Kakitamike's page

A lot of skill uses will depend on how much your GM implements them into the game. Also, how strictly they run module rules. I remember the first time I played in a PFS game, I was trying to become friends with some of the npcs that were shipwrecked with us. I talked with them, invited them to explore, gave them supplies, asked about their worries, but nothing I did made any difference. Then one of the other players just said, i want to befriend so and so, my diplomacy roll is 18. GM said, okay, he's friendly to you now.

The GM explained that no matter how well you explain or plan something, it means nothing without the roll, because then naturally charismatic or smart people could just avoid putting any points into social skills and still do those roles.

IN any event, based on the games I've been involved in, my skill list would look something like;

5 - Acrobatics
5 - Knowledge (Local)
5 - Perception

4 - Diplomacy
4 - Disable Device
4 - Linguistics
4 - Spellcraft
4 - Survival
4 - Stealth

3 - Bluff
3 - Knowledge (Arcana)
3 - Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
3 - Knowledge (History)
3 - Knowledge (Nature)
3 - Knowledge (Planes)
3 - Knowledge (Religion)
3 - Sense Motive
3 - Swim

2 - Climb
2 - Escape Artist
2 - Fly
2 - Handle Animal
2 - Heal
2 - Intimidate
2 - Use Magic Device

1 - Appraise
1 - Craft
1 - Disguise
1 - Knowledge (Engineering)
1 - Knowledge (Geography)
1 - Knowledge (Nobility)
1 - Perform
1 - Profession
1 - Ride
1 - Sleight of Hand

I house rule a ton of things as GM, but the players always know in advance. As has been mentioned above, I also run my own campaign worlds, so not everything works how it does in PFS.

As for rules problems that come up in the middle of campaigns, I generally get player input on resolving them, but always keep them aware that whatever the ruling is works teh same for npc's as players.

Other times, if we can't quickly find an answer to a rule, I will rule on it and say 'that's the way it's going to work until someone can provide a ruling that says otherwise.' That's the closest I really come to ruling one way with no argument, generally to get back to moving a session along.

It sounds like the difference between optimize and min/max. If I want to make a fighter that uses a lance and tower shield on foot, I'm going to pour over archetypes and feats that allow me to do it with some amount of competence. I think that's normal optimization.

But if while going through the feats, I find I would be doing way more damage if i changed to a one handed weapon and light shield, or kept the lance but picked up a mount, then i'm min/maxing at the expense of my character concept.

I think one of the strengths of the pathfinder system is it's kinda hard to build unplayable characters. It might not be the best, but they can all generally contribute. Again, so much of this comes down to the group you play in.

The party were teenagers at an orphanage out in the middle of nowhere, and came across a post wagon that had been attacked by (unintelligent)monsters. The campaign revolved around the mail they found. Each mail item was an adventure hook. I actually wrote out letters with to and from addresses, picked scripts, had props, etc. I handed them a backpack full of actual letters and wrapped items.

Party are students arriving at a boarding school on an island off the coast. Mysteriously get trapped inside a storage room during a storm. Get out of the room the next day...zombieapocalypse, ala highschool of the dead.

Started as a generic sword and sorcery mid-european setting, party thought they were escorting a scientist to a village, then, BAM world ending volcano erupts, blanketing the world in ash, becomes post apocalyptic survival horror. Something great about introducing the party to a bunch of NPC's you know you're going to kill before the session is over.

Know i've done more, but those 3 always come to mind first.

I think the magic item creation RAW are laughably easy.

That being said, I just don't use them. And I tell people new to playing in my games that if crafting magic items is something you want to do, i'm probably not the right person for you to have as a GM.

I generally try to have a story behind all my items. When players do get to craft a magic item in my games, it usually involves a quest to find rare materials, and another one to find some smith capable of forging the raw materials into something magical.

Unfortunately, I feel like video games and mmo's in particular have made people expect magic items to fall out of every 3rd creature they kill. Given, some monstera have always had a chance at magical loot on their treasure tables, but it just feels more prevalent today than it used to.

I get ciretose's point. People on these boards bring up expendable magic items as if they come standard and you always have them, which is how the incense thing came off.

I've never played a wizard that had much spare cash for scrolls, let alone big ticket expendables.

heh, like that only happens with "expendable" magic items on these boards.

I wish they could fix that. Players not expecting magic item shops with full inventory at every place they walk into.

Of course, that's a community problem, not a design one. And even that's debatable.

I guess I wish they made the core rules for magic item creation and acquisition more difficult. Home games are still going to rule it however they want, but at least then official product won't make it seem like every merchant has to sell magic items so they aren't just scattering the floor where customers walk.

"Take these +6 gauntlets of strength off my hand, so i can stop using them as doorknockers, thanks"

I mean lets look at this for a minute. The BBEG take a bunch of hostages, and is using them to bargain. And yet your idea is that surrender is autodeath? Really, why take hostages in the first place? Obviously killing things is not the primary objective with this BBEG.

When I said 'trade their lives for the kids' i meant, put themselves in the kids position, so the kids could go free, not literally trade their lifes. I did not mean autodeath, but I can see how that could of been unclear.

The question I was trying to pose was, would you still make the party stop and wait a week if the choice they made was heroic and would save everyone involved, and most likely live through it?

Also, i guess it's hard to speak what the player's intentions were when all we have is the GM's view to go on. You see it as a GM F U, whereas i give them the benefit of the doubt they may be frustrated with the choices the GM is putting them against. Heck, it could be both.

I remember back in a 2nd ed game, back when we had to go train once we had enough exp to level, before we got the benefits of the next level. It took a number of weeks to train equal to the level you were going to. I think the party was all around either 8th or 9th.

We had been out in the wilds for a while. We were all well over the level cap. We eventually found our way to some elven village. By that point we had almost enough experience to level twice. Our second night in the village, the daughter of the town's ruler was kidnapped by a vampire.

After about an hour of deliberating, we said F it, we're going to go train. The GM was like, but the girl will die, most likely become a vampire, the threat will only increase. Some of us felt bad, some of us didn't care at that point, but we said we wanted to level, and we were sick of being stuck at the level we were at. So we let her die, and went back home to train.

I think that was the last campaign where we had to train between levels. The GM aid afterward that he hadn't realized it was such a big problem.

Sometimes GM's aren't even aware of things they do in a game that aggravate a player. It's no one's fault. You just have to talk about it afterward and figure out where things went wrong.

Everyone here has spent countless pages talking about what could of happened in the situation, but I think RD's group now needs to spend some time talking amongst themselves why it happened.

Again, I reiterate, exactly where do we draw the line? Handy haversacks are pretty much standard gear in virtually every game I play in. Next to those are bags of holding. How often can we buy or craft this item before the GM decides it's not rare...

I guess I haven't looked at haversack or a bag of holding in a while, but when did they up the capacity to infinite, such that it removes the need for you to ever having to worry about carrying capacity. Heck, even if they did that, it would still be limited by what you can fit through the opening.

So the comparison isn't even considerable. It's apples to oranges. If the ring of sustenance halved or quartered the amount of food and drink you needed, then you'd at least be in the same ballpark, but as is, it's not even the same sport.

Isn't 'is he a soldier or assassin or murderer?' the standard, 'well, who wrote the history book?'

But yeah, I scrap alignment requirement for classes in my game. I feel like they create more problems than solve. You can roleplay your character however you want. No need for a crutch to justify your decision-making.

Rules Compendium

close second would be

Magic of Incarnum

I don't make players follow any alignment based conduct codes for classes. Otherwise those classes always result in a headache for a player(s) or a DM.

It's an outdated concept to begin with. If someone wants to play that way because they want to, that's fine, but all i ever see it as is an excuse for a character to act that way.

I've been trying to come up with the best way to deal with this myself, whether it be character death, or players ending up not liking their character, or new books coming out mid campaign that makes people want to change their character.

My old policy was that new characters always came in one level lower than the lowest member of the party. But over time, I felt like I was just punishing players if they wanted to try something heroic and died in the attempt. I don't want to discourage players from taking risks, not to be confused with players doing something stupid.

I can also sympathize with the player that wants to play/remake the same character, especially if they die in the first 5 levels or so. Should a player really have to wait until the next campaign they play in to get to try out the character they wanted? A typical campaign of mine runs about 13~16 months.

So lately i've been having people come back at the same level/experience as the lowest person in the party, or the same if they were already that person.

They don't get to keep any magic items. I agree with the give to charity/buried with view on that.

I still want there to be some penalty for death so players worry about it, or so that they aren't remaking characters at the slightest disappointment.. I've been toying with the idea that you have to give up a magic item slot on your new character. Basically you don;t gain any benefits from wearing that type of item.

I used to have this same problem as a DM. Back in the 3.5 days, I had a few parties that would always dip a level of monk, or 2 levels of paladin, for the saves and other benefits.

But, in general, classes really just represent a group of abilities your character wants. It's more about roleplaying your character, not playing your class. The class is just the cookie cutter you have to use for abilities. It really has no bearing on your roleplaying, outside of some alignment restrictions.

As to the topic, can't it be both? : p

I think the essence of charisma is correct for the game, but the name is lacking. In one game I play, it's called presence.

"Presence represents the impression which the character is able to make on others. A high Presence can be gained from good looks, social class, carrying yourself in a strong manner, or simply by knowing how to stand out in a crowd. A character with an impressive Presence need not be physically attractive. In fact, a hulking brute can make as much of an impression on an enemy in battle as the beautiful princess does at the winter festival."

Part of the problem might be that, your character didn't grow up. In real life, if one has a general high physical appearance, I think those people may also tend to have a natural high charisma, as they become accustomed to what their looks help them get away with.

The same with the opposite being true, where someone who is generally unattractive may have a lower charisma, as the amount and level of social interactions they have growing up may be negative.

Now, the above are both generalizations, but i think they both influence the tie of physical appearance to charisma.

Also, numbers wise, it might be easier for a DM to say, she's a 16, rather then "she's tall, with sandy brown hair, wavy past her shoulders. She has green eyes and a golden light complexion sprinkled with freckles" for the random barmaid that catches a players eye" and then hope that description reflects the players idea of attractive.

Charisma can serve as a catch-all, because it doesn't factor in race, gender, personal hangups, etc. A female elf with 18 charisma has the same charisma whether they're talking to a male elf, orc or illithid. Now, the diplomacy modifier might change, and they might all differ on their idea of physically attractive, but the charisma doesn't change.

Being a fan of customization, I think Fighter is one of the better balanced classes that is fun to play.

I think feats are one of the most interesting feats to come out of DnD. THey let you take a character into many different directions, to specialize, and to separate yourself from the cookie cutter.

The problem is I don't think your average class gets access to enough feats. By the time you have all the feats you want for your character, the campaign's over.

Except the fighter, who actually gets enough feats to do any style of combat you might want.

Casters offer a lot of niche specialization, but I feel they suffer from too much power creep, and could be better designed.

That all being said, I think archetypes did a great job of adding variety to a lot of otherwise bland classes.

But if I had to pick one, Fighter.