Why do so many people say APs are 'meant' to be played at 15 point buy?


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

OK, one last concept: TWF with maneuvers.

Human fighter, 16 Str (+2 race), 15 Dex, 12 Con, 13 Int, 10 Wis, 8 Cha; all increases in Str; recommend the Birthmark trait to help with Will saves
1st- Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Two-Weapon Fighting; use light flail and sickle
2nd- Toughness
3rd- Double Slice
4th- Improved Disarm
5th- Iron Will
6th- Greater Trip
7th- Exotic Weapon Proficiency* or Improved Two-Weapon Fighting**
8th- Improved Two-Weapon Fighting** or Exotic Weapon Proficiency*

*- Probably either dire flail or temple sword; if temple sword, switch to a jutte as the off-hand weapon

**- buy ioun stone (deep red sphere) or snakeskin tunic for the +2 Dex to qualify; affordable by WBL guidelines at this point

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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Skeld wrote:
Liz Courts wrote:
Removed posts and their responses. Please be civil to each other, and please remember that people play the game differently—what works for you and your group won't work for another.

Wow.

-Skeld

Wow indeed. No idea if you and I are having the same "wow", but yes, wow.


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captain yesterday wrote:
Oh please, you were being a thin skinned jerk.

*rolls up a newspaper* Cap? Behave.

*swats at flies that the puppy let in because he needs to go out and then come back in and then go out and come back in... I swear, you took lessons from the CAT!*

Which reminds me. While I know Kitsune kind of quality as a Candida-hominid, why haven't we had any ACTUAL dog-folk as a player character-capable race? Or even wolf-men who aren't lycanthropes? We've cat-folk and rat-folk and fox-folk. No dog-folk? Seems odd.

Let's see. A Candida-folk would probably have a +2 to Will Saves, and maybe a +2 to Charisma (it's those big eyes of theirs!) but a -2 to Dexterity (a little bit clumsy!). Or of course you could go the Aasimar route and not give them a penalty. ;)

---------

The thing about character generation is that you need to make certain sacrifices. For instance, the Rogue character in my tabletop Runelords game had to sacrifice some Charisma in order to have a 13 Intelligence so to qualify for certain feats. Yes, a higher-point-build would allow both that high Charisma and 13 Intelligence... but sacrifices need to be made.

Do you allow 1st level characters to start out with magic items and thousands of gold to buy stuff? No. They have to work toward that. Do 1st level characters get to cast Fireball or Wish? Nope. Once more, they have to work toward that.

So then, why then should your 1st level character have all the stats needed to get everything they need? That argument might make sense if you were not getting any further stat increases... but at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 one stat can be boosted by +1.

This means you can do a build and at 4th level boost Intelligence from 12 to 13 to qualify for those combat feats, and in doing so you didn't boost Strength or Dexterity. But those are sacrifices you have to make in order to build the character you want.

Edit: And here's the kicker. Two of the stats needed to qualify for certain combat feat lines? Intelligence of 13, and Strength of 13. You can get both for 6 points of a point build, 7 points for a Dex of 15, and all at once you qualify for two-weapon fighting, power attack, AND combat expertise! At 4th level you could even boost the Strength to 14, and at 8th level boost Dex to 16. And that's assuming you didn't take a race that boosts Dex further!

So you can have a 1st level fighter with a Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 10, before racial modifiers. And that class qualifies for all those combat feats. You could even dump Con to 12 and get a Str of 14, or drop Charisma or Wisdom to 8 to do that. This is not a cookie cutter. This is a basic pattern from which you can modify things further. You could drop Dex to 14, and at level 4 boost it to 15! Or you could do that with Strength or with Intelligence, having one of those at a 12 and then at 4th level boost them!

You do NOT need to start with all the stats at the prerequisite levels. Even with a straight Human Fighter, you're unlikely to have gone for Two-Weapon Fighting, Combat Expertise, and Power Attack by level 4, not when there are other Feats that could also prove quite useful.


Actually, Tangent, I'm going through feats and prerequisites right now and the "13 score limit" isn't true anymore (though there was a time when it was true). There are now feats requiring you to push STR, DEX, INT, WIS, and CHA (maybe CON? I don't think there are many, if so) to various potentially rather large heights (minimum 13, for the start of different trees, though; some up to 25, though I think those are rare).

Here, by the way, is that project.

It is continually eye-opening, for me.

To do several "kinda neat" things in combat, I require higher stats I several scores as my minimum than I do in a single score to enact godlike feats of reality alteration and otherworldly creation.

Because of this, I'm contemplating one of two different rules, if it comes up in games: purely martial characters get higher point buys than their counterparts (with a magical "break" event may happen of someone becomes a full caster); or fighters reduce ability requirements by an amount equal to 1 plus half their level.

I don't want my players to qualify to do things only because they've got a shiny belt on that they can't ever, ever take off, or else.

EDIT: word choice and to add a link.


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Oh come on! I deleted that! I went too far, I admit it, my apologies.


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captain yesterday wrote:
Oh come on! I deleted that! I went too far, I admit it, my apologies.

...not before some of us saw it ;-)


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Yes well, it's a good thing I'm given an hour to reflect.

I was wrong to say that.


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Tacticslion wrote:

Actually, Tangent, I'm going through feats and prerequisites right now and the "13 score limit" isn't true anymore (though there was a time when it was true). There are now feats requiring you to push STR, DEX, INT, WIS, and CHA (maybe CON? I don't think there are many, if so) to various potentially rather large heights (minimum 13, for the start of different trees, though; some up to 25, though I think those are rare).

It was eye opening, for me.

To do several "kinda neat" things in combat, I require higher stats I several scores as my minimum than I do in a single score to enact godlike feats of reality alteration and otherworldly creation.

Because of this, I'm contemplating one of two different rules, if it comes up in games: purely martial characters get higher point buys than their counterparts (with a magical "break" event may happen of someone becomes a full caster); or fighters reduce ability requirements by an amount equal to 1 plus half their level.

I don't want my players to qualify to do things only because they've got a shiny belt on that they can't ever, ever take off, or else.

Just shared this on another thread - but:

Putting it in perspective, it would be like having Crafting Feats require min 13 WIS (and some 15, and some 17), and MetaMagic requiring 13 CHA(and some 15, and some 17), and any Focus Spell require 13 INT(and some 15, and some 17). A caster could still be good at their type of spell magic - which is their main thing but if they wanted to do other things that are typically referred to as "Caster Feats", they'd need to put at least a 13 in a stat which they really don't normally invest in. Each caster would have to boost 3 stats to get access to all the things casters can do, or be forced to pick and chose.


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captain yesterday wrote:

Yes well, it's a good thing I'm given an hour to reflect.

I was wrong to say that.

faster than some of us. I know there are a few out there I wish I could go delete right now. I guess I never considered asking Liz if she'd demo a few for me. Kind of like a voluntary amnesty delete box program :-)


GM 1990 wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:

Actually, Tangent, I'm going through feats and prerequisites right now and the "13 score limit" isn't true anymore (though there was a time when it was true). There are now feats requiring you to push STR, DEX, INT, WIS, and CHA (maybe CON? I don't think there are many, if so) to various potentially rather large heights (minimum 13, for the start of different trees, though; some up to 25, though I think those are rare).

It was eye opening, for me.

To do several "kinda neat" things in combat, I require higher stats I several scores as my minimum than I do in a single score to enact godlike feats of reality alteration and otherworldly creation.

Because of this, I'm contemplating one of two different rules, if it comes up in games: purely martial characters get higher point buys than their counterparts (with a magical "break" event may happen of someone becomes a full caster); or fighters reduce ability requirements by an amount equal to 1 plus half their level.

I don't want my players to qualify to do things only because they've got a shiny belt on that they can't ever, ever take off, or else.

Just shared this on another thread - but:

Putting it in perspective, it would be like having Crafting Feats require min 13 WIS (and some 15, and some 17), and MetaMagic requiring 13 CHA(and some 15, and some 17), and any Focus Spell require 13 INT(and some 15, and some 17). A caster could still be good at their type of spell magic - which is their main thing but if they wanted to do other things that are typically referred to as "Caster Feats", they'd need to put at least a 13 in a stat which they really don't normally invest in. Each caster would have to boost 3 stats to get access to all the things casters can do, or be forced to pick and chose.

Exactly! That's exactly what I mean! It's kind of overwhelming.


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Tacticslion wrote:
GM 1990 wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:

Actually, Tangent, I'm going through feats and prerequisites right now and the "13 score limit" isn't true anymore (though there was a time when it was true). There are now feats requiring you to push STR, DEX, INT, WIS, and CHA (maybe CON? I don't think there are many, if so) to various potentially rather large heights (minimum 13, for the start of different trees, though; some up to 25, though I think those are rare).

It was eye opening, for me.

To do several "kinda neat" things in combat, I require higher stats I several scores as my minimum than I do in a single score to enact godlike feats of reality alteration and otherworldly creation.

Because of this, I'm contemplating one of two different rules, if it comes up in games: purely martial characters get higher point buys than their counterparts (with a magical "break" event may happen of someone becomes a full caster); or fighters reduce ability requirements by an amount equal to 1 plus half their level.

I don't want my players to qualify to do things only because they've got a shiny belt on that they can't ever, ever take off, or else.

Just shared this on another thread - but:

Putting it in perspective, it would be like having Crafting Feats require min 13 WIS (and some 15, and some 17), and MetaMagic requiring 13 CHA(and some 15, and some 17), and any Focus Spell require 13 INT(and some 15, and some 17). A caster could still be good at their type of spell magic - which is their main thing but if they wanted to do other things that are typically referred to as "Caster Feats", they'd need to put at least a 13 in a stat which they really don't normally invest in. Each caster would have to boost 3 stats to get access to all the things casters can do, or be forced to pick and chose.

Exactly! That's exactly what I mean! It's kind of overwhelming.

I think I just accidently found my next house-rule.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

Looks like my last post was collateral damage in the most recent post removal. I wasn't trying to insult anyone, and the post I was replying to WASN'T removed, so here goes again:

Ssyvan wrote:

{. . .}

I don't understand this. What is the purpose of granting the PCs extra points if you're going to compensate?

At least in my mind, you're not really granting the players anything and it seems a bit dishonest, unless you're upfront about it. On top of that it just creates more work when there isn't a need for it, assuming the balance you're striving for is the balance achieved with a 15-point buy.
{. . .}

The purpose is to grant more options. For instance, for all that I hate when people say that Wizards are overpowered, I found that it is surprisingly easy to build an almost normal Wizard on 15 point buy without dumping anything, and 5 more points could either be used to eke out another couple of points of Intelligence or for something more interesting like actually having a decent Charisma; the Wizard could even be done effectively on 10 point buy, although some dumping would be required. On the other hand, building a switch-hitter Magus requires hard dumping on 15 point buy and some dumping even on 20 point buy. The Two-Weapon Fighter and Eldritch Heritage builds have been mentioned before (as previously noted, the feat prerequisites are fixed, unless you restrict yourself to classes that specifically bypass them), and Monk (either type) just really hurts.

So even if you compensate on the opponents' side, even if the compensation is slightly more than what the PCs get by going with 20 point buy instead of 15 point buy, it's still a win-win. If future APs were designed for 20 point buy (as is tried-and-true in PFS, even though I'm not into that myself), but with compensation added on the opponents' side (even to the point of becoming "Hard Mode"), this would likewise be a win-win.

I actually saw your original post, but felt like the second post I made in this read was response enough to what you were saying. Let me know if there is something I missed! Quoting below:

Earlier Post wrote:
Joana wrote:


As taks says, it makes more character options possible, particularly if the player wants feats with ability score prereqs. For example, with a 15-point-buy it's hard for a fighter to get a 13 Int for Combat Expertise and the Improved line of combat maneuver feats and still have fighter-like melee damage (Str) and front-liner hit points (Con).

Right, so if you're trying to retain balance and characters in addition to having higher stats can also qualify for more feats, it becomes a more complicated than compensating with higher stats for the monsters. I feel like in that case the experience simply won't be the same as a 15-point build versus a 20-point, because those new options are possible.

Also, why does more options equate to more fun? I feel like Chipotle is a good example of this, where there aren't many options on the menu but you can mix and match and end up with a number of very satisfying options. Probably more than any one person could ever try. In the same way, you can already do a lot with a 15-point buy, more than probably anyone will ever exhaust. So how does expanding an already impossibly large set of characters to an even more impossibly large set of characters objectively help?

I feel like I could easily make an opposite point that 15-point buy is more fun because those fighters with Combat Expertise are more rare, therefore playing one is more satisfying.

I think my attitude on this comes from experience with, admittedly, my one group. I feel like the more options they have, the more likely it is they become paralyzed by those decisions. Anyways, this is clearly a topic that'll vary from person to person, but I appreciate everyone's input! I'll certainly continue reading this thread!


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I also think Crafting Feats probably should have Minimum Requirements.

Then again, I think Crafting is kind of incomplete... but that also comes from the fact I think magic items are too easy to acquire. Crafting a magic sword should involve rare metals that you go on a quest to acquire, and gems to channel its power. Armor could involve the blood of a dragon given willingly which means you need to find the dragon and then go on a quest for that dragon.

Instead, magic items are a dime a dozen. There's nothing special about them. They're commodities.

The Ring of Power becomes a simple Ring of Invisibility. Aragorn's blade is a +1 Bane Weapon. Sting is a +1 Short Sword that glows when goblins and orcs are near. They're boring now. Ordinary.

This is, perhaps, one reason why I love the Unchained Magic Items that grow more powerful over time... and why I might change how they're upgraded to having the players have to go on quests to improve them by finding specific ingredients to use in bringing out that added power.

If there is an investment of adventure involved in magic items, they cease being commodities. They become something magical... which is as it should be.


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All those things are unique artifacts, the ring also tries to dominate Frodo, and allows big eye bob to see him.

I'm sure the other weapons do other stuff, but I'm not as Tolkien proficient. :-)


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I like crafting, some things are too expensive, or in my wife and daughter's case too pretty or fashionable too have to find in the muck.

"I can't wear those Boots of Speed, did you see where we found them!"

points to the Otyugh den.


Yes, the Tolkien items are actually Artifacts or the like. But when you boil it down to the bare essentials? You have a Cursed Ring of Invisibility if you go by the simplest depiction of the rules, and two magic swords.

What makes a magic item special is story. But D&D and Pathfinder ignored that story. Magic is "cheap" even when it's expensive. People sell off old magical equipment and buy new stuff like they're trading in their car.

Yes, I know there are systems out there that can do this. Yes, I know Pathfinder is different. And yes, I cope. But that does not negate the fact I, as a GM, want magic items to be something SPECIAL. And these days? They're not.

Take Hell's Rebels. Near the start, the campaign offers six magic items. It warns that GMs might decide to reduce the number in case the players just sell them off. But the items? There is nothing special about them in the game. They are flavour only.

There should have been aspects in Hell's Rebels where those magic items are specific for fulfilling a quest. I know that when I do run Hell's Rebels eventually, I'll have the players find one of them... and the other five will be hidden around the city and the players will have to follow clues and quest to get them all. And I might even alter these items so that with each additional one found, it unlocks abilities in them all so that these items become something... special. Magical, even.

No one should trade in a +1 sword because it's vendor trash, or have a dozen magical weapons they collected over time and then sell them all to get a somewhat more powerful item. That diminishes them all.

Which is getting outside the point. The current crafting just cheapens magic items. You spend time in order to reduce costs. And most APs include times where players can do just that.

If I were to create an Adventure Path? I'd have the players each find one item, one thing special to them. And I'd let them find ways of unlocking extra powers in those items. So that the players continue through the entire Adventure Path with that item, working hard to enhance it further, so the items are in fact items of lore and legend. So they mean something. So they're magical.

It wouldn't involve crafting rules. Nor would it involve minimum stats in order to upgrade the item.


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You'd probably like Carrion Crown then. :-)

Except the whole upgrading part, theres none of that. They'll get a +1 Longsword and like it!

Or die.


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Tangent101 wrote:


What makes a magic item special is story. But D&D and Pathfinder ignored that story. Magic is "cheap" even when it's expensive. People sell off old magical equipment and buy new stuff like they're trading in their car.

No one should trade in a +1 sword because it's vendor trash, or have a dozen magical weapons they collected over time and then sell them all to get a somewhat more powerful item. That diminishes them all.

I just implemented ABP for this very reason. I'm going back to more of my 1E style of magic. Unique items, some things for out of combat, and materials required. I looked at the UChained, but want to keep it a little simpler than that.

Last session a PC got the first component for magically enhancing his sword (an old NPC friend of the party gave him a box that when opened gave off "smoke" like it was filled with dry ice. Inside he found a white-dragon fang and small vial of blood). Once he pays a very skilled blacksmith with a knack for working with magical substances, he'll be able to add 1d6 cold damage. Rather than just buying, they'll need to find (or will find in loot). But mainly using ABP I don't have to force-feed the magic items onto the sheets just to keep up with the math mechanics.


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Tangent101 wrote:
Yes, the Tolkien items are actually Artifacts or the like. But when you boil it down to the bare essentials? You have a Cursed Ring of Invisibility if you go by the simplest depiction of the rules, and two magic swords.

Right, if you go by the simplest depiction, you get simple items. Actually, the invisibility was only a side effect. Don't forget the unaging part of its power, that Frodo and Bilbo both "benefited" from. Which was also a side effect. Beyond that they lacked both the experience and the will to fully use the Ring - which was good, because attempting to do so would have led it to corrupt them faster. Even so, Frodo used it to see into the Wraith world, to get a glimpse into Galadriel's intent and to bind Smeagol. Probably some other things I'm not remembering.

But yes, if you strip away all the interesting things it does, it's just an invisibility ring.

Tangent101 wrote:

What makes a magic item special is story. But D&D and Pathfinder ignored that story. Magic is "cheap" even when it's expensive. People sell off old magical equipment and buy new stuff like they're trading in their car.

Yes, I know there are systems out there that can do this. Yes, I know Pathfinder is different. And yes, I cope. But that does not negate the fact I, as a GM, want magic items to be something SPECIAL. And these days? They're not.

Take Hell's Rebels. Near the start, the campaign offers six magic items. It warns that GMs might decide to reduce the number in case the players just sell them off. But the items? There is nothing special about them in the game. They are flavour only.

There should have been aspects in Hell's Rebels where those magic items are specific for fulfilling a quest. I know that when I do run Hell's Rebels eventually, I'll have the players find one of them... and the other five will be hidden around the city and the players will have to follow clues and quest to get them all. And I might even alter these items so that with each additional one found, it unlocks abilities in them all so that these items become something... special. Magical, even.

No one should trade in a +1 sword because it's vendor trash, or have a dozen magical weapons they collected over time and then sell them all to get a somewhat more powerful item. That diminishes them all.

Which is getting outside the point. The current crafting just cheapens magic items. You spend time in order to reduce costs. And most APs include times where players can do just that.

If I were to create an Adventure Path? I'd have the players each find one item, one thing special to them. And I'd let them find ways of unlocking extra powers in those items. So that the players continue through the...

For the rest of it, I agree, sort of. Much of that's hard to set up in a game though. This basic problem goes all the back to AD&D (probably to OD&D). You didn't have crafting or magic shops or WBL, but you certainly found better and better gear as you went along and often wound up with bags full of weaker items by high levels. Handmedowns for your henchmen & followers maybe.

Upgradeable items can work, though I've never seen an implementation in D&D/PF that I really liked. And you're still going to find gear on beaten enemies that'll turn into loot. Unless PCs wind up being the only ones with magic items.

Community Manager

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This is going a bit far afield of the original topic. If you want to discuss other aspects of the game besides Adventure Paths and point buy, please do so in another thread.


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Tangent101 wrote:

{. . .}

Which reminds me. While I know Kitsune kind of quality as a Candida-hominid, why haven't we had any ACTUAL dog-folk as a player character-capable race? Or even wolf-men who aren't lycanthropes? We've cat-folk and rat-folk and fox-folk. No dog-folk? Seems odd.

Let's see. A Candida-folk would probably have a +2 to Will Saves, and maybe a +2 to Charisma (it's those big eyes of theirs!) but a -2 to Dexterity (a little bit clumsy!). Or of course you could go the Aasimar route and not give them a penalty. ;)

Not a bad idea, except you might want to try a different name -- this one sounds like a rather unpleasant fungal infection (and the name of the microorganism causing said infection) . . . .

Tangent101 wrote:

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The thing about character generation is that you need to make certain sacrifices. For instance, the Rogue character in my tabletop Runelords game had to sacrifice some Charisma in order to have a 13 Intelligence so to qualify for certain feats. Yes, a higher-point-build would allow both that high Charisma and 13 Intelligence... but sacrifices need to be made.

Do you allow 1st level characters to start out with magic items and thousands of gold to buy stuff? No. They have to work toward that. Do 1st level characters get to cast Fireball or Wish? Nope. Once more, they have to work toward that.

Yes, but you end up having to make too many sacrifices for the more MAD concepts. Monk, anyone?

Tangent101 wrote:

So then, why then should your 1st level character have all the stats needed to get everything they need? That argument might make sense if you were not getting any further stat increases... but at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 one stat can be boosted by +1.

This means you can do a build and at 4th level boost Intelligence from 12 to 13 to qualify for those combat feats, and in doing so you didn't boost Strength or Dexterity. But those are sacrifices you have to make in order to build the character you want.
{. . .}

Problem is that those increases are really few and far in between -- you don't get very many of them going up to the mid levels. Which of course brings up another reason for PFS to use 20 point buy -- you don't get very many levels to bring things online, and having to wait for an ability score increase to make something possible can really hurt there. In APs you get a little more breathing room . . . But not a huge amount more (for instance, Council of Thieves seems to be almost PFS-like). This idea might work better if you used thejeff's idea (in Captain Lockhart's post way above) of awarding an ability score point buy point every level instead of an ability score increase every 4 levels).

Ssyvan wrote:

{. . .}

Right, so if you're trying to retain balance and characters in addition to having higher stats can also qualify for more feats, it becomes a more complicated than compensating with higher stats for the monsters. I feel like in that case the experience simply won't be the same as a 15-point build versus a 20-point, because those new options are possible.

Well, that's what those of us in favor of 20 point buy are going for.

Ssyvan wrote:
Also, why does more options equate to more fun? I feel like Chipotle is a good example of this, where there aren't many options on the menu but you can mix and match and end up with a number of very satisfying options. Probably more than any one person could ever try. In the same way, you can already do a lot with a 15-point buy, more than probably anyone will ever exhaust. So how does expanding an already impossibly large set of characters to an even more impossibly large set of characters objectively help?

I don't go to Chipotle, but that is for reasons other than number of options available . . . .

Mixing and matching is a good idea, but if you really want this, Hero System or (more recently) Mutants and Masterminds is what you really want. That said, an unholy hybrid between Pathfinder/Starfinder and Mutants and Masterminds could be really awesome.

Ssyvan wrote:
I feel like I could easily make an opposite point that 15-point buy is more fun because those fighters with Combat Expertise are more rare, therefore playing one is more satisfying.

You could make a case for this if Combat Expertise wasn't needed for so many things (I know Dirty Fighting exists now, but that just fixes this particular set of things -- things depending upon Combat Expertise aren't the only things thst depend upon an anchor feat that has a prerequisite that makes you more MAD, so the example stands in general idea if not in particulars).

Ssyvan wrote:
I think my attitude on this comes from experience with, admittedly, my one group. I feel like the more options they have, the more likely it is they become paralyzed by those decisions. Anyways, this is clearly a topic that'll vary from person to person, but I appreciate everyone's input! I'll certainly continue reading this thread!

Just curious: What does their option paralysis look like? For me: I feel like I have to spend more time trying to figure out how to shoehorn a concept into the mechanics if I don't have enough resources (not just ability score points, but also skill points and feats).


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For most of my games recently, I've been running them at 10 point buy. My players understand that they are a little weaker then they should be, but this way I can run the adventure path for all 6 of them without really changing the monsters too much.

Overall, it's been really good. They made it all the way to the end of book 4 of Iron Gods, before allowing the whole of the last dungeon to congregate in the same room and mass spell them to death. (4 rounds in the wizard goes "huh, maybe I should have used wall of force to stop all 14 of them from being able to just stand back and throw acid arrows at us")

After re-rolling, they made it all the way to the end of book 2 of Carrion Crown, but only had 1 melee guy and did the last fight the hardest way possible. (If you have read the book you should know what I mean) and only lost because the melee guy rolled a 3, 4, 3, and 2 on 2d6 for damage, and the bad guy had 3 hp left.

They also feel that they've learned more about how the system actually works in the last year of gaming with me, then they have in the last 5 years of playing pathfinder with a DM that gave them 30 point buy and let them walk over all the fights.

10 Point buy is hard, 15 point buy is normal, and anything above that for a 4 person party is easy mode for the current adventure paths.

Scarab Sages

I miss rolling dice for starting attributes.


Michael MacComb wrote:

For most of my games recently, I've been running them at 10 point buy. My players understand that they are a little weaker then they should be, but this way I can run the adventure path for all 6 of them without really changing the monsters too much.

{. . .}

Having extra players is a legitimate reason for lower point buy, not just for balance, but because they can afford to specialize more without leaving gaps in the party's capabilities. Although 10 point buy is getting to the point of really pushing things into cookie-cutter territory. Monk is probably right out even if you dump wherever you can, but run-of-the-mill Wizard, Sorcerer, Caster Cleric, Dexterity-based non-TWF Fighter, and Ranger (TWF or archery OK except that archery damage will be mediocre, but no switch-hitting) are only moderately inconvenienced. Summoner is also fine (according to at least one guide, Summoner is viable even on 0 point buy).

Nevertheless, if your party is 50% over the specified size in an AP, you can probably still have some survivable party compositions that are still interesting, even if they don't cover the whole set of things that Pathfinder would let you put together even at 15 point buy,

Murdock Mudeater wrote:
I miss rolling dice for starting attributes.

When I roll for starting attributes, I tend to miss.


UnArcaneElection wrote:


Having extra players is a legitimate reason for lower point buy, not just for balance, but because they can afford to specialize more without leaving gaps in the party's capabilities. Although 10 point buy is getting to the point of really pushing things into cookie-cutter territory. Monk is probably right out even if you dump wherever you can, but run-of-the-mill Wizard, Sorcerer, Caster Cleric, Dexterity-based non-TWF Fighter, and Ranger (TWF or archery OK except that archery damage will be mediocre, but no switch-hitting) are only moderately inconvenienced. Summoner is also fine (according to at least one guide, Summoner is viable even on 0 point buy).

Nevertheless, if your party is 50% over the specified size in an AP, you can probably still have some survivable party compositions that are still interesting, even if they don't cover the whole set of things that Pathfinder would let you put together even at 15 point buy,

Well, the Iron Gods party was: TWF Scout Rogue, Pretending to be Control Wizard, Support Cleric, Pounce Barbarian, Duelbloodlined (Orc/Draconic) Blaster Sorc, and Falchion Paladin.

The CC party was TWF Scout Rogue, Duelbloodlined (Orc/Draconic) Blaster Sorc, Support Cleric, Buffs Wizard, Falchion Paladin, and the guy who died a lot. (Mesmerist, then Bard, then Psychic, then Different Psychic, all in book 2.) Pro tip, don't challenge outsiders to psychic duels..... Twice.

Our new Jade Regent team is TWF Rogue, TWF Ninja, Arcane Bloodrager, Support Cleric, Arcane Duelist BowBard, and Falchion Paladin.


Michael MacComb wrote:

For most of my games recently, I've been running them at 10 point buy. My players understand that they are a little weaker then they should be, but this way I can run the adventure path for all 6 of them without really changing the monsters too much.

Overall, it's been really good. They made it all the way to the end of book 4 of Iron Gods, before allowing the whole of the last dungeon to congregate in the same room and mass spell them to death. (4 rounds in the wizard goes "huh, maybe I should have used wall of force to stop all 14 of them from being able to just stand back and throw acid arrows at us")

After re-rolling, they made it all the way to the end of book 2 of Carrion Crown, but only had 1 melee guy and did the last fight the hardest way possible. (If you have read the book you should know what I mean) and only lost because the melee guy rolled a 3, 4, 3, and 2 on 2d6 for damage, and the bad guy had 3 hp left.

They also feel that they've learned more about how the system actually works in the last year of gaming with me, then they have in the last 5 years of playing pathfinder with a DM that gave them 30 point buy and let them walk over all the fights.

10 Point buy is hard, 15 point buy is normal, and anything above that for a 4 person party is easy mode for the current adventure paths.

This makes me want to do a 3d6 x 7 (toss lowest) and see how things work out for an AP. basically an "11" avg, lower than 10pt, but I prefer rolling, and by tossing the low its unlikely you'd be stuck with more than 1 below 10 stat.


Michael MacComb wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:


Having extra players is a legitimate reason for lower point buy, not just for balance, but because they can afford to specialize more without leaving gaps in the party's capabilities. Although 10 point buy is getting to the point of really pushing things into cookie-cutter territory. Monk is probably right out even if you dump wherever you can, but run-of-the-mill Wizard, Sorcerer, Caster Cleric, Dexterity-based non-TWF Fighter, and Ranger (TWF or archery OK except that archery damage will be mediocre, but no switch-hitting) are only moderately inconvenienced. Summoner is also fine (according to at least one guide, Summoner is viable even on 0 point buy).

Nevertheless, if your party is 50% over the specified size in an AP, you can probably still have some survivable party compositions that are still interesting, even if they don't cover the whole set of things that Pathfinder would let you put together even at 15 point buy,

Well, the Iron Gods party was: TWF Scout Rogue, Pretending to be Control Wizard, Support Cleric, Pounce Barbarian, Duelbloodlined (Orc/Draconic) Blaster Sorc, and Falchion Paladin.

The CC party was TWF Scout Rogue, Duelbloodlined (Orc/Draconic) Blaster Sorc, Support Cleric, Buffs Wizard, Falchion Paladin, and the guy who died a lot. (Mesmerist, then Bard, then Psychic, then Different Psychic, all in book 2.) Pro tip, don't challenge outsiders to psychic duels..... Twice.

Our new Jade Regent team is TWF Rogue, TWF Ninja, Arcane Bloodrager, Support Cleric, Arcane Duelist BowBard, and Falchion Paladin.

Yes, those parties cover a lot of bases, even though they have a fair amount of overlap between each other. Do these parties have overlapping players, or are those just the sets of builds they naturally funneled into?

Although when I first saw your post, with the way you spelled dualblooded (Crossblooded), I thought for sure you said Duckblooded . . .

GM 1990 wrote:

{. . .}

This makes me want to do a 3d6 x 7 (toss lowest) and see how things work out for an AP. basically an "11" avg, lower than 10pt, but I prefer rolling, and by tossing the low its unlikely you'd be stuck with more than 1 below 10 stat.

3d6 has a 37.5% chance of being under 10 according to the graph and table on this page. That means that the average number of 3d6 rolls under 10 in a set of 7 is 2.625, and if you drop the lowest one, that leaves you with 1.625 -- that is more than half way to having an average of 2 scores under 10. Of course, with my luck rolling dice, if I DON'T spin-stabilize or something like that, I would be very likely to come out with worse.

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One of the 1e suggested stat rolling methods was to roll 3d6 twelve times and pick your favorite 6. It was an option listed alongside 4d6 drop lowest. There was also roll 3d6 twice for each stat in order and take the higher.

A lot of people have this misconception that 1e suggested 3d6 in order, when in fact it recommended against it. 3d6 in order was the default for B/X, BECMI, and 2e though.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

UnArcaneElection wrote:
Although when I first saw your post, with the way you spelled dualblooded (Crossblooded), I thought for sure you said Duckblooded . . .

And a new sorcerer bloodline is thus created.


ryric wrote:

One of the 1e suggested stat rolling methods was to roll 3d6 twelve times and pick your favorite 6. It was an option listed alongside 4d6 drop lowest. There was also roll 3d6 twice for each stat in order and take the higher.

A lot of people have this misconception that 1e suggested 3d6 in order, when in fact it recommended against it. 3d6 in order was the default for B/X, BECMI, and 2e though.

I think that is because so many people migrated from Basic (or Basic + Expert) to AD&D 1st Edition.


James Jacobs wrote:

From where I'm sitting, the largest part of the problem with Wrath of the Righteous is that I as the developer of the AP didn't have enough experience with Mythic when it combines with high level play to do a great job developing the encounters, in part because we didn't really have solid playtest data for how a high level campaign worked with mythic in play. I learned a LOT from that and from looking at the feedback. If I were to do Wrath of the Righteous today, I'd probably not change much about the actual adventure other than perhaps cutting in half the rate at which folks gained mythic tiers... perhaps more. Having the AP end with 20th level tier 4 or tier 5 PCs would probably work better. Maybe even lower tier.

Of course, player skill and GM skill are a HUGE element for all of this. For all the hullabaloo about Wrath, there were plenty of folks who had a fine time with the AP. But with Mythic in particular, adding all the new rules on to high level play makes for a lot of places where players and GMs alike can misinterpret the rules. It was sort of a perfect storm in that regard, from the design and development through to the actual game play at tables itself.

I think the issue is that the mythic rules themselves sort of got away from their original goal. There ended up being a TON of less thematic/narrative abilities and far more numerical/mechanical increases. Which given there wasn't much time for feedback to trickle in on higher levels (which is uncommon anyway) its understandable that you might not have had a handle on it.

I played through to the end of wrath with one of my groups and we honestly had an absolute blast. With the understanding that it was one of those, 'this is going to be nuts' campaigns and all stops were pulled out on both sides of the screen. Particularly in the last 2 books it was quite difficult for players and a gm with literal decades of experience to keep a handle on all the rules in play. And the party ended up doing some pretty astounding things. I generally pride myself on having a really good understanding of the system and I was literally stunned by some of the stuff that got thrown around in those last 2 books.

To this day we often jest that when our party hits a problem in Golarion we just call up the characters from that adventure(most of which would gladly act to protect the general populace from most dangers adventures published and homegrown would present) and they come take 4-5 minutes to fix it then go back to their mega castles.

That said the experience was quite enlightening. And it lead me and my group to decide the best way for us to handle mythic in the future. No tiers. No character construction. When we use it the DM hands out specific mythic abilities that fit the character piece meal.


Murdock Mudeater wrote:
I miss rolling dice for starting attributes.

Ditto, though I use point buy these days as a DM. Rolling has that additional appeal of chance (the dice decides fate), but I've seen a lot of butthurt result when Players see the gaps between themselves.

As a Player, I'd risk it just to get that chance (MVP or Baggage, I can RP both), but as a DM, Point Buy does help me keep the PCs on an even field and in the background does help me adjust threat to keep everyone in the Party engaged/challenged.

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