Overly controlling DM?


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So I have a DM that decided that if you try to slash at someone with heavy armor it wouldn't do any damage because in the real world it wouldn't. You have to stab at the person.
Normally that wouldn't matter but now he's saying if I try to cleave I do no damage against people with heavy armor because "realistically speaking" it wouldn't do anything.
Does this seem right to you guys?


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Nope. Ask him/her where it says that in the rule book. Ask him/her in the rule book where it says that armor has DR vs slashing. Ask him/her what other rules they are going to ignore so you can prepare appropriately.


Mana Chicken wrote:

So I have a DM that decided that if you try to slash at someone with heavy armor it wouldn't do any damage because in the real world it wouldn't. You have to stab at the person.

Normally that wouldn't matter but now he's saying if I try to cleave I do no damage against people with heavy armor because "realistically speaking" it wouldn't do anything.
Does this seem right to you guys?

Your GM is trying to use 100% Real Life Arguments to state why you can and can't do certain actions, or that certain actions you take have zero effect. Granted, there are certain aspects of Real Life that apply to the game (and aren't mentioned, such as breathing, eating, bodily functions, etc).

But last I checked, in Pathfinder, a Greatsword can easily hit and damage a character wearing Full Plate.

I would suggest you talk over with this GM what his expectations of the game are, and what he is expecting to run, and if you don't like it, you're more than welcome to leave the table and find a different one to suit your needs, because your happiness and entertainment is just as valuable as his is.

That being said: This GM sounds like a goof who hasn't even read the rulebook yet. Or to be more accurate, doesn't even treat this as a game.

This is precisely the sort of thing that should occur in Pathfinder. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea...


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No, that's a classic case of bad houseruling.


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This is the same guy who doesn't believe in Monks because "realistically speaking" if you punch someone in heavy armor you're going to break your hand....this is a freaking game. Filled with dragons and people burping fire (one of my party members can actually do that. it literally says "belching").


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Well, this would mean that heavy armor mskes you immune to slashing weapons. That is a huge change to the mechanics of the game. The forum guidelines prevent me from actually describing my feelings about this.


He said if you want to deal damage with slash weapons you gotta thrust at them.


But wait, greatswords do work on armor. You just need to swing really hard, usually at the neck. Or you could grab it by the blade and turn it into a bludgeoning weapon.

That aside, if the GM is using "real life" arguments, tell him to take a look a wizard in the eye and make those exact same arguments.


Mana Chicken wrote:
This is the same guy who doesn't believe in Monks because "realistically speaking" if you punch someone in heavy armor you're going to break your hand....this is a freaking game. Filled with dragons and people burping fire (one of my party members can actually do that. it literally says "belching").

Stuff like this is BS. Has the DM given you a list of houserules in advance? Ask him/her for a list if they haven't so you can actually prepare and have fun.


Mana Chicken wrote:
He said if you want to deal damage with slash weapons you gotta thrust at them.

Tell the DM that you don't appreciate his/her cheating and you would like them to stop.


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If he wants to play "real combat", migrate to GURPS. It's a much more quasi-realistic system for dealing with quasi-realistic damage.

Otherwise, inform him kindly that that slashing weapons don't need the nerf because there are supernatural beings like demons and dragons, and monks don't need the extra nerf because they are supernatural beings like demons and dragons.


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I hate it when DMs do crap like this


Play a druid.

See how he complains about wildshaping lol

Scarab Sages

Say "I attack him with my greatsword." Silly semantic argument nullified.

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What are his views on Elves, Dragons, and Magic?

-Skeld


Davor wrote:

Say "I attack him with my greatsword." Silly semantic argument nullified.

knowing DMs like this they will always ask for you to describe how you are attacking with your greatsword


Blackvial wrote:
Davor wrote:

Say "I attack him with my greatsword." Silly semantic argument nullified.

knowing DMs like this they will always ask for you to describe how you are attacking with your greatsword

He'd assume I was stabbing the person...


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Mana Chicken wrote:
He said if you want to deal damage with slash weapons you gotta thrust at them.

So wait a minute...in order to deal damage with a weapon specifically designed to slash, you have to use piercing motions, such as thrusts, which means you have to deal piercing damage? Which a lot of GMs would argue would be attacking as an Improvised Weapon, meaning a -4 penalty? Except this GM is going to probably be stupid and say you can't thrust or pierce with a Greatsword because it's a slashing weapon?

This GM is just bad news. I highly suggest you find a different table, because at this rate, I'm 100% certain this GM is playing a completely different game, because no tables that I've been to, or seen, have thrown this sort of Bull's S!@# spell on any character, and if he's throwing this Bull's S!@# at you, then he's not playing Pathfinder, which means any actual advice we can give you outside of "Find a Different Table" will help.


Mana Chicken wrote:
Blackvial wrote:
Davor wrote:

Say "I attack him with my greatsword." Silly semantic argument nullified.

knowing DMs like this they will always ask for you to describe how you are attacking with your greatsword
He'd assume I was stabbing the person...

since a great sword is slashing only i have had a dm tell me that I did no damage, mind you the dm had never gone over his "house rules" with the group, half of the party rage quit at the same time after his 3rd unknow house rule


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Mana Chicken wrote:
He said if you want to deal damage with slash weapons you gotta thrust at them.

So wait a minute...in order to deal damage with a weapon specifically designed to slash, you have to use piercing motions, such as thrusts, which means you have to deal piercing damage? Which a lot of GMs would argue would be attacking as an Improvised Weapon, meaning a -4 penalty? Except this GM is going to probably be stupid and say you can't thrust or pierce with a Greatsword because it's a slashing weapon?

This GM is just bad news. I highly suggest you find a different table, because at this rate, I'm 100% certain this GM is playing a completely different game, because no tables that I've been to, or seen, have thrown this sort of Bull's S!@# spell on any character, and if he's throwing this Bull's S!@# at you, then he's not playing Pathfinder, which means any actual advice we can give you outside of "Find a Different Table" will help.

you only really see crap like this in home games


Well he keeps changing his house rules. Like when the enemy cleric tried to use channel energy to heal his party. It heals "everyone" within 30 feet. Including the enemy. He said "well that doesnt make sense, why would I heal the enemy? I'm gonna say it only heals my guys". Da hell?? I mean he later said that counted for us too but I hate it when people change the rules mid game.


Btw I don't suppose you guys know if a Magus' Energy Attunement stacks does it? Like if I wanted to make my blade do fire AND frost damage for whatever reason? Even though it does the same amount of damage.


Mana Chicken wrote:
Well he keeps changing his house rules. Like when the enemy cleric tried to use channel energy to heal his party. It heals "everyone" within 30 feet. Including the enemy. He said "well that doesnt make sense, why would I heal the enemy? I'm gonna say it only heals my guys". Da hell?? I mean he later said that counted for us too but I hate it when people change the rules mid game.

And there's yet another problem with this GM. He doesn't have his rules set straight like he should. Granted, no GM is perfect, but this sort of thing does not have to have a GM FIAT call, especially when the rules are quite clear on how this works.

The Channel Energy ability specifically affects one set of creature types; either all Living, or (Un)dead. Any creatures of the selected type receive either Healing or Damage (based upon the type of energy being channeled), and creatures may make a Will Saving Throw for half damage.

There is a feat the Cleric can select to not affect targets up to his Charisma modifier. If the GM simply selected this feat for the Cleric and properly applied its effects, it would be plausible for the Cleric to not heal you guys, assuming his Charisma modifier was high enough to exclude all affected enemies.


Mana Chicken wrote:
Btw I don't suppose you guys know if a Magus' Energy Attunement stacks does it? Like if I wanted to make my blade do fire AND frost damage for whatever reason? Even though it does the same amount of damage.

Here's what the ability entry says:

Energy Attunement wrote:
At 5th level, as a free action, a magus can spend a point of his black blade’s arcane pool to have it deal one of the following types of damage instead of weapon damage: cold, electricity, or fire. He can spend 2 points from the black blade’s arcane pool to deal sonic or force damage instead of weapon damage. This effect lasts until the start of the magus’s next turn.

The effect replaces your weapon's damage type. So, if you used it to, say, apply Cold damage, and decided to add Fire as well, the Fire would override the Cold damage, which was used to override your weapon's original damage type.

So no, you could not stack elemental types. But, if you had, say, an 11 BAB, you could substitute the energy types in between attacks, since this ability is a Free Action to apply.

Keep in mind, this only lasts ~1 round, so I would only do it for creatures who have DR/- (which applies to any physical damage taken).


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Mana Chicken wrote:
Btw I don't suppose you guys know if a Magus' Energy Attunement stacks does it? Like if I wanted to make my blade do fire AND frost damage for whatever reason? Even though it does the same amount of damage.

Here's what the ability entry says:

Energy Attunement wrote:
At 5th level, as a free action, a magus can spend a point of his black blade’s arcane pool to have it deal one of the following types of damage instead of weapon damage: cold, electricity, or fire. He can spend 2 points from the black blade’s arcane pool to deal sonic or force damage instead of weapon damage. This effect lasts until the start of the magus’s next turn.

The effect replaces your weapon's damage type. So, if you used it to, say, apply Cold damage, and decided to add Fire as well, the Fire would override the Cold damage, which was used to override your weapon's original damage type.

So no, you could not stack elemental types. But, if you had, say, an 11 BAB, you could substitute the energy types in between attacks, since this ability is a Free Action to apply.

Keep in mind, this only lasts ~1 round, so I would only do it for creatures who have DR/- (which applies to any physical damage taken).

That's what I thought. I had this conversation a while back over the energy resistance spell and was told the same thing.

The only way to make something do two different types of elemental damage is to enchant it right? Enchantments are permanent effects placed on a weapon. I read another thread about how someone had done that on a sword.


Mana Chicken wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Mana Chicken wrote:
Btw I don't suppose you guys know if a Magus' Energy Attunement stacks does it? Like if I wanted to make my blade do fire AND frost damage for whatever reason? Even though it does the same amount of damage.

Here's what the ability entry says:

Energy Attunement wrote:
At 5th level, as a free action, a magus can spend a point of his black blade’s arcane pool to have it deal one of the following types of damage instead of weapon damage: cold, electricity, or fire. He can spend 2 points from the black blade’s arcane pool to deal sonic or force damage instead of weapon damage. This effect lasts until the start of the magus’s next turn.

The effect replaces your weapon's damage type. So, if you used it to, say, apply Cold damage, and decided to add Fire as well, the Fire would override the Cold damage, which was used to override your weapon's original damage type.

So no, you could not stack elemental types. But, if you had, say, an 11 BAB, you could substitute the energy types in between attacks, since this ability is a Free Action to apply.

Keep in mind, this only lasts ~1 round, so I would only do it for creatures who have DR/- (which applies to any physical damage taken).

That's what I thought. I had this conversation a while back over the energy resistance spell and was told the same thing.

The only way to make something do two different types of elemental damage is to enchant it right? Enchantments are permanent effects placed on a weapon. I read another thread about how someone had done that on a sword.

Correct. If you applied, say, the Flaming property on your sword, and then used this ability to transform it's weapon damage type to Fire, it would stack. Similarly, you could also add the Corrosive property, and it would deal Fire from the Flaming property, Acid from the Corrosive property, and the weapon's damage becomes Fire from the ability. It all stacks.


Alright thank you guys. I honestly don't know if I'll be going back to that game or not. I am apparently getting a bad reputation for leaving games in my community but only because of bull s+~#.

My first game I left because the guys refused to smoke outside, knowing that I can't breath around ciggarette smoke indoors. They gave me a bottle of febreeze...the DM from that game still gets pissed at me every once in a while asking if I'm going to just up and leave the current campaign I'm part of for no reason.

My second campaign was canceled by the DM because of a huge argument but I would have left anyways because the DM's wife was a LG cleric but she was NOT acting like her character should. She attacked me (a LG Paladin) over a stupid evil holy symbol I picked up that she wanted to destroy. Then the DM started arguing over how theres no reason for me to want that symbol. I'm sorry, the LG character attacks another LG character in the same party and me picking up a stupid trinket is your problem???

The third game I left because the DM brought in another player to be the boss for a boss battle but I absolutely did NOT like that guy because he was an a!* h$@@ so I said I wasn't coming for the final fight. Then when the guy said he wasn't showing up I told the DM I was fine coming back but NOBODY came to the final boss battle and the DM just ended it because he was tired of the campaign anyways.

Now there's this campaign....I have horrible luck with this crap and unfortunetely my future gaming is suffering because of it.

Grand Lodge

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Tried PFS?

I have had many great experiences with it.


blackbloodtroll wrote:

Tried PFS?

I have had many great experiences with it.

What's PFS?


*Glances at the initial comments* In fairness, Armor as DR is an optional thing, but it doesn't sound like that's what they were using. House rules are one thing, but MAJOR changes to the system should be avoided. It's a game, and if you don't at least TRY to make the rules mostly functional, it's just flat-out not going to work.

PFS stands for Pathfinder Society - Paizo's organized play campaign, which among other things has very firm rules about how game rules are to be interpreted. You might enjoy it more than the games you've currently been doing.


Mana Chicken wrote:

Alright thank you guys. I honestly don't know if I'll be going back to that game or not. I am apparently getting a bad reputation for leaving games in my community but only because of bull s%@+.

My first game I left because the guys refused to smoke outside, knowing that I can't breath around ciggarette smoke indoors. They gave me a bottle of febreeze...the DM from that game still gets pissed at me every once in a while asking if I'm going to just up and leave the current campaign I'm part of for no reason.

My second campaign was canceled by the DM because of a huge argument but I would have left anyways because the DM's wife was a LG cleric but she was NOT acting like her character should. She attacked me (a LG Paladin) over a stupid evil holy symbol I picked up that she wanted to destroy. Then the DM started arguing over how theres no reason for me to want that symbol. I'm sorry, the LG character attacks another LG character in the same party and me picking up a stupid trinket is your problem???

The third game I left because the DM brought in another player to be the boss for a boss battle but I absolutely did NOT like that guy because he was an a*# h+$* so I said I wasn't coming for the final fight. Then when the guy said he wasn't showing up I told the DM I was fine coming back but NOBODY came to the final boss battle and the DM just ended it because he was tired of the campaign anyways.

Now there's this campaign....I have horrible luck with this crap and unfortunetely my future gaming is suffering because of it.

I have to say I would have sided with the Paladin on this one. Standing in the way of the paladin doing her job wasn't very LG of you. IMO you were the one not acting in alignment...

Grand Lodge

Mana Chicken wrote:

So I have a DM that decided that if you try to slash at someone with heavy armor it wouldn't do any damage because in the real world it wouldn't. You have to stab at the person.

Normally that wouldn't matter but now he's saying if I try to cleave I do no damage against people with heavy armor because "realistically speaking" it wouldn't do anything.
Does this seem right to you guys?

Attempting to add hyper-realism to a fantasy RPG is a recipe for disaster and/or boredom. When he tells you that slashing weapons are less effective against plate mail, remind him that dragons don't really exist.


Adagna wrote:
Mana Chicken wrote:

Alright thank you guys. I honestly don't know if I'll be going back to that game or not. I am apparently getting a bad reputation for leaving games in my community but only because of bull s%@+.

My first game I left because the guys refused to smoke outside, knowing that I can't breath around ciggarette smoke indoors. They gave me a bottle of febreeze...the DM from that game still gets pissed at me every once in a while asking if I'm going to just up and leave the current campaign I'm part of for no reason.

My second campaign was canceled by the DM because of a huge argument but I would have left anyways because the DM's wife was a LG cleric but she was NOT acting like her character should. She attacked me (a LG Paladin) over a stupid evil holy symbol I picked up that she wanted to destroy. Then the DM started arguing over how theres no reason for me to want that symbol. I'm sorry, the LG character attacks another LG character in the same party and me picking up a stupid trinket is your problem???

The third game I left because the DM brought in another player to be the boss for a boss battle but I absolutely did NOT like that guy because he was an a*# h+$* so I said I wasn't coming for the final fight. Then when the guy said he wasn't showing up I told the DM I was fine coming back but NOBODY came to the final boss battle and the DM just ended it because he was tired of the campaign anyways.

Now there's this campaign....I have horrible luck with this crap and unfortunetely my future gaming is suffering because of it.

I have to say I would have sided with the Paladin on this one. Standing in the way of the paladin doing her job wasn't very LG of you. IMO you were the one not acting in alignment...

It was the Cleric wanting to destroy the trinket. I was the paladin that picked it up as loot. She started getting aggressive towards me so I made her an offer. She recently did something that made the party not trust her so in order to clarify things I offered her a trade. Instead she decided to attack me.


I don't really think there is anything wrong with adding damage reduction or something like that to slashing weapons on heavy armor. It makes sense, adds another level of interest into the game and weapon choice. I'd argue for damage reduction or something like that instead of 100% immunity to it since the impact of the blow will still carry over to the person inside the armor even if they aren't actually "slashed" by it. Something like Slashing weapons against heavy armor deal half bludgeoning damage instead of full slashing.

It unnecessarily complicates combat and the game, but I think it's a viable house rule if he feels that strongly about it.


Mana Chicken wrote:
Adagna wrote:
Mana Chicken wrote:

Alright thank you guys. I honestly don't know if I'll be going back to that game or not. I am apparently getting a bad reputation for leaving games in my community but only because of bull s%@+.

My first game I left because the guys refused to smoke outside, knowing that I can't breath around ciggarette smoke indoors. They gave me a bottle of febreeze...the DM from that game still gets pissed at me every once in a while asking if I'm going to just up and leave the current campaign I'm part of for no reason.

My second campaign was canceled by the DM because of a huge argument but I would have left anyways because the DM's wife was a LG cleric but she was NOT acting like her character should. She attacked me (a LG Paladin) over a stupid evil holy symbol I picked up that she wanted to destroy. Then the DM started arguing over how theres no reason for me to want that symbol. I'm sorry, the LG character attacks another LG character in the same party and me picking up a stupid trinket is your problem???

The third game I left because the DM brought in another player to be the boss for a boss battle but I absolutely did NOT like that guy because he was an a*# h+$* so I said I wasn't coming for the final fight. Then when the guy said he wasn't showing up I told the DM I was fine coming back but NOBODY came to the final boss battle and the DM just ended it because he was tired of the campaign anyways.

Now there's this campaign....I have horrible luck with this crap and unfortunetely my future gaming is suffering because of it.

I have to say I would have sided with the Paladin on this one. Standing in the way of the paladin doing her job wasn't very LG of you. IMO you were the one not acting in alignment...
It was the Cleric wanting to destroy the trinket. I was the paladin that picked it up as loot. She started getting aggressive towards me so I made her an offer. She recently did something that made the party not trust her so in order to...

What was your reason for wanting to keep it? Why was it so important to a LG paladin to keep an evil holy symbol? That doesn't sound very in character to me unless it served some greater purpose to thwarting evil and in that case I think it would have been your responsibility to communicate the plan to her and the group. Otherwise as GM I would have required atonement from you for doing it.


The entire story is as follows.

The cleric received a note from a guard in the city we were in. It was meant for her eyes only. Except the DM stupidly said the note outloud. The note accused one of our party members of being a traitor. This wasn't the case at all but we couldn't bring out of character knowledge in to the game. So we all asked her what the note said. Well she decided she was going to keep it to herself instead of letting the party know of the possible treatury. Even though one of the other party members could have told her otherwise using in character knowledge due to his back story.
Well this "note" ended up being the bane of this campaigns existance because everyone knew she was lying (sense motive check).
Well after a battle this mutated goblin dropped some loot and I was the one that went to get it. Among it was an evil holy symbol. My character researched various religions (from a purely knowledgeable stand point) so he wanted to keep it to study. Well apparently the cleric wasn't going to have that and wanted to destroy it. She kept arguing so I offered her a trade. The holy symbol for the note that she refused to let anyone see. She didn't like that so she attacked me. Then the DM tried to use an absent person's character to try to charm me in to giving it to her (which failed). So now the DM is using someone ELSE'S character to do something that that character would NOT have done in that situation because that character also did not trust the cleric. Even more so now that she's attacking me. So after that failed the DM just said the game was over and told everyone to leave.

My actions were because the cleric never acted like the LG person she should have been. My character did not trust her nor did any of the other party members. So forgive me if I didn't want to give the LG who was actually CN cleric what she wanted.


I'm sorry I'm confusing games. I was a LG Monk. Not a paladin. But I was still LG. The DM made everyone be good guys and Monks have to be lawfull so I was stuck being LG. I confused being stuck with LG as a Paladin I used to play in a previous campaign. Not that this really matters.


That's why I was heavily into the regligious aspects. I figured Monk=Religion so I just made that character like that.


Mana Chicken wrote:

The entire story is as follows.

The cleric received a note from a guard in the city we were in. It was meant for her eyes only. Except the DM stupidly said the note outloud. The note accused one of our party members of being a traitor. This wasn't the case at all but we couldn't bring out of character knowledge in to the game. So we all asked her what the note said. Well she decided she was going to keep it to herself instead of letting the party know of the possible treatury. Even though one of the other party members could have told her otherwise using in character knowledge due to his back story.
Well this "note" ended up being the bane of this campaigns existance because everyone knew she was lying (sense motive check).
Well after a battle this mutated goblin dropped some loot and I was the one that went to get it. Among it was an evil holy symbol. My character researched various religions (from a purely knowledgeable stand point) so he wanted to keep it to study. Well apparently the cleric wasn't going to have that and wanted to destroy it. She kept arguing so I offered her a trade. The holy symbol for the note that she refused to let anyone see. She didn't like that so she attacked me. Then the DM tried to use an absent person's character to try to charm me in to giving it to her (which failed). So now the DM is using someone ELSE'S character to do something that that character would NOT have done in that situation because that character also did not trust the cleric. Even more so now that she's attacking me. So after that failed the DM just said the game was over and told everyone to leave.

My actions were because the cleric never acted like the LG person she should have been. My character did not trust her nor did any of the other party members. So forgive me if I didn't want to give the LG who was actually CN cleric what she wanted.

With the full backstory, I think your paladin was very reasonable in his actions, and the cleric was wrong to try to kill your character in the middle of a verbal debate.


PFS is Pathfinder Society.


Sorry, I've had similar experiences with bad GMs in the past. I've had the GM that would constantly make up house rules on the fly, but only ones that would benefit the bad guys. If we decided to use one of his house rules to our benefit, he would immediately change it so we couldn't. I feel your pain, and your best option is to leave that GM, which is what my group did.


Adagna, the issue is that martials already have enough problems without GM's arbitrarily working the rules against them.

Mana Chicken, I hope your monk put that cleric in traction if the game ever got picked up again. Though to be honest, I'd probably not play with a GM who shows favoritism like that. At the very least I'd corral a round table discussion so the group could discuss what will and will not fly.


Encourage them to read Page 9 of the Core Rulebook - specifically, the part literally marked "The Most Important Rule". It's okay to have house rules, but players should A) Be informed of those rules up-front, and B) Have some input on them. The point is for EVERYONE to have fun.


Combat Monster wrote:

Adagna, the issue is that martials already have enough problems without GM's arbitrarily working the rules against them.

Mana Chicken, I hope your monk put that cleric in traction if the game ever got picked up again. Though to be honest, I'd probably not play with a GM who shows favoritism like that. At the very least I'd corral a round table discussion so the group could discuss what will and will not fly.

The game never picked back up. I haven't seen the DM nor his wife since then. Even now though me and another player who was part of that joke about it.

That other player wanted to make a small plack in tribute to a local dog that gave his life helping fighting a hoard of goblins that killed its master. We killed all the goblins but afterwards that player wanted to make a tribute to the dog. So he went to try and have the plack made and wanted to give a small speach since the party was considered the town's saviors. Well the DM didn't like that at all for some reason and kept making up stupid reasons as to why it couldn't happen. It was some meaningless action that wouldn't have made a difference in the world. He just wanted to play out his character because his backstory involved a loyal dog as well. But the DM was such a dick about how he wanted this campaign to run.


What sense motive roll allows you to tell someone is lying when she's clearly telling the truth?

She didn't want to share. Where's the lie?


Cavall wrote:

What sense motive roll allows you to tell someone is lying when she's clearly telling the truth?

She didn't want to share. Where's the lie?

Sorry I didn't clarify on that part. I don't remember exactly what she said but she lied about what was on the note. Then when someone rolled the sense motive and knew she was lying they called her out and she refused to share what was actually on the note.


The note said that one of the party members was part of some kind of criminal underworld (or something like that). Except my buddy that was part of the campaign had a backstory that involved him being part of that same criminal organization (just by sheer coinsidence) when he was a kid but he left because he saw how evil it was. If the cleric had mentioned this he could have set things straight.

I know there was some better explanation to this but this was over a year ago so I don't remember my buddy's entire backstory or why he would have known about the organization's doings in the present but the fact of the matter is that if the cleric had acted like she should have been and warned the rest of the party we could have set things straight. But for some reason this cleric decided she didn't trust us. Even though we all got done fighting side by side in a goblin invasion. She had no reason not to trust us and gave us every reason not to trust her.

We never even got an explanation as to why the DM cared to share this note when even the person playing the supposed traitor didn't know what the hell was going on.


Back on the armor thing, if that GM wanted to be "historically accurate", he should have allowed longswords, bastard swords, and greatswords to all do piercing and slashing damage as they did in real life.

Conversely, someone could pick up an estoc and completely obliterate chainmail and any sort of plate armor. (Not saying armor being immune to damage types is a good thing, just throwing ideas out.)


You need to ask him to please provide you with a complete list of his house-rulings so that you know what you're getting into.

That way, you can decide: "Do I want to play Pathfinder? Or do I want to play this guy's home-rpg?"

When I started a low-magic campaign using Pathfinder, I let me players know up front. I let anyone who was interested in playing an arcane caster know that they were going to have a lot of challenges (until they pass a Great Trial to "unlock" their potential).

If he wants to play "But in Real Life...", grab a garotte and play a stealth character. In RL, a garotte would basically coup-de-gras in 1 round. (Of course, so would most sword thrusts and dagger thrusts, especially if done as a sneak attack.) The game, however, does not allow you to choke out anyone as quickly as you should be able to do it because it's a game.


Pull his DM card and appoint a new one for the group. If he disagrees, kick him out of said group. Pathfinder isn't a simulation game and is more interested in balancing mechanics as a game than simulating real life. If he can't grasp that concept, he isn't fit to be a DM. Period.

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