FanaticRat's page

I would love ab "in golarion" blurb but I doubt they'd do that, if not for wanting to really push Golarion, but also for the word count it adds which would probably be a pain in the ass for printing. That said I remain cautiously optimistic that it won't be too hard to homebrew.

I've never gotten a chance to play one, sadly.

You'll have your time to shine one day, Kukgud, Master Chef and Slayer of Dogs.

I think balance is important, but as a means of fun rather than an end in and of itself. It doesn't have to be perfect or anything but it should make the game easier to run and the game more fun for the people playing it.

I recall reading a blog post about a week ago in which the author angrily asserted that game balance doesn't matter, that it was spotlight balance that did, but it feels like he didn't consider that game balance might be a contributor to spotlight balance. I dunno tabletop games are weird.

Lucy is 100% correct, but I'd like to add that sometimes guides should not be followed blindly, and that you should double check with others because they make mistakes. I followed a guide for my first character and it gimped him good, partly because it didn't adequately explain the ramifications of the builds (by the way, if anyone says you should dump wis if your class has a good will save, they are very very wrong). I've seen some really crappy advice in guides, so new players not only need the guides but someone with experience too to help them interpret them.

Because I don't feel like statting and doing purchases for every single friggin' enemy. Building one good NPC takes long enough, I don't want to do that 15 more times for like two or three sessions of gameplay, and potentially have that all wasted or backfire.

Flanking rules as it applies to invisible creatures and illusions. As I understand it, the reason you're taking penalties from being flanked is because you have two guys on each side of you and you're splitting attention trying to defend against both yeah?

Which sorta makes sense why you couldn't flank with someone invisible or greater invisible since the enemy doesn't know they're there, but don't you think they would think something is up as soon as they start getting stabbed in the back repeatedly?

What bothers me more is when you bring in illusions. If someone believes it's real, they should think the image of a guy trying to swing at him is legit and therefore be distracted. But they're not distracted because it's not real even though they honestly truly believe it's real. Which means you can't flank with things they can perceive and can't flank with things they can't perceive but know are there and... I don't get it.

If I get stuck in a Tank role, I pack rat all manner of gear (rope, spikes, cloth, sledge, etc.). A local GM is switching to PF after wasting years in 4E, with little experience in real RP. After 8 hours of me literally pulling solutions out of my bags, we finally get to the loot pile. Having expended some 60lbs of water, rope and wine, the party discovered that everyone was so weight/move critical that only 'I, the tank' could haul more than 20 lbs of loot out. I dumped my 'possibles' bags and shifted the haul to over 120lbs, over half the total haul. Having run 4E only, she had never had to deal with players using non-magical solutions to events.

Incidentally, the other players got into my list of gear and used 1) candles for range finding 2)a grappling hook to pin an Ogre to a door for a trap reset 3) 3 hams to bribe a most reasonable troll 4) a few gallons of water to find a trap in a hallway 5) I used the wine as barter with a whole lot of goblins, ticking off the Dwarf 6) greasing the escape rope AFTER we passed.

After the game, the three aged GMs at the table took her to IHOP and did a brief seminar on GMing beyond the rules. She listened to us and ran two games this past weekend with positive reviews.

Did she completely give up on 4e? I am not saying that to start an edition war, just that gming beyond the rules is a great thing and it would be a shame if she didn’t expand that to every system she plays instead of just thinking it's a pf only thing.

Gestalt summoner/brawler

A rank in performance (pose) eeach level.

It's a decent damage mitigation technique, the thing keeping it from abuse is this:

Roll With It wrote:

You are staggered for 1 round after you attempt to use this feat, whether or not you succeed.

If you can find a way to avoid staggered (Paladin mercy maybe?) it would be better.

The idea of a goblin paladin sent flying, screaming at the top of his lungs, only to stand back up and charge recklessly back into battle amuses me, but I think it would be a hard sell to a gm.

I used katanas as an example of how big the weapons could get. Obviously my sarcasm fell flat. Wakizashis would obviously be better to avoid the extra -2 to hit. Or sawtoothe sabres if you want to spent an extra feat.

Of note though 9mm - daggers are actually slashing - so they would get the dex to damage. (shortswords & rapiers are slashing though)

Sarcasm is hard to detect over the Internet, especially with how controversial Dex to damage is.

My only fear is that people will take the one level dip thing to heart and slashing grace goes the way of Crane Wing because of how relatively easy it is to get. I would really hate to have another feat that isn't op get nerfed six ways to Sunday because of that.

Why not.

But then we'd have PF 1 v. PF 2 edition wars...

Or he misspelled "me" accidentally. Or maybe he wants us to think that so we grasp at straws.

If psychic magic will be vancian, I'm curious if there will be failure rates from armor. Will we get an int-based spontaneous caster?

Does anyone know why the swashbuckler has poor Fort, anyway? Those were good saves for both its parent classes, so it seems especially odd that it would be a bad save.

I'm probably gonna sound dumb, but am I the only one who was kinda disappointed that the spontaneous magus was CHA based instead of INT? I wish there were more INT based spontaneous casters and CHA based prepared casters--arcanist and paladin just don't really do it for me.

FanaticRat wrote:

Is it just me, or did a lot of people show up to Bonekeep with only pregens?

They always do, and your odds of getting in like that are somewhere between slim and none.

Anyways, that was quite exciting. Are they running it at other Cons?

We did it at 8/9, and I won't say it was easy, but it felt easier than 1 and 2 were.

We burned through some consumables though, I'll tell you that. The bonus boons and items made up for it though!

I actually went to two tables, both of which were playing all-pregen parties, before I gave up and went to do something else. I don't mean to sound a dick, but playing bonekeep with a party of pregens is something I don't think is fun, much less want to pay money for.

Next Summer hardcover: Occult Adventures

Six new psychic magic classes

I want to be hyped. Is it safe to get hyped?

Y'know, people keep talking about mos eisley and all this stuff, but I'm not even sure if what the OP proposes is actually a simplified game. It's more traditional, yes, but nearly all the mechanics are still there and PF has a ton, TON of crunch.

So what I want to know is, would people want to play a simplified game in terms of mechanics. More consolidated skills, less modifiers and spells, more consolidation of combat rules, less weapons...

So to divert discussion a bit...what would bring spellcasters down at high levels?

I think the main problem lies within certain spells just being kinda ridic. If there was a way to scale back on some of those, it might make things more manageable without making it unfun for new players with low system mastery. Although honestly I'm starting to believe the problem simply cannot be fixed without a complete overhaul of the system.

I will say, I love the 6th-level casters like inquisitor or magus. Not enough spells to break everything, but have spells to do cool stuff and some mundane backups. I can play them without worrying that I'll piss in someone's cheerios accidentally.

Some people would like that combo but I wouldn't. It still really doesn't change the fact that I as a beatstick don't want to continue if the spellcasters can't cast, because I don't know about you but I really like it when the thing that is going to kill me next turn falls in a pit. Also it's not really fun to be able to do nothing, whether it be as caster or martial.

Remove gnomes, replace with kobolds with non-crappy stat arrays. Or something, but remove gnomes.

I blame confirmation bias, personally.

Cerberus Seven wrote:

[ Because giant flesh-eating proto-birds need to be extra persuasive and intimidating before they kill you, I guess.

Clever girl does.

Dapper raptors, son.

I imagine at least one druid has awakened a raptor animal companion to be his wingman or representative. Just think, a guy gets into town and is stone face silent, while his raptor does all the talking for him.

Ask him what the warlock class is and why he likes it. That way you have a starting point for a class to point him to.

boring7 wrote:

Oracle: I just don't grok how Oracle doesn't actively suck.

Oh sure, some of the abilities you can get are cool or interesting, but I will like [u]maybe[/u] 3 out of any one mystery (and I can only pick one), and I get to actually know a tiny, TINY handful of spells. I can cast Cure light wounds OR bless, I can cure disease OR curses, but at any level I'm throwing interesting or useful spells out because I don't have enough on my available list and you get 1 more per day. One spell per day of a spell I may not even NEED that entire week.

I mean, I am sure I'm just doing it wrong somehow, but any build I come up with *sucks* compared to a bog-standard cleric with her domains.

Honestly, the problem sounds like you aren't picking very good spells. Lunar Oracle can be insanely CHA-sad, getting CHA to just about everything and letting you dump DEX like there's no tomorrow. Stop picking cure spells... buy a wand or CLW. Seriously, in combat healing is virtually always going to be your worst option. (Heal is an exception.)

Also don't oracles get clw/ilw automatically anyway?

Here's one solution that has been bandied about: Limit the number of buffs on a character to his or her charisma modifier, with a minimum of one. I think there were conditions on that (like allowing bardic song in addition) but really, you could just limit it to Charisma modifier for everything.

It would have a huge impact on the game. And stop having Charisma as a dump stat!

I would have to object to this. It fixes the problem--for characters without charisma modifiers, while not doing anything to those who would have them, hurts MAD classes and concepts more, and just seems kinda unreasonable especially if you buff stuff or if you play a character that isn't super optimized. Do I want to be able to fly so I can actually hit things, or have heroism so I have a shot at these DC 30-40 saves, or have protection from evil so I don't get dominated, or stoneskin so I can survive a full attack? Man, I shoulda been a bard, oracle, wizard, or paladin; they can have all those at the same time. I know I wouldn't like it if every time my gunslinger needs to umd a scroll so she can disarm a magic trap all her buffs are nullified (by the way, that one trap at the end of book 5 can die in a fire. You know the one).

Not only that, it would discourage playing any race that has a CHA penalty. That might not seem like a big thing, but look at the demographics of most of the parties listed in the party thread. They're overwhelmingly aasimar, human, and tiefling. I know it's thematic, but the book does also say that this is a good opportunity to try out new races, so why have a system in place that discourages a good number of options, options that are already not as strong as the most common ones?

And that's another thing; paladin is probably the most popular class, and most effective martial given the subject matter. Get CHA, get good saves, and can smite all day erry day, while the magus is miffed he only gets to maybe have haste or mage armor while he can't shocking grasp anything and the str rogue throws his hands up at his inability to have more than one to hit buff to make up for his 3/4ths BAB (and trust me, there are some enemies in here with some crazy high ACs). I can think of plenty of character builds I would like to play that aren't even optimal that would be completely unfeasible under that system.

Limiting buffs is fine, but by CHA is not the way to do it. Honestly, something like class level or something would be more reasonable and keep everyone on the same playing field. I don't know, just don't go for the stat that a lot of classes have to dump.

@Tangent101

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying, so allow me to clarify:

I never said MPA was balanced. I never said it wasn't broken. I never said that being able to do obscene amounts of damage to things was fun. In fact, I said it wasn't fun. I agree that it probably should be nerfed.

Where I'm disagreeing with you is how it should be nerfed, and this is why I'm saying MDA is boring. It's boring because it's +3 instead of +2. That's it. Just a bigger number. Yes, it lets me kill something better, but it doesn't change anything. It's a bigger number. I can get a bigger number a ton of ways. Hell, I have the same exact problem with mythic Point Blank Shot. That doesn't excite me, nor give me the idea of being some mythical hero.

What does excite me? Being able to do more stuff, and that's the key point here. Take mythic precise shot for example. I saw that and it excited me. Now I can hit enemies I couldn't before! I can do something outside the realm of mortal possibility! I won't get screwed over by an arcanist that has mirror image and displacement up while blinking back and forth constantly again! In short, it gave me more options to deal with foes and brought up new images of how I would fight. THAT is fun. And you know what? I barely even get to use this feat, but I still like it more than Mythic Deadly Aim.

So all I'm saying is, I would prefer if MPA and MDA had some sort of secondary ability that was cool but doesn't increase damage. Something that lets you do something new in combat. Just bringing MPA down to MDA level will make it a lot more balanced, yes, and I recommend the damage scaling come down to that level, but it will still be a boring feat.

I guess that sums up my beef with a lot of mythic feats, kinda like Seannoss says. I am just not hyped for mythic feats that simply add a bigger modifier to an already existing feat. To me, that doesn't seem all that mythical.

@TarkXT

I'm not sure if that's really ballsy or anything; in fact it seems quite calculated and only a minor deviation from the usual. But I don't think I'm getting my point across here very well, so let me give some examples.

For the first one, I once made a little one-session adventure akin to a PFS scenario in order to test out some houserules I wanted to use in a later game. One of those houserules was changes to combat manuevers in order to make them better and easier to use.

For my first playtest, I used people from my regular PF group. They're all well versed in the game, etc. So they roll up their characters and stuff. Now, the adventure has them exploring a recently discovered ruins at the behest of a trading company and finding out what happened to the previous explorers it sent in. The place, it turns out, has been retrofitted by a widespread cult and they're using it as a base of operations. The second floor of this ruins was built directly into a massive cave; it consists of many rope bridges from ledge to platform and what not, situated 15ft over the sand.

Now, the PCs have learned that there's something really bad in the sand that comes soon after something hits the ground (specifically, Tunnel Worms with ten billion templates come about a round or two later to try to eat whatever it is). We have some enemies that spot the pcs and fights ensue on the rope bridges and platforms. I had thought, at least one person would try to knock one of the enemies off into the sand to take them out of the fight (I intentionally positioned enemies in such places) but to my annoyance no one ever tried. In fact, no one bothered to do anything about it, and combat played out like a million times before.

A second time I ran it I ran it with people who were new to the system. This time they tried out different stuff I wouldn't have expected; for example, on the first floor, the barbarian decided to pick up a fallen foe and fling it at another, and I thought, "why not?". Made him roll a strength check and attack roll and while it wasn't like the most useful thing, it was still fun to see and he knocked another enemy prone. When they got to the cavern, I think one person threw a rock down at the sand to see what would happen or something, and another knocked an enemy or two down. It felt good.

Or for another example, this time in a different system. I was gming a game of Pokemon Tabletop United--a homebrew system for running pokemon games--and it was a PMD esque campaign, so all the PCs were pokemon. One night the party was fighting a particularly tough enemy in a warehouse who I may or may not have overstatted. The enemy is between rows of shelves and one of the players ask, "Hey, GM, is there anything on the top shelves above the bad guy?" Well, being a warehouse, I figure it makes sense so I'm like sure. He then asks if he can fly up to push it over onto the enemy. It's something I'd not thought of and isn't something the system explicitly has rules for, but I thought, why not? So he tries it, passes his roll, and a bunch of warehouse goods topple onto the enemy, burying and impeding him long enough for the players to claim victory.

It's stuff like that. I like it when players do stuff that involves the scenary, or try unorthodox things, or something other than 'we roll in in predetermined formation with 10 million initiative to do plan X'. Hell, half the time trying to put things in a room makes it more annoying to the players rather than less (I've not seen anyone flip over a table or rip off a door for cover, or other stuff).

I dunno I'm not a very good gm.

Hey Captian Von Spicy Wiener, welcome to D&D!

Is the barbarian in combat? Otherwise the GM can simply say "you died from swimming on lava".
- "Why? Lava deals only 20d6 damage per round."
"How exactly your barbarian would know that? He jumped on magma and died."

And if the gm arbitrarily decides that your character mechanics don't work because it is not combat then he needs to re-evaluate his rulings. Yes, jumping into lava is pretty bone headed (although I can see circumstances in which it could very easily happen) but that doesn't mean you should just ignore character ability.

My Reign of Winter group somehow ended up as all disney princesses. I don't know why it just happened.

People will play martial classes if they find them fun regardless of if they're underpowered or not, so yeah, you'll see martials. I've seen a few fighters, not a whole helluva lot of rogues, but I've seen monks, gunslingers, and rangers.

Love.

Do people tend to run APs from the box with minimal adjustment, or do people tailor them to the party more often? Both in mechanics and story.

There's a little story behind this one: so in my first ever pathfinder campaign, I played a barbarian after the GM let me retire my fighter that I wasn't having fun with. Said barbarian had 8 INT, and I rp'd him as dumber than a box of rocks. When he joined, the party was being sent on a mission to a kingdom in the north to aid in a rebellion against an oppressive elf king. Our boss mentioned that they had a mole up their, and my character, trying to play up the 8 INT, thought that he literally meant molemen. The party sorceror egged my character on, "confirming" his suspicions.

Anyway, fastforward a journey and our party stops to rest in a town. During the night while we're in the inn, a great earthquake hits the town; stuff falling from the ceiling, buildings getting leveled, fires, etc etc. At the time, my barbarian was in the lobby messing around while most of the party was asleep. My GM at the time was a stickler for enforcing short sentences per turn (six words max) and keeping movement, so when we entered initiative, the first thing my barbarian does is run up the stairs, then on his next turn he throws open the door to the sorceror and druid's room and screams, at the top of his lungs, "THE MOLEMEN ARE HERE!"

It actually became a sort of running gag, with my character desperate to root out the vile molemen. When I was to leave the campaign my GM had set up for us to actually encounter Colossal molemen for us to fight in my final session, but due to some miscommunication and scheduling errors it never happened.

Just play Rogues.

You will never be overpowered.

Low blow , man, low blow.

Personally I'm just waiting for the day when I can reasonably play an NPC villain who enters the fight by riding a Colossal construct that plows through the wall. I figure that works no matter what point buy you use...I think.

Interestingly enough, as a GM, I've had most balance problems have to do more with PC preparation and tactics more than point buy, but then again I suck at designing good encounters.

Concerning the "I don't want people to think I'm poorly rping X race" angle...

If someone accuses you of poor roleplaying just because you don't play a race like a stereotyped straightjacket, tell them to grow an imagination. Just because a race has traits doesn't mean every person of said race is the same. Heck, you can adhere to some of the traits and still have a wide variation within that. Some of the best fun comes from extrapolation.

1. The game is not balanced around optimizers - nor should it be.

Eh, I dunno about that. You have to keep a few things in mind: the first is that pathfinder, as a system, not only rewards but expects some degree of optimization. I think perhaps you meant rule lawyers or those that scour every means to eke out as much power as possible as opposed to simple optimization. I can assure you optimization is not inherently bad, and I'm willing to bet money you in some way or another try to optimize your characters to some degree.

Also, when you say it shouldn't be balanced around optimizers, keep in mind Pathfinder Society is a thing and likely one of Paizo's biggest draws. Given all the different varieties of players it's even more important to make sure things are balanced.
.

4. Optimization can unbalance anything.

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. I mean if you optimize a fighter to be really good at fighting, I doubt you'll break the game, especially when things that don't involve fighting come up.

I hate paladins. They all just come in and detect evil everywhere and smite everything and are just a complete goody-two-shoes nuisance. How is an honest necromancer supposed to build an undead empire with those jerks running around? And don't even get me started on the henchmen turnover rate these guys cause.

Scrogz wrote:

You don't have to threaten the characters to THREATEN the characters...

Maybe a bit more on the dark side but something to use as needed.

Assuming the high level characters have developed stories, backgrounds and some RP outside of dungeon crawls they have spouses, kids, towns, businesses, etc.... These are all plot tools the GM can use to provide a challenge or reign in out of control characters.

This is a big one that fits into a bigger umbrella, and I like to call:

A Character is a Character, Not a Stack of Numbers
High level characters (especially spellcasters) have access to phenomenal powers. They can create demiplanes, travel across the world, create contingencies to whisk them away from harm, and be nearly impossible to locate. They can conjure angels, demons, and everything inbetween. They can bend the minds of others to their will. They have access to thousands and thousands of gold pieces. But, they should still be (demi-)humans. They started somewhere, with friends, family, associates, and goals beyond "level up". Along their journey they (should) have gained more friends and allies, and perhaps even lovers. All of are levers that can be used to keep PCs grounded in their character, rather than in a set of numbers. Let me explain what I mean.

I often hear optimization people claiming that a high level spellcaster spends every night sleeping on their fast time demiplane, has contingencies to teleport them away from any attack, and keeps dozens of spells going at all times. The question that pops in my head is 'where do these characters fit the rest of their lives in?'

A character that spends all their time on a fast time demiplane is aging twice as fast as everyone else around them. Many people (including friends and lovers) aren't going to want to be a part of that, and many characters probably don't want to be a part of that. It doesn't matter that most campaigns are going to end long before a PC dies of old age, because the character...

Just one thing I wanna say about this; be careful targeting character's backstories, family, friends, etc etc. Yes, I know it's reasonable that they may wind up in the crossfire but don't just endanger or kill them for drama. I believe it was mentioned int he backstory thread, but people come up with those sorts of things because they want to explore them.

So you have to be careful. If your plan to motivate a PC is to kill off their family or something to weaken them, you might wind up later with PCs with no connections, family, or anything whatsoever. You don't wanna turn the players off from investing in roleplay things.

So last night we finished storming the citadel and managed to capture some random barbarian (who I accidentally crit) as well as a dwarf who sucked at saving against pits and glitterdust.

There was also a babau who failed comically in the last battle, as he failed his save against glitterdust every round and could not roll above a 2.I wanted to try redeeming him since he was still alive after we beat Staunton and his mooks, but the party sorcerer vetoed it and killed it immediately.

I'll redeem a demon one of these days, even if I have to pistol whip them into submission.

A system other than DnD/Pathfinder.

I generally let characters play whatever the hell they want, 'cause I weird like that.

Is it bad that despite everything you just said I still want to play that?

I mean, serioiusly, I'd love to fight Nazis in Dungeons and Dragons...or fighting Nazi Dragons.

And people wonder why I scrubbed my facebook clean and never go on it.

...Well actually that's more because I'm a paranoid hermit but still...

If I'm reading what he's saying correctly, TheAntiElite is saying that he is all for inclusiveness and thinks Paizo does a good job, but at the same time is worried that he will be castigated for mentioning a dislike of stereotypes or a fear that people will ask for stereotypes. Also, he seems to be worried that if you disagree on any part or if you find one particular aspect commonly associated with being queer annoying, then you're labeled a bigot even though you're disliking someone for acting in an annoying way, rather than who they are.

At least I think. I just got off work and am a bit too tired to think at the moment.

I would say the reloading as free interpretation is correct because:

Fast musket (makes gun count as one handed)

Rapid reload musket (makes musket reload one faster)

Alchemical cartridge (makes musket reload one faster at higher misfire chance)

I don't see why fast musket wouldn't stack with the others, unless your tables have a vendetta against you full attacking or something.

There are limitations built into a Wizard that people love to ignore. Component costs they love to talk about ammunition costs while ignoring this. That's not counting the cost of scribing spells into spell books, buying scrolls etc. Counterspelling completely negates a Wizard's actions. Everyone looks at the Wizard's spell list and acts like the Wizard can cast all those spells at any second all the time. Sure a wizard can cast a fireball once in awhile, a gunslinger does that damage and more every single round. Make fireball unllimited casting like first level spells, I can see a complaint until then, not so much. Oh yeah and a gunslinger can stop a Wizard with a disarm of spell components, or no-save confusion.

Fireball isn't what makes a wizard dangerous. Stuff like stinking cloud, create pit, summon monster, scrying, wall of stone, various illusion spells, cloudkill, haste, black tentacles, etc etc are what make a wizard dangerous. His strength is in predicting danger and controlling the battlefield, so saying that he can't fireball all the time is a strawman because a wizard isn't supposed to be trying to match a gunslinger's damage; the classes aren't designed for the same thing.

I'm also wondering how exactly counterspelling makes a wizard completely useless, since you need to either have the spell prepared/castable and make a spellcraft check (which you can fail) or use dispel magic with an opposing CL check (which you can fail). And how come in every one of these "gunslinger shuts down the opposing spellcaster instantly by disarming them" the spellcaster doesn't take a move action to retrieve their component pouch/holy symbol then a standard to cast the spell? Wouldn't, y'know, readying to just shoot them if they cast a spell and force a concentration check be a lot more effective?

No it isn't. I'll explain next paragraph.

Ok.

I've covered wizards, the same still applies, and yes archers do do amazing damage. Now imagine that same archer, but instead of having to attack normal AC, it only needs touch AC. Instead of using STR for damage, it uses DEX and STR is now throw away stat, and instead of a d8 (or 2d6 with gravity bow) imagine its a d12 or 3d6. That's the difference between an archer and a gunslinger with one barrel.

Did I miss something? How is it a d12 or a 3d6 (don't say Up Close and Deadly for the last one, since you just said the problem was not specific to the pistolero). I'd also like to point out that STR isn't really a throwaway stat for gunslingers, unless you like being in medium load. Others have pointed out the ability mod damage balances out with the bracers of armor and the gauntlets of dueling, so the only thing different here is touch vs regular AC.

You're playing low levels. An archer at this level would be outshined too. Wait a few levels this will shift dramatically.

Um, no. Mysterious Stranger doesn't get gun training, so he'll continue to drop behind. Even with signature deed for CHA to damage on each shot. And if you think that that would cover it...that'd be splitting stats for to hit and damage, kinda like an archer, except without items that give bonus damage like an archer.

Color Spray - is a 15' illusion. There are litterally in infinate number of encounters that this will do nothing for, ranging from simply fighting enemies with ranged weapons, to fighting Skeletons to facing a trap.

Going by that logic, there are also literally an infinite number of encounters in which this spell will completely shut enemies down, such as fighting groups of melee enemies, to fighting one strong enemy, to actually moving into range of those melee enemies--after all, not every bad guy is a mindless undead. Trust me, I have seen this spell totally mess up baddies quite reliably. If your argument is that it doesn't count because it doesn't work in every situation at low levels, then my counter is that the gunslinger doesn't work in every situation at low levels either. I'm not sure what you want.

As brock said, outlawing dice apps would make online play impossible. Have you been checking the player's rolls or do they just tell you what they got? If the dice app is fair they should have no problem rolling in front of you.

Anyway, I think it's gm prerogative to ban dice apps in a physical game. Surely at least one person has dice, right?

FanaticRat wrote:

Taku Ooka Nin wrote:

I have so far had two gunslingers show up in my campaigns and a single Zen Archer. We were level 10 or so. I told all three characters at the game show I was hosting at that their characters would likely heavily outshine the other players, and for that reason I will be trying to kill them so they can bring in different characters.

Not to be a dick, but why didn't you just go "Your builds are going to outshine the other players heavily, please play something else" if you knew from the start that the builds wouldn't fit, instead of wasting everyone's time with passive-agressive GMing just to prove a point? In fact, when you pulled the players aside the first time (and I'm assuming the gunslingers and zen archers were there too) why didn't you just say "Your builds are making things less fun for the other players. Please tone it down or you'll have to play something else."?

His players were warned to not be Gods. You know you can play one of those classes and be good, just good not crazy broken but to achieve that the player needs to build accordingly. They didn't...they died.

I don't really see why the DM should need to ban them from the outset, the players were warned - they didn't listen - they got what they deserved. It may have wasted time but again that was the players fault for not listening imo.

That's ignoring the fact that more than the overpowering characters died. In fact, the players who felt they were being outshined died too. From what it seems, they had to sit through the campaign after voicing that they felt shuffled to the back, and their ultimate reward for bringing this up was the GM throwing a TPK at them.

Now, had the GM just flat out said "play something else" when the problem arose and the other players pointed this out, there wouldn't have needed to be any point proven, and the whole party wouldn't have needed to die. That is a waste of everyone's time, especially the party with no guilt whatsoever.