Charon's Little Helper's page

You know what I thought was a huge step backwards?

Monster building.

In 3.5, we had tables explaining how to directly adjust the CR if you added HD, or if you made a critter bigger or smaller, etc. Pathfinder instead gives a table of target values for combat stats and says "just fudge it."

In theory I agree with you - but going by the 3.5 HD etc., some monsters you build were crazy OP for their CR, and others were push-overs.

* Price. Originally, the 3 core 3.0 books retailed for only $20 each, and many players could get away with buying only the Player's Handbook. And the default campaign setting was $10, or $28 for the more complete book, and a fine setting book it was. Even today, browsing through Amazon, I see that the 3.0 core books are being sold more cheaply by third party sellers than the core books of other editions.

Dang inflation!! Back in my day we could get all our D&D books for a nickel!

WormysQueue wrote:

Jessica Price wrote:

And when that happens, that's great. That helps build an environment where the moderators and the community tend to feel like they're on the same side.

Though this may have its negative side effects too. Moderators are humans too and unluckily, that brings the tendency with it to turn one's blind eye to those people misbehaving that you feel are on your side too. And on the other hand, it might lead to a certain elitism against new members in that you try to teach them to hold too a developed informal standard when they actually do nothing wrong (apart from maybe stating an opinion that, while perfectly valid, doesn't fit this informal standard).

That is not meant as a general argument against community self-moderation, but it is something that happens and and it also has happened on these boards and probably will happen in the future again. Paizo is certainly not the worst offender on this particular front, but I've seen it happen often enough (especially elsewhere, be it as forum member or as moderator) that I'm a bit wary of community self-policing.

But that's also why I don't critizise how moderation gets handled here, though I personally think that it's sometimes a bit too heavy-handed. But better that than having the anarchy that comes with the opposite approach.

Yeah, I can attest that Paizo is definitely not the worst offender. There are some places where supposed moderators will actually attack those who they deem inferior/badwrongmale/icky-poo.

Didn't that sort of craziness lead to Green Ronin shutting down their forums?

IIRC there are direct quotes from Lucas indicating his...dislike of the new movies.

Personally I think the underlying story and setting for the prequels was fine. It was just executed very poorly, with bad direction to actors, bad dialog, and cheesy comic relief. The awesomeness that was Clone Wars series shows that the overall plot could have worked with better directors and scripting.

Except for the giant tangent in Ep1 on Tattoine. They would have been better off making Anakin already a young padawan (14-15 - make him hitting on the queen not weird) and had 2 Jedi sent to Naboo in the opening scene. (Qui Gon & Anakin's master)

Then they could have done something that Hollywood does well consistently - a buddy relationship between Obi Won & Anakin. (start out disliking/rivalry - grow to be friends) Then have both of their masters killed near the end, and Obi Won take him on as his apprentice. Would also explain his insubordination later.

On the other hand, I can see the point that HP as a mechanic is not really about wounds so much as fatigue until you drop to zero and below.

Of course, that interpretation is problematic for arrows, crossbows, and other ranged weapons...but that's not 5E's fault. HP in general are a legacy mechanic dating back to the original D&D. It's basically been broken since inception.

I always figured that HP was mostly your heroic awesomeness/skill/luck causing blows to just barely miss etc. (Ex: Some of those Stormtroopers were hitting the MCs' HP, they just weren't dealing enough damage to put any of them down. They were chewing through their heroic awesomeness/luck, which is why the MCs ran away from them.)

From that perspective, it kinda makes sense to recover all of it after a long rest. (Makes as much sense as a powerful barbarian who is barely wounded requiring far more magic to fully heal than a farmer who is on his deathbed. :P)

Pun Pun

"You cannot control what someone will do, but you can control how you will respond."

Well.. a Pathfinder enchanter can. :P

Fake Healer wrote:

Odraude wrote:

I don't really post as much these days. Forums just seem not so great anymore. So I just stick to Starfinder and maybe gamer life, as well as my google+ crowd.

I stopped posting a while back also...I was encountering harsher, ruder posts from people and it seemed like most threads lasted about 6-7 posts before someone was letting fly with some sort of viciousness.

Yeah that's why I stopped taking part regularly as well. Seems no matter what you say, someone is going to attack you for it. Civil disagreement is a last resort to some.

I disagree! You're wrong and deserve to be attacked for your wrongness! *mildly offensive insult*

(Zen Archer, Tetori, Sohei, maybe Far Strike and Maneuver Master) can compete with (or surpass) the unMonk.

I'd add Sensei & Drunken Master to that mix. (Especially if you stack them.)

Since the errata Master of Many Styles does a pretty solid monk if you use it in combination with natural weapons (since it loses flurry it can combine unarmed with nat weapons rather well). Though without nat weapons it's somewhat sub-par. (before errata it was a stupidly good dip - but a horrible main class)

Sundakan wrote:

UnMonk is a sidegrade at best, a downgrade if you factor in Monk archetypes (which it can't use)

I would argue monk archetypes were always high-tuned upgrades stapled onto the clearly immensely flawed core monk chasis. Of course monk archetypes are strong. They were always meant to be strong to compensate for the godawful monk class. Unless those Core Monk archetypes were overpowered (tetori, zen archer, sensai, quiggong), nobody would touch the class with a 10 foot pole.

The UMonk class is solid and very capable on its own and can keep up with other classes. It would be a horrible mistake to bring back some of the old archetypes (except maybe tetori because I like what it did despite being overpowered) without serious rebalances to the point that they barely even seem the same archetype. It is healthier from a game design standpoint to ban old archetypes so they can start fresh and release properly balanced archetypes for the new UMonk.

I can't find it right now, but on a Umonk thread, when I brought up that Umonk was definitely better than core monk, and about equivalent to core monk with stacked archetypes (always qinggong & at least one more) but that the Umonk was far easier to build, a designer (I forget which) chimed in to say that that was basically what they were going for.

It was never meant to be an upgrade to a archetype stacked monk, it was an easy to build upgrade to the trap option which is the un-archetyped core monk.

Freehold DM wrote:

Me, I blame Facebook. And Joss Whedon. But mostly Facebook.

I blame global warming.

And bears.

Me, I blame Facebook. And Joss Whedon. But mostly Facebook.

I blame global warming.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

STR-based unchained rogue? why? did your GM allow you to swap finesse training for something else?

I was assuming that they meant core rogue. (Which no one should EVER play anymore.)

some gms don't allow unchained rogue as they veiw them as broken..... yet they still allow casters

Lol - unchained rogue is solidly in the top half... of martials.

It's only broken in comparison to core rogues - which they replace.

I'm a kobold. I can basically wear one boot.

As a reptile, are you cold-blooded? That would basically be the epitome of being 'cool'.

I'd lose my toes. The snow's six inches deep over here!

You could still wear boots.

Brother Fen wrote:

Worry less about the cool kids constantly saying "look at me"

I'm cool, right?

Just walk outside in shorts & no coat and you'll be extremely cool in no time at all. (Assuming that it's half as wintery where you are as it is where I am right now.)

It's a secret that the Illuminati don't want you to know about. *nods convincingly*

I used it to wake up the party when targeted by sleep.

It worked pretty well than wasting 3 standard actions to wake them up.

And the award for least useful necromancer goes to...

Charons little helper(who hopefully is kidding)

I'll never tell...

When our character is stabbed, the GM gets up and stabs us! (Our group has a high turnover.)

Derklord wrote:

666bender wrote:

scout archtype , after level 8 offer 100% sneaks .

move 10' with spring attack and get a sneak.

For a single attack per round. Which means your damage will be absolutely abysmal.

Rogues just miss with their iterative attacks anyway. I suppose at lvl 20 or so you are missing out, but since games dont go much beyond 12 in most cases, I dont see you losing much.

and it usually stops your foe from doing a Full attack on you, which is very nice.

1. Unchained Rogues which hit with their primary attack are actually more accurate with their first iterative attack at level 10+ due to Debilitating Injury. (not counting TWF)

2. Unless the rogue is making ranged attacks (in which case you're already at range) how is moving 10ft before attacking going to prevent you from being full-attacked?

Unfortunately, rogues are rather poor at dirty fighting due to their low BAB, though you can definitely make a solid feint build.

The stats are okay, though I don't think that you need the CON that high. A 14 should be plenty.

Ex:
STR:8
Dex:19 (human bonus)
Con:14
Int:12
Wis:12
Cha:14

You should probably either go with an elven curved blade or go TWF, though if you use a single rapier you can use a masterwork buckler with no penalty even when you're not proficient.

If you're worried about durability, halflings make amazing rogues, especially if you want to go with a Feint build since they get the +2 Charisma. Just take the racial ability to get 30ft movement. Their +1 to hit, AC, & to all saves are very nice.

So for a Halfling -

STR:6
Dex:19 (human bonus)
Con:14
Int:12
Wis:12
Cha:16

Trait: Muscle of the Society

Feats: Improved Feint or TWF at level 1 - and then either take Improved Feint at 3 if you took TWF or take Elven Curved Blade proficiency, eventually picking up Greater Feint.

Unfortunately - the rapier is now a rather subpar weapon for rogues, at least until level 11 due to Finesse Training. This is because you don't get the damage of an elven curved blade (which gets 1.5 Dex) and you can't TWF effectively with a pair of rapiers.

If you want to go the rapier route, going with a Swashbuckler might fit your vibe better than a rogue.

If you don't use too much rouge, it'll bring out the best of your natural complexion.

I don't see why it would make you faint.

Dredd (the 2012 movie - not the Stallone one)

Dodgeball

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Frankly - a Dex Sohei doesn't even need the VMC.

+12 from Dex

+4 Improved Initiative

+2 trait

+2 Elf thing

+10 Sohei ability

roll of 20

Total of 50 - ezpz

No traits; you're still tied at 48.

I actually already tweaked my previous post from +2 Elf to +4 Half-elf, so he's at 50 without the +2 trait bonus.

Doesn't this rule out the auto-20 for a VMC divination wizard?

Quote:

School Power: At 7th level, he gains the 1st-level powers of his chosen school. If any of those powers grant an extra effect at 20th level, the character does not gain that extra effect.

In that case Firewarrior44's build should just be changed from Slayer to Sohei Monk since they also get an auto-20 initiative at level 20.

At 1st level, a sohei can always act in a surprise round even if he does not notice his enemies, though he remains flat-footed until he acts. In addition, a sohei gains a bonus on initiative rolls equal to 1/2 his monk level. At 20th level, a sohei’s initiative roll is automatically a natural 20.

This ability replaces Stunning Fist.

Frankly - a Dex Sohei doesn't even need the VMC.

+12 from Dex

+4 Improved Initiative

+2 trait

+4 Half-Elf alternate racial

+10 Sohei ability

roll of 20

Total of 52 - ezpz

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

So - a charisma martial can't win a fight with the wizard, but if they win initiative they will be able to convince the wizard...

Last I checked the wizards were at 47/48 for initiative. Hows the fighter looking?

Oh - a fighter couldn't beat it - hence my mention of martials in general.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Actually - with Skill Unlock, you can get Diplomacy checks down to 1 round.

Sure, but that doesn't get round the fact that diplomacy is ineffective against those who mean you imminent harm or that it only works on NPC's:

Quote:

Check: You can change the initial attitudes of nonplayer characters with a successful check. The DC of this check depends on the creature's starting attitude toward you, adjusted by its Charisma modifier.

True - but I was just thinking about fighting a wizard with a martial in general. I guess that since my table always disallows PvP, I didn't think about it.

Wrath wrote:

Can you have custom items? Fighter will need them in an arena match.

Is there a chance for skill use? I mean PvP the right build could just outright talk an opponent into giving up with an opposed roll. Magic gear prevents mind control magic, but diplomacy, bluff and intimidate are not magic. What if I build my fighter to dump stat everything but will and charisma then just talk the wizard to death?

These are such wearisome threads. Yet strangely enticing....

Quote:

Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future.

It also takes 1 minute of interaction. No go in combat.

You can use bluff to feint, or intimidate to demoralize in combat as normal. If you think that will help, go for it.

Actually - with Skill Unlock, you can get Diplomacy checks down to 1 round.

With sufficient ranks in Diplomacy, you earn the following.

5 Ranks: The time required to influence a creature's attitude or gather information is halved.

10 Ranks: You can attempt to adjust a creature's attitude in 1 round by taking a –10 penalty. If you take 1 minute to adjust a creature's attitude, add your Charisma bonus to the number of hours that attitude change persists.

15 Ranks: You can attempt to adjust a creature's attitude in 1 round with no penalty. If you take 1 minute to adjust a creature's attitude, the duration of the resulting change is measured in days, not hours. You can gather information in 10 minutes by taking a –5 penalty.

20 Ranks: You can attempt to adjust a creature's attitude in 1 round with no penalty. If you take 1 minute to adjust a creature's attitude, the duration of the resulting change is measured in weeks, not hours. You can gather information in 1d4 minutes with no penalty.

So - a charisma martial can't win a fight with the wizard, but if they win initiative they will be able to convince the wizard to be friends. (Add a bluff check and they might be able to coup de grace them later. :P)

As far as high levels, martial characters are the best at higher levels. Especially ranged martial characters.

Yeah...

I'm glad that you have fun with your game - but that is not what anyone else I've ever talked to has found. Casters, especially wizards, dominate high level play if they know what they're doing at all.

I or anyone else could show you such builds which dominate any sort of martial.

Though - I also saw above that you use mythic - which I wouldn't touch with a 39.5 foot pole - so balance probably isn't your main concern. *shrug*

If your group is still chewing through HP when foes have their hitpoints inflated so much - I don't think that they're nearly the optimizers that you seem to think that they are.

And my complaint isn't primarily from being OP for characters to take (though it is) it's how much it invalidates dealing damage and therefore martials as a combat tactic - which is already sub-par at high levels. If your players are still dealing damage as their primary tactic despite that, they don't actually have very much system mastery.

Which were not caused by humans, but by new species taking over niches and climate change.

What are you talking about? Everything wrong with the planet is humans' fault!!!

The dinosaurs would still be around if it wasn't for us! *nods convincingly*

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I have a friend who bought tons and tons of action figures in the 80s and 90s, keeping them in the packages because he believed they'd increase in value so he could afford to send his daughter to college with the profits he'd make on them one day. I never really said anything to him, because he believed so strongly they'd increase in value, but I believed that he was spending a lot of money on items that would decrease in value to the point of near worthlessness. And when he did try to sell them on eBay or other such venues he was sorely disappointed. He had a handful that increased in value, but compared to the hundreds he had purchased it was just a huge boondoggle.

I read a story about a family that tried the same thing with beanie babies. Yeah didn't turn out well for them.

Yeah - anything which is created & sold specifically to be collectable very rarely goes up in value.

Early baseball cards are worth big bucks specifically because no one at the time thought they were anything more than a novelty, and people didn't bother taking care of them. My father told me that he put them in his bicycle wheels because they made a cool sound when he rode it.

a crap ton of gold

Is that bigger or smaller than a normal ton? Or is it just sticky?

Lust is a sin in Christianity, but that doesn't mean that it is inherently chaotic or non-good in nature; especially in a game like Pathfinder.

I'll pop in to point out that Christianity doesn't have a problem with being lusty - it just directs it towards marriage etc. Even lust as a deadly sin (not actually biblical - just some monk's list in the 4th or 5th century) was in reference to it controlling your life (like the stuff listed that this 'paladin' has done >.<) - in the same way that gluttony making you 800+lbs is different from being hungry and having the occasional cheeseburger.

As I said last night, and still believe, Trump is not the true reason I'm concerned.

I'm concerned that this is going to be the sort of candidate we see from the Republican party, and yes, potentially even the Democratic party, from this moment forward. A Trump victory has proven that this sort of candidate wins. Why fix what ain't broke, right?

I think it was more that Hilary was a horrible candidate combined with the fact that a party rarely keeps the presidency for more than 8 years at a stretch. Frankly - most any other candidate in those circumstances wouldn't have made it such a nail-biter. Trump won "despite" not "because" of the sort of candidate he is.

And at least 57 million Americans love this.

I doubt that. There are at least 57 million Americans who find it at least slightly less unappealing than the idea of president elect Clinton.

Funnily enough, we actually had a Surplus for a short while...under Bill Clinton. That disappeared under Bush.

See, the thing is, in order to get out of recessions, you need to stimulate the economy. How do you do that?

By getting lucky and presiding over the 90's tech boom which had nothing to do with either the democratic president or republican congress? :P (Frankly - I think all politicians get way too much credit for how the economy does - both good & bad.)

I respect that viewpoint, and maybe 20 years ago or more it would have been more valid. Unfortunately, in today's "block everything the other party tries to do, no questions asked" political climate, doing this all but guarantees more crippling gridlock.

I prefer to call it "awesome gridlock". Both sides suck - and the less either of them can do, the better off we all are. :P

I'd disagree on not voting the party line. I'd love to agree, but the parties have staked out extreme enough positions that things like party control of congress or of state legislatures matter more than individual politicians foibles.

I'd counter-argue that that line of thinking/voting is part of the reason why large chunks the two big parties have gotten so extreme.

I thought that the source to all of the world's problems was "Global Warming"?

Actually - I'm going to go a bit contrarian.

Only vote for stuff if you've actually done your research. Don't just vote a party line without knowing who the heck most of the people you're voting for are. I know that I didn't vote for every position. (Though it does amuse me to vote for the people running unopposed.)

While neither would screw up the balance - the Strange Aeons book specifically suggests avoiding many of the odder races in order to keep the game's vibe/theme. Of note though - it specifically calls out Changelings as fitting the theme.

Our Strange Aeons group has a tiefling - which fits pretty well too. (I'd probably avoid Aasimar though.)

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

JonathonWilder wrote:

For me, how I personally define the two terms and those with these play styles, is that one focuses more on the roleplaying aspect of the game while the other focuses on the dice rolling. A mindset if you will. Were some players prefer to focus their time and attention on the game from the mechanical/numbers standpoint where others prefer to look at it based on the story, characters, and setting.

Now yes there's no way of divorcing D&D and Pathfinder from the necessity of dice rolling, and I believe most players wouldn't want to do that, but the same time I am personally of the opinion that some choose to focus too much of their time and attention on the dice rolling. They put too much time and attention into the number crunching or trying to squeeze every benefit they can out of the mechanics to the point where they care more about this then creating an interesting character or even considering a less powerful option because of flavor.

It is actually something I noticed in the D&D when it came to prestige classes. There were some players who found it inconceivable to even consider an option that loses you a spell level, or otherwise lessened the power or versatility of the character, even if said option was actually quite flavorful and could allow for great roleplaying.

For me, this is the difference between roleplayer and rollplayer. Though I should probably mention I have no intention of using one term in an insulting way, I simply have a preference in style.

*cough* Stormwind Fallacy *cough*

No. Really it isn't.

"You can't make an interesting character if you take the more powerful option" is the fallacy.
"Refusing the weaker options, even though the character could still be interesting" is often mistaken for Stormwind, but it's not the same thing at all.

Perhaps I shouldn't have bolded "or even considering a less powerful option because of flavor".

It still talks about spending "too much of their time and attention on the dice rolling" with the implication that it prevents them from roleplaying properly since they "care more about this then creating an interesting character".

For me, how I personally define the two terms and those with these play styles, is that one focuses more on the roleplaying aspect of the game while the other focuses on the dice rolling. A mindset if you will. Were some players prefer to focus their time and attention on the game from the mechanical/numbers standpoint where others prefer to look at it based on the story, characters, and setting.

Now yes there's no way of divorcing D&D and Pathfinder from the necessity of dice rolling, and I believe most players wouldn't want to do that, but the same time I am personally of the opinion that some choose to focus too much of their time and attention on the dice rolling. They put too much time and attention into the number crunching or trying to squeeze every benefit they can out of the mechanics to the point where they care more about this then creating an interesting character or even considering a less powerful option because of flavor.

It is actually something I noticed in the D&D when it came to prestige classes. There were some players who found it inconceivable to even consider an option that loses you a spell level, or otherwise lessened the power or versatility of the character, even if said option was actually quite flavorful and could allow for great roleplaying.

For me, this is the difference between roleplayer and rollplayer. Though I should probably mention I have no intention of using one term in an insulting way, I simply have a preference in style.

*cough* Stormwind Fallacy *cough*

3. Medieval (ish) fantasy: There have been noticeable exceptions, such as Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, but I think that the genre is too small to be main stream. There have been TTRPGs focusing on other genres, and I don't think they've had more success, such as Call of Cthulu, Star Wars RPG, so this may only be a small hindrance.

While I agree with your other points, I don't think this is one, at least in the US. Besides the two you mentioned, there are a plethora of rather mainstream video games which use such settings without issue (Warcraft/Skyrim/Total War/Witcher/Diablo/Dragon Age/etc.) and their very existence makes such worlds a known quantity.

Actually, there being so many and such a large shared trope base to draw upon is arguably the biggest reason that fantasy TTRPGs tend to do so much better than other RPG genres. After all, while there are a good chunk of sci-fi things which most people know, most of them are locked behind copyrights.

Again, I think the people who say fudging the dice is BadWrong make the mistaken association that fudging=removing all danger.

No one said that fudging is badwrong - you're straw-manning pretty hard. (perhaps not intentionally)

People have been two things pretty consistently.

1. You should tell players that you may fudge. Fudging isn't Badwrong - but lying to your friends is.

2. Some of us would prefer to not have dice fudged, even in our favor. That is purely a matter of taste, and something we would (if you were our GM) inform you when you initially told us that you prefer to sometimes fudge.

Not true! I'm not negating the danger. I just may chose to ignore the "auto kill" because I know how unfun it is to get killed without even a chance to participate.

You're negating the danger of the "auto kill" - which is one of the major dangers of play.

Or are you seriously going to tell me that if I rolled a critical hit for maximum damage on the surprise round, you'd rather be bisected in the surprise round and your character die just so you know I didn't lie about what the roll was?

Yes.

Otherwise my character is never in real danger - just the illusion of it.

Again though, if you'd mentioned to me that you sometimes fudge, it wouldn't be a huge deal. (I just generally don't like being lied to outside of such a known game context - which such a mention would create.)

Note: Admittedly when I GM I generally avoid x3 & especially x4 weapons until mid levels to reduce the chances of a lucky crit being deadly.