Ezzran's page

I was bored, and my friend pointed out that Snake Style lets you use a Sense Motive check in place of your AC.
Now, I'm playing a Paladin in a game right now, and her Diplo is +20 at level 5. So I got to thinking: "What if I could do something similar with Sense Motive? I could have one tanky Monk."

So I made a Monk at level 5. I've left a lot of the non-essential stuff blank in the build, but they could easily be adjusted.

To start with, I picked human for the extra feat. Definitely going to be useful with buffing that sense motive. I used a 25 point buy to get the stats, and decided on 14, 14, 10, 10, 17, 12. Then adding the human's +2 into Wisdom for a 19, there.

For traits, I grabbed the Survivor Regional Trait. It gives +1 to sense motive and +1 to initiative. I didn't actually pick up the second, because trait bonuses don't stack, so I figured I'd leave that one open for customization of play style / character personality. If your GM doesn't allow regional traits, there are definitely other traits available, such as World Traveler, for humans.

Starting on feats, I grabbed Improved Unarmed Strike (a prerequisite for Snake Style) and Alertness (+2 to sense motive and perception).

And lastly, skills. As a monk, you get 4 + int mod skill points. As it turns out, you only need 2 for this build: Acrobatics (a prerequisite in the Snake Style chain) and Sense Motive (duh). So I dropped points into those. I left the other two points available for character customization.

At level 2, there's not a lot specific to the build. Upgrade Acrobatics and Sense Motive.

At level 3, pick up Snake Style. This is the earliest you can get it, because you need to have 3 ranks in Sense Motive. Aaand upgrade Sense Motive and Acrobatics again.

At level 4, bump that Wisdom up to 20 and progress your skills.

And at level 5, I grabbed Uncanny Alertness, which gives +1 Sense Motive and Perception, and a +2 bonus to saves against sleep and charm effects.

I haven't done anything with items, yet, but that's in the works.

Possibilities:
--Dump Int to 7. I tend to dislike doing this as a rule, but since you only need 2 skills per level for the build to work, you could totally do that and use the points elsewhere. It would give you enough to bring that wisdom up to 20 at level 1. Personally, I don't think that's worth the lack of versatility in skills, but to each his own.

This is all done without any bonuses granted by any campaign events, btw.

Here's the sheet I used to build it:
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=801677

I'll throw in "Have to have a 17 pre racial? Best you can aspire to:" as a suggestion. It's a pretty common one, in order to get the attribute gains from level up at an even number for level 20 (or for most games, 12)

Okay, so the growth subdomain of the plant Domain grants the spell Righteous Might, which gives some form of DR. What kind of DR it gives is as follows:

That FAQ at the above right it mentions says that Oracles choose theirs based on whether they chose to get free cure or inflict spells at level 1. But what does a Druid with the Growth Subdomain get? I'm tempted to say it's based on alignment, but then what does a True Neutral Druid get?

Denizens of the messageboards, I need to know what stuff is important for a new GM to keep in mind. This is for two reasons: I've just started running my own campaign for the first time (Carrion Crown, if you were curious), and one of my players is looking at running a small game for a small party. I'd like to keep this thread as being specifically for pathfinder, but obviously there's some overlap with other games.

I can start with a few things I've learned since starting:
1. Have EVERYTHING prepared before the session starts. Spend a day or so before the session just setting up your information, such as what's in stock at stores or whatever. Even things that you don't think your players will get to for several sessions, get that set up too, because players have a tendency to throw you for a loop.

I want to ask specifically for information when running modules for a small party (less than four players). The simplest reason for this is that some of the other players in our group are the type to try and break the game, so my friend wants to run her first game with just a handful of us that are a bit easier to work with. She'll probably be running a module (we're thinking Godsmouth Heresy to start with), and we're curious how thing will change if we only have three players. Should we Gestalt? Should we each make two characters? Should we see if we can find a 4th friend that doesn't do unusual things? Should she run a PC herself? We're all pretty good at avoiding meta-gaming (sometimes too good, actually), so that's not a huge issue.

I rolled randomly for everything except religion and drawback. By the time I got to those, the character had already formed in my head, so I picked those based on that. I even rolled random height and weight charts, and created a rough-draft pair of tables for randomly determining race (I'll start by listing those)

The reason I used those is because the sibling table has too many races that wouldn't fit into any of the background stuff. So, beyond that, ONWARD.

Race/Sex/Class: Female Human Monk
Ability Scores: Str: 10, Dex: 15, Con: 15, Int: 11, Wis: 15, Cha: 14 (human +2 is in Wis)
Age: 25
Height: 5'0". Weight: 175lbs (she's a bit fat xD )

HOMELAND, FAMILY, AND CHILDHOOD
Homeland: City or Metropolis
Family
--Siblings: One older brother, one fraternal twin brother who was born first.
--Parents: Father.

Circumstances of Birth: Middle-Class
Parent's Profession: Yeoman
Major Childhood Event: Died.

ADOLESCENCE AND TRAINING
Class Background: Wandering Savant
Influential Associate: Well-Connected Friend

MAJOR CONFLICTS AND ALIGNMENT
Conflict: Petty Crime (1CP)
Conflict Subject: Merchant
Conflict Motivation: Family (3CP)
Conflict Resolution: Regret and Penance (-3CP)
Alignment: Lawful Good
Religion: Undecided (chosen, not rolled)
Romantic Relationships: Few Significant
Relationship with Fellow Adventurer: Same Hometown or Region
Drawback: Social Acceptance (Dependent)

I haven't figured out a name for her, yet, but I HAVE determined that, while she's still fat, she used to be a lot fatter. She died because of heart attack from overeating and was brought back. She decided to become a Monk in order to learn better control of herself. She still slips up occasionally, though, so she's not perfect. I haven't quite worked out the conflict stuff, because I can't figure out why a Yeoman's daughter would be doing a petty crime for her family. That's a bit confusing. I'll figure it out eventually, though.

If you want to include non-core races in a way that semi-accurately represents population, the way I did it was pretty simple: I set the 7 core races into a table, on which you roll a d8. If you roll 1-7, nothing unusual. Just the core races there. If you roll an 8, though, it rolled on another table that included the non-Core races that could feasibly grow up in a human environment. I think those amounted to:

Tiefling, Aasimar, Dhampir, Suli, Sylph, Undine, Oread, Ifrit, and Changeling.

It's also possible for Samsaran to end up in there, I suppose, but I didn't know enough about them to be sure. In the actual chart, I actually removed Dhampir, because I made mine for use with physical dice, so I needed it to have a d8, and I figured Dhampir would be the one least likely to be allowed by GMs. Though Suli could also be removed, I guess. I just like Suli more :P

But obviously, you're using a computer thing, so you don't need to worry about non-existent dice. If you got one of those non-Human-but-human-like races, it used the Human background stuff for the Ultimate Campaign stuff.

Oh, whoops. I misunderstood the question. Yeah, I just keep the SRD open to the skills page.

Well, if nothing else, you could always have your players take a sheet of notebook paper each and write all their skills and stuff like that on it. That's always worked well for me.

Alright, so, I'm a player in a Jade Regent game, and we just got to near the end of the first book. We've encountered

Oracle Curse: Mute
The Oracle’s Curse renders her unable to speak. The Oracle casts all spells as if they have been modified with the Silent Spell feat, without changing their casting time or spell level.

5th level: The Oracle can communicate telepathically with anyone she is currently touching. This communication is language-dependent. She can use this ability to cast any language-dependent spell, but she must succeed on a Touch Attack against the target. She can only communicate this way with one person at a time.

10th level: The Oracle can, as a full round action, form a telepathic bond with one willing person. She can communicate with this person telepathically, at will, as if she was touching them. She can change the target of her bond once per day.

15th level: The Oracle can always understand and be understood when using her telepathic communications, as if under the effect of a Tongues spell. In addition, she can communicate telepathically with more than one person at a time, but she must be saying the same thing to all of them.

Dual-Cursed Oracles cannot take both this curse and the Tongues curse.

I'm considering a range limit on the level 10 bond ability, but other than that I think this is fairly well balanced. The ability to use language dependent spells with a touch attack is to get around the biggest weakness the idea of this curse had: It made it impossible for the Oracle to use language dependent spells, and for a caster that's pretty huge. The touch attack method makes it possible, while still making sure the curse is actually a curse.

The main difficulty comes from being almost unable to communicate properly (basically sign-language or writing stuff down) until level 5. But I kinda like it, anyway. :)

Okay, so. Gonna jump in here and ask that people take alignment discussion to another thread. I don't really have authority to enforce that, but it is completely irrelevant, and it's already starting arguments that'll just get deleted or something anyway.

My group does really well with loot. We operate on a "If you need it, take it," mentality. In the case of two people needing the same item (not often due to party make up), we usually settle it in-character. That does mean that any conflict I get into with items, I tend to lose out on the item for. because my character is innately selfless, but it also means I have a ton of "credit" built up for when I really do need something for her.

For example, I've laid claim to the next weapon we get that only has a single edge (weapons like scimitars or katanas), because my character prefers those.

For gold, we mostly just pool all of it, with me doing quick math to figure out what my share would be if we WERE splitting, then taking 15% of that for church tithe. (No, my GM does not require that I do that. I do it because ROLEPLAY. Plus 15% is rarely enough to worry about.)

For consumables, we distribute evenly, with people who need them going first. For example, if our 5 person party finds 3 potions of cure X wounds, the witch who stands in the back and buffs us probably won't get one, because she rarely gets hit, and if she does get hit, she probably won't be in any condition to drink a potion.

I wish my gaming group didn't already have plans for the next, like, 4 years or more for gaming.

Right now, we're in the middle of Jade Regent, and we go SLOW. After that is Kingmaker. After that MIGHT be Wrath of the Righteous, if nothing cooler comes out by then.

The idea of a Cleric / Paladin of Ragathiel is really tempting, now.

For a two to three person party its fine, no need to change anything for gestalt anyway. I do recommend a higher point buy as well.

Heh, we're kind of chumpy and stuff when we do point buy, anyway. We all like our high-powered characters, so we often end up with a 30 point buy. We'll probably stick with that for Gestalt.

And yeah, we wouldn't be Gestalting if we weren't doing a small group. We're all pretty good at not being jerks to our DM, too, so we can tone ourselves down if it's not very fun because we're too powerful.

So my friend is running a small game for a couple of close friends (she's new to GMing and wants to work with a small group). There's only going to be 2 or 3 of us, so we're making Gestalt characters.

So I want to know what changes you'd make from here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm

for a Pathfinder version of Gestalt. If any. I figure something might change, just most PF classes have more features than 3.5 classes.

I try to avoid making references to out of game terms when I can. If my party is talking to someone, and they want to convince him of something, I expect them to make a diplo check and RP a bit on their own initiative. I won't tell them to make a diplo check, because diplo is talking to people and they should know to do that. It's usually the same with any social check.

Knowledge checks are usually an exception to this, and perception can be if it's to notice something without actually searching a room. If they want to search a room, they better know to roll a perception check :P

If they ask about the difficulty of a task, I NEVER, EVER give flat out DCs. I'll tell them that the hill is kinda steep, or that the cliff face is vertical, but it has a lot of ledges to put their hands and feet on.

All that said, sometimes prompting them is necessary. I'm running a Carrion Crown game, and all but one of the players are playing characters that aren't very.... pro-active. And that one other player is basically pushing them along, using meta-knowledge from when he ran a couple session of this Path. When we get to the part where he doesn't know anything else, I'm unsure of what they'll do.

I tend to follow Rule 0 with a handful of caveats:

1. I will call the DM out if I am only informed of a rule change when I try to use an ability that gets changed because of the ability. Often, this is because I wouldn't have taken that ability (usually a feat or spell) if I had known that it wouldn't work the way I thought it did.
As a DM, I do endeavor to state rules changes as I discover something I don't like. I also talk to my players when they level up, so I know what spells, PrCs, feats, etc they want to take, so I can look at them and tell them of any changes.

2. I will DEFINITELY call a DM out if they keep changing the same rules for different encounters. In fact, this is something that's sure to piss me off. If the players are too powerful, don't change their abilities. Make the monsters tougher. Once a PC has earned an ability, making that ability weaker is going to make that player feel like he wasted his time.
As an exception, if they say "Hey, I want to try this and see if it works, so we're doing it this way for now. I might change it again if it doesn't work," then change it later, I'll usually be okay. I don't mind on-the-fly playtesting of house rules.

Basically, yes, the DM CAN change a rule whenever he feels like it. But if he's not consistent about it, or if I feel like he's using Rule 0 to screw me over, I'm not going to be happy. At the very least, I want to know when my abilities are changed BEFORE I've locked them into place.

Right now, Alchemist. I've been reading through it, and I really like the flavor of the class, and the many different ways you can go with it. So my next character will almost certainly be an Alchemist.

That said, my favorite class tends to change on a whim. Basically, whenever I get a new idea for a character.

Oooh, I forgot about Cavalier. I just don't see their purpose. They get a horse, and they are really good at that horse. But how often can you bring your horse with you into the dungeon? No thanks, I'll stick with my Paladin, which gets a horse a bit later, but can do well without it.

Gestalt rules would be too overpowered for me, unless the party doesn't have enough people in it and we're running an AP.

As the title, really.

What classes do you have trouble seeing yourself playing, either because of mechanics or fluff. Note: This does NOT include mental exercises, like Pun-Pun or whatever. I mean actual play, not theory-crafting.

I have a few.
Magus I simply don't like. I don't think it does the Fighter / Caster thing well enough to bother with.

Druid I just can't get any interest in. Anything a druid can do, I can do as some other class with less restrictions.

Summoners take up too much time, and I think they're a bit too powerful for not enough work. Yes, Wizards can be more powerful, but you have to think ahead and stuff for that. Summoners don't have to do a lot of that. Just spam out Summon Monster. So playing a Summoner makes me feel cheesy.

So what're yours, and why?

Goblin: A race of creatures with heads larger than an adult human, but bodies smaller than a human child's. Created by the gods for the sole purpose of giving low level Adventurers something to slaughter for practice.

Fighter: A class created to make all the other classes look better by comparison. Receives no superpowers.

Well, the character DIDN'T attack the party pally. So that's good. Overall, last night's session was mostly uneventful. They gained a trust point from a minor event (which I made a point of having AWAY from where Captain McSoloAngst was doing what she was doing), and then they went to eat and shop, and I fumbled because I had forgotten to generate shop stuff. Overall, nothing of consequence.

I hope that doing a specific event without that one character will make him realize that he'll start missing out on things if he doesn't get along with the party. It wasn't even a combat event, either. Just a minor RP event.

Oooh! Story time! Here's why I'm not particularly fond of Summoners.

I'm a player in a game that used to have a Summoner character (he had to leave for Real Life reasons), and even at level 1 he was hogging the spotlight, due to the mechanics of his Summon Monster class feature.

What he would do is on the first round, his Eidolon would attack, then he would dismiss it. The second, he'd summon an eagle, which would smite evil (I should really look up the rules to see if that was actually possible), then full attack. Third round, the eagle would attack again, then he'd summon a new eagle, which automatically dismisses the first eagle without requiring an action. That eagle would then smite evil, then full attack. In this way, he was getting 6 attacks per round at level 1. It was REALLY annoying, and he basically tore through everything on his own.

Six attacks per round is a lot, even up into higher levels, so we were pretty glad when he had to leave, because he stopped stealing the spotlight.

And besides that, adding that extra character (eidolon) slows down combat a lot, and that's not really my favorite part of the game.

One possibility is that he set out to make a character who would be initially antagonistic and unhelpful but at some point the other PCs would say or do something that would make it possible for them to become friends. Only, other players never do what you imagine they'll do.

Having created this personality, he feels the need to stay in character and see how it plays out.

If this is the case, killing off the character will give him a chance to start again with one who fits the campaign better.

This is essentially it. When I talked to him about it, he said that his character was meant to grow based on the party. When I pointed out that the party currently has no reason to like his character, he got mad.

It generally feels like he's being a bit selfish. He wants the entire party to bend around HIS character, instead of making a character that fits with the party. It's really frustrating. I'll see what happens next session. I'm hoping he'll have calmed down by then, so he won't do something stupid. If he outright attacks the party Paladin unprovoked, that's enough for his character to drop to Evil, which means the Paladin can retaliate with a Smite, and the player will need to create a new character. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Wish me luck! I'll come back after the session to fill you all in on what happens.

Pre-Game:Class--->Race--->Point Buy--->Feats/Skills/Spells--->Name--->Background--->Promptly tossed into character pile

Just Before Game:Roll 1d12 to determine which of the created characters I will be playing.

Oh gods if I had the time / number of games to play all the characters in my pile...

I often get bored and think up a character idea, so my myth-weavers list is FULL of characters. The funny part is that I will probably never use the ones I threw together out of boredom, because when it comes time for a new campaign, I always create a character with that campaign in mind.

I just like creating personalities and stuff :P

Since you are all friends, I suggest stalling. Get "sick" and cancel game to let everyone take a breath and settle down. If he is still spoiling for a fight in two weeks, stop the game at PvP, say this isn't worth damaging friendships, and say you are no longer having fun. Bring a collaborative board game like lord of the rings or pandemic to get everyone on the same side.

To ?!?, with this kind of drama.

I didn't think it was important to mention this, but we're playing over the internet, using roll20.net for now. (At least until Paizo gets the game space thing going. Geddonnit, Paizo! :P )

Most conversations take place over aim or some other IM client.

Trying to talk to the player about how his character is acting and why that would drive the party away hasn't yielded any useful results. If anything, the character is now MORE antagonistic. Heck, if I understand right, she plans to attack the party's Paladin (who doesn't get along with the character). So my attempt to tell him that his character is going to be left out got him to instead attack another party member. I'm not going to stop it (because I can't, really), but the Paladin will likely tear through the character, and I'm trying to decide if blatantly attacking someone for no reason is an Evil enough act to drop a Chaotic Neutral character down to Evil.

I'm not sure how that's going to work out, but I honestly HOPE the Paladin kills the problem character. *sigh* This should be interesting. Game is Monday night, so I guess I'll let you know how that works out.

Concept and backstory first, fill in from there. A lot depends on if you are rolling stats or using point buy. If you are rolling, the character concept needs to be more fluid, change as needed to match the rolls. Point buy can be totally concept based.

This is exactly why my group uses point buy. We all really love the process of creating a personality and such, so we get irritated when we can't do it because the dice aren't being nice.

So, I just bought Ultimate Campaign, and I really enjoy most of everything in it. The only thing that has me a bit off is the way the book suggests you create your character.

For those who don't have the book, the book suggests that you first roll your stats, then work out personality, name, etc.

I read that section and thought "Huh. Y'know I do it very differently from that." That line of thought got me thinking about how other people create characters.

So my question for you is: What is your character creation process?

Personally, I tend to get a general concept (naive paladin, alchemist desperately trying to cure a disease, friendly goblin, etc) first. Then, I narrow down on three "core" personality traits. Things that won't change much, if at all.

Then I build the character's personality from those. I ask my self what my character would do in various situations, and figure out how s/he would act in general.

After all that is done, I determine attributes based on the character's personality and class. My naive paladin has a low Wisdom score, because she's a bit oblivious at times; the alchemist has a higher wisdom score, because he has the focus to cure the disease; the goblin has an unusually good charisma score, because he works hard to prove he's trust worthy.

Next is traits, which are only rarely picked based on the stats they give me. They're usually picked based on background. In cases where none of the existing traits feel right for the character, my GM is usually nice enough to let me re-fluff something.

After that is feats, then skill points, then spells (if any), then equipment.

The name is probably the only thing in my character creation process that doesn't have a set place. Sometimes I know the character's name right away, other times I don't know until I'm halfway through equipping the character. I don't usually spend much time thinking about the name. I usually find the name by thinking about the character's personality, then realizing I've been using a name to refer to her in my thought process, and writing that on my character sheet.

For me, the character is built long before I ever get into the mechanics of it. Making a character based on the mechanics is weird for me.

But either way, I'm now curious how other people do it.

The most problems our group tends to run into are ppl taking games too seriously

we had a walk out from a character playing an Oracle when he walked into a room and closed the door behind him as his AC had gotten stupid high and he thought he was untouchable. He got cocky, walked into said room, at lvl 4 and ran into a CR 7 encounter made to fight the whole group, then got pissed and walked off when his guy got dropped to unconscious.

Or ppl power gaming.
For example, a Fighter Dragoon a friend made, whose lance (when not part of a charge and with power attack on) does 1D8+17 with a +9 to hit at lvl 5. Mind you if you use it as part of a charge, thats 1D8+17 x3 and +11 to hit. If it crits, thats 1D8+17 x3 x3 - better yet or is that x6? OR is it 3 squared O.o
lol
Cause its x3 for using it as part of a charge and another x3 for it critting and confirming
We figured it out, its like 1D8+51 as part of a charge and upwards of 1D8+153 critting

In Pathfinder (and 3.X), having more than one multiplication like that is always additive. So if you have the x3 for charging, then x3 for a crit, that's x6, not x9.

The more you know!

Anyway, update: Talking to the player, now, so we'll see what comes of it. This is basically the last time I'll pester him about it. If he doesn't want to change the way his character acts or change characters entirely, he'll have to deal with in-game consequences.

EDIT UPDATE: *rips hair out in frustration* After telling him all the problems he's going to have with his character if she continues as she is, his response was "ok". According to one of the other group members (who has known him longer than I have), that means he's tired of talking about it. So I guess that's that. He's adamant about playing the character as she is, and I'm going to let him, even if it means she won't have fun. I've done what I can.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

It sounds like you could solve most of your problems by 1) giving the PC some information the other PCs need, and 2) introducing a threat the PC needs the other PCs for. Which, from what you say, is nearly anything. Is the problem that the PC has alienated the group, or that the PC has frustrated your vision of how the adventure should proceed?

The problem is mostly that the character doesn't get along with the rest of the group, and the player is completely unwilling to change her behavior to MAKE her get along. The character actually asked my DMPC something along the lines of "How long do you think it will take them to realize I'm not a criminal?" In my attempts to handle it in-character, my DMPC responded "Probably as long as you refuse to be nice to them." At which point the character, instead of lightening up like I had hoped, decided that avoiding the party entirely was a better option. In-Character, she feels that the party doesn't want her around. And for the most part, that's true. The other characters (not players) in the party aren't fond of this character, because she's abrasive, rude, and likes to blow cigarette smoke into peoples' faces.

Put simply, the characters (not players) don't like this one character, and this one character isn't willing to fix that. I think my best bet is to try and convince the player to make another character and we'll figure out a way to include the new character, because his character has no interest in working with the party, and OOC, his character is mostly useless anyway, so there's no reason for the party to keep her around.

Basically, the player is RARELY a problem. It's just this one character he has, and he tends to get a character built, then have difficulty changing them. I can't really blame him for that, because I do the same thing. He plays the character as she is, it's just that this character is bad for this game.

I'll probably try one more time to convince him to make a new character, and see what happens.

Matthew Downie wrote:

When creating a character, a player should have answers to these questions:

(1) Why would my character want to get involved with the theme of the campaign? (Defeating undead, in this case.)
(2) Why would the rest of the group want me with them?

Has anyone in the group actually asked the guy if he has answers to those questions? I am concerned the player is being punished for playing an unconventional character, but one who would nonetheless contribute to the group. Playing a jerk is an acceptable choice, provided the jerk has a role in the party. On the other hand, marginalizing a player because you don't feel like you need to hook their character does not seem very fair. Would we be having this conversation if the adventure featured a shady NPC trying to hire the party to investigate an old dwarf mine, and one of the PCs was a dwarf with objections to tomb-raiding and another was a paladin who was really professionally focused on slaying evil, rather than underground vermin?

The character doesn't really have any reason to continue with the adventure. Minor, non-spoilery info for CC (told in the Player's Guide if you want more detail) is that the PCs are named in a will for Professor Lorrimor. That's the reason the characters are THERE.

OOC, the character is a Fetchling Sorceror with the Pestilence Bloodline, meaning she focuses on diseases. In a game centred around undead, which are immune to disease. The character is effectively useless in combat, outside of minor damage. Oh, and she uses touch attacks. For comparison, the rest of the party are a Paladin that dual-wields, a Wizard that uses buffs to do melee attacks, a Cleric that is going with the Holy Vindicator PrC, and a Fighter. Oh, and a DMPC Oracle that I added in at the request of a couple people to help with Knowledge checks and healing between combats (they don't get xp from Knowledge stuff if they ask the Oracle, so it's a last resort sort of feature so they don't miss something important that drives the plot along).

Basically, the character is mostly useless in mechanics, too, and they know this. The character has already alienated the party (by being a jerk), and OOC the players don't see any need for her. Basically, the character is NOT suited to the game at all.

@Vamptastic
The game runs on Monday evenings, so nothing yet. I'm just trying to keep on top of things before they get too far out of hand.

That's actually less likely to work - your other players will get put on guilt trip mode and feel obligated to bring him along, and you get stuck in an awkward hmmm what are we supposed to do? moment.

Have a mob approach the rest of your party and ask them to join them. Against him.

Nah, my players don't tend to be sympathetic like that. They're not fond of the character, and if I talk to them about it, they'll likely follow along. They know that the guy is stubborn, and that it'll take something noticeable to convince him to grab a different character. Their characters eventually not even paying his any mind will probably do that.

<continue adventure but exclude him stuff that is too long for a quote>

Actually, this is my favorite idea so far. I'm pretty bad at directly confronting people, but if he wants to not be involved in the affairs of the party, I'll let him do that. I'll probably talk to the other players to see what their characters would do if this particular character just never helped. Would they volunteer information, or would they eventually just ignore her, assuming she doesn't outright ask. I know for certain that one will definitely ignore her, and a second will probably not bother. The other two I'm less sure about, but we'll see what happens.

Thanks for the advice, everyone! :)

THis is going to sound really evil as a DM but get that character into a fight by himself, if you say the character wants trouble and wants to escalate things with everyone and everything then do it until either the character is dead or he realises it isn't fun anymore.

That could work, I suppose. I just don't want to look like I'm picking on one character. And as I said in the spoiler thing, by official rules for the Trust Mechanic, anything he does to make people not trust him affects the entire party. Granted, that system is horribly broken (it's technically impossible to get as many Trust points as you're supposed to have by the end), but I still get that feeling that I'll be punishing the entire party for one guy's actions, and I hate doing that. That really isn't fair to the other players.

*sigh* Maybe I'm just too nice as a DM sometimes :P

It's.... difficult to explain without just showing. The other players are irritated with the character, but we've all been friends for awhile. We don't have difficulties between players, and really, this player in particular is usually not a problem in other games. It's just that when he makes a character, he sticks with that character. I've talked with him about his plans for the character, and the general response is that she's not really going to stop being a jerk. The idea seems to be that she'll actually descend MORE into criminal activities, getting involved with drugs and stuff.

The other players are not enjoying the RP, because there really isn't any. The character, after being told off by another party member IC, decided that the party doesn't want her around, and now she's avoiding them. It's creating a bit more work for me, but the biggest problem is that now the character is basically not involved with anything at all, except chatting in the tavern, and it's taking time from the other players, who want to continue with the story.

As I said, simply kicking the player isn't an option. We're all playing in a different game, run by one of the other players in my game. Creating OOC drama is the last thing I want to do, because it would be really awkward for everyone when we have to see him in the other game, where he's not being problematic at all.

Okay, so I'm a relatively new DM (I've run a few one-shots of 3.5, but this is my first time running anything spanning multiple sessions), and I'm running Carrion Crown with some buddies. The problem I'm having right now is that one character is being, for lack of a better word, blatantly antagonistic.

The character is a fetchling, and, to put it nicely, a complete and utter jerk. However, she feels that people hate her because she's a fetchling, and that if they're going to treat her like a criminal, she's going to act like one. So she said something rude and confrontational, immediately alienated the rest of the party, and now feels that their reaction is unfair and if they're going to treat her like a problem, she'll be one. So she's now alienated most of the party, and refuses to spend more time with them than she has to. She's also one of the types that completely doesn't realize that the way she acts is generally frowned upon, and she won't listen to people who try to tell her that, because she assumes it's a race thing.

Talking to the player has yielded minimal results. He's mostly unwilling to budge on the character. Kicking the player himself from the group isn't an option either, as he lives with one of the other players, and I'm playing with him in a game run by another person in the group. Kicking him from the game would create a lot of drama that I'm completely unwilling to deal with.

So do any of you have advice on how to handle it? I'm kind of at my (limited) wit's end :/

So I'm reading through the Town Hall bit, with the fires, and the text says that the places the fires are supposed to start are labelled on the map on page 18. Now, I might just be blind, but I can't see any such labels on that map.

Am I just blind or am I missing something?

So I'm fairly new to the whole Stealth problems debate, too, but from reading through this page, I think you all are missing a CRUCIAL bit of information:
Perception is no longer just SEEING things. It's hearing things and smelling things and feeling things, too. Perception can cover a strong odor, a weird taste in the air, hearing footsteps....

To go along with that, Stealth is both not being seen and not being heard. Keep those bits of info in mind; they're important.

So, to me, this issue isn't even an issue. Using the example of a stationary guard that is set to his post in the courtyard, and the rogue who is hiding behind the pillar, the rogue rolls stealth vs the guards perception when he moves into an area where he could be seen. If the roll beats the guard's perception roll, then the rogue properly timed his movement to when the guard was looking the other way. If the guard wins the check, the guard either heard something and turned back around, or the rogue timed his movement poorly.

In the case of two people making a similar roll at the same time, and one failing while the other succeeds, the one who failed kicked a loose stone, which made a noise that the guard heard, so he turned around and saw the pair moving.

I REALLY don't see how that's an issue.

As for facing, Pathfinder has a monster ability that gives them full 360 degree vision. Why would that ability exist if all creatures had 360 degree vision all the time?

All these checks are abstracted. There are any number of ways to interpret how the dice come up. Heck, I'm fairly certain the CRB even states that these stats abstract things. It seems like people are really making a mouuntain out of a molehill on this one, to me.

Check out MythWeavers, its an online character sheet and does quite abit of the math for you. Ive tried several pdf sheets but none of them are as good as the mythweaver site imo. Its very close to the standard sheet in design too.

Sorry for not linking, on a tablet.

I'll help you out with that, as this is what I use as well.

Here ya go!

It's quite good, in my opinion. It also has the added benefit of being able to share it with people (such as your GM) by simply pasting a link.
For example, here's the first character I ever made in Pathfinder's system.

Meet the second form of Ezzran (The first was for 3.5, and this is a conversion of that character.

You can also set other users able to edit certain sheets, so you can give your GM access to your character or whatever.

So I'm GMing a run-through of Carrion Crown with some friends, and one of them is playing a Paladin that Dual-Wields.

She'll probably take the Weapon Enhancement Divine Bond thing at level 5, and she's asked me: At level 8, when the bonus increases to +2 (or equivalent), can she instead put +1 on each weapon?

The rules are silent about this (they neither say that she can't nor that she can, specifically), so I'm asking here. What do you all think? Would that be crazy unbalancing or is it not really a big deal?

Personally, I'm inclined to allow it, because I like rewarding unusual character builds, but I'm unsure of how it would affect balance.

This may have been answered, but this thread is 559 pages long, so I'm not going to search through it to find out xD

What advice would you give to a new GM? What AP would you recommend as a first game to GM? I'm going to be running a game for some friends who are new to TTGs soon, so I want to make sure i don't overwhelm myself :P