Ancale's page

I feel like paizo is trying to come up with rules that micromanage the game so that bad dm's can't fail. Never going to work and the good GM's aren't going to play that game.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

Being able to overcome problems that were formerly difficult for you is a natural part of character growth in Pathfinder, and spellcasters overcome their problems with magic. Taking this away essentially pulls a substantial part of the character growth of spellcasters. You could well create a game system where such powers don't exist, or are incredibly rare, but that wouldn't be Pathfinder. High-level characters with the right tools for the job should be able to trivialize problems; it's okay to be a world-changing power at these levels, and to a degree it's actually a problem if you aren't.

It wouldn't be Pathfinder 1, that's for sure...

But my preference is for a game where interesting problems are not trivialized as soon as you hit level 9, to the extent that stories have to be rewritten to accommodate it:

Week 1:
GM: "You must fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 2:
GM: "You have been hired to carry a valuable cargo across the perilous Sea of Scimitars..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 3:
GM: "You must rescue the priestess from the city prison..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 4:
GM: "It's a race against time! Can you bring the priestess to the temple in time to prevent the ritual? The Bladehawks will be trying to thwart you at every step!"
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 5:
GM: "You must cross the Plains of Desolation and cast the evil artefact into the Bottomless Pit."
Wizard: "Teleport."

Week 6+:
GM: "There is a dungeon full of monsters. You must kill them all."
Wizard: "Finally, a challenge worthy of my skills!"

I mean, it's hardly as useful as you claim, if you as a GM tailor your world around the knowledge that teleportation magic exists (a more than reasonable thing to do), and keep in mind that short-circuiting a journey could lead to other potential issues. Here are example responses for your Week 1-5 entries:

Week 1:
GM: "Because they realized you...

Why does everyone forget Gm's have a job as well your examples are what lousy GM with no imagination does.

Week 1:
GM: "You must fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar..."
Wizard: "Teleport

or. You wake up with no access to your magic. You don't know why but you realize you and your party have to fight your way out of the slave-pits of Khazar without any magic....

Week 2:
GM: "You have been hired to carry a valuable cargo across the perilous Sea of Scimitars..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

or....
as you cast your telport you feel a strange tugging sensation and realize someone is interfering with it. As your vision clears you've arrived but the cargo is missing......

Week 3:
GM: "You must rescue the priestess from the city prison..."
Wizard: "Teleport."

or.
as you teleport into the priestess's prison you see the priestess on the floor unconscious. you smell a faint mildly annoying smell. Make a 45 fortitude check vs a poison called the lily of the abyss. (if you've got level 9 spells they've got mythic poison)

Week 4:
GM: "It's a race against time! Can you bring the priestess to the temple in time to prevent the ritual? The Bladehawks will be trying to thwart you at every step!"
Wizard: "Teleport."

As you foolishly teleport into the stronghold of the bladehawks thier leader points his finger at your priestess and she vanishes as the disintegrate spell erases from existance. With horror you see yourselves in the crystal ball on the alter. he's been watching you the entire time.

Week 5:
GM: "You must cross the Plains of Desolation and cast the evil artefact into the Bottomless Pit."
Wizard: "Teleport."

You cast the artifact into the bottomless pit with relief. The job is finally done. Then......you hear a loud almost hysterical laughter. you turn to see orcus rising from the depths holding the artifact in his hand. You have brought the prophecy to pass. You realize the priest was right. The artifact should have stayed locked in the temple vault.

Week 6+:
GM: "There is a dungeon full of monsters. You must kill them all."
Wizard: "Finally, a challenge worthy of my skills!"

The dungeon is large and it will take many days and is the demiplane of the mad mage. The magics of the demiplane only allow you to enter at the entrance and exit at the exit. Till you win through you'll be trapped unable to contact anyone, or leave the plane. good luck adventurers.

repost from another thread. relating to healing wands and costs. Note Potions cost even more. 50 cure light potions are 2500gp and it's 50 items to carry.

I've been trying to wrap my head around why resonance is needed.

Cost for wand of clw 2225. By my calculations a 6th level party of 5 that loses half their hit points per 6th level encounter will blow through a CLW every 3 encounters. Those three encounters should net around 6000 gp of treasure. so the wand will use more than 1/3rd of the treasure you obtain. that doesn't include scroll or other items that will be used. At 10th level a wand is going to be used up in one encounter that should net 5800 gp. so it actually costs more to use the wand at higher levels vs amount you should be netting.

a Wand of Cure moderate wounds is 6750gp Does 4 times the healing so it should make it through 4 level 10 encounters that would net 22400 gp.
4 1st level wands needed to do the same would cost 8900 to healthrough that many level 10 encounters.

A Wand of Cure Serious wounds is 11250 would heal through 6 encounters for a cost of 11,250 vs 6 CLW at 13350.

This doesn't even address the fact that the CLW is nearly useless during combat at level 10.

now the argument that no one is going to use a staff with only 10 charges that cost 30k holds some water. But being rechargeable by the caster, one could make the argument that it is more cost effective in the long run.

I've been trying to wrap my head around why resonance is needed.

Cost for wand of clw 2225. By my calculations a 6th level party of 5 that loses half their hit points per 6th level encounter will blow through a CLW every 3 encounters. Those three encounters should net around 6000 gp of treasure. so the wand will use more than 1/3rd of the treasure you obtain. that doesn't include scroll or other items that will be used. At 10th level a wand is going to be used up in one encounter that should net 5800 gp. so it actually costs more to use the wand at higher levels vs amount you should be netting.

a Wand of Cure moderate wounds is 6750gp Does 4 times the healing so it should make it through 4 level 10 encounters that would net 22400 gp.
4 1st level wands needed to do the same would cost 8900 to healthrough that many level 10 encounters.

A Wand of Cure Serious wounds is 11250 would heal through 6 encounters for a cost of 11,250 vs 6 CLW at 13350.

This doesn't even address the fact that the CLW is nearly useless during combat at level 10.

now the argument that no one is going to use a staff with only 10 charges that cost 30k holds some water. But being rechargeable by the caster, one could make the argument that it is more cost effective in the long run.

If the Christmas tree effect is that bad remove stat bonuses from magic items.

Or better yet fix your magic item creation rules that have always been half done and make them appropriately expensive. Then you could fix how cheap low level magic items are.

As far as the healing problem, not a problem. If characters have that much stuff, npc have that much stuff. As a Game Master the balancing factor for all of my games is if the players can do it the NPC can do it.

Since 1st edition people have complained about imbalances between classes, magic items etc. For example if a Game Master doesn't let the fighter get good magic items at high level a mage wins every time. If that's happening too much it's not a game flaw it's simply bad GM'ing. The Game Master has always been the person who was supposed to balance it all out.

As a GM Resonance feels like a system to micromanage the Game Masters.

As a player it feels like an attempt to prevent you from using the stuff you find.

This seems to be an attempt to force everyone to play low magic nitty gritty games. What if we don't want too?