Gogolski's page

You can say that a lot of ships in the pact worlds are pact-registered. It is a severe criminal act to attack/steal/loot a pact-registered ship.

Of course they don't know if the ship was indeed a registered ship...

This could easily lead to both new enemies and allies.

As a GM, I have made lots of decisions without dice as to not interrupt the flow of the game. A party (or party member) notices something or doesn't, without a perception check. (Making the check actually can pull people out of character, as most players won't be able to help themselves thinking: maybe my character is supposed to see something right now...)

A proposal of what the party is trying to do, just works or doesn't without trying to invent a DC for something that there aren't rules for in any book. (Even if it could be more or less determined by combining numerous books.)

If the session is dice-light and story-heavy, suddenly calling for a roll can shake up the (flow of) story.
On the other hand, it can create suspense too, so rolling isn't necessarily bad. A GM should feel when it helps or hinders during a dice-light session...

It's not that I'm looking for more story or less rolling in my games, I was just wondering if there were many players that are giving their dice a night off every now and then.

You're most certainly right about it being a playstyle, less dependent on what kind of scenario (if any) drives the game, than dependimg on the players and GM.

But again, I was just wondering how common it is, because this doesn't seem to pop up in most of the forums. Most of the forums seems to be numbercrunching...

The PF RPG forums are filled with questions and presentations about power and usefulness of characters, builds that try to beat each other at dealing damage or noticing everything or bluffing anyone and theorectical one-trick-monkey-exercises. I think that's great. PF gives players book and books and books to work with and it's good to see players and GMs immerse themselves in these massive amounts of rules.

Apart from rolling dice and achieving something wit a successful roll, there's also a place for storytelling and ROLE-playing in PF. I know that sandbox campaigns leave more opportunity to walk and talk around and just interact and that published adventures tend to be a bit more linear (-I've got nothing against either published or freeform adventures-), but I like to think that roleplaying is not only about playing a character to advance a bunch of stats, is it?

Does anybody else have a session now and then where the dice have an evening off?

Just curious...

But would t dropping 200,000 into a city of 17,500 people generating 4 mill a year cause ENORMOUS criminal activities? You can bet that unless that guy with a 200,000 item can kill the whole city at once someone is going to figure out a way to take that item from him or someone who took possession of it.

...and that's why I say acquiring an item that powerful and costly takes time. During that time, there's downpayments and commision fees that go out to several people.

The 200.000 is divided over several people's pockets over a timespan.

How many times have PCs had NPCs try to rob them? (Either for their 200.000 gold or for the item worth 200.000) If you look at a party, it's just a walking treasure chest.

On the other hand, how many rich people in real life get burgled? I know thieves broke into my neighbours' house and stole more than 10.000 euro in cash and jewelry. I need to work months for that, but that's still not the big loot we're talking about in our game.

Still, I think it's those people that get robbed.
The people having 1.000 to 10.000 (or maybe even 20.000) goldpieces.
The risk of robbing 200.000 goldpiece people is a lot higher. Both the risk of getting caught in the act and the risk of being found out later. The 200.000 goldpiece people have a lot more means to get at you or have people getting at you.

I think burglers and robbers prefer the 1.000 goldpiece people. After getting robbed, they're poor buggers with not much influence at all.

Money buys (or can buy) powerful allies, I guess...

In my gqmes, certain organizations control certain aspects of the economy/market. Organization means a bunch of people, means a lot of money divided among a lot of people. When an item with a kingdom-income price is commissioned (there is no way of buying it!), a lot of people are put into action to find it, have it crafted, negotiate a price or the necessary components and the people to craft it.

This discussion is actually quite close to the "how do you handle magic item shops", I think...

I don't have magic item shops in my games but low level magic items are reasonably readily available, while high level magic items must be commissioned and finding the resources and crafters to make it, takes time and the money (+50.000/+200.000 gold) is divided among several persons or organizations.

If crafting a magic item has a material cost of half the price in components, then it probably takes quite some moving and shaking and involving a lot of people to get those components. Each gets his cut. This assumes you own a workshop where you can craft said item. (It needs to be set up, probably...)

If you purchase (=order to get made) an item, the other half is for finding (finder's fees) the crafters and getting them in town and afterwards getting them back to wherever they live and having the workshop to craft the item set up... Every person involved takes his cut...

In my games, If you spend 200.000 on an item, you will have to wait quite a while before it appears and in the meantime the money flows in many different directions.

Of course, that's just in my games, where casters don't just have simple, ready access to new spells when leveling.
You need to befriend/steal from/infiltrate/whatever an organization/person/network/whatever to gain access to the books/material you need to study to gain the spells.

I have no economy problems in my world... And it looks fairly realistic, with that typical uneven divide of wealth between rich and poor. 10 to 15 % of the people should have 85 to 90 % of all wealth.

These 10 to 15 % of the people are also those that influence/dictate policies and whatever happens in the world...

I was thinking exactly the same as Matthew Downie.

Would it make for a lot to track? Don't know...

A player announces a full attack action with a 17 level full BAB character:

He first takes a 10-foot (free action), attacks, takes another 10-foot (in place of his second attack, not provoking in his heavy armor because he has +6 strength) and attacks again with his third attack.

Seems do-able...

Just an idea (that has probably popped up earlier -anyone can point to the relevant treads-...)

=> A player may take a full round attack action but may substitute any of his attacks for a 5-foot-step provoking AoO.

=> Upgrading the 5-foot-step:

10-foot-skip-hop

** prerequisites:
Mobilty
Jump: 5 ranks
13 Strength

** bonus:

A player can take a 10-foot-skip-hop in stead of a normal five foot step.
A player substituting an attack during a full round attack action for a 5-foot-step does not provoke AoO.
A player substituting an attack during a full round attack action for a 10-foot-skip-hop does provoke AoO, depending on his strength bonus and armor:
Strength bonus +1: wearing no armor does not provoke AoO.
Strength bonus +2: wearing light armor does not provoke AoO.
Strength bonus +3: wearing medium armor does not provoke AoO.
Strength bonus +5: wearing heavy armor does not provoke AoO.

Shoot. Burn. Kill...

Amon Tobin. (Organic eclectic electronic music)

Electric eels might give him kind of an itch...

Sand or flour or cement in his water-jacket to slow/weight him.

Make the water-jacket boil and see if he like wearing it.

Freeze his water-jacket. Then shatter it into sharp cutting crystals.

Tie his noodly appendices in a knot. Use a giant gorilla/kingkong to do so.

Lastly, congatulate your player for coming up with and executing a fun great concept.

Who is the high int guy though? It's hard to imagine any actual character that is smart but not wise.

That nerdy guy from Big Bang Theory that knows all irrelevant facts and is completely out of touch with the world perhaps?

If the PCs can communicate with (fairly intelligent) creatures who might have seen the dragon, they could ask around. The information gained might be not be very specific, but it could set them on track. Most dragons have a hard time hiding in plain air...

Such a permanent ability seems quite strong. I don't know what price to suggest, but the wizard that tattoos the character should be really high level to accomplish this. Maybe you should lower the caster level when casting using the tattoo.

Alternatively, you could have the tattoo "store" a limited number of times it can be used before it needs to be retattooed or repared.

You could also make the player roll to see if the tattoo burns up (dealing a little damage to the character) rendering it useless.

If you let players participate in the creation of your world, they will of course be eager to play in it.

A good option to do this is through their backgrounds. (I always had my players draw up a detailed background.)

First you ask them where they come from and what their 'country' looks like (in general). You then puzzle those countries together. Ask about the town they grew up in. How people generally regarded outsiders. If there was much trade or travelers passing by and what races they were. That could set up some political relations in the world...

Ask your players and you shall receive (and then they will back again...)

Good luck!

PS: Don't believe everything your players say. Memory (even or especially the memories of the players' characters) is a strange thing often twisting the reality that was...

I haven't been playing for years. The last group I tried to get together didn't start playing in the end. That was not too long after 3.5 came out.

For that group, I made up a world that was not revolving around it's own axis. The sun-facing side had lava seas, rivers and lakes while the eternal dark side was iced all over.
Some massive (kilometers long and wide!) beasts on thousands of legs were wandering/lumbering slowly around. On their backs stood entire metropolises.
Most of the standard races were real minorities on that planet.
I had a bunch of houserules regarding magic and a magic material (which was actually the shell of the eggs the beasts cracked out of after hatching for years in the lava sea) that was an important commodity as it was needed to protect oneself against the extreme elements.

Magical healing could leave severe scars or wild growths of flesh or a bend back or two very differently sized legs...

Low level magic was to be quite common for protection measures, but high level magic was to be dangerous and could backfire.

I think it wasn't really generic.

I want to try to get a group together again and will probably succeed. I'll start playing the pathfinder beginner box, and if I know the players will go on playing, I'll probably revive the world...