roguerouge's page

Optimization has nothing to do with being a bad role player. Being a good role player has nothing to do with suboptimal character design. Your job as a player is to have the best designed character concept for your role in the party and your role in the drama.

The question you've not asked yourself is: what does THE PARTY need my character to be able to do so that we can all thrive?

Borrowing from Dr. Who: "Don't you think she looks tired?" which... brings down the government and wackiness ensues.

So, you're concerned that the fortune created by the hex is... too timely? Isn't all luck timely?

Essentially, you're asking why people get into and stay in abusive relationships. There's a few notable differences about an intimate faith-based relationship as opposed to a physically intimate relationship, but, consider the parallels.

1. Because I deserve it: This works both ways. The selfish narcissist thinks that nothing is more important than what they've convinced themselves they deserve; certainly your pain comes second to their own. On the other hand, those who have been abused survive these relationships by rationalizing that abusive relationships are what they deserve.

2. Because Shar really loves me. It makes me feel special. False, of course, but imagine how seductive that would be with a god, instead of a seductive partner. Especially when they provide you with spells.

3. Because you hope that they will change. While abusers (gods, men, or monsters) will usually promise to change during the honeymoon stage, it is rare for an abuser to change while still in a relationship.

4. While you are not the cause of the abuse, it's less scary if you're to blame, because then, at least, you're in control. So you hope that by acting better or more in line with their demands/commandments, you'll make everything good again.

5. It's not so bad and everybody does it. False, of course, but possibly true to that person's life experience.

6. They draw a link between love and violence. Again, violence begets violence. Its damage gets passed down by generation. People who were abusers were very often abused themselves. This is sad, and worth a paladin's pity, but also damning, as nobody knows better the damage such behavior can do and not everyone who was abused becomes an abuser.

7. Hopelessness: The idea of being happy without your current deity may seem impossible now.

8. Gender ideology. You're falsely made to believe that it's your biological fate to be treated this way.

9. Embarrassment and shame often keep people in an abusive relationship, with gods or humans, for quite some time.

10. Financial dependence. All of your professional contacts are with this god. Where else are you going to get spells? Plus, you've made all these enemies. You need those spells. If anyone good finds out about your relationship with this god, they'll drop you socially, attack you, arrest you. Where else are you going to go?

11. You feel you have a lack of supportive relationships. The good guys will never believe you, you fear they'll smite you, and everyone you care about you've alienated or left to be with this all-consuming god.

12. Fear: This all-knowing, extremely powerful god will be ANGRY if I leave.

13. You're in the hands of an angry god, but at least you're not alone.

14. You're loyal. It's your best trait. It's what makes you feel good about everything you've done and you've stayed that way despite everything that has been done to you.

15. GUILT. With gods, we're dealing with world-class manipulators pulling the guilt-trips of a lifetime. Evil deities are world-class sociopaths.

16. Can you say, self-medication? Dependency on drugs or alcohol can play a part in staying in abusive relationships.

Given all of this stuff, please consider the awesome courage that it takes for someone to admit that their life's become unmanageable and their relationship intolerably abusive and to seek change. The miracle isn't that so many people get trapped and stay trapped in their abusive relationships with gods and men. The miracle is that so many people get out.

Source:
http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/t...hytheystay.htm

I'm doing it because the party's on a time clock with an invading army marching towards their home city. They have backup characters, followers who are 3 levels back, that will level fast, however, to catch up.

I would respond with a question: "Why do you get to veto my fun?"

If I was feeling less peeved, I would say role playing training leads to all sorts of unfun conclusions. If you need to train to get a new level in a new class, why don't you need to train to get a new feat? (And this can be applied to new class abilities too with similar justification.) As a result, every other level or every level, you need to halt the narrative for the players to go back to civilization/dojo/school/temple to level up, get a feat, etc.

You can overcome this with sufficient pre-planning and if the PCs do things in the order you expect and on schedule, but then you have to ask: how entertaining is this really going to be if you do training RP session 10 times in a character's life? And, with 4 PCs, that's 40 times in a 1st-20th level campaign. Do you really have enthralling training sessions, or do you eventually relent and do a training montage? And, if so, was all this really worth it?

Lastly, even if you just require it for changing classes, what do the other players do while the PC goes and gets trained in rogue 1? Twiddle their thumbs? Play a man short?

And, seriously? Rogue?! Other than Fighter and Sorcerer, it's the class that can best be justified as being gained without a training montage. Your argument has much better grounding with something like Summoner, Gunslinger, Witch, Cleric, etc.

What's the effect on an AP campaign if I require the PCs to start with an NPC level? My intent is to add flavor to background and have that ordinary people become heroes arc, but I don't know what the mechanical effect would be.

New Profession skill: hypnosis.

Well, that will make the Contagious Touch of the Blighter from Red Hand of Doom very interesting, then, won't it?

If they invest resources in knowledge skills, I make sure they have a return on investment.

If this lich cast Vampiric Touch, would he do 1d8+5+paralysis+5d6 damage or just 5d6 damage?

In short, can one touch attack have two results?

Scent auto detects within a range, but perception includes smells now. Really feel that scent ability ought to just give a bonus to perception.

Have character sheets show the math when it comes to the bonus types. Quickest way to have party imbalance is when one guy has two morale bonuses and three luck bonuses stacking. Plus, when you can Disjunction or Anti-Magic Zones, the party will not grind to halt for quite as long.

Bring some henchmen bodyguards, maybe a few guard dogs. They give your life so that you don't lose yours in the surprise round. It's like summoning without spending an action.

Establish with the DM before the game whether Diplomacy is a skill like any other or if he's going old school and it's all on you. If the latter, urge him to compromise and just impose the -2 or -5 penalty recommend in the GM book.

Well, THAT'S good news.

Is there a feat to allow bards to cast spells while using their bardic performance class ability? Or has that not made it into UM and UC from 3.5?

Okay, why does Scent still work like this: Scent rules

... when Perception includes smells now? Wouldn't it be more elegant to abandon the whole intricate sub-rule in favor of a bonus to Perception checks involving scent? Perhaps +5 or +10?

If you want to play Angel, you have to bear the penalties. That means you can smite evil, but you are affected by sunlight and, I would argue, positive energy. That probably means you can heal other people, but not yourself. Which is, after all, a very LG thing.

Your DM coup de graces characters in their sleep because he finds your expressions funny--dick move.

Your DM breaks established monster rules to force you to attack your animal companion--dick move.

Your DM forces you to destroy your best weapon--dick move if the campaign hasn't explicitly decided to make sunder a part of the campaign.

The first two things, far more than the destruction of an item, signal your DM is an immature dick.

I would argue that there are three explanations for this behavior: confirmation bias, warped dice, and inadvertent control over your rolls.

Might I suggest teaching them to actually roll the dice, rather than basically turn it over with a light roll? There's a reason why dealers in casinos police craps tables for players who don't roll the dice to the end of the table: the less it turns, the more control you have over what comes up. If he's just dropping it on a gaming book rather than really getting it to roll over and over for a distance, he's probably inadvertently controlling his dice rolls in the worst way possible.

Remember that in DnD retreat is often a suckers' game. If you're slower than your opponent and lack the ability to hide your tracks, it's pretty much impossible to get away from monsters without DM fiat. And running away once the battle is joined is often where you end up getting PCs killed with little benefit.

Most of the TPKs I've been involved with have involved the party trying to flee and failing.

So, as a DM, you have to be very clear that retreat WORKS as well as the fact that retreat is an option.

Basically, you need to read the others to get a cast list of NPCs who will show up later with quests. It feels forced if they just pop up like in a MMO, but it works great if you've previously established them.

Your players are being unforgivably rude.

You have to put your foot down about the TV. And, as a teacher, the idea that a fellow teacher would be so rude as to grade papers at the table is beyond my belief. Would s/he put up with such multi-tasking from students in the classroom? No. Don't let this person get away with that again.

If they keep doing it, they don't want to play. Call their bluff.

To "Apotheosis": 'sokay. I find that if I miss the first page of comments, the only advice left is the comically evil.

The encounter is a hit squad for the PCs in Red Hand of Doom campaign that I'm running. Having taken out two forts of the Red Hand, this is the leadership's attempt to take them out. They've sent not their best, but their best expendable unit.

Basically, the setup's going to be 6 goblin rogue 3s and a greater barghest vs. 6 sleeping 7th level PCs and an awake 7th level PC. The PCs will have had an uneventful day, so have access to their full spell complement but start without armor or weapons in hand.

The plan is that 5 goblins coup de grace 5 sleepers, with a sixth goblin and the GR barghest under an invisibility sphere handling any movement towards the campfire by the 6th sleeper and the watchman.

Since these are goblins, one of the goblins will strike first out of eagerness, rather than have an uncharacteristic synchronized coup de grace.

Given that a first level goblin rogue would start with a +16 Stealth (+4 size, +4 dex, +1 rank, +3 class, +4 race), it would seem that it's counter-productive for them to bother with the watchman. Kill the watchman, they wake the entire camp. Ignore him, and the watchman has to roll a DC 27-29 perception check (on average) to spot the goblins as they get inside each tent. Even if an individual goblin rolls a 2, they've got a vastly better chance that 1 guy won't get a perception check of 18 vs. 5 guys getting to roll vs. a 3.

As for whether I'd let that occur as a DM, yes, I would if the player gave a reasonable description of where the power comes from. An Andoren believer in the power of Freedom? Sure. A believer in the Rule of Law with powers coming from the nation state? Okay. Captain Planet who believes in Golarion, not its gods? Sure.

People need to lighten up a bit. Nerd rage over canon is so Forgotten Realms.

One of the modules Paizo put out has a possible ending where a god of Atheism results. Try offering that to the player.

...bad idea.

Probably the WORST thing a person can do is ...

I think you failed your Spot Humor check. Read the first four words of that post again.

I'd say DC -10 ("sounds of battle" - the clang knives against armor, a sharp yelp of pain, the thud of a falling victim), modified by distance (+1 per 10'), and sleep (+10), possibly by "unfavorable" or "terrible" conditions for the noise being very brief (+2 or +5 to the DC respectively). Definately no quieter than walking (DC 10) at any rate, so still quite a low check.

So, basically, the perception check is a DC 1 to DC 3 check, depending only on the distance. At worst, if I applied terrible condition modifier a DC 6 to DC 8 check.

So, how would a team of goblin rogues take out that security guard without alerting everyone sleeping in tents nearby? Isn't this supposed to be an iconic scenario of DnD? Does it not work now?

Do the goblins get to make a stealth check to oppose this perception check from the sleeping PCs?

Your Neutral Evil advice for the thread is to each have your characters stay in town, earning GPs through craft, performance, and profession checks until you have the appropriate amount of gold pieces. Do not pick up any plot threads: say that your character lacks the resources to take on such a fearsome quest and it is best for the world if someone better prepared handles it.

Let 2 years pass in game.

Then have your characters look around for adventure.

It's Gandhi's principle of passive resistance applied in a ridiculous fashion. The DM cannot make you do anything you don't choose to do. If you all stick together, he cannot budge you. You are making the gaming table a better place for us all.

Okay, now that Elan's gotten your attention, I've got a rules question for you. What DC and modifiers do you set for the following perception check.

A team of goblin rogues successfully sneaks up on the party's night watchman, taking him down in the surprise round with hurled knives. What DC perception check do the other PCs sleeping 10-30 feet away in their tents have to make to hear his death? Does this count as "combat"? Would it not count as combat if the team of goblin rogues melee sneak attacked him?

I'd play an Aristocrat and use my money to buy an entourage.

That word is banned on this forum. I think you can only use it to refer to an actual person with an actual disability. Kind of unclear.

To continue the off-topic, if you want to know why that word causes harm see:

Go to The campaign.

MSN covers Special Olympics campaign

NPR story

Hope that helps explain their decision.

On topic: I think you can clearly apply the young template multiple times to show various stages of youth: teen, tween, youngster, toddler, baby, etc. So, basically, this balor's a toddler.

I'd say that your GM is going to have to make things harder on your party in the first 4 levels, when martial characters tend to rule the board. Then, around 7th level, he's going to have to start making some serious adjustments, as the inability to use utility magic and battlefield control are really going to hinder the party at times. Plus, these APs tend to have moments where a divine caster, a skill monkey and an arcanist can really shine. Those are the moments where your party's going to have some trouble.

One problem is that martial characters are linear and casters are quadratic. So your martial-heavy party is definitely going to rock the early levels: they're designed to. You'll start to have problems once you need a wizard.

If it's so easy, why have you already had a character death?

Why are they always getting to sleep through the night?

+1: 20 point buy, 3e material, 15 minute days. That's going to increase the EL by at least +1, maybe +2.

DM in thread should maybe listen to OP's description of rogue's frustration at being gimped.

Why is your DM concerned with it being too easy rather than with whether you are having fun?

I'd recommend going with a pseudodragon. They're accessible through core rules, flavorful, and hardly game-breaking at your level.

If you want to avoid class levels, use the advanced template one or two times on the mooks.

Aristocrats, then rogues. Money is the best aphrodisiac. Or, as a certain movie character put it, "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."

Detect Magic, then Dispel Magic.

One idea I've been toying with is to steal from Ravelry and add "educational / interesting / funny / agree / disagree / love" buttons. Note that we would not use any sort of Slashdot-style filtering. You still have to read the entire page of posts. But these buttons would have specific meaning that a favorite (by design) lacks.

My gamer fiance LOVES that feature of the web site. It's incredibly addictive, gives lurkers a way to participate quickly and focuses threads.

You need to remember the abilities of your player characters and give them the appropriate Perception check with bonus each time. I recommend collecting info on Perception checks and senses for all your players, so that you can make those checks in secret and reveal the ambush only if your roll for them indicates success.

Can I flag the OP for forum crapping? Has this thread gone that meta yet?

As I am not a biologist, I cannot provide a description of why cats are intrinsically awesome. And, since videos like Maru, Suprised Kitty, Nyan Cat Pop Tart ARE entertaining, I need some explanation for why people find them entertaining. It's a short conversation if someone asks you a question and you just point right back at the thing in question and raise an eyebrow meaningfully.

In short, how do you explain how something becomes a truism?

I was chatting with a former student of mine and she asked a really interesting question: why are internet cat videos so popular? Is it something to do with cats? The medium of the internet? I confess that I'm a bit stumped.

Why do you like them?

Possible solutions:

Go old school and recommend that they buy combat-trained dogs.

Hirelings.

They rescue a Warrior 1 in their first adventure.

The ranger mans up and does the switch hitter build.

The Sorcerer's claws ability gets used.

You design encounters that are fire fights, not brawls.

How do waterways affect your ability to avoid being tracked, under the rules?