Delmont91's page

Campaign dependant but dream message is one of my characters most used wants.

Also its fine to ask your players too. Or listen to their laments when picking spells at level up and drip a want for the spell they didn't choose.

I still think it comes down to whether or not a core class feature the Magus is built around becomes a serious issue disrupting player enjoyment of the class. If Magus end up fighting a bunch of AoO capable enemies that make their class feature nearly unusable in the most important boss fights, then it will require a change.

Using spellstrike in melee is the core class feature the Magus class is built around. If using it is painful, then the Magus will suck.

And that's why we removed it triggering AoO and haven't looked back. Doesn't break anything and let's the magus use the core feature of the class.

I like to run my own setting.

Zapp wrote:

How do you handle a case...

For me, "that'll be 18gp please" occurs before the service is provided. In a world as chaotic as Golarion it is prudent to get paid in advance, especially from someone who can simply walk away after the service. In my campaigns you are not paying to have your disease removed so much as you are paying to have a spell cast on you, that just happens to be remove disease" and the NPC will be clear about that, unless they are unscrupulous. There is no guarantee of success, just like there is no guarantee your fireball will kill or even hurt the target. Magic is hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Is it unfortunate when a spell fails? Sure. Moreso when you are paying someone else to cast it, but for me, the rules are what they are.

If you hire a mercenary, you don't expect every swing of his sword to hit the target and they aren't going to accept a lower payment simply because every attack wasn't a 'nat20'. It stands to reason if you hire a spellcaster, not every spell they cast is going to be perfectly effective. Though as some have said, that opens the possibility of a dialog. Maybe the caster will give a discount on the (likely) follow up attempt/s. Or maybe they can be convinced to refund part of the fee due to a failure. Its just that the "standard" or starting point is going to be service paid, service failed. Transaction complete. Move on, next.
YMMV

Merc is on retainer to do a job or paid to get a job done. In this example caster is hired for the same, to remove a disease. If the merc is hired to deliver a VIP and doesn't you think he gets paid? Nope. Think he gets hired again? Caster is no different.

Now maybe a cunning one gets all the money up front and maybe a PC is dumb enough to do that. That's on them. But much more common in games I've played and irl is deposit of up to half up front and rest on satisfactory completion of task.

In my games I'd only roll this if I wanted the chance of conflict with the NPC and to turn it into a problem for them to solve. Otherwise your just screwing over your player for no plot purpose and giving them no agency. Not my type of game as a GM or player.

That's why you have the Great Axe Barbarian Readying an Attack to motivate them not to fail.

Haha, exactly. Their reputation is a big point too and why people in real life will go above and beyond often to fix something they didn't do right.

I'm fine with a caster saying "you pay x up front succeed or fail, live with it" and also fine with the PC looking for someone else who stands by their work or making it clear they're paying for the removal then negotiations happening. I mean, find a shoddy caster get shoddy work.

Delmont91 wrote:

I'd expect an RP interaction. Almost every character I've played wouldn't pay for a service that didn't work. As a GM a player pushing back like that can be fun RP and good world building.

Then again an experienced caster would have a failure cost in their contracts. 18 gold for success, half for the attempt and expenses in event of a failure as an example.

Real world case, what happens when you take your car in to get fixed and the mechanic doesn't fix the problem? I would run it like that if I was inclined to not just have it work.

In the real world, if the mechanic took the time to disassemble the engine and put it back together, you're gonna pay them for the labor. If they think they fixed it but then you start hearing that squeaking sound again, you don't get a refund on their previous work. Nor do you get refunded for medicine which doesn't work, either.

And again, a customers can just pay for a higher level of spell slot if they want guaranteed results.

In the real world the dealership redoes the work cause they didn't fix what they were paid to fix. If it's a mechanic they usually redo the work to get it right. I've had both happen, an individual mechanic on a civic and a dealership on a subaru. Both times the work was done again, with no charge to me, because their rep is important.

For medicine there's a thing called malpractice suits which can do exactly that.

In game this isn't as black and white as, you pay again or are SOL. The caster has their own reputation to protect. You hired them to remove a disease and they couldn't. Do they want that widely known? Are they scamming you for more gc? Negotiations in a one on one situation aren't that hard. If its guild then you have them, and their desire to maintain their reputation, to fall back on.

The player has leverage to use to either get discount or it done again. If the caster didn't get pay up front PC can just refuse to pay, then there's more fun RP with guild/guards. These things lead to fun.

I'd expect an RP interaction. Almost every character I've played wouldn't pay for a service that didn't work. As a GM a player pushing back like that can be fun RP and good world building.

Then again an experienced caster would have a failure cost in their contracts. 18 gold for success, half for the attempt and expenses in event of a failure as an example.

Real world case, what happens when you take your car in to get fixed and the mechanic doesn't fix the problem? I would run it like that if I was inclined to not just have it work.

I ran a game store where I paid GMs to run Encounters. There were premium player seats that guaranteed a spot or you could play free but risk not getting in. It worked great in that setting.

I can see exploring it as an option today, especially as you said you lost your job and are looking for work. I would think the trick is finding the customers.

There's a lot of hate for monetizing any hobby within that hobby's community. Look at paying to have your minis painted instead of doing yourself, people give a lot flack for that. A lot of people identify with their hobbies and monetizing it in ways they don't expect jars against what their idea of the hobby that is so close to them feels like it should be.

But here's the deal. Matt Mercer is a paid GM. Many of the content creators many of us watch are paid GMs. If you can bring enough to the table that people want to pay for your games great! The community has already accepted the celebrity paid GM. But you have to advertise where it's wanted and not burn bridges where it's not.

That's where I suspect the issue is for you. I suspect you pushed back against this reddit group the way you did here. That burns bridges and my suggestion is to find more friendly advertising space. Keep in mind you are advertising a business, and not everyplace is going to be ok with you doing that in their space. The goal is to find customers and you have to look at what your posts and content convey because those customers will research you. If you're not willing to abide by the rules of the group why would I think you'd follow the rules of the game? I get the rules changed here, but so do the game rules.

For me, being paid eventually runs the hobby part. I've lost mini gaming, Magic, and D&D that way so I don't do it anymore.

I do apologize for making this inquiry if the answer has already been discussed earlier in this thread, but do spellcasters get the same potential access to equipment that can improve their accuracy with their spells, as martials do with their weapons, in PF2?

No they don't, although it seems to be a semi common homebrew solution.

I think they're quite functional. I think the spell caster nerf swing went maybe 5 to 10% too far.

We've been experimenting with the flourish action to cast a 2 action spell for 1 action in my games and it has been really fun so far. Not game.changing for sure, but let's casters interact more with actions early game.