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Along those lines, one of my favorite magic items to drop on a party was a helm for a kobold barbarian made from the (partially) reanimated head of a dire chicken. The helm's paltry contribution to the character's AC was offset nicely by its poultry contribution to the wearer's situational awareness: When hidden enemies would draw near, the bizarre helm would unleash a deafening 'Bwak BWAK!' and swivel its beady little eyes towards the approaching threat ...
I've near heard of the Zeitgeist AP. That sounds interesting. Have you run anything in it, Thanael? Also, Krass: I'm right there with you on the paladin smacking. Always tons of fun. Keep in mind, though, that you can still twist the knife on moral issues with a predominantly evil party. Just because they're selfish doesn't mean that they're immune from the effects of horror. :) KH
If I may, I would love to post a small exerpt from an email about our CC campaign ... All that was part of the oracle's vision for Scene 1, Chapter 1, of Carrion Crown adventure 1. The oracle had to live with prophecies like that until she died (horribly) thanks to a vat of acid in adventure 2. Then, towards the end of adventure 3, the crusader was infected with the same horrible dream. Set up adventure 4 nicely, and also will be touched on again in 6 (although the players have no idea how)(yet). <snicker> Cheers, KH
I am in love with good roleplay, participating in the story, and having a great GM allow me the opportunity to create the foundation of my character with backgrounds that are now only 1-2 pages long. Snicker ... Curtis, you know darned well that it isn't the length of the backstory, it's the resonance of the design that counts. The motivations, hooks and vulnerabilities that give me (as GM) the opportunity to horrify, astound and delight you as your PC somehow manages to not die. :) Just so everyone knows, I am Bob the Monk -a.k.a Rio and have been raked over the coals by my fellow gamers @ Keil's table for my drama queen style of play for years. I do it for you Keil. I do it all for you! In the immortal words of Mr. Pratchet, "Pull the other one, it has got bells on." Truth be told, Curtis, you've come a long way since the Forgotten Realms days, and kudos to you for it! Haymen [Bard, RotTL] and Cornelius [Crusader/Oracle, CC] are both very solid, very crunchy designs. Heck, even your Barbarian/Scout combo from the Proto-Eberron campaign showed that you can put character over damage output when you want to. I like your suggestion of resurrecting the Dread Commando PrC from Heroes of Battle. I always wanted to do something with that and regret that we never got the chance. It's weak compared to PFRPG standard, but the concept behind it is delightful. It would really lend itself well to something in the Nirmathas/Molthune counterinsurgency struggle. I very much like the idea of going back and doing CotCT ... That one didn't sit well with me at first read (the desert chapter just seemed like it was on rails), but after my second and third read through, I can see a lot of opportunities for urban RP and desperate running battles. I wonder if we could convince Morgan to run that for us ... See you Saturday. Bring a spare character sheet ... "Bob" may need to make a cameo appearance. ;) KH
I'm currently DMing a home-made campaign in Isger called 'Crusade for the Chitterwood' ... The campaign takes a cue from the Northern Crusades, where the Teutonic Knights fought the Baltic people (Prussian tribes and Lithuanians) in a gruesome war. That sounds brilliant, Krass. Best of luck with it. I'm curious: are you planning to humanize the goblins over time to change the tone from a noble crusade to morally-bankrupt butchery? It sounds like you've got enough historical material to mine that you could make it very nuanced, and morally difficult for the players to slog through. At least, that's how I'd do it. Maybe even get a conflicted PC to try (and fail) to stop the madness, then defect to the opposition. That scenario is just begging for a paladin's fall. Heh heh heh ... Maybe I'll take some of your ideas and apply them to my on-going campaign :D Shoot, have at it! Lift as much as you'd like. If you'd like a sounding board for anything, let me know. KH
You absolutely can shift the building/army elements into the background in Kingmaker. ...The balancing point seems to be straddling between the PCs "Executive Orders" and getting bogged down in the endless minutiae of administration and red tape. Hmmm ... Makes sense! I'll have to go re-read some of those. I'd been considering having every player make 2+ characters ... one for the political side of the game and one for the cover ops/field duty side. That way, each players gets to enjoy both parts of the story without it seeming too contrived. Thanks! KH
Wow, just reading your write-up made me want to join in. My favourite part in any group story-telling venture is partially the character arc and sub-plots, but also how they come together, as the different characters come to understand each other. Hey, if you're in the Dallas area, c'mon by and try out for the cast! ;) At the start of the AP, I like to build a table that looks something like this: Player: Bob
The idea is to sketch the character arc as a general direction, then look for 'hooks' between PC arcs -- kind of like trying to braid rose bush stems. The good hooks allow two PCs to come into unexpected conflict, or for one to uncover a fragment of another PC's secrets. Done slowly, this allows PC 1 to get clue A, PC 2 to get clue B, and so on. Only after enough PCs compare notes with enough clues do we get a backstory or character arc reveal. I'll also leave some elements open for later development. In the Bob example (above), I knew that i wanted a Wuxia-style grand finale, so I drafted a supplemental ending for the AP. Post adventure 6, the party would have an unexpected conflict with Bob's PC's father who rejected him in favor of a devil-consort; after a cinematic fight in the royal court, the father's palace on an island would be destroyed by epic tidal wave. Other times, I'll have to abandon a sketched arc goal in favor of something tied to a PC's mid-AP evolution. In SD, we had a favoured soul (primary healer, primary diplomat) who was the catspaw for Cayden Callean's meddling in the SD plot. Halfway through the AP, the player decided to abandon the entire swashbuckler style and direction, in order to become a spell blaster. Fouled the main arc all to hell, so her revised character arc involved her god disavowing her. It was a dramatic moment, and it led to a painful atonement sub-arc. We don't talk in detail about the secrets and arc elements of each PC design during the story conference; each player pitches a race/class/role/hook idea. For example: Player 1: "We need a healer. How about a deranged assimar cleric of Nethys who feels compelled to balance out every HP healed with one inflicted on an innocent?" GM: "Interesting. How are you going to stay true to the 'balance' requirement during adventures 1 through 4 when the party is in an urban environment?" Player 1: "Point taken. I can't pull that off without inspiring a backlash from NPCs." Player 2: "Counter-proposal: I wanted to play up the growth and maturation angle for my PC, so what if we start with a pre-game relationship? I'll be your 'whipping boy;' every time you heal a party member, you beat my PC an equal measure. Over time, as I gain in power and confidence, I'll evolve from meekly accepting the pain to rejecting it, to eventually handing you your ascot after adventure 3-ish." And so on. I'll then get with each player one-on-one to flesh out their motivations, fears and secrets. In the above example, I'd also start sketching NPCs who would notice the whipping boy phenomenon, and would trigger long-term NPC antagonists, like inquisitors of justice, hardline Nethysians, etc. It's a TON of work on the front end, but it sure pays off over the course of an entire AP. Cheers, KH
I might suggest Kingmaker if only for the inter nation fighting and behind the scene actions. The DM may have the goal as your band of goblins trying to raise up a "puppet" government secretly loyal to the goblin cause. Maybe the Staglord and others have been funded by Nidalese agents in an effort to continue their Machiavellian plots around the globe. Interesting. Thanks, Hendelbolaf. We hadn't rejected KM out of hand. There's internal division within the players over how fun that might be. On the one hand, we have a hardcore Old School Gamer (OSG) who lusts after the city creation and large-scale army rules. On the other, we have the storytellers who can't accept the premise that the PCs (as lords of a new territory) would join an ST:TNG-style "away team" to go cleanse a haunted cave when they have people to do that for them. I like the idea of playing up the Brevoyan factions, adding more crunch to the story by playing up the cultural and idealistic differences between Issia and Rostland. I'm very much in favor of putting a Soviet spin on that nation, complete with a KGB-style secret police element keeping the seven great houses in line by keeping them focused on each other. Done right, that could give the whole adventure a 'Gorky Park' feel, which would be great ... I really enjoyed the first three Arkady Renko mysteries. Question: can you *do* Kingmaker effectively if you shift all the nation-building and grand army elements to the background, leaving the PCs in the foreground as covert ops types? I'm leaning towards 'yes,' but am not sure. Cheers, KH
Chapter 1 is awesome, but really only dribbles a few hints as to what's going on - you can condense the necessary information into a page or two. Don't let the players bog things down in minutae! Wow ... I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling confused by that AP opener. It's a great stand-alone tale. It's arguably my favorite in the AP, just for the 'desperate survival' feel. But it doesn't seem to 'fit' with the rest of the AP at all. Concur on dropping item creation and leadership feats. I've actually found that those have little place in *most* APs. The way I GM them, the pace is break-neck -- no time to stop and sell loot or re-arm, let alone craft anything. I tried to use J.J. Abram's pacing from his M.I. franchise pictures, where the heroes never get to catch their breath. That's not terribly fair to the PCs or to the designers, though. It means that the party consistently stays significantly below the wealth-by-level targets, and can be (at times) under-armed. On the other hand, being lean, depleted of resources, and desperate adds to the tension ... Which, in turn, leads to more memorable scenes. For CC, I had to engineer an unscripted stop at a logging town on the border between Lozeri and Ardeal to let the party dump loot ... but, in doing so, had to weave in NPC encounters that foreshadowed The Furrows and put an economic spin on the Whispering Way problem that would nudge the big reveal in adventure 6. Lots of work, but the way I figure it if you're going to spend an hour or more of table time on it, then someone's character arc or the main plot arc MUST be touched on, somehow. Have you run SS yet? The whole 'unifying the factions in the lost city' angle seems like a fetch quest more than a plot; go to the section, find the obstacle that prevents the occupants from allying with you, kill six moose, then make a Diplomacy check. If we were to take SS on, I'd like to make that whole sequence grittier, less certain, and less focused on obstacle-removal. Thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Cheers, KH
Serpents Skull seems better suited to the bend. Interfactional rivalries can go from cold to hot as they seek to attain a fantasy WMD in your version. Get the head, get the God. The factions are playing off against each other - and then of course there is the unexpected Sixth Faction near the end that the other factions have to band together against - IF they didn't wipe themselves out before the reveal... Thanks, Turin. I take your point. SS has the factions angle going for it throughout -- and you can have multiple factions represented by the PCs with conflicting simultaneous objectives. Do you think that SS might have more of an action-adventure feel to it? Adventures 4-6 (if I remember right) took place far enough outside the 'civilized' zones that it had more of a 'Heart of Darkness' feel ... I do like the idea of the factions exhausting themselves towards the end. Great way to turn an intrigue story into a desperate survival story where the revealed rivals have to cooperate to have any chance to survive. KH
I ran SD all the way through. Bloody fantastic, that one. It was the introduction to PFRPG for all the players. They were swept up by the grandeur of it. We started RotR and got just barely over halfway through when the DM moved out of state. We started LoF and, similarly, got one-third of the way through. The DM inserted eight (8) custom-designed side-adventures between #1 and #2, so that everyone was CL 10th by the time #2 started. Ambitious ... And then there's CC. We're one session away from reaching the halfway mark, and I intend to go hell-bent-for-leather to see it through to the end. I hadn't considered S&S until you mentioned it. The opening to the Daniel Craig '007' reboot immediately comes to mind. Interesting ... Muck about with the factions a bit and things could play out a lot like 1960s sub-Saharan Africa, a al 'Entebbe,' 'The Dogs of War,' 'Wile Geese,' et al. Neat! Thanks, tumbler. KH
G'day, all. I’m looking for some design and plotting advice. This isn’t fully fleshed-out, so there’s LOTS of room for improvement. My group is working though our fourth Paizo adventure path right now. We’re halfway done with Carrion Crown, and are beginning to discuss which one to attack next. We’re huge believers in crafting individual character arcs for each of the PCs that the GM can weave into the main plot. For example, our Varisian oracle in CC started receiving disturbing visions in Harrowstone Prison that foreshadowed the village of Illmarsh. Our party rogue had been a conscript archer in Ustalav during the Whispering Tyrant’s rise, and spent the centuries after Tar Barphon’s fall living as a ghoul before Professor Lorimar restored him to life and sanity. The idea is to get to the end of the AP and find that every character’s major and minor plot arcs were resolved as part of (or incidental to) the main storyline. This rewards the players for rich RP and for good character design. Further: a generic two-weapon ranger is dry and boring; you can kill the PC off and no one cares. Whereas, a deserter from the Great Crusade who is borderline psychotic with PTSD and is hunted by Iomedean inquisitors because of the military secrets she learned at the Worldwound is crunchy – you want to see what happens to this character as she wrestles with her (literal and figurative) demons. We want strong personalities, coherent motivations, and opportunities to drop unexpected antagonists into the AP so that the players are keyed up and jump at every sudden noise. When I take off the GM fez at the end of CC, I was thinking about going full-bore into Dreamscarred Press’s ‘Psionics Expanded’ line with a Blue (psionic goblin) cryptic (psionic rogue). For style, I wanted the flavor of the classic Cold War spy novels like Fleming, Le Carré and Forsythe. That is, something where every NPC might have a hidden agenda, and where plots and counter-plots were woven into everyday life. To justify both the race and the character arc elements, we sketched out a slightly different explanation for the Isgeri Goblinboood wars: ~ * ~ * ~ *~ The Goblinblood War had nothing to do with racial animosity between goblinkind and humanity. It was about economics … and cold-blooded politics. History teaches that the war started in 4,697 when a hobgoblin army advanced out of the Chitterwood and laid waste to an Isgeri way-station North of Logas. Few people know that the genesis of the war actually began fifteen years earlier in a conference room in Pangolais. The Nidalese government needed a proxy war that would tie up the military forces of their Eastern neighbors. Nidalese agents provocateur covertly funded and trained the hobgoblin tribes in the Chitterwood, making an army where none had existed before. Nidal’s message was compelling: if the goblinoids could quickly to seize the trade routes between Andoran, Molthune and Druma, they could then sue for peace before any outside power could effectively repel them – thereby creating a goblinoid homeland with guaranteed longevity as a fait accompli. Isger would continue on much as it had been, facilitating and profiting on overland trade, only with a different dominant race running things. The goblinoid war chiefs launched their assault and achieved most of their strategic objectives fairly quickly. Even the “three-sided compact” between Andoran, Cheliax and Druma couldn’t counter the goblins’ early military gains. The goblinoids enjoyed every tactical advantage, including short supply lines, occupation of the region’s dominant terrain features, and greater numbers than their opponents could field. The Hobgoblin field marshal was preparing to announce reasonable terms for a general cease-fire when her spies brought her a grim warning: the Nidalese were preparing to betray the cause. Pangolais had made an arrogant mistake, borne of simple racial condescension. Goblins are short-sighted, foolish and easily manipulated. Hobgoblins, however, are not. When Nidalese assassins moved to decapitate their proxy’s leadership, they vanished. The Hobgoblins’ revolutionary council had always been cunning and paranoid. They distrusted their erstwhile benefactors from the start, and had cynically dispatched their own agents into Nidal to seek out evidence of duplicity as a simple matter of operational security. Disguised goblins and their allies learned the truth behind the so-called “Isgeri war of liberation” and uncovered the Nidalese plot to assassinate the new Isgeri government at the close of the war. Caught between enemies on the field and enemies in their camp, the marshal did what no one would have suspected: she ceded the battlefield. The goblionoids didn’t lose the Goblinblood wars: they disengaged. Today, 70-some years after the “end” of the overt war, very little has changed. The goblinoids still want Isger for a homeland. Mora than that, they want Nidal to bleed. A cold war has been underway between Nidalese and Isgeri agents for seven decades. All across Avistan, everywhere that Nidal has a shadowy hand in another nation’s business, disguised and lethal goblinoid agents are actively opposing them from the shadows. The goblinoids will rise again. First, though, there are accounts to be settled … ~ * ~ * ~ *~ This premise gives me several character arc options, including strong motivations to follow the main AP plot: the Blue is motivated to join the party because he thinks that it will counter a Nidalese covert action (whether that’s true or not is up to the GM). The stealthy, rogue-ish Blue is included to distrust most everyone the party meets. The GM can drop in RP and combat encounters during the gaps in the AP (e.g., when the party goes to sell loot, the stable master in town becomes a Nidalese covert operative, etc.). The GM can drop clues and red herrings into odd places in order to make the party paranoid. Moreover, the idea of a global cold war between Nidal and Isger justifies both the PC and the character arc’s villains to be nearly anywhere, and to have a good reason to come into conflict wherever they meet. I think the idea has legs. I’m not sure which AP it would fit into best, though. Also, what it would take to weave the other PCs’ arcs into the overall story without it becoming distracting. That’s where I’m soliciting feedback. What do you think, fellow gamers? KH
We've been huge fans of the Old Margrave eldritch forest, and have unofficially incorporated it into the wilds of Varisia for our Pathfinder adventures. It's thrilling to finally see the new campaign setting come to market. My only regret is that I can't justify taking a week off work to pour over the book ... Well done, everyone who helped bring this project to life.
This is our attempt at finishing that campaign since we all fell in love with our characters and didnt want to see this end in such a way.CC Well, this ought to be interesting. Looking forward to how it plays out (no pun intended). K
So... What happened? It was ... in a word ... awesome. Turned out that the class was as amused by the predicament as the rest of the staff was. We showed the previously-mentioned gibbering unicorn at the beginning of the event and got some snickers. Once we got through teaching the blocks that explained the "pseudo-matrix organizational structure" that caused all of the brouhaha, the Raging Purple Unicorn thing became a running joke. One of the instructors started sketching angry, horned, pony-like creatures (that couldn't possibly have resembled anyone's trademarked insipid toy line ...). As the suggestions started to roll in for new names for the program, a few gamers started to reveal themselves. One guy even suggested that the troubleshooters should be called "warlock 1s" since their instruction got them a continual-use power ("shut up and reboot") with no real understanding of how it functioned (much like 3.0's warlock basic class). That, in turn, spawned a long discussion about whether being a novice IT guy was more like a wizard (because you have to study dusty tomes)(by O'Riley) or more like a cleric (because no matter how many times you've done something, you have to call the Help Desk every time to remember how to do it again -- just like praying for spells).
Client Systems Technician = Hacker? Not necessarily, no. They're meant to be the folks around the office with enough tech savvy to figure out why the printer isn't printing when it's out of paper. Not exactly hacker territory. ...you mean you want a purple Unicorn...set on fire? I'd accept that. Or just a seriously pissed off unicorn. Would you prefer a Dog with a carry handle wound up its butt? Hmmm ... tempting, but no.
...t it's flowing rainbow locks tell you this is also a beast who thoroughly enjoys the scent of toner. I believe the repetition of the floating "unicorn" text represents the creature's determination and single-minded pursuit of glorious combat. In ten minutes, I will walk into a conference room to chair the weekly trouble-ticket wrap-up meeting. This unicorn ... and this glorious text ... will go with me. All will know the diaphragm-spasming joy that was Velcro Zipper's post. Huzzah!
I know I got distracted while finishing the post ... what we started as "Raging Purple Unicorns" morphed into "Flaming Purple Unicorns." Whoops ... Bleep it ... we can go either way with the idea. Heck, combine the two. Go nuts. No matter what, it'll horrify some folks from the head office something fierce.
If I had any artistic talent at all I would be all over this! The "ultra-high-ups" are probably just exercising their authority for no apparent reason, but purple unicorns? Awesome! Though I would expect these same guys to come back saying "we really didn't mean ANYTHING else..." still, run with it while you can! Yeah, that's how we expect it to play out. It's taken three full-time employees the better part of the day to run the political gauntlet on this irritation. As best we can tell, the "offending term" is tied in to some long-term political campaign that involves shifting personnel between departments on a national scale. WHATEVER. So far, the local team here is hysterically behind the Raging Purple Unicorn idea. It's been a running stream of pithy comments all day long. I'm loving it.
Off-topic is about the only way to categorize this. Next week, our organization starts teaching a new class of Tier 1 technical support agents. This is an additional duty assigned to existing employees; because there aren't enough IT people to go around, it's been tradition since the early 90s to train and accredit a person or two in each office to handle minor annoyances (patch management, printer jams, etc.). Every few years, the Aloof Headquarters re-names the program ... it's been called an "Information Technology Manager," a "Workgroup Manager," a "Client Support Administrator" ... and a month ago it was changed to a "Client Systems Technician." Whatever; same job. This morning, one of the ultra-high-up types called down to our campus and issues quite the unexpected thrashing over the user of the (brans new) name "Client Systems Technician." Supposedly, no one is allowed to use that name. Ever. We can re-name our in-house technicians "anything else." Anything? WHAT?! You're got to be freaking kidding me ... In a fit of pique, I suggested to the team that we ought to re-name these folks the "Raging Purple Unicorns" (since we couldn't guarantee that everyone would have a high enough Int score to qualify as a 3rd level wizard). No one caught the gaming joke, but (much to my astonishment), folks loved the "Raging Purple Unicorns" idea. Et voila: "Raging Purple Unicorns" it is. We just finished frantically changing all of the course materials so that we've expurgated all traces of the FORBIDDEN TERM. That's done. Now, we're looking around for a decent picture to throw on the front of the book that captures the ridiculousness of it all. If anyone is feeling especially bored this weekend, whip up a graphic of what you think a "Flaming Purple Unicorn" looks like (just shy of R rated, please). Zap it over. If it's especially hysterical (and original), I'll find a way to express our organization's appreciation. Cheers, KH
So, did you ever get an answer to this question? I'm trying to find the same information now that I have a place to insinuate Hamatulatsu into a PFRPG game. I'd like to know how the PCS material and the feat specifically apply under the final version of the rules. Anyone?
There will certainly be some enthusiastic note-taking involved, but it's nothing that an advanced player can't manage with a reasonable effort and some applied focus. Just like any character with multiple, variable buffs going in a complicated fight ... All that aside, the Inquisitor strikes me as the "bard that doesn't suck" that I've always wanted to play. Apologies in advance to all the accomplished bards out there; I just find the "sing a song to influence a roll" to be a bit too Sesame Street for my tastes. The Inquisitor, on the other hand, gives me the chance to put a character on the field that acts like a real spy or agent-provocateur. More "modern Bond" than classic, to be sure. I get the skills, reasonable chance to contribute in melee, some utility spell casting, and no singing. Couldn't be happier. We'll see how the test goes this coming weekend.
I'd honestly rather see a Full BAB and take out a few of the buffs granting +att bonus if necessary, or bump up their spell level. BAB affects CMD and gives you more Iteratives, as well as for Feat Pre-Reqs. Unless STR-based melee Inquisitors are going to be given "the bird", a d10 HD is a pretty nice thing to have. Would it be any better to drop or tone-down the tactical feats in favor of rogue-style precision damage buffs? Perhaps not sneak attack (per se; to avoid stepping on the rogue's role) but something similar to simulate the targeted application of divine justice? Though Ranged weapons are certainly a strong option for Inquisitors currently (how Bane works currently favors Ranged Weapons b/c Rapid Fire, etc all gain full bonus vs. 2WF) ...I don't think the INTENT was for that to be the 'favored approach' as much as an ENABLED approach by having Weapon Proficiency. Oof. Never tripped to that. That makes a glaring amount of sense now that you bring it up. I'm looking forward to testing an Inquisitor in a game this weekend, and I wondered during character generation just how much effort to put into ranged (say, concealed sniping) versus melee. I love the class and really want to see it succeed. Still needs a tweak or two, though.
My group of PCs needed a little help ... so I thought I'd have an inquisitor give them a hand. Your description of the Inquisitor's performance is quite useful. Thanks for sharing it. I'm testing an Inquisitor in a PFRPG game this coming weekend, and I've been worried about the in-combat effectiveness of the class. I thought about the painful wait for the bane ability, and wondered if the poor fellow wouldn't suffer from entry-level-wizard's disease until he reached CL 5th. I went for Inquisitor for the RP angle ... the game is to be set in rural Galt, amidst all the hysteria surrounding a new "revolutionary government." I pitched my DM on a spy character -- sort of a cross between the "Scarlet Pimpernel" and "Simon Templar." Against-type, high-Cha dwarf spy, with a story arc focused on smuggling nobles out of Galt before they get fed to "Madame Justine." Given the story, the Inquisitor class was perfect for the part. Better than any bard or rogue, and rich with potential. Now I just have to pull it off. More to follow as the test commences.
I do not mean this as an attack on your ideas, but I could not imagine a monk any more powerful than they already are. Knowing CuttinCurt and his style of play, I submit that he very well can imagine a more powerful monk. In fact, I can readily see him insisting on playing it, much to my dismay as a DM. :) That said, there are several things that I like about kyrt-ryder's proposed changes. Using the monk's Wis bonus in place of his strength is an excellent idea. It makes sense, is internally consistent with the class design, and (most importantly) isn't overpowering. I'm highlighting this last bit because -- again, spoken as a DM -- I loathe monks. I hated them in 3.0, again in 3.5, only slightly less in PFRPG and will probably dislike them in D&D 8.0 when we're all living like the Jetsons. Why? Because (IMHO) they're bloody overpowered compared to normal front-line types, and it frustrates the heck out of DM. You can either build a threat that will challenge the monk (and wipe up the rest of the party) or build something balanced for the party (and watch the monk sneer at it from behind a flurry of blows). Case in point: when I last DM'd Paizo's Second Darkness, the party front man was a monk. By the time we reached about halfway through the Adventure Path, the monk could regularly move all the way across the maps in one round, and would linger in front of the main villain doing five attacks per round thereafter. He was impervious to ranged attacks and area effect spells. When compared to all the other characters in the party, the monk had all the striking power of a fighter, all the slipperiness of a rogue, and the effective armor of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The only thing he couldn't do was launch a fireball, and that's only because I wouldn't let him put skill points into use magic device. I swear, if I never hear "I blow a ki point on ..." again, it'll be too soon ... Several times, I made the innocent player pull out both the PFRPG Player's Guide and his character sheet to count everything up. Dex bonus, Wis bonus, ring of protection, ki power, fighting defensively, +1 robe-of-the-mall-security-cop ... even though everything he had was textbook-legal and cash-value appropriate for a character of his level, he could always manage to come up with a half-dozen attacks and a 40+ AC (with evasion!) at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile. the sorcerer in the back sported a 17 AC, the cleric a 19 with a 70% chance of missing with her primary weapon, and the rogue got one attack/round that missed about half the time. The monk irritated the other players so much that they once had his character hung in effigy (I awarded bonus XP for clever use of a G.I. Joe figure in pre-game setup). Am I being a bit facetious? Yes. I am. I gleefully admit it. But not entirely. There has to be a middle ground for monks, where they can contribute reasonably and cost-effectively without taking over every other party role (save for spell-slinger). I really hate it when one build always takes center-stage, no matter how much you try to sculpt an encounter to bring attention on a different character. It undermines the cooperative spirit of team-play. For the record, I did finally take my Second Darkness monk down a peg. I had to throw a Swordsage (from ToB:Bo9S) at him in a one-on-one duel. Everything else in the adventure was just mulch under his sandals. So, yeah ... I;d just as soon ratchet the monk down several pegs, rather than power him up. Just my two cents, but ... YMMV.
Much praise to Set and Herald for this discussion. It's got a lot going for it. If I may, I'd like to expand on two of the ideas that they presented: First, although we've spent a lot of time arguing the merits of the psion as an arcane blaster replacement, we haven't dealt much at all with the possibilities inherent in the psionic character as a melee-focused character. I submit that if you broaden your scope of psionics from spell-like effects (e.g., telepathy and fireballs) to include the various martial arts stories, there's a strong place for psionic races, classes and powers that deviate significantly from the arcane-blaster model. For example, a character who emulates a different class (say, a Wilder or Divine Mind who wears armor, wields martial weapons effectively, makes good use of non-psionic feats, etc.) is effectively no different in-game from any other "normal" build up until the point where they use their hidden psionic "edge" to pull off something amazing. For example, a psionicist finds herself outclasses in a sword duel, so he swift-manifests offensive prescience and turns the tide by attacking and reacting impossibly fast. Or a psionicist surrounded in a packed brawl manifests a power and a ring of enemies is suddenly thrown back by a ring telekenetic force. These can be exciting and dramatic tools for giving your players a way to overcome their foes in-game in a flavor-rich manner. You could accomplish much the same with spells, SLAs or SNAs, but (I submit) the psionic way is more exciting. If you base your character on their spells or powers as their primary fighting capability, they'll always favor that (i.e., a wizard can shoot you with a crossbow, but will plan to attack with spells, wands and scrolls whenever possible). If the characters have a fair ability play through most battles like a fighter, cleric or rogue and then use psionics to opportunistically seize victory, I think that makes the game much more exciting. It adds mystery, surprise and RP potential to nearly any desperate encounter. The fine folks at Dreamscarred Press have taken this idea and run with it in their design for the "Morphean" basic class (buy it at Paizo's storefront)(seriously). This 20 level psionicist is effectively a haunted creature who is able to use his/her psionic (telepathic) energy to liberate the nightmares that every creature can experience via dreaming with a touch. Just by caressing the target, the Morphean can unleash all manner of physiological damage and fear effects (e.g., shaken, panicked, paralyzed, etc.) in their opponents. This is a really exciting way to tap into the heart of the psionic power source (mind powers, dreams etc.) and be effective in a party without ever stepping in to the arcane or divine spellcasters' territory. The second point I'd like to expand on is the idea of all this psionic talent and energy lurking hidden in the general population. This presents the DM with a wonderful story booster. Giving the players a sound in-game reason to keep their psionic power(s) low key makes them all the more memorable and exciting when they do finally come on stage. As an in-game example of this, I needed to put an NPC healer into a Ravenloft-style side quest for 14th level PCs. Rather than a stock divine caster, I put a Wilder in the story with the Life Mantle (mantled wilder variant from Mind's Eye). The NPC only had two moments on center-stage: when she manifested claws of the beast to escape a bad guy, and when she used psionic revivify to bring back a slain PC in the last three rounds of fighting. Using the psionic race, class and powers made a huge impression on my players. Of all the nasty things I did to their characters in that side quest, they remembered that exotic and dramatic NPC the most -- primarily because they had thought of her as a stock (normal) NPC until the very end of the adventure, when her hidden talents came to the fore. As a second example, I brought a multi-class psion into a game in the rogue role for an established party, and used his powers and feats to subtly augment his archery for three character levels. The character's power source and not-quite-right way of doing things became a significant in-game motivator for most of the other players, which led to several rich RP scenes and a few horrifying psionic monster encounters. I contend that in both of these examples, a conventional basic class character would have had to work three times as hard to get the same dramatic effect on the party. A little psionics can serve as a wonderfully powerful and rich highlight -- when applied sparingly. Hopefully, the PFRPG guys are still reading this thread. If you are, please take these ideas into consideration: 1. Don't restrict your application of psionics exclusively to the arcane-blaster role in the party;
2. Dig deep into the story potential of the power source itself to give us exotic, enticing character paths and augments that we can use to enhance characters arcs inside otherwise conventional adventures. Thanks for listening. Cheers, KHu
This is a phenomenal spin on incorporating the psionics rules -- any psionics rules, old or new -- into Golarion. Wonderful work, Herald. Bravo! By playing to the power source itself as a thing of mystery and contention, you give GMs and players alike tons of ready-made plot hooks to weave into their stories. This makes the rules, races and classes more enticing for hard-core role players, even if the actual game mechanics turn out to be at parity or underpowered compared to the base classes. I just went back and re-read all 703 previous posts in this thread (it's been a really bad day at work), and I think that this issue may be at the heart of many of the posters' complaints: when you get past the "nova controversy," you see an awful lot of people who gravitate towards the XPH and the third-party psionics books specifically because they introduce a new, exotic and appealing option for the player who's jaded with the classic standards. If the PFRPG design team keeps this in mind, I suspect that the resulting psionic product will be warmly received by the community. KHu
... Myself, I tend to run meatgrinder adventures with several encounters per day and no recourse for the party to retreat and rest without failing to meet the adventure objective (in other words, no 15-minute adventuring day), so I've never had a problem with Nova psions breaking the game. Apologies for being late in responding, but this is -- I submit -- a critical point. Like Disciple of Sakura, I've found that the 'meat grinder' approach works extremely well for inculcating new tactics and perspectives in a party that might otherwise be inclined to "nova" in the face of the enemy. With proper enforcement of in-game pressure, the player who chooses to "empty their magazine" in the first firefight will quickly find their character eliminated. I'm particularly fond of apply cinematic effects in such encounters ... making the player run in panic from an enemy that they can no longer affect, and that intends to toy with them before killing them. Hold the players accountable for their actions in-game, and they'll either learn to conform to your expectations, or they'll self-terminate. Either way, it solves the DM's problem. -KHu
For what it's worth ... I love psionics. Always have, since 1st edition. I agree with most everyone that dislikes the mercurial and confusing mechanics, the inconsistencies, the pale imitation of standard classes, etc. The XPH finally hit a comfortable balance for me, and I've used it enthusiastically since it came out -- to include PCs, NPCs and concepts in Pathfinder adventures. This has made for a lot of stress. I recently dropped out of a group after two years worth of play over the whole "nova psion" argument. All that passionate investment of time and intellect we've seen in this thread is WAY too familiar ... I finally quit a game when I was told my Bard 2/Psion 8 was "too powerful" to play alongside traditional paladins and clerics. That DM couldn't make an argument based on math (BAB, PP, damage dice, etc.) or on game disruption (I averaged les than one useful action per encounter -- the rest of the time, I failed SR/PR challenges, missed the target, etc.). In fact, my character's inclusion was a running joke: he was SO combat ineffective that I would have been better off playing an Expert 10 (Patent Attorney). Despite all that, I loved the character and the ideas that drove him. Why? Because of what the psionic aspect of his nature did for his essential character, story hooks and motivations. That's what psionics is for me: the idea that some folks have the peculiar and terrifying ability to manifest effects through focused willpower ... effects that are outside of the conventional arcane and divine magic systems. They suffer for it, are persecuted for it, and occasionally get to make the other players admit "that was pretty cool" ... If the core concept behind psionics is that the manifester is making something happen via thought, then that's the angle I recommend the designers take up: make the manifestation of powers something that any PC can elect to pursue (with the right training, exposure to strange radiation, etc.) providing he/she is willing to pay a terrible cost that may be involved. More on that in a second. Further, I'm very taken by the idea of psionics being unpredictable. Unlike nearly everyone else's posts that I've read thusfar, I actually *like* wilders (in concept, if not in execution). The unpredictability of their manifestations makes them exciting. A 3rd level fireball is always exactly the same 3rd level fireball, and there's effectively no "cost" to the caster for using it (assuming he/she knows how to aim). For the wizard, it's like typing a memo; for the wilder, every blast is like Russian Roulette. Consider this mental model: if arcane casters learn (academically) how to employ fantastic energies that exist independent of their body, and divine casters beseech their patron dieties/forces for a loan of fantastic energies that exist independent of their body, then psionic manifesters employ fantastic, unstable, wondrous energies that spring from their own body, from the immediate environment or even from unknown power sources ... perhaps intruding upon arcane matricies or "stealing" divine blessings, or "robbing" fonts of power in the world, or tapping an extraplanar creature without its permissin. Manifesting, then would become "casting outside the box." Such daring acts would demand a great deal of risk and the threat of backlash, but could be spectacular (when they work well) and have awful consequences (when the original source of the power figure out what happened to it). Implementation suggestions to fit in Pathfinder: 1. All manifesters (regardless of source; class, feat, psi-like ability) share the psychic enervation risk (XPH pp 30-31) or something similar to it (e.g., fatigued, shaken, scorched, etc.). The act of manifesting a power carries a risk that is always proportional to the strength of the power being manifested. Low-level powers are easy; high-level ones are dangerous. This imposes pragmatic self-limitation. 2. All manifesters can execute a power or ability (regardless of enervation, above), but never know just how it'll manifest. The listed cost per PP or slot defines the minimum level of effect; the power may surge on its own (say, xx% change) and may change energy types, special effects, etc. So, a psion manifesting a 3 pp energy ray may actually unleash a more powerful blast than she intended, and the actual energy type will be random. This opens all manifestations up to a chance of being a wonderful (but very, very rarely harmful) surprise. 3. All manifestation requires a proportional investment of essential "self" in order to function. In simple terms, it costs the PC some XP to manifest each and every power: say, 1 X the pp cost for a low-cost game, the pp squared for a normal game, and the pp cubed for a high-cost game. This represents the manfester wrenching out his own life-essence and converting it into a power. Not only is it dramatic (like the fictional Dragonlance references), but it introduces another automatic governing system: the player has to ask herself before every round "is this encounter/story/combat worth the price I'd have to pay?" 4. All manifesters have the ability to convert life energy (XP, HP, HD, spell slots, etc) into power -- regardless of whether the life energy comes from within themselves (like over-channeling) or from nearby others (like blighting). Depending on the manifester's level, ability, skill, or training, they might not even be able to control which source actually provides the power (e.g., accidentally draining a fallen enemy of its last HP, or an ally of an ongoing magical buff, etc.). 5. Some (class-specific?) manifesters have the ability to emulate arcane and/or divine spells -- not actually using the arcane or divine power sources, but imperfectly copying the effects. This would open up all the regular spells lists as potential "psionic powers," just drawn from a totally different power source. All I ask, respectfully, is that y'all chew on these ideas for a few minutes. Set aside all the "points-versus-slots" and "who's more powerful" arguments for a spell and concentrate on the flavor of the idea: I believe that psionics might appeal to a lot more people if its essential nature had less to do with the individual powers, feats, classes or races, and had much more to do with the wild, barely-controlled, always-at-a-cost aspect of power that's wrenched out of the world or out of one's self by an act of focused will. The Paizo writers are doing a fantastic job, and I greatly respect the body of work. I know y'all will do a great job, no matter how this argument gets resolved. Best of luck. Cheers, KHu |
