RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Now here is an interesting one:
Last time I ran into darkness (deeper darkness) I had summoned some Lantern Archons just before. They have an interesting description - they are creatures of light that you can only extinguish by killing them.
It was a summon III spell. So what happens (apart of table variation).
Ooooh, now THAT is interesting!
Lantern archons light many settlements in the celestial realms in lieu of mundane or magical illumination...
This lends a lot of credit to the theory that not every light source has to be either "magical" or "nonmagical" as far as the darkness spell description is concerned (which is very relevant to interpreting those spells, but I won't go into why right now).
Thanks for the tidbit, Thod!
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Simplest solution against darkness is often to back out. Just turn and return from where you came from. Fight fights on familiar ground. A lot of PCs die to charging in blindly (doesn't always apply to darkness).
Choke points are very strong, and solid PC tactics can almost win fights by themselves.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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how did a thread on "hard mode" turn into one on "darkness"?
1) It's a thread on the difficulty level of PFS.
2) Difficulty is a bit subjective, so any thread on that topic is going to involve examples/anecdotes.3) Anecdotes on the topic of difficulty are going to involve overcoming (or failing to overcome) certain challenges.
4) Darkness is a common challenge, therefore likely to be among the anecdotes given (and the more anecdotes given, the greater the odds that at least one will involve darkness; and this thread's pretty long).
5) Darkness is one of the most frequently misinterpreted/misapplied mechanics in the game, therefore the more anecdotes in which it appears, the more likely one of those anecdotes will reveal that someone misunderstands it.
THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.
And then I come along and fail to resist the compulsion to point those errors out. ;)
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.
Seeing as I laid it out, I totally call dibs on the nomenclature: "Jiggy's Law". ;)
Jiggy,
Darkness is a second level spell. Continual Flame is either a second or third level spell, depending on the caster. Continual Flame states: Light spells counter and dispel darkness spells of an equal or lower levelCountering and dispelling are things you can only do at the time you cast a spell, not by bringing two diametrically opposed spells near each other when they're already active. If Valeros is affected by bane and Kyra is affected by bless, getting them to hug does not dispel those two spells, despite identical wording in both spells about countering and dispelling each other.
Additionally, darkness explicitly states that magical light sources do not increase the light level in the area unless they're of a higher spell level than darkness. (This does mean that a cleric-cast continual flame will trump ordinary darkness, but items like the everburning torch are unfortunately wizard-made.)
Actually, that example is not true.
If you are hasted, and run into a room with a permanent slow effect, your haste is immediately dispelled, and it in turn immediately dispels the slow spell.
Darkness and light spells counter and dispel one another. Counter is something you only do at the moment of being cast. Dispel is something you do to a spell AFTER it is cast.
So when darkness and light spells get into one another's area of effect, they dispel one another. If opposing spellcasters use them, they can counter one another.
There was actually a long thread about the particulars of this, esp regarding Heightened Continual Flame being able to dispel any and all darkness spells in its area of effect if it was high enough level.
The consensus came to be that because of the Countering language being included, light and darkness spells that interact are expended when they neutralize one another (which is what countering does) and unlike most spells, they counter one another after being cast (haste/slow is another example).
Ergo, if you take a light spell into a darkness spell, it will counter AND dispel the light spell...and be expended in the process of countering.
So, you can use a lower level darkness/light spell to get rid of a higher level one, by forcing it to counter your spell.
If you instead want to rule that it only dispels lower level spells, and counters equal level spells, then Heightened Continual Flame does the job you want. Spring for a level 4 or 5 Continual Flame coin, and never worry about darkness again.
==Aelryinth
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Actually, that example is not true.
If you are hasted, and run into a room with a permanent slow effect, your haste is immediately dispelled, and it in turn immediately dispels the slow spell.
Source?
Darkness and light spells counter and dispel one another. Counter is something you only do at the moment of being cast. Dispel is something you do to a spell AFTER it is cast.
After the spell you're dispelling has been cast, yes. But the spell you're using to DO the dispelling must be cast specifically to dispel, not already be running.
See also this Official FAQ about how you dispel diametrically-opposed spells.
If you're going to make claims about how rules work, back them up.
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THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.
+1 to this!
But violating that law. My archer's solution to darkness: potion of alter self. Turn into something small with darkvision: see in the dark and boost my AC and attacks!
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THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.+1 to this!
But violating that law. My archer's solution to darkness: potion of alter self. Turn into something small with darkvision: see in the dark and boost my AC and attacks!
Can't have a potion of a self-only spell, you need a scroll.
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Can't have a potion of a self-only spell, you need a scroll.THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.+1 to this!
But violating that law. My archer's solution to darkness: potion of alter self. Turn into something small with darkvision: see in the dark and boost my AC and attacks!
Huh. Learn something new every day. Thanks for the catch!
[A potion or oil] can duplicate the effect of a spell of up to 3rd level that has a casting time of less than 1 minute and targets one or more creatures or objects.
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Can't have a potion of a self-only spell, you need a scroll.THEREFORE, the longer a thread about difficulty goes on, the more inevitable it becomes that someone demonstrates a misunderstanding of darkness effects.Sounds like there needs to be a Godwin's Law of Darkness.+1 to this!
But violating that law. My archer's solution to darkness: potion of alter self. Turn into something small with darkvision: see in the dark and boost my AC and attacks!
My Alchemist hands him an Infusion of alter self....
there, that should work.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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@Joe M: In the Magic Items chapter of the CRB, there are two different places that talk about what can be made into a potion/oil. One is the potion section of the chapter, the other is the potion subsection of the magic item creation section of the same chapter.
The subsection within magic item creation lists all the requirements, including a line that spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions. Meanwhile, the general potion section lists every single requirement EXCEPT that one. For some reason.
Not that I'm bitter about that organizational failure or anything...
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@Joe M: In the Magic Items chapter of the CRB, there are two different places that talk about what can be made into a potion/oil. One is the potion section of the chapter, the other is the potion subsection of the magic item creation section of the same chapter.
The subsection within magic item creation lists all the requirements, including a line that spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions. Meanwhile, the general potion section lists every single requirement EXCEPT that one. For some reason.
Not that I'm bitter about that organizational failure or anything...
Yeah, stuff like that's irritating. I'm looking at my CRB right now (5th Printing). In the general potion section, I have: "[A potion or oil] can duplicate the effect of a spell of up to 3rd level that has a casting time of less than one minute and targets one or more creatures or objects" (CRB 477). Following RE's pointer, I took that to mean targets-targets. But something like the explicit claim found in the magic item creation section would be nice: "Spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions" (CRB 551).
Had a similar mixup a couple games ago with the frightened condition. The Fear section at CRB 563 contains the rule that "once [the frightened characters] are out of sight (or hearing) of the source of their fear, they can act as they want." But there's nothing like that in the description of the Frightened condition at CRB 567. Caused a couple minutes of confusion with one player insisting he could stop running away once he got a few rooms away and the GM saying, um no I'm looking at it right here.
Irritating indeed.
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Even in season four I find myself playing scenarios where my character does little to nothing in combat (due to everything being dead before I can act or reach an enemy).
I am beginning to understand why initiative is such a popular stat. =/
I am very much in the boat that prefers more common TPKs if it means I actually get to participate in combat.
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Even in season four I find myself playing scenarios where my character does little to nothing in combat (due to everything being dead before I can act or reach an enemy).
I am beginning to understand why initiative is such a popular stat. =/
I am very much in the boat that prefers more common TPKs if it means I actually get to participate in combat.
I've never had this experience, and "more common TPKs" would simply alienate casual players.
I think, perhaps, one of the issues in "detuning" encounters (especially the final BBEG encounters) is that most of the scenarios I have seen have very few targets.
Making a single enemy a challenge to a group of 6 is really quite tough, due to the economies of actions. Thus, perhaps, the APL+4 encounters. This is really still the case when there are two bad guys.
The "downsizing" I have seen has not been all that effective, in my eyes. I think this is where the devs should be looking at. Let's take for example, an Alchemist BBEG. In one scenario, this Alchemist is downgraded by making him sickened, which for many characters would be quite effective. However, the two things that make Alchemist NPCs so effective are the effectively unlimited use of bombs, and the touch AC attacks.
To balance such a thing perhaps they could limit the number of bombs left for the alchemist (he could have already had an encounter on that day), to perhaps 2-3 instead of 5-6. Perhaps his mutagen has already been used, as well as some of his elixirs.
The same kind of balancing could be done with all spellcasters... reducing the number of spells available.
For more martial bad guys, if the encounters have mooks with the BBEG, you could reduce the number of mooks (of course, the mooks would have be significant enough on their own). Barbarians could have fewer rounds of rage left, or the like.
I think the perception of deadliness in season 4 comes in part due to the assumption of 6 players (which means that the encounters are properly tuned), but a poor job of detuning.
I don't know if the word count is available, but having two ways to play down a BBEG might be needed.
1 option would account for playing down for not having 6 players.
The other option would be for if you have 6 players, but they are at a lower level.
How you downgrade an encounter is just as important to what the CR is downgraded to in some cases. Well that is what I see in home games anyway.
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You simply let people play at a harder tier if they wish. The rewards would be a fixed function of character level.Yes, I know, that won't work. Nobody will play up simply to play up because:
1. There's nothing to be gained by that.
...
To even suggest such a solution fails to understand that very thing that motivates people to play up. The goal isn't just to play a harder game, the goal is to achieve more and that achievement is measured by the treasure/gold/loot that one finds as result of the efforts. You might as well just tell people who want a challenge to cut themselves until they are half hit points, dump half their spells, and then play the scenario.
You keep saying this, and I'm sure you believe it, but it is simply not true.
There *are* people whose goal is simply to play a harder game, and who do not care about the reward. Whose motivation is, quite simply, bragging rights.
In my most recent PFS game, we had a situation where we had to make a precarious crossing of a river which required an acrobatics check. One of the characters allowed all of the other characters to cross, then declared that he was going to blindfold himself and cross backwards, just to prove his superiority -- even though the GM told him it was possible to die from a failed check. (Not automatically, but still.) After he succeeded, my character told him that now that I had see him do that, I would never be impressed by that trick again, and he said that was OK -- next time he would set the rope on fire as he crossed.
I have seen characters go without healing, just to prove they're tough. I have seen people use up spells to no purpose because 'they don't need them'. These things do happen, and they happen entirely so that they can brag about them afterwards.
I have no idea how common this behavior is, but I've seen it often enough I would have thought that everyone with a bit of experience has sat at a table where it's happened.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there are people who would play up as far as they are allowed for no more reward than to be able to show their friends the chronicle sheet proving that they had completed a scenario at a lower level than their friend had.
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You simply let people play at a harder tier if they wish. The rewards would be a fixed function of character level.Yes, I know, that won't work. Nobody will play up simply to play up because:
1. There's nothing to be gained by that.
...
To even suggest such a solution fails to understand that very thing that motivates people to play up. The goal isn't just to play a harder game, the goal is to achieve more and that achievement is measured by the treasure/gold/loot that one finds as result of the efforts. You might as well just tell people who want a challenge to cut themselves until they are half hit points, dump half their spells, and then play the scenario.
You keep saying this, and I'm sure you believe it, but it is simply not true.
There *are* people whose goal is simply to play a harder game, and who do not care about the reward. Whose motivation is, quite simply, bragging rights.
In my most recent PFS game, we had a situation where we had to make a precarious crossing of a river which required an acrobatics check. One of the characters allowed all of the other characters to cross, then declared that he was going to blindfold himself and cross backwards, just to prove his superiority -- even though the GM told him it was possible to die from a failed check. (Not automatically, but still.) After he succeeded, my character told him that now that I had see him do that, I would never be impressed by that trick again, and he said that was OK -- next time he would set the rope on fire as he crossed.
I have seen characters go without healing, just to prove they're tough. I have seen people use up spells to no purpose because 'they don't need them'. These things do happen, and they happen entirely so that they can brag about them afterwards.
I have no idea how common this behavior is, but I've seen it often enough I would have thought that everyone with a bit of experience has sat at a table where it's happened.
There is absolutely no doubt in...
Yeah yeah there are people who like hard mode...but you even admit that those are rare. Unless you can see 4 of the 6 people at a table doing this, you will NEVER get a play up scenario if more risk does not give more rewards. Remember you need a majority consensus here. It's not like the guy who optimizes can dictate that everyone else plays up after all.
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When I played my enemies enemy. While the team was debating what route to go. I invisibled snuck ahead found the boss. Two save or suck spells later the party got to enjoy gnome laughter, as they were having trouble with the pre-boss fight.
I have never read the mod until a month later. Save or suck casters with surprise can easy solo a boss.
None of my characters buy wands of curleight becuase I think they put the game into eays mode.
I have a friend brag all the time he beat a level 5 mod as a level 1 character.
I brag all the time my gnome magically seduced Hammaria blackros premanetly.
I have had another player PVP on me and the DM allowed it. So I ran the rest of the scenario at half HP. When ever my character talked I held a hand over my face where I was attacked to roleplay it.
I brag about my character all the time.
My greatest moment of glory for myself. I have had twice people I never met tell me stories they found funny my character did they heard from other people.
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Playing up is fun because death gets way more likely and the rewards are fun. If they eliminate the award it's kind of weird, but I've always felt like PFS has a lot of people at the top wanting the game to be played a very specific way and I think they're going a bit overboard enforcing that. I really wish more people approached design in PFS as if it was a roleplaying game and not a board game where you can design your own piece.
I miss the old Living games. :(
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Fixing WBL doesn't solve their problems and based on the discussion in this thread, it's pretty clear that character gold wealth has little to do with trivializing encounters. Tactics and builds are far more influential than whether someone has an extra +1 on their weapon or their armor.
I agree completely.
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Cake walks are made by player strategy. If a player group walks jaws first into every room and lets the encoutner get a free shot on them. Well then yes it can be very hard.
You know how many times I stopped ambushed with 0 level spells. That guy in the snow drift has a potion he pings. Open/close on that door ohh look that guy 40 feet away has tons of dangerous stuff waiting for me to walk in.
I have also seen the opposite. "Hey the team is having a hard time with this fight. I sneak off and find the boss fight, well I shoot my cross bow at him and run back to my party" I have seen that 2 times while DMing and once as a player.
You are a team. A team specializaes. On a football team you do not get the line snaps at quarter back EVER. You let someone naturally good at it to do it, maybe the back a few times.
A cake walk can be a fun scenario. There is one scenario with a gay werewolf that the table could not stop making jokes about. Like when Merisel caught him and distracted him with the line "hey wanna make half-elfs". The players can make the game fun just by being silly and halving fun roleplaying. Danger is half the adventure.
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I've played with over 50 different people, some from different countries, and I've never seen anything that even approaches this behavior. So if it were common or even frequent, it would be a statistical improbability for me not to have come across it. I'll let others chime in on what % of players they've seen exhibit this behavior consistently.
See, that surprises me -- I figured everyone had encountered this. I'd have a hard time putting numbers to it, but maybe 10% of unique tables I've sat at? (That's taking it outside of just PFS to get a large enough sample to measure.) It's usually two or three people who have a rivalry going and are playing off of each other. And if it's one person they're usually trying to impress (or annoy) one other particular person at the table.
You keep saying this, and I'm sure you believe it, but it is simply not true.It is true because I'm talking about what happens on a population level, not an individual level. The fact that some idiot out there wants to ride around on his motorcycle without a helmet and never suffers a head injury doesn't mean we can get rid of the helmet laws.
OK, I know it's off topic, but this was a ROFLMAO for me because in my state we did this very thing last year -- got rid of motorcycle helmet laws because people wanted to ride around without helmets. Helmet laws were 'infringing on their freedoms' and getting rid of them was going to 'boost motorcycle tourism'. Guess what: head injuries in motorcycle accidents have tripled since then -- who'da thunk.
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PS: Oh to more directly answer your question: imagine a scenario that offered a 1-2 tier and a 4-5 tier. You have a level 2 optimized that wants to play 4-5. You have a level 5 that doesn't want to walk through a 1-2. You have a level 6 that would get a LOT of questions if they wanted the 1-2 over the 4-5. They all play the same tier happily- one is 'playing up', one is playing 'normal', and one is 'playing down'. And they all signed up for the scenario with tier 4-5 in mind.
Umm...no. If the tiers are 1-2 and 4-5, your in a 1-5 scenario and a level 6 CAN NOT PLAY...period. Even barring that and lets say the other fellow is level 5 as well, you would need the last person at the table to be level 1 or 2 for there to even be an option to play the 4-5 tier. If the 4th is 3+, the APL of the table becomes above 3.5...which means they are a 4-5 table. So does the OTHER 1-2 player play up when they get no extra reward? In fact when s/he will most likely be punished with extra consumable usage and extra possible death? Or is that fourth more likely to pull the we play down or I walk and so we now have 3 players cake walking and not having fun? Mike mentioned the bullying to play up...well this would cause bullying to play down. What the podcast suggested would cause a stand off as both sides would get severely punished mechanically so neither side will want to blink. I am talking population level here. This is pretty basic human psychology.