I don't like meta gaming unless it is necessary. There are aspects of the rules that require it and I have no problem with that but there are some aspects that don't require it but some players feel the need to do it anyway to give their character an advantage and I don't like that. We play role playing games, not number crunching games.
I agree with you about metagaming, and that we are playing a role playing game. But I do think that number crunching is also a fun aspect of the game - in moderation. I fear that some of the players in my group only really enjoy the number crunching parts - but that is for another thread.
So my question is - what is the worst that the Druid can do if you allow them to pour through the monster books in search of that perfect animal?
Trying to dismiss me as not knowing the rules still doesn't make me wrong and you right.
You still haven't proven to the thread that you are right according to RAW.
I FINALLY get that what you want to do is restrict your players from taking certain wild shapes.. That's fine, and it's your right as GM to limit what a player can choose as thier shape. However, you are trying to justify it by saying that a knowledge check does not do what it designed to do. The RAW is there, has been proven (by multiple people). Yes, a GM can always say no to a creature he doesn't agree with, but the rules are the rules.
-This thread would have been done by now if you had just said:
Topic: DM's: How relaxed are you when it comes to Wild Shape?
I restrict my players from using creatures not from thier native habitats. And they must experience them first hand... What do you guys do?
And when people started gave you thier opinions, you didn't followed it up with: "You are wrong!"
*paraphrased of course*
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Well, I've read through all two-hundred and fifty posts of this dreaded thread, and I suppose I've dwelt long enough on it to impose a question.
I'm new to the Pathfinder game. Not to tabletop roleplaying in general, but Pathfinder, yes. Done research, but not nearly enough to say I'm competent in my knowledge of the rules, nor the difference between "RAW" and "RAI" for a lot of things.
That said, I would like to ask you (Shallowsoul) this. What was your purpose in creating this thread? Or was it arbitrary whim? I'll agree that it just seems like you're snapping at every turn, but I don't know you or any of these people well enough to make a clear judgment.
Secondly, here is my view on it. I very much like roleplaying over "rollplaying". I like the flexibility imagination has to offer and I like the fact that tabletop roleplaying allows the players and the GM to be innovative - something I believe should be rewarded, not shut away.
That also said, on Wild Shape: If someone has reasonable, written justification as to why they can shape-shift into this being, I don't see why not let them. I'm not saying I'd let them shape-shift into the Tarrasque if they have a page-worth of backstory as to how their parents took a chunk off its hide and ate it, and now its blood flows through their veins; no matter how well-written it was. That is an example of unreasonable circumstance. But, say, they wanted to shift into a polar bear, and their native area was a jungle; perhaps their backstory includes time spent training in the artic, or something similar. That's reasonable.
As a GM I like to reward innovation. I reward originality. I reward out-of-the-box thinking, as long as it doesn't blatantly metagame.
There's my take on it.
When a new bestiary comes out, it's not like the monsters are patched into a videogame and any character created before the patch doesn't have any of them in his "Codex of monsters I know about". That's absurd. The character knows about whichever of them he would reasonably know about, defined mechanically as a knowledge check. It is absolutely legitimate for a player to thumb through a new bestiary and using whatever method is normally used to determine familiarity determine which of the new monsters the player knows about.
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When a new bestiary comes out, it's not like the monsters are patched into a videogame and any character created before the patch doesn't have any of them in his "Codex of monsters I know about". That's absurd. The character knows about whichever of them he would reasonably know about, defined mechanically as a knowledge check. It is absolutely legitimate for a player to thumb through a new bestiary and using whatever method is normally used to determine familiarity determine which of the new monsters the player knows about.
The thing is, monsters from a new bestiary should not automatically be assumed to be in the game. When a new bestiary comes out I don't automatically start adding in those monsters.
When a new bestiary comes out, it's not like the monsters are patched into a videogame and any character created before the patch doesn't have any of them in his "Codex of monsters I know about". That's absurd. The character knows about whichever of them he would reasonably know about, defined mechanically as a knowledge check. It is absolutely legitimate for a player to thumb through a new bestiary and using whatever method is normally used to determine familiarity determine which of the new monsters the player knows about.The thing is, monsters from a new bestiary should not automatically be assumed to be in the game. When a new bestiary comes out I don't automatically start adding in those monsters.
Yes. However, the ones you do allow from the new bestiary aren't just magically created that day. They are assumed to have already existed.
No, but that has to do with the campaign world, rather than with the rules of the game. Of course a player can't wild shape into a creature that doesn't exist in your campaign world. No number gained on a knowledge check would change that fact.
I removed a bunch of posts and locked this thread.
If you want to have a discussion, it is important to argue in good faith. Thinly veiled insults, semantic arguments with a bunch of dictionary quotes, or perpetual insistence that the 'burden of proof' is upon the other guy are not helping.
Posts saying 'this is going to get locked' are also not helping. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, at best. Just flag it and move on.
Also, don't feed the trolls.