptor, casting infernal healing is indeed an evil act. How many [evil] spells it takes for you to cast before your alignment shifts toward evil is entirely left up to your GM. Could be immediate, could be after you cast the spell 100 times, could be never. Could be that as long as you cast the spell for good purposes and do enough good acts to balance out your karma that it'll NEVER have an effect.

The [evil] descriptor is mostly in the game so we can have other effects that bolster or diminish spells that are [evil], and to limit certain off-theme spells from spellcasters with alignment requirements. So if you're a good-aligned cleric... no casting of infernal healing for you!

If I was running this game, I check out what the other party members wanted to make and throw it to them. If the other party members wanted to make more goody goody types by and large and there would be a more compelling dynamic there. Jack gets his paladin. If the others want to make shady types and are down with having undead around. Jill gets a necromancer. Or I could base it on party dynamics tactically if the interpersonals don't matter. Does the party have enough front liners and no arcane- go with Jill. No front liners, but enough arcane. Go with Jack. But basically, I'd talk about the dilemna openly with the group. Hopefully, everyone being reasonable enough, it should be a matter that can be resolved diplomatically. We're all together to have fun, after all.

GravesScion wrote:

I don't think that anyone should be trying to trick anyone else and I hate when players make characters that are certain to cause party conflict.

That's the point I was trying to make, no matter what class you want to play, it should fit the concept of the group as decided upon by the players at the onset of character creation. I wasn't singling out paladins. If the group collectively decides on a traditional heroic concept and then one guy decides to make a priest of Orcus, he'd be just as wrong. To clarify, my own style is not "first come, first serve" but rather "everyone agree on an ethos and then create characters accrordingly".

+1

How do you deal with Paladins when you're a caster wanting to cast spells with the [Evil] discriptor?

Could you convince them, for example, that you can create Zombies/Skeletons of creatures without souls?

Don't let the Paladin in the group in the first place? Or tell her this is how I roll? I played a LN Cleric of Wee Jas and an NPC Paladin was assisting us on a "quest of enormous importance". I told her that her ways were not my ways, but I might use magic strange and foreign to her, and that some of my magic was magic related to death. But, as the servant of the goddess of death, I was entitled to use such. Wee Jas isn't an evil deity, and is known to be very lawful and peacable, so while she didn't like it, (I made a good diplomacy check) she let it go. I didn't do anything crazy like summon undead trolls in front of her. I did pull my skeletal monkey out of my Haversack, to check for traps, while another party member distracted her though :)

Jon Kines wrote:

Let me get this straight? If one player wants to play a paladin, the rest of the group has to kowtow to said wish? I think not. I'm DM'ing a Carrion Crown right now, and we have a Paladin the group, but the issue was cleared with all players in character creation, and everyone built their characters accordingly, resulting in a mix of good and neutral characters.

However, conversely, if 3 of my 4 players wanted an evil campaign and the 4th wanted to play a Paladin? I'd give him the choice of playing an antipaladin instead, or any other class for that matter, or play a paladin and face the consequences. Just because the Paladin class has a strict code doesn't give one player the right to subjugate the desires of three other players on a whim to play one.

I've DM'd good, neutral, and evil campaigns and all of them can be fun and work equally well. All of them, however, are incumbent upon mutual respect for one another by everyone at the table.

On the first paragraph, I mostly agree. As long as no-one expresses some kind of issue with it (and it better be a good one - Any character can view undead as crimes against nature, and ones who use it as even worse), then a Paladin is fine.

On the second paragraph, I believe I mentioned evil campaigns in another post, and mentioned that it's very different from a normal campaign. Assuming the campaign is a normal one (the OP hasn't said anything to suggest otherwise), then no-one should be playing an evil character - and thus have no issue with a paladin, as long as the Paladin doesn't overstep his bounds.

And the third paragraph, I agree completely.

I also don't think a Paladin is an "issue". All players have limits while playing - but any character class (Druid, Cleric, Paladin, and Monk in particular), can be pushed too far. There's no reason to single out a paladin, or any class. As long as everyone is reasonable, the game works fine with any good and neutral alignments and any combination of classes.

I hate to say this, but D&D is based off of fantasy fiction. The antihero is a staple of fantasy fiction predating D&D. Elric, and Conan were often highly amoral, for example. Elric would call upon demon lords to do his bidding and used a souldrinking sword. These are the staples of the genre... so it doesn't have to be an "Evil" campaign. Elric was conflicted, not evil. But what I'm saying is that these things are character issues that need to be discussed with the GM, ideally at the get-go. Otherwise, yeah a Paladin can be an issue. Just like a Necromancer can be an issue. In my game my undead summoning cleric was less of an issue than a Paladin. But in another game I played, a Paladin caused less friction. It's all about the characters.

Hahaah.. We had he reverse situation in my last game. No paladins were allowed, due to party make up essentially when bringing in new players.

My last PC was a LN Fighter/Cleric of Wee Jas and when a new player came in, we were recruiting new players, and my guy was party leader. I told the new players- you can make whatever you want, but if you make a paladin my PC won't be recruiting your character, and will scorn you. He summons undead whenever he wants (though not in populated areas- he wasn't a fool), and keeps a skeletal monkey in his Heward's Handy Haversack to grab things and occasionally test for traps. That's how we roll. I told this to the players, he wouldn't tell this to characters, but I didn't want players to waste time making Paladins or clerics of Pelor or some such. My PC wouldn't accept them into the party, and would essentially be saying "next!" Some of the other party members were good, but we were mostly neutrals, who leaned toward good. My PC didn't hesitate to cast evil spells or dark magics though. Not at all.

This is the GM's fault, he really needs to talk to players about concepts ahead of time. Some players really like to play more neutrally aligned/mercenary type characters. And, honestly, that is a viable concept and well within the bounds of fantasy fiction. Check out Elric and Conan. They are highly amoral at times, and yet they vanquish evil-doers and save people (and are often highly paid for doing so). This is a conceit of the genre. So this is a valid way to play the game. However, is someone comes into the game with a Paladin, and others want to play Elric/Conan type morality... well there's gonna be serious conflict. A Paladin couldn't adventure with Elric for more than five seconds... Yeah, Elric has his own twisted code of ethics, but he often breaks it when it suits his needs. And never tell Conan what to do, he'll kill a judge in a court room, and attempted to do so in one of the tales.

I had one Paladin fall. This was probably about years ago when I was running. The Paladin was trying to use her sexual wiles to seduce a guard, literally playing with her (ahem) frontal region into luring him closer and promising him a sexual encounter and saying all sorts of filthy things in order to get out of prison. I thought it was beneath a Paladin's dignity to use such tactics, and this dude wasn't getting it.

Another Paladin player, I warned, but did not strip her of Paladinhood. This particular paladin had defeated a foe in honorable combat and then wanted to deface the body, basically as a warning to others who might cross her. I think if I remember correctly she wanted to put his head on a pike, but it may have been even more offensive than that. I said this was not in the spirit of Paladinhood. I told her that she could certainly loot the body for his treasure and move on with the adventure, but ....

A little backstory, the villain in question (an intelligent undead knight, with a very well preserved corpse looking almost human) had challenged the female paladin to single battle to the death and lost.
I don't think a paladin would then deface the body considering that the knight had treated her with such respect and explained the etiquette of respect for one's enemies and honorable combat. She didn't get it. She was playing the Paladin for the powers (we were doing a high level campaign and her original PC died, this PC was a replacement).

Hey, the dudes who don't like guns... okay.. we hear you. But, okay, it's enough. Go back and look at your 1st edition DMG. Guns are there. With rules about how to incorporate them into the game. Go and look at the original dragon magazines, Gary Gygax, creator of the game, created a demi-deity in his world of Greyhawk, whose Holy Symbol is a sheriff's badge and who used a gun. So it's part of the game, it's been there, since the beginning. Yeah they're rare, and they're supposed to be, but for those who enjoy that style, let them have their fun. Some people like different flavors of ice cream. That's why there are there is more than one flavor of ice cream. If you like vanilla. Hey that's great. I like rocky road.

meabolex wrote:

mdt wrote:

Not exactly fair for his friends.

Wait, wouldn't the party get the monk's extra share of wealth? Assuming they're not "holding it for him," wouldn't the monk's party ultimately benefit by having his share of goods?

Depends, as a GM (and a player) I would have the monk's share be allocated to a charity of his choice. And the other PCs do not qualify as a charity :)

I think that's how they did it with Vow of Poverty 3.5 that way there was no issues with it. He still got a share, and there was no issue with treasure. The monk got a share, he just donated it. That's how we do it. We have a half-orc monk in our 3.5 party with the Book of Exalted deeds with Vow of Poverty and he works just fine. This other one sounds sub par. You can't play the archetype like that...

Matthew Morris wrote:

David Fryer wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

I don't know if to laugh or cry at This.

He's a freaking god people. Deal with it.

Funny, I never got the idea that Black Panther was rabidly anti-white. But more to the point, hate groups never make sense except to other haters.

I know there was a recent unpopular run of BP where, if he wasn't 'kill whitey' he was 'frak whitey'. Things like inviting western leaders to a trade summit to announce he wasn't going to trade with any of them, withholding a cure for cancer from the world, etc. They were very poorly received, and tainted BP for a lot of people. I hate Black Panther for different reasons.*

Aside
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Just looked at the link. As we all know, I am an overweening purist, and I prefer the source material to be held up above almost everything else. However, there is no WAY that the director did not intentionally cast Elba to stick a thumb in the eye of white supremacists. It cracks me up to no end.

Yes, and thank goodness for that! Besides, in Marvel U, the Norse gods are extradimensionals who the Norsemen interpreted to be just like them and probably were inspired to model their society after. So, I think having a dark skinned Heimdall is a perfectly valid interpretation of Marvel U comic book universe. Hell, I hope the comic book follows suit.

With these two teams there have been lots of members, so I just picked the six that I liked from each team, and I will go from there:

The Justice League of America: Superman, The Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder-Woman, and The Green Arrow.

The Avengers: Thor, Captain America, Iron-Man, Quicksilver, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel.

The results that you won't agree with:

The obvious matchups start. Thor fights Superman. Captain America fights Batman. The Flash fights Quicksilver. The Green Lantern fights Iron-Man. Wonder-Woman fights Ms. Marvel. Hawkeye fights Green Arrow.

Because Thor is a God, and his hammer Mjǫlnir is magical, he knocks out Superman (the Brandon Routh version). Captain America knocks out Batman. The Flash easily takes care of Quicksilver. The Green Lantern is able to destroy Iron-Man's armor. Wonder-Woman knocks out Ms. Marvel. Hawkeye knocks out the Green Arrow.

That leaves Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye v. The Flash, Wonder-Woman, and Green Lantern.

Thor takes on Wonder-Woman, and the two god-like characters have an epic battle, but do you really think Thor would let some girl beat him up? He blasts her with his hammer, and then ties her up with her own Lasso of Truth.

The Flash is just too quick for Captain America, and even though Steve Rogers tries to anticipate Barry Allen's moves, he can't fight someone running at twice the speed of sound and he gets knocked out.

Hawkeye kills the Green Lantern with a "yellow colored arrow" to the head.

That leaves Thor and Hawkeye v. The Flash. The Flash, moving so fast he can't be seen, takes out and kills Hawkeye by vibrating through him and then starts to attack Thor. However, Thor is a GOD! The Flash attacks Thor hundreds of times before he can even react, and he does "hurt" the thunder god, but Thor's calls on the power of the storm and ODIN himself, and he unleases the Thunder of Thor by slamming Mjǫlnir onto the ground, and the explosion of power knocks The Flash off his feet for a moment. ...

I call BS, Green Lanterns haven't been vulnerable to Yellow for well over 10 years now- since whenever it was in the 90's Kyle Rayner took over as GL. Of course your battle could take place back then, it's your post. But I still call BS

Marvel is better, imo. I look at DC and all I see is Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern and their diciples, for the most part.... all these "legacy" heroes. TOO many! Superboy, Supergirl, Power Girl, Batman II, Red Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, a bunch of Flashes, and who knows how many Green Lanterns... it's just watered down concepts. Marvel has that to a certain extent with it's gaggle of Hulks and Spider-girl, and Bucky-cap, etc, but it doesn't stink up the whole comic line like it does DC. Pee-eww.

I have to say, hearing and reading just a fraction of these posts, turns me off from ever wanting to participate in organized game play with people who I don't know. Just sounds like people have to get into really stupid and boring rules arguments that are highly un-fun. Wow. Tedious stuff. And this is how people spend their free time. Sounds like W-O-R-K not P-L-A-Y... yikes...

Just to chime in, the system my group uses is that if a player is missing for a session, his PC only earns 50% of the XP for the session. So if a player is missing multiple sessions he will be behind. But otherwise, not too much so.