thenobledrake's page

Use her learning style.

Everyone has one (or more) methods of learning that they are adept with, so find out what hers is and use only that method to teach her.

The biggest ones are visual (let her read the rules or watch you using the knowledge you wish to impart to her step by step), auditory (tell her how it works, like a lecture on PF rules), and kinetic (skip the "learn how" part and just start playing.)

My significant other leans heavily toward kinetic learning, so I teach her how to play new games by just sitting down and the table with her and saying "Okay, here's the new game. Here's a character sheet, let's start making a character." and then step by step telling her how to go through the process and having her physically do those things (roll dice, find spots to write information without me telling her where it is, etc.) and she retains that knowledge.

Then we just start playing and as each rule or die roll actually comes up I walk her through the physical process of using that rule and making that roll.

Plain and simple, if she is having trouble learning in one way - do something different.

That reminded me, why is Bluff the seduction skill instead of Diplomacy?

Do you really need to lie every time you want to bed someone in the D&D / Pathfinder world?

It's not because you need to lie every time you want to bed someone, it's because the only un-reliable method of getting someone in bed that has anything to do with the character's skills (rather than their personality and the other person's genuine opinion of them) is seduction.

You shouldn't, for example, roll seduction to get a lady that is romantically interested in your character into bed - you just ask her to join you, and she says yes if she's into it.

That does not work with every group though.

No logical reason it shouldn't.

Some groups don't mind the GM fudging(in this case it includes incomplete characters), and some never catch on, but many people will catch on.

This is not fudging that I am talking about, it is changing the rules I use to create encounters... I'm also fond of completely ignoring entire sections of a monster's stat block in a bestiary entry because it doesn't add anything notable to the encounter with the creature... such as feats.

It's not that I am fudging the results on the fly - it's a standing house rule. The book is the only thing that says NPCs and monsters are and must be built near-exactly like PCs... and the book, in this case, is dead wrong.

There is a reason that NPCs and monsters in the majority of other games (and editions) ever made don't follow the exact same rules as PCs.

It happens to all of us. Such is the life of the NPC.

Doesn't happen to me! (yes, nanner-nanner-boo-boo to all of you - please don't take that as a serious insult, I am being silly and covering my tracks in case it wasn't obvious).

The only reason I can say that, however, is because I have a rule that I adhere to very, extremely, unfailingly strictly to: Never spend more than 5 minutes trying to come up with ANYTHING related to your game.

If it is going to take me longer to plan out an NPC, I invent a shortcut instead so that I can get there faster - ignoring the NPC creation rules and assigning values quickly eyeballed from the Monster Statistics by CR table and powers only vaguely equivalent to actual class level is more enjoyable in the long run than fiddling with every last little piece of the NPC... especially when you consider that NPCs, like Monsters, should be expected to die quick and brutal deaths on their first outing against the PCs.

I don't even spend more than 5 minutes coming up with a plot line or plot twists... or anything, really - if it doesn't come to me in 5 minutes, I quit thinking about it and move on... no idea I have ever felt proud of has come out of forcing myself to spend more time on it, so I quit bothering a long time ago.

Note: I run games that players keep returning to week after week for months and months until they reach a conclusion, everyone has fun, and I never do any planning before sitting down at the table to run a session except when I am running a module or AP - then I dedicate about an hour to skimming the whole book once, and 15 minutes checking over the upcoming parts before each session.

The days of socially inept nerds being the only sort of gamers are long past, no matter what network television would have you believe.

The days you speak of are not long past, they never existed to begin with - a very drastic difference.

This, like all stereotypes, boils down to their being some point at which someone said something completely stupid and everyone believed it - one football player was a bit dimwitted and a jerk so "all jocks are near brain-dead and brutish", one guy that happened to like D&D was plagued by acne, had asthma, and was a little socially awkward so "all gamers are dweebs."

...and just like all stereotypes, no matter how often it happens to fit it is never, and has never been, actually true.

Note: the man posting this spent his teenage years working as a ranch hand, partying at every opportunity, starting for a state champion high-school football program, singing in the school choir, and taking two periods a day in the computer technologies class building PCs and tech-supporting the high school.

I also got near perfect grades and never studied.

Point of the note: stereotypes are limits that we can simply choose to exceed, I am proof.

My group of players is pretty great at making me feel appreciated:

They thank me before they head home, they keep coming back even when I sometimes cancel a session with them at the table, they tell me which campaign of the many going on is their current favorite (I run 5 a week - and they show up for all of them, that's some pretty serious appreciation being shown)...

And no matter what, when I say "I'm starting up a new campaign soon," their eyes light up with excitement and they start making characters.

I feel a bit silly for almost forgetting it, but they also get me gifts from time to time... mostly food, but also buying up the occasional gaming materials: One player happened to see a decent condition set of AD&D 2nd edition core books while he was visiting a friend out of state and he just bought them and gave them to me saying "Thought I remembered you saying you liked AD&D, so I grabbed these when I saw them."

He then coordinated with the friend he was visiting and my girlfriend to buy up the rest of the 2nd edition books that I used when running that edition and present them to me on my birthday, which most of my players refuse to allow me not to celebrate (which is endearing, while annoying that they don't let me do as I like and treat the day as just another day).

@Drake,

Reread my statement: that's MY opinion, not a diatribe on what constitutes "pure" fantasy. My group tends to agree, so we don't use firearms.

I apologize for quoting you unclearly, I realize you said "the concept annoys me," which is a statement of your opinion.

but the phrase following that, "not just because it is firearms in fantasy," is a statement that says firearms in fantasy is something someone would think of as annoying without other motivation...

think of a similar sentence: "I find that man annoying, and not just because of his ethnicity." The second half does nothing but cloud the message with attachment to illogical thought... same as your statement about guns in fantasy did.

A human nobleman's son, hell-bent on becoming a hero like those he learned about from fables and legends read to him before bed when he was young.

The thrill of the guy was that the campaign was going to heavily involve him trying to outrun his destiny of taking up his father's title - such as the first story arc being about his younger brother (who wanted to be the Father's successor) having been kidnapped, so he'd have to be rescued alive and returned home or the character's adventuring career would be over.

My opinion on the matter: Gunslingers are "broken" because they do something that has never been done before and people are having trouble adjusting to that thing being doable - the thing in question: targeting touch AC with full BAB and without spells.

Edit: Don't know what a "gumlinger" is, so I removed mention of them from the post.

The time for a special, leather-bound, and all the bells & whistles edition of a rule-book is the last print run.

A book as described should be made if/when Paizo have announced a Pathfinder 2E, and could even be sold with a tag line of "For those of you who won't be venturing forth into a new edition with us, here is a chance to grab a copy of your beloved rule-book with the final errata included and [special features]" or something along those lines.

I know I personally get a bit less than thrilled about special edition prints when they happen sooner than that... it's like "oh cool, I have a book with a pretty cover - or I can use this one I just picked up that has less typos and unclear wordings in it"

Am I the only one that prefers the elite array to both of these?

... probably.

Specifically pertaining to Pathfinder, I am right there with you actually - the fairness of point buy, the not quite perfectness of rolling, and faster than both.

I run my games setting up encounters based on what the party is capable of actually doing (no fire immune monsters if 90% of their offense is somehow fire, and such), mix in a few encounters that are possible but foreshadowing points out they might have extreme difficulty with (letting them hear of a terrible beast that melted the weapons of those that it ambushed in the mountain from the only survivor - a Remorhaz is up there, etc.) so that they know what choice they are making when trying to battle a monster that is likely to decimate them... and I stick to a pretty tame CR scale.

Say I have 20 encounters planned out over the course of a story arc for a 6th level party. Those encounters would break down into roughly ten CR 6, four CR 5, three CR 7, two CR 8, and a single CR 9.

I then let the party run into those at whatever pace is appropriate to the story and still gives them a chance to plan a strategy (like waiting a day to prep before making a trip, waiting out a storm or what have you) and any encounter that turns violent is one in which a character might die - but I don't send every monster into battle with the goal of getting a kill, I send them into battle with a particular motive and they seek to accomplish that motive, whether it be killing & eating, kidnapping, knocking-out and robbing, or some other thing.

My players know that they can have a character die any time a weapon is drawn, and they enjoy that style of game... especially since they very rarely have a character die - the most recent and only example I can remember in the last 3 years being when they ran into an ambush of 4 trolls at level 6, and because of the poor choice to isolate herself the monk was subjected to a full-attack from a troll, a critical for maximum damage and the trolls other attacks all hitting later we had our first character killed by a non-party member in one of my D&D/Pathfinder campaigns.

I've been in this exact situation with a group before... here's what I did:

"Hey guys, I'm getting kind of bummed out about our gaming because [explain how I personally am losing enjoyment of the game because of specific behaviors that are happening and the looks of disappointment I get to see on the faces of the non-dominating players' faces], and if we can't fix this, and quick, I am just going to stop running this game."

That's what it took - the idea that if they didn't start helping to make the group as a whole run like a well-oiled-machine and help to make each player, myself included, enjoy the game to the fullest possible degree that they would not get to play the game they enjoy at all.

That's not what a spell point system is. That is what one type of spell point system is.

TOZ has a point... take a different system's "spell point system" for example:

You have a number of points you can spend in order to cast spells throughout the day, you have spells known (in your spellbook) and you have your spells prepared for the day - preparing the spell allows you to cast that spell at the spell point cost listed in the spell description... or you can cast an un-prepared spell at double cost.

There are a lot of different types of spell point systems.

So 25 is still max and you throw dinosaurs over continents with it?

Care to reference a page on that one, because I am seeing 25 strength listed with the following traits:

+7 Hit Probability: roughly equivalent to a 24 strength.
+14 Damage adjustment: considering there was no "two-handed is better damage" back then, let's round off and call that equivalent to a 30 strength.
1,535 Weight Allowance: That's an impressive one, roughly equivalent to the light load of a 38 strength (assuming medium biped).
1,750 Max Press That's around the equivalent of a 31 strength's overhead lift.
19 (18) Open Doors: Opens stuck doors 95% of the time, and magically held, locked, or barred doors 90% of the time... we can call that equivalent to having a +27 modifier (rolling and having a 10% chance to fail the DC 30 break down a door with an iron bar), or we could acknowledge rules differences (taking 10 or 20) and cut that down to where a 30 strength can take 20 and get the job down.
99% Bend Bars/Lift Gates: That is an easy one, given the DC 25 a 20 strength gets 100% if allowed time to take 20, otherwise you could have a 40 strength take 10.

It also says that 25 is the strength of a Titan... and a quick check into Pathfinder says that an Elysian Titan has a 45 strength, and a Thanatotic Titan has a 49.

What's that mean? Titan's actually got stronger because of the rules changes. So yeah, why compare it?

As for the helpful comparison, bear with me a sec...

1st level fighter attacking a guy wearing Chainmail.

2nd edition, that's a THAC0 of 20 against an AC of 5 - meaning, for those not familiar, that the total attack roll needs to be 15 or higher in order to hit.

Pathfinder, that's a BAB of +1 against an AC of 16 to 18 - meaning the total attack roll needs to be 16 to 18.

Assuming both a 10 strength on the attacker and a 10 dexterity on the defender - 2nd edition requires a natural roll of 15+ (30% success chance), and Pathfinder requires a natural roll of 15+ (30% success chance). So far, the two systems require the same roll in same situations.

Now let's assume a 14 strength on the attacker and a 10, and then 14 dexterity on the defender - 2nd edition, nothing changes... for this purpose the 10 to 14 range has identical results. Pathfinder, however, gives a +2 to the attack roll meaning our attacker's chance to hit just went up to 40% (a natural 13 or better) unless the defender's Dexterity also went up to 14.

Finally, let's assume an 18 strength and dexterity - 2nd edition, our attacker now has a bonus to hit of +1 to +3 depending on how well he rolled for exceptional strength, and our defender has a -4 modifier to his AC... so our natural to-hit roll needs to be at least a 16 but could need to be as high as an 18 (15-25% chance of success). Pathfinder, our attacker has a +4 bonus to hit and the defender (thanks to max dex) has brought his AC to 18... for a 14 or better being a hit (35% success).

Final conclusion: Ability scores do a whole lot more at lower ratings in Pathfinder, and can go above and beyond what even the highest scores in 2nd edition used to do. Pathfinder is entirely a higher power scale game... and in neither game is "throwing dinosaurs over continents," actually reasonably possible.

A 14 in AD&D is considered "pretty great" and it does next to nothing for you, a 14 in Pathfinder seems to be considered "kinda low" and actually does something no matter which score it is in... consider me not convinced.

It's funny that this is brought up while talking about the new Lord of the Rings role-playing game... here's a brief anecdote from when I once played the old Lord of the Rings role-playing game (the coda system one):

I wanted to play a warrior, a man of minas tirith that was good with a sword, familiar with a horse, and a good pick for sentry duty. So I invested the points I was given at character creation into those activities.

My buddy wanted to play an elf nobleman who was snooty and full of himself, but not really all that competent and self reliant... and racial modifiers and spending of points later - he was better with a sword than I, better on a horse than I, had keener senses than I, and still had focused on being socially talented.

Now for the meaning of the anecdote and my opinion on the matter: Either extreme, too much focus on balance or too little attention paid to it, can easily cause things to break down on the fun front - the real balance needed for a game to be enjoyable is the "sweet spot" somewhere in the middle where options are neither overshadowing one another nor so similar as to become bland.

I only demand of my players that they come to the table seeking to share a fun experience with the rest of us at the table, and make a character that they will enjoy playing as part of the team...

I, as I feel a GM should, strive to make whatever they choose to play (within the group voted list of allowed options) viable for the campaign and party - they want to play a horrid cuss of an exotic race that insists on being the party face despite the obvious problems (the above 7 charisma drow face in kyonin), then I work with them (and the other players) to develop why the character is doing that, and how the world/group is handling that... it would probably involve a lot of pretense where the unpersonable drow was used to make the less horrid "back up face" seem more impressive (the Drow gives it a go even though he will obviously tank the negotiation if left alone, and rolls an aid another for another party member, as an example of how that works).

You don't want to play with "That Guy," then you first invite "That Guy," to be just "one of the guys." If he says no (such as by being intentionally disruptive to the game when asked not to), then you say "See you later, dude," but you always give somebody a chance... or rather, I feel we should.

You will need:

5 people who want to have fun.
Some dice

That is all

I with this guy.

I've run games where a "critical role" was missing from the party... and guess what? They all still worked.

You just need challenges built for the party that exists, or for the party to have the ability to decide "we can't do that," and then not have to do that.

My favorite was a game with 4 players all playing Wizards of differing specializations.

I'm very curious as to what the OSR crowd will say about the Box.

As an OSR man myself, I have to say that being an OSR man is why I am with Pathfinder in the first place - it's the best OSR product I've ever read (and it doesn't even know it is OSR), and now it will even come in a box, beautiful!

I find this thread to be humorous.

...to complain about "huge amounts of errors," while having errors in 100% of the sentences used in your complaint... priceless.

The only thing I can think of is that I do not have a ~120 page book for each nation that covers everything covered by the Inner Sea World Guide and relevant Campaign Setting series book (such as Rule of Fear for my best-friend Ustalav) plus regional customs (holidays for instance), economic information (yes, I really want to know which nations hold barley as their chief export, etc.), and flora/fauna native to the region all detailed to the point that I am left wondering what else could possibly be said about the nation.

I really like Golarion.

It's not that secrecy is toxic, it's that lack of trust in the other players to not metagame is toxic.

Warning: You are entering the Anecdote Zone, please exercise caution.

I trust my players not to use knowledge inappropriately (side note: hate the term "metagame," but that is for another discussion), and they all have very good track records of it... so long as "all," excludes any player that I have had in the past but no longer allow at my table.

That trust gets a bit battered and broken sometimes, however - just the other night actually, one of my players (a guy that prides himself on how role-play oriented he is, and how much he focuses on the story elements and not the mechanics) had his character bitten by a Ghoul.

The party had no luck on their knowledge rolls for the Ghouls, so the characters only knew what they saw and that it tried to eat them... I asked the player to roll a pair of Fortitude saves after the bite, one for paralysis and the other for disease. He failed both, so I told him how long he was paralyzed and handed him the condition card to keep track of the rules for it, and asked that he make a note on his sheet that he had failed that save... I told him absolutely nothing about what the save meant, or any effect it had on his character... yet he started role-playing the "I don't feel so good..." thing (while the character should be experiencing absolutely no symptoms, and his wounds had already been healed) and trying to find out if the Cleric could fix up what the save he failed caused... I had to point out that his character felt fine to snap him out of it.

This is the only time I can remember him using his knowledge inappropriately in the nearly 6 years he has shared my table - Had I rolled that save in secret, it wouldn't have happened at all.

You are now leaving the Anecdote Zone, drive safe!

I typically use a GM screen. Mostly it is for keeping my notes out of player view - if for no other reason than to aid myself in being able to plan out things that are supposed to surprise the players. An Ogre just doesn't cause as much of an "Oh [put a word here]!" reaction when the players see a note that says "Ogre," or a mini of a Ogre sitting on the table.

I don't find it to create any sort of disconnect between the players and I, perhaps because I am a taller guy... more likely because I frequently stand up at the table because being in one position too long causes terrible pains and my joints start to lock up.

In the end, my thoughts on the matter really turn to the following: I wish my players could stand me showing them everything (maps, notes, even an overall outline of the campaign, not to mention dice rolls) and still have enough fun to keep showing up... and some of them have actually asked me if I could make more things secretive.

A player in particular even asked if I would run a campaign in which only I rolled any dice (i.e. Player: "Jarren attacks the goblin with his spear... he's got a +7 to-hit, and does 1d8+10 damage" and then I throw the dice behind the screen and tell him how it went.)

35) When you swear that the character sheet had Ability scores in the order Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma just a second ago.

By the way did it really escalated to calling the cops? Are there such persons?

There absolutely are such people.

I was once in a game that ended with us all (the players, not characters) leaving before the cops showed up to where we were playing because the neighbors had called the police.

The game was being played in a garage (we set up some couches and tables to make it more like a lounge because we spent so much time with too many people over for any actual room in the house) and a player got a bit sour because the DM at the time didn't let him play out a a scene... because the DM noticed that all the other players got a bit of a squeamish look when the problem player attempted to initiate the scene with "Alright, so... I go up to the barmaid and convince her to come out into the alley with me."

The DM's attempt to just move on with the game irritated the player, which made him more obstinate about it... he moved on though. At least that's how it seemed until we met with a female NPC that was offering us a job, when he started demanding in-character that she pay him up front for the job with sexual favors.

The situation exploded, the problem player was trying to get us all to RP out the scene with his character raping our prospective employer and we were all trying to convince him to leave - he wouldn't budge and started yelling louder and louder about what his character was going to do (in first person speech, I should add) and how none of us could stop it because he wasn't leaving until we let it happen... and then we all made the biggest gaming mistake of our collective lives; We said "Fine... let's do this," and started playing out the scene.

His character went to grab her, our characters went to stop him - as you would expect with 3 on 1 PVP his character died. That's when the guy proves to us that all of the crazy he had shown us by that point had only been the tip of the iceberg and he literally stood up and flipped the table, then started trashing the garage and screaming at us.

The DM and host was freaked out so bad he couldn't even think of what to do, and the other players beside myself had left the garage and gone out to the end of the driveway to keep distance between them and the raging psycho-gamer - the neighbor that had called the cops called them over to his yard across the street and told them the cops should be there soon, which I wish I had heard before my anger at the whole situation got the best of me... I think the guy had thrown a chair in such a way that it bounced into my bum knee, I can't really remember because it was years ago and I went off the rails myself.

The cops hauled that guy off after I hit him so hard in the guts that he puked, and the rest of us had gone down the street to another player's house so I could toss my jeans in the wash.

There are people in the world that are mentally unstable - sometimes they end up at a game table... luckily we never saw that guy again.

Really? That sounds like a design flaw, either of the encounters (The GM doesn't already know this is possible?) or of the system (Reduce the game to a single die roll).

Are people okay with playing that way? I wouldn't be.

I disagree with those saying that the game inevitably boils down to the "rocket tag" described above - I admit that it can if the DM does not actively prevent it by either disallowing certain combinations of existing rules or by adjusting his plans to account for and at least partially nullify those certain combinations of rules elements.

I will say, however, that Improved Initiative is never a trap because going first allows you the ability to set your tone for the encounter: If you want to be on the offensive and an opponent goes before you, they might force you onto the defensive - and if enough of the party manages higher initiative rolls than the opposition, you might even manage to change the pace of the encounter greatly... like by taking down a Hezrou before it has a chance to nauseate anyone.

It's all about getting the advantage on your opponents - the Wizard going first and locking down that axe-wielding Ogre Barbarian with Hold Monster before he is able to rage and charge the party is much better than the Wizard going 2nd to the Ogre and trying to hit him with Hold Monster after he has raged, charged, and likely taken a large chunk out of someone's HP.

In my experience, I find Improved Initiative to be the the number two (second only to armor) way to reduce the amount of healing a party needs throughout a day... maybe that's just me though.

This is probably only funny to me and my group...

We were playing Vampire, and the group needed to distract the two heavily armed ghouls guarding a door so they could get in and mess up some cult of set activities...

The player elected to be the distraction says "Okay, I know how to really get their attention," with a tone that said "Don't worry, I've got this," his character then walks up the sidewalk until he is in front of the steps that lead up to the door being guarded and shouts "Hey you jerks, punch my butt!"

Spells have names just like weapons do - the book lists one for the purposes of allowing the players to realize there are different options, and so that they have a word to use in character to talk about the item (barring setting material that provides alternate names to use).

For example: Great sword. Claymore. Zweihander. All are (or at least could be) the same sword.

Magic Missile. Arcane Bolt. Force Dart. All are (or at least could be) the same spell.

To summarize: the spell names in the book are absolutely meant to be useable in-character and understood by NPCs, but are not necessarily the only names that spells might have and a setting could certainly change them.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

If your fellow players are expressing irritation with your character choices, you may be playing in the wrong group.

I have to object to this gross overstatement. The suggestion seems to be that one should always play whatever you feel like no matter what.

One should always play whatever they want, and when one is in the right group that never leads to a problem because the right group wants the same things.

To use your example:

If I'm playing a paladin and someone else decides to play an evil cleric

If you and the other players, save one, are already on board with the Paladin and that Paladin's deity - a player wanting to play that evil cleric is in the wrong group. The right group for him would be one that wants to play an evil group, or one that is all in agreement on being at least partly antagonistic to each other protagonist.

Or a party of 4 that direly needs a fighter

Again, the right group getting together and making characters never results in the party having a "hole" they are worried about filling, and everyone is playing what they want - because the right group wants to work towards a shared goal.

To the original question, though, it's just straight up better to be straight class more often than not, unless you're working towards a very specific concept and/or prestige class.

I agree with this statement in a way... most concepts can be realized without multi-classing at all thanks to the options for differing racial traits, classes and archetypes, skills, feats and other traits.

Because of that, I encourage players not to multiclass their characters unless there is a particular prestige class they are aiming for - I am also a bit restrictive on multiclassing, though, house-ruling that a character can't multiclass with the same "role" of character (i.e. no fighter/barbarian, no sorcerer/wizard, or more esoterically no inquisitor/cleric or inquisitor/ranger since inquisitor is basically already a custom ranger/cleric).

I want a 20+ book very much. I never cared for the arbitrary 20 limitation introduced in 2e.

The only arbitrary limitations in 2e were... 30, introduced by the DM Option: High Level Campaigns book.

The arbitrary limitations based on race choice (usually ranging from 7 to 14 with a few outliers) were a holdover from 1e - and pre-option series 2e had unlimited advancement built into it: noted on the class level limits by race table with "U" and facilitated by experience charts that all ended with "+X thousands of experience each additional level."

History lessons aside... I think a book covering some suggestions as to how to handle advancing beyond 20th level could end up being good - I don't think I would ever use it though.

I still view anything past 12th level as "epic level," so I tend to not see a need for more than 20 levels... not to mention that the creation of monsters meant to be a threat to characters of higher than 20th level tends to become a bit cumbersome at best, and a silly game of "rocket tag" at worst given the amount of pieces needed to be put together in order to actually push the capabilities of a party that high of level.

I almost believe that the best thing to do would be to go the 2nd edition (pre option series) route - show how XP gains increase, and classes only keep gaining abilities that are tied to an "every X levels" rate - like feats, skills, ability increases, bonus feats, and so on.