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THE SPATULA OF JUSTICE WILL SCRAMBLE THE EGGS OF YOUR MALFEASANCE
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You're hard presed to find some less fond of smoking than I am (my mother and sister beat me, but that's it as far as I know), but I'm not going to be a jerk about people smoking duing game time, whether I run the game or play in it. Sure, we kick smokers outside to poison their lungs and the outside air rather than foul up the apartment, but it's not something I'm going to get bent out of shape over so long as they don't smoke more than every other hour. Taking a 5 minute cig break every hour is too much. Every 2 hours? no biggie.They can feel free to disagree, but it doesn't make them correct.I imagine innumerable smokers would disagree.Frankly, if a DM and/or group is so obsessed with the perfectly uninterrupted flow of their game that they're willing to deny people basic ablutions or necessary interruptions, they're not the type with which it's worth playing. I despise the habit but I can recognize the fact that once you start, there is a physiological need to continue. An argument can be made that, if you DON'T give them a smoke break once every couple hours, they will be jittery and less focused (varying on their dependency), which might slow the game down more. It's not our job to constantly police smokers and push quitting on them every waking moment.
Seeing an all but empty coin purse, at first, dampens Sativon's spirits, but the glow of possible magic, although dangerous, sparks a smile again. He does his best to wait patiently for Burma to finish her meditation, but after some time, he can't wait any longer, and his halfling curiosity gets the better of him. He clears his throat loudly enough to be interruptive, but quietly enough to not be annoying. Ahem... Ummm... Burma, I don't suppose you could tell me what magic is enchanting this gem I found? He spills the gem out of the bag onto the ground so that she can see it, careful not to touch the gem himself, but just to let it slip out from the bag onto the ground in plain sight. He then smiles at Burma in the most winsome and debonair way he can muster. "There is a powerful aura of divination in this object, that much I know. This is not my area of study however. One of the other mages might know more."
I misinterpreted this was his first time GMing as well. In that case I doubt anything is going to change.
Come on, every adventurer is basically a vagrant with a shotgun? You may as well call everyone who ever carried a weapon a vagrant with shotgun. In either case, it's overly simplistic, and the comparison becomes meaningless.
Why so much murderhobo hate? I've always seen it as a good term for the "classic" style of PC. I obviously wouldn't use it for games where "murderhobo" PCs weren't present, since it wouldn't make sense there, but otherwise... I've never encountered it offline but in my neck of the woods, it just wouldn't make sense. 90% of what I put my players up against are either undead or monstrous creatures; hardly something you can "murder". Though I can't really say what the use of any of these more niche terms would have on my as a GM, since it just doesn't happen. Everyone always says "my character" or "my wizard/fighter/etc", or refers to their PCs by first name. Toon, murder hobo, dude... none of 'em. Though I must say "Time to roll up a new murder-hobo" just doesn't sound right to me.
Don't ignore the mechanic and flavor differences, though. Witch Hexes make them play very differently from other casting classes. It COULD have been working into an existing class, but it would have to be chopped down in order to fit, and ultimately the same could be said of everything other than "Fighting Man" and "Magic User".
In DnD we have to have different terms for the different "magic sticks" of various lengths that do different things. Practically speaking I see no reason why a "Pathfinder Wand" couldn't be made with a staff-length piece of wood, or a "Pathfinder rods" wouldn't be made the length and thickness of a wand, but then it's the same reason most vacuum cleaners have roughly the same shape: it seems to be the most practical for it's purpose, and people need to be ale to look at it and know straight away "Hey, that's a vacuum cleaner"
The Witch class is God's gift to fantasy roleplaying. That is all.
Hetero-romantic Asexual Cisgendered Man Early in my gaming career I was playing just men (it was early highschool, probably typical). At some point after that I branched out, cant say when. I've played in so many one-shots of non-PF games it's really hard to remember them all. For the past few years, if I don't have anythign specific in mind beyond race and class, I roll it. (50/50 male/female, 60% hetero, 30% bi/pan, 10% homo). Often times the latter categories don't even come up and I end up rolling for it mid-game.
Seems like everybody's gotten to the meat of the discussion already. I hope this goes a little bit better. If the others players DID raise their concerns like you did, I'm sure he'll start taking it to heart. One person alone might not be able brake his ego armor but if half or all of the groups speaks up, he can't keep believing he's doing a good job.
Who's on first, NPC's on second, GMPC's on third.
IRL I only start game with my friends, with "friends-of-friends" able to join by invite if I've met them already. I've been fortunate so far that I haven't had a need to "screen" players beforehand. When my players bring someone new to the table, they know they're good people. Online? I'll do text or pbp games with total strangers. I wouldn't be comfortable doing audio or video with strangers, though.
I used to impose a delay on level progression (since we didn't use EXP per see) when the player missed a session, but after awhile I realized such an imposition might just make a player want to play less, or not have as much fun when they do show up. Unless you plan and giving him a way to gain addition EXP and close the gap, I would advise against it.
I'm definitely interested. I have a few character concepts in mind, but for one in particular I have to ask: Scarred Witch-Doctor archetype. RAW, it's a full-blooded Orc archetype, but would you be willing to allow a Half-Orc SWD?
Couple things, 1. Wizards gets skills as well and will eventually have more then a Rogue and 2. in the event that you have replaced the Rogue with a Wizard, you now have 2 Wizards not one. Not arguing that the Rogue is a flop class. I actually agree with that. You don't even need spells to beat the rogue. My "replacing the rogue" reference may have misled you. My qualm is with the idea that spells are strictly superior to overcoming skill challenge than non-casters with it as a class skill. A single wizard can't be expected to competently replace other characters on all valuable skill rolls unless he completely devotes himself to that, as opposed to damage-dealing spells, combat support, etc. He would need to prepare multiple copies of invisibility spells, mind-control spells, and utility spells like spider climb in order to outdo other classes in ALL skill areas, and that doesn't leave much room to the important combat spells. Of course, all of this depends on how many challenges come up in a single day, which varies from table to table.
I agree about trying out a free module first. If you lock players into a long-running campaign before they have that good an idea what they're doing, they may get frustrated. After they make their first character and experience the game a little, they may think "Oh, I really should have pushed my Reflex save up a bit higher." and then they get the chance to correct their mistake.
Truth. I actually had a situation recently where the party was trying to infiltrate a mercenary camp at night, and they wanted to have the bard charm the guards, but because it had a verbal component they needed to make some sort of sound that would be loud enough to cover it up but not unusual enough to put them on high alert. I think the "spells surpass skill ranks" argument doesn't hold a whole lot of water when you consider that generally, most parties will have only 1 wizard, which is really the only class capable of replacing ALL of the skills with spells, as sorcerers don't get to choose enough of them to make that huge a dent unless they're devoting themselves to "replacing the rogue" in which case there are others things they can't do.
In my 17th-18th century style campaign (early firearms are cheap enough to buy very early) I have firearms target flat-footed AC instead of touch, which helps the rogue more than any other class, and it seems to narrow the damage/hit gap. It might get crazier if you used this rule with modern firearms, though.
I've never believe backstory was the sole purview of the player. Build choices (race/class/feats) are 100% the player, and the GM shouldn't force anything if the player's choices are within the agreed upon houserules. Backstory, though, needs to be a collaboration between both.It results in a character more integrated into the world and story. Technically it's "messing" with their backstory but the result is improved.
How often do people want to do anything where you just stand still?I don't find staying the same level through and adventure to be 'standing still'. Agreed. There are other forms of reward than levels. Call me old fashioned, but I think killing the evil wizard and freeing the countryside from tyranny is reward in-and-of-itself, but there's also gold to consider.
Except of course that the average module and many GM's don't actually put you in situations where that additional +1 is actually going to show. They're mostly going to pit you against higher CR creatures with a higher AC and your chance to hit them is going to stay roughly the same. So the only people who see practical growth in many campaigns are spellcasters. But the fact remains that you are able to go up against bigger, badder things than before. The odds of success are roughly the same, sure. But the game is more than just odds of success. Being able to take down a hill giant vs. cloud giant, for example.
If I played in a game without levels (like CoC) or in a oneshot where I know I will not level because of the amount of time, I can have fun. Anyone who loves roleplaying should be able to have fun with any system they can understand if the GM is halfway decent. A game that's designed with levels, like Pathfinder, just not giving us them though? I'd be upset. Gaining new powers as you advance is an integral part of the game. I'm sure I'd have fun session-to-session, but I would also have a lot of "Man, one more level and I could get major image and then I'd be able to..."
I'm game. Mainly interested in playing an orc (or half orc, if you'll allow it) Scarred Witch Doctor, or a human alchemist. Either case we'd probably need to talk.
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies? Frankly, I the nuances of chess and other boardgames in "understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies". I consider character creation on the same lines, as something that will and should come through experience. I can't imagine it going any other way, unless the player were to sit and pour over lists of anecdotes and practical applications of feats, spells, and abilities of the game before actually making a character, which, to use your metaphor, would be not unlike someone reading several books on chess strategy before ever playing the game. Although in my neck of the woods, a poor decision on feat choice is really only a GM conversation away from being changed if it's really THAT much of a problem, and campaigns rarely last longer than half a year (we prefer succinct stories with characters made for it as a matter of taste). I realize not everyone has that luxury and might be completely locked into things, maybe in organized play. (another reason I don't like the idea of PFS)
This is almost by definition what a game is. What game out there doesn't "reward" people who have a better understanding of its rules, goals, and strategies?
For the record, I'm not arguing against in-game consequences for in-game actions, but we were talking about handling a certain playstyle("going nova"). There are already tons of ways to handle that, in-game, but you implied just offing the offending player, which to me, is pretty lame. I can agree with this. I think it would be best, though, to doing this consistently from the beginning, rather than doing it (and potentially over doing) after a series of sessions where the players were rewarded for "nova-ing" and not punished for kicking back as soon as they finish a fight. If a GM get's frustrated at players for doing this when they haven't required any different from them, I can't blame the players for that. I subsequently can't blame the players if they get upset that, suddenly, there's this monster that they can't beat in a fight after the GM created a pattern of always making combat an option.
Hell yeah. First Steps III was worth it just for the sea captain that yelled at the ocean. The kids at Space City Con loved my squint-eyed raving. The fact that it was slot three and I was pretty loopy by that point really helped.Yeah it's almost surprising how well players respond to you when you let go and embrace it like there's no tomorrow. I agree. I like to run "serious" games with "serious" stories, but there are times at the table when the best thing to say is simply: "You kick down the door and it's a mother f*ckin' DRAGON.
I could get behind this only as long as AC bonuses from other sources subsequently decrease, and the averages recalculated. Otherwise, the only thing that happens is everyone hits things less and feels less powerful.
This is 110% no on my part. I don't like traits at all, but this is way too good for a trait. If you wanted some kind of "hulking" trait, give them +/- on other size-related modifiers (CMB, AC, stealth, etc.). Something small. An orc barbarian with this trait as-is would be utterly unstoppable.
This doesn't feel like a homebrew race so much as a whole section of the race guide cut out and pasted into a new section. You're basically creating a whole new race for every individual character, which makes it not much like a race at all. May as well just use Monster PC rules.
One thing you may want to be aware of: if he can re-use scrolls, what's to stop him from buying scrolls for spells not on his spell list, using UMD to "cast" them (which won't be hard) and then eternally re-using them using his arcane pool? Suddenly he has the spell list of every class.Well that's incredibly easy to solve. Just make his recharge ability only work on Magus spells. That fixes that. I'm still not a huge fan of how that's fluffed but to each his own. At least it's balanced.
You might be overthinking it. A player that's really into the game will see a fight with an epic monsters no matter how much or how little you say. The only thing I really grow in great depth describing is gross undead stuff because that they won't come up with by themselves.
Disclaimer: I think PFS organized play is b&%$$%!s, so I'm less likely to be convinced by any problems between it and my way of thinking. And I disagree on how we're both interpreting the phrase "objective reason", which I will admit is a flawed term, but I can't think of anything better. Let me rephrase: By making a 2nd Edition, with any or all of these changes everyone is posting, Paizo risks losing a huge chunk of their audience like WotC did. Everyone who doesn't happen to like the changes won't buy 2e and certainly won't buy any of the subsequent splatbook or APs they publish for it. My question is: What audience expectation or demand is so great that it warrants a complete system overhaul, and a guaranteed loss of fans, which may or may not be a huge number?
To start with, the definition you use of Wisdom is not the same definition as Pathfinder's use of the word: Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition. Willpower, I would say, is the most predominate trait of the iconic high fantasy, spell-wielding priest or priestess. Wisdom, in game a world of magic, has more to do with magical defense than Charisma does, and fits the cleric for that reason as well. Also, as the previous poster said, not all clerics are preachers. I imagine most would be more like members of ascetics order, who actually retreat from interaction with the world to study their religion and develop their faith (and, in this case, magic power as well).
I think the thing with "unspoken rules" is, it's generally things no one feels they have to say, and if they HAVE to be said, something is wrong for another reason. I don't want to, and should never have to, say "I'm not going to let you have your character commit rape." If I have to then the person is not being invited back (I have the luxury of playing only with people I like) and I'm probably not going to talk to them anymore either. I don't think that's ever appropriate in a TRPG situation—ESPECIALLY when you don't know everyone at the table intimately—and I'm doubtful I will find a friend in someone that thinks it is.
If it's possible for a character without wings to fly, I see no reason to believe a character is sufficiently tough enough to shrug off a fall from 50ft up. I am of the mind that 10th is the absolute mortal peak (i.e. the most powerful NPC wizard in the world), and after that we start getting into demigod territory for all of the classes. Which is also why I feel like Mythic tiers for unnecessary, but fine addition to the game besides.
Well the way I am flavoring it is that when he uses the scroll the words "burn" off the page, but he can use his spell points to restore the risdual magic on the scroll (which at this point would be a black page).Personally I started working on an "alternate class" of the Magus that prepares scrolls instead of spells (kind of like an Alchemist with potions), and is able to expend his scroll during an attack. Additionally, he gains full scroll level as enchantment bonus and can expend his arcana pool to "recharge" his scrolls. I suppose that's fine, although if it were me, I'd opt for something more unique to replace spell recall than... well, spell recall. One thing you may want to be aware of: if he can re-use scrolls, what's to stop him from buying scrolls for spells not on his spell list, using UMD to "cast" them (which won't be hard) and then eternally re-using them using his arcane pool? Suddenly he has the spell list of every class.
Sandman is a solid archetype, but hardly necessary for the "sneak thief" type of character. Any bard that learns Vanish and Invisibility is already better at stealth than a rogue or ranger could ever be. Everything else is just icing on the cake. If you want to be decent in combat as well, you could opt for a combat-based archetype and rely on spells for stealth (which will be more than enough), or go with the aforementioned scimitar option. Bards don't have to concern themselves too much with feats and specific spells to be contribute, so once again, it's all the flavor of icing you prefer.
I feel like—no offense guys—most of the "Pathfinder 2.0" wishlist are things that either take 5 seconds to houserule and don't warrant a new book, or are asking Paizo to make a very different game for no real, objective reason. We can all gripe all we want about how much we do/don't like 4e, but WotC made design choices for 4e aimed at widening their audience and creating the game they felt people were looking for (in this instance I think the claim that 4e is more "MMO-like" is legitimate). The only thing, the ONLY THING about Pathfinder that I think needs so major a revision as to warrant a re-publishing of something they've already made is the Rogue. The class is a hot mess, completely outdone by every other unless you ignore 90% of it's alleged options and go with one of several archetypes and a handful of decent talents.
oooh that too.
I was just about to ask that, actually. I just took a loser look at Chill Touch and it does say you are allowed multiple targets. Hm.
Personally I started working on an "alternate class" of the Magus that prepares scrolls instead of spells (kind of like an Alchemist with potions), and is able to expend his scroll during an attack. Additionally, he gains full scroll level as enchantment bonus and can expend his arcana pool to "recharge" his scrolls. Personally don't like the idea of "recharging scrolls". Mechanically speaking it's the same as using the arcane pool to recharge spells but it flies in the face of what scrolls are supposed to be. Also what would that look like? He uses a scroll, it burns up in the air, and then it just pops back into existence?
Of course the best melee full arcane spellcaster is still the Scarred Witch Doctor IMO, but I like the challenge the scroll master presents (if not necessarily mandating)
alrighty.
When you cast a spell with a touch attack, you can hold the charge until you decide to attack. I have two hands. If I spend the 1st round of combat casting Shocking Grasp, and hold the charge, during round 2 can I cast it again and hold that charge until round 3, and then make both attacks ala TWF (I guess it would be THF, in this case).
I would say a typical wizard build is the guy who absolutely does not want to go into melee range. However, it's still possible to build a melee-range wizard and this archetype helps players who want that. Melee touch spells are generally more powerful than ranged ones, and some may want that. A 1st level wizard with mage armor and a haramaki/armored kilt (which have no spell failure or check penalty) and a 1st level scroll shield has 16 AC, which is decent for 1st level, and their defenses only improve as they unlock additional spells. It's not a power build by any means, but it can be done.
If I am not going to go away for some personal time, because I made a commitment to my friends, neither shall they. Or they can not come that day.Gaming before sex Hama? Seriously? You must just be a joy to hang around with. :D I'm with Hama on this one. The fact that I place everything before sex as an asexual person not-withstanding, I will take offense at someone leaving mid-game for anything other than an emergency or feeling too ill/tired to continue, sex included in that.
I ran a sandbox game last summer, and my trick was just not building things more than a week or two in advance. They decide to head East at the end of the last session? Their 5th level, so I'll make sure the average CR is around 5 in that area. If the locals have espoused that area is particularly dangerous, the average CR will be 6 instead.
Any GM of sufficient imagination and skill can make any allegedly worthless aspect of a character indispensable. |