Jallen C.'s page

We've been having this discussion in a game for a while. Disarm says if you attempt it while using an unarmed weapon, you suffer a -4 on the check. Simple enough. I'm under the impression this also counts even if you are a monk doing an Unarmed Disarm, but does the penalty also apply when using a Cestus? After all, it says your Unarmed Strikes can do Piercing and you're treated as armed when avoiding attack of opportunities.

So, do you suffer a -4 when trying disarm while wielding a Cestus?

The largest argument I have for Fighters over Rangers comes to this: new players. Just this year a new player came into my game and really liked the idea of a Ranger. It seemed fun, filled a niche nobody else has really covered, she got to have a pet cat, shoot her bow; that kind of thing.

And she hated it before even 5 games. For new players, the amount of things a Ranger gets can easily be overwhelming especially when they are just learning the system. For someone who is new the game, or even RPG's in general, the Ranger is one of the biggest nightmares. You can hold their hand as much as you like, but a person won't learn anything if you do that.

For her, leveling became a task, keeping track of what numbers applied when, what her pet could and could not do, what spells to prepare, which ones not to prepare, what's the terrain, is that an illusion over something and means her numbers no longer apply, is this the right skill? And she got frustrated because of it, switched to something else, and just had a rough first impression of the rules system. It's too much.

With a fighter, it's base raw numbers that always apply. Sure, the Ranger is better in a vacuum, but this is a party game. Often times, more feats means more ease in tailoring to your party makeup. Each class has a role they fill. Said players Ranger was unable to keep up with just the raw damage and AC the fighter was able to manage on a constant basis and both players were happy because they both got to fill their roles.

And, as is often stated in other games, restriction breeds creativity.

I remember back in AD&D in which there were optional rules for the appearence stat and for charisma. One was which you rolled an additional time for appearance and the other was that you could vary your charisma into two seperate numbers that still had to be close to each other that each determined a seperate value.

For example, a 16 charisma could be changed into 17/15 in which the first would be leadership and the second your physical beauty. There was an option to do this to pretty much all of your stats, but it was kind of complicated and unneccessary most of the time.

I also see charisma as a way of grooming yourself. A hag is ugly, but with the way she presents her body and moves, it could be very appealing.