LMAO
As well!!! :)
Please note I'll be away from Thursday to Monday, without any real access to a computer.
I'll also be away at a con this weekend, and the hotel charges for internet access.
resume monday then:)
Yes, it is. That particular metaphor provides a useful framework to describe how we scraped through the middenstone fight (i.e., when the inquisitor is the surviving hammer and he's fighting with a dagger, the fight is going to go on for a while).
Honestly, reading an analysis of "the right way to play the game" on that level makes me want to quit playing altogether. It's why I don't even apply to games that want me to tell them what "party role" my PC intends to fill. I don't play a "role" or an interchangeable peg to fit preconceived slots; I play an individual who might or might not be useful in any given set of combat circumstances -- and that's okay.
Groups that spend so much time worrying about their composition and roles seem to be communally playing the group as a whole, like in Baldur's Gate, rather than playing their individual PCs. It's like the PCs have a hive mind and never disagree with each other.
Any time a group says that its goal is "TO OVERCOME THE ENCOUNTER AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE", I know I'd better walk away and find a different group to play with because that sounds supremely boring to me. :P
I like these quotes.
The more I play the game though, the more I am coming to appreciate the challenge inherent in less than optimal character builds and how to win the encounter anyway.
But these days I find myself more interested in allowing all the players to build whatever they like, and then try to figure out how to approach the encounters with the abilities at hand. The GM is going to scale up or down accordingly anyway.
...the beauty of the system is how many ways there are to skin the proverbial cat.
The MISTAKE of 4E was over-defining roles.
My opinion of the discussions on these boards are that they are flawed, only that they assume the GM is a robot. A gms responsibility is to build encounters that challenge you, not just pull random things from the bestiary and say ok fight this dinosaur that pops into reality from the megaverse, even though you should be fighting a bandit.
So unless you have a gm with very poor philosophies on how to run a game you can run 5 fighters and have fun.
These quotes say it all. I'm not interested in being a part of some robotic game where I just move my pawn when it's my turn. Not interested in somebody's "guidelines" on how to make my pc fit into a game, combat or non-combat. He/she is who they are and that's that.
I tell ya, he really sounds like he's a big 4E guy. Diablo anyone? BOR-FREAKIN'-RING.
In a nutshell, I completely agree with Joana. This game IS about taking who your pc is--however you've created him/her--and finding ways to make them work. There are going to be times where you just aren't efficient. That's just the way it is. If your pc was perfect at everything, then everything would be boring because then there is no challenge.
As far as I'm concerned, all this dude has done is given his opinion on how boring the game should be. I might as well just be playing monopoly.
If you think about it, according to him, this group we have is absolutely horrendous for combat. Built completely improperly. What we really should do is go in and change up the complete makeup of our pc's just so we can be more "efficient" in combat. Because that's what makes it fun, right? Not.
This group is a fun group exactly as they are. No we are not built "perfectly" for combat but we are having fun(Well, at least I am). :)
And last I checked, that's how a GAME is supposed to be played. For fun.
Just my 2 coins. No change necessary. Just keep it.
I agree and disagree at the same time.
I agree that it shouldn't drive the game. The fun is in the story, for me, as well as the tactics involved in complex fights. Like chess, but where the pieces have lives and conversations that can also impact the game, plus randomness. I still like the grid it creates though, for a group to analyze problems they are facing. It's clear that some people find themselves in places where they don't enjoy the game. Tark's work can provide solutions for them.
I really like your comments Joana and Javell, thanks. The game can be played so many different ways! I thought I'd quote the article in my games, as it might spark a meaningful discussion.
Well no one can accuse us of that... we have the herbalist grappling with the enemy while the cop farts around.
LOL! You're killing me dude! That's just greatness. You know, it's so dang funny when you spell out like that. I hadn't even thought it that way. The herbalist trying to wrestle--as in WWF style--some dude to the ground!
"Are you ready to rumbllllllllllllllllle!!!!! We got the Undertaker heading to the ring ready to take on... The Herbalist!!!!!"
I just picture a guy about 5'10", 165 lbs with several samples of herbs and spices in his corner who talks in a nasally voice. And yet the real wrestler is on his way, he's just late.
Man that's just funny stuff. Good one, Helaman. :D
Lol!
That is so horrible, and true! Valiard is certainly almost the worst person on our team to attempt anything like this.
I had written about a page of information in response to the post by TakXT or whatever his name was, but deleted it. There are a million different ways to play this game, all of them are right as long as the players and GM are working in concert to create whatever environment they find joy in.
I still like the grid it creates though, for a group to analyze problems they are facing. It's clear that some people find themselves in places where they don't enjoy the game. Tark's work can provide solutions for them.
I guess if players are actively looking for ways to build a more combat-effective team. Most of the time I've found these kinds of analyses used to bully players into changing their characters, whether it be their spell selection, their feats and classes, or the way they're roleplayed.
I've been in a game where another player told me my caster shouldn't use any spells with saves because her casting stat was less than 20 so it "wasn't efficient." I've been told that "every bard ought to use a whip" because they get the free exotic weapon proficiency and it's wasteful not to take advantage of it, even after I explained that my vision of the character didn't include her being a lion tamer or a dominatrix. And then they showed all their math demonstrating what a drag on the party my PC was because I didn't play it the "right" way.
The other problem with this kind of analysis is that it implies that the number of useful builds is finite. There's only a certain number of ways to build a good Hammer, or whatever, and every caster's spell list starts to look the same as they take only the spells that aren't a "waste of space," and eventually you're playing with pregens that you just change the name and race of from character to character. I mean, heck, if I were building a witch the way the guides say I should, Mireza would be Slumber-hexing and Cackling and probably grappling with her hair like 96% of all the other witches out there. Where's the fun in that?
EDIT:
I had written about a page of information in response to the post by TakXT or whatever his name was, but deleted it. There are a million different ways to play this game, all of them are right as long as the players and GM are working in concert to create whatever environment they find joy in.
And obviously I haven't ZetaGilgamesh's restraint. :D
To clarify, I'm aware that there are many people who do enjoy playing a cog in a well-oiled combat machine, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not a game I'd enjoy. There are many very nice and intelligent people on these boards that I know I could never play a game with without each of us frustrating the other.
Indeed, this is the main danger of molds and optimization guides. It's true that the number of "builds" can become finite and quite small.
I liked Vampire as it started with the concept, nature and demeanor. The clan could be far removed from the concept. It didn't matter. But again, some players preferred to feel optimized. for them, the choices were smaller.
The assumptions of players are different, be it defeating the encounter efficiently, or spinning a good story, or making a character that shines, etc.
I feel we need all the angles looked at. I would like to define the many lenses through which a game can be looked at. For example, from a group coherence perspective, then from an individual. Then from a fun perspective, etc. It seems endless.
I think the other thing with my perspective is that I come from a background where almost everyone in our group took a turn DMing and we all made up our own campaigns rather than using published material. We tailored our encounters to the abilities of the party, whether they were optimized or unoptimized, and it freed the players to play any character they thought they could have fun with without worrying about "party balance." As such, I've found myself frustrated with some of Paizo's material as it assumes that by level x, the party will have access to spell y. When working with a pre-written adventure, there is much more of an emphasis on fitting square pegs into square holes, and the absence of a role becomes much more of a problem for the party.
In short, I'm used to the party makeup determining the difficulty level of the adventure, instead of the difficulty of the adventure dictating the makeup of the party.
The game can be played so many different ways!
There are a million different ways to play this game, all of them are right as long as the players and GM are working in concert to create whatever environment they find joy in.
You really can't sum it up any better than these two statements.
Obviously there's no wrong or right here, it's just a matter of how you prefer to play the game. For some folks, Tark's way will work for them. It's just not for me.
Good stuff all around.
Lol!
That is so horrible, and true! Valiard is certainly almost the worst person on our team to attempt anything like this.
It's a good thing you said almost. I was about to say, ol' Iozef would truly be(in his case 'almost' is not allowed :) ) THE most pathetic person to pull something like that off. It's funny, as I was typing the whole wrestling bit, I couldn't help but think of poor Iozef sitting there in his corner. He fits the dorky description perfect. Can you imagine? Iozef as a wrestler? Oh man that's just so pathetic. That would truly be the ultimate worst. But man that sure would be funny.
I was about to say, ol' Iozef would truly be(in his case 'almost' is not allowed :) ) THE most pathetic person to pull something like that off.
*ahem*
Iozef Kolnikov CMB +4
Mireza CMB +3
;)
Funny, Joana. Real funny. Well that would definitely make Iozef feel a whole lot better knowing that he can out-wrestle Mireza. :P
For the record, Iozef is NOT willing to take that chance. Just wanna make that clear.
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(Sorry I haven't posted before this; we had a little fire at work last night, and I spent most of the day running and jumping to deal with the aftermath. I don't know why people were so up in arms; it was only a couple of ounces of molten sodium, and no one was hurt. Ah, well.)
I haven't played 3.x enough (or, for that matter, interacted with non-OSR gamers IRL enough, of late) to have encountered the optimizing jerks in any forum where I couldn't just ignore their posts*, so I don't have the same immediate aversion to anything smacking of that sort of behavior. Given that, I thought the OP character descriptions were kind of soulless, and I don't think I'd much enjoy gaming with people who took them as prescriptive rather than descriptive. Some of that is that I really don't like stat dumping unless you're playing a 15 point game and you can roleplay the low stats well; some of it is that AFAICT (in my non-vast experience with 3.x) although there exist a few pronounced maxima in the character power curve the set of non-optimal but still viable character concepts is huge, and many of those are more fun to play. I mean, look at Windle. Look at any of the characters here--they're none of them what you'd call combat monsters, so we've had a rough time with fights. But it's often more fun to start with a chance-met group of fractious personalities whose capabilities logically follow from those personalities (instead of having personalities formed around some optimum suite of character capabilities...if the player decides to form much of a personality at all) and throw them into the meat grinder.
That said, even with a mix of nonoptimized characters with well-defined and quirky personalities, the writeup is useful to me as a metagamey framework to articulate how my particular nonoptimized character might eventually realize is his or her best way (or best ways) to contribute to party survival. But that's taking the discussion as descriptive and not prescriptive, at least in terms of character creation.
*I tend to skip over any post by RD, frex.
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Funny, Joana. Real funny. Well that would definitely make Iozef feel a whole lot better knowing that he can out-wrestle Mireza. :P
For the record, Iozef is NOT willing to take that chance. Just wanna make that clear.
Mireza doesn't seem like the sort who would welcome a fair fight, and she's got a little friend; hard to concentrate on wrestling when eight tiny legs go padding down your back under your armor.
I am on a business trip - posts may be delayed. Please feel free to NPC bot me if needed for a couple of days if I don't post in a timely manner.
Christmas time is my busy time of the year. Until after it's over, my posting is gonna be hit and miss during the work week. Just fyi. Will try to keep up as best as possible but if not, DMPC me as needed.
No worries. I'll also be away for a couple of days later in December.
I'll be away for a few days. Should be back Sunday night. Probably no internet.
I'll say, this dice roller stinks! That's just bull all those single digit rolls. I guarantee you, if you rolled the same amount of rolls with your own dice, you'd hit at least 3 times by now. Which would be 3 more times than you've hit during this combat!
Think about it, EIGHT rolls and ZERO hits?! Seriously?! I challenge anyone to roll 8 times on a d20 and see it they can't at least hit ONCE!
I know your pain, bud. Trust me. That's why I hate the dice roller. Because I've been through it with several of my pc's. It's absolutely unbelievable. I feel bad for you, dude, because I KNOW how frustrating it is.
In our Kingmaker game, I'm running this ranger(Kriger) who FINALLY hit somewhere around round 7 I believe it was. Yeah, ROUND SEVEN! The big bad battle at the end and all that. I'm like: "What a freaking time to be missing all the time!" Man was it infuriating. I think he fell TWICE during that combat. Yeah, TWICE. But he finally got in a nasty crit which finished it off. It was REAL frustrating rolling so pathetically but I gotta admit, it was a fun combat. :)
It feels bad because a caster can (most of the time) cast and be effective, without a roll, unless its save or suck spells with at least SOME effect but as the party "fighter", unless I can hit I am just a bag of hitpoints that the monster needs to chew through first.
But hey, my luck has to turn at SOMETIME? Right? :D
Tomorrow I will be on travel for a business trip - posts may be delayed. Please feel free to NPC bot me if needed for a couple of days if I don't post in a timely manner.
Yeah, I think Grigor should have more hit points. Because right at the beginning of battle, before we engaged the creature, I healed everybody up by +13. Which, I think, put Grigor up to full. Because I think he was around 40 at the time.
You've taken 43 damage total and I've healed you a total for 43. But I healed you before battle.
So, if you were maxed out at the time, you should be up to +39. But that's only if my +13 put you up to max.
Sorry; I was basically waiting on Grigor to go before I decided what to do. If he'd hit the thing, I was going to consider letting the swarm start to disperse and try another spell on the assumption that we might be getting some traction. But since he missed again, yeah, she was just going to stand there and maintain concentration. :(
No worries.
Ok... am back in the game. Business trip and a bug from Asia kept me down. Will be posting again.
The problem being that it's between us and the the stairs up ... and as Valiard has proven, it's very difficult to get past it. ;)
Also, Iozef is presently grappled.
Hey Helaman, just wanted to point out that if you would have not rolled the crit confirm for your first attack, that would've actually been your second attack roll which would've hit.
I know you stated earlier that's what you do in your RL game to speed things up and that's fine, but rolling crits confirms in a pbp regardless of whether you hit or not DOES NOT speed the game up. Like at all.
I've really never understood why you do that. Why don't you just preview your post and then roll the crit confirm if you happen to notice you've rolled a crit threat?
Not trying to be difficult, just being practical.
Its a "best" practice (for a given value of "best") I've been using for some time.
It allows me to make a single post without going back for editing (apart from moaning about the string of bad luck). Normally? I has no appreciable effect, my luck is about as you'd expect most days, but with Grigor? The guy is cursed.
I went for Captain Skillz as a build when a better more reliable standby may have been "two handed fighter Tin Can" but I think Grigor was interesting enough to get the nod from the GM (and hence into the game) and even THF build would have had issues with some of the rolls I made.
LOL
Reminds me of a story from my old 2nd Ed days. Had a rocking Al Qadim themed group, gripping adventure, great characters and some artwork even from the "thief" Azeem.
But Azeem could NOT make a single roll - not one.
Pretty soon the character was dubbed Azeem the incompetent by its own player and after two sessions of complete irrelevance due to its luck, the player lost interest (the game also broke up anyways).
Nothing wrong with the concept - was a good thief and had some decent stats but was just cursed.
Something I should have thought of a while ago: are melee touch attacks considered to be light weapons for the purpose of the Weapon Finesse feat?
Natural weapons count as light weapons for the feat; I'm not sure about touch attacks.
EDIT: All the threads I can find in the messageboards on the subject conclude that the answer is yes, although there's no dev input I can find.
I'd allow it.
Wow, Windle....
You just soloed the BBEG. :)
The frogs never made it past its DR, I don't think. :( If they'd ever rolled a 5 & 6 or double-sixes, they would have had a shot at poisoning it ... if it's even susceptible to poison.
EDIT: And, yeah, looks like Grigor's first swing at it hit. Everything since then missed, though. I've never seen such a long run of bad dice.
Yeah, Grigor did 24 damage on his very first swing and Windle busted out with 82!
Nice.
And I didn't even realize Grigor hit at all until I went back and looked at it. And I only did that 'cause Joana mentioned it.
You all see how Iozef occupied one of the beasts attacks by allowing it to grapple him? Huh? Huh? Quite the clever, I'd say. ;)
That was great!
A near thing... not sure what happened until we'll it happened.
Christmas time coming up... Please note I'll be away from a computer from Friday until Monday night. after that, I'll have a hard time posting regularly until the new year starts.
Are you all interested in moving forward with volume 3 of Carrion Crown?
Yes.