I'm going to keep it simple, Pathfinder is a game filled with hundreds of rules.
For every rule, there's more rules on top, conditions altering those rules and rules written badly just to make things fun.
My problem with the new classes is how they tend to break the rules that have already been established or create weird caveats/conditions to situations. From a GM point of view I find it annoying that for every class, there's about two dozen extra rules I need to learn so I can properly adjudicate a session.
The more I think about it, the more I like Summon Instrument because it forces me to think outside the box and be creative.
*Eavesdrop through a hole in wall or door with a horn in your ear
*Float across that river by using a large wooden drum
*Climb over that wall by summoning a tall drum
*Slide quickly down a steep slope by summoning a metal gong and riding it
*Create a large metal gong to use as a shield
*Make a poor man's grease spell by smashing a pair of maracas
*Reach that object by summoning an alpine horn
*Throw a tambourine (then un-summon it immediately) as a distraction
*Use a drum as a bucket for carrying large amounts of water/oil/gun powder...
*Place a hand bell on top of a slightly open door as an early warning sound
I'm sure there's more, but these and the ones I've created so far :)
A player specialised in grappling almost excessively strong, yes it might take two rounds but once someone is pinned, next move is coup-de-grace and the fight is over. I shouldn't need to tell you that defeating a boss in 3 rounds is too fast (1 round to run over to him).
Simple math:
*100% of GMs want to play or be a player
*Only a small fraction of players, want to GM
This is why there are more players than GMs
Simple logic:
*The responsibilities for being a GM far outweigh the reward
*The skill set required to become a GM is incredibly high
*Gratification comes easier with being a player
One of the more annoying, yet funny, yet unintentional ways we derailed our GM's game was killing an NPC we were supposed to rescue.
For background we had to go into this portal and a side quest was to search out the previous team and bring any survivors back. After much gruelling dungeon crawling we eventually ran into the only surviving person from the previous adventuring group.
Of course this person was dominated and we had no way of breaking the enchantment. On top of this the GM had decided it was perfectly ok to build an OP monk/wizard, which our one, full BAB could occasionally hit on a roll of 15 or higher. She had monk saves through the roof AND the ability to block successful attacks against them (crane style?).
This monk was ripping us apart and there was little motivation for us to wait for our full BAB to roll a natural 19 to non lethally take out the monk.
In the end for self preservation and sanity reasons we killed the monk and our GM looked quite sad, "She was supposed to lead into the next storyline..."
Me to GM: "Dude, do you even realise what you just did?"
Combat isn't really that interesting past a certain point and if you make an entire session combat heavy it really drags. Think less fighting tournament and maybe more Olympic games and you'll be able to think of lots of funny games.
Here's a few suggestions, give players limited tokens which they can trade in for different events.
Simple events are
Archery (highest attack = closest to bullseye)
Fencing (first to three hits)
Wrestling (first person to succeed in pinning opponent)
More interesting events can be
Gladiator: Two opponents stand on poles and must use a padded staff to knock their opponent off the other log. Attack rolls vs touch ac but each time someone is hit they're allowed a reflex save to save themselves from falling off.
Dodgeball: Each round everyone rolls a stealth roll, then on their turn they roll perception to try and spot other people in the area. Once they notice someone they can attempt a ranged attack with a ball vs flat foot ac. One shot out.
General rule: One contest for every ability (str, dex, con, int, etc) or give each player a chance to shine.
We were on our way to another city which involved months of travel on a ship to find a quest McGuffin. The GM (whether by story or over eagerness to include encounters), gave us non stop grief in the form of side quests.
First it was the Aspis consortium commanding our boat in their war effort (captain being a member), next it was Elves saying they wouldn't allow us onto their sacred land (this arc took months to resolve), then it was some sort of river troll attack, then it was a druid who didn't like us and wrecked the boat, then we needed to hunt monsters for their hearts to power the boat, then the Aspis came back and commanded our boat to ferry slaves.
The whole party was getting sick of all the forced deviations from our intended destination and decided to confront the captain.
We were actually thinking about shanking the captain and throwing him overboard at this point.
ME: THIS IS BY FAR THE WORST CRUISE I'VE EVER BEEN ON. IF YOU DON'T HURRY THE TRIP UP, I AM SO GIVING YOU ONE STAR ON LONELY PLANET!
I told him quite politely online that his gaming style wasn't a fit and he blew up in the most amazing rant. At first I was taken back by how rude it was but then re-reading it a few days later, it genuinely blew my mind how deluded he was. It was almost like he had been in another world playing Pathfinder with a different group and somehow was the hero of the story.
Aw, man, I want to read that rant. If you don't want to post it entirely, could we get a synopsis with highlights? Commentary discussing the disconnect between what he said and what happened would not be remiss, as well.
This was quite a few years ago on my phone and I've definitely lost it since then.
Long story short, his recollection of fights was quite imaginative. He went on at length to describe being pivotal in fights and how we wouldn't survive without him, claiming we didn't understand damage reduction and forgetting how the rest of us had to save him multiple times, from his own recklessness.
Longer story
Spoiler:
One of the things that our GM did was target the damage dealers, which played out as enemies targeting the biggest "threat". Funnily enough because his character never did enough damage to warrant a threat, it was rare that his character got attacked, so he saw this as some sort of immunity/testament to his builds. So while we were dropping into unconscious, he was occasionally doing 1d8+0, wonderfully he never took precise shot as a feat either.
Another fight had us against something almost immune piercing but he managed to score a critical hit with his bow. The gm bluntly told him that after DR he did 2 damage but he remembered that fight for his "amazing crit build".
One battle had us fighting a Dhamphir thieves guild which went very badly for us. Everyone was dropped into unconscious except for my character. Trying to avoid a narrow TPK, my character had to tank all the damage while healing everyone back into the fight (including his). My character later took the aggro of three intimidate checks with a natural 20 on one, with a ridiculous +20(?) skill modifier and mandatory fear effect. My character was forced to flee for many rounds.
He went from using his wand of Flareburst (DC12) but after the near TPK he thought the best course of action was to shoot his bow at the dominated civilians forced into the fight. So according to him he saved the party by killing the most enemies while my character ran in fear. Glossing over the fact he was killing unarmed, unarmoured civilians (who even suffered attacks of opportunity for their +1 attacks). Even after the fight ended with us killing off all the Dhampires and the civilians breaking free of their domination, he asked if he could keep attacking them.
Man there was so much WTF, but those were some of the highlights.
Due to attrition my Pathfinder group lost two members, which left us with only two players. By luck I noticed an acquaintance (I knew from volunteering) posted in the local Pathfinder Society: Facebook group. I sent him through a few messages to ascertain his knowledge, as our game wasn't suitable for beginner players.
The guy seemed pretty knowledgeable so I invited him to join our game. Now we were able to find two new people to fill our gaps, but this guy made us all think we were better off as a team of 3.
Firstly while he seemed to be knowledgeable, there was a complete disconnect between what he knew and his application. His builds were reasonably good, until he started to play them... Firstly he loved investing in obscure feats and abilities he had no idea how to use OR did not use.
For example he would build archers, with archer feats then swing a masterwork sword with OR build a melee fighter and start using a non magical normal bow.
Generally the party would be swinging damage in the 20 to 60 region per turn, while his builds would be doing 1d8+1.
Secondly he was perplexing in his battle tactics, he never helped us focus fire down dangerous enemies and instead chased down full health minions (and in one game spent his turns shooting civilians/bystanders). One session had him spamming a wand of sleep vs undead, which the GM did flat out tell him that they were immune to. One character was a ranger that had access to cantrips and he spent the session spamming a DC11 flare. Furthermore he also spent half his wealth on weapons he would never use. So his ranger would have a 12k bow but would only ever swing a masterwork longsword...
The gm being incredibly patient allowed him to reroll his characters to fix them but instead this guy decided to rebuild his characters every single session (including changing names/sex). Every character was suffering from feats, skills and weapons he would never use. I would even spend hours to help him build characters but every time we finished building something playable, he next session he would rock up with a completely different character.
He never paid attention during other player's turns or when the gm was talking, always asking questions that had been already been answered. He was ALWAYS unprepared for his turn, after asking for options he would always ignore any advice and attack something random.
Finally, he had the most annoying way of rolling dice. Take into account we're level 7, multiple attacks and multiple damage dice. He would always pick up one dice in one hand, hold it for a second, pass it to the next hand, hold it for another second, then roll it. He also did this strange body body bobbing thing depending which hand the dice was in. Then he would stare at the dice for an excessive amount of time calculating. He would roll every single dice individually, making his turn alone take longer than the whole table combined.
You know it could have worked had he role played at all, had story reasons to back up his odd decisions but in the end we had enough and I was asked to get rid of him. I told him quite politely online that his gaming style wasn't a fit and he blew up in the most amazing rant. At first I was taken back by how rude it was but then re-reading it a few days later, it genuinely blew my mind how deluded he was. It was almost like he had been in another world playing Pathfinder with a different group and somehow was the hero of the story.
So he returned to the Pathfinder Society and I really felt sorry for all those poor people that had to deal with him.
I did a quick search of the PFS group and it seems like he has been banned. Sorry but that brings a smile to my face.
This is a part rant but also a call to attention about Pathfinder's HORRENDOUS naming system. Too many times I've encountered names in various APs are impossible/clumsy/ridiculous to read let alone pronounce.
Either Pathfinder needs to try harder to make names pronounceable OR start including pronunciation breakdowns for all their names.
So fellow players what are some of the ridiculous names you've come across in Pathfinder materials?
For me I bear a special hate for the following:
*Sarenrae (clumsy to say and I feel like it should be SareNAE instead)
*Orik Vancaskerkin - so this is an HUMAN name???
*Demon Lord, Kostchtchie - Most of the demons in Pathfinder are unpronounceable
*Ardathanatus - Elven name from Shattered Star
*Volioker Briskalberd - A Dwarven locksmith name apparently
These are ones close at hand but I remember so many over the years that make me stop and scratch my head.
My rule with players is that I'll make a ruling now, write down the question and vow to research the correct rule in time for next session.
Don't invite arguments over rules or debate which because it only stops gaming and makes life boring for the unaffected players.
Well if your games are more roleplaying then the players don't need a benefit for "one handed/one weapon" style.
I have noticed that having a free hand is perfect for pulling things out of bags though, throwing those tangle foot bags/alchemical fires (or drinking potions) without dropping your weapon or using more than one turn is useful.
Power in Pathfinder it in learning when/where/how to use your abilities. I would ignore the idea of doing damage as that's not where the power of a wizard lies.
Here's a basic formula:
Target fighters and rogues with will save spells
Target clerics with reflex spells
Target mages with fortitude save spells
For example:
*If you see a cleric, drop a pit under him and take him out of the fight.
*Hit that mage with ear piercing scream to stun him, blindness so he can't cast spells.
*That group of fighters is completely debilitated with Glitter dust because they can only hit at 50% of the time at most
These are some very simple, low level tactics, think smarter not stronger. Mages are hard for a beginner to play because it requires a little bit of system knowledge, simple rule is work towards increasing your save DCs and don't put feats into using a bow ;)
Buy some items which increase your spell DCs like Headbands of Intelligence, Rods, feats and more.
In my experience losing characters is pretty devastating.
Further compounding this is if players give up their character and start new ones, you as a GM lose all the connections/stories/relationships you've worked to craft in your game world, the players also lose their investment in the world. You should never make your less invested in your world or their characters.
Personally my way of handling death is resurrection costs = character level x 500gp
Depending on your game you might want to scale this up or down. My reasoning is that it doesn't make sense a level 2 character and a level 20 character should cost the same amount to resurrect. Furthermore there's really no chance a level 2 party will have the means to save their friend. It's reasonably expensive without totally crippling the player/party.
Additionally every time a person is brought back to life they roll on a table of permanent afflictions. They basically roll a D6 which translates to part of the body and a D10 for severity of affliction. Some of these afflictions have no real impact, for example "impotence" or losing the pinky finger but they go to up losing 1 ability point at the most extreme.
The important thing was I found was this made death matter and my players actually enjoyed talking about their scars and afflictions like badges of honour.
For a while I wanted to do something I would call the "average adventurer" because I wanted to have a few sessions focused on interesting ideas and game play.
Everyone would pre-prepare several interesting puzzle/combats/encounters for a dungeon, be assigned a number and when a room was cleared the gm would roll a die ~ signalling the next gm to take the hot seat.
We would all roll for our stats and then build a character around our (most likely abysmal) stats.
From there we would start our dungeon crawl.
~
The focus would be on creative ways to beat encounters and tight teamwork to get through problems.
Me: I don't like Elves...
Player 1: I'm an elf, why don't you like Elves?
Me: I think the Lord of the Rings ruined it for me. Look at me I don't need to sleep, my bread is better than any other bread, I'm stupidly good with a bow AND melee and can pretty much live forever...
Me: Elves OP.
As GM I see myself as facilitator for a fun time with my friends, their characters are the heroes and ultimately there to succeed. My aim is to tell an interesting story with the players as the main characters.
Our party consists of a ranger who loves stealing things
A bard who refuses to use his perform skill
A Sorcerer who never tells the truth
And an Orc barbarian who was mistakenly written as being 4 foot 7 on his character sheet.
We had just gotten into a fight with a group because our orc barbarian Bravos had gotten bored of the talky business.
So fight cut short we killed several of their guards and had to run before their reinforcements came. Unfortunately we ran into them later on in the game and they accused us of attacking them.
Bard: This is a case of mistaken identity, you must have met a different midget barbarian
Bravos: Bravos no attack anyone, you must have met brother "BROVOS"
You'll always find way more people interested in playing pathfinder than GMing. GMs are hard to find and good ones even harder, unfortunately good GMs start off as bad GMs until they can fine tune their craft.
Remember that if you lose your GM, the group will dissolve and I'm sure you don't want that.
Assuming your GM is new there's really little you can do but learn and grow with him.
It's worth asking the GM at the end of each session "what should/could we have done when XYZ attacked us?"
This will elicit two possible responses
1)"This is what you should have done" and the group gets better as players
2)The GM sees flaws in his encounter design and designs better ones
I suggest that you don't worry about it. Players (especially optimisers/min maxers) will eventually hit that ballpark figure where they can roll anything and still succeed, to reach that point usually takes a long time!
Sometimes reaching that point requires diverting points, feats, money or other such things so taking away that triumph (of being good at something) is not nice at all.
Specifically there are a few things you need to remember about skills.
Knowledge checks succeeded just means that players know more about your backstory, history, local legends and other things. Remember bards are the kings of knowledge so early on they will have ridiculous knowledge levels.
I keep knowledge ranks interesting because I go with DC= 10+Monster CR and equaling the DC means I'll tell them the name of the monster and what type/sub type it is. For every 5 points past that, I allow the players to ask for one specific question about the monster (they always ask about it's special abilities) but they can ask about it's exact AC, DR, weakness, etc.
Intimidate checks can only be performed if the character has been involved in 1 minute of conversation.
Diplomacy checks are not mind control, you can not make a person give up their life just to serve you for a moment. It also requires 1 minute of conversation and THE MAX YOU CAN INFLUENCE SOMEONE IS 2 STEPS.
Bluff is opposed by sense motive and isn't enough to break someone's reality. You also need to assign appropriate DCs due to the ridiculousness of the lie.
If players want to keep dumping points into skills let them, it's simply diminishing returns. You'll always have a hard time beating someone at their best skills, instead make them swim across a flowing river or sneak past that guard post or hold onto a barrel to avoid being sucked under water.
Right now I'm reflavouring the Hook Mountain Massacre.
My players seemed really eager to go into a big city and the chance to open up the rich depth of Magnimar seemed criminal to only do a fraction of a chapter in.
Spoiler:
When they discover the Truth behind Justice Ironbriar they'll get work from another Justice and instead of travelling to the Hook Mountains the PCs will be directed to the Hells beneath the pediment building.
If you don't know about the Hells, there's a massive jail system underneath Magnimar and each lower level houses increasingly more evil criminals. As you go lower into the levels the hotter it gets due to poor ventilation, referencing the layers of Hell in religion.
The lowest 3 levels exploded into riot and because they were impossible to reverse, the government of Magnimar decide to just seal the criminals (and all others) to their expected doom.
Unfortunately it's said that the criminals are not truly contained and are somehow escaping into Magnimar again.
So my reflavour is having many different specialist killers, including the Graul family housed in the lower levels, the Black Arrows being guards and the PCs are tasked with clearing out the Hells.
Unfortunately they will find out the that criminals have been digging tunnels, forging enough weapons for an army and intend to drop Magnimar into the Ocean through the use of Bombs laid throughout the underground of the city.
In a module I used the players were able to find a valuable gem that had fallen into a crack in the floor, if they made their perception check.
Fast forward 15 minutes of players trying to disable device, detect magic, chip away at rock, lift with chopsticks, perception roll, wash out with water. The nearly tried everything in the book (and out) because all of the players refused to put their hand in the hole.
The biggest single thing that will turn me off from a class is getting 2 skill points as a base. Being able to contribute outside of fights is pretty important roleplay/gameplay wise. While the wizard gains obvious benefits for being int based, the fighter, cleric, sorcerer and paladin are seriously shafted. A big disparity between being a core class or a base class.
Secondly I hate inflexibility, I like the ability to adapt to situations because you have spells or abilities, that can counter serious effects. So being strong mcfighty is nice until some casts a spell/SLA/SU then you're just a sitting duck.
For specifics
Rogue: They're really cool for many reasons but plagued with multiple weakness and straight up outclassed by the ninja (multiple classes + archtypes too). To me the ninja is what the rogue should have been.
Gunslinger: full BAB vs touch plays out as broken in many APs. This broken nature becomes more apparent when it's a banned player class and our GM uses them against us.
Sorcerer: I love the flavour but mechanically they suffer from broken spell progression, pathetic skill ranks, poor class skills and their "advantage" of casting spells "frequently" is worth 1 extra spell per day for all their weaknesses.
You have entered a running race and spend your spare time studying and planning your journey. You read all the rules so you can follow them, plan your route and know where the finish line is.
On the day of the race you are told that the finish line is in a different place, forcing you to throw all the work you put into planning your journey out the window. You feel like you are running a completely different race but decide to continue, not everything has gone to waste after all.
You've re-planned your journey and are now on your way to the finish line, you can see the end in sight. The judge blows his whistle and tells you the running race has now become a bicycle race. You blink stunned, they told you it was a running race and you planned all your training around it being a running race. Handicapped because you're no longer good at what you entered for; maybe it's not so bad the goal is still in sight and you're almost finished so you push on.
The judge blows his whistle as you're minutes away from the line and he tells you that people with red shirts have to check in with first aid before they cross the line. You notice a racer wearing a white shirt run past you, had you known about this rule you would have worn a different shirt.
You cross the line and the judge tells you the finishing line is now in a different place.
I use Lego blocks with my players names on them so I can quickly assemble initiative order without writing anything. It also gives my players easy to identify colours.
The clear dice container that comes with Chessex is a great Gelatinous Cube.
Any board game by fantasy flight is instant miniatures for your games, in particular I use the World of Warcraft Board game which comes packed with coloured minis. The cool thing about coloured minis is I can roll green dice for my green monsters, red for red monsters and so on. Always keep an eye out for secondhand board games!
The best dice container I have is a small clear plastic condiments lunchbox, I roll my dice inside the lid and it stops them jumping off the table or getting confused with other player's dice.
A tablet or phone with the "Masterwork Tools" android app is the fastest way to check info.
An egg timer is an excellent prompt for keeping players on their toes and ready to take their turns.
Post it notes are the best way to make modifications to an adventure path without ruining the book. Also great for a low tech way of moving creature stats without flipping back and forth through the book.
I never let an opportunity to deliver a physical letter to the party go to waste. Often for official letters I print them out on textured paper with cursive font and because I have a wax seal collection, I seal some important scrolls with wax seals. Sometimes I'll put letters completely in code or rip them up and have players find them one piece at a time.
Ice cubes on a glass tray makes an epic river fight, as the ice melts the cubes will automatically "float" off in their own haphazard direction. Players spend a move action to paddle their ice cube into position.
I use plastic "counters" to mark positions of spells on the map or swarms when they're sharing space with players.
While investigating the skinsaw murders the PCs discovered that most of them had occurred near water ways, they began entering all the premises on the outer edge of the town and by dumb luck bumbled into the Scarni guild house.
The front operative none too please with their uninvited entrance and demanded they leave immediately. Quickly suspicious the PCs demanded they be let into the back rooms, the Scarni operative at this point began swearing and telling them to leave the establishment as it was none of their business.
Offering them a chance I asked them to roll a knowledge local, to which the ninja answered with a natural 1. The Wizard thought torture would be the best option and cast one of the necromatic pain spells on the operative and the party tried to force their way into the back rooms. Upon hearing the commotion out front many heavily armed thugs poured out of the woodwork and the party realised they had made some very poor choices.
The Scarni supervisor offered them the chance to leave with their lives as long as they paid a 1000 gp fee but being the cheap skates they were, the wizard threw out a burning hands spell and set fire to the guild house, letting them escape in the confusion.
After a short period of hiding where the ninja hid in a bin, the wizard in a barrel of water and the Samurai in a bale of hay, they eventually regrouped and began asking the folks of Sandpoint about the Scarni. They quickly pieced together how how much of the town the Scarni owned and how dangerously influential they were. The PCs waited till cover of dark and only moved at night to avoid being spotted. While updating the Sheriff on their investigation, the Sheriff revealed that he had heard about 1000 gp bounties being placed on each of their heads.
Forced to lie low and increasingly paranoid about assassins they decided the best place to sleep was sleeping in the town crypts. The wizard ended up catching a disease in the poor conditions, they continued sneaking around town for a period until they decided it was best to offer tribute to the Scarni. Through the Sheriff they were able to meet Titus Scarnetti and they paid a sizable sum in gold to remove their bounties, with further punishment Titus ordered them to run around the town naked for an hour to learn humility.
I asked the negotiator (the ninja) to roll 1d6 to measure the decreased amount of respect the town had for them and this number would be subtracted from their diplomacy/intimidate checks inside the town, he rolled a 6.
Read 90% of the answers in this thread but now they're getting tedious and off track.
I would say RotRL is NOT a meat grinder (honestly I have to wonder how even?). My players have breezed through encounters even though encounters have been adjusted with more minions, max hp and slightly more intelligent tactics. My players are first timers to pathfinder but through carefully planned teaching, they know they to use tactics, spells and equipment to get through encounters. Additionally Rolling in front of my players isn't a problem because the dice are unbiased, there's no arguing when the evidence is right there in the open. I've had plenty of fights end quickly because they landed a hold person and coup-de-graced the boss, there's nothing wrong with rewarding intelligent fighting.
There's also been plenty of times where my players have been dropped to negatives and even one occasion when all of the players were dropped but I kept them alive through a story twist instead.
As a GM you have plenty of power and ability to shut down your players. Should you repeatedly exercise your power to kill off your players? The less invested players are into their characters the less story opportunities and potentially less fun they'll have.
If your players are playing badly then either teach them to play better or adjust tactics. Obviously killing them off isn't teaching them. Also change your dice if you roll crazy, you should be suspicious when dice don't roll randomly.
What are the specific problems with having phones or computers?
I use the Pathfinder App on my phone non stop to research spells and look up rules all the time. Trying to do it physically via rule book is a nightmare.
My character had his soul sucked into the body of another person and was forced to masquerade as them throughout a base. So I was trying to get past a blockade of sorts and the suspicious guards began interrogating me.
Guards: "You know you've been acting very odd, you told us we would attack the city and reclaim the throne for our mistress"
Me: "You are far too impatient, preparations must be made and we are not ready for such an attack yet."
Guards: "What happened to our leader? You sent her out on a mission and she hasn't come back yet!"
Me: "I don't know where she is, perhaps she got herself killed for being tardy"
Guards: "Also what happened to those magical shields your promised us?"
Me: "All rewards come to those who wait."
Guard: "Who are you! We were never promised shields!"
Me: "I mentioned nothing of shields, merely rewards for those with patience..."
Guard: "..."
Me: "..."
Guard: "Prove you are who you say you are, we want to see your supposed power"
At this point I finally used a spell I had been keeping secret for multiple levels but never had the opportunity to use.
Me: I use Blistering Invective *Rolls 18+8 intimidate*
GM: What does that do?
Me: All my enemies are shaken, take 10 points of fire damage, catch on fire and continue burning for 1d6 fire until they can make a 15 reflex save.
GM: The guards roll around for floor failing their saves for multiple rounds.
Guard: "I am sorry for doubting you mistress... you may pass"
As our party was investigating an old ruins we came across an iron maiden but opening it up revealed a portal with valley of bones as far as the eye could see. Being the cleric the GM told me to roll for religion and I landed a perfect 1.
Now I'm hoping for this to be a learning experience as to what not to do and that we keep things nice as we all appreciate our GMs for their work.
My friend was telling me about an encounter his party experienced where they were in a hallway and someone stepped on a pressure plate, making everyone roll for reflex. Everyone who successfully saved jumped away while the one person who didn't, stood on the spot. Turned out the trap was a "reverse trap" and the floor around the pressure plate dropped away killing everyone except for the one person who failed his save.
In my own games our GM never lets our plans successfully carry out or seemingly all our diplomacy attempts to backfire in our face. Essentially we've realised "let's not bother with plans or trying to be diplomatic, lets walk in and kill them".
In one example we had successfully tracked down a group of bandits to their hideout and captured one to find out they were doing a "beer run" to celebrate. So we ambushed the carriage with a sleep spell and drugged all the beer with slow acting poison. From there we stole all their worthy belongings to make it look like a robbery and were about to leave them to wake up, when a patrol team discovered us and it became a fighting entry in the end.
In another game I've heard of players who were away for a few sessions and came back to find out their character had lost an arm or a leg...
It took me a very long time to understand how the CR system worked and even now I very much disagree with how it works. With that I said I have a work around for it.
1: For every participant in a battle raise APL appropriately. This especially includes NPCS, animal companions and eidolons (who are ignored by current CR counts)
2: A CR +4 is statistically an even fight between the party.
3: Never have bosses by themselves, unless they have a special terrain advantage.
4: You goal is to challenge, not kill your players.
Hi guys I was planning on building a Cleric for PFS who was focused on doing offensive channels as his main attacks. More or less he'd invest in as much AC as possible then walk into the middle baddies and AOE them all until they gave up.
Firstly I'm really trying to weigh up the pros and cons as he'd most likely only reach level 5 or 6 at the end of the day.
~
Human Cleric
CN Negative Energy
Domain: Luck and Protection
When Amieko was captured by Tsuto and left the letter behind as evidence, I thought it was pretty lame to have an npc bring a translated copy over to the party.
So I typed up the letter from Tsuto in MS Word, changed the font to look like handwriting, printed it out...
Then I tore it up into tiny pieces and scrunched them up for good measure. From there I had the an npc bring them the pieces of the letter instead and they had to reassemble the letter before they could read it.
The point of the 3d6 is to test the players' abilities to optimise, adapt and come up with out of box tactics. I'm a big optimiser myself but I do feel that too much emphasis is placed on stats in games. I believe that if we can't succeed with our dud stats then we need to think about our actual playing ability more.
Big fan of treasure hunt idea, certainly will adapt it.
I made a few games to get my players used to using different parts of their character sheets and understanding the use of different die. Additionally it was a good chance to introduce members of the town to them.
Church: Father Zantus
Improve Acting
Players need to tell jokes/act out a scene and roll to see how well it plays out with the audience. Players only game.
First stage: Need to get a d20 + either CHA, WIS or INT mod roll of 10 or higher.
Second stage: Another d20 but needs a 15 or higher to reach next stage.
Third stage: The two players with the highest cumulative rolls so far have to act out a short scene (real life) and the eliminated players vote on the best.
Include npc players to up the odds, in my case I included an npc who would be giving the players multiple side quests later.
11 monster cutouts are placed around an arena and players must destroy as many as possible using melee/ranged attacks to earn prizes. 10 low level monsters (AC10 5hp) are worth 5 points but the single giant ogre (AC15 20hp) is worth 20 points!
Vouchers redeemable at the Red Dog Smithy and even include +1 items in the future.
1st Prize: 50% off voucher
2nd Prize: 25% off voucher
3rd Prize: 10% off voucher
Waiters will quickly bring out plates of Amieko's famous spicy curry and remove them all at regular intervals. Players have to roll 3d6 and add either their will save or fort saves to the totals. For every 6 points they get, is one bowl of curry they manage to finish in total, the player with the most bowls of curry finished by round three wins!
Also at the end make them all roll a DC14 fort save or throw up.
1st prize: Custom masterwork weapon made for player in 2 days time.
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Vinder's General Store: Venn Vinder
Junk stacking contest
Include npc contestants
Players have to stack random junk as high as they can and attempt to make the highest tower possible. The player to build a tower 50 inches high wins.
Players play one at a time and roll 2d6 with each 1 point representing 1 inch of height gained. Players have to push their luck or lock in their progress because if they get a 1 roll on a single dice, their current amount of work crashes down and is lost, if they roll two 1 results, their whole tower collapses and they start again.
The trick is for players to roll their 2d6, gather points and knowing when to stop to "balance their tower" locking in their progress. Trying to be too greedy can result in their work being wasted unless they know when to lock in their progress.
