Getting what you want.


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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I'd say its not jarring at all, at least, if you go into the game not expecting the story to cater to your character.

Everything should be available yes, but I'm generally more of a mindset of 'haul that s~%! into town, unload it, and buy/commission your personal stuff.'

EDIT: there's also the option of questing for a unique piece of gear known to have been possessed by a certain villain or lost in some dangerous region, but in a game where characters are covered in magical crap that seems a little off-tone.


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Every time I see a topic like this I can not help but feel its nothing but poorly veiled "melee can't have nice things."

The fact of the matter is that limiting items does little or nothing to casters but hurts Melee a great deal. Or other less common builds like say a thrower that needs a blink back belt.


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I meant in novels, if that wasn't clear from my post. It would be like Dresden actually taking up one of the Swords. Or getting a Demonic Axe and using that. Or Conan pulling out a wand and shooting Fireballs. Luckily, those characters seem to end up with the right tools to do the job, kind of like how magic items should ideally work.


If more availability and magic = better then why wasn't Mystara successful?

IMO there's a balance and the current way isn't it. I'll play it, but to me it hurts the setting and cheapens the value of magic and the mystique of items.


Arachnofiend wrote:

You don't need a 20 level build to have certain items that are necessary for your character to do the things s/he's supposed to do. Any Finesse fighter is a liability to the group until they get dex-to-damage in some manner; if you're not using a Scimitar, that means using an Agile enchantment. The later you get one, the more time you spend being a drain in combat, being focused on martial abilities without having the stats to be martial.

I do recognize and accept that not everyone approaches the game in my way. That's fine; if your character can survive with with whatever crap you find lying on the ground then feel free to do so. I don't think a GM should listen to a full list of items a player wants, but there are builds that are completely unworkable without certain items. It's a very small list, but they do exist and if you're not going to provide them to a player who wants to build around its existence then you should at least tell them so they can come up with a concept that will function in your game.

Meh on dex to damage, since it is generally advisable to focus on other damage bonuses on finesse builds first.

No, the 'required' items I usually think of are the basic defense boosters (cloak of resistance is big since a lot of high level monsters have save DCs and CR based on the assumption you will have something boosting your saves to an decent degree). But those big name items like that should not be a problem believably since... well, I'd imagine that, since just about every player wants them, then everyone in game would too for the same reasons. So they should theoretically be very common compared to other similarly priced items.

Sovereign Court

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When you're optimizing a character - or even just trying to make sure he isn't horribly UNDERpowered, it makes more sense to focus on the game that you'll actually be playing, than to the Platonic ideal of the game. Making a build that relies on RAW rules if the GM is houseruling extensively isn't very clever. Picking a class that's strong in the forest isn't all that clever if the GM wants to run an urban campaign. It's always important to talk with the GM to find out what kind of campaign you'll be playing, what unusual circumstances you need to account for.

===

When I played a character with CWI, I was actually vaguely disappointed. If the response to any loot is "let's sell it and make stuff that we like better", that's definitely taking the wonder out of it.

===

I don't mean to deny the PCs magic items, but I don't like the extreme freedom of crafting feats and magic marts that stock a wide variety.

I'm leaning towards generating the stock of item shops semi-randomly; there will be more magic swords than magic blowguns, and consumable items will be readily available.

In tandem with that, I want to reduce the number of item creation feats, probably to Craft Consumable Item and Craft Permanent Item. But these feats will not be making items at half-price; rather at full price, and the time to make permanent items will be fairly long and require actual downtime. Crafting your own permanent items is a way to get stuff that refuses to drop randomly.

I'll be very liberal both in retraining feats to accomodate switching to a new weapon you found, and in broadening those feats that specialize in a single weapon, to all weapons in the same weapon group (like applying Weapon Focus (short sword) to all swords).

I'll use more ability build points per level while reducing WBL a bit, to get rid of the obligatory headbands and belts. This should subtly favor MAD classes and reduce insane spell DCs.

Finally, if a player's dream build requires certain items, he can request them upfront during CharGen. In that case the character WILL start with a solid lead on where such an item might be found. This gets me a free adventure hook and the player a guarantee that the item can be gotten at some point. It seems Joe McFighter is looking for the ancestral greatsword that was lost a while ago, and thinks it might be in the Tomb of John Doe the Elder, from which no man has ever returned (yet). I will force such items to drop "randomly", I'll give the player an actual IC lead on them.

Liberty's Edge

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In my experience, somebody takes Craft Wondrous Item, and often someone takes Craft Magic Arms and Armor, too. It's too useful for the party for it to be otherwise. That said...usually only on person takes each Feat (often the same person), and there's not unlimited downtime.

That being the case, mostly the PCs make do with what they find. Mostly. Now, they find cash and truly useless items (which they then sell) decently often, and their craftsman uses those to fill in any holes that the found gear leaves or create really necessary items for a particular build...but selling everything? Yeah, they don't have time for all the crafting that doing that would necessitate.

If they lack Craft Magic Arms and Armor they sometimes go to a city and buy a particular item, but not often enough for it to seem like a 'magic mart' or anything, since the vast majority of gear is still found or made by them personally.

I think this is a solid balance of the possible options on the continuum, personally.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Rynjin wrote:

-Get s#!#ty random loot.

-Go to city.

-Sell s@#*ty random loot.

-Buy stuff you want.

Simple as that.

In a sufficiently large city anything is readily available. By the time only a Metropolis can suit your needs, someone in the party should have Teleport.

Well anything up to 16000 gp value, which is the standard cap for a metropolis. If you use the settlement rules from the GMG I think you can squeeze a trade center up to 24000gp or so. Metropolis base values are very decreased form 3.5 where they were 100k.

By the book is how I roll magic item availability - so 75% chance to find anything up to the base value, with a smattering of random other items that are usually junk. Anything above the 16-24k mark, depending on the city, needs to be found, crafted, or commisioned.

So if you have access to teleport or can reliably get to someplace like Katapesh, you can count on being able to just buy +3 weapons, +4 armors, +4 stat boosters, +4 cloaks, and so forth. Better stuff you would be wise to not count on getting.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

One of the things that really hampered and made players made in the Edition that Shall Not Be Named is the cost of making/buying magical items and the fact that it was highly suggested that the GM request Wish lists for the characters.

Wish lists for wanted items is a bad idea.

Really bad idea.

No, really. It is a bad, horrible idea.


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- Fighter specializes in Simple weapon; chances are someone somewhere is going to have enchanted ones

- Fighter specializes in Martial weapons; odds are good that there are specialists out there who can enhance these since a lot of the military carries these

- Fighter specializes in Exotic weapon; wherever they received training might have leads on where to get enhanced ones (roleplay needed)

My point is it all comes down to the GM and working w/the players. In other words: if you're a GM that feels they're a participant equal to the players then you can find SOME way to work with the player's "wish list" of items. If you're a GM who feels that you are a separate, godlike force of the game that the players have to work around, then they should be told that up front so there's no expectation of such a "wish list".

Please bear in mind: I am not saying either version is good or bad. I am saying however that the RAW are predicated on a certain amount of material wealth filling in the gaps of martial ability. There have been numerous suggestions on how to get around these if you favor a "low magic" world. There is also nothing wrong with playing core and working with the RAW. It's all up to the GM.

I actively encourage my players to create wish lists. One player told me he wanted a cool shield to work with a sword-and-board build. A couple weeks later I had an adventure ready to go and began planting plot hooks about the legendary dwarf hero who died sealing himself into a dungeon to contain an ancient evil; said dwarf had this really awesome shield...

If I know what the players want, be it material wealth, story-based achievements or even just a general feel of the game, I can then create adventures for what they want to get done. Otherwise they're just playing MY game, not OUR game. This is my experience; yours may vary.


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I've never understood the whole "if you want this item here is an entire quest for it" thing. So is the character going to go "hey guys I know we need to save the world and stuff but I totally heard about this dwarves hero who had a really bomb shield I was thinking we could go and take it" how exactly does that work?

The whole game would just be item grinding...kill daimon awakened form until he drops a daimon claw to build your new sword...


I never had the question answered as to what to do with the tons of items inside player companions and third party books. Do I just not bother because they'll want specific items anyway?

I agree that losing out on specific magic items hurts martials the most and does almost nothing to casters. But there is a certain level of dependency in how people build that barely allows use of whatever their build specifically does, to the point where they are considered a detriment until they have X item.


If a party member wants to take a craft feat, then great. Otherwise, you get what's available based on the campaign and situation. There's certainly no reason to believe that extremely specific and expensive magic items are always available just because a city has enough citizens.

Even craft feats start falling by the wayside if the campaign doesn't have increasingly long amounts of downtime (or access to a semi plane with a different time flow).


But why build that way in the first place. If you have a +1 greataxe and find a +3 grearsword and greatly prefer the Axe then your build seems too narrow to me.


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If I've got weapon specialization (and thus weapon focus) in greataxe, that greatsword is giving me +1 to hit, no change in damage, and the ability to overcome certain DR. I'm going to use it just until I can find a buyer so that I can turn it into the gold that I need to get my axe up to +2.

If Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialization make a build too narrow, I guess that makes 99% of Fighters too narrow.


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How does that make sense? Don't most characters focus on one weapon? If the DM is only placing +3 greatsword knowing your barbarian focused in axes seems like the DM is being an [redacted]

Now that I think about it for all this talk of "organic characters" it seems pretty nonorganic to just use every weapon you find doesn't flavor matter? If my character is an axe wielding barbarian and you give him a greatsword it's not going to match the image of the character. This sounds more like a videogame mentality than any of the "powergamer" arguments I've ever heard.


Most characters do not need to focus on one weapon, but many do. Fighters are hit particularly hard here, as they usually go the Weapon Specialization route, meaning that if they find a badass weapon that doesn't happen to be the exact type of their specialization, they're SOL.

If I don't want to make available Ye Olde Reliable Magick Shoppe nor bend reality so that the party just happens to find a magic wakizashi in a cave in fantasy Greece, I'll generally relax the UC retraining rules for weapon-specific feats so that the party doesn't go around trying to sell the artifact gladius they just found because nobody wants it.

A two-handed focused barbarian, on the other hand, can often do just as well with a greataxe or earthbreaker as with a greatsword, so as long as there are some big-ass magic weapons dropped occasionally, switching isn't as big of a deal.

Shadow Lodge

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thaX wrote:

One of the things that really hampered and made players made in the Edition that Shall Not Be Named is the cost of making/buying magical items and the fact that it was highly suggested that the GM request Wish lists for the characters.

Wish lists for wanted items is a bad idea.

Really bad idea.

No, really. It is a bad, horrible idea.

Why is that a bad idea, but walking into the magic mart in a town of 12 (including one old dog) and finding everything short of artifacts is expected?

No, really, why is a wish list a bad idea?


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There's nothing wrong with communicating with your GM that your character would be mechanically fun with particular magic items, so long as the player recognizes that it's ultimately the GM's call. The GM has the power here, but also recognizes that the game is more fun if the players feel empowered. They don't have to grant all (or any) of the player's loot wishes, but if a player says his barbarian is two-hand focused and would like a +3 greatsword, I might take that into account and tweak a loot drop, depending on the campaign. It might or might not be a +3 greatsword, but it would be something the character could use--maybe a +1 furyborn scythe.

Barring that, if the PC herself wants a badass greatsword, I might encourage the player to investigate it in-game--the ancient Titan Maulers of Kjor were legendary smiths, and their legacy can still be found in ancient ruins or passed down the generations.


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I have to ask, am I the only one who finds all the talk of builds a little distasteful? Maybe it's just a sematantic thing, but if a player in front of me needs a +X Lucern Hammer because that's what his optimised build needs... he hasn't got a hope in hell. There simply aint that many people wandering around with Lucern Hammers. You should've chosen a more common weapon. On the other hand, if he's a well-rounded character with a bit of back story and a strong explanation for why he is on a life long quest to become the High Lord Lucern Hammerer of Hammerland... well, I can work with that.

I must admit, I don't like some of the fundamental economic assumptions about availability and cost of magic: that PF seems to rely on optimised characters to balance high level encounters; that magical items are easily made and easily sold; and Sandpoint, a small town of 1200 people has multiple shops that can buy and sell magic items.

I think it's inevitable if you're going to have Magic Item proliferation in this way, you're going to have players creating "builds" that lean on the expectation of freely available items. If you want to change that, you need to change quite a lot about how PF has been constructed. Not necessarily difficult, but a bit of a chore.


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PD wrote:
if a player in front of me needs a +X Lucern Hammer because that's what his optimized build needs... he hasn't got a hope in hell. There simply aint that many people wandering around with Lucern Hammers. You should've chosen a more common weapon. On the other hand, if he's a well-rounded character with a bit of back story and a strong explanation for why he is on a life long quest to become the High Lord Lucern Hammerer of Hammerland... well, I can work with that.

These two items are a far cry from mutually exclusive.


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PD wrote:

I have to ask, am I the only one who finds all the talk of builds a little distasteful? Maybe it's just a sematantic thing, but if a player in front of me needs a +X Lucern Hammer because that's what his optimised build needs... he hasn't got a hope in hell. There simply aint that many people wandering around with Lucern Hammers. You should've chosen a more common weapon. On the other hand, if he's a well-rounded character with a bit of back story and a strong explanation for why he is on a life long quest to become the High Lord Lucern Hammerer of Hammerland... well, I can work with that.

I must admit, I don't like some of the fundamental economic assumptions about availability and cost of magic: that PF seems to rely on optimised characters to balance high level encounters; that magical items are easily made and easily sold; and Sandpoint, a small town of 1200 people has multiple shops that can buy and sell magic items.

I think it's inevitable if you're going to have Magic Item proliferation in this way, you're going to have players creating "builds" that lean on the expectation of freely available items. If you want to change that, you need to change quite a lot about how PF has been constructed. Not necessarily difficult, but a bit of a chore.

I mean characters in novels never end up with the kinds of weapons they want. This is why we alawys see Conan getting Wands of Fireball and wishing he had a good ax and why we always see Harry Potter swinging the Elder Axe, wishing he just a wand.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Just want to point something out:

PD wrote:
that PF seems to rely on optimised characters to balance high level encounters;

This isn't really true. Optimized characters demolish high level encounters as written. The encounters used as written are intended to challenge PCs with about the optimization level of the iconics, which is not much.

Your other points about magic item economy and "requirements" have validity.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Kthulhu wrote:
thaX wrote:

One of the things that really hampered and made players made in the Edition that Shall Not Be Named is the cost of making/buying magical items and the fact that it was highly suggested that the GM request Wish lists for the characters.

Wish lists for wanted items is a bad idea.

Really bad idea.

No, really. It is a bad, horrible idea.

Why is that a bad idea, but walking into the magic mart in a town of 12 (including one old dog) and finding everything short of artifacts is expected?

No, really, why is a wish list a bad idea?

Because it was an afterthought of a comment in the book when the whole rule system for magical item sale and buy was flubbed in the first place.

Because after doing the wish list, players expect Excaliber to be there for them afterwards.

Because giving out items instead of having the ability to get your own was extremely poor design.


Anzyr wrote:
PD wrote:

I have to ask, am I the only one who finds all the talk of builds a little distasteful? Maybe it's just a sematantic thing, but if a player in front of me needs a +X Lucern Hammer because that's what his optimised build needs... he hasn't got a hope in hell. There simply aint that many people wandering around with Lucern Hammers. You should've chosen a more common weapon. On the other hand, if he's a well-rounded character with a bit of back story and a strong explanation for why he is on a life long quest to become the High Lord Lucern Hammerer of Hammerland... well, I can work with that.

I must admit, I don't like some of the fundamental economic assumptions about availability and cost of magic: that PF seems to rely on optimised characters to balance high level encounters; that magical items are easily made and easily sold; and Sandpoint, a small town of 1200 people has multiple shops that can buy and sell magic items.

I think it's inevitable if you're going to have Magic Item proliferation in this way, you're going to have players creating "builds" that lean on the expectation of freely available items. If you want to change that, you need to change quite a lot about how PF has been constructed. Not necessarily difficult, but a bit of a chore.

I mean characters in novels never end up with the kinds of weapons they want. This is why we alawys see Conan getting Wands of Fireball and wishing he had a good ax and why we always see Harry Potter swinging the Elder Axe, wishing he just a wand.

poor analogy... Harry had to quest for the Elder Wand; an entire book was dedicated to that quest. And he did not get it till the end of the book.

And Conan was master of all weapons and none of his weapons were ever magical.

Liberty's Edge

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Damian Magecraft wrote:
poor analogy... Harry had to quest for the Elder Wand; an entire book was dedicated to that quest. And he did not get it till the end of the book.

The Elder Wand is an artifact. All other Wands could just be bought.

Damian Magecraft wrote:
And Conan was master of all weapons and none of his weapons were ever magical.

Here, you have a better point.


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havoc xiii wrote:

I've never understood the whole "if you want this item here is an entire quest for it" thing. So is the character going to go "hey guys I know we need to save the world and stuff but I totally heard about this dwarves hero who had a really bomb shield I was thinking we could go and take it" how exactly does that work?

The whole game would just be item grinding...kill daimon awakened form until he drops a daimon claw to build your new sword...

A DM can integrate such quests though into the overall plotline. Its not like there isn't plenty of fiction out there involving characters needing to procure item x to a specific villain.


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MMCJawa wrote:
havoc xiii wrote:

I've never understood the whole "if you want this item here is an entire quest for it" thing. So is the character going to go "hey guys I know we need to save the world and stuff but I totally heard about this dwarves hero who had a really bomb shield I was thinking we could go and take it" how exactly does that work?

The whole game would just be item grinding...kill daimon awakened form until he drops a daimon claw to build your new sword...

A DM can integrate such quests though into the overall plotline. Its not like there isn't plenty of fiction out there involving characters needing to procure item x to a specific villain.

Ah... but that sounds too much like GM empowerment... We cant have that now; can we?[/sarcasm]


Don't forget that many of these builds may be designed for PFS play where all of your items are purchased. That is the only way to get items in PFS.

Home games are a totally different discussion.


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Damian Magecraft wrote:
MMCJawa wrote:
havoc xiii wrote:

I've never understood the whole "if you want this item here is an entire quest for it" thing. So is the character going to go "hey guys I know we need to save the world and stuff but I totally heard about this dwarves hero who had a really bomb shield I was thinking we could go and take it" how exactly does that work?

The whole game would just be item grinding...kill daimon awakened form until he drops a daimon claw to build your new sword...

A DM can integrate such quests though into the overall plotline. Its not like there isn't plenty of fiction out there involving characters needing to procure item x to a specific villain.
Ah... but that sounds too much like GM empowerment... We cant have that now; can we?[/sarcasm]

GM empowerment is ok, within reason. It's GM entitlement we must avoid at all cost ;)


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Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.

To clarify some of my points;

My usual way of handling this as a GM is to let the players assume that they can buy anything they want from Ultimate Equipment up to the price limit of the place. I give loot in gold as if the equipment the enemy is wearing magically turned into gold.

The way I want to operate is follow shop rules as written, roll found stashes of loot, insert specific named plot loot and enemies produce whatever they are carrying. Any specific desired items would have to be crafted, found randomly or crafted by an artisan NPC.

(note: I always explain how I handle equipment at session zero)

As a player I feel like finding specifically what I need makes magic items feel fairly normalized. Like I'll never find the thing that I've never heard of and would be sweet to use from now on, finding magic items isn't really wondrous or mysterious or even a bonus really. I got it because that's what I'm supposed to have, at that point my weapon may as well just level up with me according to what I want. Nevermind the hundreds of items in UE, that stuff is worthless, I just get what's specific to my build or it's just garbage to sell.

I don't mind wish lists or that other people want wish lists, because different groups play different, but it seems the general assumption when it comes to build advice, judgement on builds, and even entire classes is that you get exactly what you want without accounting for specific magic items not being as available as that. Again the fighter doesn't need to be more narrow than a weapon group but people keep narrowing it down.


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ryric wrote:


Well anything up to 16000 gp value, which is the standard cap for a metropolis. If you use the settlement rules from the GMG I think you can squeeze a trade center up to 24000gp or so. Metropolis base values are very decreased form 3.5 where they were 100k.

By the book is how I roll magic item availability - so 75% chance to find anything up to the base value, with a smattering of random other items that are usually junk. Anything above the 16-24k mark, depending on the city, needs to be found, crafted, or commisioned.

So if you have access to teleport or can reliably get to someplace like Katapesh, you can count on being able to just buy +3 weapons, +4 armors, +4 stat boosters, +4 cloaks, and so forth. Better stuff you would be wise to not count on getting.

16k in addition to a number of items (4d4 Medium, 3d4 Major) above that limit per week.


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At our table, there is no "I must have X or my entire concept goes out the window." Much like Mark Hoover commented above, I chat with my players and try to determine, with them, what they are looking for. Note that this does not mean they will get it, or get it on a schedule that they lay out.

As far as the towns having X and Y number of this and that items, well, I tossed that out pretty early on. There is no guarantee that the item you are craving is waiting for you in a town, even a large city. After all, if it is the must-have-bestest-for-build item, chances are you aren't the only one looking for it.

And yes, I let new people know coming in what to expect. And it has worked for us so far; in fact, a number of players have found that what they get is often more interesting or useful than what they think they wanted, and not so paint by the number to success.

Every campaign and table is different, so your mileage may vary.


Malwing wrote:
Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.

Finally, someone who shares my opinion on this matter!


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Damian Magecraft wrote:

.

And Conan was master of all weapons and none of his weapons were ever magical.

Just a slight correction...most of the time...there is an instance where one may say Conan had either a very blessed weapon, or a magic weapon.

In fact, he was given it so he could slay a creature that could not be killed by normal weapons.


Marthkus wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.
Finally, someone who shares my opinion on this matter!

I know right?

Although there are some system problems that generally have to be house ruled out.

Biggest is Amulet of Mighty Fist. I wound up retracting the Cestus Brass Knuckles eratta and add just allowed fistwraps, tatoos and gloves to be enchanted because keeping AoMF as a sacred cow just restrict monks until you get one. Also since the game I'm working on won't start for months, working on identifying anything that's mandatory as an item (excluding static number increases.) and just making it a feat.


Marthkus wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.
Finally, someone who shares my opinion on this matter!

It's a weird opinion. Sort of.

The thing is, it does technically make you sub-optimal when using a weapon that isn't your favored one...but NOT taking it doesn't make you any better at using the others.

So Weapon Focus essentially makes you work at X+1 capacity with one weapon, while you're at X with others...as opposed to to X with everything.

Not saying it's the greatest Feat ever (it's not), but taking Weapon Focus doesn't make you worse at using what you find, except comparatively.


Rynjin wrote:
Marthkus wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.
Finally, someone who shares my opinion on this matter!

It's a weird opinion. Sort of.

The thing is, it does technically make you sub-optimal when using a weapon that isn't your favored one...but NOT taking it doesn't make you any better at using the others.

So Weapon Focus essentially makes you work at X+1 capacity with one weapon, while you're at X with others...as opposed to to X with everything.

Not saying it's the greatest Feat ever (it's not), but taking Weapon Focus doesn't make you worse at using what you find, except comparatively.

Not taking it leaves you with a feat you could spend on something useful that doesn't require a specific weapon. I've never had a martial character who didn't want more feats.

I pretty much never take Weapon Focus except as a prerequisite. There have been some specific builds, like a ray-focused caster, but that's about it.


Like I said, not the greatest Feat, but doesn't make you worse at using everything else on a technical level.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rynjin wrote:

-Get s+$&ty random loot.

-Go to city.

-Sell s!*#ty random loot.

-Buy stuff you want.

Simple as that.

In a sufficiently large city anything is readily available. By the time only a Metropolis can suit your needs, someone in the party should have Teleport.

Just remember unless it's greater teleport, the distance you're porting has a direct correlation on how far off base you end up. I do make players roll those dice.


blahpers wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Marthkus wrote:
Malwing wrote:
Am I the only one who doesn't take Weapon Focus? In my mind it just locks me into a very specific mode of operating making it suboptimal to golfbag my weapons in case I have to fight something or fight with anything I find. Going narrower than weapon groups makes looting feel way less fruitful.
Finally, someone who shares my opinion on this matter!

It's a weird opinion. Sort of.

The thing is, it does technically make you sub-optimal when using a weapon that isn't your favored one...but NOT taking it doesn't make you any better at using the others.

So Weapon Focus essentially makes you work at X+1 capacity with one weapon, while you're at X with others...as opposed to to X with everything.

Not saying it's the greatest Feat ever (it's not), but taking Weapon Focus doesn't make you worse at using what you find, except comparatively.

Not taking it leaves you with a feat you could spend on something useful that doesn't require a specific weapon. I've never had a martial character who didn't want more feats.

I pretty much never take Weapon Focus except as a prerequisite. There have been some specific builds, like a ray-focused caster, but that's about it.

My thoughts. Taking weapon focus doesn't make you worse at other weapons but it eats up a feat that you could take to make yourself better at a larger group of weapons, assuming that +1 to-hit is not the only metric of 'better'. Actually in regards to fighters, even without weapon focus and greater weapon focus aren't they the second most accurate class in terms of average melee attack bonuses?


havoc xiii wrote:

I've never understood the whole "if you want this item here is an entire quest for it" thing. So is the character going to go "hey guys I know we need to save the world and stuff but I totally heard about this dwarves hero who had a really bomb shield I was thinking we could go and take it" how exactly does that work?

The whole game would just be item grinding...kill daimon awakened form until he drops a daimon claw to build your new sword...

Well, that depends on context. I'm not saying that the party is setting out looking for a +1 furious greatsword...but if they "just happen" to overhear rumors of an orc barbarian warlord and his warband pillaging the countryside while carrying a wicked and mighty blade after they made a wishlist.... well...they might decide to do a little community service.

For the good of the people, or course. I'm sure that the orc warlord is actually selling the skulls of the peasants he kills to the lich who is making that megadoomarer or whatever the main plot was about too.

Grand Lodge

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It's always an eye opener when you start looking at forums... "Whoa, not everyone plays the way I do?" So many people are horrified by anything other than what they are used to.

I was.

Then i tried doing things differently. I got into organised play and now I have no problem with players getting exactly what they want within limits set by the game.

I still wouldn't do it in my home game. I like my home games to have a certain flavor, and my players (who may or may not agree entirely) enjoy my game enough that it isn't a dealbreaker.

Personally, i don't like crafting and I don't like "Pathfinder meets going to the mall" sessions, so I don't have those things in my games. Does that mean I am playing the game wrong? Nope. I don't turn my nose up at other kinds of games either, I play in a couple of them, I just don't have any interest in running one.

People need to get past the idea that the game requires anything specific. The game has infinite forms for a good reason.


Although, I just remembered; one of the third party materials I use has a series of three feats that let's you prepare combat feats you qualify for. You could potentially use them for weapon focus on whatever you're using and if you find a better weapon that is a different from your weapon focus you can just switch the next day. (Or in ten mins if you take the improved version and a standard action if you take another feat.)


I've had this debate with various friends of mine for a few years now.

I have very ambivalent feelings about this. I can somewhat agree with everyone's point of view here.

I had one game where the GM randomly rolled treasure, and because we were in the jungle we had to make due with what we had. After a few levels, we were struggling because we are hauling around a wagon full of masterwork weapons, but only had a few items that actually help. Then the GM tells us that we are over character wealth by level, so he is going to start cutting back on treasure...

In that situation, a wish list would have made the game much better. I also ended up arguing with the GM about the concept of character wealth by level. In his mind, a 4th level character with 6000gp worth of salted fish is just as powerful as a 4th level character that bought appropriate gear...

In another game, I was in a party with a half-orc paladin that focused on using a falchion. During thew course of an adventure, we came across a +4 holy, flaming, ghost touch greatclub. Our paladin refused to touch it, because it wasn't a falchion. I tried pointing out that it was much better than his masterwork falchion, but he would not use it. (It was later revealed that the weapon was a plot device, to kill the BBEG, and then our paladin would have been compelled to return it to the church of St. Cuthbert)

To me, the paladin was just way too focused on his concept.


To be fair, I wouldn't touch a great-club anything either.


LazarX wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

-Get s+$&ty random loot.

-Go to city.

-Sell s!*#ty random loot.

-Buy stuff you want.

Simple as that.

In a sufficiently large city anything is readily available. By the time only a Metropolis can suit your needs, someone in the party should have Teleport.

Just remember unless it's greater teleport, the distance you're porting has a direct correlation on how far off base you end up. I do make players roll those dice.

Oh I make my players roll the dice to and true story in the course of a single campaign the Wizard (but not the Sorcerer) messed up 3 separate casting of Teleport. Similar area twice (which wasn't a big deal, just the wrong city) and off target once. (Which made for long flight.) Still was effective the other times he cast it and really 3 from 1-20, while hilariously unlikely, can happen.


For the record, I have zero problems with a DM wanting to make a quest out of obtaining a needed item. If you want me to raid an evil wizard's tower to get that item, that's fine by me. Just make sure we're going there at the level where it would normally be considered appropriate for me to get that item.


Why put the plot device weapon as a weapon you know your players weren't going to use? Doesn't matter how many +5 vorpal blades you lay out for my archer he's stll not going to use them. Or how many greatswords you lay out if my character is a dagger wielding street tough.

Confused havoc is confused.


havoc xiii wrote:

Why put the plot device weapon as a weapon you know your players weren't going to use? Doesn't matter how many +5 vorpal blades you lay out for my archer he's stll not going to use them. Or how many greatswords you lay out if my character is a dagger wielding street tough.

Confused havoc is confused.

Uh, because it's relevant to the story? You know, like if it was created by/sacred to a god. St Cuthbert for example.

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