Czael's page

Czael wrote:

PvP is to be avoided for whatever reason. I don't care if it's your character concept or if it makes sense to do it, there's enough ideas out there that don't involve doing that.

Czael wrote:

"the game functions best" made me angry. It struck me as conceited, like you have the best notion for how the Pathfinder is run.

Pot, Kettle ... Kettle, Pot.

Ugh, yeah...you're right. I'll try to work on that.

As a new gm i'd strongly advocate against allowing an overly high stat array. The game functions best when primary stats are between 15 and 17 (after racial modifiers). This is the target you want, you can do this through a 15 point buy (where going over 17 really hurts) or you can do it by simply enforcing a hard cap. For instnace in my game, we do 25 point buy but no stat over 17 after racial mods. That lets people have well rounded characters if they want, but doesnt throw off the game's math.

I strongly disagree.

I apologize, but seeing "throw off the games math" and "the game functions best" made me angry. It struck me as conceited, like you have the best notion for how the Pathfinder is run. Again, sorry.

For a new DM, I feel you shouldn't limit the players, let them make what they like using RAW. If you start the game with some nerfed/hombrew limited stat option you won't get to see what players can do and may gain a warped sense of what is overpowered. I'm not saying 30 point buy or anything, just don't go out of your way to cripple players. Once you get a better idea of the people you're playing with, then you can make appropriate changes. Ask your players to be forgiving initially and for the most part they will. I know there will be moments of frustration on both sides but that will fade as you gain experience. Every group is different and what they enjoy will be different. There's no set way to do it.

What you need to worry about is keeping the players entertained and how you do that varies depending on your group. Players will constantly do things a DM would never consider and being able to flow with that will help a ton. Try not to have a set story, have an outline and possibilities where certain things can happen multiple ways so you aren't wasting effort coming up with things the players will never encounter.

PvP is to be avoided for whatever reason. I don't care if it's your character concept or if it makes sense to do it, there's enough ideas out there that don't involve doing that. If your party is evil, make an evil character and save that Paladin concept for another game. (although Lawful evil is about the only evil alignment really suited for PC groups that don't devolve into stealing and murdering each other)

High stats matter most in a low level campaign, they tend to balance out if you can make it past level 12. Giving someone enough points in point buy to have an 18 before racial modifiers without completely gutting their other stats can go a long way in keeping most players happy.In my experience if a player will cheat on their stat rolls, they'll cheat on all their rolls so stats are a moot point anyway. If you like the randomness of stat rolling but the control of point buy, pick a lower point buy and add 1d8 or so (15-20 point buy +1d8 isn't so bad)and if you don't trust the players you can write down the number they rolled.

Let people have high stats if it's so important to them...for a lot of people playing the game is about escaping mediocrity. Look at most fantasy novels, it's rare when people want to be the squire or torch bearer rather then the Knight or beautiful Princess.

I hear all this high stat hate and how it makes people power gamers. So? It's a game folks, if they can power game and have fun without pooping on everyone else's fun, let them. Go take your RP > Combat characters high-horse and ride off in to the sunset. Your idea of fun is just as valid as theirs.

I like everything about deadly stroke except for dazzling display...I almost feel it's better to intimidate a single opponent and move in to focus them down rather then spend your first round wiggling your sword about. If you're lucky enough to have an Inquisitor in your party, have that horrifying individual give someone the stink-eye (Since they'll probably go before you anyway and their intimidate will probably last a while.) If you're fighting mindless things, that's an awful lot of useless feats unless you have an Antipaladin.

If you're Cockatrice I suppose Dazzling Display is alright, but you're giving up Warrior or Sword and that's not a good trade off abilitywise. Needing Charisma in a class that needs strength, constitution, Wisdom (to cover their low will save) and even dexterity to properly fill out O-Yoroi armor is harsh.

tl:dr?
Dazzling Display is underwhelming and it makes my heart sad.

My group is pretty split about point-buy and random rolls and arguments can go on for quite a while. Using this style of character gen appeased both sides oddly enough.

I suppose you could use low point-buy for a homebrew, but it's just as easy to give the players higher stats (which makes at least a few players happier with their characters) and step up the encounters to deal with that.

I have to admit I haven't scoured the boards for this so I'll apologize if this is a repeat idea...

My group has been using a point-buy system of 20+1d10.

Sure this is high, but that's easy enough to adjust and throws in a random aspect that not present in regular point-buy. Thoughts?

I'm not all that sure about the deadly stroke route, I prefer the improved critical katana route and piling focus and specialization into it. If you're going the Warrior route, rolling three dice and going for the 15-20 crit chance is pretty likely. I'm level 9 and on the sword route, +2 to the will save, mount strength added to charge damage and it's not difficult to get spirited charge that way. On a crit mount charge I do from 156-212 damage, otherwise a normal swing is a d8+22 without a challenge or a mount at all. I'm not a fan of humans either, I'll take half-orc almost every time and treat darkvision as my human feat =p I'm gonna find a mage to permanency reduce person on me, the reduction in damage dice is more then worth it.

I had two things happen to me that caught me a little off guard because I'm fairly new to GMing, the first being the blackmail notes found in the lock box by the Ghasts. The Cleric simply cast mending to fix the papers (and had a make whole prepared if that wasn't enough) In 3.5 mending and such could not repair fire damaged objects, but the Pathfinder version seems a little vague in that respect. No Linguistics check was necessary and all that information was revealed. Am I missing something obvious?

The other one was the blind witness that the prosecution calls to testify against the beast. Were his eyes utterly destroyed by the fire? The PCs simply removed his blindness and the witness easily pointed out that it wasn't the beast who killed his master/etc...

What would you do in that situation? It certainly made things easier and wasn't game breaking, but I'm curious if I let things pass that shouldn't have been possible/ were intended.