Before the thread got derailed with yet-another 'why was that a severe encounter' rant, the actual request from the op was to be aware of the bounded save ranges and not put stuff in that players need to roll 19's just to pass.

'So please take these new ranges into account when coming up with DCs.'

That's not a system complaint. That's an editorial complaint.

What's the recourse for a fresh-faced GM and group of players who simply don't understand what the hell just happened?

Not everyone comes into a game like this with 20 years of organized play experience. Not everyone comes into this with >0 hours per week of prep time. Sometimes people just pick it up and play because it sounds cool or they saw it on twitch or some such.

Telling anyone 'know your group, figure it out in advance' is elitist I'm-better-than-you-ism. Stop acting like it's easy or intuitive for just anyone to look at a book full of encounters and think 'oh, this will be a problem' or (and appropriate to THIS THREAD) 'oh, the math really looks off here, those DC's are 10 points higher than the suggested baseline' because that's just not going to be the case.

Sometimes a game is just a game, and you can be forgiven for thinking that if you pick it up off the shelf and sit down with your friends that it will work, it will be correct, and it will not need you to have spent 15 hours in reddit and these forums picking through 'git gud' nonsense in order to figure out that an encounter has a problem.

Core Rulebook pg 486 wrote:

Changing the details of an adventure to suit your group isn’t just acceptable, it’s preferred! Use the backstories and predilections of the player characters to inform how you change the adventure. This can mean altering adversaries so they’re linked to the player characters, changing the setting to a place some of the player characters are from, or excising particular scenes if you know they won’t appeal to your players.

I'm not saying that APs require more work, as they clearly require less than building everything from scratch. But the assumption that you don't prep or tailor these games to your group is one that is thrown entirely out the window. I would argue that GMs not altering the game in any way are those looking to challenge their players as a form of "module purity," which is really down to GM playstyle, but not one that APs are written for.

None of the changes that you listed from that quote are mechanical. One and all they are narrative. Perhaps you have another quote that isn't rule0 that says something about being wary of published adventures because they lean on 'cram as much XP into as small a package as possible to save on page count' and you might have to tweak things after your party starts looking at you funny when you still hit on a 1?

(/sarcasm)

Either you like a more difficult game or you don't.

Why is this such a common response? I even said it's not about ease of play.

For my group, it was about the perception of being taken out of a fight because the odds are stacked so heavily against you that the roll you need to make just to HIT is what the opponent needs to roll to crit.

There was not a single fight that the group didn't win, and I don't really remember if any of them were super close. But there were a lot of fights where the perception of imbalance between Them and Us was amplified by good and bad dice rolls that lead to massive frustration even while winning.

So when someone asks the question 'Is it just me, or is it way too easy to get hit in this edition? ' No. It's not just you. It can be explained. It can be justified. It can be appreciated. But even with all the justification in the world, in my experience it's really freaking easy to be hit in this system.

The perception they took away was that the game was a punishing slog, and as players new to the system, with a GM new to the system, the end result was yet another book sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

If that experience was the majority or even a minority large enough to affect sales then we would've seen a major shift in encounter design in APs.

Is that so? Honest question, because I haven't spent money on PF2 content since Plaguestone bombed for us. There've been a few comments in this thread about how Plaguestone and AoA were both poor starting experiences, with someone commenting on an AoA update to clean things up. I don't have a yardstick to know how major or minor the differences are.

Right or wrong, justified by the math or not, it's obvious it's not just the OP. My own group noped out of the system after encountering yet another severe encounter where the mob(s) in question hit on a 5 of the time, crit all of the time, and were so hard to hit that entire turns would go by with bad dice meaning nothing good happened.

The perception they took away was that the game was a punishing slog, and as players new to the system, with a GM new to the system, the end result was yet another book sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

If it's an issue, make it more like the Nanocyte, with a pool of low level augmentations that you can switch between, without worrying about stacking on top of any augmentations you've purchased.

Agreed, that would have been an interesting and thematic way to go about this.

Mind, the most sensical way to do that would be using evolution points in some manner, which would make that even more complex. As it is, I've resigned myself to making a graphic where I can print it out and move a coin up and down to track my evolution points as combat progresses to see what bonuses and penalties I have at the moment.

I'd really rather not have it tied to a combat-generated resource. Trying to survive an environmental hazard with your allies? I'm afraid you didn't punch enough people today to improve your lungs!

Honestly, a hundred times this. People like to roll dice and hit things, but right now I'm missing where there's any part of this class outside of initiative order. I don't think we need another class where people can check out of the game session when the option to say 'i attack' isn't on the table.

Since the fulcrum level is the same as the class level, wouldn't you be crafting and slotting a new fusion every level, or buying a few levels ahead I guess...or does the class get a small bonus in wealth by not having to pay to upgrade the fusions to match.

I'd think that the fusions would be inert when the fusion is upgraded until you reinstalled it or something. A short explanation in the fulcrum would be nice.

Opening an unlocked, unjammed, otherwise normal door takes 10' of movement (effectively counts as difficult terrain) instead of a move action. (opening a door taking a full action has always bothered me, at least in comparison to the ease with which many classes gain additional move distance)

When the group is performing aid another actions (out of combat), the final result will be the result of the best character, plus benefits from other players' rolls as appropriate. (Player J attempts to perform a computer check. Players D and K chime in to aid. Player J's result was a 9, D's was a 22, and K was a 15. Final result is 24 instead of 11)
(It makes more sense to us, takes less time at the table for retries, and helps to keep the players from missing important plot details in AP's that are hidden behind easily missible skill checks)

I think these are the only deliberate house rules. We probably have a few unofficial things we consistently screw up, but eh.

Oh, I should have read that one closer. It reminds me of the protagonist from Prototype. Looks fun. :)

Yup, this nanite investment is beyond me. Why not use the cap to say "You can take THIS many ITEMS of those types"? Just say, "At level 1, you can have 2 Major Forms in any combination of weapons and cybernetics". So EITHER 2 weapons OR 2 cybernetics OR 1 weapon and 1 cybernetic. Why go through the whole UPB thingy, when you can simplify the process? I think this makes it simpler. Kind of the same way Prototype Mechanics can get a free weapon or armor so long as the mechanic is level 1 or the weapon/armor is 2 levels lower than your mechanic level.

I hope this makes sense, my brain is not with me today. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this class.

Yes, I think it makes sense. There are already a few ways for classes to keep one foot off the loot treadmill, at least for a while. I'm not sure if one more is all good or all bad or even the same category.

A technomancer doesn't have to spend a dime on armor once they pick up junk armor and the cantrip (if they want..it falls off after level 9 I guess). A solarian or unarmed fighter or vanguard, as previously mentioned, is competent without investment. A qi adept doesn't need a gun.

And a nanocyte only gets to have one item at a time at high level, regardless, so they're not completely divorced from spending.

I guess that's why I'm curious about the intent. What's the problem that the class ability is trying to solve. Is it to be flexible (I'm not sure they succeed)? Is it to partially step off the loot train (definitely don't succeed IMO). Is it to be a loot sponge or another possible way to get value out of the bits of people your murderhobos leave behind (I don't think so?).

I dunno. It's really hard to suggest 'this is a better way to get where you wanted to go' if I think you're driving to Canada and you're really heading for the south pole.

It seems that the intent is to try to encourage people to pick up a desirable thing, dust it, and then have it available on-demand, or as a semi-flexible thing. What bothers me so far is that the current writeup seems to encourage the nanocyte player to try to scarf up the highest-level undesirable item that the group finds and dust it, along with some extra money. Because if they don't, they won't be prepared to replace a major and minor form next level due to lack of investment.

And sure, that's better for the player..he gets full value for the item (so to speak) rather than the 10% that resell would have brought in, but it still feels like a possible party stress point, as well as a possible money pit. 'What do you mean you want that too? You just took that other gun', 'well, yeah, but this one is worth 300 more credits and nobody wants it right?'

I guess the question I would have is, 'what is the design intent behind trashing loot for bookkeeping?' Why is that strictly better than a simpler 'your nanites are constantly in action around you, converting dust, air, and bits of matter..including what you injest...into more nanites. You can cause the nanites to form an object you've learned (major/minor forms, etc)...' No bookkeeping other than the forms you know. It's likely that people will gravitate toward specific 'good' or 'best in class' forms, but honestly, they'll do it anyway.

Anything less than or equal to your current investment only has a 10% return, anything higher bring your investment to the full price of that item. Include a maximum investment total per level.

Your getting the full value out of your juiciest piece of gear while not falling behind in your form selections at level-up

Is this a suggestion, or your reading of the rule, because that's not how I read the rule.

It seems to indicate 'pick an item, dust it and up to 10% of its value worth of upbs and that becomes your new investment'

I didn't consider that you could lose your nanite investment. That's an interesting find.

I considered that it seemed strange that there would be a dominant list of 'hey, give me that item so I can decompose it, it's the most expensive item in any book for this level' (which is probably a concern that isn't a big deal, but it still feels off).

I would think that it would be more in line with a desirable scaling to have a table showing the maximum size of a nanite investment per level. Or a simple formula. So it doesn't matter if you are investing nothing but knives and shot pistols. It takes longer to fill your tank, but you still eventually get there.

Either way the player is bookkeeping a separate wealth table. At least this way you're not looking for the best item all the time.

I agree with everything said here, and also would like to throw in the consistency of the embedded maps is pretty poor. Pulling out the university maps from Huskworld, as a specific and currently-relevant-to-me-example is a terrifically frustrating process. Thankfully I found a previous thread where someone mentioned villadelfia's image extractor. Unfortunately, even getting a clean source image provides no benefit to the VTT experience when the maps do not have consistently-sized squares.

A cursory visual examination of the Huskworld pdf at 100% zoom, page 29, shows obvious issues with the compression used to include the maps in the PDF. The grid lines are inconsistent, and remain inconsistent when extracting the image. Trying to simply copy and paste the image gives you a very distorted copy as well.

I'd love to add my voice to anyone asking for Paizo to release the raw map files in addition to the pdfs for people who've purchased the product. Either without gridlines, or uncompressed, or in some way VTT friendly.

PLEASE.

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

In another game I play, there's a class with an ability called 'biggest fan' or something similar.

The player of that character has the ability, once per session, to point to an npc and say 'hey, GM, that guy is one of my fans'.

That's interesting and creates some potential RPing too.

In my campaign, the day after my group had raided a goblin camp and brought back 15 prisoner, I had the inn they were staying at swarmed with local villagers etc wanting to talk with them, hear about their success, buy them drinks etc. Groupies. Was also funny that the rogue kept trying to get farther and farther in the shadows as she thought this whole idea of getting to know you was not good for long term.

The entire game is built on the idea that the players have just as much narrative agency as the GM does. I'm pretty sure that every class has some ability, or at least access to some ability, that rewrites the rules or the narrative. In some cases drastically.

'This shot will add damage equal to how tough the creature I shoot is'
'This attack ignores all defenses'
'Hey, GM, I'm using my ability to just FIND something storyline related that's relevant'.
'He's my BIGGEST FAN'
'That guy and I start a duel, nobody else will interfere'

and so on. And if class abilities aren't enough, the resolution system explicitly gives narrative control of rolled effects to the person performing the action. Got a great roll? Sure, you get a bonus to your roll. Tell me why and that's part of the narrative now. I have never personally encountered another system that makes it so absolutely clear that it's not the GM's story. It's everyone's story. And everyone should have a part to play.

KC - what is your definition of narrative control?

Trying to understand how you define it, and then equate what "some" is?

How do you know when any character in a session has gone from none, to some, to roughly even amounts, and avoids being deadweight or accused of not pulling their weight regardless of class?

In another game I play, there's a class with an ability called 'biggest fan' or something similar.

The player of that character has the ability, once per session, to point to an npc and say 'hey, GM, that guy is one of my fans'.

Now the GM is forced, by player agency, to respond to the change in story.

Players of casters in pathfinder have that capability. 'Hey GM, I cast aqueous orb...that half of the room is underwater and the orb provides cover from everyone except these guys.' 'Hey GM, I charm him.' 'Hey GM, I cast pull out a couple of teleport scrolls that I made a week ago.'

Players of fighters/rogues say 'oh, I get behind cover and shoot them'. 'I try to make a diplomacy roll...does a 23 do anything?' 'Is there a level 9 wizard in the area with teleport?'

Any caster has vast potential to force the to GM respond. Martials have less of that potential.

After all, which is easier to plan for? If you put a wall in front of a fighter, he has basically 6 options...go left, go right, climb up, dig down, go through, or go back. If you put the same wall in front of a caster, he has the same six options, except that any of his potential answers involves more potential sub responses. 'Go through' could be shapeshift into big thing and punch through, could be passwall, stone to mud, earth glide, teleport, and probably 3 dozen more things that I don't know or remember.

Which is easier to plan for? Which is easier to deal with?

The one that's harder has more narrative agency.

Funny story.

Maybe.

I'm playing a paladin in the Emerald Spire and didn't really bother to build him for any sort of optimization. He's got Power Attack and Step Up and Following Step.

My GM is basically threatening to kill everyone in the party (by ramping up encounter difficulty) because my paladin is trivializing end-level encounters (who are mostly evil caster types who can't 5' step to get away from me). He's been rolling poorly on concentration checks and complains a lot about not being able to Do Anything.

This is a funny story to me because he doesn't get it. That's pretty much how anyone who accepts that CM/D is A Thing feels any time a caster steps up and does what needs to be done and the non casters just shrug and wait for another opportunity to roll a d20.

The best speakers in groups are usually casters.
The guys who know everything are casters.
The most perceptive guys are casters.
The guys most likely to be able to do something on any given round...casters.

But heaven forbid anything make the almighty caster's life more difficult. That's just not fun.

I know, 'not according to APs' or 'not according to PFS', etc. I'm just talking about home campaign that would attempt to make sense of things, considering the short supply of this metal AND locations that can transform it.

Someone's probably already out there counting the number of adamantine weapons that show up in AP's... you know that right?

(it's could be pretty low and support your thesis, who knows :)

Just make the players roll out all of the damage they are doing to your objects. Instead of saying "it takes you about 20 mins" say "make your attack roll". After 10-15 irl minutes of AC10 attack rolls and dealing damage, maybe they will be dissuaded from doing it and will instead try......dun dun dun....the door.

So let's stop fixating on the wall.

Let's ask questions about cutting through support pillars to bring down part of a ceiling. Or cutting the wheel off a wagon. Or severing part of a statue.

You know, the sorts of feats of awesome the are enablers of narrative power for people swinging pointy things and not just the finger twiddlers.

Why would anyone want to make players do game-destroying feats of repetitive mind-numbing MMO-grind in a passive-aggressive attempt to not have to say 'no, I don't like that and I don't want it in my game'?

One is magic and the other isn't? One is a manipulation of reality itself, and the other is a really sharp sword -- which is really neat by itself -- being used in a way that it wasn't mean to be used in.

That's all it is? A really sharp sword? You could get the same results with steel, or iron, or bone, or brass?

There's something inherent in ad. that allows it to do this strange thing that somehow allows it cut stone and steel as easily as it cuts leather and paper (except that it doesn't, because they still have more hit points, hence 'strange'). It's something that we do not have a real world analog for. It's something that requires just as much suspension of disbelief as a fireball, or an elf, or a potion of healing, because it really is more than just a really sharp sword.

There's a reason we don't see Wolverine cutting through 10 foot walls; as I recall, even with his impossibly cool claws he has in the past lacked leverage, strength, or time to do so.

And because the writers of your average comic book have never needed, wanted, or been required to really answer those questions :)

As I said above, there is a line for most if not all of us. Where your line and what your likes are vary. For me, it's someone using this inappropriate weapon as a pick to do some mining, let alone someone WANTING to do that. In character. To their prized weapon. Oh, out of game we know that it is super duper metal and probably won't break. Does your character know that banging it over and over on a wall won't cause problems?

Why wouldn't he? What's the DC and knowledge check required (in your games) know know the general properties of adamantine? Is it arbitrarily high because your PC's aren't allowed to understand the world they live in? Is it unreasonably low because the world is well known? Is it somewhere in the middle for Reasons? The game doesn't specify as far as I know.

As for inappropriate weapons, I grew up on books about magic swords doing incredible and inappropriate things. The Saberhagen's first 3 Books of Swords were formative fiction for me. I have NO problem with a sword slicing chunks out of rock :) But obviously that's just me. :)

For that matter, why isn't it destroying armour and leaving people in ruined gear afterwards?

Because he's not a sunder-focused fighter, of course. :)

I didn't see any response to your question, but I may have missed it in the mayhem. For my own answer, I've no problem with an adamantine item designed to break down walls. I don't subscribe to the "It'd be cool if people could like, hack thru walls with adamantine butterknives!" Cool doesn't override silly or nonsensical for me. I'm willing to suspend disbelief a lot in games, but there are lines (and we all have them, even if we don't admit it on forums.)

Why is it a suspension of disbelief for someone to do inexplicable things with a sword made of an inexplicable material, but not one for a wizard to wiggle his fingers and turn the same wall into mud, or just make a magical hole appear, or just appear on the other side of it because reasons?

The problem is that "it's cool" is a matter of perspective; what seems cool for some games is a mess for others.

That's why I asked the question:

By no later than 9th level, any obstacle limited by walls is potentially a joke because of casters (probably earlier, dimension door is available earlier). Why is it such an issue if someone with an adamantine (sword/axe/pick/flail/hammer/whatever) gets a way to do the same thing by 5th or 6th level?

If there was an answer, I've missed it. If there's an answer that involves 'spell slots' or 'limited uses', then I respectfully respond in advance: scrolls, staves (lol), wands, pearls, bonded items, etc. It might cost more than an ad. sword/hammer/pick, but it's also a lot more flexible.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Then "hardness" shouldn't be a thing. Instead, rope would have "DR 20/slashing" and stone would be like "DR 20/bludgeoning," or whatever. It's awkward and goofy for rope to have hardness 0 and also virtual "DR infinity/slashing" but not even call it that, and make no effort to integrate the two systems. Or for stone to have hardness 8 but also DR/arbitrary.

Can't write rules for every scenario. Look how many pages of rules there already area and how many gray areas still exist.

Kirth's point is that you don't have to. There are only 2 differences between DR/- and hardness. Adamantine ignores hardness <20, and hardness reduces energy damage. Seems to me that it would have been just as easy to have used DR/- and given a rule that resistance=DR for objects (which gives you some latitude for special rules if you want to have something affected by something extra easily). One subsystem to remember. Writing rules for every scenario actually becomes more difficult the more rules you write :)

Is that really such a counter-intuitive concept that it needs specific codification in the rules? Do they need to go through every substance and spell out which tools are more or less effective in damaging those substances?

Yes, in the specific event that you have a material that is so extraordinarily hard that it has physical properties that we literally have no real-world counterpart to compare to.

You see the practical effects of that in a more restrictive fashion than I do. I believe there's no reason that someone couldn't take an adamantine sword, put the point against a wall, push really hard and force the blade in a bit and just cut chunks out, because that's how I envision ignoring hardness.

It's all about the awesome :)

Actually I have no problem with and adamantine hammer breaking through the wall with ease and not requiring the 4 cuts concept, but at this point I am more pointing out that the HP and Hardness apply to each section. The PC is using a adamantine blade which cuts cleanly through and when you do enough damage it will penetrate that section of wall, but the penetration is still in the shape of a cut, so a line... For this to be useable you need to make 3 more cuts. The only reason I think this description is truly important is to define the timeframe, difficulty (read fatigue) and amount of noise that will occur once the cuts have been complete and a slab of stone falls loudly slamming into the ground, not just making noise but a hell of a lot of noise and shaking the area with its force. No more surprise rounds against all the...

How much damage is enough though? I guess that's where I might be misunderstanding. Would you really require someone to do 172 points of damage to cut a single line through a 1 foot wall section? And then do it again 3 more times?

Because now you've made the guy with the sword do enough damage to reduce the wall to rubble 4 times.

For a quick answer next time calculate the HP of the object that is targeted calculate the PC's average damage minus any penalties for an inappropriate tool and give the PC a number of rounds it will take to get through ONE side of the hole they are cutting. Remember there are FOUR cuts required to make a square or rectangle like a door. Good luck!

This answer bothers me a bit. Maybe this is a problem with my view of the object breaking/hardness rules, but when I see someone say that you need to roll damage in excess of a wall's hit points in order to make a window, or a door, or whatever, I wonder why GM's rule that you've got to do the same damage to make an opening big enough to get through as you have to do to reduce the entire wall section to rubble.

Am I misinterpreting your position? If not, why is that your concern?

By no later than 9th level, any obstacle limited by walls is potentially a joke because of casters (probably earlier, dimension door is available earlier). Why is it such an issue if someone with an adamantine (sword/axe/pick/flail/hammer/whatever) gets a way to do the same thing by 5th or 6th level?

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

I think I like Kirth's answer the best, honestly, but not because of some perceived imbalance or whacky application of reality to game. I think that amazing things should be allowed to be amazing. :)

I like the idea that adamantine swords can act something like Stonecutter. It's thematic, cool, and has a precedent in the fiction that the people I game with are familiar with. If you still think that people using swords shouldn't be allowed to do amazing things with them, well, there's a thread for that. :)

If it were a magical adamantium sword enchanted to tunnel through rock, then sure.

But not just because it's made of adamantium.

And now we're in the territory of the other thread. IMO, of course.

Much like Wolin says above, adamantine is a unique metal in the game with unique properties that we do not have a real world analogue for. We don't even REALLY have a good real world analogue for what ignoring hardness means. It's still harder to slice through leather than cloth with an adamantine weapon, but some aspect of what it means to be harder to cut leather is removed.

That just leaves us with the realm of what we imagine to be appropriate, cool, or fun. If complex locks or winding mazes are the challenges that you want your players to focus on by the time they can willfully afford a +1.something equivalent weapon (at current pricing...please remember I agree with Kirth's theory that the price might be a tad low for weapons (and high for armors, IMO)) then you're going to have extra issues with the idea of adamintine weapons being used to chop things up.

Me? Not so much. It's a narrative action, not a combat action. As far as I'm concerned someone with an adamantine sword and some knowledge in engineering can make a passage through a wall in a reasonable timeframe, because it's cool. :)

I think I like Kirth's answer the best, honestly, but not because of some perceived imbalance or whacky application of reality to game. I think that amazing things should be allowed to be amazing. :)

I like the idea that adamantine swords can act something like Stonecutter. It's thematic, cool, and has a precedent in the fiction that the people I game with are familiar with. If you still think that people using swords shouldn't be allowed to do amazing things with them, well, there's a thread for that. :)

I just looked up Stealth Synergy. Honestly, I'm dumbfounded. Your answer to 'groups avoid tropes because the skill system doesn't encourage avenues of play that are..less direct.' is a lame teamwork feat?

I'm sorry, but in my experience teamwork feats are a waste of ink. They've never seen the light of play because the cost doesn't justify the benefits.

Has your experience been sufficiently different that you could imagine players abandoning personal advancement feats so that they could pick up Stealth Synergy and any other hypothetical similar feats for other skills that could benefit (climb, acrobatics, survival, swim come to mind).

My initial exposure to the Forgotten Realms was via Neverwinter Nights. I spent 2 months staying with my best friend over the summer and I got to play his Neverwrinter game and I had a blast. Then, I went home and later that year, I found a book in my collection that mentioned Menzoberanzzen and Drow and I thought, "This is totally stealing from Neverwrinter Nights!"

That's funny. At least you got a good introduction to the world with NWN. My first experience with FR was Darkwalker on Moonshae, and I was pretty convinced after reading that that the Forgotten Realms was going to be another Ravenloft grimdark POS setting. :)

It wasn't until Azure Bonds (and the gold box D&D games) that I changed my mind, but that book still colors my perceptions of the world.

Can I try a third camp of explanation? Totally abstract, just looking at the movement.

aahh I failed my will save!

You know, I was pretty solidly with Nefreet until you posited this explanation, and it reminded me that we 'pay' for each square of movement when we enter that square, not when we leave it. We pay with whatever currency the square requires.

In your example, you pay 5' of movement to enter the clear squares. You pay to enter the pit with a DC ## acrobatics check (and 5' of movement each) and move through both squares, then you pay 5' of movement to move into the clear space at the end of the pit.

With that thought process in mind, I am now convinced that the ## above should be 10.

Now you've got me curious. :P

It's a trap! :)

Joe Hex wrote:

It's been a very long time, and I was pretty young, but from what I remember from 2nd, was that Charisma was basically a throwaway stat, as far as class features and prerequisites went.

I remember when 3rd came out, and the Sorcerer was introduced, thinking they finally made charisma important for a class.

I think the randomness was the interesting part of early versions of D&D. If you were lucky enough to roll a Str 18/00 you loved that character (because he was so rare).

Rare enough that nobody would believe it happened without cheating :)

RandomJunk: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 5, 3) = 93d6 ⇒ (2, 3, 3) = 83d6 ⇒ (6, 3, 2) = 113d6 ⇒ (3, 3, 5) = 113d6 ⇒ (4, 2, 3) = 93d6 ⇒ (1, 5, 3) = 9

(edit: holy carp those rolls sucked)

As I write this I have no idea what those dice rolls will be, but knowing my luck, the only thing I'll qualify for is a clumsy human thief or anemic fighter :) I'm not the one that finds that sort of randomness appealing.

Going slightly off-topic I do miss the 'trial by combat' parts of the Druid and Monk class.

Interesting, because I see these as very similar in intent as the house rules people have proposed/implied about using raw Charisma comparisons to determine starting attitudes of random NPCs. It strikes me as an attempt to force mechanics to enforce flavor to the world.

What's stopping you from dropping monk schools into your game and requiring in-world monks to show up for a big tournament every year on an island, and the winners get to be the Grandmaster of Flowers? Heck, maybe you swipe a page from pop culture and make the whole thing a secret story to save the world...the winner has to fight a demon's champion in order to prevent all out war. :)

Thing is, it's story or fluff or something like that. Locking class progression to it eliminates avenues of play. If you have to have monk schools and grand masters and fight them to progress, then you can't have the self-taught hermit on a hill, or the wandering grand master school-destroyer, or whatever. When mechanics enforce storyline, all you do is limit player options.

I just don't see that as a grand idea.

My current favorite game system (Edge of the Empire, FFG) has a built in mechanic where someone can talk/rant/demoralize one or more targets out of a fight. I think this is awesome. :)

Morzadian wrote:

Mordenkainen is like a demi god with Str 10, Dex 17, Con 17, Int 18, Wis 15 Char 18. That's a 67 point buy!

Even crazier when you consider the stat generation method at the time was 3d6 in order, which means that that the chance his total of equaling 95 (which they do) is only 0.00008277933065%. The odds are actually significantly worse when you consider that to achieve those near-perfect scores for his class, each of them has to be rolled in order or you have to start over (because you didn't pick where your stats went).

This leads me to conclude that Mordenkainen and his creator are cheating bastards. :P

lol. GM PC of the highest order :)

What I should have said was that characters with these drawbacks would never be as good as someone with no noticeable drawback

This much is self-evidently true and supported by the mechanics. All else being equal, a higher stat will provide additional bonuses that a lower stat will not (or cannot, feat prerequisites) get.

and though would mostly likely not progress further since no one would higher them over someone obviously better.

This part, however, is not supported by rules, mechanics, any sort of logic or sense I can think of, and throws characters into typecast roles that limit roleplay and narrative opportunities.

Do you feel that is good for the game?

See I believe that the game should have some grounding in reality.

I'll spare you a million lols. I'd probably get banned.

Spells, monsters, and fantasy races aside, with skills alone it is possible to:

Confidently walk up a >45 degree angle wet board in an earthquake (DC 27, somewhere around 8th level for a rogue I think depend on stat boosters or buffs).
Run a full speed across a rope over a chasm (DC 25, about the same level)
Convince an average commoner gnome that you (male human) are his wife. (Disguise, DC 24 effectively)
Perform your music so well that you gain the attention of a jealous demon (DC 30, over time, 10th level maybe?)
Reliably turn a hostile commoner into a very helpful person in a minute just by talking with them. (dc 25 diplomacy)...it was ALWAYS just a misunderstanding.
Hear someone walking 50' away behind a 1' thick wall (dc 25).
If they're just on the other side of the wall, you could hear a whispered conversation.

This is summer-action-movie levels of awesome. And I think most of it is available by level 8 with some level of investment. Reality can take a back seat, man. This isn't Kansas anymore.

Its my impression from post I've read in the past, on this thread a others, that some people like a feel good super special snowflack game.

At least again this is the impression I get.

And this...exactly what do you hope to accomplish by actively trying to be offensive?

I think the larger question is whether some stats have any effect at all outside of the skill bonuses (or spells or other specific effects). Ability checks are a common thing in some editions. Do the existing skills cover all uses? Or are there gaps where the raw stat matters?

Not in an ideal game. In an ideal game, the GM and the players are working together to weave the narrative, and part of that [is/can/should/might] be working with the players to use or allow use of skills in a way that fits that story but might not be strictly within the limits of what's written. If that is true then a player never necessarily need to be forced to revert to a raw skill unless that's what they want to happen.

(that isn't Pathfinder, RAW, of course, but there's nothing stopping it from being that game)

I dont care how much passion you have for your art, if you're a spastic clutz with no manual dexterity you will never be very good with any instruments or at dance.

Also without a good strength and dexterity you'll never be very good at crafting armor and weapons. A 3 dex, 3 str person with a couple ranks craft armor would suck at it.
At least is my opinion.

I apologize if this question comes across as hostile, but I can't think of a better way to word it.

Why? By what logically constructed train of thought does the range of (normal) human ability (-2 to +5) overwhelm the bonuses available to skills (a default +4 at level 1 just from a single skill point to a trained class skill). That level of training rivals all but the most specialized specimens of humanity. Two levels of experience in any class and the stat bonus cannot ever again catch up if you don't want it to.

There's no narrative, no story, no logical construct that allows me to follow that thought process. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

It's just examples, but it's both acknowledging the deficient stat and allowing a competent participant in the particular arena. Meanwhile you seem to have somewhat of a problem with situations coming up tat highlight a character's deficiencies. It's done for strength dex and con through saves and other such I see no reason that the mental stats should be immune from being tested.

Considering the side I'm arguing I suppose that's a fair assumption to make, but I don't recall posting or suggesting character traits associated with one stat or another in this thread.

What I've attempted to do is point out that there's zero rules or common sense grounding for a GM imposing additional raw stat checks on any player for a low (mental) stat. The penalties associated with those stats are well-grounded in and already have consequences if you're using the rules.

Tanking Charisma already has an effect (being unable to, without additional effort, make requests of (buy from) an indifferent, strong-willed shopkeep for example). Tanking Int has effects. Tanking Wisdom has effects.

Some of those effects can be mitigated through skills, and that seems to offend the holy handgrenades right out of some people. Frankly, I don't get that, AT ALL. We have a forum that insists that skills are useless past a certain level in one thread, and refuses to accept (what appears to me to be) proper use of them in another. Plus, it just sounds unfair and seems to encourage strong typecasting of character types (which could lead to minmax play) to house rule in some additional, unfounded penalties because you think stat dumping is a terrible thing.

(edit) fixed unfriendly. meant indifferent.

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

It's just the skills.

What's wrong with the skills getting a bigger shake than the stats? I don't understand the POINT of insisting otherwise.

When you look to perform any given task that you're trained in, odds are really high that the SKILL portion of that math is a lot more significant than the STAT portion. Why is this a problem?

And yet it's still pretty easy to distinguish between someone who's smart, but not informed on a topic, and someone who's dumb but still knows something about it.

The idea that in the PF world "Stupid" doesn't really exist, it drops straight to animal from your basic normal guy, just doesn't make sense to me.

OK. So this conversation has wandered a lot.

You pretty much ignored the question I asked by responding to a point I didn't make. That's basically par for this course, but it's worth pointing out.

Now, with that out of the way, I suppose I'll go ahead and respond to the point you are on about. Ashiel is on file in multiple threads as having said that stats are not a straitjacket to roleplay. Not every Int (single-digit-number) is equal to every other Int (single-digit-number), and do not necessarily fall prey to the same considerations.

Within the bounds of the rules, Int (whatever) is defined with certain abilities, and as long as you can tell a believable story and remain within the limits of the stat, you're playing it right. Bonus points if you can convince the rest of your friends that you're doing it right too.

For some reason, that's being viewed as being unable or unwilling to role play. I can't quite figure out why.

More internally consistent than what? Do you force people to roll Diplomacy to order drinks?

Utilizing the diplomacy skill to mechanically describe the situation you presented (sharing drinks at a bar, casual conversation) is more internally consistent within the rules than trying to create an unwritten raw stat check and fill in the blanks required.

Once again, no rolling required. This is what Take 10 exists for. It's the average interaction between parties. At any given time, a player and GM can know, without any doubt, question, or -pulling, how likable they are. The GM can know, without any doubt, question, or -pulling, how to frame responses to a given character in a general situation because that's what the rules are for.

Buying a drink, btw, doesn't require diplomacy unless you're trying to do something out of the ordinary (get a discount, engage a hostile audience...something of that sort). Buying a drink is just a transaction, you put down your 8cp and get watery beer (or whatever). Rather an odd question on your part, since buying a drink wasn't the topic of conversation.

Are you trying to convince me that you can gauge someones level of proficiency in a skill, but not determine the underlying natural talent (stat) associated with it?

Honestly? I'm trying to convince you that raw Charisma checks (ie, determining if someone is more worth talking to based on a raw charisma score) is badwrongfun without actually coming out and saying it. It's got no logical grounding in the rules. It's got no rules support. It actively ignores the existence and use of at least 1 skill. And if someone has invested character resources in that skill in order to make up for a lower charisma, it's extremely unfair and encourages typecast characters and min-max play. I don't see a single thing in a (+) column here.

A brief conversation with someone might reveal that they are educated, and employed in a certain field, but their level of proficiency would remain a mystery... however, during the course of that conversation, you might form an opinion of them as a person...

How easy was it to learn about their skills? Did they engage you and employ active listening? Did they make you want to talk to them more or did you want to end the conversation?

You weren't trying to get anything out of them, just making small talk. You weren't being hustled by them, they weren't trying to change your opinion of them, you were just sharing a drink at the bar with a stranger, a friendly stranger.

Turns out he had a high Charisma. Also, he makes boats. Maybe he's good at it.

It's more internally consistent to believe that he took 10 on his diplomacy check (that is, used his learned skills in dealing with people), with a circumstantial bonus of -2 to the DC because you were drinking, and influenced your attitude from indifferent to friendly. In a couple of hours, you won't care anymore, but next time you talk to him you'll remember he seemed like a friendly guy. :) No raw stat checks required. No dice rolling required. And internally consistent rules dialogue that exists within the framed story and doesn't require anything out of the ordinary and even makes sense within the bounds of our reality.

Zilvar2k11, at no point have I disagreed with you.

However, blindly ignoring differences (OBVIOUS differences) in characters stats takes something away from the enjoyment of the game.

Why? At level 1, a character with Diplomacy as a class skill gets +4 to any roll to influence someone's opinion. (hey! A shoutout to the thread title!) Unless you've maximized your starting stats, that is probably as high or higher than you're going to get from your charisma. In non-game terms, your innate (stat) ability to interact with people and make them treat you like a better person is overwhelmed by the effort you've learned to put into it and the techniques you've learned and honed (skill).

That's level 1, out of the gate with a single skill point. If you're not a caster aiming to blow DC's into the skies or jonesing for more bonus spells, what you learned is much more important than who you are.

And the disparity just grows.

That pattern follows with every skill in the game. Why is it that OBVIOUS differences in character skills are more easily ignored than those in character stats?

If everyone is treated like a sheet of paper with numbers on it, rather than as individual characters with personalities, something is lost.

Why must you continue to return to this tired fallacy? Nobody in this exchange is suggesting anything even remotely close to what you're describing. Pretty much the opposite, as far as I can see. A character is more than a collection of stats, and those stats are not the be-all and end-all of what defines a character. Why is it that you continue to throw this tired line out when I (and others) have repeatedly issued examples where we describe how a character's shortcomings can offer (in my opinion) greater RP value than those of perfection? I implore you, abandon this line of attack. It's not relevant, not correct, not supportable, and is entirely insulting.

Would you rather have a barmaid come up to your character and proposition him with a line like "I see your codpiece is well-made, I finish at eight bells, what say you and I test the new mattress upstairs, bold adventurer?"

or...

"The barmaid comes up to you and Diplomacy roll 18".

Why would she approach in the first place, from a rules perspective?

She wouldn't, from a rules perspective. That's not a rules situation. It's a story, a scene, and the decision of who to approach is one that should be made by the GM for reasons that make sense within the context of the story. Basing the decision on who to approach on skill or stat or Take 10 roll is just meaningless fluff and wouldn't happen at my table. :)

(edit)
What would be more likely to happen at my table is a story hook. If a barmaid is to approach someone, it's going to be as a mark (she's a thief or a shill) or someone that she thinks she can sex-up (or get a discount from) and manipulate into helping with some problem or another. If I'm playing with a group for whom sex is a valid topic at the table, she might approach the guy with a reputation for being able to Perform exceptionally well. ;)

If a GM injects a little flavor into the game by having NPCs react to someones personality, personal magnetism or appearance, they are simply basing it off of a measurable, chosen stat...

This isn't a penalty.

It is if it's done at the expense of someone's character choices. If I spend those skill points to make my social skills good enough to overcome my bad social graces, hitting me up for some random, intangible stat check is a penalty.

Diplomacy isn't used to make friends....

As I read it, diplomacy is the closest thing we have to a rule that discusses making friends with someone (short of Dominating them). You can influence someone's attitude for a short period of time (or longer at GM's discretion). 'Friendly' is even one of the attitudes. And GM's discretion allows for repeated uses to make the duration permanent if that's how you want toread it.

In the presence of an existing rule that covers the situation with a bare minimum of GM ass-pulling required, I'd like to posit that Diplomacy is/can/should be used to make friends.

Also, there's a key phrase in Diplomacy that sources the differences in our positions, in my opinion.

You influence starting attitudes

The crowd that believes Charisma should be (more) meaningful seems to believe that starting attitudes are determined by a virtual Charisma check, where there is no DC and no roll required..just an intangible 'Jack's CHA is higher than Jake's so Jack gets all the attention and Jake gets thrown out of the club.'

The crowd that believes otherwise believes that starting attitudes are set by the GM based on conditions that are not related to player stats (player actions, world events, and the phase of the moon, maybe, but the fact you have an 18 Cha doesn't change the mood of the scene) and that those attitudes are affected as specified by the Diplomacy skill. If Hairy McSmellypants gets a higher roll than Mark SchlongisLong (and is successful), then Hairy manages to draw more attention in a positive way.

I keep posting on here in the hopes of making people realize that choosing the lowest CHA score possible SHOULD result in ROLE-PLAYING penalties appropriate to your score. A CHA 20 human will likely get approached randomly/propositioned WAY more often than an average CHA 10-11 human... Conversely, a low CHA person would suffer social penalties appropriate to THEIR LOW SCORE, as is appropriate. Not mechanical penalties, role-playing penalties (or benefits, in the case of CHA 20).

And I keep asserting that's a fine house rule, except that by design, skill ranks outpace stat ranks in determining how good you are at doing things pretty quickly. By ignoring skill ranks and insisting that a raw stat check with no supportable framework to describe it is meaningful, you're strongly implying that you are ignoring design principles and player choices made during advancement, and I believe that creates an unfair playing field. Especially with social skills because it sounds like (ie, I infer) that you allow player agency to have a larger impact on the outcome of the roll than player decisions at creation/level up.

Finally, it strikes me as odd that your idea of good role playing seems to suggest that it's best to typecast people. An abrasive person who learns to deal with his issues (low Cha, increasing skills) sounds like it has a far more interesting character than someone who has it easy and just pumps the appropriate skills (high Cha, increasing skills).

If you want to roll dice to determine how much people like you, go ahead. That's a valid approach, but sometimes just actually acting out how your character IS can be more fun.

In the interest of fairness, you have to roll those dice. I've seen a lot of GM's who want to know how and what you're going to say to the (insert other party), and who will try to provide an adhoc bonus or penalty based on that. But there's good and bad to that. More potentially bad than good (from the standpoint of fairness).

Some players cannot respond quickly in that situation.

Some players are improvisational geniuses.

Some players are sleeping with the GM.

Some players brought the pizza.

Potentially none of them have the same Cha as the character. As a GM, you're potentially providing circumstantial bonuses because you really like that bacon wrapped, cheese-and-mushroom-stuffed hamburger that was made specially for you.

It can be good if the players are flagging keywords that you wanted them to catch, because it might show that they're engaged in the story and are following along and GET IT. It can be used to drop OOC clues and hints.

But you still have to roll the dice, regardless of whether you're a thespian genius with an inside line or can't talk without stuttering. Otherwise the game isn't fair.

Ashiel wrote:

alexd1976 wrote:

If you don't like people being mean to your CHA 7 murderhobo, then do something to raise your CHA. Shopkeepers charging more has a mechanical effect, and should not happen without cause...

Generally a very poor idea.

Please note that I didn't say they should be charged more.

I don't play with a group of murderhobo types... crappy CHA actually means something in a RP group... Not so much with the people using Pathfinder as just a combat simulator.

Why is it that arguments for and against low stats almost always go back to the Stormwind Fallacy?

How does attacking the other side of the discussion elevate your position?

How is this response reasonable?

How does it require less acumen to roleplay a character who is socially inept or unattractive or fundamentally aggressive (Cha penalties) than it is to play one with a likable, attractive, or magnetic personality (Cha bonuses)?

Aren't our FLAWS what define us (and the heroes that we strive to emulate in our games) just as important as the strengths?

Why is it that when players take the social caterpillar and apply character resources to overcome those penalties (Skill points, feats, stat boosts, etc), it isn't good enough?

Grouchy McDiplomapants will never be as good at talking down a majordomo as Flirty McHotPants, but everyone agrees with that. The core of this whole fight seems to be that some people believe that Grouchy shouldn't even get a fair chance to talk, despite having put his resources that way, because he decided to dump his social stat. The argument of the raw attribute check, or the 'hey, you've got a 7 Cha, nobody wants to pay attention to you because you're a putz', isn't grounded in rules (or, IMO, common sense).

Zilvar wrote:

Is that in any way good for the game as a whole, or your specific game? To devolve every form of game interaction to nothing more than a skill check with no context and no interaction required?

Zilvar wrote:

I guess some people will try to argue that's already what the game does.

Indeed. It is already what the game does.

That's why we have GMs who ask us 'what did you tell the guard when you rolled the bluff check?'. The rules are there to guide the game--not play it for us. Is rolling checks blindly good game design? No--but the game assumes a GM who is fleshing out the encounters and mindless dice-rolling.
It's good for a GM to impose 'stages of learning' with Knowledge checks. One must know about electricity before they learn about conductivity. One must know about X to learn...

I'm inferring a couple of things from this comment which may or may not be your intent.

First, the rules are neutral (at best) on non-spell-research. You've attached it to Knowledge because you feel it's a best fit.

Second, it's all GM fiat. If it's GM fiat, it is (by definition) not covered (sufficiently, perhaps) in the rules, so anyone arguing for RAW is being possibly being dishonest (other possibilities exist, I suppose, but this is what I'm inferring).

Third, you admit that it's not good for the game to be able to make a knowledge check and make a discovery or just KNOW something that is undiscovered or obscure (only one person might know it). If, as you argue, it's good for a GM to impose stages of learning or rational things, then there is an implicit agreement with 'The check represents what you know.' and everything beyond that appears to just be an attempt to convince everyone that 'what you know' can be permissively extended to 'what I can convince the GM is a logical extension of what I know'.

If that's good for your table, go for it. I don't believe that it would be good for mine.

So Jason definitely didn't make the decision flippantly; of all four classes, the monk took him the longest (he thought it would be the summoner) and went through the most iterations.

I would like to say Thank You to the team for putting in the effort to put out the product. I'll be looking for it next time I roll by my FGLS.

I would be curious to know if it would be possible to see a few of the playtested monk statblocks in order to get an idea of how the team envisioned different build and approaches.

Superman vs Goku?

I'd have to agree that the DB matchup seemed flawed. Even if you try to be neutral (or generous) and assume that two characters with rapidly escalating Power of Plot Necessity have roughly equivalent physical power, all but the most die hard fans should be able to admit that Supes is a really pathetic fighter...he doesn't have to be good at it because so few opponents can actually take one of his punches in his own universe. The off viewed World of Cardboard video pretty much sums up big blue in a fight.

Fighters in the DB universe actually, you know, Fight. Against opponents that are equal matches until Power of Plot kicks in.

At the risk of having my D&D Card revoked, what's the advantage in being so picky about the shadowdancer's HiPS ability?

You've got a character who's devoted his life to being able to hide in shadows Really Well. He's got all kinds of magical juju to make it happen, and hey, can even see in the dark (which is a good thing). So...why would you want to throw up barriers to being Cool and Shadowy and Awesome?

And if he gets to sneak attack a little bit more often, sweet.