AaronUnicorn's page

I don't have too much experience with Psychics but you'll fight a lot of Undead which tend to be either mindless or resistant to mental effects. Along with a few constructs. So he might be getting the short end of the stick.

I've made sure to stress this to her, and she plans to take the Will of the Dead Pherenic amplification (which allows her mind-affecting powers to affect undead) and also to have a good focus on telekinetic abilities that aren't mind-affecting. But I appreciate the warning.

So, what I've been doing is a little different. Especially because a lot of the maps floating around - as awesome as they are - don't have a battle grid on them.

So, what I do is set up an Excel file with 1" columns and 1" rows, and turn all gridlines on.

Then I import the image of the battle map. This is easy if you have an older version of Excel, because you can directly manipulate the image. If you have a more recent version of Excel, you need to draw a shape, then use the image of the battle map as the fill of the shape.

Then it's just a matter of stretching it out and (in my case) setting the transparency to about 30% so the gridlines show through.

The nice thing about doing this in Excel is that when I print it (I don't have access to a large-format printer), it automatically cuts the image into tiles, and the gridlines make it relatively easy to line the pieces up.

I'm very much in agreement with Val'bryn2. In my Rise of the Runelords game, my daughter wanted to play a spellcaster who was also adept with a sword.

Our party already has a Magus, so I wanted to steer her towards something other than that. When I mentioned the Eldritch Knight Prestige class, her eyes lit up and she said "That. That's what I want."

Our party is currently Level 6, so her character is a Swashbuckler 1/Wizard 5. But she doesn't tell people that. "I'm a squire to Ser Allistair Smythe, and an apprentice to Hoblien the Revered. I'm an Eldritch Knight in training."

Once she hits level 7, she plans to jump into Eldritch Knight and never look back, meaning she'll be a Swashbuckler 1/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 1.

On paper, that looks like two dips. But it absolutely isn't. And in some ways, she's more restricted than she would be as either a Wizard 7 (she'd have 4th level spells!) or a Swashbuckler 7. But it absolutely fits her character concept.

All of which is a long way to say "Dipping isn't always about power gaming. Sometimes it's the only way to build a concept." And the good folks at Paizo wouldn't have made multi-classing easier than it was in 3.5 if being able to multi-class wasn't intended.

I think part of it is going to depend on how you play it.

If the invading force is invading - not fleeing, not asking for help, but coming in to the new space weapons drawn and killing people and taking their stuff - then the fact that they're refugees is kind of incidental.

Their motivation becomes understandable, but they're still wrong, and while the adventurers may decide to go back to the homeland to stop the greater evil, the adventurers shouldn't feel bad about killing them.

Now, if you want the PCs to attack them and then find out they're refugees without them attacking first? Then you definitely need to tread lightly. Perhaps the PCs hear rumors that there is an Orc horde massing, and they decide to go stop them before they get to the town/city the PCs are defending. In which case, assuming the PCs do any sort of scouting at all, make sure to stress how much the "invading" force doesn't seem to be invading.

Call out the fact that they seem downtrodden. Call out that they have children with them. Make a point that there may be some of them openly carrying weaponry, but some of them are not. Emphasize that they aren't beating war drums or chanting, with eagerness for the fight and bloodlust in their eyes, but that they are plodding, talking in low voices if at all, eyes cast down.

If the PCs attack the second type of group, they deserve the guilt for slaughtering refugees. But if you start them off with the invading force hungry for blood, and then try to say "Well, they were refugees," expect the PCs to be unsympathetic.

knightnday wrote:

If you don't want paladins to use poison then you adjust it for your campaign, the same way someone might if they want paladins of different alignments.

No, how about if you WANT paladins to use poison adjust it for your campaign. I like the thought of a warrior with Judeo-Christian values that fights for a just cause. If you don't enjoy that idea than play something else. Do not play a paladin.

The Pathfinder Paladin is NOT a warrior with Judeo-Christian values. The Pathfinder Paladin is a Lawful Good warrior who follows a code written in the book and (in PFS or in 2e) follows one of the deities in their campaign setting.

For most of the people playing, that isn't a setting that includes an Abrhamic deity.

Seelah is a Paladin of Iomedae. She isn't a Christian warrior.

A very good example of a high charisma charachter absolutely not being the leader would be Elan, from Order of The Stick. Hes far more charismatic then Roy, by a mile. (Id estimate 3-5 points) but hes not the leader because despite being able to inspire people...he wouldnt know what to do with followers if he had them. Also he doesnt want the responsibility.

Or from pop culture, look at the bridge crew of the Enterprise-D from ST:TNG.

Picard is a charismatic guy, but is he more charismatic than Riker? Or than Troi? I don't think so, but he is unquestionably the leader.

A high charisma does not always make you a leader. It can, absolutely, but it doesn't have to. A high charisma just means you have a strong force of personality, which may or may not manifest in terms of being likable.

A few other things:

1) Start at Level 1. Yeah, this is the weakest part in an adventurer's career. Yeah, even a fight with a handful of goblins can be a problem. But it's also the easiest time to learn - both for you as the GM, and for your players.

2) The Beginner's Box has a really lovely introductory adventure. It's not too complicated, it's written to walk you through everything, it includes great examples of traps, encounters that require saving throws, skill checks, places where diplomacy can be the better choice than combat, and even ends with a dragon fight. I highly encourage you to start with that. But there are plenty of other great Level 1 modules that can get you going too. "Crypt of the Everflame" is a nice one off the top of my head.

3) Accept that you will make mistakes. Don't let the fear of making mistakes stop you from jumping in and trying. I don't know a single GM who has never made the wrong call - either in terms of rules or just a story decision. But if you keep going, you'll keep having fun. And as long as your players are reasonable, you can always mea culpa and say "Whoops, remember back in Session 1 when you fought that wraith and he got an attack of opportunity against the cleric trying to touch attack him with cure light wounds? I goofed. He shouldn't have gotten that because she counted as being armed. My bad. We won't do that in the future."

Usually mistakes average out in terms of being for or against the party, so as long as you're not afraid to admit your mistakes, your players will understand.

We just started Rise of the Runelords a year ago. We're almost done with book two. I figure I've got at least three years left of this campaign. We're not going to switch midway through - why would we?

I have friends who I've been playing a long-running GURPS Supers game with. That campaign, all told, is over twenty years old. We're still using GURPS 3e. And have no intention of switching.

Your books are still your books. You and your friends can still play whatever version of the game you want to play.

So, to be fair, the exact question was

Who remembers the story about the completely normal average guy with the team of superheroes who never got better or stronger or developed any powers that eventually allowed them to contribute equally? Yeah...no.

And there were several distinct examples of that provided. Whether you remember them or not isn't the question, there are lots of people who do.

But that's not the same thing as the question of "Can that everyman character compete in a TTRPG on equal footing with more capable heroes?"

And the short answer is that in Pathfinder, as written, no, they cannot. There are other RPGs that do provide those kinds of characters ways that they are extremely valuable to the table (the previously mentioned "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" RPG had several very cool mechanics that could only be used by the "White Hat" players, which gave a reason why you wanted some of them at the table and not just "Heroes,") but Pathfinder does not.

And so, yeah, if everyone else is trying to create mechanically competitive characters and one person brings the 11 Intelligence Wizard to the table, then as a GM, it is very reasonable to pull that person aside and ask what their plan is, and how they can make sure that they're contributing equally to the party.

Or if everyone is trying to make those sub-optimal characters to see how well they can do as a party, then you're fine.

But that wasn't the question I was responding to. I was only answering the question of "Who remembers the story of the Joe nobody who hangs out with heroes?" And I provided an answer, which is that lots of people do.

Maybe for a Disney expansion/campaign setting book.

They will soon own D&D, unless Richard Branson gets there first...

I've been running Disney-themed Mutants & Masterminds games at GenCon for four years now.

Doing it in Pathfinder wouldn't be much more difficult.

What if the paladin stabs themself to get rid of the venom, then uses the dagger as normal?

As a GM? I would find that incredibly flavorful and awesome.

So you're calling fighting a desperate battle without a weapon or falling "not a GOTCHA"?

If you set it up so that there is no other option? Sure, it's a Gotcha. That wasn't what I described. I described a scene where the flow of battle had gone such that the Paladin's weapon had been sundered (a not wholly untypical tactic in many printed modules/APs), the other allies had been downed and, at that moment, the closest available weapon was envenomed.

The Paladin has lots of options. Unarmed combat (with Smite Evil). Take the actions to go to another downed ally who is further away to get a different weapon. Or to pick up the envenomed weapons *knowing* the consequences.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

I already houserule the phylactery effect for my players that use classes with codes. The CHARACTER, in context, WOULD have a very deep understanding of their code and its limits, far in excess of the player. Just as I don't expect the player of a character to display the same Knowledge, Intelligence and Charisma as their character, merely to at least attempt to role play it, I don't expect a player to know their code backwards and forwards.

So, whenever a player is taking actions that skirt their vows, I specify that they feel squirrely about it. When they propose more direct violations, I tell them outright my interpretation of their code and ask what their reasoning is. If I don't agree, I say why and ask if they want to continue.

It should never be a gotcha. It should never be a trap. So yes, count me in on baking the phylactery effect into every class with anathema or a code. The character would know better than the player.

You know, this solves so many issues. Including some tips on communication, or explicitly stating, "there should be communication between players and GMs" into the base game might be helpful. Cleric code this, paladin code that. The young player's rogue who goes for the big shiny thing without saying, "I check for traps" and the GM doesn't tend to assume.

Communication solves so much.

You mean, GMs working with their players? GMs who make the assumption that the character knows the basics of their profession and not penalizing the player for having gaps in that knowledge?

That's crazy talk!

In all seriousness, so much this. And this is why I don't understand the "Paladin falls" threads. Because a Paladin falling shouldn't ever be a matter of the GM tricking the PC. A Paladin falling should be a matter of player choice. And if the player doesn't know the class well enough, that's when the GM should step in and gently remind them "Hey, you do realize that what you're about to do is against your code. You can still do it, of course, but it goes against what you've been training for your entire lifetime."

I love those kind of role-playing-based strictures and codes and seeing players forced to make decisions based around them. But I want to see GMs and PCs working together to make interesting stories about those decisions. Not tricking the PC. "Oh, you grabbed a weapon and you didn't know it was poisoned. You fall," but "Sir Galavrin, you find yourself in a desperate position. Your sword has been shattered by your foe. Your companions lay around you, fallen and perhaps dying. Within reach is the envenomed blade of your traveling companion, an assassin by trade. Picking it up and using it may be your best chance to strike down this Ogre who you have been tracking. But you know, deep in your heart, that using a weapon that has been poisoned is against everything Iomedae stands for. You have to make a choice. What do you do?"

That's not a trick. That's not a gotcha. That's the way the tide of the battle has turned, and has put the PC in a tough position. It's an interesting moment. But the GM have to make sure that the player understands the possible ramifications of the different choices.

Its kind of incredible really to think that if you went in pushing for the opposite of what you thought you would be more likely to sway people to your side

My friends and I have a phrase that I think applies. "People who I wish didn't agree with me." The times where you see someone who you know is so caustic in their arguments that you really wish they didn't take your side in a disagreement.

Not the first time it's been proposed, and while I'm all in favor of it (having grown used to it from Mutants & Masterminds, which ditched ability scores with their third edition), it's a bit of a sacred cow, and one that the folks from Paizo have already said that they aren't interested in killing.

I understand the desire for a Magus, but I firmly disagree with the idea that it should be in Core.

As has already been stated, a magic-using character that can fight with a sword exists already within Core. Rangers, Bards, Paladins - all of them are magic-capable characters who can battle with a sword (and depending on specifics, Clerics and Druids might be able to manage), and with what we currently know about weapon proficiencies and combat bonuses, it doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possiblity that a wizard can use a sword.

What makes the Magus more than "a wizard with a sword" is how their abilities fit into the action economy of PF1. We don't know enough about how that action economy in PF2 is really going to play out yet, and trying to fit the Magus as we currently are used to them in while still playtesting the basics of the system seems insane.

I want the Magus. I think they're awesome.

I also want a Magus that works well in this new system. I'd rather wait than get a Magus that doesn't play right.

The other possibility with the Bard would be that the Bard, like the Alchemist, will become a non-spellcasting class, perhaps with expanded Bardic performance abilities, and maybe with features that make using wands and scrolls possible without being able to cast the spells?

Kill the orc and take his pie will always be fundamental to *successful* RPGs. [meaning those which have a lasting significant chunk of marketshare]

The number of successful superhero RPGs makes that a patently false statement.

So, of course as with anything like this, YMMV. But here's my answer.

I, like many, cut my teeth on D&D. Specifically the old Red Box, from which I moved on to AD&D, and then to 3.0.

And like many, around the time I moved to AD&D, I found a multitude of other options. I found Champions. I found GURPS. I found Nightlife and V:tM. I found Call of Cthluhu. I found Star Wars. I found TSR's Marvel Heroes, I found Mutants & Masterminds. I found 7th Sea. I found d20 Modern. I found Deadlands and Shadowrun and FATE and FUDGE and Savage Worlds and the Unisystem.

I also discovered that while I loved role-playing games, I didn't particularly care for high-fantasy. I found myself preferring to battle supervillains or the Sith over fantasy games.

A little over a year ago, as I neared my 40th birthday, I decided I wanted an old-school dungeon crawl. But I didn't want to try to track down web-based resources for everyone, so that meant looking at one of the standards currently available, preferably one that had lots of resources available. And since I didn't want to relearn a lot, and didn't expect to be making a big investment, it was going to come down to 5e or Pathfinder.

Now, what made me choose Pathfinder? Well, a lot of it was that very complexity you mentioned. Because I generally found that complexity comes because it means you have options. I didn't want a Fighter, Mage, Thief, and Cleric as the required party. I wanted to open up different flavors for my players. Looking at 5e, it seemed too simple and too restrictive to suit what I was in the mood for. Since then, I've heard many good things about 5e, but at the moment, I can't imagine 5e scratching an itch that I don't currently get lots of relief from by playing Pathfinder.

And coming from systems like GURPS and Champions and Mutants & Masterminds, the "pick one from Column A, one from Column B" approach of Pathfinder was considerably simpler than the a la carte systems I spent most of my time playing.

The more I dug into Pathfinder, the more I found richness in the options. I never felt like there was too much - more options didn't mean that much more complexity because I only had to learn about the options that interested me (or my players).

But what really sold me on Pathfinder was the writing of the adventures and APs, and the setting of Golarion.

The fact that I know that when I go to Origins and GenCon there will be robust opportunities to play Pathfinder is only a bonus.

Kerrilyn wrote:

The hubby insists we watch that every Christmas since it's a "Christmas Movie"....somehow?

Because it is.

Can we just agree that arguing about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not is more contentious than any "Should this Paladin fall?" thread, and leave it at that?

For the record, despite being an advocate for it, and really loving it when I play M&M now? It bugged the ever-loving heck out of me when I first picked up M&M 3e.

Because I've been playing forever, and I like that 3-18 (ish) scale. Because it's what I'm used to. And even other systems like GURPS and HERO stuck with something on nearly that scale - because people were used to it.

That said, it didn't take me long to get used to it. And now in many ways I prefer it. When I jumped back into Pathfinder after a long absence from any FRPGs, it took me forever to get used to going back to the scale. And I still find it confusing that things like Rage and Enlarge Person give only half as much of a bonus as I feel like they "should."

Orthos wrote:

Kain Dragonhand wrote:

Do you play video games?

Would you be happy if we stayed with the Xbox original instead of the Xbox One?

Or the PS2 instead of the PS4?

The problem with this argument is that yes, I would have been happy to stick with the SNES forever. Mostly because that's what I play most of anyway. The move to 3d, in hindsight, put video games mostly on a route I've discovered I don't care for as much as those older classic systems and the games produced with (or perhaps by) their limitations.

/off topic

Yeah? Let's say Nintendo stuck with the SNES while their competitors kept advancing things.

What would happen to Nintendo? It would fold.

I love the SNES as much as the next, for it's time in my life it will probably be my most cherished console. That said, games today are far better in many cases. Sure there is a lot more junk out there, but there is also a lot of good.

And the beautiful thing is that even as Nintendo switched from the SNES to the N64 and the GameCube and the Wii and the Switch, our SNES still works. The cartridges for those consoles? They can still be put into the machine and used to play a game.

There's a thriving retro-gaming market where people sell vintage systems and emulators. If you want to play Super Contra or Super Mario World? You still can. Sure, there are no new games being made for the SNES, but that doesn't mean you can't still play the games you love.

It's going to be the same with PF1. All of the books and PDFs you've purchased? They're still yours. You and your gaming group can still play PF1, even as Paizo goes on after 2019.

And there's nothing wrong with saying "Hey, I'm not buying in to the new edition. I'm happy with the games I've got."

My SNES is still hooked up. Right there next to my XBox One.

Pathfinder will still be on my shelves, right next to my 3.5 books. Right next to M&M 1e. Right next to GURPS 3.0. Right next to my WEG Star Wars, which is next to my d20 Star Wars, which is next to my Fantasy Flight Star Wars. And they'll be right next to M&M 3e and, most likely, Pathfinder 2.0.

It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

I'm someone who still regularly plays GURPS 3rd Edition and old WoD.

For me the bigger question will be "Will you move to 2e?" And the short answer is that I don't see a lot of compelling reasons to. We own a bunch of 3e books and Hero Lab files. My home game is only partway through RotRL, and has expressed an interest once that wraps to play WotR.

I'll certainly try out 2e at conventions (I'm going to both Origins and GenCon this year), and if the local PFS switches over to 2e, then I'll look at that as a chance to get in "on the ground floor."

But even if 2e is the most amazing thing ever, I don't see a compelling reason to stop playing 1e as long as I own all the books and source material I do.

So, I'm actually one of those in favor of setting-specific stuff in Pathfinder.

I have plenty of game systems that are setting-agnostic. Heck, one of the games I play the most often has it's generic-ness right there in the name.

I play Pathfinder because I like Golarion. I play Pathfinder because I don't want to create a world - I want to have a setting to play around in.

I've never found it hard to strip the rules from the fluff. But I don't want to have to buy a whole different set of books to get the setting stuff.

Ok, so here are my thoughts. And I agree with Manny's ideas, so I'm keeping those:

Brad - Fighter
Janet - Cleric of Shelyn
Doctor Scott - Oracle (Lame Curse)
The Criminologist - Diviner Wizard (he's omniscient, and clearly able to watch what is happening and read the character's minds)
Riff Raff - Rogue
Magenta - Dervish Dancing Magus
Columbia - Bard
Eddie - Cavalier (his motorcycle is his steed)
Frank - Alchemist
Rocky - Barbarian

I dont think players care what DMs have to put into things.

That is very much a YMMV situation. Most of the people I play with are very appreciative.

Well, your vision of the Druid is a little bit narrow.

A Druid, in Pathfinder/D&D, is essentially a priest (or priest-in-training) to the gods of Nature. That doesn't mean he has to be dedicated to a specific patch of woods - it means an overall reverence for nature.

Now, why would any religious figure go out adventuring? Well, we need to look at Clerics in that same equation to come up with an answer. You'll notice that both the Cleric and the Druid have 3/4 BAB, a fairly lengthy set of weapon proficiencies, and armor familiarity. That suggests that these are not "stay at home and tend to their flock" clergy, but instead that they are holy warriors. (And yes, the Paladin is more focused on the Holy Warrior part, but Clerics and Druids are still quite battle capable.)

So, the adventuring Druid isn't the "stay at home and watch over his woods" type. The adventuring Druid is the "Go out and find threats to the natural world and eliminate them before they can actually disrupt nature."

Well, that sounds a lot like undead and fiends and other unnatural monstrosities. Exactly the sort of thing that adventurers seek out and try to eliminate. I mean, if I'm a holy person who wants to eliminate undead from Golarion, I'm going to feel a lot better doing it with a wizard and a fighter and a thief at my back than I would doing it alone. And sure, that maybe means along the way I help them out with eliminating a Goblin tribe that is menacing a village. But isn't that what friends do for each other?

ChaosTicket,

It sounds like your problem is that you don't like low-level Pathfinder.

That's fair. But you're absolutely right that PFS doesn't have a way to skip the early levels, other than GMing to earn credit.

But it's also true that the vast majority of PFS players don't want to see people skipping ahead and starting at levels 6, 7 or 8. Not without having given back to the shared campaign somehow.

So, the options are:

1) Learn to enjoy playing the low-level characters, and realize that they're not the heroes who can save the world - not yet. They're beginners, just starting out, who might be able to get there someday, but aren't there yet.

2) GM to earn credit so you can start at a higher level.

I'm pretty sure those divide into new players who want to feel the thrill of rolling, and who'll get tired of it once they know how the game works, and 2eD&D aficionados bragging a 20+ years long gaming experience who have however lost all kind of contact with modern gaming, nostalgic of the good ol' days when GMs used to play against players, were GODs in- and out-of-game, and characters used to die for no real reason ("rock falls, everyone dies") unless the GM was feeling generous.

Or people who fit somewhere in the middle, who play plenty of role-playing games that use a point-buy system, and who generally like that, but still fondly think back to the days where D&D used a roll-your-stats system, and like to use rolled stats when playing this particular game.

That's disappointing.

That said, looking over the actual "Air Spells" list, it looks like most Air Elemental spells are either Evocation or Transmutation with a small dash of summoning and divination - and very little outside the Evocation actually ever calls for a Saving Throw, so Evocation it is.

I may pick up Elemental Focus as a feat in the future.

Thanks everyone! I'll let you know how things go after Mira and I go and play.

Don't know about M&M as this isn't my genre, but obviously it was successful enough that it still exists (and without d20, it probably would never have).

M&M is considered by many to be among the best superhero RPGs that have been published. And no, it absolutely wouldn't exist without d20.

It's also gotten away from being super-close to the base d20 rules, but it is still more than close enough that I can usually take someone who is familiar with playing Pathfinder and get them playing M&M in about fifteen minutes. (Not making a character, but playing.)

PvP is player versus player. One player is trying to beat another player.

PvE is player versus environment. One player is trying to defeat challenges created by the environment.

The GM is not a "player." He create the world and the story. In other words, he creates the environment. The GM may create NPCs in that environment that play by the same rules that the PCs do - but he may create many others that don't. PCs don't follow the same rules that lots of monsters do. Monsters can have new abilities or feats or classes or whatever else the GM wants to put on them. PCs can't.

Because "ruling" the world is a lot of work.

I mean, seriously, what does it benefit a typical wizard to "rule" a kingdom or empire? Wealth? No wizard needs money after after a certain point. Power? They're already as powerful as it gets. Prestige? If a high-level Wizard wants that, they have it.

What does a "typical" high-level Wizard want? The ability to make additional magical discoveries. Being the ruler of a kingdom so gets in the way of that.

Very few people actually want to "rule." The effort to rule is immense - far beyond the effort it would take to simply "take over." The main thing that would-be conquerors want is for no one else to tell them what to do. And by the time you're casting 9th level spells, there aren't a lot of people outside your peer group who are going to tell you what to do.

"Rabithar the Black! This is the representative of King Muckety Muck! You have to pay your taxes."
"No."
"But you must!"
*polymorph others to turn the tax collector's horse into a toad*
"No."
"Uhm. Ok."

Or "You want money? Fine." (Hands over a bunch of cash taken from a dungeon.) "Now, will you go away?"

So, I think it mostly comes to the idea that Wizards don't rule because if you're the kind of person who only cares about temporal authority over others, you probably didn't become a Wizard in the first place.

Thank you so much for asking stupid newb questions. That helps those of us who are also new but are afraid to ask. :)

I can't wrap my head around this concept without it being seriously influenced by Steve Irwin.

I mean, I think this is a strange hill to die on.

Druid's can't wear metal armor or shields. That's the rule. It's been the rule for many moons.

You can houserule it. You can find other classes to play.

Starting an argument about it on the Paizo forums isn't going to convince them to change it in Pathfinder. And based on the popularity of the class, I don't think you'll find a lot of people who agree with you on the whole idea that it's unworkable.

But hey, have at.

Druids can't wear metal armor or use metal shields for the same reason that in the real world Orthodox Jews can't mix meat and milk in the same meal, or real world Catholics can't eat meat on Fridays during Lent, or real world Hindus don't eat the flesh of cows.

It's a religious restriction. It's not based on science. It's not based on "metal is less pure than leather." It's not based on anything other than "The Gods of Nature demand this. They grant me the spells and other powers that are a class feature of being a Druid. Therefore, I follow those demands or lose my class features."

And that's ok.

I mean, the simplest answer is a "The stars must be right" kind of thing.

The BBEG is able to get to the first seal any time she likes, according to your timeline. She breaks it, which allows the other two seals to now be targeted. The heroes get there too late to stop it, and all seems lost...

Until they realize that the seals can each only be opened during a certain window of time. The PCs don't need to immediately get to Seal #1 because it can only be disrupted when there is a blue moon in the month of Kislev. There is a blue moon scheduled for this Kislev - but that's three months from now, so there's time to prepare and plan.

(Adjust details as needed, obviously.)

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, but a game in which a player is being a disruptive dick should give the GM the prerogative to say "Rocks fall, your character is strangely the only one crushed to death".

I was intentionally not commenting on the disruptive behavior of the player, but instead talking about the use of "divine retribution" as a GM Ex Machina device for punishment for actions the GM simply disagrees with for whatever reason.

But that's not even close to what the OP was describing.

This isn't "the guy is annoying me, so I want to have the gods go after him."

This is "The character is a a fairly high-level former cleric of the deity, and is intentionally trying to anger that deity."

Divine retribution should absolutely be used sparingly, but to quote Young Frankenstein "A riot is an ugly thing, und I think it is just about time that we had one!"

In much the same way that it would normally be uncool to have a King and his entire forces be sent after one PC, if the PC was intentionally going around and besmirching the King's name, angering his local officials, beheading statues of the King, etc., that's a time when it's not punishing the player for "actions the GM simply disagrees with," it's a logical consequence of his actions.

A high level character trying to piss off a deity should expect the deity to take notice (otherwise, why try to anger them in the first place?), and for there to be a reaction.

I forewarned him about the results of his planned actions before he carried it out, but he went ahead with it anyway. “It’s what a chaotic evil character would do” he argued, while I explained its suicidal he went ahead with it anyway.

You warned him, complete with "this is a suicidal choice" and he did it anyway?

He deserves no mercy.

AaronUnicorn wrote:

Rhedyn wrote:

Expecting houserules or specific interpretations is being a disruptive player. Which is probably why they were playing a paladin in the first place...

And with that, you have made it perfectly clear that there's no point in discussing Paladins with you. Got it. Thanks.

You're missing his point. The fact he has to houserule or handwave the class is indicative of the fact that it isn't very functional as it stands for the purposes of making the game fun, and it's something he shouldn't have to do just to make a class functionally fun and appropriate for the table.

Yet another reason why I leave Paladins to be an NPC class.

Oh, no, I see his point. But more importantly I see his statement saying that the likely reason someone would choose to play a Paladin is because thy want to be disruptive. That's starting off from a place of hostility.

Expecting houserules or specific interpretations is being a disruptive player. Which is probably why they were playing a paladin in the first place...

And with that, you have made it perfectly clear that there's no point in discussing Paladins with you. Got it. Thanks.

In a rules light system sure. But this is Pathfinder. We don't have thousands of pages of rules so we can judge them individually and rewrite a game larger than the Bible.

No, but we do have Rule Zero. For a reason.

If there's a rule that is making something unfun? It shouldn't be used, and I will always argue that following RAI over RAW is vitally important for the enjoyment of the game.

Which, hey, I realize that doesn't work for everyone. That's fine. I won't play with those people. It's a big hobby, and there's room for lots of different playstyles.

But I will also still walk away thinking to myself "That's a lousy GM."

Bad vs Good GMing does not come from a GMs ability to write rules a good way. If the code is ambiguous and expects the GM to fill in the specifics and fall for any violation, your experience with the code and falling mechanics is reflecting of your GM's developer abilities not what they can do as a GM.

Uhm, yeah, it kind of does.

I expect my GM to be the kind of person who is striving to make the game enjoyable for everyone. I don't expect my GM to be a robot who just looks at a rulebook and says "Well, that's what the rules say, so that's what's happening.

I can play a computer game for that.

A GM's ability to analyze rules and decide which ones to use and which ones to throw out and when to do so is absolutely a part of what makes them a good GM or not.

You're also missing part of the "Retry" part of the skill description.

Try Again: Any conditions that apply to successive attempts to use the skill successfully. If the skill doesn’t allow you to attempt the same task more than once, or if failure carries an inherent penalty (such as with the Climb skill), you can’t take 20. If this paragraph is omitted, the skill can be retried without any inherent penalty other than the additional time required.

The important part of that is "successive attempts." If you fail a Knowledge check, you don't get to try again immediately. Just like if I can't remember the name of the actor who played Wesley in The Princess Bride, I probably won't be able to remember it five seconds from now just because I tried again.

It might come to me later. At a time period I can't predict. And as a GM, I frequently will let a player retry Knowledge checks after some amount of time has passed, or if something new is learned about the thing.

*party sees emblem of a demon goddess* "Hey, Druid player, you can make a Knowledge: Religion check to see if you recognize the symbol."

*she rolls a total of 14, high enough to match "recognize a common religion's symbols" but not high enough to match the DC 20 for "recognize an obscure deity's symbols"*

"Nope, you don't recognize it, but you're pretty sure it isn't one of the common religions in this area."

*time passes, they find the same symbol again, but this time carved into someone's body - a not terribly uncommon practice for demonic cults* "Hey, Druid player, that jogs your memory a bit. Why don't you try another Knowledge check?"

*she rolls a total of 23* "Seeing the symbol in this rather more disturbing context, you remember that it's actually the sign of *demon goddess*."

So, not successive checks. But that doesn't mean you can't ever retry it. Just not immediately.

Thematically? I'd allow it.

But RAW don't have anything about a Witch's Cackle being sound-based, or even require that the Witch be able to open their mouth. A pure RAW take on it would say that a Witch can Cackle even while gagged and under the effect of Silence. Or could cackle while trying to use Stealth.

Now, I kind of hate that interpretation, and at my table, if a Witch took Cackle as one of their Minor Hexes, then they darn well need to be able to cackle. I might allow the Cackle to be more like an under the breath wicked chuckle if the Witch really needs to be stealthy about it, but it's definitely sound-based in my mind.

AaronUnicorn wrote:

Val'bryn2 wrote:

Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.

Right. And a Beholder without magic is pretty unfrightening.

A dragon without magic is still an enormous lizard with claws, teeth, a tail, and the ability to fly.

"Go ahead. Stop us from using magic."

"What happens when we turn the magic off?

Fascinating. It appears that you cease to be a terrifying beholder and become a fragile multi-eyed sack of fluids. While I?

I am still a dragon."

That comic was exactly what I had in mind, yes.

Important to remember, if the Beholder uses its antimagic eye on the dragon, it doesn't get its eyerays either.

Right. And a Beholder without magic is pretty unfrightening.

A dragon without magic is still an enormous lizard with claws, teeth, a tail, and the ability to fly.

"Go ahead. Stop us from using magic."

I think part of what is missing in this discussion is the question:

Why do you play a Paladin?

If it's because you want the mechanical class features, then I'm actually totally fine with a different class that has those features. All of them. Go with it.

But that's not the reason I would play a Paladin. I play Paladins and characters like that in other games specifically because the moral code and rules they live by is what I'm looking for.

The idea of the Paladin is what I'm looking for. Paladins have undergone a lot of different mechanical changes from one edition to another, from D&D to Pathfinder. But while the mechanics have changed, the idea that creates the character haven't - not significantly.