Chain Mauler

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In the Game Mastery guide, there is a template for a king charachter and for his weapons it has this listing:
"Melee +1 longsword +14/+9/+4 (1d8+2/19–20) or mwk dagger +14/+9/+4 (1d4+1/19–20)"

what are the "+14/+9/+4" bonuses for, and where do they apply. I've looked all over and haven't been able to figure it out. Thanks for any help you can give me.


1.) all the weird comabt modifiers that arent well explained in the book (ie +1 longsword +14/+9/+4(1d4+1/19-20))

2.) One of the magic classes

3.)The use of different pronouns depending on the class or race.

And thus everyone gets triggered and floods the forums with hate messages....


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This is almost as bad as alignment forums


phantom1592 wrote:

Last character I played CN was closer to Chaotic Selfish. He was a rogue who was looking out for himself above all. He wanted to live. If that meant stealing from other people.. score. If it meant letting others go first... even better. If he felt the other people in the party helped keep him alive...

He risked his life to keep them around.

He wasn't insane... He wasn't evil... He was in over his head quite a bit. He was not a hero... but he was no villain either. He didn't like societies rules and structure... preferred to make his own decisions... but was in a dangerous jungle out to kill him, so still worked well with the group.

CN is a very valid alignment and players that ruin it for DMs... will just go full neutral and ruin that next... It's a player problem, not an alignment issue.

Since then, I've played LG paladin and NG oracle... all vastly different characters from each other.

Admittedly, my NEXT character is Jekyll/Hyde Master Chymist who will be NG and CN... and HE will be pushing a bit closer to NE. I just don't have the real desire to play full evil... but he'll be close to the line. :D

Still a case of doing what he wants, when he wants... depending on how the game actually goes. That won't happen till 9th level, so time will tell.

Good idea for a character overall, having a multiple personality built in a the beginning.


Johnnycat93 wrote:
Batlin wrote:
Yeah i tend to use the d&d system instead
What's the difference?

Not like use it, but apply it's deifnitions and such


Johnnycat93 wrote:
Batlin wrote:
Johnnycat93 wrote:
Nox Aeterna wrote:

Issue being:

To be good, you need to take good actions. ONCE you are good, then not takion action could be considered neutral and shouldnt change your alignment much, even if over time you will drop.

Pretty much a football player doesnt have to be on every match, but he needs to play from time to time, otherwise he isnt a football player.

On the other hand if you decide to start eating lots and doing drugs and such, which lets say is evil, you lose your good status much quicker then if you were just doing nothing.

I don't see much value in parsing out the morality of a persons every act (or lack thereof) in life.

Is there a statute of limitations on goodly acts? Is not acting in your capacity to do good the same as choosing evil (or neutrality, in the terms of DnD)?

If morality where such a sliding scale that it constantly changes based on whatever acts you have most recently had the opportunity to pursue versus what you have already done, then one could never accurately judge if one was good or evil until one had seen the full consequences of ones actions. That is to say that I don't like to think of morality in reactive terms.

Neutrality could be defined as either apathy, or not letting law, chaos, good or evil, guide your actions, but instead what you want to do or see is right. I agree that a TN as a "champion of balance" is kind of nonexistent, because who would act like that in real life?

Sure, in terms of DnD. Outside of that chaos, law, good, and evil are all relative concepts.

Again, none of my previous statements are how alignment in Pathfinder works. Pathfinder alignment is some kindergarden-tier, "heroes can do no wrong", mess of a system.

Yeah i tend to use the d&d system instead


Johnnycat93 wrote:
Nox Aeterna wrote:

Issue being:

To be good, you need to take good actions. ONCE you are good, then not takion action could be considered neutral and shouldnt change your alignment much, even if over time you will drop.

Pretty much a football player doesnt have to be on every match, but he needs to play from time to time, otherwise he isnt a football player.

On the other hand if you decide to start eating lots and doing drugs and such, which lets say is evil, you lose your good status much quicker then if you were just doing nothing.

I don't see much value in parsing out the morality of a persons every act (or lack thereof) in life.

Is there a statute of limitations on goodly acts? Is not acting in your capacity to do good the same as choosing evil (or neutrality, in the terms of DnD)?

If morality where such a sliding scale that it constantly changes based on whatever acts you have most recently had the opportunity to pursue versus what you have already done, then one could never accurately judge if one was good or evil until one had seen the full consequences of ones actions. That is to say that I don't like to think of morality in reactive terms.

Neutrality could be defined as either apathy, or not letting law, chaos, good or evil, guide your actions, but instead what you want to do or see is right. I agree that a TN as a "champion of balance" is kind of nonexistent, because who would act like that in real life?


oh ok, where was it at?


IF you really want to kill a party, adapt the AD&D Second module "The Apocalypse Stone" for your game. IT WILL KILL THE PARTY/END THE WORLD. This module is insanley hard, and if they can get past multiple pit fiends, a Tarrassque, etc., The world literally ends. Thats it. They cant escape, all the planes are cut off. No coming back form this point.


Johnnycat93 wrote:
Nox Aeterna wrote:

Issue being:

To be good, you need to take good actions. ONCE you are good, then not takion action could be considered neutral and shouldnt change your alignment much, even if over time you will drop.

Pretty much a football player doesnt have to be on every match, but he needs to play from time to time, otherwise he isnt a football player.

On the other hand if you decide to start eating lots and doing drugs and such, which lets say is evil, you lose your good status much quicker then if you were just doing nothing.

I don't see much value in parsing out the morality of a persons every act (or lack thereof) in life.

Is there a statute of limitations on goodly acts? Is not acting in your capacity to do good the same as choosing evil (or neutrality, in the terms of DnD)?

If morality where such a sliding scale that it constantly changes based on whatever acts you have most recently had the opportunity to pursue versus what you have already done, then one could never accurately judge if one was good or evil until one had seen the full consequences of ones actions. That is to say that I don't like to think of morality in reactive terms.

I agree but disagree. It's not about each individual action, but about actions over time. If say, you used to tend more towards evil, you would be an evil person. However if you were say, Jan Veljean, and had a rebirth, if you change your actions to become generally good you would be a good character.

The problem here is measuring a time period over which a character must act as such, and their motivation for certain actions. Say you generally do good actions, and the villain knows this. Thus he gets you to do mututaly beneficial things for both of you, while slowly subjugating you to the "dark side". IF anakin was done right, he would be a good example of this. Generally I would say change to a neutral long before going polar opposite.


Evocation or power, but they only have one magic missle each


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Batlin wrote:
I like what you said about a TN having gold waved in his face though, and it would be interesting to see a character start with that motivation but become attached to the party and adventure and change his alignment to NG or similar. Good idea.

I can't take credit for it. Han Solo thought of it long before either of us did.

Ahhh. You're right. He'll never die in our hearts.


1.Paladin - Someone who stands for the values of good at all times, good bonuses and melee combat.

2.Wizard - Because spellcasting is awesome

3.Rouge - Because I really want that guy's stuff.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Batlin wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Batlin wrote:

Anyone here who has played Ultima 7 part II the Serpent Isle, and its expansion The Silver Seed, has seen an example of balance done right. There is order and chaos, but combined they come up wiht balance. Most people are a follower of either order, that both have to exist or destruction will ensue. This is especially apparent through the games virtue system:

Order has three virtues: [snip]

Chaos has three virtues: [snip]

When Combined there are three of balance: [snip]

However, virtues unbalanced result in banes: [snip]

So I would play a character more as servant of balance, not in the sense that both good and evil actions are their responsibility, but that you should use both good and evil, law and chaos, to guide your actions.

Why?

Actually, the framework you describe from the game seems pretty straight up NG; you should maintain balance between Law and Chaos because it is beneficial to others (or else "destruction will ensue").

Why should I maintain a balance between Good and Evil, though? It's well understood (see Axelrod's work on the prisoner's dilemma, or "what goes around, comes around" in the 1960s) that a group of "good" people will generally cooperate to the benefit of society as a whole (that is to say, "goodness" is itself beneficial to society, and hence "good"), and that "evilness" is correspondingly "evil."

So why should I not abjure evil?

I don't see a good reason to do so, but I would guess it is someone that is generally self interested, with no cares of what society cares about how they should act or not. They won't go out of the way to break or keep the law, or help or hurt someone else. Thus they are not very suited to an adventuring party, so someone would need a much better explanation than the one i provided to play a TN for my game.
I'm not sure they do -- what you just describe reads (to me) as the classic "selfish neutral" who's not big on the whole...

Yeah, i agree with it not really standing up on to observation, but I just though it would be interesting to find a decent reason to "maintain the balance" but i knew it wouldn't really work.

I like what you said about a TN having gold waved in his face though, and it would be interesting to see a character start with that motivation but become attached to the party and adventure and change his alignment to NG or similar. Good idea


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Batlin wrote:

Anyone here who has played Ultima 7 part II the Serpent Isle, and its expansion The Silver Seed, has seen an example of balance done right. There is order and chaos, but combined they come up wiht balance. Most people are a follower of either order, that both have to exist or destruction will ensue. This is especially apparent through the games virtue system:

Order has three virtues: [snip]

Chaos has three virtues: [snip]

When Combined there are three of balance: [snip]

However, virtues unbalanced result in banes: [snip]

So I would play a character more as servant of balance, not in the sense that both good and evil actions are their responsibility, but that you should use both good and evil, law and chaos, to guide your actions.

Why?

Actually, the framework you describe from the game seems pretty straight up NG; you should maintain balance between Law and Chaos because it is beneficial to others (or else "destruction will ensue").

Why should I maintain a balance between Good and Evil, though? It's well understood (see Axelrod's work on the prisoner's dilemma, or "what goes around, comes around" in the 1960s) that a group of "good" people will generally cooperate to the benefit of society as a whole (that is to say, "goodness" is itself beneficial to society, and hence "good"), and that "evilness" is correspondingly "evil."

So why should I not abjure evil?

I don't see a good reason to do so, but I would guess it is someone that is generally self interested, with no cares of what society cares about how they should act or not. They won't go out of the way to break or keep the law, or help or hurt someone else. Thus they are not very suited to an adventuring party, so someone would need a much better explanation than the one i provided to play a TN for my game.


UnArcaneElection wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^If you met the players I have in mind, I think you'd change your mind . . . .

Fair enough. Which, of course, raises the question about why you game with them....

I don't any more. Although your question is fair about why I gamed with them as long as I did, so I'll take a shot at an answer: Where I have been (for instance, first in a camp near a small town in the South in the 1980s, and then in college), it is hard to find gaming groups that DON'T have such people, even though they also contain decent people. When I managed to find a group that didn't have such people, I moved on (in both cases). Of course, now I just can't find a gaming group, but that's another story(*).

(*)I intend to try to get into a PbP on these messageboards after I get a new computer so that I don't have to post from a phone.

That's unfortunate, struggling to find good gamers is something I've struggled with before:/ That's the allure of online gaming in general, but there hasn't been a really good way to capture d&d to play it online.


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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Johnnycat93 wrote:

I'm no expert but I'm fairly confident making an exaggeration isn't a violation of the community guideline.

I didn't realize I was exaggerating; I thought I was classifying. If you want an opinion expressed in more parliamentary language, "preserve the balance" as a philosophical stance is both incoherent and ill-founded.

When we're talking about morals and ethics, we are fundamentally talking about motivations, because motivations both drive and color behavior. (For example, adopting a free-to-good-home kitten may be a good or an evil act, depending upon whether I intend to make a pet of it, or feed it to my snake. One act, two different motivations, and two different ethical judgements.)

D&D and its descendants broadly recognize four different (but nonexclusive) motivations for doing an act:

* Because it will help others
* Because it will help me
* Because I am expected to
* Because I want to

These should be immediately recognizable as Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos, respectively. A person who is lawful good tries, as far as possible, to do the things she is expected to do that will benefit society; a person who is lawful neutral (Javert was mentioned) tries to do what society expects, irrespective of whether it helps or hurts others. A person like Robin Hood tries to do what will help others because he wants to, even if society says "no," and so forth.

The problem is that "preserve the balance" or "maintain equilibrium" or however you want to phrase it, is not itself a motivation, but a description of a pattern of action. Why should I maintain the balance?

Taoism, which is probably the closest major religion to Balance-worship in the real world, suggests that by following the Tao one will help both society and the practitioner. (From the Tao Te Ching, "If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness,...

Anyone here who has played Ultima 7 part II the Serpent Isle, and its expansion The Silver Seed, has seen an example of balance done right. There is order and chaos, but combined they come up wiht balance. Most people are a follower of either order, that both have to exist or destruction will ensue. This is especially apparent through the games virtue system:

Order has three virtues:
Ethicality - The belief that there is great value in abiding by rules of conduct.
Discipline - The drive to complete a task and avoid the distractions that will prevent its completion.\
Logic - Clear, reasoned thought, free from any instinctual biases

Chaos has three virtues:
Tolerance - That which encourages the acceptance of all things.
Enthusiasm - The energy that allows one to perform great tasks
Emotion - The ability to perceive those feelings that come from the heart, as opposed to coming from the mind.

When Combined there are three of balance:
Harmony -Ethicality and Tolerance - The ability to be at peace with the self, the individual and the world.
Dedication - Discipline and Enthusiasm -That which permits one to surmount obstacles and lead others.
Rationality - Logic and Emotion -The ability to comprehend life and understand the world around us.

However, virtues unbalanced result in banes:
Prejudice - Ethicality without Tolerance - Disrespect for the beliefs and rights of others.
Apathy- Discipline without Enthusiasm - A spirit of hopelessness which retards positive action.
Ruthlessness - Logic without Emotion - Taking self-advancing actions without regard to the wants or needs of others.
Anarchy - Tolerance without Ethicality - A lack of standards of conduct.
Wantonness - Enthusiasm without Discipline - Acting without self-restraint.
Insanity - Emotion without Logic - An inability to overcome emotional impulses with rational thoughts.

So I would play a character more as servant of balance, not in the sense that both good and evil actions are their responsibility, but that you should use both good and evil, law and chaos, to guide your actions.

Sorry for the diatribe, just through it could provide meaningful context.


Zaister wrote:

Lucifer is not something that is part of Paizo's setting, so I guess you are talking about some third party stuff that goes beyond the restiction Paizo uses for their game, such as "no stats for deities", or the CR30 limit.

I guess you're on your own there, and this thread belongs into the third-party/homebrew section of the from.

That was a problem with old d&d (unless you are playing Planescape). Everything was stated, so the PCs would try to kill it


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Gulthor wrote:
Harleequin wrote:
A LN character is similar to above except that they always look to 'balance the books' as they go along. A week spent curing disease and feeding the homeless demands a week of burglary and thuggery. This is the law of neutrality and thus active.

Couldn't disagree more.

The LN you described above actually is closer to the (also misguided) description of True Neutral found in 2nd edition, where the party druid was likely to join a band of gnolls if the party outnumbered/overpowered them in order to "maintain the balance." (What? So glad they fixed that nonsense.)

No, an alignment with a Neutral aspect is simply solely focused on the one alignment component that they do have.

In the case of Lawful Neutral, that means pure, rigid, unbending adherence to the law. LN is the RAW Rules-Lawyer of the alignments: "I don't CARE if it makes no sense or makes the ability worthless/unusable, this is the Rules Forum, and that's how it's worded!"

Look at the Inevitables (the LN outsiders) or the Hellknights. Strict, draconian adherence to law - Law as its own morality. That's Lawful Neutral. If you're familiar with the MtG Ravnica setting, the Azorius guild is another excellent LN organization.

The same can be said for CN, NG, and NE. Neutral Evil is often the "playable" evil alignment because it's evil without an agenda; usually just selfish, self-serving, and opportunistic. Opportunistic enough that it's easy to see that the best path to success isn't to be fighting against the heroes, but to be fighting with them. Neutral Good is charitable and kind: again, good without an agenda. No concern about advancing the law or feeling bound by tradition, but not feeling the need to tear it down or feeling shackled by it, either. CN can be pure joy and fun. Freedom, liberation, exploration for its own sake. And so on ;)

Sorry, hope that didn't come across as too preachy, but LN in particular tends to be one of my favorite alignments.

One good example of An LN would be the character of Javert. HE always obeys the rules, laws and codes, and has no concept of mercy over justice, and the fact that people can change. Even if the law is unfair, he follows it to the lettr, and gladly enforces it


A lich of some sort would be good, somehow magically bound at first to keep him from destroying the party.


It definitle depends. If you are trying to integrate or introduce new players, or a playing with new rules sets or books, etc. You should allow there to be more time per turn. Additionally it would be a good idea for you to assist players in finding what they are looking for and encouraging them to keep their skills, feats, spells, weapons, etc on a sheet somewhere for quicker reference.

Also, when there is a new concept, creature, or situation that may require additional research or thinking you can adjust accordingly.


Gulthor wrote:

Oh, and cowards. Cowards make surprisingly good CN characters. In fact, in many cases, their cowardice is the thing that separates or keeps them from being CG.

They may value Good and appreciate Good, and even *want* to advance the cause of Good, but their self-preservation kicks in and they book it or fold at the first sign of trouble.

It *can* be an interesting premise for a character when played correctly, particularly a character who is striving to become CG as a character development goal, and provided the player behind the steering wheel is going to do it in ways that still contribute (in hopefully hilarious ways) to party conflicts.

We had a character many years ago who was played just this way; very much a fish out of water who didn't *want* to be a great hero on an adventure, but that was the hand fate had dealt to him. He was a pickpocket that stole an adventurer's enchanted sword only to find out it was a CG intelligent weapon that decided it was going to teach this boy a lesson. The player used the sword as a prop, essentially, to force him into combat. Being intelligent, the sword denied access to most of its (quite potent) abilities.

As the character leveled, I leveled the sword (removing equivalent values of treasure from adventures, with the sword requiring the PC to accept a smaller share of party treasure - basically, he got nothing for free, and the sword was always accounted for.)

The party and the player LOVED it and their cowardly Rogue.

Good idea, i like that. Having a cowardly character play as CN would be good, although i see them as more straight neutral. However, I like the way that could be incorporated.


Johnnycat93 wrote:
Batlin wrote:
Johnnycat93 wrote:

I'd also venture that most problems that people chalk up to CN are actually rooted in the player, not the character. At face-value it only means that a character strongly dislikes working within the law and has no strong leanings towards good or evil. Lawful Stupid can be just as problematic.

Or this. Alignment is a silly system.

I think it is a little binding, but I find it necessary to a point. I don't like to over stress it as a DM, but I enjoy when players use it to help guide their actions and their character.
It's just not a good representation of morals or motivation. It also seems to cause way, way more problems than it's worth.

In the end you're probably right.


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Yeah, and players tend to play it because they quote "Can't have any fun as a lawful good". However, whenever I have played as a lawful good i had an opposite experience. Being LG led to new opportunities, credit, fame, and respect. However an LG character doesn't have to be Lawful Hardass (pegging people for jaywalking). Superman is a great example of an LG that would have fun without being a Stickler.


Johnnycat93 wrote:

I'd also venture that most problems that people chalk up to CN are actually rooted in the player, not the character. At face-value it only means that a character strongly dislikes working within the law and has no strong leanings towards good or evil. Lawful Stupid can be just as problematic.

Or this. Alignment is a silly system.

I think it is a little binding, but I find it necessary to a point. I don't like to over stress it as a DM, but I enjoy when players use it to help guide their actions and their character.


Ashram wrote:

Oh look, it's this can of worms again.

You're not opposed to Chaotic Neutral, Batlin. You're opposed to Chaotic Stupid. As are 99% of GMs.

You're very right. I'm not opposed to the alignment itself, but I've seen how it is abused and I've been a little burned out by charchters just becoming a slate for random action.


Create Mr. Pitt wrote:
Ignore alignment, focus on character motivations. Bad characters exist in every alignment. Better off just encouraging your players to develop genuine character motivations.

True, I just don't like to see it used to dismiss anything a character ever does that could be out of character. Thanks for the advice


I guess your right,ill play chaotics, but i want it to be well integrated. I guess I'm trying to say that they can do whatever they want cause chaotic neutral. I'm saying what I've seen, but I'm not saying its impossible to do well. Additionally, They seem to completely destroy the existence of Lawful Good characters, which I see as invaluable in the setting.


As a DM I am generally opposed to chaotic neutral alignments, for a few reasons. I just see that it reduces role playing, and creates characters that have no motivation. Additionally, they will end up hiding from the law and actually end up becoming the bad guys. However, I was wondering what you guys thought? What do you do about Chaotic Neutral or such?


Beyond the two core rule books and the game mastery guide, what books would you guys suggest investing in next? just for general expansion of either the whole experience or adding something the base game is missing.


0o0o0 O 0o0o0 wrote:
Batlin wrote:
Ok that makes sense. Thanks for the help. Just trying to start GMing for some friends, and one was interested in making a theif. I was just used to the old D&D thief class. I think this is a unique way to approach it.

OP, while people in this thread might say not to be a Rogue, it really doesn't matter, especially if you and your player are new and if you want the character to play close to the old D&D thief, Rogue is the way to go.

It's one thing for experienced players to suggest Archaeologist Bards or Vivisection Alchemists or Snakebite Striker/Admixture Evoker/Sleepless Detective Arcane Tricksters but all that stuff is a bit overwhelming if you simply want to recreate the old D&D thief.

Have a look at this excellent guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i9VeolUtnRfxC28JIBPaQWQYs57wEvfq5XtEcOR 6C0A/edit?pref=2&pli=1

You can approximate all the abilities (trapfinding, moving silently, backstab - sadly no Thieves' Cant) in a pretty efficient way.

Also, if you have new players, suggest they try Barbarians and Sorcerers. Both powerful classes, obvious what they are meant to do, yet relatively simple to make and play.

doc wont open :/


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Gark the Goblin wrote:
Rogues are the obvious way to go. That said, pay extra attention to that player during the game to ensure they're having fun. Rogues are not a well-designed class, so you need to make up for that with extra roleplaying opportunities and so forth.

Thanks for the advice!! Glad to have a community like you at my back!!


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Ok that makes sense. Thanks for the help. Just trying to start GMing for some friends, and one was interested in making a theif. I was just used to the old D&D thief class. I think this is a unique way to approach it.


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I am new to pathfinder and don't see a specific theif class. Would you just create a specialized rouge? or am i missing something?