displacement doesn't grant concealment, despite using the same mechanics. blur does grant concealment. you'd roll for blur to see if you hit the target, then you'd roll for displacement to see if it's the "real" you. @yure CMB checks are attacks, and are subject to miss similarly.
Here's the concept. Pick each level, pick 3 scenario's at that level, do this 11 times. In a world where you are GMing for bright-eyed new players, providing them (and you) with the most fun PC career. For me in order: not counting specials :) 1st: Confirmation, City of Strangers part 1, City of Strangers part 2
it's not perfect... I love all these scenarios, but the timeline is... sub optimal maybe I'll mess with it some more. If you were bringing a brand new group from 1-12 what would you run them through! (Or want to play in, if one of your players was going to step up and run!)
14. I will pray to the gods every day, begging that my stat block be written by Alex Greenshields. or that my accompanying encounter aspects were written by Erik Mona. 15) I will use the feats presented in my stat-block
so as I see it there a few ways that it could go down.
currently I'm leaning towards #2.
related question:
Something cool I know: I got to GM for Sammy T and Redward, and it was awesome. Also: +x defending cestus can give you a bonus to AC while you're hitting people in the face with your killstick* *killstick is any weapon that you choose to use, even if it's merficul. Courageous weapon property gives +1 on morale bonuses, so if you can cast heroism, it's a great buy :D
Minor note on this, these will not be purely optimal spells, they will be good spells, that are useful, but nothing overly versatile. short versions: Abjuration;
Note: originally I had resist energy, but I felt it would be too strong a spell list for the staff, so I chose a slightly weaker, while still useful spell. resist energy and Magic circle are both too versatile for staves IMHO, as they are really 4+spells in one. Conjuration;
Divination;
Enchantment;
Evocation:
Note: fireball always works, but I wanted a more utility evocation staff, I left magic missile because it works against ghosts, while still having an action illusion
Transmutation;
Leaving the other wording alone on the staves.
When Erik Mona can fit another double-length scenario into his writing schedule, that's when I'd like to see talk about a replacement Seeker arc and possible retirement of Eyes. It's also a clever way to make sure it's amazing when it happens :D. Though I have suggested this before, I would like to see a full length module, similar to wardens of the forge or Dragon's Demand, written with PFS in mind, while also having allowances to make it publicly available as a for sale product. This way it could be released in addition to PFS scenarios and get the full.
Obviously Ben is remembering it wrong.if Kyle made a different ruling, he was tired and confused and made a mistakeUnpossible. Careful :-p I handed you my phone, with the section that all cover prevents OAs, you handed it back to me and said "soft cover only applies to ranged attacks" and pointed at text. Clearly I should have walked from your table as you're malicious and/or dumb. You were the GM, I saw reasonable logic in your answer, and I looked into it later. I decided it wasn't perfectly clear, though there was more evidence to support my original claim, so I choose to run it the way I believe it works, but I didn't come back at tell you that you were wrong, or claim that you're dumb or malicious (well maybe malicious, I mean you killed marty 3 times :-p). I'll be a little more direct. Andrew: I agree that it works in the way you describe.
Also: sorry to drag you into this Kyle. You're among the very best GMs I've ever played with, and because you're an exemplary who has excellent rules knowledge, I have to use you as an example that a GM can make a mistake, and easily see logic in the other argument, even while reading the paragraph.
YES YES YES. Also the rules support this 100%, as swallow whole rules mention it.
dispel magic isn't capped at +10 anymore.Oh, that's right, I had forgotten they changed that. Thanks for reminding me. Counterspell is very strong, but you're still eating your immediate action, and a spell slot. The jury is out on this one for me (not if it's good, it's definitely good, I'm just not willing to say it's too good)
The lovely Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds lays out the effects of being thrown into the Sun on page 5. In the face of the star's nuclear fires, spells such as resist energy, protection from energy, and planetary adaptation are useless—only complete immunity to fire allows a creature to survive the immense heat. Any creatures or items not immune to fire are instantly and utterly consumed down to the molecular level—only spells such as wish or miracle can bring back such victims. Limited wishes stack (the -7 saves part) as far as I can tell. So with mind blank and greater invis, and greater heroism for the aura. With no mythic ranks we can get him the old fashioned way, stacking debuffs and shipping him home or to the sun SR is a bit of a challenge, but +40 isn't too hard.
Alternatively - Elf and robes of the archmage means we don't need piercing spell for 100% pass. 3x Limited wishes, 1x persistent wish or imprisonment. 399/400 wins. Also it's repeatable. even without the Limited wishes stacking it's possible, though it would likely take a few more iterations :D Have I succeeded in making a Cthulhu crisp to a satisfactory level yet? Really though, mindblank is a problem. With the mythic craziness we can do it without mindblank, but if you max stealth and have invis+mind blank he can't find you. So sad. Poor Great old one.
Void wizard 20, archmage 10; With Amazing initiative you can Void them for -10, Arcane Surge a Wish (surface of the sun)(MM Rod Persistent). SR is easy (mythic greater spell pen, Robe of Archmage, +2 from surge. Cthulhu needs a 15+ to save, and has to roll twice. If he fails, the sun instantly kills him on both rounds. int should be 48 (20 base,10 tome+levels, 6 headband, +12 from mythic tiers+path ability).
I’m looking for things to buy for my wizard. The last time I played a pure caster in the teens we were more on the “things the GM gives us” this time around; it’s a PFS character, with enough fame to buy basically anything (maybe literally anything). Conjuration (Teleportation) Specialist – 14th level, stuffs.
here's a list of stuff I currently have.
I'm not advocating that the player is allowed to continue using the item, or spell, or archetype, or item from a source they don't own or that isn't in the additional resources. I'm not advocating that players who purchased staves from the APG after the grandfather date shouldn't have to fix them in some way. I use my ITS, I look at them as a GM, I have audited and fixed many errors. I did what I thought was most fair. Ex: Gunslinger wasn't tracking ammunition properly.
One of my player's was using a staff of stealth from APG. I said "that's expensive, how do you have it already?" He showed me the APG, I informed him that was half it's legal gold cost. He didn't have the gold or fame to buy it when he did, so I had him sell it back at full price. I think he had used it in one scenario, how do I charge him the opportunity cost of using an illegal item for one scenario? I don't, I fix it as best I can. I made a player drop master from his summoner, luckily he was level 1, so it didn't really change much. I'm certainly not saying "let em play with an item that isn't legal" Please don't allow players to cheat. I'm saying fix it in the most reasonable way. Forcing someone to pay more gold for an item than they were willing to just punishes them for making a mistake (or in this case, using one of 2 perfectly reasonable assumptions) Doesn't seem like an action that has the societies best interests at heart.
I'll give them permission, i'll sign the sheet, and I'll take any flak that comes my way. The rules are to create a fair and fun experience, alienating players because of an unclear rule isn't in the interest of the campaign. The rules aren't there to get in the way of playing the game. The rules are there to facilitate a fun experience for everyone. Mistakes are made, try and fix them, move on with your life. I spend a lot of time on these forums, I also own a store and organize 2-3 tables of pathfinder every week. I have had a couple people come and talk to me worried about making mistakes, PFS isn't supposed to scare people away from playing pathfinder, but the responses we see on the forums are the hardline. Sometimes we have to accept that we overdo it a bit.
This is pretty close to where I'm at, some classes are missing. I'm going to try to do this in order within tier. I also wholly disagree with bard, that class (even without weird words) is exceptionally powerful. Tier 1 - Summoner, Druid, Wizard, Witch, Cleric.
Explanations - from levels 1-11. If we're talking 1-20, I move Summoner to tier 2, and a few of these things change around a bit.
Explanations: Tier 1: Classes that can truly alter the game, These are things that can legitimately do everything in the scenario by themselves, or just make everything fall apart at higher levels. Ultimately if you know what you're doing and choose to play these classes as such, the game as a whole really cannot handle you. Also tier 1.5; It's kind of a cop-out but I don't feel that Oracle and Sorcerer are objectively WORSE than Clerics/Wizards, but on Odd levels other than 1, they simply are. I made tier 1.5 because I didn't want to make a whole extra tier just for classes that were on tier 1 power level, but got there a bit later. Summoner: You get two characters, and you get to do incredibly powerful things starting at level 1, even without the Eidolon you're still performing one of the most powerful actions in the game (summoning) as a standard. Druid: Animal companions are less powerful than Eidolons, and the spells don't really outstripe the summoner until level 9, even then Summoners cast MANY of the powerful wizard spells. Wizard: All the reasons in the world, Arcane spells are powerful, we all know it, however the action economy for the first few levels, puts them a bit behind Summoner and Druid, but Past level 11 they are the most powerful class. Witch: Very strong, but the spell list isn't quite Wizard level. Hexes are very powerful, but wizards just gain a few options that witches really don't have access to, VERY close in power though. Cleric: Divine spells are a little weaker than Arcane spells, shrug All the tier 1 classes shatter the game if played to do so. Tier 1.5: See wizard and Cleric, but get your higher level slots one level later, if they weren't worse during literally half the game, they'd be tier 1. Tier 2: The best at what they do, but they don't do a ton of other things, in pathfinder ranged attacks kill enemies more efficiently than all other attacks, tier 2, in my opinion, is reserved for the classes best suited to killing things. Gunslinger: Dex to damage, targeting touch AC, and still takes advantage of all the powerful ranged feats in pathfinder, nifty. Zen Archer: Not sure if this is more powerful than gunslinger or not, damage output is significantly lower, but defensively Zen archer is frightening to behold, you're level with a VERY hard to damage character that can put out a lot of damage. Archer Fighter/Archer Ranger: Damage vs utility. Fighters do more damage and have a better bonus, archers have an animal companion, spell casting and more skills/points. Tier 3: jack of all trades, master of none. Generally tier 3 is about classes that do multiple things (Melee who get in the way, hybrid casters who put in solid work both in damage and utility. Magus: Scimitar dance, high AC, high damage, excellent nova potential, this is one of the good ones, but it's damage is still excellent considering the utility of the spell list. Nearly tier 2, but just doesn't have the damage output of the 2nd tier. Bard: Arguably tier 2, the damage that good hope and inspire add to your party is hard to quantify, also year of Diplomacy means this class arguabely deserves higher placement; However with the randomness of parties in PFS I put them tier 3, because they simply aren't that self sufficient. Two-handed fighters: Again you have 3 classes that are well balanced, but do it in different ways.
Paladin's have a lot of self healing, and very good saves, making them hard to kill front-liners. Barbarians have rage, and rage powers which give them a lot of versatility, but I'm mainly thinking about pounce, and how powerful that really is. Inquisitors can get very solid damage with bane, and judgement either for healing, AC, or attack bonus, solid versatility puts them in the tier, oh yeah and lots of great cleric spells. Alchemists can either do a lot of damage with bombs (similar to archers, but with a limited number of shots per day), or Mutagen up and be pretty strong meleer's, overall a versatile class, but still limited in it's uses, they simply don't do the things that pure casters can do, and are often outclassed by their counterparts in either role.
I would say sell at the price you paid it or pay the difference, although I'm sure someone would be willing to point out why I'm incorrect. :) Though this is probably wrong. I agree with it. I don't think it's fair to a player to make them pay additional gold because a rule changed (or was clarified) I'd say either grandfather it in or let them sell it back at full price. I know that I might pay 1000 for a mithril longsword, but I certainly wouldn't pay 2000. Losing 1000 gold due to lack of rules clarity isn't exactly awesome from a player perspective.
I'm pretty good at the rules, and I double check Herolab all the time. It's VERY good, but it's not perfect. Most of the time herolab has the exact text from the book, again NOT ALWAYS, but it's pretty darn good at it. I have a couple players that I am exceedingly happy that they use herolab. I honestly believe that 50% of their stuff would be wrong if they didn't. Herolab prevents many very common mistakes. Things herolab does, that a LOT of players without simply don't do.
That's a list of things that Herolab does, that I saw done incorrectly, or not done at all, at gencon. Currently, it's applying a save DC penalty for magical lineage and Wayang spellhunter, and if you're a Zen archer, the flurry calculation doesn't factor in point blank shot. I have 12 characters those are the only issues on any of my characters at the moment. Can we stop demonizing herolab, and accept that it's an exceptional tool, but like any tool people will make mistakes with it. The people who act dumb and say "but herolab says" are the same people that would say "but this guy on the forum said" or "d20pfsrd says" or whatever. People that don't do their research, or understand their character are at fault. The program doesn't make people stupid, people being lazy or stupid makes them stupid.
It takes a very special kind of class build (such as the 28 Cha Sorc above) to pull off a Planar Binding without some bribing involved. So in most cases the spell is balanced by the fact that you won't want to spend a lot of gp for an all scenario combatant and the fact that this is a spell that takes time to pull off (and some scenarios just don't give you it). There is this gem, From 3.5, but still works (though needing 4 days for Geas is rough) Treantmonklevel20 wrote it, so i'll take no credit:
binding a succubus:
So you want to bind a Succubus, but the 26 CHA scares you? Here's what you do (lets assume you are a conjurer with a 10 CHA): You are at least 8th level - so pony up the 4,500 and get a circlet of persuasion.
Cast a Geas on her first thing. "Drink a glass of water from the pitcher over there." Point to a pitcher outside the circle. Wait 4 days. :evillaugh Cast Eagle's splendor before you return. Now hit her with Bestow Curse. Her saves are currently at -8 (total will save -1). As long as you peirce SR you are golden (if not - cast again!). Suddenly her saves/checks are at -12 Now hit her with Cause Fear. Now she's frightened (or shaken if by some miracle she saves). Her ability checks are now at -14 Time to propose a deal. No reason to make it lovely. Ask her to serve you for the remainder of the spell - to follow all your commands, in both word and intent, to never take action that could harm you, and to give you her true name. - and she will be released at the end of the spell. This is a crappy deal for her - so you get no bonus to negotiation. Her negotiate modifier: -6
You should win. If there's any doubt - go ahead and pony up 3000 gp for a Moment of Prescience scroll. It's a one shot deal - but the additional +16 to your roll makes this a sure thing. Once she agrees -drop the cause fear, the curse, and the circle (so she can have her drink of water). She's back to normal. Now you give her the warning. "I know your true name now - if you ever screw me over - during the duration of the spell, or afterwards - I'll use it to summon you again. I'll also cast again and summon an IMP. I'll give the imp this deal - "do whatever you want to this succubus for the duration of the spell - and I expect nothing in return.", you'll be defenseless in one of those circles you were just in, but I'll let him out of his, I expect the Imp will take the deal - I get the impression they have LOADS of built up hostility." Preventing Revenge: You should expect that the outsider won't be happy you Bound it. It may consider revenge. Travel to the material plane isn't easy for evil outsiders (which is why they haven't invaded). However, it may visit this world again - and it will remember you. You have options as to how to prevent its retaliation: A) Scare it straight. Demons/Devils have no immunity to fear. If you have it's true name you can call it again and do something horrible to it. The threat of such an act (if they believe you) may deter them from attempting revenge. You do hold the superior hand in this game. B) Finish the job. Nothing says the Demon/Devil will survive the entire Planar Binding. Since its a called creature, not a summoned one, if you kill it, it's gone for good.
In most circumstances you don't have multiple days to complete a mission, so there really isn't enough time to go through the whole binding ritual, but sickened, shaken, cursed, should be plenty, in most cases. Sorc's certainly do it better, but with a spellbook you can make your new servant VERY mad at you, but also VERY bound to you. ooh I forgot UMD and a wand of Ill-Omen, make them roll twice taking the lowest :)
Ear-Piercing scream is better than snowball for most classes. there are exceptions, though I do have to admit (even if I don't want to) that the no SR part is strong. There are 2 major contributors to PFS seeing "power increases". one of them is more material, that certainly creates the opportunity for more powerful characters. the 2nd, and probably more important, is player experience. More people are playing, more people are talking about it, and as a group we're all getting better at the game :) Also more people are switching over from 3.5, and those players have YEARs of system mastery, a lot of things really haven't changed :)
the cost to scribe a spell into you spellbook is ("spell level"^2)x10 gp.
if you find a scroll in an adventure, or you borrow another PCs spellbook, you can scribe for those costs. as Thanis said, take 10 is available for this purpose. If you do not find a spell in an adventure, or off another PC's spellbook, you must pay an additional 50% of the scribing cost to have a wizard from the Pathfinder Society, or a local Mage's guild lend you a spellbook to copy from. Making the costs
hopefully that helps :)
I'm pretty anti joke names. usually the joke is "funny" the first time, and after that it's just annoying. I did accidentally name a character Kal Omari. I was looking for osirian sounding names, and I liked Omari then later on decided I liked Kal... said it once now his last name is Jakir. It was a great laugh at the table lol.
The problem is that some people say they are going to ban things, without seeing them be devastating. I had this situation come up a few months back. I had made a burning arc specialist, magical lineage, wayang spellhunter, spell spec. I took time to write down all the sources and what everything I could do, where the number came from everything about the character's "tricks". I showed it to a GM, and he looked very disheartened, but he didn't ban me from the table. After the game he gave me a piece of advice, he said "you might not want to show GMs that sheet." I thought about this quite a bit. I would, as a gm, want to see a sheet like that for everyone beyond 5th level. This GM (who was an excellent GM mind you) was immediately stressed out/disinterested and moved into "oh god, one of those" when I was simply trying to be forthcoming about what my character could do, in an effort to not slow down play when "how is it 10d6? how do you change the energy type?" ect come up. I didn't disrupt the table, I didn't cause problems, the GM said he would love to have me at his table again. I explained that blasting is bad, but fun, so I optimized one to make it a valuable contributor :). My point is, Don't judge everyone who has an optimized character as a jerk. Don't judge everyone who bought a bison as an... insurance policy as a jerk. TALK TO THEM, THEY ARE HUMANS WITH MINDS AND WORDS THAT THEY CAN USE. Saying "I won't allow x at my table" is not fair, or an OK thing to advocate. Saying "if people are being disruptive I'll ask them to stop, if they don't I'll ask them to leave." Kyle said this a few hundred posts ago, but it's still true.
Darkness team-up. If they are preventing other PCs from contributing, they are being jerks. Do what you must to stop it. don't ban classes, builds, anything of the sort. The rules are the rules, accept them or Don't GM. As a PFS GM you don't have to accept people being abusive and table dominating, you do have to accept that characters capable of that are going to exist.
I had a perfect storm in a miniatures game opponent last week. It was hilarious. (I stopped getting actually up set, and now just recant stories as "look at all these stereotypes!" so playing heroclix 1) Wait until the game begins, THEN complain about the team i'm playing
RPGs have a similar grouping of stereotypes. Top 10 :)
but in all honesty. It's not usually that bad, sometimes you'll get perfect stormed, but afterwards, you just move on with life and have a good time :)
The most common cause of character death is an unwillingness to run away. Most of the time, when you die it's because you took a hit the previous round, that if repeated, will kill you this round. Which is almost exactly what happened. A lot of being a good player is creative solutions, knowledge of the rules, and showering. Some of it is a very real awareness of your PCs mortality. PFS has a tendency to "lull" Players into a false sense of security, as the vast majority of scenario's are just not that dangerous :)
wizard items in order of importance. Headband of Int
That being said, you probably don't have the fame for the belts right away. I usually buy the Ioun Stone after my first adventure and spend 2 PP on wand of magic missile (at least you're always doing something on your turn!) I buy a bunch of scrolls, you could add some spells to your spellbook, that's always useful :)
synthesist summoner, and allow the "magical tail" feats to be taken every odd level replacing "summon monster"
It depends on your group and your GM. I have had sessions of both. At gencon my buddy and I role-played the whole thing, and the 4 other guys at the table seemed disinterested until combats began. in an organized play campaign you'll see some of both, that's just how it goes. If you're an active Roleplayer others will often follow suit, but sometimes that's just not the way those folks play.
I still think my favorite "playing up" solution is the double exp one. with the exception of 1-5's it's only a bit more than 2x gold on all the scenarios, which I think is fine for the reward. If you're between tiers, and you play up sure thing, you get a bit more gold, if you do it every single time, it's still not game-breaking. If you're level 1, and you play 6 times tier 4-5 to get all the monies, that's close to 9k extra gold, double exp reduces that to 4500 extra gold, still a lot, but much more manageable. Double XP provides a number of benefits for the campaign. 1) Automatically helps curb the gold growth, since it effectively halves the gold from the scenario.
What is the drawback here? Complexity for GMs? I don't think that's an issue, they don't have to calculate anything.
If having people play wildly out of tier is the problem, just say you can't at all. "If you're the correct level for a sub-tier you cannot play any of the other sub-tier's in that adventure" tell em to pull up a pre-gen.
unfortunately you have to balance around something. I personally think it should be a group size of 5 (no adjustments needed either way then) and should be based on the pregens that would be played in that tier. Optimizers that complain about "too easy" well that's our fault for abolishing what the game thinks we can do, and if we're bored cause it's "too easy" again, our fault. Does that mean that tier 1-2s are too easy for a party of all level 2's? yup, sure does. I personally think 1-5 should be tier 1, tier 2-3 (probably 900ish gp), and tier 4-5. This is more design work, but accommodates first level characters. the difference between a first and 2nd level character is immense, even MORE so in PFS (wands, PP buys, ect) TLDR; my Solution to the "CR Problem"
Oil of Daylight
all good buys for 2 PP. remember if you spend it on something that keeps you from dying, you don't need it to pay for the rez :)
This +1 just for fun, I pit a few encounters from season 4 against the bison. I assumed a successful handle animal each round, but it also had no PCs. The bison kept winning. it clearly can't beat any "siege" type encounters, since it can't really climb something, but it'll maul most first level parties to death.
I think the discussion has mostly simmered down, but there are a couple things worth mentioning. 1. People are being told not to GM if they do it for the credit in this thread. Sorry to say it this way, but "really?" I GM for the credits. I GM for the stars, and I GM to grow the community. I will state as FACT that scenario's are better when GMs have run them more than once. I will also say I rarely run things more than once, because I want credit for GMing. I help out as needed locally to grow our community, but I don't volunteer at gencon/paizocon because I would MUCH rather play than GM. I'm a good GM, I'm not a great one. I know the rules, and my players have fun, but sometimes I have to pause and double check something. I don't read the scenario 4-5 times, I read it twice and print out stat blocks. I GM for the credit, without the credit I probably wouldn't have started the weekly Game Day I have on Wednesday nights, which has had at least one table every week for almost 5 months, more recently 2 tables nearly every week. Without the credit's I wouldn't have brought 10 players into PFS that consistently show up and play both at my events and the other events locally. Saying that GMing for credit fosters a bad attitude is elitist and demeaning, I'm sorry for being upset, but I know how positively I have impacted the community and this thread told me that my motivations make me wrong. This leaves me pretty sour. I'll use a REAL example. I have run First Steps a few times When I have new players that come unexpectedly to a game day I will run them through that because I get credit for it AND I know it very well, so I ENSURE that those players have an excellent experience and increase the likely hood that they come back. WHY IS THIS BAD WITH OTHER ADVENTURES? Boons?
Also, it's not like they are hard. no boons, no items, gold as suggested by tier (just look at race for the runecarved key and you know what it is)
I often have a little chat time after the game sessions where i explain what's going on in the backround in order to help people get into the setting, but there are often lines in the adventure that there is no way for players to find out without a GM just offering the information.
The good thing about the Pathfinder DB packet that I keep handy is that it stops at the Core Rule book and APG, which are books that we don't have to check for player progression. Also, if a player is new to the system, it's asking for trouble to give them a magus right off the bat. If a player is new to pathfinder but has played 3.5 for 10 years, and the magus is what caught their eye? I'll agree if they are brand new to d20 system in general it's not the best for them to play, but then neither is anything that casts spells. if a player is brand new to d20, you should hand them a ranger with point blank, and precise shot. In my experience the most difficult things for new players to learn are.
the 4 CRB Iconics. 1 relies on flanking (but it's a rogue, so that happens), two cast spells, and the 4th relies on TWF for a full attack. my least favorite thing in GMing for new players is trying to tell them why they can't attack with both of their swords when they move. Stupid Valeros. |
