Cardinal Chunder's page

Ive had to explain on numerous occasions to one of my younger players that Pathfinder Society =/= police and that he cannot lawfully arrest anyone in any town just cause he is a Pathfinder.

This...

As a GM I don't care what players bring to the table. It shouldn't have any influence how you run the game, IMO. If players have their PCs fail during an adventure it should be because of their choices NOT because of the GMs.

EDIT: I may be wrong but reading between the lines it looks like some rules have been used by the players before the GM has become fully familiar with them. I only allow books, etc. after I have read and fully understand what I am letting into the game.
And I would never allow a player to make a race from the ARG unless under exceptional circumstances.

Have you considered going bard instead of sorcerer? You still have arcane spells, cha is still your primary stat, plus the benefits of being a bard. I've never played a DD before, so I'm not saying this is the better option, but from what I've seen in terms of abilities, it just seems to me to have a better mechanical advantage over the sorcerer. Plus, bards automatically ignore arcane spell failure for light armor (I think). Anyway, just a suggestion.

I prefer Summoner over Bard.

Number 2 is correct.

Thanks...I thought one was very harsh!

I'm prolly over thinking this but...
1: An allip hits a PC does it do d4 WIS damage AND they have to make a save to prevent a further D4 damage from its Touch of Insanity.
2: An allip hits, the Touch of Insanity is the attack and the PC only takes WIS damage on a failed WILL save.

Thanks

GM ease of play. N/A Player

Synthesis of the story. 5/10 Book One was great but everything else seemed very rail-roady

Role-play friendly. 3/10 Okay but no matter what you did as a player everyone seemed to know what was going on. Seemed pointless as a player to try and do anything to derail the other factions as no matter what they'd still be there. As a player I was really annoyed that despite the death of the PF Gnome, hiding all notes etc leading to the city, etc we had six groups following.

Combat design.5/10 A few interesting combats but nothing outstanding.

Fun factor. 3/10 Bored with hack and slay Book 3, its the only AP I dropped out of. The other factions always being on your tail despite any precautions put in place made me feel that this was a GM V Player scenario (despite I am sure that wasn't the intent). If it stopped at Book 1 it would have got 10/10.

On the whole I was frustrated by the fact no matter what we did as a group everyone knew where to go. I felt railroaded and that our actions didn't matter. So we killed off a few NPCs in Book One, didn't let anyone near the secret cave, hid all notes that we made and EVERYONE still knows about where we are going and why? And then we end up in a city filled with random hack and slash... Not for me.

I'm trying to find in the SRD where it says having a low INT score means anything other than lack of skill points and penalties on INT checks.

If it doesn't anything beyond that is a houserule.

Trying to extrapolate IQ or anything else from that number is pointless, leads to arguments and wastes time.

eating tofu is Evil

Depends on the Paladin's specific code of conduct...
Which was discussed between the Player and GM before play...
:)

I couldn't care less if people dump stats. There are rules in the CRB which tell you what happens (mechanically) in the game if you do, no point in making up gack houserules to "punish" people who do.
As an aside the group I game with stopped rolling or using point-buy for stats but just pick whatever you want for the concept of the PC. Over the decade or so that we have done this PCs stats seem to average out at a 20 point buy. Interestingly (IMO) no one has ever made a PC with all uber-stats and most have some built in weakness through the stats.

I played a Pit-Born Paladin4/Summoner1/DD Rest
Kinda fun and good RP material. His eidolon was the coughed up demon within who used to whisper baaaaad things to tempt him. Had silver dragon blood and scales. They tarnished really quick unless he was actively good then they stayed shiney.

as an aside...in my home PFS games I still hand out the old season 0-4 missions but use the re-vamped prestige qualifiers. The old missions are there for fun. Personally that is how I would like to see them moving forward.

Action economy is priceless in this game.
My biggest concern would be allowing the precedent. So a player slips this through, a couple of decent buffs. Then the same player or another suggests the double fireball wand, heck let's go triple fireball.
Do you say no even though you've allowed it before? Do you allow it because you did before and unbalance the campaign?
The best answer is to say no to custom items designed by players. Save yourself a headache.

As a GM and player I prefer the old style missions.
Pros: I like hand outs, helps me feel engaged.
They gave me something else to focus on and not just rush through a
scenario. Many of the scenarios set in a certain museum forced you
to "explore", one of the big three of being a pathfinder.
Easy for a casual player to engage with. Not everyone is aware or
even cares about the political games. The subtle season 5 missions
don't do that.

Cons: Often seemed tacked on.
Disliked the fact that some relied on a skill the PC may not have.
Often the same. How many Qadiran mission were find three new
markets.
Difficult to GM when there are six players.
Hated she spoilers found in some.
Hated the "get this McGuffin from this tomb which we know is there
even though the tomb has been lost for a million years and no one
has been in it, ever."

From what I have seen the issues with the old style missions are as much as how they were constructed and not with the concept. They needed more thought involved, IMO, to make them work. And more GMs needed to keep table sizes down to a manageable size.

Try to say yes as much as possible.

But don't be afraid to say no either.

And make sure you have a separate bowl for snacks for yourself, bigger the better.

OP, you have it the wrong way around.
Your player needs to get an official ruling to say he can do what he says. I saw the previous posts and you have got it right as was pointed out by many others.
The GMs word is final not the players word.
Me, I'd tell him to suck it up or go.

My players in my homegame PFS campaign loved the old style missions. I still use them but for fun only. Prestige, etc gained is from the new updated way you should run 'em. We all play CoC so a handouts are always welcome!

As a player and GM the biggest fault (IMO) was the occasional "We have found a tomb that no one has been in for a billion years but we know there is a McGuffin hidden behind this carving of a nymph..." mission.

I would like a return to them but have more thought put in rather than the tacked on after feel a lot had.

From APG:

Racial Heritage
The blood of a non-human ancestor flows in your veins.
Prerequisite: Human.
Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

It irks me a tad when Pazio prints this and in another product (Bastards of Golarion I think) spend time explaining why there are NO half-dwarf races... Internal consistency! *shakes fist* damn you!!!
:)

Ask your GM.

Wouldn't happen at my table because beetles and ants are mindless vermin. The important word there is mindless. Untrainable.
Use a riding dog.

You have to hold a wand in a hand or what passes for a hand.
Parrots, ravens etc. haven't got hands. They have wings.
You can't use your feet to activate a wand.

I am going to take hell for this but, when I GM I tend to say no to 3PP and supplemental class options and archetypes unless I am familiar with them and have a good grasp on how they work.

Not from me...I don't allow anything 3PP or PF until I have read a hardcopy in my own time to understand it.

And looking stuff up on the net at the table is just unacceptable.

As the crowbar can be treated as a light improvised weapon doing damage as a club of a similar size I'd guess it would be the same price as a light weapon.

Carrion Crown
Kingmaker
Rise of the Runelords
Skulls & Shackles
All excellent and fun.

Serpents Skull...bored senseless. The only AP I have walked from

Is there a list of what PFS there are which focus on a particular factions megaplot?
Mostly interested in season 3-5 Andoran, Taldor, Szcarni and Silver Crusade.
Thanks

Summoners aren't for beginners as they are rules heavy.
At my tables I have a few houserules which I stick to.
1. The eidolon is triple checked by player and GM to ensure no errors have crept in.
2. The players of all PCs which summon must have the SM or SNA sheets printed out, with Augment summoning included as necessary. This speeds up play and stops the "Where's the book..." breaks and keeps the game flowing.
3. All players are encouraged to purchase multiple d20s of various colours and multiple damage dice of the corresponding colour. Again there is nothing which slows the game to a crawl than someone rolling 5 d20s one at a time then 5 d6 to do a full attack. This is the quickest way to have your PC killed :D

Roll opposed skill checks. If RP gives a person a lot of time alone (probably not, since people don't like to split the party), then just give it to them.

Thanks, pretty much what I have been doing.

The faction missions are done away with. You now judge the mission based on the secondary success conditions, found here.

Linky

I realise that...I am running a PFS campaign for my own amusement.

I am running a home PFS campaign, many of the older scenario's missions are "Map *whatever* without anyone noticing" or "Pass this *whatever* to "whoever" without other factions noticing".
So how do other people handle this? I have my thoughts (combo of mini position/RP with a skill check, usually Stealth V Perception) amd just wondered if this is okay or others handle it differently.
Cheers.

Has the Barbarian replaced CN alignment for those who use "Its what my character would do" for being a d***?

I was hoping to see a thread about swords which bend when hot/cold...

Meh...using Sleight to grab 330 loose coins wouldn't happen at my table. Using it to grab a percentage depending on the success/failure of the roll against the other PC's Perception is absolutely fine.

And its a chaotic trait to steal from the group, certainly not evil. Unless the PC has Lawful anywhere in its alignment go for it. That said be prepared for fall out if the other PCs catch on.

This weekend my group just left behind a PC because he pulled a dick move. No more 4th level fighter.

How a PC behaves has nothing to do with the GM.
That is what NPCs are for.
Not being rude but you seem to have a track record, from your previous posts, regarding player/PC behaviour which doesn't fit into your view on how they should act. Perhaps you should stay out of this and let the players sort it out amongst themselves in character.

EDIT: They are not your PCs, they are the player's.

Roleplay your stats however you want at my table.
The CRB dictates the mechanical benefits/penalties for all stats.
Your 5CHA PC will still have a -3 on CHA checks no matter how fancy the player makes his heart rending plea not to be stomped.
Likewise the shy player with the stammer with the 20CHA PC will still get a +5 on CHA no matter how tongue-tied the player gets.

NB: I'd change the title of the thread.

Listen to your players for hints on where they would like to take things.
I use 4-5 different hooks for a single scenario to give the illusion of choice.

Back in University days our group decided to just flip a coin instead of rolling dice.
Heads you succeed, tails you don't.
Made for a pretty funny evening but I wouldn't recommend it for a campaign.

Actually if the GM is nerfing a player that badly he should just pull the player aside and ask him to scale back.

I would like to hear the GM side of the story also, if possible.

Please note that the OP says the GM will eventually use environmental rules to make things harder. As far as I can tell the GM actually hasn't done anything.

And if the GM is using the wind rules in the environmental section of the CRB when they should be used then there isn't an issue.

If the GM is houseruling wing beats or every single day the weather conditions are hurricane force winds, even underground, then there is a problem.

So with misfire and having to but expensive ammo to reload as a free action isn't it just better to use a now and be a fighter or ranger?

Because I can't be Porthos otherwise?

From my experience the Summoner isn't the/a problem.
The problems come from:
1 Incorrectly built eidolons
2 GMs not targeting the Summoner (the squishy part of the class)
3 Players being disorganised and not having SM stats printed off and at hand, slowing the game to a crawl while the look stuff up in the Bestiaries.
4 Houseruling all elementals to be summoned instead of the Big Four.
5 Not actually understanding the class features by players/GMs.
6 Players not organised enough to buy enough dice to roll and sit there rolling a single d20 four times to hit, then a single d6 four times for damage.

I'm saddened that no one has said "Chuck Norris"

Let them go. :)

This.

But ask them to have an idea for their next PC before they go...

"Not long afterwards, Fritz began to realize how to use his ability to create darkness to ease the pain of brightness, discovering he could make other things easy to see, highlighted by a dim "faerie fire" light, and the ability to see easily at night"

Looks like he's got Darkvision and a couple of spell like abilities...

Would the world end if you allowed it?
I'd guess not but then again some would think it does...

EDIT: Its okay for a person to alter the fabric of reality with a few words but not for someone using a Travellers Any Tool as a set of MW Thieves tools. I just don;t understand this way of thinking. Its not going to kill the game, I'd allow it in a second.

I'm still under the impression that people are running this as auto-disbelieve. All the spell would do is give you the school and at best give you +4 on the WILL save to disbelieve. Which isn't over-powered, IMO.

And don't use illusions to cover traps. Mundane means work well too.

As an example: Start of Wormwood Mutiny. One player made a Half-Elvish Gunslinger with STR 14 (Guns have recoil!) and more or less all other Stats at 12. Skill were Athletics, two Craft and two Profession skills, all solely connected to a backstory that didn´t matter, Feat was Two-Weapon Fighting to portray the ability to wield a pistol and a dagger at the same time, ´cause that´s cool and the SKill Focus set on Perform (Singing) so he could sing along with the party bard. No Armor ´cause that went against the picture in his head.

Ok, that is decent thinking on transporting an image of a charakter into the game, no problem here, commendable, really, but it isn´t a working charakter.

As we still had time, I took that player aside and wanted to talk his choices through with him, so he could more easily enjoy his charakter in a combat heavy game like an adventure path. He seriously told me that he´d need to have those stats and skill pouints or else he couldn´t reach immersion into the game. I told him that he could simply describe singing alongside the bard, that no roll would be necessary to do this. This was commented like this: If no roll was necessary, I can´t know how good my charakter performs at...

To be honest if you started to tell me how I should play my PC in a game I'd have walked too.

I miss optimization in 1ed...
18 strength fighter throwing darts :)

And there wasn't anything horribly wrong with 2ed, IMO.

Wouldn't using a detect magic to spot an illusion just give you a +4 to the Will save to disbelieve?

If I have an uber set what happens? Either the PC roflstomps everything and I get bored or the GM raises the level to make it a challenge.
If I have a low set? Either the PC fails to contribute anything meaningful (player dependant) or gets roflstopmed themselves and you need a new PC.

Point Buy eliminates that.

I get a PC stats that fits to my concept of the PC instead of what Fate hands me.
Its a level field for all, no one can be accused of cheating rolls.
GM hasn't got to adjust anything because people all got random 50 point buy PCs.

I can't understand why people have a downer on PB. Do people just like rolling dice?

If you're going to let players reroll until they get what they like, just let them pick their scores and be done with it.

This is what I do with my group.

My S&S Inquisitor (Infiltrator Archetype) is played as a recruiting/trade unionist. Ensuring all pirates are sticking to the Pirate's Code as set by Besmara, pirates get the right rum ration, food isn't too weevil filled, etc.

Personally for Carrion Crown a Pharasma Inquisitor is just ripe for RP opportunities. The AP is practically built for it.

I'd recommend the Infiltrator Archetype...

I like a half-elf, Ancestral Arms/Fauchard for any of my reach weapon PCs.
Great guide from an interesting angle.