BoxcarWilly's page

anyone thinking of baldurs gate or icewind dale here, in those games magic missile was like the standard counter to a casters who used mirror image. (i agree that raw states the extra images are ignored for magic missile)

i made link once i used artificer stats at the time as most of his unique-ness comes from cool magic items

Except that seems to backfire in today's world of auto-respawn (thanks WOW). Players at mid-tier levels get pi$$ed when their fighter, who's basic function has been charge, power attack, kill target, is suddenly no longer as effective and the retaliation strikes result in a dead PC. Seems the GM is always blamed.

yes this is true and i couldn't agree more. when there is a disconnect between the players and the characters this often happens. what i mean is at least in my experience often players seem to forget at moments that the game is a role playing game and treat it like a video or board game, when their character dies they are suddenly reminded of all the great times they had or would have had with their character and that they might not get them back and become bummed.

ok awesome, i understand what you were saying now! (and find it completely irrelevant to my original point)i think i was being unclear so let me try again: the OP started this thread to see how high they could get a characters AC for fun i think that is really cool. i'm suggesting it might be fun for the community to repeat this process with other elements of a character, what the max attack bonus a character can get for example (or really any single character statistic HP, Saves, skill etc).

i think the point of DMing relative to a players level of experience is a really good one and incredibly important to the life of the game. i think its true that against newer players its important to fudge some rolls, and alter some deadly situations so that the game is fun for them and has that oh my gosh we just barely survived appeal to it. i think as players get more experienced they want more of a challenge and in some cases might even want to get killed in consequence to their actions.

No, it becomes a game of trading blows until some one rolls a 20. And the enemy will always win because they aren't missing because they have a really low to-hit and damage, they are missing because you have a really large AC.

i'm sorry i don't understand what you are saying

awesome job!
now in order to actually hit this guy what character has the highest attack bonus possible(core only of course) (on a single attack lets say)

i feel like its kind of like asking why should i vote, only far less important to the welfare of our nation

this subject has been well explored and the majority of peoples viewpoints expressed articulately and clearly. i have this to add.

as a PC if you are in combat versus some baddies and lets say one is an npc you have either a: herd lots about or b: encountered before. it is my experience that you hit the npc until they are unconscious then you hit them some more until no life remains in their body. (or i just have some angry malicious friends)

seriously how many movies have you watched or books have you read where you are thinking," wait protagonist why didn't you check the dead guy to make sure hes actually dead!? stab/shoot/bludgeon him a few more times please!" i feel this goes for bad guys too. (makes me also think about bad guys who monologue just before the kill which is also most aggravating)

that said, i think it is entirely situational and would default to whatever the dms decision was as being mostly correct. as a player i don't feel challenged unless i know that character death is a serious threat. It makes the characters that do survive that much more impressive and heroic.

protection from arrows/ levitate (my favorite)

trips can be done in place of an attack. though if there is an exception please point it out. I just thought this was a great way to take advantage of my move.

after further investigation i have not found anything to support my claims. keep tripping the casters, disarm the potions, and sunder the scrolls with those aoos.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Two whacks. Its not unfair. Its the attack of opportunity to which he was entitled and the held action he's entitled to.

Besides,if a caster is dumb enough to stand next to someone and not 5 foot step away OR cast defensively, they deserve the axe to the head.

right that's where my second question comes in though your answer suggests it works. in this case my monk has a 60 foot move. if I stand 30 say from an enemy spell caster and say if he casts I move next to them.

as the ready I move up, he then actually starts to cast triggering an aoo. I then trip him.

mostly correct, and a great way to trick the caster into thinking hes safe, but i'm fairly sure your attack of opportunity must be a melee attack not a trip attempt.

awesome good to hear that it works. do the players roll dice and then have it work on an honor system or do they use an online dice roller? (it sounded like it was on an honor system.)

thanks for sharing!

there is always the option to play with horse stats... but then explain to everyone that the mount is actually a stegosaurus. our group often uses stats for one companion while explaining what they look like to be something entirely different.

i ran a druid once, i wanted him to have a dire tiger at later levels who at early levels was just a kitten the two would grow up together. i think i went through about 3 different actual creature stat blocks (wolf,leapord dire tiger or something along those lines) but just explained that what was actually going on was a dire kitten growing into a dire tiger.

hey everyone just wanting to get feedback on how possible it would be to have say 4 people playing with a GM at a table and have another player join in via skype.

would this cause problems when trying to report the game results?
has anyone tried this or something like it?

Murdok Ko "the legbreaker"... need anything more be said?!

Im guessing that PFS is capped at lv 12 due to the trouble lv 7 spells create when trying to prewrite modules or scenarios. its hard for writers to come up with challenges for a group at the higher levels of play when a single spell can often create a confusing or stressful situation for a GM (who may be gming for a brand new group). outside of PFS play the gm would have more room to fudge, improvize or adapt, but within the environment of PFS it could be hard for a GM to work with a NPC who failed his save vs insanity, a PC who abuses ethereal Jaunt, or a limited wish spell. i think the aim is to create not only a welcome environment for players but for GMs as well.

I'm in the Eugene area, and run one Pathfinder campaign and play in another. I'd be up for running a few Pathfinder Society scenarios for your group. So far there hasn't been much of it going on down here.

Woah! awesome i might have to take you up on that! i am DMing for my group today and will talk to them about it and see if any of them are interested. even if i could get a chance to try out psf once id be grateful. the format intrigues me. is there a way i could contact you outside these message boards? my email is will.thomsen@gmail.com.

i might try and get one in at least at the end of this term (i attend u of o) just to see what the format is like, how different it feels compared to a normal game of pathfinder or D&D. thanks for the hospitality.

i was searching for pathfinder events in the greater Eugene (OR) area and the nearest one i could find was in Portland. i would love to play in the society but cant or don't know where to find any in my area. if there are none in the area, i guess i would be willing to start some and DM but i am not going to be here for a six month period starting around April.

the event search can find events but cant find society members in your area. is there any way that players could register their area code and have an option for that to show up in a search. is there a way that anyone has discovered in order to "root out" the pathfinder society players in ones area?

i DM regularly for a group of 3 players (although none of us are involved in pathfinder society yet. like i said i would prefer to play but would be willing to DM (of course doing both is the even bester best option)

any tips you can provide would be awesome!

stat generation has always been one of the most exiting and interesting parts of the game for me. i am always trying different methods out. this discussion gave me inspiration for a new method i will try in my next campaign.

i will create a series of stat pair cards,
each card will have on it two stats, an even stat and and odd stat.
there will be three categories of cards good average and poor.
the overall modifier for each pair of stats on cards within a category will be the same ie:
+4 for good
+2 for average
+1 for poor

each player will choose one card from each category (npcs get 2 average and 1 poor)

a possible array could for example look like the following:
good 18,11
average 12,13
poor 9,14

or
good 14,15
average 17,8
poor 7, 16

or
good 17,12
average 15,10
poor 14,9

thoughts?

(edit) i made the following chart i will use: each player rolls 1 d6 in each column and takes the corresponding stat pair so for the example 1 above the player would have rolled (1,6,3)

18,11 - 18,7 - 16,7
17,12 - 17,8 - 15,8
17,12 - 16,9 - 14,9
16,13 - 15,10 - 13,10
16,13 - 14,11 - 13,10
15,14 - 13,12 - 12,11

One distinction to remember is that out of the hundreds and hundreds of round one competitors we were looking for 32 (and 4 alternates) who we thought had the spark to be more. With this round we're testing those we selected to see which can turn that spark into a real career as a freelance game designer. Tryouts for the football team aren't as hard as the first round of practices to determine who's a starter and who's a bench-warmer. So while we're harsh with our criticism this round (and will continue to be) it's also to use each round as a teaching opportunity. The top 4 competitors are all guaranteed at least one writing assignment from Paizo, and as the person who will inevitably develop both the winner's module and the three scenarios designed by the runners-up, it's in my best interest to shape those designers into the best authors they can be.

makes sense. i agree.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between round 1 and round 2.

Most round 1 items were incredibly creative and the contestants were rewarded for this, but many of these items had balance issues or small mistakes that were forgiven due to the item coolness.

this round while the archetypes are creative and most are cool i feel like there are some seriously major game balance issues or other moderate mistakes and the judges are really pointing these out.

I think there are still a lot of undiscovered archetypes out there. i think this simply wasn't the best round for the types of contestants that were selected.

just a suggestion: it might be more interesting to try something along these lines, have your player run a single character with some cool buffs or special abilities.

maybe consider running as a Gestalt type character. or let them level up as two classes simultaneously.

then run a npc that only has single class levels in a support roll. or let the pc run a second character in a support roll maybe a level lower than the main character.

this will help distinguish the players characters let them get into roll playing one character while allowing them two run combat with two (or more)

now that i got my two cents in as for adventure paths, i think kingmaker would run alright actually if you make some minor adjustments to it

most dms would rather run this as a psychotic npc than have a a player focus on it, talk to your dm about it if they seem open give it a shot and learn from it!

don't forget the painfully obvious, improved initiative, spell focus, spells like invisibility, silence, debuff spells

Well, there is already equipment options for just such a thing (a sap, a Merciful weapon, blunt arrows back in 3.0, nets, tanglefoot bags, grapple for multiple rounds and then hog-tie them), and it is good to keep in mind that a character is defined by more than just his class features. Vampire Hunters bring holy water and wooden stakes, why shouldn't a bounty hunter bring weapons to incapacitate his foes? For that matter, you also have the option of setting up traps (last time I checked, Trapmaking was still a craft skill) to catch your quarry.

fair enough. i made the npc how you suggested and you are correct. i really like his flavor. i am having him dual wield a whip and a merciful short sword it perfect.

now i run into a different problem. the inquisitors teamwork feats only work if you have well a team... an option for solo inquisitors might be nice. an option of a +2 bonus to any 1 skill instead of taking teamwork feats would provide nice options.

i love how the inquisitor feels. i am trying to make a neutral inquisitor. a hired mercenary who will help out the highest bidder be it my BBEG the PCS or any other group who can afford his high prices.

(his secret is that he donates all of his extra earnings to a charity orphanage he owns)

i want him to be skillful, they kind of guy who always gets the job done. i think the inquisitor should be able to capture foes to be able to bring them back fro questioning later or in my npcs case bring em to the highest bidder. the flavor of this class makes me feel like they might have to do this often.

i think this could be accomplished through a minor ability, a teamwork feat, or through a judgment option.

minor ability: an inquisitor can choose to change all damage dealt by an attack to nonlethal damage. they can do this after they know the results of the attack this is usable 3/day + the inquisitors cha modifier

teamwork feat: "double take-down" you are skilled at binding your still conscious enemies as your teammate holds them down.
Benifit: if you and your ally are both in the same grapple and your ally succeeds on a combat manuever to grapple your foe, you may immediately attempt a combat maneuver to bind the grappled foe (as long as you have something to bind them with) the dc to bust or escape the bonds is equal to your combat maneuver check.

judgment option: "Capture" the inquisitor begins to disable and capture their opponent slowly but surely they must deal nonlethal damage when using this judgment. on round one inquisitor gains a +1 to all combat maneuvers and a +1 to combat maneuver defense against the foe this increases to +2 on round 2 and +3 on round three. at 10th level. the inquisitor reduces the opponents primary movement speed by 5/10/20 feet over round 1/2/3 respectively.

these are just ideas. but i feel like the inquisitor should have some ability like this. i can imagine a church needing to capture an enemy not simply kill them. "a thief stole a church artifact and we need you to bring him here so we can find out where he is hiding it" etc etc.

i don't think this causes a problem... here is why.
a player should be able to create any type of character they want to. in other words the rules should support the widest variety of character builds possible.

your player is simply doing what he finds entertaining. many who play the alchemist might not find that to be how they want to play their alchemist so they wont.

think of his character as a Jeckle/Hyde type. this to me seems like one of the most reasonable alchemist builds out there in fact. character quaffs mutagens that make them a giant slobbering destructive beast... and start throwing stuff around everywhere.

many will play the alchemist as a grenadier but that does not mean that is how the alchemist should feel necessarily. the alchemist should simply be giving players the option of abilities that allow them to create the widest verity of character builds they can as long as they fit somewhere along the wide spectrum of alchemists.