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The brawler just seems like a very, very bad redesign of the monk's martial artist archetype of the Ultimate Combat with feats. Maybe also a bad redesign of the fighter brawler and/or unarmed fighter archetypes.

Is this class really need?!?

Looking at the thread, common opinion is that it's a very, very good redesign of the brawler fighter and martial artist monk. And maybe not needed, but plenty of people seem to WANT it.

The 3.5 Warlock, and that other class that had an at-will breath weapon (Dragon Adept or something like that, maybe?) The only issue I had was that they fell off a bit in later-game due to lack of iterative, but the at-will magical/supernatural attack thing is something I really like.

I've had a few character concepts I really liked.

-A half-orc Gunslinger based off the original Django film (Was flipping through Ultimate Equipment finding gear for a different character, saw the coffin, made my decision, heh)
-A frying pan-wielding wandering 'chef' who worked as a bounty hunter (Monk of the Empty Hand)
-A qingong Hungry Ghost Sensei who was an old man who helped people with advice, and through around burning rays (In retrospect, it was basically Uncle Iroh, lol)

I like optimizing. But I don't powergame--I simply want to make my concept workable. And sometimes my concepts are based off of game mechanics (like seeing the Qinggong Monk's cool ki spell-like abilities). Or sometimes I plan my character a couple levels ahead in mechanics. Both of which are things seen as heresy by the 'roleplayers' in my group.

A lot of the viewpoints on this matter, on both sides, are based on perspective. Some people come onto these boards and see what they think is people powergaming and min-maxing. It's often people saying 'how do I make this concept work,' but not always, and it doesn't always seem like it. And that makes some people think everybody here is a powergamer, even when it's often that people come to these boards with the parts that are often easily assisted, i.e. the mechanics.

Some people here have had problems with what they see as 'powergamers' (sometimes they are, sometimes it's just an 'average' optimization in a very unoptimized party, sometimes it's other issues). Other people, like me, have had plenty of problems with 'roleplayers.' Both sides have the same issue--the extremes can make the game unfun--but it's important to note that not everybody is part of the extreme. Powergamers can know the ins and outs of the system by heart and know the most optimal feats and know how to break the game, while not doing so (in fact, plenty of times where I see people truly, intentionally breaking the game, it's for the fun of finding humourous loopholes, like Pun Pun, or the Sohei Monk/Gunslinger/Weapon Master Fighter who can flurry with a firearm at range and add full strength and dexterity to the attacks). And roleplayers can come up with fun characters without caring about optimization, and focus on noncombat roleplay encounters, and have fun with interesting characters, without being snob jerks who yell at you for wanting to play a Duskblade in 3.5 because only powergamers play the class, and it's impossible to roleplay. Or call you a powergamer for selling a +1 longsword, rather than keeping and using it, because you used it in an encounter as an emergency and you don't have proficiency. Or call you a powergamer for not putting your one skill point for the level in swim, when you swam across a river once during that level.

A half-orc gunslinger who wields a musket and carries his weapons and gear around in coffin.

Yes, it's fantasy-Django =P

I remember somebody doing an extremely similar thing on here, they even had a blog for it. Might want to search for their thread, see if he can give any help for how to run it. I remember it being a really good success for him, though!

Edit: paizo.com/threads/rzs2o4g4?Starting-a-middleschool-Pathfinder-club found it

I'd like to make a quick response to the 'Crossbows are simple weapons, of COURSE they're inferior to martial weapons' argument: following that logic, most exotic weapons should be superior to martial weapons. However, there doesn't seem to be too much of a noticeable difference between them.

Can one use elemental fist with a weapon? I see nothing saying one can't in the feat's description, but the Improved Unarmed Strike requirement and the name seem to imply it's for unarmed strikes only.

Strawmen, and WoW fallacy, all in one post. Intriguing

1.) Why is this in Conversions?

2.) Fighter. It's been proven to me that Fighter can do anything. All you need is the right traits, a good amount of Feats and ranks in UMD and you can fight better than any martial and cast spells better than a caster.

WRONG, RYNJIN!

You forgot about them OP Commoners. :)

It's fun reminiscing about the glory days, when this thread was about Fighters, not cars :)

Except that a Pistolero would already be getting Rapid Reload (double barrel pistols) anyway because regular pistols are significantly worse in comparison and as stated here:

"Rapid Reloader:
At 1st level, a musket master gains Rapid Reload (muskets) as a bonus feat."

Musket Masters get Rapid Reload (MUSKETS). One can reasonably argue that this applies to ANY musket, single barreled, double barreled, and axe. It can be a moot point really.

No, according to the way RAW is stated, it would apply to Muskets. Not double-barreled muskets, not axe muskets, just muskets.

The Spellblade Magus can do more than simply use Arcane Pool on two weapons--unless I'm drastically misreading the text, enhancing his physical weapon also enhances the athame for free.

Being a DM doesn't automatically make you deserving of respect. If you run a game I enjoy, I respect you, if you put a lot of work into the game, I respect you. But simply taking on the job doesn't earn respect from me.

Also, the players do, in fact, contribute to the game before the session starts, quite often--like with the rolling of characters. That's something they do that can take five minutes, or five hours, that contributes to the game, their enjoyment of it, their co-players' enjoyment of it, and the DM's enjoyment of it.

Refreshing! I think I will do away with XP after all. Because I've had a relatively bad experience with it.

Orthos wrote:

I also don't not give people XP when they miss a session. If one person is missing they get NPC'd; two or more and session is cancelled.

Makes sense to me. I actually pointed out to the GM of the campaign I was ranting about above that one of the other players played my character when I wasn't there, and that he (the character) should get XP for it. GM's response was to laugh at me like I was stupid and say, "Look, you don't show up, you don't get XP - Period."

Maybe I needed to rant here to realize that I was in a lousy, neverending campaign. With a grouchy control freak for a GM. Thanks for the clearer perspective.

Okay...it sounds like your group, or at least the GM, is a jerk. Maybe it's time to find a new group.

I have my laptop at the game table, as a player...but I only use it to look stuff up. When not in use, I keep it closed and sitting on another table or extra chair or something. I agree with other players saying you should get the player a printed-out character sheet, plus an extra page/some cards or something with saving throws, attack/damage rolls and bonuses, spell information, and such, for quick reference.

Kobolds are probably my favourite. Ratfolk are cool, too. And the Ifrit. And Tiefling. And the Dhampir, too...Time to duck for cover, lol

firefly the great wrote:

less_than_vince wrote:

sorry for bad english

In my table, if you put a 7 in one of your mental stat, it will backfire all the time. try to buy a magic item at the listed price with 7 charisma. I double dare you.

Oh yeah, put your 7 in wisdom. No wonder you'r dominated each fight smartass.

So, what you're saying is, instead of just using any number of valid rules for character stat generation, you metagame incessantly to passive-aggressively attack the weakness of characters whose builds you don't approve of? And you're proud of this?

depend on the player. if you put an 8 to your intel to make a fun character, i have no problem. if you put an 8 to your intel with no roleeplay intention and only want to do max damage, yeah, i'll be proud to dominate you.

How do you determine if somebody dumps a stat to powergame, or to have a fun character? Why can't an optimized character be fun? Why would you be PROUD to make somebody's gaming experience suffer greatly because you don't like their playing style? WOuldn't it be more constructive to say 'I think we want different things from this game--you seem to want to optimize your character, while the rest of us want to play as more realistic characters who aren't min-maxed, could we meet each other halfway somehow?'

whatever happened to diff'rent strokes diff'rent folks.

Because some people have fun wrong? (Being sarcastic, not serious)

Pendagast wrote:

so boiling down 64 new posts. to: "exceptions exist" and "if a paladin makes a MISTAKE, and kills one of the exceptions, then this is a reason to fall, because there was a mistake made"

What part of WILLINGLY committing an evil act isn't understood here?

Honestly most of those 64 new posts appear to be related to the fact that the binary black and white nature of D&D and the Paladin in particular are kind of stupid.

Binary black and white? Since when, D&D and Pathfinder have nine alignments, and they're generally guidelines, not strict rules.

3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Yeah, I agree, but others on these boards have argued a paladin that isn't pleasant to everyone he meets will fall. Literally they tried the trap of, ugly fat princess you are a bodyguard for wants to know if she is pretty. If you lie, you break your code. If you tell the truth (she is an ugly spoiled brat) you hurt her feelings and have therefore hurt an innocent. You horrible human being, you should be nice to everyone paladin.

Are you... kidding? I really hope so, cuz if not, that's absolutely insane. A Paladin's code is not that temperamental. I'm rather confident that hurting someone's feelings is not quite the same as hurting an innocent, in the context of performing evil, and not even remotely close to causing a fall.

I don't know who thought that 'trap' up, but that's absurd.

I've heard plenty of stupid 'paladin traps' like that. In reverse of the 'wizard god confirmation bias' thing that happens sometimes, some GMs want to make the Paladin fall ASAP, apparently to 'prove' they suck, or take the fun out of the game, or something.

I feel it is appropriate in some circumstances. In my group we often find ourselves with just 4 people (3 players and 1 GM) and we all want to be able to play. A GM character is best played as a "Faceman" someone who has the charisma to gather information or to be the party's Diplomat or even the knowledge guy. He should be someone who buffs the party and helps out when need be but never outshines in combat. A GM character can help round out a party without forcing players to have to fill a niche for the group to survive.

I see where you come from, but I disagree on the 'face' part--I feel that the party's face(s) should be the players, unless the party is looking for hack-and-slash gameplay. If the GMPC is the 'face' of the party and does knowledge and diplomacy, then the GMPC is the focus of the out-of-combat diplomacy parts of the game; in the games I'm in, at least, those are fairly plentiful, and I personally would feel rather annoyed if the GM's character handled ALL the knowledge and diplomacy stuff.

I'm working on rolling a new character, but I'm having trouble narrowing down my character selection.

My rolls are:
9
17
13
17
15
13

The two ideas I'm looking at most are alchemist--either a kobold vivisectionist/preservationist, focusing on the sneak attack damage to make up for low strength, or an undecided race beastmorph, going into master chymist as early as possible.

I'm not trying for a perfectly-optimized character, but I want the character to be at least decent in combat.

It really all comes down to personal preference--some players like being the big good hero, other players prefer more neutral characters. I personally like both, though I prefer to be somewhere more neutral; I just like playing conflicted characters.

That said, the OP's story wasn't about people being non-heroic--it was about characters being a+!$+~#s. Players being a##%%$$s, too, if they'd agreed to be heroes. As was stated earlier, one cause of that COULD be they felt overshadowed by the Middle Earth setting, but still, sounds like they were trying to derail the campaign, not be merely not-heroes.