RoshVagari's page

All I know is, I'm fascinated that the developers decided to screw with something that hasn't been a problem in the almost decade since the Core Rulebook was published, yet Alchemists can still solo scenarios and modules with an average build with nary an actual needed nerf in sight.

Will you be so high and mighty when other people's characters don't come to your aid when you're getting your shiny wayfinder crammed up your prayer hole? You don't have to heal them, and they don't have to cover you.

Is your conviction to your character strong enough to stay true when you're paying for the body recovery cost along with the raise dead and restorations because no one wanted to haul your preachy carcass back at the end of the scenario?

Do you also want to get a reputation as a player who lords your character concept over other players' concepts so that other players don't want to play with you?

"Don't be a jerk" has many facets, which is also why "Cooperate" is a thing. You'll find relaxing and kicking back with your fellow gamers and letting everyone play what they want to play a much more fun and rewarding experience than being the morality police in a really fancy game of make believe.

This is an easy problem for the community to self-regulate. The mechanism is already in place.

Pursuant to the PFS rules, a player must own the book that contains whatever resource their character is using and have it in their possession at the table when playing. Ostensibly, this is so the GM, if unfamiliar with what the thing does can reference it. It is also a good business model for Paizo to sell books and thus make money. The book is the authority the player has to cite both his ability to use a resource, and to define what that resource does. If the player doesn't have the book, then the GM can rule that resource inadmissible for play.

Ergo, the books are the canon. Have the book; you're good to go. Don't have the book; you're not getting to use that fancy Feat Chain spread out over 4 books. Until, suddenly, years after you purchased the books you needed, and have played a character or characters with resources from these books you purchased, the leadership decides something needs to be nerfed. The why is inconsequential. Frankly, who cares, which I'll get to in a minute.

Unless you come to the boards and keep up with whatever minutia the leadership wants to crap all over this week, you wouldn't know that the contents of your books are now obsolete. You're first likely to learn it when some GM who does come to the boards crashes down on you for using an obsolete resource, and won't let you play your character that you had already paid the entrance fee for by buying the books in the first place.

Well, the way I see it, unless the GM owns the superseding book with the new resource language, then the player's resource wins that argument. If the GM can't produce a copy of the book with the new language for the resource, but the player went to all the trouble to purchase and lug around what was a good resource until he sat down to play with that GM, than there is no errata.

TL:DR -- if the GM can't produce a copy of the product with the errata, then there is no errata, and the player's book is still the authority that overrides some fun sponge blog post by the developers. So, who cares why they nerf things?

Sharing an announcement regarding Extra-Life 3, a small charity convention being held for the third year in central North Carolina.

Regarding Extra Life 3, I have some unfortunate news. The Regional Venture Coordinator, Del Collins, has determined that our small charity convention, which generally gets a good boost in donations from the yearly special, should not be allowed to run Cosmic Captive, said special. His reasoning was thus:

"Sorry but I will not approve that.
DC"

This convention was created to bring together like-minded people to enjoy our mutual hobby and, most importantly, raise money for the sick kids at the Duke Children's hospital. It is deplorable that leadership would act so callously as to not even give a reason regarding their denial.

Therefore, I've determined that future Extra Life events, unless something radically changes, will no longer support Pathfinder Society when leadership has made it clear that they do not care about our cause enough to even give a reason. Furthermore, our GMs have already received the scenario from Paizo, so I have put in an appeal to Tonya hoping to overturn this decision, even though it was made late enough that I am not hopeful she will even see it in time.

However, as we currently have the means to, I have decided that as we have been denied permission for such a non-existent reason, to run an unauthorized version of the special, allowing us to actually play it, though not for credit. This means that it will basically be a one-shot where you can create any level (1-11) character within Pathfinder Society rules and come play the special, but not for credit.

I understand that some of you may not want to play or GM for no credit, and that is understandable, so I will be posting other tables for that slot that will be basic Pathfinder games. However, as I know many of you will not be able to play the special, I am happy to have it run unofficially, which also gives us the ability to run it for as many, or as few people who would like to play.

In the mean-time, you can donate below and sign up to play here: https://warhorn.net/events/extra-life-3

Profession: Babysitter for my two-weapon fighter has come in handy from time to time. But, Profession: Sailor has come up the most as written in my experience as a GM and player, with Profession: Soldier coming in second.

Assign character numbers at the conclusion of the scenario. Everyone can play with gusto and full engagement, no one is worried about the death of an actual PC due to Paizo making potentially crappy pregens and being stuck at a table with people unfamiliar with potentially crappy pregens. Fun sponging is contrary to the Don't Be A Jerk Rule, even if it is Paizo who writes the fun sponge rule.

Problem solved. Problem staying solved.

I recently retired a 15th level Oread Inquisitor of Horus turned Living Monolith.

There are plenty of reasons to have Core. It's just that none of them add up to coming close to making it successful.

The Raleigh-Durham area is a great example of what was once a large lodge that collapsed into a vast desert of PFS. There are no less than four game stores in the area, and all but one of them struggles to have more than one table on a consistent basis. And that store has become something of a fly trap for players that ran off players from other stores. The store in Raleigh where MANY people came into PFS hasn't had a reliable PFS presence in years, and whose efforts to reestablish a presence consisted of, "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas." The reasons are multifaceted, ranging from individuals ruining tables so that no one wants to play with them, a diminishing pool of overworked GMs, active and passive efforts by the various stores that discouraged PFS groups, campaign leadership with a complete hands off approach leading to an organization having no organization, and the general frustration of all of the above which has resulted in a slew of home games, and desertion to other games from what's left of the disintegrated player base.

It's an area with numerous universities, multiple successful game stores, and strong talent, which should be a recipe for a thriving PFS community, but has all but died. So, it's not just the small lodges that have problems.

How about don't go out of your way to be THAT guy? If you're coming to the table with an argumentative build, and you KNOW you're bringing an argumentative build, then, for my part, you're breaking the Don't Be a Jerk Rule. As a GM I want to provide a fun experience for my table as a whole, and someone coming in, especially intentionally, with a special snowflake look-at-me-I-wanna-rules-debate-unclear-issues character, you're not going to be welcome at my tables after too many of those game stopping, fun-sponge shenanigans.

I cashed out Gorum's Thorn because that's what my players were going to do with it since they didn't win the character lottery, either. Instead, I used that amount of gold equivalent to drop in some homebrew ingots of enchanted metal that could be used to enhance MW weapons to +1 and two [insert subtype of choice]-Bane ingots so the party could customize their own weapons. I then added a small trade outpost that they could visit on the way to Fort Redlake so they could upgrade and refresh their kits.

Much better and more fun than some silly sword that was basically worth its presence in gold.

So, I'm late to the party on Animal Companions, but ACs can only flank if they have some trick from Animal Archive? What fun-sponge rules goat thought that up? I suppose they need a trick to poop, too.

Seriously, there's a ton of holes and useful errata that could be made to Pathfinder, and that's the stuff that makes it into product sold for money?

I have a Fighter who is

This thread was interesting, took my a while to realize it wasn't recent, once I saw Mark though it clicked immediately.

I will say, I love unique chronicle items, especially weapons.

** spoiler omitted **

This. A thousand times this. And what's with the restriction on not being able to upgrade named magic items, anyway? If I've dumped the cash on a Flametongue, is Golarion going to implode if I, GASP!, spend the gold to make it +2?

Oh noooooooes! My Paladin has a +2 flame burst longsword that once a day casts Scorching Ray instead of a +1. Drendle Dreng weeps a single tear at its overpoweredness.

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I also had the pleasure of running a scenario for a player with a build like this, first unbuffed (and without Piranha Strike - apparently there is a discussion of this works without a manufactured weapon but ignoring that for the moment, and excluding traits)

** spoiler omitted **...

I think this is a case where instead of banning the item because a few people use it in extreme ways, you can just tell the player "you won pathfinder, good job. Please stop making the game un-fun for everyone else at the table." I don't see how this build would be hugely different just drinking potions of reduce person.

This. A thousand times this.

And everyone getting squirrelly over some super-special build while Alchemists run around unchecked is hilarious. There are MANY more, and more frequent, fun sponge builds that exist in PFS.

Ban the player from your table. Solves all of my problems with the fun sponges that PFS attracts.

I perma-booted a kid from my tables for playing a wizard just like that. Dude was a jerk on top of bring a fun sponge, so when tables stopped making when he signed up, I had him banned.

Congrats, you won Pathfinder. With that accomplishment you don't ever have to play at my table again. Bye, Felicia.

Lack of time and resources to sanction modules and APs is a cop out. Paizo has an enormous stable of talent that already produces monthly scenarios, module authors, venture officers, and a crap load of 5 star GMs loose in the wild. Some people are all of those combined. The task of taking a first cut at chronicle sheets could be farmed out to the best of the best of those folks easily.

I ran it with the guards spread out and each one needing to be individually distracted...

That's exactly what I'm going to do when I run it next week. I was trying to find some way for this encounter to work, and that's perfect. As written, there is no guidance as to how it's NOT just make a single roll and the PCs win.

EXCELLENT encounter, just not developed enough to actually work without some creative work by the GM, which will drive RAW fanatics apoplectic.

Core? Core doesn't count. Core is there to provide Paizo cover for falling down on the job sanctioning modules and APs.

I have been to one convention: GenCon 2014. I ran six sessions and got a convention boon for doing so.

I have four GM Stars from running regular games in my community. I got 4 GM Stars for doing so.

I don't have to be Stephen Hawking to do the math on which has promoted PFS more, and by definition put money in Paizo's pockets, which directly correlates to the relative over inflation of convention value verses local support value.

All the things. All of them.

Now, now, Paizo DOES have GenCon 2025 to prep for. So, we should be grateful we get anything by 2030.

Freakin' Palladium levels of excuses going on around here from the poohbas at Paizo...sheesh.

I'll use myself as an example. I have a character most of our locals know who is nigh unhittable. This unholy amalgamation is a Fighter/Aldori Swordlord/Duelist. His AC starts at 39 and can go as high as 50. I don't even bother rolling acrobatics checks to avoid AoO due to Mobility and Enhanced Mobility. They stack.

I have so many weird class abilities that I must explain all of them to a GM. With a Str of 10 I put out d8+22 damage per hit. I can disarm you and apply damage while doing it. I can parry attacks. I have an ungodly amount of AoO. My initiative modifier is in the high teens.

Simply put, I have a lot of bonuses and abilities that I need to explain otherwise there can be a lot of frustration from the GM when ever I pull off some insane stunt.

Oh, god no. I would ban this character from my table, and alternatively you as a player for good measure because you would definitely be owning the spotlight from the entire table with this rules monstrosity. This isn't a character, this is a spreadsheet you are passing off as a character. I'd give you a chronicle sheet and show you the door. You WIN Pathfinder, but the rest of us are here to PLAY.

Criteria:

1. Is it something I would find useful and fun as a player?

2. Is it something I would equip my bad guys with as a GM?

3. Does it do what it does with economy and elegance? i.e. Will it slow down the game more than it enhances the game?

4. Everything else.

Every time I see someone reference "workshopped," my inner intellectual property switch gets flipped. Depending on the level of input, a submitter may not necessarily be the sole author, which defeats the purpose of the contest, and potentially opens liability between the submitter and work shoppers.

Apparently it's based solely off how much voting happens. Which seems weird given the number of people who jumped from dedicated to marathon over the weekend. Then again I've been voting less due to largely to boredom from seeing the same items paired against each other endlessly. I suspect from the information given that there's a dedicated voting heart to the competition and everyone else is losing interest.

This. I'm tired of seeing the same dozen of so items over and over again. There are something like 400 items and I see only one new one every other day.

Vague vaguely vagueness is vague.

Dude, you guys want to nerf something, leave the Gunslinger archetypes alone and take a go at the Alchemist. I recently watched some grenadier build all but solo The Ruby Phoenix Tournament with his bow launched touch attack toppling force bombs. Now THAT'S deserving of some nerfing by errata.

Ipso facto playing a scenario after GMing it is cheating.

None. Because all this occult crap is a bridge too far.

I can agree with that, I looked at the Occult playtest and was just unable to compartmentalize all these new terms, each of the classes seemed incredibly wordy. I just accepted that if anyone came with a play-test occult to my table I'd just trust they spent the time to understand their character and I'd just blindly accept what they said.

Now that Occult adventures is out, I bought it to try and give it a second shot at understanding it to still no avail. This game has gotten to the point where my only option is to trust the player and trust that they understand their character and options because I can't be familiar with every class anymore.

Amen. I took one look at the play test and said, "NOPE!" Of course, I've never seen anyone actually play one of those classes, so that's saying something, too.

I prepped this today to run tomorrow and my first thought to improve the design was to cut the portal puzzle. There's just too much going on in this scenario for those kinds of shenanigans, and I HATE puzzles anyway. Among my tables, they are uniformly negatively received every time one pops up, and the first question is, "can we make an Intelligence check to bypass it?"

Generally, effectiveness. I see a lot of people who want to play special snowflake characters who are built for one thing, and that one thing isn't a common occurrence. I've played with and GMed for a bad-touch Cleric who has spent entire scenarios hiding at the back of the party because at the start of the encounter, he literally says, "I have nothing for that." And God help you if he's the one who puts a party in the high tier and can't effectively contribute.

I've seen people who know better not know how their character works after 4+ levels, and new to RPGing players always want to play something with a lot of moving parts like a Druid and spend the entire scenario missing things with their spear, or casting Guidance on their animal companion because they don't know what else they can do.

Look, here's the problem. The people who vociferously object to the smattering of tech in Pathfinder don't realize that they AREN'T playing LOTR with the serial numbers filed off. That's D&D. Pathfinder is based on that concept, but it's its own animal now.

Huh. I have never NOT seen a GM run similar creatures on the same initiative. You West Coast people keep on keeping on your side of the Mississippi. Sounds like proximity to the Pacific makes for a bunch of argumentative fun-sponges. Sheesh.

No Darklands map, which is used in like, every other scenario and the one I hear people lamenting about the most? Lame.

Playing an under-built, non-player-character that has perma-death repercussions on a real character is stupid. It's a dishonest death by dishonest design.

I ran the four part Devil We Know scenarios as a prelude to the mod, dropped in the module NPCs as sources for knowledge checks and the like, and then ran the mod in Campaign Mode. I cut several of the forest quests because they were redundant and made for a more streamlined story.

Is it that darn hard to turn John Compton's post above into an errata for this boon? I mean, for 30 seconds (or less) of work and you have this problem resolved.

I'll take Things That Aren't That Damn Complicated for $500, Drendle.

This is dumb. Paizo does an integrity update or whatever, fouls up the reporting system, and we are supposed to go fix our table credit ourselves? That's a failure of integrity on several levels.

Why wouldn't you tell them in advance? To not do so sounds like some kind of "gotcha" a jerk GM would pull. "Oh, so sorry, but if only you had ALL YOUR CHARACTERS AND CHRONICLES WITH YOU you could fully participate as the developers intended. HA HA HA, I love it when I get to abuse my knowledge over other people."

Hashtag: bitter experience with jerk GMs who get off on the power of the chair.

Release dates are more like...guidelines.

I knew this scenario was going to be awesome when I saw it had a t-rex on the cover. Scenarios need more t-rexes.

This is highly welcome news. Congrats, Dan.

This thread and some of the commenters are exactly why I very rarely play or run public games anymore. The signal to noise ratio between people who are fun to game with is way too favored to noise. Players like the INT 9 Wizard and his supporters can have all the public games they want. I'll come and cherry pick the best of the lot and we'll have excellent Pathfinder adventures together while the special snowflakes can have all the tomfoolery they want.

Basically, everyone gets a replay of everything, but they have to run a Core Rulebook character in order to do so with a table of people with characters from only the Core Rulebook, which are segregated from regular PFS?

The novelty of this will wear off quickly compared to just simply making a blanket one replay of everything for everyone.

Hashtag: not fawning, mostly yawning.

I've GMed for the OP many times and have never had a problem with Hero Lab or other non-paper references for characters.

Overall, if someone is intentionally cheating at Pathfinder Society, they have bigger problems with their life than I'm going to waste my time on trying to rein in. Do I really want to bother with, or actually care about, checking that everyone at the table spent the extra 2000 gold to enchant their cold iron longsword? Big bowl of nope. I didn't get into this game to play Tax Audit Society or fulfill my own power trip about who I let play for what reason. Obviously, if someone is blatantly cheating and it's crapping on the table, then that's when to address it.

That's up to and including whether someone uses paper or electronic character sheets. All I ask is that players can reference their stats and abilities in a timely manner and not slow down the table trying to find out if they have that +1 trait bonus to underwater basket weaving that probably isn't going to make a difference in their success or failure. And that can be a slow process whether someone has a paper or electronic character sheet, so for me, it's really about players knowing how to play their characters. If I can get roll totals from players without a lot of hemming and hawing, then who cares what they are using to get those numbers from?