Forwell Hog

martryn's page

Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 397 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.



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Pathfinder 2nd Edition:
Where every melee PC is a coward unwilling to be the first to engage an enemy.
Where no man can stand alone against foes.

I'm remembering why I stopped trying to post on the Paizo forums. Concerned about something in game? It's your fault for being bad at the game. It's your players' fault for being too stupid to use optimized tactics. Your fighter charged an enemy? He deserves to die for not first firing arrows from a distance and allowing the enemy to close to him so he could better take advantage of the action economy in the game.

It seems to me that the combats have become TOO tactical. I have an experienced player who built a headstrong fighter that likes to be in the thick of it. He had a great backstory of being an orphan of war that despises the organized military, raised in war camps, growing up in the wild, uncultured, uneducated, full of ambition, bitterness, and spunk. The first real combat of the campaign the character boldly swings open the front doors to an abandoned castle and strolls in like she owns the place, only to be confronted with three mangy looking goblin dogs. The dogs look up and growl at her. She growls back. They step forward, not backing down. She charges.

In 1st edition, this is a silly scenario, and she'll likely end up taking a few blows and maybe even getting mange. This is what the player was expecting. The chances that three goblin dogs could down her in a few rounds would have been slim. +2 attack would hit 25% of the time. She might take a single hit the first round, but she also probably would have dropped a dog on a charge with a 2-handed weapon and an 18 Str. In 1st edition, had she charged and killed one dog, as a competent DM, I probably would have had the other two scatter and run, preferring to live to fight another day.

In 2nd edition, she charges, hits, and does not drop a goblin dog. Now she is subjected to 7 attacks instead of 3. The first attack from each dog hits with greater than 50% accuracy, and crits with greater than 10% frequency. It deals approximately 6-7 points of damage as well as potentially causing sickened. The second attacks hit with greater frequency than the first ones did in 1st edition. And at least one of the dogs gets a chance to get a 3rd hit in. If this 1st level human fighter had average HPs, they're probably dropped in 3 hits. And chances are, that is exactly what will happen.

It should be overwhelmingly obvious what my issue is. If I were running a long-term campaign and converted from one system to another, the characters themselves would fundamentally have to change. Not their stats. Not the way magic items work. Not the mechanics. But the essence of who those characters were. You now have to adjust your role-playing (which happens ALL the time in a role-playing game, not just outside of combat and exploration, but including combat role-play and in-character choices during exploration) just to be viable in the new campaign world. My group does not want to play a game where our characters are animated, colorful personalities when interacting with NPCs, but become minis pushed around on grid paper when we start a dungeon crawl.


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How many of each dice do you keep in your dice bag?

I'm trying to optimize my dice bag that I travel with and use from the literally hundreds of dice I have in a small chest in my game room. I tend to GM a lot of games, so this is what I normally keep in there:

5d4 (for Magic Missile)
10d6 (for Fireball)
4d8
4d10
3d12
5d20 (for rolling multiple monster attacks in one go)
2d100

This seems to handle the vast majority of situations that arise with having to scoop up and roll the same dice more than once to resolve a single action, as well as making it easy to find a d12 blindly when you randomly need one.

Anyone else give this any amount of thought?

Goblin Squad Member

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I understand the rules mechanics thing. I know they can't call a magic missile a Magic Missile. I get that they can't simulate d20 rolls, and I'd prefer a more free-form leveling/class system. I do like the d200 system they're using. I'm not sold on the tier thing, yet. Keywords are clever but not customizable enough.

But the game doesn't stir up any feelings of tabletop role-playing.

Maybe it's because it's Early Enrollment, and it's too early to look at the game and still envision a final product in place. Perhaps if there are lairs to explore and dungeons to delve as part of escalations. Or if the population of players increases to the point where PvP is more common (in my neck of the woods). Or the settlements look less like they're dropped in place and are defined more by the choices the players make.

Weird crystal clickables? Clerics running around with implements and not weapons? Shields not giving a passive defensive boost? Armor feats that more or less limit you to a single armor choice? It doesn't feel like Golarion.

Goblin Squad Member

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Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game so far. Maybe not as much as I initially enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons Online, but it's an unfinished product, and DDO was bogged down with some serious problems at endgame which PFO looks to avoid.

However, I get the distinct impression that the developers have not actually sat down and played, more than a few hours if any, of tabletop Pathfinder. This is a huge issue for me as I wouldn't be playing this game if it were Fantasy Kingdom Building Online.

It's unfair to do a direct comparison, I know, but it's hard not to put this up against my initial reactions to DDO (what with it being based on DnD 3rd edition the same way Pathfinder is). When I logged on to DDO for the first time I generated a character and started the game already knowing the gist of what was going on. I knew that kobolds and rats weren't very dangerous, that wearing plate armor was going to cause me to jump shorter distances, and that having a shield equipped was going to help my defenses.

Starting PFO for the first time I had issues equipping a weapon, or even finding starting gear (back in alpha). I was overwhelmed with attack feat options. I don't really have a very good idea of how many goblins my character can take, not real sure how good my attacks are, or even what a good attack and defense score is, and the nuances between this chain shirt and that chain shirt and which one is better... Shields apparently don't help with defense at all, I'm casting what looks like a Cone of Cold but it only hits one creature and doesn't even kill a simple goblin...

I just get a vague impression that the developers flipped through the Core Rulebook, took the chapter titles and looked at pictures, and threw familiar looking words at us and called it Pathfinder. The game they gave us is a lot of fun, and I don't have any plans on quitting any time soon, but it's as much Pathfinder as 4th edition DnD is.

Goblin Squad Member

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I'm happy to announce that the Carrion Corps will be working out of, and largely for, the small settlement of Canis Castrum. We are still recruiting members, though our initial mercenary pursuits will largely be concentrated in that region, and I imagine will focus on hex safety/aggression management and escort/guard type responsibilities.

I'm also excited to announce a guild forum, as sponsored by Canis Castrum's guild, Reading Between the Lines. We're legitimate, now.

Also, beware rival settlements, or those with ill-intent. The Carrion Corps will broach no aggression against Canis Castrum or it's allies in the region. Retribution will be quick and severe.


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You know what product did arrive on time? My DnD Next stuff. Guess instead of starting a new Pathfinder Adventure Card game campaign tonight, my gaming group is going to be gearing up to fight Tiamat.

Goblin Squad Member

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So, this past weekend was a busy one for the Carrion Corps. Several of us backers sat down and discussed the fine details of our operation. Until we get into the game and see what it's capable of supporting, we can't nail down specifics, but we now know what we'd prefer to do.

We've also decided that it's about time to open up talk with other guilds and see if we can't get some early contracts. Things might be slow going at first while we work out the kinks of first time playing, but we're committed to seeing all contracts through to a satisfying completeness.

As for our services, if it is possible for something to be done in game, we will do it for you for a price. There will be my personal guarantee that the work will be finished, and before we start, I'll even try to give you a timetable for it's completion. Payments are all negotiable. We're a neutral organization, so there are certain things that might cost more, as we'd prefer not to do them:
Murder, Assassination, Larceny, Highway Banditry, General Harassment, Vandalism, Sabotage, Espionage, and, of course, toppling other guilds, kingdoms, or similar organizations.

We still intend to pursue the stated specialization I mentioned... what? 18 months ago? But I haven't been following every detail of this game's development and so am not sure if the mechanics even make passing ownership of things over from one group to another, or if the game still supports the construction of player buildings such as forts out in uncharted territory. Or even if there will be uncharted territory. Those maps of the Land Rush look pretty packed.

We'll also need an early base of operations until we get into the full swing of things. On this, I'm afraid, I have to be very specific. We'll want to work out of a True Neutral settlement at first to avoid accidentally taking any sides.

Finally, we're opening the proverbial doors for recruiting. Again, since most of us are, as of this moment, unfamiliar with the mechanics of this game, we're also unfamiliar with the way guilds and other organizations will work in the game. If you're interested in mercenary work, with profit sharing and a benefit package, and you're willing to be patient with us while we try and get our feet under us at launch, we're willing to have you.

Thank you all again, and I look forward to many mutually beneficial agreements in the times ahead.


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Character: Olhas
Class/Race/Level/etc: level 2 gillman summoner
Module: The first one, Wormwood Mutiny
Cause: Vine Choker
Details:

Party had some issues from the beginning. No one had any healing, for example. Summoner thought he was a melee combatant as he had like a 12-13 Cha and a 16 Con and 14 Str. When they first arrived on the island, they decided to sail around and ended up beaching the boats and walking through the corn fields. I randomly rolled to see which of the 6 possible targets the ankheg was likely going to murder, and it was the summoner's eidolon. The party did beat back the ankheg and kill it, but they lost the eidolon in the process, which was why he wasn't a factor in the next combat. On top of that, the party was pretty beat up by the time they reached the stockade. No healing other than a few potions, and they didn't escape the initial grindylow encounter unscathed, and hadn't rested since then.

To set the stage, I have five players:
Gillman Summoner (Olhas)
Drow Ninja (Han)
Gnome Bard ("Bait")
Elf Fighter (Sae)
Human Magus (Bernard)

The magus player is by far the most skilled of the bunch, with the fighter's character having only a quarter of the experience, but still having twice as much as the other three combined. The poor bard didn't have any offensive capabilities outside of flare, daze, and cause fear. The ninja almost never set up a flank, and quite often would fire into melee through heavy cover with his bow instead of trying to engage, and I mentioned the summoner's penchant for melee attacks.

So we pull up into the stockade, and I rolled a pretty low stealth for the two chokers, so the party sees them up there. I allow "Bait" to roll for knowledge on them, and he doesn't have a clue, but Olhas's player recognizes chokers from the bestiary, and I'm using the Skull and Shackles tokens. He still moves forward and attempts to cast Summon Monster I, except he does it within range. The choker immediately hits, interrupts the spell, grapples, and now Olhas is dangling by his neck in this tree, the choker eagerly waiting his turn in initiative to pull him up into the higher branches. "Bait" casts his one decent spell, Cause Fear, and nails the choker with Olhas. Olhas drops, barely conscious, and that choker flees. The other choker puts up a good fight (I rule that the party can, as a standard action, jump and swing at the choker, who is still on a branch ten feet above the ground), and lands a few very solid hits before he drops. Party is all still alive, but they know there is a second choker in the tree, and they know they've only got a round or two before it comes down for revenge.

"Bait", Sae, and Bernard decide to take cover in the lodge. They move to the door and see Ivy dangling from his suicide attempt. Bernard is suspicious, and casts a Ray of Frost at him to make sure he's dead. I rule that because Ivy knows he needs to stay still and pretend to be dead to lure people close, he can make a Will save to not flinch, with the result being the DC of the Perception check necessary to see him flinch. Only Sae notices. However, the Ray of Frost stirs up the botfly swarm on the body, which moves to the door, engulfs Bernard, and immediately drops him unconscious. Technically Bernard died two rounds later from the bleed, but we're using hero points, and he blew two of them to stay alive. By this point Han has moved up and cleverly uses a smoke stick to disperse the swarm, which I ruled worked well enough as I didn't want to TPK my party. Meanwhile, "Bait", terrified of what the chokers can do, and not hearing Sae's warning about the dangling corpse due to the excitement of the swarm, moves into the lodge and starts looking for anything useful. That's when Ivy pounced, grabbed "Bait", and used him to free himself.

At this point, several things happen. Sae, having kept an eye out for the second choker, sees it recover and start to come back down the tree. Olhas, who was barely conscious, drinks a potion of healing, bring himself back into double digit HPs. He does this after strategically retreating, by himself, outside of the stockade. When he sees that he's the only one that pulled back, instead of forward, he moves back inside, around the same time Sae moves around to defend the group from the second choker. "Bait" is trapped in the lodge with the ghast, and has a single, non-MW dagger, to protect himself. Han is trying to staunch the bleeding from poor Bernard. Han sees the ghast, and decides it's time to move to engage it. Instead of setting up a flank with the gnome, he wants to try out his new flask of alchemist's fire, which he carelessly throws (even after we explained exactly how it worked) into a space adjacent to "Bait", who takes a point of splash damage. The ghast took 3 points of damage, which annoyed it more than anything. "Bait's" player was terrified of the ghast turning and attacking him, and he wanted to drink the potion of invisibility that he had pulled out, but instead the ghast stepped forward and in a flurry of three attacks dropped the drow.

The choker, meanwhile, goes after Olhas again, easily hits, again, and establishes a grapple... again. Olhas's player could have avoided all of that, of course, but was eager to attempt to strike at it with his longspear. So eager, in fact, that instead of doing something to help his situation, he made a feeble attempt at stabbing his strangler. And even with a glancing blow from Sae, there was nothing to stop the choker from pulling Olhas into the tree and strangling him into unconsciousness on his next turn, retreating out of range of Sae's attacks.

In the lodge, "Bait" (maybe you understand now where he's gotten that name), has the space to drink his potion without provoking an AoO, and is now invisible, however Ivy is between him and the one door. And Ivy is smart enough to know what has just happened. He drags the unconscious Han into the room, shuts the door behind him, and sits with his back to it, watching the room, and waiting for "Bait" to reappear. Meanwhile, he can start on his main course: drow.

Sae has given up on Olhas (after I described the crunching sounds and splatters of blood dropping from above), and turns back to the lodge and the unconscious but (thanks to hero points) stable Bernard, who happens to have an undrunk potion of Cure Moderate Wounds in his backpack. Quickly administering it to the magus, he brings him out of the red, and the two kick open the door to the lodge (or rather swing it open). Ivy takes an AoO standing up, but paralyzes the magus. Sae stabs him in the face, though, and that's the end of that. "Bait" is found a few minutes later cowering under the bed when his invisibility wears off. Han had been taking 1 or 2 points of damage a round from the ghast gnawing on him, and was still barely alive. The occasional bit of Olhas could still be heard bouncing off the roof of the lodge.

What happens next is even more absurd, but I think I've already shared enough stories, and somehow we've still only got the single death.


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This story is too epic to just post in the Vaults of Madness thread, and it comes with the question of whether I handled it correctly, which isn't that important since my party seemed to really enjoy the way it played out.

So, the party, consisting of:

Strel, the gnome sorcerer now suffering from schizophrenia.

Manius, a human bard / dragon disciple with a string of bad luck with cohorts and the current leader of the Pathfinders, suffering from an extreme phobia of shaving, which will manifest itself if someone appears clean shaven in front of him. Julliver, as a Pathfinder, has attached herself to him as his latest cohort, in the hopes that this will stop their deaths.

Bishop, a very tactical and defensive human fighter.

AND

Ellisar, an elven druid and cousin to Osond of the Rainbow Serpent Tribe (which are all elves in my game).

The lead-up to this...
The party just finished clearing out the first vault, and have freshly exited from Urshlar's secret study, with two members suffering from a fresh set of insanities. Heading back to the Pathfinder camp (their faction, which is currently allied with the Sargavan Government), they run headlong into the two fleeing Pathfinders, who warn them of the Aspis Consortium attack on their camp, moments before they are shot in the back by the pursuing Aspis Legionaries. The party vows revenge, as the two unlucky Pathfinders informed the party of the ritualistic execution of poor Amivor Glaur, and his head being mounted on a stake. This leads to many of the Legionaries being beheaded during combat.

The party retreats back to the Artisan District for the night and to plan their counter-attack. They encounter Julliver, since healed of her paranoia, having herself escaped from the Pathfinder camp and then an ambush from 8 serpentfolk seekers (a random encounter) through the use of a Potion of Invisibility. She gives more details on the attack, as well as declares that Manius is the new de facto leader of the Pathfinders, being the next ranking member after Glaur. Not that Julliver cares too much, as she hardly considers herself a Pathfinder anymore, but Manius declares that after this expedition, he's not sure how the rest of the society will view him either, which impresses Julliver, and she vows to follow Manius at least until Eando is rescued.

The Tribe of the Rainbow Serpent ups it's guards at the urging of the party, who is now convinced that the Aspis Consortium is on a rampage, and manages to drive away the Serpentfolk Seekers searching for Julliver, slaying one and showing the body to the party the next morning. The party is now concerned with this fact, and I think not certain if this serpentfolk is with the ones on the island with the rakshasa, or not, but either way have declared their first priority as freeing the captive Pathfinders in the new Aspis Consortium camp.

Ellisar scouts the camp in the form of a raven, even going as far as to mount atop Dargan Etter's staked head and peck at it to further the ruse. He gets an idea of the layout of the camp, and it's defenses. Upon reporting this information back to the party, they decide the best course of action is to slay Ivo Haigan in the hopes that the rest of the Aspis forces will disband without the presence of a strong leader. They toy around with the idea of hiring the Red Mantis to do it, but decide it's too dangerous to trust them. They know that they can't approach the camp without being seen, and the only person who can get close enough is Ellisar, the druid. So the party hikes and sets up camp near the new Aspis base of operations, in preparation for a night time raid.

Another interesting strategy they mentioned was napalming the camp with alchemist's fire. They have over three dozen flasks of the stuff from the keches as well as vials they've accumulated over time. They were thinking Ellisar could drop it down on the tents and buildings and sow confusion among the ranks, but they finally discarded that idea as being too risky, as they might start executing prisoners, and several NPCs that the party was fond of were captured, including Athyra, N'kechi, Havilard, and Jask.

On their way to their temporary camp close to the Aspis Consortium, they stumbled upon poor Pezzock, who escaped the initial slaughter by being stealthy (I've rolled Pezzock up to stay even with the party so he can jump in and be useful at times), and with the additional firepower, were able to defeat a random encounter of four camulatzes (an encounter I was afraid might be too much for the party, but again, glitterdust and a massive trip CMB from the bard, and the alternating full defense toting fighter, with close to a 40 AC, and power attack, saved the day). Long, run-on sentence. My 9th grade English teacher is rolling in her grave. Or at least I hope she's dead, as I never liked her, but that was only fifteen years ago.

So Ellisar buffed himself like crazy. Stoneskin, Barkskin, Magic Fang, etc. He morphed into a large sized earth elemental. He cautiously burrowed his way into the Aspis camp, a difficult task since he doesn't have tremorsense and therefore had to rise from the earth every ten yards or so to check where he was going. He passed his stealth checks to slip past the guards. He burrowed up into the room Ivo was sleeping in. I figured Ivo didn't have his armor on at night, but he did roll a 31 on his Perception check, so before Ellisar could coup de grace him, Ivo's eyes popped open. A massive earth elemental was staring him in the face. Baleful Polymorph instead. Ivo passed his save, rolled to his feet, and grabbed his falchion, calling for his guards and alerting the two gorrillons in the other room. Stone Shape the door closed. Ivo slashes at the druid, but can't connect. The druid has no problem hitting because of the lack of armor. Several rounds back and forth, while Aspis mercenaries make their way to the building's entrance, not realizing they can't get into the bedroom. Druid crits and Ivo is hurting. Ivo rolls out the window and rolls a 19 on the d20 for his Stealth check. I figure he'll slip away and the party will have to go about this the old fashioned way. Ellisar literally walks through the stone wall, rolls a 19 on the d20 for his Perception check. Oh, yeah, druid. Elf. Perception is class skill. Wisdom primary ability score. He gets a 37 on his Perception check. Spots Ivo trying to slink around a corner and disappear into darkness. Can't let that happen. Wall of Thorns. Now Ivo is trapped. Ivo, area too small to drink his potion of invisibility, decides to go out fighting, screams an obscenity, and lunges at the druid. Still can't connect with all the buffs. Druid smashes his head into a pulp (kinda literally, considering). Rest of the Aspis Consortium is hacking at the Wall of Thorns trying to reach their leader. Ellisar, as a large sized Earth Elemental, dismisses the Wall of Thorns, holding aloft Ivo in one large, rocky hand, and thunders at the mass of mercenaries, "Get the *bleep* out of my city!"

Well, at this time, the mercenaries weren't really expecting something like this. Several of them lowered their crossbows. A few started whispering amongst themselves in wonder. And several fired their weapons. Only one connected. It did 11 points of damage. Oh, yeah... Stoneskin. Ellisar casually flicks away the bolt, laughs, and tells them that their puny pointed sticks have no effect on a being of pure NATURE, and then calls down a Flame Strike on three of the mercenaries, including the one that fired the bolt. He failed his save, and it was close to 50 points of damage. They flee or surrender at 14 or less HPs, which he had, so he screams and flees in terror, which breaks the morale of many of the other mercenaries. Ellisar, who has the Weather domain, then launches a few lightning bolts down at a few of them, plus any others that try to approach him. Within a few rounds, no mercenary had the courage to face the creature that single handedly, and without any real harm to himself, defeated their terrifying new leader. A creature that managed to sneak into camp undetected despite there being only one real approach. It didn't make sense for the camp to even attempt to kill Ellisar.

So Ellisar marched the captured Pathfinders straight out of camp unimpeded, launching spells at anyone who ventured too close. Outside the walls, he threw up a Wind Wall, which stopped the mercenaries who had the courage to fire at their mass of fleeing prisoners from doing any damage. This fact also demoralized whatever Aspis Consortium members were left.

Obviously not the way the module intended the encounter to go down, but my party spent the better part of our weekly five hour session planning their assault, and everyone at the table was laughing and cheering at the end of the session, so I guess it was a rousing success. And for the poor druid, who normally doesn't do much other than scout and buff the rest of the party, it was a fantastic moment to shine.

I do want to know how other GMs would have handled the situation, though, and whether anyone thinks that I perhaps miscalculated something, or made some sort of glaring error with either the role play or the rules.


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How is something not more awesome if it's a gorilla? A 600 lb gorilla is way more intimidating than a 300 lb man. Especially if it's decked out in half-plate and is wielding a falchion.

And charau-ka make a lot more sense if you consider the backstory with Angazhan, which is the demon lord of savagery and brute strength and happens to look like a massive ape creature. Demon apes exist in African mythology, and as Pathfinder pulls heavily from myths and legends, this is just another example. The Mwangi Expanse is meant to be an inhospitable and alien environment. The charau-ka represent a peoples savage and dangerous, and are far more effective in this regard than orcs, goblins, kobolds, or ogres, which would be too familiar in a land that supposed to be shrouded in mystery.

A lot of things in Pathfinder are silly. But if you've not got a problem with the tengu, plant people, snake people, and a bloody chupacabra, I am confused why monkey-men are so silly, since monkeys aren't weird, and unlike bird men and snake men, they look pretty much like monkeys, except intelligent.

Have you seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Serious business.


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So, just got back from my weekly session, and things went well. I still fumbled over some things behind the screen due to trying to juggle so much, but some of the quick fixes that I've been using have turned out to be incredibly effective, and the players don't have much complaint with that. They left feeling as if they really got things done.

Egzimora, who escaped last session after the fighter critted her massively, came back to exact her revenge. She Charmed Pezzock and led him off into the jungle and it was days before anyone realized he was missing. The Druid, being a complete bad-a, managed to track Pezzock to where Egzimora was holed up experimenting on him. The party killed the hag, rescued the tengu, and everyone was happy.

But Pezzock was there for days, and I think it'd be kinda cool if I could work that into his character. I've got him statted up as he occasionally accompanies the party and participates in combat. I was thinking of adding a template to him, something like the Plant-Infused Template, but not nearly as powerful. Any ideas?


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Is it a standard action to activate? Does it require a standard action every round to maintain, or can you maintain it with a swift action or something? I can never figure out the relation between SU abilities and actions.

I've been playing it so it's a standard action to use, and you have to use it every round to maintain it, but it's such a lackluster use of actions every round for it's limited range, so I'm literally only doing it when I don't want to waste spells or feel like I can't be productive with the spells I have left and don't want to waste wand charges.

Goblin Squad Member

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Name: The Carrion Corps
Alignment: True Neutral
Role: Mercenary Services

Goals: Our number one priority is having a good time in a casual setting. Duh. So our primary goal is ensuring that all guild members are having fun. It's a game.

Specialization: Fort construction and financing. We'll build you a fort out in an uncharted hex, come to an agreement with the financing of said fort, and then pass ownership of the fort to your guild or organization. We also offer other, miscellaneous mercenary services, such as custom item crafting and bounty collection, but our main agenda is hex exploration and fort construction.

Structure: Right now we're a guild of six Kickstarter backers. We'll likely do a lot of things as a small group, working together. As our membership grows, however, we'd like to start multiple cells, or flocks, with each one working independently toward the overall goals of the Corps. Our only requirement is that the flocks work with each other, and never compete for contracts, or work for different sides in an exchange (at least not simultaneously).

Membership: As a mercenary company, we accept members of any alignment, class, or race, as long as they work toward the overall goals of the organization. This means we'll probably be at odds with NE or CE characters, or any character that draws negative publicity on our guild. As our organization grows, new members will likely be assigned to new flocks based on a need assessment.

Guild Rules:
1. Never kill, attack, or impede other members of the guild.
2. Never (unlawfully) commit crimes against neutral parties, or current clients.
3. Have fun.
4, 5, 6, etc. should all be common sense, with new rules being added on a need basis.

What's with the morbid name?
What's morbid about carrion birds? Last I checked they were true neutral. They are no more evil than the lion who makes the initial kill, or the sun that dehydrates the lone wanderer until he no longer lives. A lion, that stalks it's prey and murders it, is considered a noble beast. The crow, raven, or vulture is just an animal of opportunity, much like a mercenary company. They are true neutral, like our mercenary company. They sometimes thrive on the misfortune of others, like most mercenary companies. They travel and work together as a flock, like our mercenary company. Seems like a fitting name to me.

Base of Operations: Our members need to understand that we're not going to have a base of operations. We'll travel where the wind and opportunity takes us, living in one community or working out of one fort or another, until our services are needed in another location. Eventually, if we have a persistent client, we might permanently settle in a specific village or kingdom, but until then, like the carrion flocks, we'll roost where we end up at the end of the day.


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When perusing the boards, you can find a lot of hate for every class, and little love for any. If you just perused the boards you'd eventually come to the conclusion that Pathfinder is the worst game of it's kind and not worth playing.


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I've got some issues with the cover and concealment rules, and how they apply (or don't apply) to targeting with spells.

I think the TWF feats could be re-tooled to look more like the ranged attack feats (point blank shot, rapid shot, etc) to make TWF viable again.

Dervish Dance. If feats could be kicked in the balls...


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First, read the entire adventure before you start it. This is a given.

Second, the week before your next session, spend some time reading just the parts of the adventure you think you're going to get to in the next session. It's always a good idea to have an idea of where you're going to finish. How many encounters you think you're going to get to. Etc.

Now you'll know what monsters your party are likely going to encounter. If you're playing an adventure path, most enemies will have tactics. Pay attention to those, and don't stray far from them. Read over the abilities in the tactics. Then read over anything else that might be important. You'll eventually learn the major spells.

Use the time the players give you during a session to look ahead. They'll be times when the party will be deliberating over something, like how to split up loot or which way to go. Use that time to read about the next encounter and double check monster abilities. Same with combat. Most combats a player will spend some time looking something up, which is time you could use to look stuff up.

I spend maybe an hour prepping for each session, including time drawing maps or rewriting stat blocks. If you don't have an hour to spend every week, you shouldn't be DMing.

I second using a laptop or a tablet. I bought a tablet a few weeks ago and have used it to great effect. You can use it to show pictures of NPCs or maps without spoiling anything, and the search function makes looking up conditions or spells quite easy. It doesn't replace the Core Rulebook, but it can supplement it.


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I think the issue is that for most people who post regularly on the boards it's all about min-maxing your character to do a specific thing. And those things are DPS, tank, control, etc. The monk will lose a DPS fight. A monk doesn't have the HP to tank, and probably won't be able to keep up with the high AC other classes can achieve.

The monk isn't worse than other classes, though. It's more of an intangible class. It's capable of doing a whole slew of things mediocre. It is the best TWFer in the game as it doesn't have to waste feats to be good at it. It has the best saves in the game, and develops some pretty sick survivability (the type unrelated to actual HP total). With a monk you can't have it all, and really have to decide what path you want to take with it. I think too many people see all it's capable of and try to stretch their characters too thin trying to achieve it all.


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This came up tonight:

Bard was sitting in a boat on the surface of the ocean. Party druid and fighter, both with Water Breathing, were fighting a kelpie 60 feet underwater. The bard, passing his perception check to see the combat, decided to cast Glitterdust and target it so that the kelpie was in it while the druid and fighter were not. I said that there'd be a "miss chance" on the targeting of the spell because of refraction, and the fact he was trying to aim at something 60 feet below the surface of the water. I mean, that's some depth. Player tried to make an argument that since there was no attack roll and he could see the kelpie, he should be able to hit it with whatever he wanted.

How do you handle a situation like this? Was I being unfair?


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Quote:
Umm... How's that helpful? I had a character I'd built, she's picked something similar, so I'm changing my concept to avoid upsetting her by overshadowing her.

Something similar? Because she's also playing a magic user? She probably heard you were playing a Magus and decided she'd be a team player and play a cleric, and decided Sarenrae was a good choice. The she looked at favored weapons, saw scimitar. End of story.

Tired of seeing Dervish Dancer characters all over the place, personally. She probably did you a favor.


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Quote:
Paladins: I think the central frustrations are about "what does the paladin code have to say about that" and "if it Detects Evil, should/can/must I kill it?" "Why doesn't Detect Evil detect all evil?"

Anyone playing a paladin should consider picking up Faiths of Purity. Really goes into the different way to play paladins of different deities.

Paladins of Torag are capable of lying and torturing if it protects "his people". They don't accept surrender, and are cool with "scattering the families" of their enemies. Paladins of Shelyn, on the other hand, almost always accept surrenders. Paladins of Sarenrae don't fight fair when the fight isn't fair, while paladins of Iomedae "suffer death before dishonor".

Really some helpful insights to prevent people from playing lawful stupid.


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People seem to forget that the monk is almost automatically the best at two-weapon fighting. He doesn't have to waste anything on feats, doesn't need a high dex, and doesn't even need to have weapons out to do it.

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Oh, I never had any trouble getting through as a monk. Monks are good at not dying if a TPK isn't happening. I was excellent at standing there during combat while my allies who could actually do damage mopped the enemies up, and standing there out of combat while my allies with skills like Diplomacy moved us forward toward the next combat. Getting through was never an issue. Actually contributing to the party was.

You, apparently, just aren't good at building characters. If your tactics in battle were to stand in one place moping because you couldn't figure out how to handle everything the monk is capable of, no wonder you weren't doing damage.


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Most important thing to remember:
It's a role-playing game. Optimizing can be fun at times, but you should play the class that best embodies the character concept you have in mind, not the strongest class. A lot of us here run the Paizo Adventure Paths, and a lot of us play in regular PFS games. Trust me, nothing I've seen even comes close to requiring a heavily optimized party to get through.

And geez, I never would have thought that the FIGHTer was going to be better at FIGHTing than the rogue. Seriously, I don't even know what you people expect.


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Quote:
Even if the character was a pure bard with the Dervish Dancer archetype?

Obviously every feat, every archetype, and every obscure race has it's place. I guess the main issue is people taking choices for their characters that don't make thematic sense from their character's point of view. I mean, role playing game, anyone? ROLE PLAY!

A few weeks ago there was a thread where someone posted their PFS character, and asked if people thought the GM would allow his character at the table. His build used 7 different books.

1. Core Rulebook
Ok, so far so good.

2. Advanced Player's Guide
Not a big deal. I allow everything in there.

3. Inner Sea World Guide
*shrug* Whatever. Take your Dervish Dance.

4. Pathfinder Society Field Guide
...I guess it's a PFS game, so...

5. Inner Sea Magic
Wait, I thought this was some sort of fighter class.

6. Pirates of the Inner Sea
Pirates? What? How are pirates involved?

7. Faiths of Purity
Oh, come on now!

I own five of those books, and I think I've seen a copy of Inner Sea Magic somewhere, but Pirates of the Inner Sea? I've not even heard of this one. Is that another of those Player Companion books? How are pirates, magic, and faith all combined to make some sort of defensive dervish fighter class? And how do you explain your character's backstory? Is that not important anymore?


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Can a barbarian with Power Attack NOT use it when raging? Better question, me thinks.


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ImperatorK wrote:
Quote:
Will it lessen the uncooperative one's fun to make a character according to the story?

It lessens my fun when I have a concept that I'm very keen on playing, but I can't, because the DM is too lazy or stupid to work with me to incorporate it.

Quote:
Is ONE player's fun more important than everyone else's fun?

Where did I say that?

Now please, answer my questions.

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The GM wants to tell a certain story.

Then what why is he playing a game with people instead of writing a novel or something?

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Why should they be denied this fun because one guy feels entitled to play a completely different game?
Again, how does my fun deny fun for others? They're not really good friends if me having fun somehow lessens their fun...

Actually...

This happened in a recent campaign.
I rolled up a high Int rogue that could hold his own in combat and focused on a massive skill set.
Another player rolled up the optimized switch-hitter ranger, and more or less followed that build 100%.
Another player rolled up a min-maxed paladin of Sarenrae.

Based off of the playstyles of those builds, I would go four or five combats without finding an opportunity to sneak attack. Not only would these players steal flanking opportunities from me, but they'd back enemies into corners where other characters couldn't reach, or engage enemies in such a way that attempting to get into a flanking position would draw more than one AoO.

At level 4, when I did manage to set up a flank, I was dealing 4d6+1 damage with a +8 on my attack roll, or a 2d6+1 at +6 without a flank.

Same level, the paladin was attacking at +9, and dealing 2d6+14. Ranger was just slightly worse, attacking at +7 and dealing 1d8+13.

So under optimal conditions, my non optimized rogue had a lower hit chance and the paladin's minimum damage was still greater than my average damage.

My character ended up dying in combat trying to get into a position to flank after the paladin clogged up a good portion of the front lines. I sat out a full session because there wasn't a good place to introduce a new PC in the middle of the dungeon crawl. All the work I put into developing my character and his role in the community and managing his own storefront and building up my relationships with key NPCs were for nought because I put myself in a bad situation out of frustration of never being able to contribute or participate in the combat encounters. My rogue wasn't ill suited to combat, but due to selfish play and power builds, I spent three rounds bleeding out ten feet from the paladin who couldn't be arsed to drop a Lay on Hands, and in the same room with the ranger with the cure wand who wouldn't drop his bow.

A paladin of Sarenrae, whose player didn't bother to read what Sarenrae was the goddess of. A paladin of Sarenrae, who killed a harpy in the middle of diplomatic relations after she had surrendered because he got a "funny feeling" based on his Sense Motive check. A paladin of Sarenrae who attacked anything that set off his Detect Evil sensor. A paladin of Sarenrae that again proves why paladins get a bad rap for being Lawful Stupid.

I dropped out of that group the next week, and needless to say, I've not gone back.

So if your argument is that power gaming never hurt anyone, or that having an optimized, min-maxed build wasn't preventing others from having fun, you're wrong. Just because you're ok dumping Cha and Int to up your physical stats on your fighter, doesn't mean that everyone playing a fighter wants to play a stupid, socially retarded nosepicker. If your entire group plays that way, and the DM is ok with that, then fine, you've found a great group that works for you, but most Pathfinder games aren't like that.

If your character is deathly afraid of water, and your GM is running a high seas adventure, then you've designed your character poorly. If your character concept does not mash well with the GM's campaign, then you're at fault. It's your responsibility to roll up characters that fit into the campaign world, not your GM's. He'll give you an idea what the campaign is about, and what the setting is. He's not going to rewrite the setting to accommodate the guy that wants to play something weird. This isn't fourth edition Forgotten Realms. I think calling your GM lazy and stupid is going a bit far when you don't know how much time and effort he's put into designing an engaging campaign. He probably doesn't want all that to be ruined by a player who seems hell bent to do just that.


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Pre-roll random encounters, and then try to make them interesting and seem like real encounters, and not just fluff. There are enough random encounters in this adventure path to warrant this, and you can use them to emphasize certain campaign elements, or even to somehow tie in PC backstories.

Goblin Squad Member

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Having played DDO since March of 2007, I'm surprised to see anyone on a RPG website complain about it when compared to other MMOs. I personally think DDO did more things right than any other MMO I've played, and it certainly isn't just another WoW clone like TOR.

1. One of the best things about DDO was the ability to dodge out of the way of attacks. In a game like WoW, it's an auto-hit every time you're within a certain radius. You fire an arrow or spell at someone, even if they moved behind a pillar, it would still hit them because of where they were when you started the attack animation. Sure, this encourages player skill, so less skilled players won't be as good at it. But so what? A lot of MMOs require knowledge on how the game can be broken based on what abilities to use and in what order you click them to maximize something. Is that not a skill based system also? DDO was more engaging because it used fluid combat. It wasn't just setting a macro for your character and then have it attack a mob while you made yourself a bowl of cereal.

2. The game has an auto attack button...

3. Say what you will about the instanced dungeons, but those sure beat randomly respawning mobs and quests that dealt with gathering x of these and killing x of those. You can play through most of the game, advancing in levels, and never need to repeat a dungeon or quest. And they do have the instanced areas like the Cerulean Hills that are a lot more freeform. The further into the game you get, the more unique the dungeons become. If you're doing a bunch of quests in the sewers of the harbor, though, you shouldn't be surprised if this random section of sewer is very similar to that random section of sewer.

4. Meh. I, too, have issues with this. A valid strategy for almost half the game is to cast multiple firewalls and then jump around while the mobs burn themselves to death within them.

5. Game is free to play. There has to be some incentives for premium members.

Quote:
Myself if I have to solo more than 90% of the time, I don't consider that an MMO, I consider it an offline RPG with a horrible story and repetative gameplay.

AKA Star Wars: The Old Republic, where you solo the game until level 50 to get to the good content.

I stopped playing DDO a couple of years ago. It did stop being DnD. My character, a human rogue with a higher Int and Cha than Dex, that I rolled up at release was no longer a valid character. I didn't have an issue getting groups in the beginning because no one knew where the traps were, and the AC and HP bloat hadn't become an issue. Now, however, having ONLY a 16 CON is crippling, and you better have taken several Toughness feats. My AC of 55 is hit consistently, and my 170ish HPs are gone in a single monster attack. I can 1 hit kill almost everything in the game with my ungodly ability to assassinate things (DC based on rogue level and Int, and most people splash rogue or splash something else, and Int is a dump stat), but I never get a chance to because the party sorcerer has already Finger of Death'd the mob before I can sneak up to it. Any character that splashed one level of rogue and has the right loot gear can open locks and disable traps better than I can due to gear bonuses alone.

If PFO can avoid these problems with endgame, I'll be happy, but since PFO won't have an endgame, I'm already happy.

Speaking of loot and raid gear, I'd prefer if PFO didn't encourage the practice of carrying four sets of boots, three pairs of gloves, half a dozen different helms, and dozens of different weapons for every occasion. Let's face it, most MMOs practice this, but I've never played a DDO campaign where I kept a pair of boots of feather fall to slip on in place of my boots of spider climb because you never know when you might have to jump off a cliff or tower. With the way all your non-equipped loot is prone to be stolen when you die, I hope this takes care of that problem.


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After seeing a few local players/DMs use tablets during their games, and how easy it is to access pdf's and your character sheet, and how convenient they are compared to laptops for bringing material to a gaming table, I've decided that I want to buy a tablet. Obviously I'll be using it for a lot more than just gaming, but I'd like some input on what tablets other players/DMs use and what they'd recommend. Are certain tablets more compatible with Paizo products than others?

Goblin Squad Member

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I'm not too worried about the actual setting, like the monsters used and the lore present in the game. I would like to see some influence of the ruleset in the game, though. I'm not saying adhere to the tabletop ruleset. I am saying that I'd like to see classes, feats, skills, etc in the game. If you earn these differently and if they work differently that's fine.

For Example:
Power Attack - I don't care if it doesn't work by taking a penalty to attack rolls for a specific increase to damage rolls. I'd like to see it in the game as some sort of decrease in accuracy for an increase in damage. Or even on a cooldown.

Acrobatics - I know skills will work differently in the game, but I'd like to be able to improve on my ability to tumble, balance, and jump as my character improves. If there is an acrobatics skill, and it's something you can set to train over a period of time EVE style, that'd be fine. I'd hate it if this training, however, was limited to rogues, monks, barbarians, and bard archetypes though. I've played plenty a nimble fighter that trained in acrobatics despite it not being a class skill.

Fireball - d6 per caster level might not work in the game, depending on how casters work, and even if there will be caster levels. I'm ok with that. But I do want to see a small ball of fire fly forth and explode into a fiery area of burny death, hurting indiscriminately... or not, depending on how you guys do friendly fire.

I guess, overall, I want whatever ruleset you use to be familiar enough to a regular tabletop gamer that we'd feel like we understood the game without needing to understand the specifics of the rules. If I played some sort of fighter / wizard hybrid character, and I saw Power Attack as one of the abilities I could train in, I'd want to have a pretty good idea what it was even if I didn't read the ability description. If I saw Fireball, Magic Missile, or Web, I'd already have a general idea what those spells were and would feel pretty confident taking them and knowing I'd be able to use them the way they've always been intended to be used.

Goblin Squad Member

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I just don't want a system where characters have thousands of hit points and every swing of the sword is an auto-hit if it's in range. Base things off of percentage of success based on two opposing skills (some sort of attack and some sort of defense). Obviously attack will go up over time as two years after launch I'd hate for my character to have issues fighting a band of goblins. My problem would be if those goblins auto hit me while I was within their melee range and did the same damage to me as to a first level character, except now I've got 2,000 times more hps and so don't notice it.


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Geez, didn't know so many people were superstitious. Come on, guys, Deck of Many Things has rules for it. Just was thinking I saw similar rules for a Harrow Deck. Guess I was wrong. Oh well. We'll see if my dog dies tomorrow.