Cartigan's page

Yes, they should indeed. Piecemeal options from both TSR and WOTC worked great in many cases. It really depends on the type of campaign that is being run. Every GM and player should be open and honest about the type of game they wish to play. The concept that every option especially together will work perfectly in sync and balance is an unrealistic and impossible expectation.

Especially when you explicitly design for the opposite result.

A good game is about telling a great story and having fun.

Which you can do without any rules at all so let's stop playing the true role-player card in an argument about mechanics.

I like Pathfinder because it embraces the sprit of the world's oldest RPG.

Wargames?

Once again, if you want a game that doesn't embrace that spirit and has balance in the forefront, please look to 4th edition. You are not going to find that here.

"If you want a game where the rules are second to the story, please go play White Wolf, you won't find that here."

In fact, I have recently grown more excited about a 0e retro-clone Swords & Wizardry.

The irony is palpable.

I do find it interesting that Paizo has said "While this won't be legal for Pathfinder Society Organized Play, this system will allow players and GMs to add new and innovative races to their game, as well as to add some of the more monstrous options to the party roster."

If they won't allow it in PFS, they obviously know it isn't purely balanced. As others have said, though, when has a system ever been 100% balanced. I, personally, haven't seen a system yet that is 100% balanced. That being said, if there aren't serious improvements in the balance of this little gem, I definitely won't be allowing it at the table.

100% balanced is impossible. An attempt at balance and a rationale approach to the issues is what is sought after.

That's why as a GM, I BANNED the summoner. I know the Evolution system can become broken.

GMs are in control of content and systems, not players.

If you don't like the system don't use, don't allow it, and or not buy the book.

God forbid I or anyone else want a product that doesn't have to be arbitrated.

Cartigan wrote:

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I think his point is that GMs have been making custom races for their worlds since long before the ARG. They don't need 'permission' from the book to make custom races.

No, my point is saying "It's GM only!" isn't a good selling point. Nor does saying "GMs can ban race creation!" fix the problem with race creation.

GMs can ban all classes that can cast spells, but that doesn't do anything to the fact that spellcasting classes are widely more powerful than non-casting classes.

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

If anything, I think this is going to help GMs make better custom races. Sure there will be players that bed and plead for their ultimate race that is better at one particular class and useless at all other classes. Nothing is ever going to stop that. However, these rules will allow a GM to make their own homebrew world better by making balanced custom races.

But they aren't balanced. Did you read anything I wrote? If you look at the forest instead of the trees, you see that the ability for players to create uber powerful races is a symptom, not the disease. They can do that because it isn't balanced.

There is no way that a system like this can be fixed 100% and be perfect.

Perfection does not exist.
It is a universal law that no matter what IT is, IT WILL have flaws.

Being fixed 100% and perfect is wholly different from "Let's let the GM arbitrate it instead of trying to make it make sense."

Scanning the playtest release and several posts about the "Make your own race" stuff, I'm getting one of those classic "bad feeling" feelings. The first clue was the very idea of "Make your own race!" after the Eidolon fiasco (that maelstrom is still going on*). The next was some of the completely absurd values of certain things (look at SLA cost for 0 level spells and Change Shape). Then a few of the people with good eyes have made the inevitable completely imbalanced, yet perfectly legal races that Paizo is going to try to "balance" around. Which I asked General Achbar about and you know what his response was (after the Eidolon fiasco).

I am getting the feeling that this is going to be an entirely new "Eidolon evolution" problem, but even worse since it isn't just one class but custom races playable by any class. Paizo just isn't good at getting balancing right, I'm sure there are a couple reasons for this but that's the short version. A book section dedicated to creating custom races is going to be a can of worms that can't be fixed and while not impinging on PFS is going to have a harmful impact on the game outside it.

I think the "Create your own race, for fun and profit!" needs to be tossed right the hell out right the hell now and they should just throw a some extra races in there to fill the space.

*Bet you didn't think I could work maelstrom into a sentence.

It adds the "pick up the item dropped" part for which there are core rules for. Picking up an item triggers an AOO. Just because the rules for disarm allow an "automatic" pick up, doesn't negate the AOO. The Disarm ability would need Errata to add that this automatic pick-up does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Can you even take an AoO while unarmed? Attacking while unarmed without UAS (including while gauntleted) provokes an AoO, if I recall.

And the word you are not bothering to include is very important - "automatically." There is no rule for "automatic" actions other than the English definition of "they happen." It doesn't say you can pick up the weapon as an immediate action - a defined game action inside a defined game time space. Automatically throws the whole "pick up a weapon" out of whack because there is no defined game time space. The logical conclusion is you gain control of the disarmed weapon without any consequence.

Ravingdork wrote:

The BBEG didn't notice the casting because the enchanter is built like an enchanter. Kind of hard to identify a spell being cast, or to even know that a spell is being cast, when it is silenced and stilled.

As per the Sense Motive thing, no one in the party seems to have invested ranks into it. Besides, the BBEG is under instructions to follow through with his plan and act as he would if he hadn't been dominated. If he's attempting to act normal, would anyone get Sense Motive checks? I suppose they would, but the DCs would be higher than 15 I think.

I'm not trying to find a way to "fix" the situation, at least not yet (I still have it under control for now). As others have stated, it has a LOT of potential for fun so I want to see where it takes us. If nothing else, it will forever and always be a memorable experience for the enchanter player.

Part of why this happened in the first place is that we started this campaign at high level, and I wasn't yet adjusted to all the things that the characters could do. :/ So yeah, it kind of was my fault for not being more prepared (honestly I figured a high save, SR, etc would be mroe than enough--and normally, it would have). Still, the situation looks like it might work itself out to be quite an interesting change in the otherwise traditional/cliche plot.

I thought we had this conversation before. Still and silenced does not hide casting, any more than an SLA or psionic power would. Does it make sense that someone can get a free jump if they are using one of the above? Sure it does, but the rules and game balance don't agree. Even if you are still and silenced, using a psionic power, and so on the caster is still concentrating to cast the spell, and that should be picked up on. At that point initiative would have been rolled.

You look constipated; let's fight!

Every time I read that word, I can only think of the episode of South Park where Cartman is beefing up (ie, getting fatter) and goes around yelling "Beefcake!"

KestlerGunner wrote:

ewan cummins wrote:

The blogger is a feminist. I'm most assuredly not a feminist.

I think you need to look up the definition of the word feminist. I hope so, at least.

A feminist is someone who believes women are equal to men. When someone states that they are not a feminist what they are actually saying is that they do not feel women are equal to men.

That is what the word means technically but in actual usage it has almost become a dirty word due to the actions of the more extreme members of the feminist movement (i.e. the ones who seem less interested in equality and more interested in revenge or complaining because a guy held a door open for them).

No, it has become a dirty word for the same reason "liberal" is a dirty word - political and media muckraking.

1) I don't understand why this character exists.
2) What do you calculate as the average earnings of a professional in a single day? Take some fraction of that multiply by your Bluff check. Or just treat your Bluff as a Perform Check for calculating the amount of money earned in a day by perform.

The answer is not really a lot. If you want to con someone out of something specific, that's a different thing altogether.

Trinam wrote:

What about evil baby clerics?

"So, Goo-Goo, what do you do this round?"

"I cast Spiritual Pacifier then suck it as my move action."

Quote:

I think the only thing we have concluded in this thread is Paladins are required to be vegetarians because animals aren't Evil.

I really hope you're being facetious, but on the off chance you're not...

Chrissake.

RAW--emphasis mine wrote:

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic.

This would be because they are not sapient. That is the core of this moral quandry. Animals are always neutral because as non-sapient creatures they cannot, by definition, be moral actors. A creature must be a moral actor before it can truly be considered within the alignment spectrum, which for purposes of mechanics defaults non-sapience to the neutral alignment.

That same rule applies itself across the board to mindless creatures with the sole exception of mindless undead. They register as evil by merit of being negative energy creatures, created through acts of evil, and their general hostiliy towards the living. Though, because they are not sapient, are not of themselves moral actors; they are forced by their very nature and creation to be susceptible to good-aligned weapons and effects.

Kobolds are sapient creatures, therefore their eggs should be treated with the same consideration as any pregnant female demi-human. Hence my own facetious comment regarding kicking an evil pregnant woman in the stomach. Would that be permissible by a paladin's code of conduct? If not, then smashing kobold eggs would be morally impermissible as well.

Then either Kobold babies are evil or Paladins can't eat meat.

Facetiousness is the only way to respond to such a patently absurd moral quandary in a fictional universe with different rules and moral absolutes.

If you take a tempered sword and super heat it, it'll survive.

Now if you take a tempered sword, super heat it, and bang it against armor or some other hard surface...

You'll like warp your sword if not break it completely.

My 2cp.

So Heat Metal is a good way to sunder armor without actually using the sunder ability you say?

If you are going to make arguments against clever things, remember the repercussions that stem from those arguments.

"Who's an evil baby?"

Who's an evil baby?"

"Peek-a boo I smite you."

That seems like a sort of dead baby joke. You sir, are not taking the discussion of killing of Kobold/Goblin/Orc babies as seriously as you should. I find your post both shallow and tasteless.

Removed a post. Alignment threads are problematic enough without resorting to dead baby jokes.

Alignment thread shmignment thread. This thread is absurd. Either babies are Evil (in a universe where Evil is EVIL) and the Paladin can waste his smite killing things with 1hp or they aren't Evil and the whole world implodes because the Paladin can't help doing Evil in destroying a Goblin/Kobold/Orc/Drow/etc community unless he personally sees to it that all Goblin/Kobold/Orc/Drow infants are placed in good foster homes (and you know, not killed by the orphanage Adept). A dead baby joke perfectly highlights the patent absurdity of discussing smiting babies in a world where a race is Always Evil and moral ambiguities are not ambiguities but instead absolutes.

I mean, the topic doesn't even assume babies aren't Evil. The question is would Paladin's smite them. If they are Evil, the Paladin can Smite them if he feels like. The question is rhetorical. If they aren't Evil, then the thread fails to exist. The topic begs a dead baby joke.

Wolfsnap wrote:

Let's hear more unusual tactics and cool combos. This is an invaluable thread for a DM as well as a player.

I've actually tried to get my players to engage in more unusual tactics by providing examples from the antagonists. For example:

Intelligent monsters always begin the retreat before it's too late (at least, their leaders do!) Sometimes they even manage to get away! :P

Multiple opponent grappling: One goblin is never going to drag down a fighter and pin him. With 6-8 of his buddies aiding and joining in, his chances go up considerably.

Combining "blind fight" with magical darkness: really annoying for the PCs, you'd think some of them would try it themselves.

Because playing battleship with the Drow was sooo much fun, I bet having a party member specialize in it would be ten times as fun!

I rather deal with the Drow's Darkness than their bs sleep poisons - "A crossbow bolt hits you, make a Fort save." *Fail because I'm an Elven Wizard* "Go to sleep for an hour." *Flips table*

You don't have to hit something in darkness, you just have to hit EVERYTHING in darkness.

Cartigan wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Cartigan wrote:

Quote:

... take the feat Ability Focus? You're character had unique class abilities, why not make them good at them? Stunning Blow, Channel P/N Energy, Death Attack, almost any feat that makes your enemy make a saving throw? Might as well add a +2 to the DC.

Monster Feat. Inexplicably.

Which doesn't actually prevent PCs from taking it. Players just rarely hear about it and so don't think to take it.

It prevents them from taking it in PFS and in any home game where Monster Feats are disallowed.

So, 'because their DM doesn't let them'. Which is different than 'characters can't have Monster feats'.

That's an excellent misrepresentation of what I said.

Next time you make a suggestion, I will misrepresent it accordingly.

Question: "Why don't more people play Clerics?"
TOZ: "Because they don't want to be healbots."
Cartigan: "What do you mean players want their fellow game members' characters to die?!"

Cartigan wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting that a Wizard powerful, well-known, and well-respected enough to have people go after his killer couldn't convince people to aid him in rooting out someone who has stolen his spellbook? Oh, in addition to STILL BEING ALIVE to come after you.

Why that sounds like a quest hook, doesn't it.

Imagine that!

Thereby proving my point that if a GM wants to take your book, they will so why bother with backups in such a world?

EWHM wrote:

Stringburka,

What Cartigan is saying here follows the gamist/narrativist/simulationist split pretty heavily. Let me explain:
If a narrativist or gamist GM has decided to target your spellbook(s) for a narrativist or gamist reason, then having additional or redundant spellbooks is unlikely to help your character that much. In this Cartigan is quite correct.
If the GM is acting from simulationist motives, your precautions and redundancy matter an awful lot.

But the same argument can still be made in all other cases too. "there's no difference between having 5 and 15 hit points because if the DM wants you dead he'll just deal more damage to you". From a narrativist view, it's perfectly fine for the DM to narrate a theft of your travel spellbok but not of the three others hidden in various extradimensional spaces.

Loke this:
"My counter argument was if the biggest threat to a Wizard's spellbook is arbitrary GM design, what good will a backup spellbook do? The GM can arbitrarily go after that as well. Backup spellbooks don't protect you from the GM."

If someone had said that having 15 hp is better than 5, I could answer with:
"My counter argument was if the biggest threat to a character life is arbitrary GM design, what good will extra hit points do? The GM can arbitrarily go after those as well. Extra hit points don't protect you from the GM."

Yes, if your GM has decided to declare you dead, 5 or 15 HP don't matter. If the DM decides to declare you captured, no number of spells, Escape Artist ranks, or Strength ranks will help you. If the GM is dictating actions in the game narratively, there is no point being particularly good at anything. It's only once the game returns to what the game is ("simulation") that it makes sense that HP and Escape Artist and backup spellbooks make sense. The problem you then encounter is rarely, if ever, inside a game that is a "simulation" would your spellbook be lost or destroyed. There are certain games where that can happen. In those, yes, have a backup spellbook. But in games run by all the have a backup spellbook or else! arguers, there is no point. Most of them have already admitted if they want to remove your spellbook as part of the story (or just to spite you as in the case of ciretose), they will, so there is no point having a backup spellbook because some assassin's guild strike team can jump in and destroy/steal all of them.

This thread should be closed as ridiculous and unproductive.

NWN 2 didn't even properly fully model 3.5 and changes to Pathfinder would go a lot deeper than a mod could reach.

Just make a new game.

Sebastian wrote:

That is hilarious and awesome. I particularly like the non-lethal sundering. How do you describe that?

DM: "You swing at your foe, but he dodges neatly out of the way. On your follow-up attack you...uh...hit his sword gently, thereby fueling your destructive rage!"

Merciful weapons are dealing the same damage. I'd describe it as a magical force somehow converting raw power into the equivalent of a sap.

Another plus, if your enemy is somehow using a person as a shield, you can now sunder the shield and knock out the person instead of killing them.

...Not sure when that would come up, but it's nice to have the option!

DM: "Your foe grabs yon peasant and uses him as a human shield!"

It all depends, if the book is being destroyed or stolen is important to a specific goal of a bbeg or important to the plot usually meaning that there is a story driven way to bring it back then it is not a dick move by the GM. If the GM is destroying or stealing a Wizard's spell book just to destroy or steal it is a dick move by a GM.

Getting it back with a "story driven method" means diddly. A lost spellbook is a lost spellbook. You won't be able to prepare spells unless you have a backup. You know what I'm not doing without a backup spellbook? Going on a quest to retrieve a lost spellbook from some dangerous enemy.

wraithstrike wrote:

A creature is only as challenging as you play it. CR numbers alone dont make challenging encounters.

That's true, but it seems like whatever adjustment you make, it's not going to help the dragon enough. As soon as the Paladin can attack, he's dead.

If you make major adjustments or tactics (for example the Paladin is never able to attack), specifically to counter the PC (which is more like a boss creature himself than as a member of a team), the player (rightfully) calls foul.

Sure, the Paladin has fun (I think?) by killing the dragon in the first round. Do the other 3-5 players? If I was them, I wouldn't like it either.

I am 100% behind any party member who kills an enemy before it kills us. It's not like the Paladin is a Superman and they are all Jimmy Olsen taking pictures of him beating up all the bad guys. An evil dragon is one of the three evil things that Paladins are designed to be super awesome against. It's like how only Fry could defeat the brain creatures, does that make Fry an overpowered superman? No, it means he had a special ability (gene manipulated stupidity in Fry's case) that made him really good at fighting brains.

Trinam wrote:

Liliththrall, what ability gives bonus rage rounds for sundering things?

Destroyers Blessing from Orcs of Golorian

So assuming you are Evil and the enemy has weapons, you can gain infinite rage by not attacking the enemy!

It's the ultimate dick move NPC, an evil Half-Orc Barbarian Breaker one that sunders all your stuff until you've killed him.

Are we going to start naming horror movies now (or is KCfOS horror? beats me)

Gingerdeadman and Jack Frost (not that ridiculous Christmas movie where a singer possesses his son's snowman, the other one, where a serial killer possesses a snowman). Also, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman. Which takes place in the tropics. I kid you not.

Cartigan wrote:

So you sunder a spell component pouch. You now have infinite spell components on the ground. And a holy symbol. Ok, I hold the two halves of my broken holy symbol together and use my Divine Focus pre-req abilities.

Really? That's the tack you want to take in this? That you can just hold two halves of a broken item back together and it still works?

Please point me to any reference where it says your mundane divine focus must not have the broken or destroyed condition to act as a divine focus.

Even in your out-of-left-field interpretation of sunder (nowhere does it say a sundered item is in only two pieces),

Nowhere does it say it is anything but broken or destroyed.

Really, I expected better. My mistake.

I expected non-stupid arguments. Holy symbols aren't magical. Spell component pouches are pouches. You sunder my backpack, oh no, everything in it magically disappears! No.

Unless the Wizard really did take Wis as a dump stat, he's gonna know that he should make a back up spellbook before he loses his primary spellbook. He makes it before the adventure starts.

That excludes most adventure paths, so no destroying spellbooks outside home games.

And we are assuming of course that your home game has regular and extended periods of "in town" downtime between adventures.

The cost of a backup spell book (assuming average wisdom - that the backup is made before the primary is lost) is actually pretty dirt cheap.

No, it's not. And that's not taking into account spells NOT learned from leveling up.

At 5th level:
Let's save five 0 level spells (more likely 10) - 25gp
Eight 1st level spells (3+Int of 17+2 at level 2) - 40gp
Four 2nd level - 160gp
Two 3rd level - 180gp

Total: 420gp, 217 if he is duplicating it directly.
Sure, if you have one backup, that's a pittance, but how many do you need to be safe from jerkass DMs who are constantly trying to destroy it? Three? Five?
Let's say, most prudently, two main spellbooks and 2 traveling spellbooks (you are eventually going to need more because spells start spilling over with just normal spells learned, the example above is 27 pages by itself. Increase duplicates by 2 at every spill over)

The cost of that is (with pre-duplication) - 858gp.
Never mind any spells learned from scrolls or other spellbooks, that's just from leveling up. And underlearning 0th level.

If you IN FACT decide all 0th level spells are in your book, that's another 45 gold per book, so 180 gp for a new total of 1038. ~10% of character wealth at 5th level.

Let's just play a Sorcerer.

Cartigan wrote:

Stealing/destroying a spellbook is a good way to get the Wizard to reroll a character.

And I presume you are going to rapidly replace that wealth by level you are destroying from sundering?

Stealing/destroying a spellbook is a good way to get a poorly designed/played Wizard player to reroll a character.

What? Replacing spellbooks is a time consuming process (if not particularly expensive any more compared to wealth by level). When are you going to be able to do this in the middle of adventure? I guess it's quicker then since you will have lost most of your spells - you can only write the ones in to the new book that you have prepared and haven't cast - and then you are ineffective as a character because you've lost your ability to do anything in combat. Or, you can perhaps have created an extra 5 to deal with jerkass DMs while you were in town and have minimal other wealth. Of course, where would you keep them? If they were on you, they would be stolen or destroyed. If you kept them in town, you wouldn't have access to them during an adventure. If you could keep them on your party members to keep them safe, why couldn't you just have done that with the single one?

A well designed Wizard already has back up spellbooks and other risk mitigations so that getting a spellbook stolen/lost isn't such a great loss.

So an extra 4 spellbooks at 5th level is what? 2-3k gold? That's 20-30% of your wealth by level. And what risk mitigations are you going to have in case the spellbook is stolen? If it is stolen, your risk mitigation against getting it stolen has failed and you have to fall back on duplicate books - if you had time to make any. And what if it is destroyed? You anti-theft protections are useless then.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

So you want to give the armless-eidolon synthesist something for free that the wildshaping druid has to pay for?

lets make a druid archtype that gives up its animal companion class feature, then, yeah maybe we can give him natural spell as a class feature for free.

No, no, no. He has to lose his animal companion/nature bond while Wild Shaped and he only gets 3/4 casting.

jhallum wrote:

Card is Mormon, I believe, and is very conservative. He had/has a blog around someplace this exhibits his hate for all things not conservative: http://www.ornery.org/

As opposed to the more common, hate for all things not liberal.

Who pressed the conservative persecution complex button?

Help, help, we're being oppressed! Come see the liberalness inherent in the system!

That is assuming that all choices must be optimal. They dont, and they shouldn't.

Just saying it doesn't make it so. Please explain in detail why, exactly, all options shouldn't be optimal. And by optimal, we mean equivalent in benefit.

Some people like to be hampered

They can hamper themselves without hampering the game system.

and others value flavor over mechanical benefits.

Both with option A and option B, you can't rule stupidity out of the game, but that's no excuse to write support for it in in lieu of good, balanced design.

The only way that is possible is if there is no variety in the ruleset.

That depends how we take the argument. There is a difference between two options being different in power in how they work in the game and a two options being different in power because one was designed to be the worse of the two. That should never happen.

Your mentality can only result in a game like 4th edition, where the flavor of the rules are completely separated from the mechanics in favor of game balance.

Which is roughly what you should aim for. The mechanics should codify flavor but flavor should NOT hamstring mechanics. Which is what you are advocating, and I have seen devs advocate much to my consternation. (Even more, PERCEPTIONS of flavor should NEVER hamstring mechanical codification - you guys reading this?)

There is space enough in the books for lots of different options.

You have clearly never seen the devs get into one of their wordspace spiels.

If all that matters if which option is 'good' or 'best' then you either get power creep or you dont get more options.

Wrong. Creating balanced mechanics is not power creep. That is a blatant and absurd fallacy. Some options may be weaker due to how the game works, but they should NEVER be designed that way. Nor should CLEARLY weaker options be allowed into the books to take up wordspace. If I have two options and option B gives me all the benefits of option A plus MORE benefits, option A never should have been made. Purposefully designing weakened options creates power creep, or the perception thereof, just as easily as designing clearly overpowered options. All options written into the game should be reviewed to see if they are on par with other options in the game. None should be let in that are clearly more powerful or clearly weaker than another.

It is literally impossible to provide a wide variety of options that are equally valuable.

Demonstrably false. For at least 2 reasons. (1) Because you can't prove that statement and (2) Because there ARE a wide variety of options that are equally valuable.

And there is a difference between including 'trap' options and including options that are mechanically inferior in order to accurately represent a concept in the mechanics.

No, there really isn't. Putting a two different colored ribbons on two different piles of crap doesn't mean you don't have two piles of crap.

If I want a character that doesnt use magic items, I am taking a hit in power.

Only because you (a) want to or (b) [inexplicably] believe there is no other choice. Of COURSE there is another choice. One could EASILY design a system such that character A takes no magic items and still comes out a character capable of fighting on par with a character WITH magic items? Why? Because if not, then there would be no CR system. The CR system assumes a set of characters have a set of capabilities at level X. To design a class alternative that doesn't use magic items yet is on par with the rest of the party, all you have to do is give them advances such that they are on par with the rest of the party at any level X such as is assumed by the CR system.

No they arent. They are making a choice about preference.

Yeah, like wasting their wordspace to handicap the game system

No game system is perfect.

Especially if you specifically design it to not be.

Oberoni Fallacy is the crappiest excuse ever to not get your hands a little dirty. If you encounter something that you don't like in a game and you decide to whine about it and call the whole system badly designed instead that just wind it and houserule the bloody thing already, that's not "enforcing the Oberoni Fallacy", it's "being lazy". This is ESPECIALLY true if you are actually proficient in the mechanics to determine they are flawed in the first place. If it's broken and you realize that, then fix it already.

"If you can fix it in your own game, there is nothing wrong with it." is an easily demonstrable logical fallacy.

Merkatz wrote:

but actually really suck when you get a good look at them?

Explain to me how are you able to determine if something sucks by just looking at the stat block, instead than trying it in a actual game situation and not a theoretical one.

I am offering you the choice of two things. Your favorite food or a punch in the face. How can you know the punch in the face is worse?

Your point is mostly valid, but I am not really tired of misses, they are bound to happen and archetypes really take up a minimum ammount of space, so it is not a big loss.

Actually it is. You should hear the devs go on and on about wordspace and how they have to be miserly with it, then they use who knows how much wordspace to toss out crap because either it was unreviewed or someone convinced the devs that flavor trumps balanced and sensible mechanics.

ProfessorCirno wrote:

"The king is bigoted against tieflings."

"I just threw down a 30 diplomacy. Unless he has 20 charisma, he just got friendlier."

Diplomacy is literally based around making people who dislike you grow to like and trust you.

Of course, you're ignoring the fact that the king has to at least be close enough to the friendly side of the equation to tolerate the little sawed-off bastard yammering on at him for 1d4 hours in order for Diplomacy to begin working.

Obsessive rules codifying. Yellow flag.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I think most of this thread should go for designers, too.

Making crappy designs and calling it a 'roleplaying choice' should get your right to design revoked. It's no excuse for being a bad designer.

Good call.

Designers don't design "roleplaying choices", as much as they would like to think they do.

They design mechanics. The players make the roleplaying choices and attempt to use the mechanics the designers have made available to make that choice mechanically viable.

When they design something that's just junk, or way too powerful, they end up restricting choice, not creating it.

Furthermore, (you shouldn't have gotten me started on this, it's a whole new rant), when they make a class and follow their lengthy description with alignment restrictions, code restrictions, behavior restrictions, they do the opposite of creating "choice"

I don't need designers explaining how my character should be played thank you.

Or even better. They decide to exclude mechanics because including them would hurt their flavor.

Otherwise, if you just hit it with a death effect straight out without trying to turn off it's regeneration first, it just laughs at you. And by "laugh" I mean maul horribly because it's the Tarrasque and why would you think that was a good idea...?

The Tarrasque is killed by death effects it explicitly says so. The argument that you cannot die AT ALL while Regeneration is active makes a troll harder to kill than a Tarrasque because it isn't affected by death effects because its Regeneration doesn't explicitly say it is.

The reading is patently asinine.

Six String Samurai

Cartigan wrote:

Paladins are pretty rare? Really? Apparently every single Pathfinder Society happens in a Golarian Pocket Universe. Who is writing this setting? Seriously.

"Paladins are the rarest class in all of Golarion, even beyond the Inner Sea."

I thought it odd, but maybe all those demons pouring out of the Worldwound keep their numbers low.

PFS exists in a pocket Golarian where instead of 99.9999999999% of all people being commoners, at least 30% are PCs.

Ignoring me just results in everyone sitting around agreeing with each other. Which I'm sure you would all much like to do, but too bad.

Under the "cannot die at all" interpretation, what is the result of exposing a troll to Power Word: Kill (or any other instant-death effect)? Are they just flat-out immune? Do they drop unconscious?

Regeneration makes you immune to death effects. Unless you are the Tarrasque because it explicitly says they kill him. Think about that for a bit.

Can we just toss out Summoners and start over already?
This makes my head hurt and I am just trying to comprehend the rules exceptions and counterexceptions, not write them.

Currently there is a debate going on about why sword canes were added if they were not mechanically better than X.

There was a huge thread about the Monk vow of poverty, and how horrible it was.

To which I slam my head repeatedly into my desk.

Crazy thought here, maybe every build isn't an optimal build.

Maybe, and I know I'm going to get a little nuts here but stay with me, maybe some people think flavor is more important that power because maybe they actually play the game to create a story with the DM, and they want to play an interesting character in that story.

But the swordcane being crap mechanically is bloody nonsense. Picking it because it is crap mechanically is moronic. Role-players come up with this high and mighty excuse of doing incomprehensible things for "story" reasons when really they are just simply illogical nonsense. "My character has a limp and is 80 years old and is a pacifist." Well that's bloody great, but why the hell are you an adventurer? You know, someone who spends all his time climbing through dungeons and beating stuff to death. Sure, maybe it kind of works for an "intrigue game" of Dining Halls & Diplomats.

Maybe, and this could just be crazy talk, some people think that your huge eideolon with 15 attacks would probably not be allowed in most major cities, or your Svirfneblin or Dhampir may cause some interaction problems in well lit rooms.

But those are suboptimal choices then! What the hell is your argument?!

Maybe a sword cane is less conspicuous and that has value.

Why not hide a dagger on your person? Or use a quarterstaff?

Maybe some of us are less worried that the new splat book didn't give you the broken option you were hoping for

But you seem very worried that the splat book didn't give you your purposefully suboptimal, completely-useless-in-the-game "role-playing" option you really wanted.

Joana wrote:

Again, what about the divine caster? Why are wizards with arcane sight the masters of all magic, both arcane and divine, while divine casters can't even detect divine magic without standing right on top of it?

The divine caster can planar ally someone to do it for him. Or not -- he/she has already got better BAB, hp, armor, and just as many if not more spells, so I don't feel too sorry for them.

What about the rogue? He's supposed to be the ace at detecting traps, but needs to hit DC 25 + spell level for a magic trap just to notice it, whereas the guy with a 0-level cantrip doesn't even need to roll. Yeah, he can take minor magic, but that's only 3/day rather than at will, and a talent is a much bigger expendeture, in terms of total class resources, than a spell slot.

1) Again, ANYONE can detect magic traps. Given that fact, who gives a crap WHO finds it as long as SOMEONE does? Finding the magic trap isn't the problem; it's disabling it.

Tacticslion wrote:

And if people have problems with detect magic, why not with arcane sight?

It's not spammable (unless you allow permanency)

Who needs it to be spammable? It still lasts minutes per level and you don't have to spend any rounds focusing on stuff.

and it's something that isn't accessible at low level.

Level 5?

My horizon in the system is mostly E6

Which is not how the game is balanced nor is it even the majority of the game as it is designed so your argument inherently makes itself irrelevant.

Edit: Really? That last post was favorited by two people? Seriously? He didn't even say anything meaningful.

Everyone loves nothing.

Also, I know you're describing what you (and others) feel to be elementary game theory, but I'm here to tell you that it's not an axiom. I do not subscribe to the "nova party" theory of party composition and character building,

What theory? I'm speaking from play experience. Contrary to some of the neckbeards around here might assert, I don't just wax philosophical about the game, I play it.