Charles P's page

I think every mission should be a challenge, only working together can pull the team through.
Min/Maxing will always be a problem, but that's an issue with the players, not the missions. Once player base comes to realize that its far more fun overcoming a tough challenge then simply maxing damage, or finding some cheese combination of class, traits and feats.
PFS is a means to roleplay with out actually roleplaying. It's basically a board game and more often then not boring because of the lack of challenge.

I understand many of you love PFS, but perhaps you have never been part of an good old school gaming group, with engaged players and a prepared GM. Once you have experienced that you will find PFS a poor and mostly broken substitute.

In my opinion there needs to be many things corrected to make PFS enjoyable other then a stopgap while waiting for a proper gaming group to join.

I understand you guys don't agree with my extreme suggestions, which is fine.
That being said, don't you all find the early seasons including 3rd embarrassingly easy? PFS should be a challenge and not a walk in the park.

There are 2 issues I believe,
First, most players are coming from the video RPG world of endless saves. They get butt sore when their character dies and argues with the GM about it.

GMs are also a huge issue since they either don't know how to coordinate the enemy attacks or they don't want confrontations with the players.

The organization thinks the way to keep players is to take it easy on them, the problem with that is you keep the poor players and lose the good players to boredom.

In my opinion there are a few things that need to be address to correct the issues with challenge.
1) - Local pathfinders organizations need to direct the GMs to attempt to kill players when at all possible (using the monsters abilities, coordinate attacks when possible, prebuffing before combat, learn the combat rules to allow them to fight intelligently.
2) Zero tolerance with meta gaming - ("Heal me, I'm -10hp", "that monster can only be hurt by cold iron" even though they all failed the knowledge check, the fighter telling the wizard what spells to cast) Table talk and meta gaming = cheating
3) Playing down means those players do not get any experience for the mission
4) With 4 players you can get the max 3 prestige, 5 players you can only get 2 and with 6 players you can only get one.
5) If the players do not make stealth checks, or are using bombs and gunfire then monsters within hearing distance can start preparing or working together....thus overriding the parameters as listed in the scenario (there were 3 wizards in a room, the players were just outside it throwing bombs and using gunfire, they made no attempt to be quiet, but in the mission it indicated the wizards are surprised)

I guess in closing I would suggest that only character types that were available during a specific season be allowed to play. this will fix the issue with OP character types. Or even better Paizo re-releases all the old missions with updates to account for the OP character classes, feats and traits.

thoughts?

can you fight with the shield 2handed? it seems awkward at best, how could you get any force behind the strike?

do you think it is likely Paizo will come out with clarifications beyond the errata?

It's all well and good putting cool things into the game, but dumping random thoughts and turning them into a set of rules the GMs have to deal with. Every time a new class/feat/trait comes out to causes problems because it doesn't seem like the play test is vs other older rules.

This means the new combination can run through older modules with ease.... I know this inside the right place for it, btu I'm kind of getting frustrated....

meatpants wrote:

I thought roleplaying was about roleplaying, not about stacking endless traits, feats and other stuff to create a super character that has no disavantages and only advantages....

Stormwind Ho. Sometimes the player options from non CRB core sources are necessary to enable some character concepts that people might want to play. No powergaming, no cheese, just character concepts which cannot be made with only the CRB.

I agree sometimes that might be true....but only sometimes. Since there is very little actual roleplay...just numbers on a sheet of paper (at least in my experiance lately)

Perhaps me and 1/2 the players at the table are too old school, but the new players are constantly causing grief with there unreasonable play style.

I think the problem might be that due to all the traits, feats, and subclasses there are too many to play test.

I'm getting to the point where I might just run with only the core book, nothing else. anyway, sorry for the b$*!@ing, I'm really getting frustrated weth the endless e-mails I'm getting from my players.

I thought roleplaying was about roleplaying, not about stacking endless traits, feats and other stuff to create a super character that has no disavantages and only advantages....

You can clearly see the summoner under the eidolon. That's the intent and the rules. Don't allow your players to cheese past the intent.

The problem is Cheese in encouraged, if someone plays something standard that is not min/maxed most people thing the messed up their character.

pathfinder is all about the cheese, and difficult for the GM to control it

Longswords used to be popular because you were more likely to find a +1 lonsword then something more exotic.

with PFS you can basically get a +1 anything including a piece of hemp rope. Old school mostly had to find magic...

IF you're the DM, lay down the law for that PC and tell him to roll a new character if he does not like your rulings on how the ability works in your game. My two cents.

but for PFS is have to let them play whatever is in the books.

I'm told there is a ability or spell that makes it opaque. The player is also saying that translucent is not transparent and that in itself will make identification of him extremely difficult.

I have a few questions about when fused with eidolon.

First - once the shape the eidolon is selected is exactly the same each time. I have a player using it as a disguise.

Second - being fused with eidolon doesnt this affect skills like diplomacy? the player is interacting with everyone in the fused form. (would think that this would be distracting and annoying)

Also, how will normal people deal with them....I mean it does look very "monster like"

Third - Can items including armour be sundered and or slight of handed away when in eidolon form?

Forth - does enforcer, blade of mercy and the intimidate ability all stack? I have monsters more afraid of betting hit for non-lethal and running into attacks of oppourtunity - also they took a level of rogue and are sayign they get sneak attack damage for all attacks because of the blade of mercy supersedes the requirement the a weapon can only be used for non-lethal sneak attack damage if it doesnt deal with lethal damage.

Lastly - Armour - I know in the errata that the Synthesist armour doesnt count when fused, but what about the armour check penalty? Also I keep getting asked why the AC doesn't count since armour counts for flatfooted. I'm having difficulty explaining the rule. Is there something that explains the mechanics behind why it doesnt count?

I'm rather new to the Synthesist and I'm worried this is going to tear apart our gaming group. the players are all arguing about it...it's not resolving itself on its own....

HELP!

I have a few questions about when fused with eidolon.

First - once the shape the eidolon is selected is exactly the same each time. I have a player using it as a disguise.

Second - being fused with eidolon doesnt this affect skills like diplomacy? the player is interacting with everyone in the fused form. (would think that this would be distracting and annoying)

Also, how will normal people deal with them....I mean it does look very "monster like"

Third - Can items including armour be sundered and or slight of handed away when in eidolon form?

Forth - does enforcer, blade of mercy and the intimidate ability all stack? I have monsters more afraid of betting hit for non-lethal and running into attacks of oppourtunity - also they took a level of rogue and are sayign they get sneak attack damage for all attacks because of the blade of mercy supersedes the requirement the a weapon can only be used for non-lethal sneak attack damage if it doesnt deal with lethal damage.

Lastly - Armour - I know in the errata that the Synthesist armour doesnt count when fused, but what about the armour check penalty? Also I keep getting asked why the AC doesn't count since armour counts for flatfooted. I'm having difficulty explaining the rule. Is there something that explains the mechanics behind why it doesnt count?

I'm rather new to the Synthesist and I'm worried this is going to tear apart our gaming group. the players are all arguing about it...it's not resolving itself on its own....

HELP!

Nothing more than spin. Just look around at what is available right now. I'm sure you'll find something that doesn't cost you 10 bucks a month. Plus another 10 bucks for each of your players, or a fee per game. Plus money for 3e models of creatures beyond a basic set.

Fantasy grounds is quite a good application. There is a trial version you can download also.

It seems everyone is focusing on the hard rules they like and don't like, how about how 4e and Pathfinder affects the roleplay aspects of the game?
If I'm looking to roll dice I'll play Yahtzee :)

1. I for one Like the new race Dragonborn in 4th, so awesome!!. x)
Maybe somewhere in the future we will see a variant of Dragonmen in Pathfinder universe.

The addition of new races might seem good, but often players have a hard enough time roleplaying as a Humans let alone a half-dragon.

A review I read about 4e, I've included the quotes but not the source, I wasn't sure the rules here about linking external sites.

"Spell casters can always cast"....so that means there's no need for spell management,
"Half-Orc Rogue in 4e now works" I argue that it's always worked. There are trade offs and balance, they seem to want to move away from that.

"As has been written about, there are three stages of play now. Heroic (lvls 1-10), Paragon (lvls 11-20) and Epic (21-30.) Each stage really is its own beast." 21 - 30th level" why waste time building a system that goes to 30th level, is it even the same game?. How can you roleplay that, how can your character relate to anything or anyone.

Highest level I've ever played is 14.....so perhaps I'm not the best judge, but I think low - mid levels are much more enjoyable.

It's like playing Elder Scrolls....generic characters, that don't need a party. I might as well play a video game.

The class abilities look ludicrous...."Once per day, when you die?"

I see how there are combat improvements...but where's the improvement to the roleplay?

Diagonal movement -
So the closest distance between two points is a diagonal? sigh, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why alter spacial reality because a few people can't understand how diagonal movement works.

This might appeal to the younger players just becoming involved in D&D, but it's not D&D anymore, it's something else with the same name.

I'll check it out completely at the book store (don't plan to give wizards a penny), but from what I've seen and heard so far it seems quite brutal.

I guess my main worry is enough people are going to jump on the Wizards "cash grab" band wagon and drive more players away from D&D. People will not endlessly keep buying these "updates" and it will water down the player base. 2e, 3e, 3.5e, 4e....whats next 4.5e 5e, 5.25e?.

IMO-they could have just came out with a completely new game (dragon dual or something), but a new game doesn't address the money issue, people will buy 4e because they'll eventually be forced to if they want to find games or players to play in the games. But new we have support here, so maybe it will be ok and 4e will quietly die...or at least I can dream ;)