lastknightleft's page

But on the idea behind PrCs, I disagree. I think they should be specific, very specific, and not allow just any old combination to qualify.

Oh gods no, that means in order to get the PrC you have to intend from level one to get the PrC, and that means that the PrC get very limited use, which is something you saw in 3.5 there'd be a bunch of great PrCs but they were uber specific meaning you had to plan to get them from level 1 and because of that you never saw them in play. I don't want a glut of highly specific PrCs that will never get a chance to be used. and you'll have to get a glut because you need to create an barbarian witch combo, and a barbarian bard combo, because you have to have them because you made the caster barb combo so specific and some people want to play a caster barb without using the oracle.

No, that is a common misconception that the game is designed that way.

Um, I wasn't actually saying my comment to you, just to the person who quoted the chart and said that a large city would have x (and also letting wraithstrike know that those GMG rules he quoted are actually core rulebook rules as well). And he would actually be right in my games, but like I said, doing so is deviating from the standard rules.

And for the record, I would love to play in your games the way you described them. I like getting magic items from adventuring rather than shopping.

loaba wrote:

Look up Restov, Brevoy. That town is loaded with all the good stuff that we can't seem to get in Stagfort. :P

Seriously, if you're playing the game as designed, large cities are gonna have some, or all, of the things listed here.

Table 15-1: Available Magic Items

Community Base Minor Medium Major
Size Value
Thorp 50 gp 1d4 items — —
Hamlet 200 gp 1d6 items — —
Village 500 gp 2d4 items 1d4 items —
Small town 1,000 gp 3d4 items 1d6 items —
Large town 2,000 gp 3d4 items 2d4 items 1d4 items
Small city 4,000 gp 4d4 items 3d4 items 1d6 items
Large city 8,000 gp 4d4 items 3d4 items 2d4 items
Metropolis 16,000 gp * 4d4 items 3d4 items
* In a metropolis, nearly all minor magic items are available.

A large city, as designed, may have 4d4 minor items on hand. Of course nothing says those minor items are going to be specificaly what the players are looking for.

Here is a random for a Large City that should have all of the items mentioned above: scroll; potion; scroll; wand; scroll; potion; scroll; wand; weapon; weapon; scroll

So, they get the +3 dagger... manage to find a buyer...

A thriving Metropolis on the other hand may have, by design, *nearly* all minor magic items available. This is all well and good, but doesn't help much when you are in Sandpoint or Falcon's Hollow or any other numerous backwater areas spread throughout the setting (which is more the type of areas I tend to have my players in). And by the time the characters are high enough level and can really start thowing around gold, you are back to 4d4 or 3d4 items for medium and major magical items in a Metropolis.

Sure, I can say that a merchant has exactly the item the group is looking for... and when I have a merchant have an item it is typicaly going to be something useful. However, they are more likely to craft/find/be gifted said item than they are to buy it in a mini-mart magic shop.

You're ignoring the rules, which say that if an item costs less than the base value of the city there is a 75% chance that it is in that city, this isn't the GMG as wraithstrike said, this is the standard pathfinder rule book. You looked at the chart and ignored the actual rules that accompany that chart. So in a large city there'll be 4d4 magic items that are available and a 75% chance to get anything else less than 8000 gp.

For the record, I don't follow those rules, I stick to just to the chart, and ignore the 75% chance rule, but I tell my players that I do so, and they understand that they are playing a low magic game.

I guess I'm just surprised by the fact that the OP said, "hey, I want 5 words to use in my campaign world that mean X" and he got "That's dumb".

Heh, honestly I'm more bothered by the fact that people seem to like someone else's word choices better than mine. I've gotten used to the fact that any idea posted on a forum will be followed by at least three people saying "why would you do that, it's a waste of time/it's a horrible idea/it's pointless." Like my adjectives better damnit! :)

Yes.

Archtypes handle a charcter concept from creation, whereas a PrC is usually a story driven change after creation.

In otherwords +r

I was having this discussion with a few writers who were interested in doing new prestigue classes. What do you think?

I would like to see a few PrCs out there, the things I don't want to see are PrCs with feat/class requirements so strict that pretty much have to plan to go into the PrC at level 1 (examples being requiring feats that have several pre-req feats themselves like whirlwind attack). If you know from level one you plan to do a schtick then that's a good place for archetypes but if there are things you might decide you want to do later on in the game, that's where PrC should come in, I think that's the direction I'd like to see taken for PrCs, easy to get into at higher level that tack on options but don't require intending to go into them from level 1.

lastknightleft wrote:

linkified for you

Thank you for that. I'm a bit inept when it comes to all the link-sharing protocols around here...

Anyway, the series looks great and, as I understand it, there will be a lot more of this good stuff on the way.

Also, lots of the traditional MK lore and powers are going to be included.

Really, from the preview I saw of it, it looked like the lore was being completely rewritten, as the tornament is one for a bunch of serial killers, reptile is a guy with a skin condition, barraka is a guy who grafted blades onto his arms, etc. I also got the impression that it was going for a more gritty realistic approach.

I also agree that not all casters call the items the same names and i have an explanation for this. Crafters call the items by there given name be it masamune, excaliber, Durandal etc. It's the venders that use this rating mainly, or crafters when dealing with non crafters. Thats why i established that a magical item must first start off as a runic item to give it a name, all items start off this way and grow from there.

look at it this way. My naming system when compared to cars would be the same as an economy car, a sports car, a high performance car,a race car, or a specialty car. while there are many economy cars there never called just that- they have names. The ford focus, a dodge neon, a chevy malibu etc. but if you ASK for an economy car the dealer will know what your asking for and can show plenty of specific economy cars im sure. I've never been sold a +1 car, although i have been sold a cursed one lol. My system is no different, its a generalization that almost everyone would know in my golarion.

If the system isn't for you its ok. i just had an already established system and this seemed a good thread to share for others to use. if you like it use it. if it's not for your campaign then don't. my players...

Like this and +1, basically what i'll go with as explanation for magic items in my game. In fact, I think I'm changing it up, I'm gonna combine weapons and armor into the same naming convention, and mash some of yours with some of mine.

so +1 = Runic
+2 = Mystic
+3 = Paramount
+4 = Master
+5 = Sovereign

and for RP purposes they'll be known as classes, so a fighter could go into a shop and ask the storekeep what Runic class weapons he has on display and the owner can pull a crossbow off the wall and say "well Vansaya here is a runic class crossbow, but what's odd about her and you don't see this very often is that she has ancient elvish runes, most runic weapons with ancient elven runes are holed up in Kyonin so what you have here is a rare specialty."

Multi-pass... I mean... dot.

Lastknightleft:it's a school, they should develop a higher-level spell that detects alignment of individuals who are lower power.

I personally hate using detects as a easy out button on morality issues and would not allow such a spell in any setting I ever DMed. There's another route where they answer personality questions under a zone of truth, which allows for a save and makes things a lot more grey area (do we trust him, what if he beat the spell?) but one of the best things the pathfinder change did was to make use of detect alignment spells a lot more ambiguous as you don't always get an answer, and going back to the old way is not something I want to see ever.

Paladins and others able to detect evil should figure prominently in all these schemes.

If I were running such a school, end of term exams would be standing up the class to a good hard detect evil-ing. Those that pass get to advance to the next grade, those that fail get left back. Graduation ceremony is passing muster on a detect good.

anything under level 5 that isn't undead, a cleric/paladin, or an outsider doesn't detect at all, so your saying that they'd have to pass a test that 90% of the population couldn't, and of that 90% a good portion of evil people could. How long are they supposed to be in this orphanage if they can't get out till level 5?

Abraham spalding wrote:

Raising a Drow child is not a task to be undertaken lightly. In fact unless the care provider is capable of helping cleanse the child's mind and body as much as raise it the outcomes are typically bleak.

The state of 'drow' is almost as much a disease as it is a race, and special continuous medical and magical treatments are needed to help repair what the strange emanations of the underdark has down to the child's developing body.

About the only church that has shown the resilience and care for the soul of the young drow as much as the body and mind has been the Church of Shelyn surprisingly. Another surprising noteworthy development of the Shelynian method is the discoloring of the drow child. The magics involved seem to bleach the child's skin back to a more regular elven skin tone, to the point that it almost becomes impossible to tell the drow child from any other elven child. It has been speculated that this is due to the removal of the damage from the emanations that seem to cause the 'drow' condition as much as any genetics play into it.

Not sure I like that approach, personally. It's saying 'the only way for a drow to be non evil is to make them elves'. That implies they are evil from birth, which means they should have the [Evil] tag attached to them. Nothing without the [Evil] tag is inherently evil, per the core rules.

Honestly per Golarion flavor, I wouldn't mind drow having the [evil] tag.

I saw the trailer for this some time ago, I'm glad that even though it didn't become a movie it's gonna be a webseries, if it's good maybe we'll be able to get it packed as a dvd movie later. I saw first episode, kinda wish it jumped straight into it like in the preview, but oh well, what I saw was good stuff. Jax vs. Kano Fight.

It's a new online short video series... and it's surprisingly good.

I humbly offer this video snackrifice to you, the Paizonians.

Mortal Kombat Legacy ep. 1

linkified for you

Certainly interesting, so you're going through the goblinoid races first, then what? Are you interested in letting others do other intelligent monster races like gnolls or boggards?

not sure if it was clear enough but this would create

Runic sword/armor +1

Mystic sword/armor +2

Enchanted sword/armor +3

Magic sword/armor +4

Transcended Sword/armor +5

Yeah it was pretty clear :)

btw weapon qualities are simply called enhanced items.

i created this mainly so when players go to a magic shop they dont say "do you have a +1 bastard sword?" they can ask "do you have a a Runic bastard swords? or know someone who can can craft or find one?"

also, a Mystic warhammer of lightning just sounds WAY cooler :D

Yup pretty much what I'm going for, asking for a flaming stinger shortsword sounds cool to me, asking for a +1 flaming shortsword sounds lame and gamey. And a sovereign warhammer of lightning, same deal :)

Another question which I find utterly misleading and self-serving, is this one.

11. Economists often disagree in their suggested solutions to social problems. The disagreements arise largely because:

A. Economics is not a science
B. Economic "laws" -- such as the law of supply and demand -- change over time
C. Economic theories and models are rarely tested with "real-world" data.
D. Economists often disagree about what current problems are most important.

My comments-

A) Economics is not an empirical science. That means economic theories are not determined to be true by experimental verification. Economics is a science in the sense that mathematics is a science, logical deductions based on indisputable axioms. Economics can use history to demonstrate how the theory works, but doesn't use experiments to falsify. Keynesians in particular like to pretend it is empirical science but ironically never allow any possible result to demonstrate their theory is false.

C) Probably should define "rarely". Often times data which fits the theory is highlighted while data that contradicts the theory is ignored...of course a lot of empirical science has this problem too so I shouldn't overly pick on economists for this fault.

As an example for A) and C), Keynesians claim that stimulus packages will end recessions...and every case where it doesn't end the recession...they claim not enough money was used in the stimulus. Is there any amount of money that could be spent that would verify the theory is false if it doesn't work? How much money is that? $10 trillion? $100 trillion? $100 quintillion?

D) Completely self-serving tripe.

If the answer isn't A)do they mean empirical or not? or C)define "rarely", then the answer is E).

E) Economics as taught in government accredited college textbooks is a confusing mess of half-truths and falsehoods which doesn't make sense as a whole.

What's funny is I didn't comment on this but I got this wrong because my thinking was pretty much exactly the same as NPC daves in regards to A so I chose A

Derwalt wrote:

...I like the names, but something about the idea bothers me. Ok, not really about the idea, the idea is fine as is, it's just the whole "lets not break immersion" bit, that seems so tacked on in a game as Pathfinder that is so arbitrarily real/unreal - where the lines are so blurred as they are.

I mean - if the five names are in a clear and orderly structure and everyone knows that number two is better than number one and number three is better than number two, then why don't just let go of the names (in-game I mean) and say "I would like an armor number 3"?

We're all out of armor number 3, but we have plenty of spring rolls left.

I'm sorry I couldn't help with that. Though the whole idea reminds me of the Diablo games were certain properties where always named something specific. I say go for it if it makes your game more fun. What's the worst that happens the PC's go to a store and ask for a Paramount Axe, and are told that the shop keep only has Talon Khukris?

I do like the idea in general if only because it tries to add abit of flavor over mechinics that are cemented into the game.

Bingo, that's what I'm going for, I personally can't stand the idea that they would name something so generic as armor number 3, we barely do that in the real world, heck even most movies have switched from calling themselves #2 and #3 to having a word associated with the follow-ups. And very few products list themselves as 1, 2, 3 instead calling 1 beginner, 2 intermediate, and 3 master etc. And I just don't like the sound of people in a quasi-medieval/renaissance setting going in and buying +1 stuff, or item number 3.

Grades - If names are standardized, maybe they'd be standardized by who could make them. +1 swords might be "Journeymen-grade" weapons, while +5s would me "Archmage-grade."

That's nice, add a theme to the naming scheme. Your naming scheme would also work for both weapons and armor, so you have...

+1 = Journeyman grade
+2
+3
+4
+5 = Archmage grade

I'd love to see what you do to fill out this list.

So in another thread a poster talked about naming the +1 +2 etc. Magic properties so that you could ask for them in game, I like the idea so I came up with this...

for weapons
+1 = stinger
+2 = talon
+3 = paramount
+4 = master
+5 = sovereign

For armor
+1 = Bolstered
+2 = reinforced
+3 = bastion
+4 = citadel
+5 = Impenetrable

I didn't go with any particular theme, I just looked for words that in my head sounded to have more weight even if some may not have any particular difference (i.e. bolstered vs. reinforced or master vs. sovereign)

I just tried to get words that also sound cool. So a player could go to the weaponsmith and ask that his blade be made a stinger or a sovereign blade. Plus I think in game calling it a flaming talon or a sovereign vorpal longsword just sounds better. I realize that this is just flavor, so what about your lists, or thoughts on using this for your own games.

7. At full employment, to slow down price increases during the next year of so, the government should:

A. Raise taxes
B. Increase governmental spending
C. Increase loans to promising college students
D. Stimulate business investment in more efficient machinery

Answer

Spoiler: E none of the above (although I got it correct because I knew what the test wanted me to say)

I passed the test because I know what it wants me to say, but I don't think that all of the test questions are correct, still I guess in a roundabout way of saying okay you know something about the subject and aren't going to Alfred E. Newman the discussion I guess it's okay.

I'm in the Orlando area and I'd like to join a group. My availability isn't great since I work weekends and go to Valencia College full time but I can cut out even more sleep for a chance to roll some dice. I live near Semoran and Michigan but I'll be moving around the corner to Curry Ford/Conway. I don't mind hosting the games after I get settled into a new apartment.

SM

Do you know where Deltona is? if you don't mind a drive (approx. 45 min) I have a Thusday night Rise of the Runelords game.

So our characters start to get used to the town of sandpoint at this point. Play begins with them resting for the night and the next day seeing what's up. Sacra goes to her job with Sir Jasper only to find out that her desk is covered in roses from Aldern Foxglove, with cards that say thank you for saving me and don't forget that you said you'd go on a boar hunt with me, I'll be at the Rusty Dragon Inn. She clears out her desk and begins to work when she gets a letter from the Mayor letting her know that there were some goblins that had been captured should she want to question them (she had expressed interest to the mayor at the end of the last session). She heads to the guards barracks and quickly gets frustrated by the goblins who won't stop bickering even when questioned and in fact asking questions leads to more bickering. She attempts to break up a fight by shooting a square near the fighting just to scare them, and rolls a 1, accidentally shooting one in the calf, funnily enough that makes them more co-operative but their low intelligence nets her answers like, q: where is your tribe a: the swamp, a2 (different goblin): the woods q: is that to the north, east, what? a (from all): blank stares that sense motive reveals they have no idea what north or east mean. My wife who typically plays chaotic neutral/evil characters is getting frustrated because normally by now she'd just start torturing but noooo she had to play lawful good, and going on about how she just wants to stab all the goblins and be done with it.

Meanwhile the cleric went to the church for her daily duties and finds out that the former priests body had been exhumed. She helps re-bury the empty casket, then heads off to inform sheriff Belor on father Zanthus's behalf. While on her way she bumps into the halfling she fought with the day before and for no particular reason the halfling decides to follow her around, which weirds Alana out, but she doesn't say anything as long as the Halfling isn't bothering anyone. They arrive at the barracks in the middle of the interrogation, trying to get better answers but netting similar results. Finally giving up all quoting the mantra "Goblins are stupid"

So after that they decide to meet up with Aldern in order to go on the boar hunt. It goes well enough, a couple of the mounts get hurt by the boar, but none of the PCs, I felt terrible for Alana though because she failed every single roll that combat, and you could tell she was a bit frustrated. After the hunt and feast Sacra realizes that Alderns got a bit of a fixation on her, but wrote it off as "cause I'm hot". However not ones to turn down free meals, and Aldern trying to pour on the charm and woo her, leads to them eating at the Rusty Dragon for the next three nights which is how one lady knew to run to them when a goblin attacked her son. The PCs go to investigate the cleric learning that she can cast light as many times as she wants, makes all their weapons glow. They go in and find the fathers body, pulling it out of the closet and yelling to that they want to take the goblin alive. Sacra takes her first attack and one hit kills the goblin with her falchion, apologizing to the others and saying that she should've attacked it non-lethally. Sacra and Alani go outside to tell the wife what happened but tell her not to go inside because she shouldn't have to see that. Meanwhile Devlin while they're distracted starts looking through the families stuff to find valuables, playing it off when the guards arrive as "just making sure there aren't any more goblins hiding, a bad bluff roll made up for by the fact that the guards pretty much wanted to believe him (You bet your butt he got a greed point).

So a few more uneventful days pass, when they get summoned by the guards to meet with the mayor. When they do so, they see Shelelu is back in town and have an immediate distrust for her. She tells them about the gathering tribes and when Belor says that he's going to head down to Magnimar to get more guards, they shift their distrust to him because he was going to go without any other guards. Yeesh this group is suspicious. Anywho two days later they're patrolling the town when the halfling from the Rusty Dragon lets them know Ameiko is missing. They read the letter and head for the glassworks. The cleric wants to climb to the roof and start looking for a way in, but the paladin gets impatient and heads for the back door, kicking her way in. Tsuto drunk downstairs, and the goblins already making a rukus don't notice the extra noise, neither does the cleric on the roof on the other side of the building. So the halfling and the paladin go in the back while the Cleric seeing goblins through the skylight waits for some to get underneath so that she can smash through the glass and then swing in on a grappling hook to avoid the glass. So I give a roll to see how lucky she'll get and how many wind up underneath the glass. She gets a good percentile roll so four goblins playing around are corralled into the area by the others chasing them with brands. She smashes the glass with a strength check and because it was established as thicker glass (and because of how badly she did last fight) I rolled a d6 for damage, which came up 6 so with her first action she killed half the goblins In hindsight I should've at least given a reflex save for half damage, but cest la vie.

Before this had happened though while she waited for the goblins to get underneath, the other two had by luck gone straight to the stairs downstairs and then also by luck straight to the door where tsuto was asleep litterally passing other doors choosing not to open them (I know for a fact none of them have read this AP since my wife never touches the gaming stuff unless I help her and the other two are brand new players) So with their first door they wake Tsuto and have him cornered in a 10x10 room. They don't know what he's done yet or about the goblins upstairs though so they think his letter is somewhat on the up and up, and offer that if he'll come with them and answer questions they won't harm him, he tries to set them up by pretending to act acquiescent then strike unarmed by surprise, but he misses the Ranger, the paladin wins initiative, and surprisingly enough goes for the grapple, and gets it. Tsuto fails to break free and on the next round she gets the pin while the halfling goes and ties him up.

Meanwhile Alana is upstairs taking on 4 goblins by herself, and she has a pretty close call with it, getting all the way down to 0 HP but managing to kill 2 and injure a 3rd who goes to flee, leaving the one left who had run to grab swords and then realizing that everyone else was dead and running for the tunnels only to run smack dab into the PCs coming back up the stairs. Seeing them carrying Tsuto tied up, he surrenders. The other goblin that ran comes around at this point but seeing the escape route blocked ran again and is now hiding somewhere in the building, The cleric does a quick search but the goblin is a good hider and that's where we wrapped up. The cleric and the ranger got enough XP once I threw in a little bonus RP XP for his greediness and her indiana jones style entrance to join Sacra at level 2, with two captive the rest of the glassworks to explore along with the catacombs underneath.

You know each state should just have a page where we can post where we are and other gamers can see if they are nearby, I say we keep this thread up or start a new one with the same name for that purpose, I know when i try to post "looking for gamers in deltona fl it drops quick but something like this could stay up for a while.

Cast of Character Alana "the blue haired maiden": NG cleric 1. Quiet in social situations but with a natural talent for singing. Alana is a bit put off by the sudden attention being given to her. Knowing that Nualia went through something similar she tries to grin and bear it. Always looking to help those in need and see to folks injuries before rushing off to combat Alana has proven herself a charitable healer. Still unsure of herself, in the heat of battle she will often forget to cast spells and instead turn towards her martial training with her longsword.

Devlin "the roguish tracker": N ranger 1. Devlin is an adventure seeker, following where his curiosity leads. While mild tempered and a sturdy companion Devlin has a bit of a greedy streak to himself, often taking the time to rifle through pockets or sneak a peak in peoples posessions when no one is looking. Devlin likes to hang back in combat using ranged weapons but hasn't really settled on a particular favored weapon yet having tried out his trusty bow, a starknife, javelins, and his slingstaff Devlin is looking to see what works best for Devlin and hasn't quite decided yet.

Sacra Killmore "the dark knight": LG paladin 2. Sacra is the adopted daughter of one of sandpoint upper class families. She has always done the right thing, said the right thing, believed in chivalry and honor. But there is something strange about her. The chivalry, the honor, the behavior, it is all a mask, while one could say that ones actions and desires defines who one is, some say that ones true nature truly defines who one is and if that's the case then there is something truly frightening about Sacra. For she has dark desires, desires she keeps locked inside her heart. Even the most fleeting of transgression or mildest of annoyances calls to her heart for violence and murder. Not sure of the source of these dark desires Sacra has placed them in a cage of civility duty and honor, but the desires still plague her striving to break free from that cage and wreak bloody vengeance for even the most mild of transgressions. Only time will tell whether that cage can hold against the coming storm.

Okay so I've run a game for RotR before, and have an older campaign journal for it, that game fell apart with the economic collapse (One Gamer lost his job and had to move for school, two others had to focus on getting their higher education completed, and the last decided to call it quits) so I haven't gamed at all in almost a year. Well as luck would have it, I finally got some people interested in playing. They're both new to the game, so I'm teaching them as we go. They are playing a Halfling Ranger, and a Half-Elf cleric. My wife also joined so she is playing a Half-Elf Paladin.

So first session begins, the Swallowtail Festival starts off with a bang, the players get their choices of starting positions either in the center where they were listening to the speeches, to the left at the lunch tables where there's free food and drink, or on the right where the butterfly cart has been released and there are children running around. The paladin and ranger go for the free food. The cleric wants to be around children. So combat begins, one goblin hidden underneath the butterfly cart, one hidden in the food stalls, and one coming in from an alley into the speech area. Goblins attack commoners in the first round and people all start panicking and running. Cleric goes for the goblin from under the cart who is attacking children and hits it, getting its attention. Kids get away from it, but one falls when running. Ranger and Paladin gang up on goblin in the food court, and a civilian goes after the one in the center. The goblins fight but attack lots of targets trying to go after children instead of fighting the bigger people, one commoner gets killed before he can run away, but it's not a hard fight and afterwards, the paladin sees smoke and immediately goes running for it, the halfling doublechecks that all the goblins are dead before following, and the cleric takes the time to check the two fallen citizens and channels energy to heal the one survivng as well as the hurt child. This causes them to get to the next scene at different points.

The Paladin gets to the burning cart and sees two people down and the goblins cheering as the fire on the cart starts to grow, she uses her surprise round to shoot a goblin, one hit kill. Then she wins initiative, and shoots another, one hit kill. The other two normal goblins start charging her while the warchanter stays back and sings. One hits her one misses. She drops her bow, draws her falchion and attacks, missing. Goblins attack, one hits one misses, the warchanter tries to daze the paladin, and fails. Paladin attacks kills one goblin. This is when the Ranger catches up and joins combat complaining that she'll be done by the time he gets a chance to do anything. He throws his starknife at the last goblin missing. Goblin sees starknife and wants it because its pretty, the AoO from the paladin kills him, leaving the warchanter. At this point the Cleric catches up, and all three gang up killing it. The paladin sets off immediately in the direction of a scream along with the Ranger. The cleric stays behind and checks the two people who had been left alive, aparently the goblins wanted to watch them burn. She pulls them from the fire and channels to heal them. Then sets off after the party.

The poor paladins luck is getting bad because she tried to heal herself with lay on hands and for three uses of lay on hands she healed 3 hp. The Ranger and Paladin get to the goblin fight and split up to go around a building and hit them from both sides. This causes the commando to go after the paladin while the gobbos try to get the halfling, although two stay behind trying to get at aldern who hides in a barrel. The halfling drops one goblin but the paladins luck got used up in the last fight and now she is missing with every attack, while I am rolling 18, 19, 17 so she wind up in the negatives, the goblin commando decides to go after the halfling now, who manages to take out a second goblin, meanwhile the cleric finally arives and starts heading towards the paladin to heal, but when two goblins go to surround her she decides to jump through a window into the house and cut through the house to get behind the commando. She takes some damage from this so she grabs a chair and smashes a window on the other side, in the meantime the goblin climbs in after her, and sees a family in the cowering in the house, goes after the family. the cleric throw her acid at the commando missing but hitting him and another gobbo with splash damage, meanwhile Aldern goes running for the paladin and starts feeding her a potion, the goblin chases after aldern, and the commando turns and attacks the cleric who because of jumping through the window was down hp and drops her. The paladin gets up and starts fighting the goblin Aldern cowering behind her the entire time. Now it's very hard to hit the ranger (AC 19) so I keep missing, and the rolls are turning bad all around. Which gives the cleric time to bleed out and die.

This marks a point where I have a decision to make, do I have a new player sit out the rest of a session and then go through the process of creating an entirely new character? Also the fight is very close to a TPK with both the ranger and paladin at low HP and the commando with about half his total. I decide to take the cleric player into the next room where I describe for her, the herald of Iomedae who warns her that the runeforges have awoken and that a great evil threatens the land, Karzoug (I named him because I know that he doesn't really come up again for a while, so throwing this bit of forshadowing in will keep her guessing. Also she has just been asking everyone "who's Karzoug" so she doesn't really have a clue and it will help me tie it all together later) She is warned that if she dies again within a year, there will be no help for her (in game terms she has one year in game that if she dies she can't be brought back with raise dead etc.) and she wakes up with half her HP restored her hair turning blue as a sign of her covenant (something the character wanted). After the cleric is up they flank the commando killing the dog and then dropping the commando while the paladin cleans up the last goblin.

Afterwards they start asking around to see if anyone knows why an attack would take place, but with no real leads, things wrap up and we end for the night.

Also: giving Stephen Hawking a mere 18 is an insult to the man, he's probably got something on the order of 24+, he's definitely a min-maxer.

Not if you consider that an 18 is the upper limit of what a person can be naturally born with. And no offense, I don't think stephen hawkins has any levels, just that he was born with a brain that is absolutely the best that a human can achieve naturally. Which if you consider dice rolls an 18 is. If you have a pinnacle then you can place people on the scale. You see I don't think anyone else living is an 18, I think 18 is rare. I think there are a few 17s out there, and then that there are even more 16s etc. down the line, but if you have a range with a cap. Then yes it's easy to assign people on the scale, because you know where the top tier is. Which is why I put Hawkins on the top tier of int and the current title holder of the worlds strongest man competition at the top tier of str. It's only hard to do so, when there is no upper limit, which is why you say you can't do it with the current system. Keep in mind that the game give the elite array, but the book says that only about 10% of the population has it, the elite array has a 15 as its highest stat. which means after racial mods the highest stat is 17. Meaning saying hawkins is an 18 (and considering that he has no levels IMO) means that he naturally was gifted with an intelligence greater than what only 10% of the world population has.

lastknightleft wrote:

too far for a regular game though

30-45 minutes depending on traffic. Straight down Hwy 46. I'm about a mile south of Hwy 46. I've got people from Palm Bay playing which is an hour away. If you change you're mind let me know.

It's not time, it's gas. I'm on a tight budget and a once a week trip that far would suck up too much of our gas budget (we're down to one vehicle now for the both of us). But if it's not to far for you, you're more than welcome to give our game a try.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I knew I worded that wrong. I'm sorry, long night must have got to me.

When the difference between two characters bonus is larger than the d20, the game is out of whack. Capping ability scores or limiting the different bonuses that stack can fix this.

That still happens at level ~17, see the fighter perception and rogue stealth.

I've never had a game get that far, and now that I run APs, I doubt that I ever will

too far for a regular game though

Too bad. My group is on the other side of the state between Melbourne, and Daytona.

Whereabouts, I'm in the Deltona/Sanford Area

lastknightleft wrote:

So I'm thinking of making stats for humanoid creatures cap at 20 (something along the lines of their physiology just doesn't get any better), I'm tired of seeing int 28 humans and str 25 dwarves etc. Personally, if there's ever a new edition I want it to focus a lot less on pumping stats as high as they'll go. I was just hoping to get a discussion on what effects this will have on the game. I know that at higher level this means that there'll be more lost saving throws as the game expects players to use magic items to boost stats to blah blah blah. What else could I expect?

oooo, while we are drawing arbitrary lines based on feelings, we should cut down on the number of rings a character can have, two is just to many. and i'm tired of seeing all the characters with the multiple effects coming from rings.

Actually in my game, as long as a ring is a use activated ring you can have as many as you want on your hand as long as no two rings are giving an effect at the same time. So feel free to wear a ring of animal friendship and a ring of the ram on one hand, while your ring of mind blank stays lonely on your other hand.

But hey, hyperbole works for everyone

New blog entry! Today, I reviewed the game Stick:

review: Stick!

Enjoy! :)

Randy
Growing Up Gamers

Gotta tell you, I'm glad someone finally pointed out how paper thin the theme of that game is :)

Although I will say that the expansion "Hitting your brother with it for no particular reason" added a lot more fun to the game, I didn't even feel the need for a theme once that expansion came out.

lastknightleft wrote:

Yeah my cap plan was for humanoid only as well. That's type, so anything that falls under that category, but not monstrous humanoids.

So, Storm Giants in your campaign would be limited to a 20 Strength? They are Humanoid type, after all.

Heh I forgot Paizo made that change, I think Giants would have to go to monstrous humanoid, what were they in 3.5 their own type right, it's been so long lol

I think (part of) the underlying question is whether we attribute another value that isn't numerical to stats or not.

If like in AD&D, the stats "means" something more than 26 = +8 modifier, than capping the stat to something we can clearly imagine and roleplay as being "human perfection" makes sense to me (especially concerning mental stats).

Personally, I think 20 would be good as the typical "one notch above ideal", but I understand that the game assumes higher stats to work within its mathematical frame.

'findel

which is what I'm going for, 18s are rare enough rolls, I think in the past four games I've played in I've seen 1 rolled. So on average with stat mods most games I've played in or DMed have started with one character with an 18 as a stat. Now if 18 is the pinnacle of humanoid ability, and with magic, rare birth, or experience you can be just slightly better then I'm okay with that. You can wrap your brain around that, and you can say okay your character is now smarter than stephen hawkins (18 int) or stronger than Zydrunas Savickas (18 str) I'm okay with that. But how does a player or DM really conceptualize the difference between a 26 int and a 28 int. Okay you were already smarter than anyone who has ever lived ever and are now slightly smarter, roleplay that. At least Str was somewhat easier, okay you were stronger than a rhino, now you're stronger than an elephant. but really, I don't think the game needs or benefits from having stats continue to get higher and higher. I'm willing to adjust high level monsters down a notch for a more conceptual approach to stats.

lastknightleft wrote:

Yeah my cap plan was for humanoid only as well. That's type, so anything that falls under that category, but not monstrous humanoids.

Have you considered instead making the cap based on pre-racial adjustments?

So a human or a half orc could get a 20 strength, an orc could have a 22 strength, an elf could only get an 18 strength, gnomes and halflings only a 16.

Or possibly cap them at racial max plus XXX.

In otherwords basically saying that an 18 is the pinnacle of stats, but a racial adjustment is the only thing that can exceed that. Sorta, but then I worry about making it a thing that pushes players more towards playing specific race/class combos even more than the game already favors.

Kolokotroni wrote:

Caineach wrote:

Personally, I prefer the idea of getting rid of the stat increasing items and inherrent bonuses from wish. After that, not much raises stats and its not that big of a deal. A player who starts with a 20 and adds all of his level bonuses is a 25. Sure he is stupidly rare, but he is also a 20th level character who was naturally gifted. This is a major change to ballance though, as monsters assume you have the big 6 in their stats.

Indeed npcs are probably pretty easy to manage with an ability score cap for the players. Monsters are a different story. You cant really cap monsters it would not only impact their abilities and attacks and such, but it also wouldnt make sense. A colossal dragon shouldnt have only a slightly higher strength then an olympic weight lifter

I would place the cap on humanoids only, and I think this adds to the game. No longer will you have players stronger than adult dragons. Sure, players could wrestle a grizzly bear (str 21), but they wont seriously outclass them like they can now.

Yeah my cap plan was for humanoid only as well. That's type, so anything that falls under that category, but not monstrous humanoids.

I already put this feat in the first post.

I actually missed the whole line.

I'm not trying to alter it because I think it's broke, I'm thinking of altering it because I don't like it. For the same reason I'm thinking of altering the weapon proficiency rules, for the same reason I've toyed with the idea of completely separating arcane and divine magic (i.e. a spell that is either arcane or divine, you don't get a spell that can be learned by an arcane class and a divine class like a wealth of spells in the game). I do this stuff because I want to make the game different because I've played with it the way it's written and now I want to try it a different way, and I discuss things with my players I don't just force changes on them. I don't game with children and if a person would blow up over things in a game then I don't want to game with them either. In fact I would appreciate if houserules caused someone to blow up at the beginning of the game that way I knew not to have them play at my table.

0gre wrote:

The game is full of arbitrary limitations. It's like saying a player might take exception to the limit on spells per day and become a problem. Or take exception to the limit on rounds of rage per day and become a problem...

Yes, but the player accepts those when he plays the game, when the GM adds one, even if it's from the very beginning, and even if everyone agrees to it, you never know what will trip the trigger of the player causing them to go off the rails. The more you poke at it, as a GM, the more likely a player is to get annoyed at it. I've actually seen players blow up over rules, even if they were plain as day, so yes the limitation on rages/day can cause a blow up.

Another thing low stats does is shorten the work day, casters can't cast as often, melee characters can't take as many hits, and less gets done in any given day.

Changing stats, the way they work, how many everyone can have, etc. brings about a lot of work for the DM, and as someone who has been on both sides of that particular fence, I know full well the DM already has his plate full, and he shouldn't be adding to it.

You play with some immature people then.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I've never been a player, only DM so I have no idea what a player should expect.

lastknightleft wrote:

Who said I'm up in arms over players being effective. I said that I don't like that stats lack a comparative connect to something in order to be properly roleplayed and that I don't like the heavy focus on stat building seen in SAD classes. If I'm opening a discussion to know what to expect from said changes then clearly I'm planning to make adjustments so that I'm not leaving my players in the lurch. You tell me in what way that knowing in advance at the start of the game that 20 is the highest your stat can be is screwing you, then you can claim this is me trying to make my PCs ineffective.

You wouldn't be suggesting a nerf to player stats if you weren't at least somewhat put off by them having good stats. Having stat maximums is silly, the average player character gets to be superhuman at one point or another in every game system, why limit one of those points? I wouldn't play in a game with maximum stats, it doesn't make sense to me. The monsters can get stats in the 30s-40s, why can't the PCs? By that alone it screws the players, they end up simply not having the stats Pathfinder expects them to have.

Is that assigning baseless motives to complete strangers silly, using an organized rules structure to sit around with adults and play pretend silly, or telling people they should be ashamed of themselves for making alterations to a game silly?

lastknightleft wrote:

I'm sorry, I didn't know that having a discussion would ruin your fun. I don't use point buy and while I have control over magic items, and do excercise said control, I don't see a problem if the rules of the game are different as long as you aren't making that change in a currently running game.

Okay, then do it old school, have them roll 3d6. The tools to make this work are there, you just have to use them. I have serious issues with GMs who get up in arms about players characters actually being good at what they are supposed to be good at, today's example is having really high stats, who cares if the player has a +6 or +7 from their stat alone, you as the GM have infinite monsters of infinite power at your disposal, and you want to rain on their parade? Shame on you.

Who said I'm up in arms over players being effective. I said that I don't like that stats lack a comparative connect to something in order to be properly roleplayed and that I don't like the heavy focus on stat building seen in SAD classes. If I'm opening a discussion to know what to expect from said changes then clearly I'm planning to make adjustments so that I'm not leaving my players in the lurch. You tell me in what way that knowing in advance at the start of the game that 20 is the highest your stat can be is screwing you, then you can claim this is me trying to make my PCs ineffective.

No instead you're here attributing me to some houserule some DM you played under instituted that you didn't like and telling me that I should be ashamed of myself for making changes to the rules of the game. Hey guess what, I also houseruled that reach weapons can hit creatures in adjacent squares for a -4 penalty, should I be ashamed of myself because this means a fighter with imp. unarmed strike isn't as effective because now anyone with a reach weapon can hit adjacent creatures, even though that rule was instituted at the start of the game so a player playing a fighter would already know that.

Oh and by the way if you don't like a DM's houserule, then DM for yourself and run whatever rules you like instead of telling random strangers that they should be ashamed of themselves for floating an idea around.

What would you do if a new edition of pathfinder came out and there was a stat cap in the new edition, would you run to the boards telling the designers that they should be ashamed of themselves for limiting a players power?

There's actually a feat called indigestible that has a pre-req of surviving a fight with an ooze, you gain acid resistance 5

I'd add any ooze that can engulf to your list, the only difference between swallow whole and engulf is some teeth, so gelatinous cube etc. should be up there.

You might instead of stacking them up opt to integrate them together. Rumors about events from one AP leak to wherever the PCs are at. Give the party hooks that might let them switch paths and whatnot. The problem I see with this approach I admit is that the APs are very land-specific; it's hard to be working on both Second Darkness and Kingmaker, for example.

Well if you're willing to make it no longer Golarion, but a homebrew setting with names that just happen to match up to those in the books, this could be feasible. For example, if your newly carved out town was in a wilderness close enough to be invited a festival honoring a nearby towns new cathedral (Rise of the Runelords) and a slightly farther away city on the coast sends you an invite to a new gambling competition (Second Darkness) hoping to curry the favor of your new towns lords and encourage a new concept called tourism (say if the owner wanted you to make gambling illegal in your town so that people would have to travel there to get their kicks etc.

Run an e6 game, it'd require a lot of work, to convert the 4-6 books in the AP but that's the only way I could see it being feasible without being a cakewalk after the first AP. And that way while the first book in each AP would be fairly easy you cut down on conversion work for about two books out of each AP.

I'm sorry, what? There is a pretty simple solution to this: tell your players to build their characters on the Low-fantasy point-buy, then tell them they can't sell back any of their stats. That will stop high stats dead in their tracks. Use the tools that are built into the system. The best they could ever hope for is a 33 on one stat, that's including a +6 item and a +5 book, two things which YOU AS THE GM HAVE CONTROL OVER. Otherwise they are at a 22 tops, for that one stat, and every other stat is a 10, 8, or 12.

Seriously, the only thing any of this accomplishes is screwing over the player. Remember player characters are supposed to be the HEROES in the story. Let them have the stats to be heroic.

I'm sorry, I didn't know that having a discussion would ruin your fun. I don't use point buy and while I have control over magic items, and do excercise said control, I don't see a problem if the rules of the game are different as long as you aren't making that change in a currently running game.

I'm not sure about LKL but I would leave Barbarian Rage and Bulls strength alone, that would put a renewed value on those abilities which have been watered down a bit due to permanent magic items.

I actually would leave those alone, I don't mind small temporary boosts, although I have thought about changing the +2 stat boost spells so that they don't just give +2 stat boosts as that's fairly boring use of the spell, but Barbarians yeah I'd leave them alone, their rage lets them exceed normal human limits for a short period of time. Hell with that rule change, I might actually see someone play a barbarian in real life (I've never had anyone ever who wanted to play one)

Yeah I've never actually seen a stat above 30 so that makes no sense as a cap to me. Maybe my games fall apart too early, and I've seen people get close to 30, but I've never seen a game where someone had a 30 in something.

Unyoking ability scores from concrete performance standards was one of the 3rd Edition paradigm shifts. I don't know if you played 2nd Edition, but in those days the ability scores were not only effectively capped, but some of them meant something quantifiable. Not only would your human fighter never be as strong as a 1500 lb giant, but a 17 STR meant you could press a certain amount of weight, a 14 INT meant you could learn a certain number of languages. Maybe I just maintain some affection for that because I grew up with it, but I wasn't happy with that change when I saw 3rd Edition (still not crazy about it).

I never played 2nd ed (except for the Baldur's Gate computer games, which I loooooooovvvvvvvvve), but yeah, I'd prefer that. In all honesty I kinda like the way the stat boosters in baldur's gate worked, they set stats to a certain level and if you were stronger than that, it actually lowered your stat intstead of raising it, meaning you didn't want the item.

If I understand correctly the problem is out of combat stats regarding abilities.

Possible solution:
For all reasons not regarding combat stats make an ability score:
Ability Score - Ability modifier. (with negative modifier this makes it bigger)

This way there is no 3 STR character who can hardly carry the bones in his body and no 30 INT wizard who could achieve a physics skill better than any person in Real life.

As others said, changing things in combat will force you to recalculate every monster and adjust a hell of a lot.

not before level 13 or so, the game will run just fine till then. And it's not like high level play doesn't take a heck of a lot of work to begin with.

Okay, great discussion guys, thanks for being open to the idea and not just hitting me with bad/wrong/no fun answers. I guess I should explain some things.

Personally, I'm much more of a role player than a roll player, and while I know there are other systems that focus less on stats and builds, I actually like the dnd 3.x system (now pathfinder) and have invested a lot of money into it, I don't want to switch systems after such a large investment. Player expectation isn't so much of a problem with me as I wind up teaching most of the people I play with, (the problem with being an adult only wanting to play with adults and living in BFE). Although when I do add outside experienced players to my group that's when you do see the difference.

I guess more of the problem is that while the numbers are abstract I've always considered them less so, I like the idea that the stats # are a scale where there's a comparable pinnacle. If 20 is the utmost highest level of intelligence attainable, then it's easy to say things like stephen hawkins is a 20 int. when you allow stats to be grown to any level then what comparison do you give a person to understand what their int is like. how can you roleplay or even comprehend the difference between a 26 and a 28 int. Also I don't like the game being about pushing a single stat as high as you can possibly get it, and yes I'm talking about both the base stat with magic boosters, I don't see stats get very high without magic. I'd just like to see the focus being less on stats and more about the effects that manipulate the game world. I don't want to completely remove stat boosters, but I don't want everyone to be seeking out a +4 headband/belt, that's boring to me. Part of it is playstyle, part of it is plain old liking tinkering with the system, part of it is if there are solid rules set up before hand it's easier to mix in outside players who have different playstyles and expectations than the people who I've taught to play. And none of it is a dead set I'm gonna do this, more of a "I'm fiddling with the idea in my head.