Arturick's page

i personally play near exclusively small framed females of any partially human, partially fey, or other cute race i can lolitafy.

Take this, add furries, and you've got my reasons for steering away from the "weird race" people.

I think Lovecraft's work is enduring because it stands apart from so much "Pulp Era" fiction where Conan-types cleave all the evil apart with their mighty thews and carry off scantily clad slave girls for debatably consensual sex.

Lovecraft's protagonists were generally flawed intellectuals. They were sometimes brave, but not combat monsters. They faced enemies that could extinguish all of reality, and only "defeated" them through luck, accident, or quick thinking. Rather than destroying monsters and collecting their booty, they often found themselves mad, locked away with the knowledge that they had bought humanity a few precious moments to find it's place in the universe or, more likely, just enjoy some more time before annihilation.

As for it's place in a D&D-style RPG, it is fun to invert the tropes by having the party actually fight a Shoggoth and win. Alternately, it can be played straight to make the usually invincible heros re-evaluate their place in the universe.

They also make for a good "bad guy" when one is needed. In my own campaigns, most of the "evil" people and gods view themselves as acting out of necessity. It is, or should be, hard to slaughter fellow sentients who also think they are trying to make the world a better place. The Elder Things of the Mythos are simply BAD, and fall under the "it's always okay to kill Nazis" category.

One of the things I started doing in D&D/Pathfinder after playing World of Warcraft was "pulling." With a party like yours, I would have the ranger initiating combat by stealthing up to the enemies, shooting them with an arrow, then leading them back to the summoner and cleric. Always leave a path behind you to fall back as you move out of crowd control effects like Darkness. If the enemy falls back, wait out their buffs and CCs, then make another probing attack. If the enemy starts calling reinforcements, fall back to the tightest chokepoint you can find or just run.

Stock up on things like nets, caltrops, and Tanglefoot bags to debuff the enemy when you're low on spells. Alchemist Fire, Acid, and Holy Water can be good for high AC foes.

Overall, I'd say your DM mis-statted the skeletons and probably played the bad guys a little too smart. It also sounds like the encounter would have been more appropriate for a freshly rested party.

Sounds like this argument boils down to:

Position #1 - HiPS is a supernatural ability that lets you do cool stuff because that's fun.

Position #2 - If you want to do anything cool, you need to roll a caster. Back in your realism hole, mundane one!

Sunrod combat requires two feats and a lot of Ecstasy.

An incantation is cool for a spell cast once, or at least rarely, but wouldn't it start to turn into the Team Rocket speech after the third time?

No no no hell no kill it with fire!

I'd hope you can remember at least one item that was found in a unique location fondly.

Nope, I cannot. It's honestly an alien concept to me. Really, I'm not trying to say you're having badwrongfun if you seriously like searching rooms. I'm just saying it's so far removed from my idea of having fun that I think the OP, and anyone else wishing their players would search harder, should be aware that their group (or a sizeable part of it) might just have NO interest in the concept.

"Ooomph... Ugh... Where is it?" -Duke Nukem

Checking the room for me equals looking for hidden objects, doors, people, and so on, but not traps, unless the trap is built into the floor, ceiling, or wall.

If an particular item is trapped, or a door is trapped then it has to be checked separately. That is just how I do it, and I am not saying it is a rule.

That's where the disconnect between "searching the room" and "searching for traps" becomes so bizarre. Anything that involves a box/container is prime trap-bait. So, drawers, chests, and hatches get checked for traps. But, saying HOW you check them runs contrary to "narrate your search of the room, but not counting trap-checking" and having a skill that allows you to safely search for traps. Once you've abstracted the search for traps, how do you codify what aspects of your interaction with the object are still necessary?

The "describe how you're searching the room" philosophy immediately makes me think the GM is going for a "so... you put your hand inside it?" type traps. So, now do we add a metagame Perception roll before every facet of the search mantra? When, allegedly, the point is to encourage less die rolling?

I like human-centric campaigns with relatable characters for a lot of roleplaying. My experience with more "alien" character players has generally leaned towards them being "look at me" players instead of "interact with me."

"Why don't you roleplay with my Awakened Fossil-Creature Megaraptor Emancipated Spawn?"

"Because I have no idea what we would talk about? Hey, how about that Cretaceous Era?"

Now, that doesn't mean everyone who wants to play something a little weird is like that! I'm just a little leary.

Also, I like combat, and my group starts to get real twitchy if we haven't had a knock-down-drag-out fight in a while.

Did you seriously just label 'people hiding things' as a meme?

As I understand it, adventure locations are supposed to be analogues to 'real places'. As in if that tribe of goblins actually lived here, what would they do? And if you don't expect that the goblin chief would hide his most prized possessions away from his CHAOTIC EVIL cohorts, then I suggest you maybe haven't thought this through.

Ah yes... Dramatically mis-characterizing someone's argument always makes you look like a genius, right?

No, "hiding things" isn't a meme. Shaggy and Scooby leaning on the mantle and making the fireplace spin around is a meme. Smashing every barrel, crate, and clay pot in the room because there might be a gold coin in them is a meme. The secret document being in the flower pot/lamp/hollowed out pumpkin is a meme.

If, as has been said, your party will look at you like you're a creative genius if you make them play "Outburst: Search the Room Edition" until someone shouts "empty the dirt out of the flower pot," then do it. Having fun = doing it right.

Now, if your party is just reciting their search the room mantra over and over ("Lift the rugs, cut open the mattress, dump out the flower pot, knock all the books out of the bookshelf, press every individual brick in the walls/floor/ceiling, and smash every desk/bureau/chest/barrel while setting anything not covered by the above on fire."), then are they having fun, or are you just burning the clock so your adventure runs four hours?

I just don't really envision a group of players gathered before the game, discussing the things they look forward to, and having one say, "Man, I'm gonna search the hell out of some rooms tonight!"

This may be relevant (along with the following strips.

Basically, if you insist that players search everything, they will search everything. That's not fun for anyone.

This wins the internet. I'm not going to go link-diving right now, but "Another Gaming Comic" also had a segment where it was discovered that the party had worked out a full "check for traps and secret doors" routine that would logically find anything.

What if the players solve the riddle themselves, then roll miserably?

GM: When is a door not a door.
Player: When it's ajar.
Player rolls a 1.
GM: You answer "Um, a pickle?" The guardian who loves riddles is not impressed, and does not let you enter the gate to the Isle of McGuffin. The world is now doomed.

I think you missed the point of the argument that you are arguing against, because this thread is really splintering into a discussion of the validity of various assumptions.

In your example, if the GM has an actual riddle to solve, then solve it. If you're going to roll dice based on character stats, then don't bother engaging the players to think about the riddle itself because it isn't supposed to be about player knowledge, but character knowledge.

A good way of setting up a puzzle trap in a way that focuses on game mechanics would be something like this:

GM: There is a deviously built puzzle lock on the door in front of you.

Rogue: I examine it. (Rolls search) 29.

GM: The lock mechanism is really complex, and it looks like an improper combination or tampering will set off a trap in the nearby walls. (The GM has decided that a Disable Device of 32 would actually disassemble the lock, while a 25 would disable the trap and let them mess with the lock manually.)

Rogue: Can I get an idea of what the trap is like?

GM: We'll go with your Search roll for a general search of the area, since it's all part of the trap. You notice scuffs on the floor as if great stone blocks had been dragged from the walls to the center of the room and back. You also notice that the walls don't match up quite right to the ceiling.

Rogue: Hrm... Smashy walls. How does the puzzle work?

GM: You have to match up tiles inscribed with an ancient language. Such puzzles would normally involve specific language conventions or common sayings of the ancient empire. A Decipher Script roll would let you understand the mechanism.

Wizard: I'll give it a Decipher Script, then. Can I get a bonus for having five ranks of Knowledge (History) pertaining to this area, since it involves "common jokes and language conventions."

GM: Sure, give it a +2 Synergy bonus. (The GM has decided that a 20 will give the answer, but the character will be unsure. A 25 will grant the answer with more confidence, and a 30 will grant the answer with absolute confidence.)

Wizard: (Rolls) 28.

GM: You have to dig through some obscure history lessons, but you're fairly positive that lining up the tiles to say "All your base are now belong to us" will open the door.

Wizard: Do it.

GM: With a click, the door slides open. Beyond is a hallway festooned with murals depicting cats in unlikely poses.

Dwarf Fighter: Just to make sure we don't have to deal with this on the way out, I'm taking a pickaxe to the smashy walls.

GM: Since you're attacking an inanimate object, you're eventually going to destroy the panels, but give me a strength roll to see how you're going to progress.

Dwarf Fighter: (Rolls) 9.

GM: You can do it, but you're feeling pretty tired and you're not working at top speed. It's also going to be noisy and will potentially attract attention.

Dwarf Fighter: We're in a tight corridor. If the monsters want to come funnel into a choke point, I say we let them. "Arr, lads, it'll be just like the siege of Blagglerock when I held off the kobolds for three days, standing in a tiny hole choked with the dead!"

I think the crux of the "Don't Heal in Combat" argument is that healing should not be your first instinct. Your first instinct should be to remove actions from the enemy through killing/crowd controlling them.

If a second level fighter is face to face with an orc, the orc can potentially drop the fighter with a crit. So, it's much better to cast Command and make the orc drop the axe than cast a potentially useless Cure Light Wounds.

Channeling to heal multiple allies is a better strategy in more cases than a single target heal, but isn't ALWAYS the best thing to do with your action. Feats that add buffs to your channels will, of course, increase the strategic value of channeling.

Kmal's argument seems to break down into "I don't punish my players. Players who don't enjoy pain are wusses. Dump stats don't bother me,they just drive me into fits of revenge fantasy plotting."

I freaked out on a DM who insisted that attacking enemies in a Web should make your weapon get stuck.

DMs who freak out about search/perception checks irritate the crap out of me. Your secret drawer, hidden message under the flower pot, and slightly-less-dusty book that opens the rotating wall are NOT creative or interesting. They are seriously tired memes and we should just get them out of the way.

I second the suggestion to look up pixel-jamming.

How quickly are you getting to Level 20+ that this starting over is a common occurrence? If you don't want to deal with being a noob then don't start at 1st level?

Let's see... who introduced this concept...

This is another issue for me as well...

players using their experience and knowledge from having played 8 characters who've advanced to 20th level...with their 1st level noob ass character.

Besides that point it depends on how common a knowledge is. If you play a modern game and there's a vampire you can assume that people have at least heard lore that beheading, the sun, fire, and a stake kills them. Its up to them now to figure out which is true.

And if you want to challenge the party and actually make the game interesting for guys who've hit level 20 multiple times, you set them up to fight Count Dracula and they instead find themselves fighting a (not lame) Edward Cullen.

If your players are successfully metagaming their way through your campaign, then you've let your campaigns become formulaic. If your players just want to already know what a vampire does and how to beat it so they can get it over with, they are probably trying to tell you that they are bored with the bog-standard D&D monsters.

I've been playing D&D for 20+ years. I don't want to ever waste my breath saying, "Ho! What strange, green men are these?" unless you've hauled out a little green man who is going to do something phenomenally different than a goblin.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Our party was in a dungeon, and ran across a puzzle gateway blocking our advance. A riddle was inscribed on the doorway.

After some discussion and thought, I happened on the answer, and proceeded to guide the party through the hazard in-character.

In this case, my dwarf had a 14 Int. Had he had a 7 Int instead, I would have explained the answer to my fellow players and one of their characters would have led the party through.

I take it there were no complaints with this? Or did it just get missed?

This is a great example of why I hate challenge-the-player puzzle traps. If it's important that the character who is good at puzzles/traps solves the puzzles/traps, then you have these things called "dice" and skills like "Decipher Script" and "Disable Device."

If it's not important that the character who is smart solves the puzzles, then it's not important. If necessary, have the character who solves the puzzle point at the brainiest member of the party and say, "You said the solution three minutes ago, but then talked yourself out of it. I figured I'd take a bet that the person who made the trap wasn't as smart as you."

Apparently listening to tales by a bard makes you an expert in tactics. If you grew up learning about war or grew up in a war area then MAYBE you should have taken a rank in knowledge: military/tactics/whatever instead of trying to get free stuff through a backstory.

So, if I'm playing a d20 Modern character from Alaska who enjoys going outside, but also NEEDS to spend time indoors watching TV to avoid death, I've got to sink points into Knowledge: Nature if I want to know what a polar bear is and points into Knowledge: Monsterology to know that silver hurts werewolves? This is despite the fact that I'm from Polar Bear country and silver/werewolves is a culturally saturated meme?

I'm not saying that every farmer should be able to rattle off every eye beam of a Beholder. You just seem to be going off the deep end in the other direction that Dwarf Fighters should be cripplingly unaware of their own environments.

@kmal2t: No, you gave a dumb, hyperbolic example. I suggested the possibility that the exploits of the world's greatest heroes might have entered the common conciousness, and events related their exploits might then be considered basic knowledge a person of their world would have.

"My kingdom has been at war with the goblins for centuries."

"Give me a Knowledge: Monsterology check to know what a goblin is."

"What?"

Obviously, this does not apply to characters from different campaign settings.

This is another issue for me as well...

players using their experience and knowledge from having played 8 characters who've advanced to 20th level...with their 1st level noob ass character.

But my character grew up hearing the bards sing songs and tell tales about the mighty heroes who saved the land from the Eight Great Darknesses...

I've seen threads where DM's (mostly) are talking about how to enforce the proper roleplay of certain character stats. My gut reaction to this concept is, "Who the *blank* are you to say, with certainty, how Mental-Stat-X will behave?"

Intelligence comes up often with puzzles. Okay, for starters, if you came up with the puzzle and you don't think INT X should be able to solve it, then you've declared yourself to be above INT X. You also have asserted your knowledge of the exact limitations an INT X person would have, which seems fairly impossible since the INT scale in an RPG is totally arbitrary.

Wisdom usually seems to be ignored, and I've noticed that people will play low-INT/decent-WIS characters as fools. This is probably because WIS lowers your Will saves, and nobody wants to spend the whole campaign Held or Dominated. But a low INT character with a decent WIS should not be a reckless fool. They should be hesitant, because they don't know a lot of things, and thus have a hard time anticipating the exact nature of dangers they know to be present.

It also seems that DM's are less likely to declare themselves as being terribly wise, and hence able to declare how various levels of wisdom would act, while many DM's are quick to declare what a genius they are. "Well, we role-players are, as you surely know, significantly smarter than most people."

Charisma is the ultimate hot mess. I have met a LOT of gamers who have played low CHA characters and I wanted to assure them that they did not have to do anything differently. "I tell the bartender to go shove a stool up his bum." "Why?" "Because I have a CHA of 9." "Dude, you're a smelly guy who has never had a girlfriend. You are clearly well below 'average' Charisma in real life, but you don't actively pick fights with everyone."

The problem with a lot of these stats, I think, comes from how we perceive ourselves. The minute you start telling other people how to roleplay their mental stats, you've unwittingly revealed your own desire to view yourself as the ultimate authority on knowledge, wisdom, and charm. Sure, there are people smarter than you, but you are among the intelligentsia who can appreciate their work (and they're kinda freaks when you get down to it). You are the arbiter of "common sense," which makes it kinda depressing when your friends don't get the "obvious" solution to your trap room. And, it is vitally important that you be allowed to roleplay your interactions with NPC's, because you are just that awesome at acting and comedy.

Honestly, though, I forgive you all your hubris because I'm probably just as enchanted with my own reflection.

Just don't tell me how to play my character.

One of the things that always pops up in the eternal battle between HARDCORE GAMISTS and Fluffy Bunny Narrativists is the Gamist assertion that "Good players know when to run away!"

It seems to me that, in 3.5/Pathfinder, retreat is a fairly crap option. I really don't see a lot of situations where the party can actually say, "Oh, this isn't going well. Time to dash."

As a caveat, I will say that I played a Cleric who got his behind royally kicked by a Colossal Scorpion. Clearly a round away from death and being crushed in it's massive claw, I made a nearly impossible Concentration check and cast Plane Shift to a plane saturated with Positive Energy so I could heal. However, I wouldn't say this is a typical situation, and it's limited to spellcasters. This also wasn't a full party retreat. We killed the monster.

However, let's look at the sort of situations a party might try to run from.

At low levels, you don't have the hit point pool needed to say, "Oh, this fight isn't going well." You just start dropping.

Non-magical characters who wear armor (or are short) will find themselves unable to outpace nearly every enemy.

A party unprepared for incorporeals might want to run away, but how do you run from something that flies faster you than you run and can go through walls?

Many enemies, in addition to being faster than the party, never get tired.

It seems like the option to retreat gets presented in a mechanically agnostic fashion, like the "(F)ight, (T)alk, (R)etreat" of old AD&D Gold Box computer games.

Has retreat come up in your games? How was it handled? Did it work? Rules-wise, should it have worked?

I think people panic unnecessarily over social powerhouse characters. Bluff is good situationally, but it's not something you build long relationships with because your lies will be revealed over time.

Intimidate makes people fear you. That's also fairly situational, because people who live in constant fear of you are going to try to destroy you. Also, people hearing of your reputation are going to come looking to bring you down.

Diplomacy is seriously mishandled by DM's who panic in the face of big numbers. It makes people like you, but doesn't guarantee a particular outcome. Diplomancing a guard at an evil wizard's fortress might not get the guard to let you through a door, because he's going to lose his livelihood or his life if he helps you that directly. He might suggest a way you could get in on somebody else's shift on his day off in a way that isn't connected to him.

Are you Diplomancing evil people? Evil people will betray their friends if self-interest gets in the way. Are you Diplomancing a powerful ruler? Perhaps he makes you all sorts of promises and refers you to the Finance Minister to make good on them. The Finance Minister abruptly cuts you off when you start talking and coldly informs you that you'll need to fill out this pile of forms.

Now, this may sound like I'm a jerk DM who shuts down his players for trying to use abilities they have invested points in, but I'm really not. Your social powerhouse character should be able to amass a wealth of potentially useful contacts and even find himself in some position of leadership if he wants. At the same time, he isn't going to get the world on a platter because people aren't just going to give him the shirt off their back on a rainy day. Everything he has is going to envied by someone. And, if he creates some massive coalition of good guys, then the darkness is going to mark him as target #1.

Can I ask you guys to explain what you mean here? I don't see what you're referring to.

Any time the DM starts telling you, the player, what your character wants or is going to do (outside the realm of blatant magical compulsion), alarm bells start to go off. It seems like some clarification is needed to establish what sort of situation you are in:

A. Your character has legitimately changed alignment and has a new world view. If this is the case, you have to decide if you want to play the new alignment. If you don't, then ask the GM if you can resume your old alignment. If he says no, then you hand him the sheet because clearly it is now his character, not yours.

B. Your character is possessed. If you want to be free from the evil, you need to look into an exorcism.

C. Your hand is possessed. See above, but consider cutting your hand off.

If your character is possessed, then GM should be more explicit in saying things like, "You start to say that you don't want any women, but something inside you feels compelled to say that you do. Make a Will save."

If the GM is just telling you how to play your character, then he's possibly a jerk.

Step 1: Create an Everburning Torch.

Step 2: Craft a hollow steel club.

Step 3: Put the torch inside the hollow club, and fashion a cap.

You now have a maglite.

Arturick wrote:

Once you start having Specter strike teams that take full advantage of terrain and other tactical opportunities, you create a world that should have already been converted into Spectres.

Except that you're talking about Spectres that are really going against type. (and maybe watching a bit too much Zombie apocalypse media lately) Spectres tend to be bound to the spot where they died in life. So pretty much they're only going to be taking down foolish adventurers who keep breaking into crypts. They're not going to breaking out and going on cross country feeding frenzies. (they're also powerless in Sunlight)

I think you're going against type by having tactical Spectre SWAT teams even if they are bound to a specific location.

Also, their sunlight vulnerability isn't much of a weakness since they can move through the ground and strike indoors/at night. Although it does have me thinking about using big mirrors to light crypts (like in "The Mummy").

"That was your plan, Ray? Get her!?" -Ghostbusters

I think that GMs and module writers have to keep something in mind when using creatures like Wraiths and Spectres. Specifically, why hasn't the world ended in a Wraithocalypse?

As a DM, I've used Shadows, Wraiths, and Spectres pretty sparingly. When I do use them, I try to keep in mind that these are creatures bound to life by rage, greed, and insanity. Once you start having Specter strike teams that take full advantage of terrain and other tactical opportunities, you create a world that should have already been converted into Spectres.

The last dungeon I ran with Spectres had them hanging around in the places they frequented in life, distractedly pantomiming their way through mockeries of their daily activities. Occasionally, they would look at themselves in a mirror, or stare at their translucent hands, and begin screaming and crying. Like the librarian from Ghostbusters, they usually didn't attack until the PCs made a big show of their presence. Even then, the Spectres often tried to strike up conversations, starting out civil, but steadily descending into rage and madness before striking.

Basically, the party had time and inclination to magic up or GTFO.

Wanting the game to make sense is an unreasonably high bar?

I think the burden is on you to establish what doesn't make "sense." If I'm playing a Wizard, and take a level of Monk... So what? As far as I'm concerned, my character levelled up and I took a legal option. My choice already makes sense to me.

From a character perspective, I don't know why any particular choice would not "make sense" in respect to multi-classing, because Class is a metagame concept. A Barb1/Ftr1/Rngr2/Rog5 does not have a sign hanging around his neck declaring his class memberships. He's an angry, sneaky guy who's pretty good in a fight. My mind is not blown.

You are free to declare that certain amounts of fluff are "law" in your campaign world. You can declare that a level of Monk requires monastic training, a level in Druid requires X% of your body to have been exposed to poison oak, and taking a level of Rogue requires you to serve 2 years as the new "Robin." Now, just because all of those things "make sense" to you doesn't mean they will make sense to everyone.

Maybe your Wizard who wants to take a level in Monk isn't able to articulate a vaguely formed idea in his mind about how his Wizard has been completing a magic ritual to enhance his reflexes and senses at the cost of studying/researching a new degree of magical power. Do you, as a GM, state that he can't do it because he didn't go to a monastery? Do you work with him to fit his decision into your "verisimilitude"? Do you have some knee-jerk "ERMAHGEHRDPOWERGAMER" reaction and throw him out of your group?

I played a Wizard in a campaign where a gold rush was going on. The DM used this to hose me over with rampant inflation. Anyway, winter was settling in and the gold miners were reluctantly giving up panning for gold as the river froze over. I bought a donkey.

Cast Endure Elements on self and donkey.

Go along river casting Locate Object (Gold Nugget).

Use Flaming Sphere to melt through the ice and boil away the water.

Profit.

If you're going to say that magic weapons should be more common than casters (or spells), either you need to reduce the prevalence of casters or you need to increase the prevalence of magic items, leading to the aforementioned magic weapon at level 2.

I'm not really demanding that the world submit to a headcount and +1 swords be tallied against arcanists. I'm just saying that I would find it less weird to see 10 +1 Swords in a room than 10 guys who can all cast Fireball, assuming said room is in a world where magic is supposed to be vaguely "hard" or "unusual."

I've played two casters whose primary function was to buff the martials. Cooperation goes a long way towards making sure everyone gets to be awesome.

My favorite strategies with Wizards are battlefield control to line up kills for the martials and buff-meister for the martials. Polymorphing the party Barbarian into an Annis Hag is some fun stuff.

Actually, I'm asking why it is your job to define people who seem to be enjoying themselves as "doing it wrong" to the point you have to "show them how it's done"

I hate talking to you.

Anyway, the people in my example were not even having fun. They were depressing people who kept inviting people to their game expecting the new players to be dazzled by how awesome they were and being disappointed and confused when people ran shrieking from their table.

I'm happy to say that I currently have a pretty good group. Getting the last couple of members in involved dealing with some people who had totally incompatible play styles (and bad personal hygiene), but the stinky people are gone, now.

Arturick wrote:

If someone would like to make an argument that +1 swords being more rare than guys who cast Magic Missile does anything besides hose over non-casters, I'd like to hear it.

...because if wizards didn't have spells they'd be basically commoners and unplayable as PCs?

...because most players want to have the option of playing full casters, and limiting casting classes makes that difficult?

These are arguments for keeping casters, but have nothing to do with the prevalence of magic items.

...because increasing the prevalence of all magic items and not just magic weapons will also benefit casters? And even if it's just magic weapons and armour that are common, clerics, druids, oracles, bards, magi, and inquisitors will get a similar benefit to the fighters?

This is a glaring problem with the system in that casters and hybrid casters are X% of a Fighter with super powers added. Taking away magic equipment just makes the Fighter the guy with no super powers and crap equipment.

...because giving everyone a magic weapon at level 2 would make DR/magic pointless?

I have not argued for a breaking of Wealth By Level guidelines, so magic weapons aren't really feasible until 3rd to 4th level.

And none of this addresses the core confusion of why some dude mastering the forces of the universe in the heat of battle in six seconds is more acceptable to your verisimilitude than a guy with 16 hours of work making a better than average sword.

My Tolkien-fu is somewhat limited to the main published books, but I've read a bit here and there of unfinished notes and interviews with JRR and Christopher Tolkien.

As I understand it Radagast's original name meant something like "bird-friend" and his task in being sent to Middle-Earth was specifically to help protect the plants and animals of the realm. If Gandalf is an example of a literary character being described in Pathfinder terms as a "wizard" then Radagast can very much be described equally "accurately" as a "druid."

I reject any comparison of Gandalf and a D&D/Pathfinder Wizard. He is a demigod/powerful outsider whose power comes from race, not training.

Having Gandalf as a playable character type would be like saying, "Yeah, we've got an elf, a dwarf, and a Pit Fiend starting out on an adventure..."

i understand why this post exists, but really

this whole notion of "there should be this amount of magic in the game" is completely up to the player, it has nothing to do with the game as a whole

I have not intended to level the accusation of badwrongfun. I have merely tried to illustrate that there is a logical disconnect between having a guy who shoots fire be considered "normal" while having a slightly better than average sword be considered "legendary."

I think this mindset also lends itself to the notion that casters get epic battles against Balrogs while falling thousands of feet while non-casters cry and run out of Khazad-Dum with arrows in their butts.

A lot of players would be happy playing the falling badass, but not the tear-stained hobbit.

That said...

If player Wizards and rare +1 swords exist in your game because it makes you and your group happy, then bless you. If you have driven people away from your table (or online discussions of gaming) because you think everyone should agree with, what you consider, your "perfectly reasonable understanding of how magic works," then I have offered an opposing viewpoint for your consideration.

Resume playing High Fantasy or Fallout: New Arnor at your leisure.

Arturick wrote:

Do you allow players to be casters?

I've never stopped them, but nobody I've run games for could stand Vancian magic, so they never wanted to be them. I actually talked about it yesterday here.

Sorry, I forgot that was you. Things blur together.

Given what you've said about you and your group, I'm happy you guys apparently enjoy Pathfinder, but I'm a little baffled by why. It seems like a system dedicated to smashing the atmosphere you crave in the face.

Arturick wrote:

shallowsoul wrote:

I would say that Radagast the Brown was more of a Druid.

LoTR Wiki wrote:

Radagast, like the other wizards, came from Valinor around the year 1000 of the Third Age of Middle-earth and was one of the Maiar.

Radagast had a strong affinity for – and relationship with – wild animals, and it seemed his greatest concern was with the kelvar and olvar (flora and fauna) of Middle-earth. He was wiser than any Man in all things concerning herbs and beasts. It is said he spoke the many tongues of birds, and was a "master of shapes and changes of hue".

My debate is not with Radagast's talents, but his nature. If you say "druid," I hear, "Something a person can be." Radagast was an immortal, nature-loving, angel, not a member of what would be considered a "character class."

I actually have a hard time adjusting to D&D's magic item mindset, and well, I mostly haven't--when I run games (and I run 95% of the time), I don't use magic items at all unless they are super special named items or MacGuffins (pretty much like Tolkein), and the items always grow with the PCs if I use them (you don't ditch the duke's ancestral sword because the king's ancestral sword is nicer).

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding where the D&D item mindset even came from.

Do you allow players to be casters?

I would say that Radagast the Brown was more of a Druid.

Radagast, like the other wizards, came from Valinor around the year 1000 of the Third Age of Middle-earth and was one of the Maiar.

I would think the obvious solution, rather than offering to GM or whatever, would be don't roleplay with troglodytes.

I joke around with my friends that "Back in my day, you didn't find NORMAL people to game with, much less hot college-aged chicks with Dr. Who fetishes. You gamed with society's cast offs, because they were the only people willing to bring up their character in a public place. You gamed with the smelly guy, the 300 lbs. Wiccan with 20 lbs. of mascara, and the dude who peed himself a little every time he tried to talk to a woman. And you just kept growing that colony of weirdos until someone lassoed another couple of regular people into the group. Then, when you had three or four people who all showered, they snuck away together and formed a real group."

Tom Bombadil is NOT a druid.

Tom Bombadil's origins in the cosmology of Middle-earth were left vague by Tolkien. He calls himself the "Eldest" and the "Master". He claims to remember "the first raindrop and the first acorn", and "knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless — before the Dark Lord came from Outside." He does not neatly fit into the categories of beings Tolkien created.

Tom Bombadil is God's long lost brother.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

How does a horrible GM stop being horrible?

How does a horrible GM get selected to be GM in the first place if someone at the table knows the rules so much better than they do that they are arguing with them and think they are horrible?

Because you're not born with a gaming group hanging off your umbilical cord. I know 3.5 rules inside and out, and was pretty sharp with 2E before that, and spent many years bouncing around groups. One of the groups I frequently walked into was "Captain Illiterate and His Henchman."

These groups have a DM with Rule Zero printed somewhere under the ketchup and mustard stains on their tattered remnant of a T-shirt, and his brother/cousin/best friend from fetus-hood. The DM is the DM because he is pretty convinced that he is awesome at it, and his Henchman agrees due to preferential treatment. New players are brought in, then steadily driven away by some combination of the stench and the fact that they'll never be as awesome as the Henchman's level 26 Paladin (new players come in at level 1 because Gary said so) and the numerous DMPCs.

Now, before Ciretose can ask "and why didn't you offer to DM and show them how it's done, Captain Smartypants?" That's exactly what I did and it was a waste of my friggen time. Captain Illiterate and Henchman did not want to be part of a "group" consisting mostly of "equals." So, one would generally play the "steals from the party Thief" and the other would play "I heard this class is totally broken and I will bully the other PCs with it."

So, while all RPG's usually come with the caveat that you can "house rule as you see fit," they should also carry the following disclaimer: "New players at your table are quite likely to be enthusiastic about some aspect of the rules as written. Before bringing a player into your heavily house-ruled game, discuss the changes you've made and make sure all of your players are comfortable with them."

Arturick you read a very different version of Middle Earth than many of us had. While magic was present in places such as the Elven refuges, it was pretty much rare or practically unknown anywhere else save in the strongholds of the Enemy who used it exclusively for war. And a lot of what you'd take for granted, such as teleportation and fly magic, simply did not exist. The closest you'd come would be magic granting someone a shape to enhance their travel options. And even that only comes in the context of the great stories.

Much of the magic of the Elven refuges was pretty much an overflow of the nature of the refuges themselves, not bold blatant magic items as seen in the D+D wargame. Much of also what you would attribute to magic was also the result of racial crafting techniques such as elven cloaks, mithril armor, the Silmarils etc.. The truly powerful items were unique creations, frequently unrepeatable even by the creators themselves.

Magic does suffuse Middle Earth, but in a far more subtler way, and in a decreasing way as one progresses from the First Age to the Fourth.

You did not actually disagree with anything I wrote.

What requires more extraordinary talent: building a house with no deadline, or building a chair in the middle of a barroom brawl (in six seconds to a minute depending on edition)?

In Tolkien's works, magic items were all over the damn place. The elves didn't make anything that wasn't magic. "Hrm, you're going outside? Better take a magic cloak, magic boots, magic food, magic rope, and a magic weapon." Arwen's intimate apparel probably had weather adaptation and anti-bacterial properties.

It is implied that humans and dwarves were equally prolific crafters of magic items, but their kingdoms had been wrecked over three ages of war against a dark god and his endless hordes.

And most of these items were exactly the sort of thing that grognards go into raging fits about: +X weapons and armor, and unremarkable "utility" magic.

The ability to cast a spell, however, was kind of a big deal. "He cured a hedgehog! Our venomous bites and webs will not avail us here! Run!" Spells were largely the domain of archangel/demigod types, and they seemed loathe to use them unless they were fighting their own kind.

This is roughly how it ought to be. It is completely illogical to think that it would be harder to sit down in a workshop and magically make a sword better than it is to spit fire out of your fingertips at oncoming enemy goblins.

In most myths, magic items aren't even made by spellcasters. They're made by noteworthy craftsmen, or comprised of special materials, or they've been quenched in the sweat of a virgin who went jogging on a Thursday.

Now, game designers were reluctant to make rules for actually crafting magic items, because the guy who shoots fire out of his hands every day is supposed to live in a world where magic is "rare and special." But they eventually included rules where making any sort of magic item required the expenditure of Constitution or experience.

This reflected the attitude towards magic items that would constitute "artifacts" or "major macguffins" in D&D. Sure, Sauron poured the majority of his power into the One Ring, but elves were sure as hell not dropping dead from CON loss after making twelve Lembas biscuits. They also didn't get progressively worse at baking Lembas with every completed loaf.

"I can't remember how to make the magic bread!"

"Calm down, Fingolfin! It happens. You just need to go kill orcs for a few days and you'll remember how to make Lembas."

"That... doesn't make any sense!"

The way i like it is that the PC caster are one of the few and soon one of the most powerful wielders of magic in the land.

Yeah, the problem with this is that every campaign has to start AFTER THE MAGIPOCALYPSE.

"Yeah, we used to have wizards and messiahs running around, but now we live in a crapsack world of ruins and monsters. Being a stupid, crap-covered farmer, I'll view your interest in arts that apparently ended the world as we know it as 'heroic' rather than 'harbinger of the end times.'"

If this concept works for you, then great. However, it runs a little bit contrary to "Old School" D&D which certainly leaned this way thematically, but at the same time required you to train under people more powerful than you to level up.

"Magic sure is rare and special."

"Sure is, now let's get back to Hogwarts and train for level 3."

Middle Earth didn't really have "wizards" in the D&D sense. Gandalf, Saruman, and Sauron were all Archangels. The Elves had magic crafting skills they learned from back in the day when they lived with God. The dwarves are hinted to have crafted "magicky" stuff ("they crafted mighty spells"), and mithril armor was magic-ish.

Ultimately, you have to figure out that magic items were sufficiently common in Middle Earth for Gandalf to not immediately lose his mind upon discovering that Bilbo had found a magic ring.

A good player will make a character that fits the general power level the group is comfortable with.

A bad player will make a character significantly more or less powerful than the rest of the party.

Have you played in games without magic users? Does it work well, or does the system show its seams?

I've played in games that allowed for a range of magic use, forbidding full casters and/or hybrid casters.

A totally non-caster game lends itself to an all-Rogue party. Since every challenge is getting resolved by the application of skill points, the skill-starved Fighter feels like a fifth wheel unless you're absolutely forced to engage in "fair" fights.

Certain enemies, like things that fly or have super-senses, become "boss battles." Things like Shadows and Wraiths become "Scooby Doo: The RPG" as everyone runs and runs until the DM decides that the life-hating phantoms that are incapable of fatigue have given up chasing you for reasons beyond your comprehension (like you've kited them into a nearby farming community and have triggered the Wraith-A-Pocalypse).