Cranefist's page

You could always memorize: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/shield-other

Memorize it twice and buy two scrolls for the Inquisitor to cast. That's 10 hours of 0 hip point damage. All you have to do at that point is keep yourselves alive.

You need to have something to reduce area of effect damage, either elemental resistance or constant cover. You don't want to eat a 50% increase in spell damage because you and the guy you are defending get fireballed at the same time.

Beyond that, you want to have access to: Remove Curse, Lessor Restoration, Remove Disease and Delay Poison. Have on hand an alchemist that can analyse and make antidotes.

Memorize the Sanctuary spell for safe keeping, even if you can't rely on it.

Then prepare an escape route. The route has to take an unconventional direction and must remain a secret among the PCs, excluding all NPCs.

Nothing stops you from having style. Watch this.

Player 1 says, "Longfist the Sailor, my first level fighter moves 20' forward and attacks with his rapier. I rolled 18+5 so I hit AC 14."

GM Says, "That's a hit. Confirm critical."

Player 1 says, "I'm not actually using rapier stats. I'm using great sword stats to show how hard he hits and how powerfully he can resist disarms. He can't fight the way he does and be burdoned with anything in the other hand. In anycase, I crit on a 19+."

GM says, "Fair enough. Roll damage."

Player 1 says, "Longfist unleashes a burst of 3 quick strikes, finishing with a disarm as he usually does, each slice drawing a short cut and a lot of blood. (rolls a 2d6 + 1.5*STR) take 12 points of damage.

GM Says, "The soldier quickly recovers his footing and weapon, lashing back at you with his spear. (rolls once) Striking you back to make room, he leaps a strikes a second time with a leaping stab. Take 7 damage."

75. Stand over them and wave a sword in their faces. Say in greenback, "I am a soldier of Golarion. I know you are filled with rage and are ashamed you can't fight. I pity you. When you are older, come find me and try to take your revenge." Kill them when they come looking for you. Profit.

thegreenteagamer wrote:

Lemmy solved this dilemma, PERFECTLY, I might add, in another thread.

Give the babies, one at a time, a holy weapon. If they are evil, they only have 1HD, so the negative level will kill them. If neutral or good, they will live.

Move on, thread over, dilemma solved, he figured out what one hand clapping sounds like, and if a tree falls in the woods if there's sound.

72. Ignore ages of philosophical debate on nature vs. nurture by assuming morality is innate rather than obtained through our thoughts and actions

I had a thread on here a long time ago about the PCs in my game saving a bunch of deep gnomes from a drow slave camp. When they ran the place over, the gnomes found the drow nursery and started smashing up all the babies with their hammers like a herd of bison finding lion cubs.

One of the players asked, "is that evil?" to which I replied, "Drow were created by the spider queen to be inherently evil and make war on the surface societies. Without divine intervention they are always going to be evil. Killing them is just grim work for the light." The players laughed and let it go.

I don't personally think goblins have babies. I think they are born from eggs that appear on the ground during storms and hatch fully grown.

I pumped up the Clanky fight for this weekend because the party is coming in at 3rd level. What do you think?

These are mods and select stats. I didn't recopy their whole sheet.

The priest heard the party coming so he has already popped off an Enlarge before initiative.

Do you think the damage on the explosion at half life should stay the same? Should he still explode at half life, or at the original target number?

Skizzertz Cleric level 4

AC 17 HP 31 / Fort +6 Ref +5 Will +6
MW Falchion +5 d6 18+
Negative Channel 2d6 DC 9 3 /
Concentration +6

Strength Surge +2 5 /
Copy Cat 5 / (4 Rounds)

Bless
Command
Enlarge (Spent)
Cause Fear

Invisibility
Bull’s Strength
Regenerate Construct 4d6

Wand Cure Light Wounds d8+1 20/
Feat: Knowledge Engineering

Clanky CR 4 Large and Advanced, and Enlarged by the Spell, 10’ Reach

Extra Bonuses

+2 on all rolls, excluding below
+3 on strength rolls
+5 on Attack Rolls
+12 on Damage Rolls

Furious Assault

Explosion DC REF 13
AC 20 (19)
CMD 22
HP 48 /
(Explodes at 24)

Great job on this thread. I've always liked Solars.

Then someone joins your game and craps color spray, sleep and glitter dust with their fairy blooded, 20 charisma sorcerer all over your NPCs and you forget all about the power creep you thought you saw.

Do we remember that this is a fantasy game? That wizard can kill a dragon with a few spells. Why can't someone get some strange by being clever and rolling some dice? Does he need to cast a charm spell to make it acceptable? Does the wizard have to roll a guilt check when he one-shots a monster?

Creeps in real life have to be clever to get laid. My character shows up in town with bags of gold and magic, rocking 12 pack abs and a new bardic tune that sounds like the greatest song ever written. Him getting laid is implied. No one has to talk about it. You could litterally just start a scene with, "ok Cranefist, your character is in some lady's bedchamber when you here a commotion from the street. What are you doing?" and no one would bat an eye.

Cranefist wrote:

For the record, I think PF is the best it can be. Rule 0 lets you run it simulationist style or run it by the rule of cool. It is up to you.

Well, that argument suggests that any rpg is the best it can be -- and also the worst it can be, since Rule 0 has an equivalent in literally every game with which I'm familiar.

Quote:

It aggravates me that the sling is so weak because I want to play my unarmored Irish barbarian with his berzerker rage and his sling in his pocket, chucking stones, eating potatoes and drinking dark beer. I can't do that in PF by the book because it is terrible to use a sling in this game.

I'm not entirely sure what prevents you from doing that. The difference between a sling and a bow is 1d4 vs 1d6 (or 1d8) for a longbow, either of which will be dwarfed by the +305 damage bonus a barbarian routinely adds to his attacks.

Die Size is how you show the table who the boss is.

Pathfinder seems to be stuck between the simulationist design philosophy and the, well, fantasy design philosophy, which is not unexpected for a system using 15-year-old rules, rules with their own legacy issues, at its core.

It appears that we have an Old Way of, for example, longbows being Just Better than shuriken, in competition with a New Way of a style-first, any-concept-flies approach, where a shuriken-user is just as viable as a longbow-wielder.

In other words... let's hope that 2nd Ed does away with backwards compatibility, so it can jettison the Old Ways which hold the system back.

-Matt

Good post, but play that backwards. I don't need rules for anything other than simulation. If everyone is equal and everyone is badass, I'll just hash out the victory conditions with paper / scissor / rock.

They need to start kicking out more of the dumb stuff - punching dragons in the face, sword-chucks, using Performance to Stealth and all that jaz.

Cranefist wrote:

Corrik wrote:

I wish the entire internet had a downvote button.

I'm not going to explain the concept of specialized fields of knowledge, but I will humorously picture you fuming at a hospital. If you want gravity bow, take levels in a class that can get it.

Where in Pathfinder is the school of specialized knowledge? Do Bards with Spellcraft only understand Bard spells? Do Bards have to return for training to learn new Charisma based effects? Are they always studying, what, their 1st level Bard text book they got before the first session?

Bards have specialized knowledge because they know fewer spells than a sorcerer. Each Bard individually has limited knowledge. What spells they can pick from is besides the point.

Apparently not, since they're only allowed to pick from a limited list representing spells that a bard is capable of casting using whatever means a bard uses to cast spells. If you want your bard to learn to adapt spells that bards normally cannot cast, there's an archetype for that.

boooorrriiinnngggg

I don't think there is a justification for the spell lists.

"We should have spell lists cause D&D."

"How many spells go on the list?"

"You have to fit them on 7 pages."

"Got it."

blahpers wrote:

Cranefist wrote:

blahpers wrote:

To turn this around: Why should bards have it on their spell list?

Because Bards can use other level 1 transmutation spells, such as Animate Rope and Featherfall. If gravity bow were different than those spells, it wouldn't be transmutation. If it were harder, it would be a different level. Bards should have Gravity Bow, along with all other level 1 arcane transmutation spells. If a spell isn't good for a Bard, then the bard won't bother taking it. They don't need a list.

So, bards should be able to cast all 1st level transmutation spells? How is that any less arbitrary than the current approach?

What, do you think Bards shouldn't be able to cast Animate Dead? They can cast 3rd level necromancy spells, like Fear, so why not raise the dead? They're in the same school, so they obviously must be equivalent. There's no way one school could have lots of different types of spells. That'd be absurd.

A Bard should definitely be able to cast Animate Dead. The dabbling, bumbling traveler messing with powers like that is an old trope. If it were more powerful than fear, it would be a higher level. If it called on different magic or knowledge than fear, it would be in a different school.

Cranefist wrote:

blahpers wrote:

To turn this around: Why should bards have it on their spell list?

Because Bards can use other level 1 transmutation spells, such as Animate Rope and Featherfall. If gravity bow were different than those spells, it wouldn't be transmutation. If it were harder, it would be a different level. Bards should have Gravity Bow, along with all other level 1 arcane transmutation spells. If a spell isn't good for a Bard, then the bard won't bother taking it. They don't need a list.

I, in general, agree. I really can't see a logical reason why spells are so limited. I mean, it's magic. Giving all casters 0-9 spell lists and simply spreading them out if they have 0-6 or 1-4 casting would have been nice for consistency's sake.

Random thoughts ...
1. Create a feat that lets you grab a few spells of other lists, something kind of like that Paladin feat Unsanctioned Knowledge, I think it's called.
2. Allow a kind of stripped-down version of spell research, easier and cheaper because the spell already exists, you just need to translate it.
3. Let people poach of other spell lists by determining what level the original class gets it at, then letting the poaching class get it at the next level at which they learn new spells. So, f'rex, Rangers get gravity bow at 4th level, IIRC. A Bard could take it as a spell known at 7th, as that's when they gain their next level of spells known.

I think those are good and reasonable compromises if there were players that were actually split on the issue.

When I tell players that both they and NPC enemies can pick whatever, I've never had a complaint, and things that seem unfair or unbalanced have never come out of it.

I wish the entire internet had a downvote button.

I'm not going to explain the concept of specialized fields of knowledge, but I will humorously picture you fuming at a hospital. If you want gravity bow, take levels in a class that can get it.

Where in Pathfinder is the school of specialized knowledge? Do Bards with Spellcraft only understand Bard spells? Do Bards have to return for training to learn new Charisma based effects? Are they always studying, what, their 1st level Bard text book they got before the first session?

Bards have specialized knowledge because they know fewer spells than a sorcerer. Each Bard individually has limited knowledge. What spells they can pick from is besides the point.

The Jeff, upwards of half of my games end with the party losing. I make encounters hard enough that even approached correctly they can lose on dice. I do not think decision making is interesting unless you can pick wrong. I do not think dice are interesting unless you can fail. I will not run a game unless I find it personally engaging. Anyone who doesn't like that is invited not to play.

I know 2 gamers I don't run for anymore because they like stories where they automatically win. They don't like my games but will play anyway.

You can know the difference between a auto kill and a winnable encounter by asking to see stats after it is over and asking the GM what could have been done to win.

As a personal rule for myself, and I can manage this because I don't GM for kids that run psychos, I do not kill pcs with enemies I have not statted up and I roll my dice in the open.

My wife doesn't game at all and thinks it is silly. When me and my friends talk about it, she jibes with nnneeeerrrddddssss....

But she still helped me set up a whole room of the house for gaming, buys me gaming gifts, suggests times when I could get a game together. The reason: she feels that I pay her so much attention that she can stand to read a book for a few hours by herself. I cook all the time, go on dates with her, and take care of the business she needs taken care of.

Women don't hate gaming. Women get jealous of how you are spending your time. If she says she hates gaming, what she means is that she doesn't feel valued. So value her more.

I mean really, I've worked in two different game stores, ran and played in countless games all the way back to 2e and had retro sessions of 1e with older guys. I live in the midwest, in a town where gaming is big.

I have never, ever, even once in real life met someone who looked up an FAQ regarding how the game is played. Not 2e. Not 3e. Not Vampire or Mage. Not GURPS. Not Palladium. Certainly not PF. Not during an RPGA game. Not in the few PFS games I've played. If someone doesn't know something they make - it - up. I would never look at an FAQ for an RPG.

I mean, it is kinda cute / interesting to read what a paizo employee thinks, but when the rubber meets the road, no one cares.

No, that's sexy, and you did it.

You can always go post on a forum where the moderators aren't afraid that the hostile posters are actually their biggest fans and saved up all their lunch money for Ultimate Campaign, and would be so pissed at being banned that they would just go play WW or something. Then instead of closing threads they could just ban posters.

Just be yourself :)

I think it's funny that you guys think saying someone is Mexican (the Mexican Race!!!), someone is Hispanic, and someone is an elf or Orc are all equivalent ideas.

Also funny that the jump was from hating nazis to hating blacks, instead of hating whites (white nazi storm troopers) which is an easy leap to make and has been made by plenty of people.

In my games, Drow and Orcs are born irredeemably evil and only change through divine intervention. If orcs burned your village, it really is because all orcs are pig faced bastards and should be killed.

Cranefist wrote:

Atarlost wrote:

If you must have trapfinding bard still out-rogues the rogue, it's just a bard that does less buffing. Or if you're really with it the fighter swaps for a fighteryeah, that's a typo. Should say trapper ranger.

But most GMs don't feel the need to force the players to play classes that suck.

How come our one round burst damage battle field control party keeps dying? Maybe we should switch to he classes that suck to stay alive.

Because you either don't know what you're doing or your GM is a jerk who worships shadows and spectres and considers Grimtooth's a holy book. Other than specific crap from before spotlight "balance" was discredited there's no reason for any class or ability to be required.

If you're still using spotlight balance you're a bad GM. Spotlight balance means that some people aren't playing the game but that's "okay" because in a few minutes a different subset of the group won't be playing the game. Oddly it usually seems to be advocated by GMs who are always in the game.

That's correct!!!

Captain bad wrong fun to the rescue. I think you are a bad DM if you do a bunch of hand holding and cater the game to the abilities of the characters so that it is a shangra-la walk through. The only way any of the crap people like you advocate is a challenge is because you ham handedly throw a bunch of high CR crap along your custom railroad.

I think that if you don't put a full spectrum of challenges in front of a group you are a bad GM and I think that if no one gets spot light time, that everyone is hugging and holding hands, over coming crap simultaneously, it is a boring as all funk game.

Cranefist wrote:

TOZ wrote:

Cranefist wrote:

How come our one round burst damage battle field control party keeps dying?

Because you touch yourself at night.

When I think about you?

You think about leaving?

I guess you are too young to remember the song. Oh to be young.

Renegadeshepherd wrote:

What I don't get is if the bard is as respected as it is then why is a rogue the 4th guy at all? Then the question changes.

Because the rogue is the "traditional" fourth guy. Despite the fact that the traditional 4-person party isn't really a thing anymore in terms of how the the game rules work, a lot of people still think that way.

There might be different ways of getting the skills a party needs, but they still need them if the GM isn't tailoring encounters - like how I don't.

I tend to crap ambushes, cursed items, undead and traps all over my game, so if you don't have a scout with detect traps, channelling and a good way to identify, you will be dead by 3rd level.

Spending three hours writing a dragon up, to watch it get obliterated in the second round because I underestimated the ECL of the party.

Talking about alignment tells you more about the individual talking than any real philosophy.

People that talk about not believing in moral absolutes are just trying to prepare the people around them to not be surprised when they do the wrong thing.

Almost everyone gets right vs. wrong. People that claim otherwise either have the intellect of children or are playing word games to shield themselves from either shame or guilt.

I use very specific definitions for good, neutral and evil in my games.

Good: Altruistic group favoring behavior, done with a sense of satisfaction.

Neutral: Self serving behavior without malice or enjoyment derived from the suffering of another person, or altruistic, group favoring behavior done out of logical self interest, sense of duty or honor. Also, destructive behavior without malice - destruction as creation.

Evil: Self serving behavior with enjoyment of another thing's suffering. Altruistic group favoring behavior with the enjoyment of another group or being's suffering.

I'm sure I could refine those, but you get the idea.

Good: Building a homeless shelter and feeling glad you did it.

Neutral: Building a homeless shelter so that the homeless aren't bothering your customers.

Neutral: Destroying a homeless shelter to drive homeless people out of town so they don't bother you or your business.

Neutral: Building a homeless shelter so that you can receive praise.

Neutral: Destroying a homeless shelter to build a strip mall, for profit.

Evil: Building a homeless shelter so that you can lord over homeless people.

Evil: Destroying a homeless shelter for fun.

I absolutely cannot believe how much this thread is fostering the creepy nerd image.

If you don't get what's wrong with these sorts of rape promoting books, don't come crying when you can't get a date through the stink of creep.

I'd bet dimes to dollars all the nerd on this thread acting like there are two sides to this conversation would probably defend the idea that late teens are fair game and that there isn't anything wrong with Japanese school girl fetish cartoons.

If you find yourself on this thread trying to explore this issue, I'd encourage you to go ride a bike or take a cooking class and get out of the house.

Blueluck wrote:

DigitalMage wrote:

In the worse cases the attitude that all metagaming is bad can lead to the situations where someone tries to use "But I'm only doing what my character would do" to excuse being a jerk. . .

Yes! It irritates me so much when someone plays their character in an obviously jerky (self serving, manipulative, greedy, etc.) way and uses "It's what my character would do" as an excuse. It's like when somebody launches an insult then says, "I was just kidding, geez, can't she take a joke?"

Yep, and this is where good meta-gaming should be used; if an action that in-character makes sense, but that out-of-game would make the game less fun then the player needs to meta-game and come up with a different course of action for his character, even if it makes less sense than the original course.

At origins this year, I sat down last for a 4th level adventure. The party was well rounded so I made a wizard and gave him about every utility spell from 1-2 level. Sure enough, I guessed right, and was able to bypass 2-3 encounters. The adventure was heavily geared for "clever" which sometimes means having a wizard along.

So we get into a fight with 7 or so bandits and the party has to spend a full round running up to them. I had sleep in my spell book and could have wacked half of them in the first round, but instead cast Expeditious Retreat on the two weapon fighter so that he could do something.

I don't LIKE doing that because it breaks whatever immersion I'm feeling. On the other hand, I don't feel like a prick either.

Hello,

I'd like to find some people to play my first play by post game.

The game will be set in a fantasy world sort of like ancient Greece and Persia.

Characters start out at level 5 and must have a back story of at least a little depth. Characters do not level up and NPCs will not have more than 3 levels unless there is something special about them. Half gods and lesser gods are level 7. Powerful deities are around level 9.

Combat

Combat is handled like so:

Initiative is simultaneous. Everyone gets three actions and takes all three of their actions together in the same post, fully describing them and writing out their effects and rolls. Any characters that have a higher total initiative bonus than every NPC get to take four rounds worth of actions on their turn. If an NPC has the highest total bonus, he gets four actions.

After all actions are declared and described, the GM will make one post explaining how the battle actually transpired, and what treasure can be claimed.

Reply to This

I would love it if no one gave me their opinions on this, in this thread, unless their opinion is that they like it and want to play. If you have a problem with this, please send me a private message.

As a result, I have become more and more interested in the various E# games (E6, E8, etc.), or even getting out of D&D/PF entirely...but I love levels. It is a conundrum that I am battling now as I lay the foundations for a truly epic campaign....that hopefully will not reach 20th!

What do you love about levels?

They make sense to me. If you go through hard times and live, you will come out stronger.

It destroys the romance of the game for me when the GM writes up NPCs that got levels by writing books, talking or doing kata. If your character sold his farm to buy a sword and shield, joined the army, went to war twice, did some bounty hunting and dungeon delving, and maybe killed a magic beast, he should be top of the world. It is so easy for all of that to only put you at 5th or 6th level though. Then you come back to town to find an adventure and the GM is having it assigned by a 15th level railroad guard. You ask, "what did he do to get those levels?" "Everything you did and much more - you are still a turd." It sucks man.

Cranefist wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't make it hard to run away. Players choose to make characters that can't run away.

I routinely have first level characters with speed scores of 40' or who have a spell like Obscuring Mist or Expeditious Retreat memorized so that they can escape. If I feel like I need to cast it to have a chance at winning the fight, I flee to fight another day.

If you make a dwarf with a speed of 20', it is not the GM's fault.

Player: But how was I supposed to escape from a herd of stampeding wildabeasts?

GM: It's not my fault you didn't play a monk with the Fleet feat.

Player: Will we ever need to be able to run away?

GM: Probably. Can't win them all.

Player: I don't care. I'm making a dwarf fighter with no Fleet, no Run, no horse and no spells.

GM: What's your back up?

Pathfinder doesn't make it hard to run away. Players choose to make characters that can't run away.

I routinely have first level characters with speed scores of 40' or who have a spell like Obscuring Mist or Expeditious Retreat memorized so that they can escape. If I feel like I need to cast it to have a chance at winning the fight, I flee to fight another day.

If you make a dwarf with a speed of 20', it is not the GM's fault.

Monks and rogues are about as neutered while they have all their equipment.

Cranefist wrote:

Seranov wrote:

Ridiculous utility, versatility and overall power should indeed have a significant drawback. Even if that only drawback is "my DM is a dick and specifically targets my spellbook with Sunder/by theives/etc."

It is certainly the DM doing it and not the NPC because no DM crafting an intelligent enemy would dare let that enemy take advantage of a common knowledge weakness you chose for yourself.

Yes, I chose to have a horrific crippling weakness that all but removes me from play because I chose it. Not because its a rule I have to have to play a class or a certain way or anything.

Oracles break their own legs or gouge their own eyes to enter their class. They get a little better over time though.

Wizards are too powerful.

Wizards have an unfair disadvantage - they can be disarmed!!! And the disarm takes 24 hours to take effect!!!

Preposterous!!!

And I can't pick another class!!!

Ridiculous utility, versatility and overall power should indeed have a significant drawback. Even if that only drawback is "my DM is a dick and specifically targets my spellbook with Sunder/by theives/etc."

It is certainly the DM doing it and not the NPC because no DM crafting an intelligent enemy would dare let that enemy take advantage of a common knowledge weakness you chose for yourself.

The biggest source of the caster / martial disparity is the way the game is played. I'm guilty of this as well, so I play by house rules that weaken the caster.

The issue is encounters and difficulty, or put another way, you can force a caster to run out of spells but you can't make a fighter run out of sword, or even arrows past a point.

In the old days, you might have half a dozen encounters in a dungeon and to sleep the characters would have to board up a room. Monsters might attack in the night and keep you from sleeping. You never knew what level of monster you were dealing with right away and often they were right around corners, coming up out of cracks, or hiding behind doors.

Casters could run out of spells, not sleep to get them back, not have time to precast, and not know when he should throw his good ones.

To make matters worse, it was easy to disrupt a wizard.

Now days, casters in most people's games start fights, know what they are up against, get 12 rounds to precast, only have to fight one hard fight a day, always get to sleep... it is no wonder they seem strong.

The natural and fair environment for this game is a dark, long, and dangerous dungeon that harshly pushes the party's resources and in which the wizard does not have enough spells.

The usual environment that benefits him is the leisurely stroll with a BBEG with whom you start the fight after mopping up his minions.

So you have three options to fix the martial / caster dispairity:

Neuter the wizard with house rules
Change the way you play the game
Metagame with the NPCs so that they are always resistant to the PC's magic

In my games, I have a number of homebrew weapons that bridge the gap, or are actually the same weapons used differently.

For example, the "Martial Short Spear" is a 1d6 Damage, Crit x3 (20) Reach Weapon you can use 1 handed if you have martial weapon proficiency.

When you use a weapon close to your body, even a long one, you can grip it with two hands or keep your elbows bent. You can twist into the motion creating a strong power arc. You are not hitting as far away as you can, but you hit harder.

By the same extension, reaching far from your body is never carries as much force as holding something close. If you reach with a spear, your hands slide together near the base, or you release with one hand. If you jab with a spear, your hands stay fixed in strong positions. If you swing a two handed sword, your arms stay bent and you create a wide arc. If you reach with a two handed sword you either stab with it or extend your arms and lose the weight of your body in the strike.

So it isn't just AC you should be giving up, but damage.

So a two handed sword should either do 2d6, or do 1d10 and have reach, applying a -2 AC penalty. Weapons that normally have reach don't suffer the -2 AC, but can't be used normally inside their reach.

To make a long story short - if you extend the reach of a close weapon you should drop its damage.

I agree with your GM as well. I'd never let Detect Magic detect an illusion. An invisible person is invisible because they have a mind effecting enchantment that makes you not notice them. If there was a camera, they would be on the film. If you looked at the camera while they have the spell up, you would not see them.

In my opinion, using DM to detect invisibility would make sense if the invisibility was evocation - a physical bending of the light. As a mind affecting spell, it doesn't matter what he's radiating - you won't notice it because you can't notice it.

Arssanguinus wrote:

One could also wonder why the play instantly gravitated to having to have the banned class.

Do they? I don't know because I don't band in thing from the core set( meaning Pazio 's direct books...)...so I never had this problem. If you ban things in your game how often do people bring up playing them?

If they do...well you know what they say about forbidden fruit right?

Absolutely.

The Gunslinger is a prime example. I've had one over like 7 campaigns sense the book came out and there has never been on in a game I was a player.

And I hate that class, so much. I just act like it isn't there, and as long as I keep that up, it doesn't seem to be.

I ran a game under this rule for a while.

It is actually more boring for the high level characters. It worked out fine when the highest level pc is 4th, but when I had two 5th level pcs with two 1st level characters (and two in between) all the high level characters did was throw themselves in the way of cr 5-6 encounters so the n00bs wouldn't die. It sucks to be a 5th level rogue running screaming at a wizard to draw his fireball so he doesn't kill the rest of the group.

If you use lower level encounters, the level 5s either sit out or end them in a round.

Now I start new characters 2 levels behind the highest level pc. It gets the same fear of death across without making the new pc useless.

The GM has the right to make changes to any character, however the maturity of the player puts a limit on what you can change without threatening immersion.

If the player isn't immersed, there is no point in putting work into a story anyway.

If they are, you should count it as a blessing and be careful jacking with their character.

Asking permission to make a change to a character can itself break immersion.

GMing is an art.

Cranefist wrote:

That's a fine way to play if your goal is a shared story, but I don't care about story. To me, the story is whatever happened. Talking to your players, and telling them the issue, usually amounts to giving hints and playing their turns for them. I don't want them to do well for the sake of a cool story.

Wait... The story of a game isn't important to you? Then what is?

The players' feeling of immersion and their opportunity to make meaningful choices - both of which are improved by situations that are too difficult to overcome unless approached correctly, and consequences for your actions.

Cranefist wrote:

Aranna wrote:

Cranefist wrote:

Aranna wrote:

Killing the PCs is only going to let them bypass the time requirement with their next character since they can start with crafted gear.

You don't have to start PCs equal level to the party. I usually start mine two levels behind the highest level character. You can have all the custom, sublevel crap you want.

Right so you kill off the party because they stopped to craft...

Starting them two levels lower isn't going to stop crafting it is just going to make you make a new adventure for them that is two levels lower. So that gear isn't underpowered is it?

Wait NO you possibly want to punish them by sending them into an adventure two levels higher than them. WOW congratulations you have achieved TPK a second time... how many times in a row are your players going to sit through massively overpowered content leading to endless TPKs before they decide you aren't a very good GM?

Until they figure it out.

Or leave *shrug*

I don't like to game with cryers. Only triers. If someone can't handle a struggle I don't want to run for them. I'll go play Skyrim by myself first. Fortunately gamers in real life have more fortitude than entitled Internet people.

If a paladin has a katana, can he dishonor the sword and have it break by doing something that doesn't actually break his paladin code?

My two cents on the main issue:

Usually PF players aren't real philosophers and PF isn't a forum for GMs to lecture on their real world morality to their players.

Provided that the player playing the Paladin believes he is playing it right and he isn't trampling on anyone else's fun, I think you should let it go, whatever it is, as a GM.

The Crusader wrote:

Ok, guess I'm done with that section of debate. Would anyone like to discuss why Paladins must be Lawful, instead of telling me that my Lawful isn't Lawful-ly enough?

It isn't just "I follow laws because laws are good". It is "This code is the only right way to do things and it can not be wrong."

That is a reasonable idea. Unlike the real world, their is no question about where the code came from. If even a Paladin can dispute the word of god, what chance does any other mortal have of upholding a good life.

God is god. I don't fear no man but god. To get to me, you got to go through god first.

Hiya.

What's more evil...stabbing someone in the face for asking you a question, or lieing to them?

Problem solved. You're welcome. ;)

Basically, the way I see it, if a paladin can attack demons, devils, undead and such "on sight", then lieing to them "on sight" is perfectly acceptable. It wouldn't go against the paladins code at all. Besides, lieing to a demon in order to protect innocents would probably be expected ("innocents" being the PC's and any people they happen to be around when the demon would have popped out and started fireballing everything...).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Winning

Traps and what not have their own CR which is just boosting the CR of the encounter.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, when it comes to fairies, I like mind control.

Get something on this guy that lets you turn a PC against the group and then target the weakest member with it, like the rogue or something. Let them fight him while the big bad runs off. Rinse and repeat.