Darkheyr's page

I'm not avoiding the question. It is merely completely irrelevant to the argument I made in the first place - namely that I'm going to insist checking the rules first in such situations, and that a GM does not have free reign to change rules on the fly just because he feels like it.

But fine, if it actually gets to that point where rules were checked and subsequently ignored, I'd keep arguing up until I had clear indication that it's completely fruitless - at which point it'd come down to the people and the specific situation in question (and how it was specifically handled) whether I'd approach it again after the session, or if the group loses a player, possibly immediately.

I don't see the relevance of the question considering Kain constructed that scenario entirely in his head, but there you go.

Unless that person is you?

What, speaking up that someone is behaving like an idiot is now being an idiot itself?

Edit: And just a small question aside - what's with the ad hominem? I'm talking about whoever is in the situation, not me specifically. As said, I'd speak up if it affected someone else just as much.

You are still avoiding the question directed to you, and sometimes one person being wrong can still lead to the other person being wrong if they don't handle it properly, and yes sometimes, you in a lose/lose situation. This can be one of them. You stall the game, and the players get mad, or you just accept the character's death. Neither one is good, and unlike what you are doing now, if this were to happen in an actual game, not with your current group you may not be able to avoid it.

No, I am not avoiding. If a GM clearly misapplies a rule which then results in a character death, I'll simply not just shut up - not if it's my character, not if it's anyone elses character. It's in the interest of every player at the table to have situations like this simply not happen, and if they do, resolved properly and not just waived off.

And frankly, I wouldn't want to be part of any group where people would be so utterly anti-social to get mad over 'their' playing time being 'wasted' while another player's character is being unfairly killed - and I damn well hope for anyone not to have 'friends' like that.

I mean, seriously? I'm having a really hard time to be sympathetic for players 'wasting' a few minutes of their time while the guy actually being wronged has to sit around for the rest of the session because the character they played for 30 sessions is dead for no other reason than the GM being a tool.

There is a convention in most professional sports that the referee is always right, even when he is wrong. If you think the ball was inside the line, and the referee says it was out, and you argue with him, you are punished, even if you were right. This is an accepted convention because it is better than constant arguments.

A lot of people apply a version of this convention to RPGs.

A group of friends playing Pathfinder and a professional soccer game are not exactly comparable situations.

And as a general statement I still don't share that opinion.

The very idea of giving one person in any social gathering the right to be a tool is something I'd not support, no matter the people.

Turning it back to being the arguing player's fault instead of the idiotic GM is something I find highly questionable.

Darkheyr, you haven't answered my question. Let's say I'm the dick DM. Your character dies because I rule that you failed your save. You bring up the rule. I say no. Where do you go from that point?

I'm not saying that it is right. In fact, I said it was unfair. But explain to me how you get your way in this scenario, in a manner that doesn't cost the other players their game?

Let me turn that question around: The DM rules that another player's character dies despite it clearly being a misinterpretation of the rule, and further denies the possibility of spending 5-10 minutes to make certain, or at least making the judgement call initially in the players favour.

I don't know, would you really be annoyed at the player insisting on making sure? Because quite honestly, I'd probably stand up myself and tell the DM to damn well look it up, despite it not being my character involved.

How you can even pretend that the arguing player is the one costing the others the game and not the DM is beyond me, really.

'Common sense that normal healthy social interaction should have provided' is obviously something people can disagree on.

There is a rulebook. If I play Pathfinder, I expect those rules to be followed. If those rules are changed, I expect the GM to tell me. And I expect him to tell me before I bring myself into a situation entirely based on the expectation that rules work a certain way. Preferably even before I start playing in that game if it's a significant change.

Besides, I tend to play with friends, not strangers. So what I expect to gain from not shutting up is making it clear to said friend who happens to be the GM right now that he is acting like an idiot.

Luckily, those situations rarely happen among even minimally reasonable friends.

'Rule Zero' does not give a GM free reign to be an idiot.

The 'negative-towards-a-player" part is actually rather relevant. Tabling things until later is all fun and games until the rule being wrongly applied is killing your character, right now, or invalidating your build or action.

Back in D&D 3.5, I remember nearly killing a party member with a sneak attack because the DM maintained that grappling infers a 50% chance to hit the other grappler instead, and refused to either a) look it up or b) at least let me cancel my action.

Delaying the discussion until later doesn't always work perfectly, sadly.

Oh. I missed that as well. *blinks*

That... is actually pretty cool. Alleviates MAD for the Paladin a bit. I like it.

It never ceases to amaze me at how specific/real world the game breaks down martial fighting into specific feats, of which even a 20th level character only gets between 10 and 20, yet magic, which has insanely low prereqs for spells (Stat 10+spell level), and even a 10th level sorcerer has 24 to choose from, continues to be broad and widely applicable.

VERY true. It's what bugs me about the fighter/wizard discrepancy the most - not 'power' as such, but the sheer versatility a wizard gets, especially once he starts collecting scrolls - new sourcebooks can grant completely new abilities to wizards and divine casters, while martials can't just casually learn new tricks.

Sorcerers are much closer in 'balance', at least in concept and when you ignore consumables - but still on a larger scale.

I wonder if one could build a new fighter loosely based on the sorcerer concept. Fighting Schools instead of Bloodlines, and martial powers / maneuvers instead of spells.

Yes, Weapon Training and AoMF not applying to Grapple seems very odd to me. It's how it is, though.

I'd still houserule different myself I think.

And actually, a Grapple is NOT an unarmed strike - Weapon Training (Close) does not apply apparently :(

Same with other unarmed strike specific boni.

Well, a Grapple-focused Succubus with Fighter levelvs would probably do quite well in this situation...

Actually, FoM isnt even a wizard spell.

With all due respect Bob, but that wizard is a lot farther from any 'standard' than most fighter ideas other people have posed - but, actually, a good example for why I'm saying 'it depends'. Very fitting for a paranoid character knowing people are out to get him.

Tac: Server is silm.pw (which is also the website)
Old place, but originally german - we're actually translating and re-designing many old parts of it because the german NWN1 community is sadly rather dried out. We're pretty big on player involvement both from RP and technical side, including easy tools to upload your own areas.

It's Forgotten Realms based, Silver Marches. Feel free to look around, though it's not what I would call 'complete' by any stretch right now. Good place to get tinkering, though :)

And it makes no sense at all that a spear cannot be used onehanded, given the fact that spear and shield was likely the most common arms combination throughout history.

A DM might well be open to change a few fluff requirements. Just like a DM might well be open to discussing making spears one-handed.

It's a rather odd assumption to present that houseruling as any sort of obvious truism, though.

It might simply be heavier than 10 lb / level, or minorly magical, precluding shatter. Or it's not actually a tub. Like a natural pond, lake, the ocean, a river, or a pool in an extravagant bathhouse - and thus, not necessarily subject even to disintegrate - which requires CL11 or 12 in most cases by the way, and thus out of reach for most level 10 parties without consumables such as scrolls.

Circumstances matter.

There is absolutely nothing clear about the parametres of the thought experiment. It was left very vague, and people have been filling in the blanks - mostly to the disadvantage of the fighter.

First off, I'd do away with the assumption that the fighter has to be designed as a super specialised high level commando whose sole purpouse is pure DPR, and who leaves the job of covering his weaknesses exclusively to nonpresent party members or gear completely out of his reach at the time. While some people are happy with builds like that, others are not, and what some will consider a ludicrous choice of feats makes perfect in-character sense for the next one.
I mean, we are still playing an RPG. What a backstabbing Dark Elf or even a more mundane solo-running lone ranger prepares for will be vastly more sophisticated than what a party-based mercenary thinks of, no matter the level. This is doubly so if the lone wolves actively expect people to try an assassinate them.

I'm also a bit surprised at people so easily dismissing Combat Expertise. Seriously, are your parties fighting level-appropriate enemies exclusively? Does the entire world magically levelup around you? Because I have always been able to make good use of feats (and spells) like that to stave off attrition issues with the far more numerous low-level mooks. Honestly, my own fighter would probably have all sorts of feats that many here apparently consider suboptimal. In fact, my Dark Elf did have IUS, Blind-Fight, Lunge, and some CM feats that I don't recall anymore. All without suffering much in my Greatsword efficiency, which was more than sufficient to dish out the damage against appropriate encounters. It's one of the niceties of the fighter - unless you are going for very feat-intensive skill trees, you have enough spare feats to pull off quite a bit of versatility.

Other facts that would need definement: The location, and the attackers. Who are they? What do they know? Where are they, exactly? Have they actively prepared this ambush and know precisely what the fighter can do? Have they, perhaps, even carefully selected the location and are attacking from out of reach? This is an extremely difficult scenario for any target, geared or not, and vastly different to a tenth-level party randomly stumbling over a bathing Ftr20 in a small bathroom that they weren't expecting, and certainly not knowing who or what he is.

Making broad assumptions on the fighters / attackers / general scenarios makeup to support general statements like gear dependency is rather irritating.

Considering the primary advantage of full casters is the sheer amount of options they bring to the table.... The solution really should be to balance the amount of options.

I mean, when I played a high level wizard back in 3.5, I needed an entire folder just to manage my memorized spells, the spells in my spellbook, my scrolls, my wands, and so on. I literally had dozens of potential actions every single combat round.

A low level fighter attacks once per round.

The entire difference to a high level fighter is... that he MIGHT attack more than once per round, some nifty magic item gadgets aside. A scarce few feats break this chain, but as said before, feats are limited - spells, in most cases, are not.

Part of that can be solved - we can replace certain feats with combat maneuvers that are trainable just like spells, including special attacks that add status conditions. But even then, the sheer flexibility certain spells bring to the table simply can't be matched with nonmagical means. For that, D&D and PF magic is far too fantastic. Scry, Teleportation, Summoning and Shapechanging, Invisibility, and so on.

Without completely writing up a new magic system and power design, the only thing I'd see is simply making noncasters interesting enough that they have ample of DIFFERENT options to provide than a spellcaster.

Partially, this already happens - for instance, I don't get why people try to limit spells like fireball. Fighter damage (and all melees, really) already outclasses caster damage by far.