Ground_Control's page

An inquisitor might make a great right hand man. Maybe not so much with the buffing as the bard, but you have access to some great divine spells, and a great array of useful skills and abilities, I mean monster lore is great for being a basket of knowledge the character you are serving.

Interesting, maybe a character with a divine mandate to serve a particular family, or something similar...

Sword cane sounds pretty thematic for this character.

Added this to my list, you're right

Going to throw out summoner master and eidolon butler. The summoner can be a halfling with the Childlike feat for an Artemis Fowl feel. ;D

I should check with the GM, this has a great deal of potntial!

I would say go with a re-flavored version of the Gisha bard archetype. If he's a butler, it would make sense that he could do something similar to the 'tea ceremony' to buff the party ...

Nice idea! I may have to use this, though you bring up a good point about the Sensi Monk...

Again, great input, thanks much!

I'm seeing the character as more of the Alfred/Jeeves type at this point, which does seem to lean toward the Bard. I was curious to try a class I hadn't played yet, but it seems like it might be a stretch to try and shoe-horn another class into that role.

Good calls! Bard is definitely in the running, though I hadn't thought of the dandy rouge or halfling.

I've also been tossing around the idea of going with an Oracle, either Lore for all the skill focus, or Life for the damage transfer, plus some cleric buffs and general party healing. The class concept just doesn't quite fit as well as a bard, however.

For an upcoming campaign, I'm going to play the loyal man(?)-servant of one of the other player characters. Thinking of going in the butler direction: well mannered, loyal to a fault, always cleaning up after his employer, etc. No focus on combat, rather party buffer, potentially a healer as well.

I've got a few ideas of what might be good classes/builds, but I'm curious to see what others might suggest.

Thoughts?

As long as your group doesn't mind, I'd encourage him to run a game, and not just one night. Give him a few sessions to get into it and learn what he's doing. It's not often that you find people that enthusiastic to run a game so they should be encouraged whenever possible.

Only exception I'd say is, if the guy can't some constructive criticism, he probably shouldn't be running a game. Personally, I wouldn't be able to run a game today if I didn't have great players who've told me what I was doing wrong and how to fix it, but some people can't handle that sort of thing.

Otherwise, as long as everyone is having fun, who cares if some rules get bent, broken, or forgotten.

Intelligence - While most people can agree that it represents intelligence, it bothers me a little bit. What bothers me most is that I have not seen someone capable of playing an intelligence higher than their own. Intelligence on its own is vague enough term that covers many aspects. Instead of using the term 'Intelligence', I'd like to say that it represents Comprehension, in other words the ability to pick up knowledge. Comprehension fulfills the notion of being able to learn skills more easily, picking up knowledge and languages, and comprehending magic. A player can play a character with a higher comprehension than themselves via the DM giving them information directly.

Wisdom - Oh god wisdom. What wisdom actually is in the real world, is experience. That's not what 'wisdom' represents in D&D.

Interesting interpretations, well thought out.

Way I've always looked at it:

Str: Pretty basic, how well you can put the muscles you have to use, hence the climb/swim angle. High Str doesn't mean that you're huge, just that you're efficient in using the muscle that you have.

Dex: Again, basic. How agile you are, quick on your feet, reaction times, etc.

Con: Still basic, refers to endurance, physical resistance, and often times sheer bulk.

Int: Not as basic. Reflects your characters ability to retain knowledge from outside sources, hence the skill point angle. How well you can absorb knowledge from various sources around you, though not how well you can use it.

Wis: Again, not as basic. Reflects common sense, or ability to use the knowledge that you have. Often referred to as cunning.

Cha: Pretty basic, your ability to win friends and influence people. Does not reflect physical appearance, but projected appearance.

My normal GM is the best I've ever played with, and has taught me an amazing amount that I've been able to carry over into my own games. Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice he's given me is that it's the players telling the story, not you. Make the story fit your party, not the other way around.

Basically, just assume that, whatever story or plot you've written up, they will break it horribly, so be prepared to roll with it. Flexibility is key, even in the pregen adventures. I have yet to find a self-written or pregen adventure that my players haven't broken, then promptly turned it into something much more fun.

Best trick I've found for being flexible is to never hinge any part of your plot on a single binary action. I'm not saying don't ever have a "works or doesn't" scenario in your game, but just be aware that this sort of plot device will often times back you into a corner.

A couple of examples of what I mean by "binary actions":

Plot: The villain shows up to mock/fight the party, but escapes to later on harass the party.
What your party will do: Either a) kills them before they can escape, b) all die off, c) you have to box-text the villain out.

Plot: The party has to research/find a long lost piece of information in order to figure out a clue
What your party will do: Roll all 1's on their skill checks.

Basically, just do what you can to leave things open, and adapt your story to the players actions. It does require some quick, on-the-spot thinking, but you and your players will generally enjoy things a lot more when you craft the game to the story they want to tell, as opposed to the one you want to.

A few loose rules my GM taught me when I first started running some games myself:

- If you set up an ambush, your party will always spot them first, until you want them to. Then they'll all die in the surprise round.

- Your big boss will last, at most, 3 rounds of combat. No matter how nasty it is, your players will wipe the floor with it faster than the rules should allow. Conversely, your party will come very, very close to being wiped out on any given random encounter of monsters 2 or more levels below them.

- If an npc is supposed to flee at 25% health, the npc will be at 30% health, then be crit and die.

- Treasure is always to the left, horrible death is always to the right.

Paladins are not simply paragons of their gods, that's a common misconception. They are a paragon of justice and goodness, empowered by the gods whose portfolio fits.

Can't say I agree on this point, but I see where you're coming from. For at least our group, we tend to view them more as the ultimate warrior for a deity. Explains away the deity-granted powers and the martial prowess, and opens things up a bit more for the game. Sticking to just the "goody-two-shoes" paladin means that nobody is going to play them in our campaigns.

Fortunately, everyone can define them for their game as they see fit, part of what makes RPGs great!

While there should maybe be some sort of class feature swap list (I dunno if it'd be listed as an archetype or an alternate class, given I think Paizo hasn't been clear on those terms) to allow for "paladins" of gods who don't have paladins currently, they don't exist currently, and they WOULD be different.

I've always really liked this idea, sort of working in the Domain spells from the cleric into the Paladin ability tree. In the case of PF, I toyed with the idea that each deity might have a specific application of Smite that fits their domain. Nothing ever came of it, but it's a great concept, especially for an archetype setup.

Additionally, many paladin players assume that all paladins are pious and sticks in the mud. Where does it say that a paladin can't be jovial, happy, humourous, or friendly?

Not only does it not say that anywhere, it shouldn't...

It's down to the DM and the players, what they're willing to handle. My DM was nice enough to let me run a paladin of Sune, Deity of Beauty and Love once. He started out with a mission to make everyone smile and laugh because it honored his goddess.

Granted, it evolved into him establishing brothels in every town to promote "worship" of his goddess, but the general idea still stands.

If a someone has a great character idea, let them run with it. For a paladin, seems like as long as they embody the virtues of their chosen deity, and stick to them, they're a paladin, period. After all, it's not like only the lawful good deities get paragons...

Do you roll your characters?

For me, there's a lot more fun in rolling it out. 4d6, drop the low, 7 times, drop the lowest roll.

Is your answer the deefault of your gaming group?

We do it in pretty much everything we play except Torg and Amber, including 4e.

How long have you been gaming?

Since the late 80s.

What system did you first game in?

Shadowrun aka "Roll 3412d6".

Thank you.

Generally, when our group starts a new campaign for any system we'll hand out one of the social feats as a nice roleplaying starter. Most of them don't end up being all that overpowering, and if it is, we swap out. Helps roundest your character a bit, at least in the beginning.

Hey! I was at the show the previous night (Madison, Wisconsin) and the opening band was playing Magic on the pool table before the show.

Long live Nerdcore.

MadHatter from Scrub Club was there last night as well , rapping about Excite Bike and Spyhunter, heck of a nice guy! Didn't seem all that much of a PNP player, but man he's got the 8bit world covered.

Frontalot's bass player "Black Lotus" was there taking all comers for games of Magic. He trounced several people before heading up on stage to put on quite an impressive performance.

It was actually like some mini con there, heck of a way to spend a Sun night.

That is more than just a little bit awesome, but i'd be really impressed if you go alpinekat, MC chris, and Mc Hawkins too.

Bonus Points for Kate Tempest and Scrubius Pip

I'm going for mc chris and MC Lars next month when they come by ;)

Not only did I get MC Frontalot, King of Nerdcore, to sign one of my Pathfinder Character Sheets at a show last night, but he was nice enough to take a few moments for a brief RPG chat with a few of us. And no, we didn't go all fanboi and talk about our characters ;)

He knew the Pathfinder brand, though I don't know if he's actually played. Still, good job promoting the brand Paizo! Even rappers know the name.