Kayland's page

Kayland wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

DocShock wrote:

Fair Enough. I tend to think power imbalance is only relevant if it's strong enough to interfere with someones ability to have a good time. In our game, with these classes, that was never the case.

That's great. I've been the Rogue when it was the case. Not so fun. And not due to optimized characters either.

DocShock wrote:

If you'd like to see rogues or fighters buffed, great, I fully support you, but I disagree deeply with others who claim that there is "literally no reason to play a rogue".

But see, that's not a condemnation or a statement you can't play one. It's a statement that

"Whatever you want to do with a Rogue, there's another class that can do it better."

That's it. And it does indeed mean there's basically no reason to play one beyond wanting to write 'Rogue' on your character sheet or desiring to play 'hard mode'.

Back again...work lull. Maybe I'm missing something...and I undoubtedly am as I haven't spent countless hours crawling through archetypes and feats etc. But if your character concept that you want to play as a sneak with sick counter attacking precision damage, trap circumvention, elite scouting skills, enhancing your abilities with low level enhancement spells like true strike, not to mention the utility of hampering foes with dispels and stat drains all on top of being the Face character of the group with skill points to spare....how the heck do you do all that with another class and make it even better? BTW...I generally do not like class dipping...I find it doesn't make a lot of sense from a character background standpoint unless an RP element happened in the adventure.

I'm not trying to argue here...I REALLY don't know. Maybe that's one of the problems here...people not knowing the incredible in-depth knowledge that one would need to accomplish these things.

As a one word answer: Alchemist.

How about we stop being glib and snooty and actually answer the legitimate question with a true answer please. Stating a class and not showing how they accomplish all the things I asked for isn't doing anything to help those that want to know.

Face it, there are simply two major types of RPG gamers and this question obviously hits at the crux of it.

To the OP's question.

All the time. We're all in our 40s and have played RPG's for fun for 30+ years. Why change now. We have not ever been nor will we ever be a group of gamers that run spreadsheets to fully optimize what we do in order to "win". Nor are we ever likely to play with those type of people. So playing a group that consists of a Monk, Rogue, Fighter, and throw in 2 other classes considered less than awesome is fine with us.

This game is supposed to be about having fun...so that's what we focus on. To answer someone's question about if there are three options to get your concept down...why not take the obvious best option...it's because it's not that obvious or simple to people who don't spend time number crunching. If the options are "Class A"...or "Class B with Archetype C combined with Feats X, P, R and Trait's 47 and XRF#2"...guess what...we're going with Class A.

Again this comes down to what is fun and what we consider to be fun. Getting together and roleplaying to us is fun. Number crunching, min-maxing, optimizing, and overall trying to think of ways to break the system in order to achieve a sense of victory...is by no means fun for us. If that means an AP is too difficult because we didn't bother to make ourselves into gods...gee...we simply tone it down and keep having fun.

Remember when people played different classes simply because they sounded fun?

It's very very doable. It really depends on what you what like to do in combat and what you mean by "hold your own". You won't be a toe to toe front liner...but there's a myriad of things you should be able to accomplish in those regards.

Another route to do this would be to use the bard with one or two specific archetypes. Going Bard with the Dawnflower Dervish archetype for example would make you a very capable fighter with powerful self buffs and still have the versatile performance of the Bard class to allow you to branch out your skills effectively for the "Face" portion of what you're looking for.

Again though, Rogue really does do the job nicely. One of the things you might see though, is that rogues are not considered a "great" class in Pathfinder as there are many other classes that can do the job as well as they do with more added benefits. I don't let that discourage me though, as unless you're with a bunch of people pushing the limits of what Pathfinder brings then you're not going to feel that you're falling behind.

I encourage you to look through all the free PRD rules archives here on the site to help you look through all available classes and archetypes to help you fully flesh out what you want to accomplish. AGain though, you are not wrong in your initial gut instinct that you can build a rogue quite easily to fulfill what you want.

Maybe it's just me...but isn't anyone else worried about how we keep getting these new classes that push the envelope of being broken while Iconic classes like Rogue and Monk wallow in obscurity to the fact that nobody plays them anymore because most consider them non-viable in anything but a hugely heavy RP campaign?

So...one of my gaming groups recently learned that we're going to be playing Council of Thieves. I was hoping that people who have played it before might be able to supply a SPOILER FREE run down on what types of classes and races (or combos there of) would be most beneficial or enjoyable. Not to mention any specific personality traits or characteristics that would lend itself well to this particular AP.

Subsequently...any key things that should be avoided would also be of great benefit. For instance if an Elven Paladin of Sarenrae just would NOT fit at all...please by all means let us know. Additionally...if an Inquisitor of Bob <---- fake god, would be a great thing to blend into the story...awesome, please let us know.

I'm asking this because where most of us have been gaming for a long time...our old GM sadly passed away. Now...off more than a year away...all of us have decided to get back together to game again and one of us finally decided to jump into the GM chair. Since he has never really GM'd before...we would all like to make this as smooth as possible for him (and us) by being able to craft characters that will easily be able to blend into the AP's story.

We're all well established gamers as well as a few of us being excellent roleplayers as well (aka...not just dice tossers) so if anyone even has a recommendation for personalities and motivations that would be particularly hilarious or fun...shout those out too...I'm sure we can be convinced to even give write-ups about it all for people's enjoyment.

I thank everyone ahead of time for any help. To additionally clarify...all classes/races I do believe are viable out of any official Paizo publication...so don't feel like it needs to be limited to something out of the core book. All we ask...is please keep the recommendations spoiler free! (Recommending a Paladin of Bob who specializes in smite is spoiler free...giving an explanation on exactly why it's recommended - because of evil doers susceptible to smite in book 2...would not be). Thank you again!

Well...don't really know what to say about this. Oddly enough when I decided to log in today and vote...what do you know...my item was actually in the first pairing. I'm still wondering if that was an oddly designed trick?

Anyway, I was disappointed to see the formatting changed in my description section. On submission it had a couple of small paragraph breakups, however, on screen it showed as one block of text. I guess I'm just hoping people won't roll their eyes at a text block. Oh well. Best of luck to everyone...as a first time entrant and voter I must say it's an enjoyable process to read through everyone's submissions...even if a fair amount leave me shaking my head heh.

Thank you for the fun, Paizo.

A buck eight nine? I wholly support DeathQuaker's desire not to drink from Starbucks.

Well...gave it the old college try and submitted one. Not that I remember college...too long ago :)

Again, best of luck to everyone.

Totally bottomed out in ratings once again falling off by a huge .6 from the previous ratings and a 24% drop....in other words....get used to this being the one and only season.

As much as I'm enjoying the show and like its longterm potential and possibilities....I'm afraid if it doesn't stop dropping viewership here soon, it's not destined past this year.

Bebop
Ghost in the Shell
Bubblegum Crisis - both new and old versions
One Piece
Fairy Tail
Sword Art Online
Baccano
Soul Eater
FMA - both versions
Lodoss War
Black Lagoon
Ergo Proxy
Appleseed
Ninja Scroll
Stein's Gate
Blood
Samurai Champloo
GunXSword
Evangelion
Trigun
Darker than Black
Slayers
Panty and Stocking

....so much good stuff out there regardless of your particular taste.

Did anyone seriously rework Aldern's mansion in the Skinsaw Murders? It seems....beyond severely harsh with the constant saves or lose stats. I could see my players going into two rooms...looking at me...giving me the finger and razing the place to the ground while just walking away from the A.P.

I was thinking about changing the Universal haunts to not be save/drains and instead just impart information combined with some short term effect...a set number of rounds of being nauseous etc. After all they're still too low at that point to be walking around with numerous ways to get rid of stat loss.

At the same time...that works for any melee based class...fighter, monk, rogue, ranger (non-bow oriented)...and any caster class with range obviously falls apart once gaps are closed. I tend to find almost everyone being fairly equally balanced.

I am constantly amazed in your thread not only by the quality and fun of the roleplaying...but the oddly high level of innate caution and calculation that also goes into things. (so far at least). The constant use of detect magic and detect evil to find the scarecrow ghouls at max range etc. I've seen several times where they've done this to obviously good effect. Meanwhile I'm quite sure my group would have whistled right on up and gotten a good smacking there as well as at the Misgivings. I'm planning on making one of the ghouls or 2 tied down to their scarecrow crosses (or whatever they're called) and struggle to get out. I'll tie that up with the two infected humans who have also been placed out there weakly struggling. It would amuse me to know end to hear one of my players go "hey uh...Tim....that one with your sword in its gut doesn't appear to be too undeadish". Might be a little cruel...but would also help enact a little caution :D

I 100% agree with you Tangent.

As to when did it become acceptable? Unfortunately it became acceptable thanks to the generation gap near as I can tell. When the younger generation (from me anyway) grew up and started gaming...it influxed an entire generation who grew up on instant gratification thanks to, among other things, the internet and tech that allowed this to happen.

If you never knew what it was like to go without...because you never had to due to instant availability and answers...then you can't expect people to want to do that in an environment where the goal is to have fun. Some of us oldies had to deal with the adage of wanting the cake and eating it too. The younger generation (through no fault of their own, times change) gets their cake in 7 different combinations for each member, takes a bite, sends it back and gets a different one in under 30 minutes all at a press of a button. Just makes me glad that everyone in my gaming group is over 35.

It doesn't work for me, I exclude them from my game. I simply feel that don't fit and makes little sense to me. In a world with magic there is no real need to develop a gun as spells do the equal job. And there can't be some disconnect to argue that the people who could and would make guns would do so because they didn't have the capacity to learn magic....as it requires an exceptional amount of intelligence to make such a weapon which is the only requirement to learn spells in the first place.

For those that like them...more power to you. For those like me...it is incredibly easy to take them out. No harm done on either side.

I prefer roleplay to dice rolling.

I can't stand people who min max characters.

Anything that takes away from standard fantasy play to introduce technology or planet hopping should be burned for heresy (that includes you Mr. Gunslinger).

I greatly preferred 4th ED to 3.5....simply because 4th was balanced as opposed to the league of trolls who played 3.5 in an attempt to ruin every game through supplements that broke the game more and more with every release. You're a hero because of your actions.....not because you're running around playing class/spell combinations that make you a god.

Any GM that uses grapple more than once in a blue moon...should be banned due to the horrendous rules lawyering that tends to surround it.

I find it curious that so mean people seem to really, really like the Reign of Winter AP. No offense to the people who worked hard on this...I won the first one at a con earlier this year. I was completely turned off by the world hopping...and even more when I read about killing Rasputin...tanks etc.

It's also one of the main reason why the Numeria Iron Gods has no interest for me. I'm an old purist at heart...I don't like things intruding on my Fantasy elements. Giant robots, spaceships and world hopping etc just don't seem to fit for me and I think it pulls you out of the Pathfinder Fantasy element.

From people who have played in it...am I being too harsh? Or is it simply that it is most likely not my cup of tea and I should stick those APs that are more standard fantasy world fare? I'm new to Pathfinder as a whole, and Reign of Winter seemed to get some of the best reviews since Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne...yet my Fantasy is for Fantasy only brain seems to be having an incredibly difficult time merging the concept.

I should point out I have only read the first book of the AP. Again...no offense to anyone...is this most likely a case of "these APs are obviously no for you"...or am I missing a broader stroke to this and the future Iron Gods AP and should give them more of a chance?