Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.
I have played in all the Warhammer 40k games, except Rogue Trader. I find them fun, but deadly. Depending on which game you play, changes the starting power level of the characters. The universe is grim, with no true good guys. The Imperium is controlled by an undead god-emperor, to whom they sacrifice 10,000 psykers a day to the golden throne. There are the xenos (aliens)who are considered a scourge to be eradicated, and some of them truly are. The last main faction is chaos, who are the evil bad guys. You can have fun playing them in Black Crusade. The main rules are pretty basic: roll percentile dice add or subtract modifiers, and compare to a target number. If you roll less than or equal to the target, you succeed. If you have any more questions, I can get into more detail.
First of all, thanks!
Secondly, how is the feel of the combat? Is it tactical and lethal along the lines of XCOM (the video game), or is it closer to the high-HP d20 model like Pathfinder, or high-randomness like Savage Worlds?
Or is it not like those things at all?
The setting is just ridiculously rich, I wound up running a sort of miniseries in the universe, and I basically went diceless. Rogue Trader in particular really appeals to me.
@ R Chance - Well, having played the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game I can say the dice are really nice. It took less than 15 minutes for us to be able to intuitively read the results.
It was very fun, but not for everybody.
However, for those more budget-conscious (FFG products are always spendy), they do sell a Star Wars Dice App for the game, so you can do that instead of buying a whole slew of special dice.
(BTW: Custom dice seems to be FFG's new schtick--quite a few of their newer games use dice unique to those individual games.)
It's not the cost of the dice or the game so much as having to buy dice for one specific game system that may, or may not, end up being completed in any reasonable time frame. If they brought something special to the game that couldn't be done with ordinary polyhedral dice I'd be better with it. It's the "buy these dice because we want something extra to sell" vibe that bothers me.
That's very reasonable. I've encountered other issues - namely, my girlfriend collects various dice, and she's not particularly enamored of the plain, primary colors of the custom dice next to her many interesting sets.
Having said that, you can play the game with a standard set of polyhedrals just fine - there's a little cheat sheet that lets you sub in your D6's, D8's and D12's. After a little while, it becomes pretty intuitive.
Having said that, I really do support the custom dice mechanic - it makes the game feel very unique, and the myriad narrative goodies generated by dice rolls are basically free candy for me & my players. At no point does it feel tacked-on to me. The designer goes into the philosophy behind the dice here in some detail. TL;DR version? Most games have binary pass/fail terminal outcomes. You roll dice, and it works or not. The custom dice give 250 different terminal outcomes - which sounds like a pain, but it's really just gradiated stages of 3 different axes. Most of the time, you'll either succeed with complications, or fall short while gaining some ground. It's very narrative.
Basically, you can do it with one set of dice that gets passed around (which is what we've done so far), and my group has enjoyed them an awful lot.
True thing. Of course, it's FFG, so it's a three-book series. Force-sensitives can be modeled in the beta (and presumably the core when it releases) but the Jedi book is the 3rd in the series. Fantasy Flight is no Paizo when it comes to releasing things on a schedule.
I've just started modding the system to account for higher-level Force-users.
But then, I don't think I've ever managed to play something RAW. I try sometimes!
Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.
May I reccommend the new Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight, Edge of the Empire?
It's got the polish of a AAA, but the quirky soul of an indie game, weird custom dice and all. It hasn't been released in full yet, but the beginner's box is out now - me and the local gaming crew have had more fun with it than was expected, or may be entirely reasonable.
The basic mechanic has you add in dice for your aptitude, dice for opposition, and then dice for other factors, roll'm all, and then compare success, failure, advantage and threat.
Also Triumph and Despair, which work about how you'd think.
The most common result seems to be either succeeding - but with complications, or coming up short - but gaining some kind of useful edge in the process. It moves failure away from being a binary pass/fail thing, and for that, I adore it.
Would work fantastic for a Mass Effect-style game, in my opinion.
I use music at the table pretty extensively. Things that I have found to be true of the many and varied groups that I have been a part of that have done so:
Volume should be quite low, excluding scenes where the music absolutely fits the mood. It should be noted that doing the latter is hard - I have some experience in pro and semi-pro sound design, and the work in theatre specifically helps with that.
Music that is active - lyrics, aggressive interesting melodies - tends to fall very flat. Trying to talk over the lyrics often does more to sully the experience. If I *do* use lyrics, they're pretty exclusively in a language that players don't speak.
I second the above as regards video game music - most film scores wind up being so busy that they interfere with the interactions.
Having said that, I probably buy more music for these purposes than straight listening.
Recommendations:
Daniel May has an album called "Feng Shui" that is just spectacular for a High Fantasy game - despite the name, it's not so much Asian-themed as one might think. An utterly beautiful work.
For Celtic things, there is an album by Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning tellingly called "Music of Celtic Legends." It's spectacular background music - hauntingly lush.
For Renaissance-era performance music, I have never found anything remotely close to Richard Searles' "Jongleurs Dance." It's era-appropriate pieces, with skilled musicians and crisp recording.
It is literally what people might hear when walking through a cosmopolitan market, or in a well-funded tavern, or when nobility entertains.
For soundtracks, I often look to certain composers:
Pretty much anything by Yasunori Mitsuda is spectacular - the Chrono Cross soundtrack formed the backbone of my playlists for years, his album "Kirite" is stupidly good, and his collaboration with Millenial on the "Xenogears OST - Creid" EP is a weird combination of Asian, Celtic, rock and orchestral scoring that is one of the coolest pieces of music I've been fortunate enough to come across.
Anything by Austin Wintory is pure gold. Journey and Horn are the two that come to mind, but the man makes some of the best music for these purposes.
For a good collection of music that I use for more 'actiony' scenes such as combat, "Drammatica: The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura" has a nice and varied collection of her work with Square Enix - very good for military-type conflicts, and the occasional boss fight. The Dragon Age soundtracks are very good for this type of thing as well - Inon Zur is a great composer in general.
For boss fights, I switch up the music and pull out the big stops - Nobuo Uematsu is very good at this - latin chanting, orchestral bombast, the whole nine yards. Also, pretty much the entirety of the Darksiders and God of War soundtracks work for these purposes.
... welp. Clearly, I've spent too long in grad school, away from being a part-time music critic, as I apparently needed to write a big block of text there.
I'm trying to figure out how I'm a crap dude for using miniatures and being pretty rad at making miniatures look awesome.
Eh, I think he was more getting into the business model side of things, but who knows. I wish *I* was rad at making miniatures look awesome.
Related: I, and most of the people I game with only very recently got into maps and such. As it turns out, even if your focus is squarely on the collaborative emergent narrative constructs that gaming creates, sometimes it definitely helps to have a visual representation.
Especially when you have a ratio of about 1 serious combat/20 hours of play time (not including things like a short bar brawl, or bandits who're unlikely to see that second round) it really adds gravity to these conflicts.
Having said all that - gridless combat is very different, and can be a fluid, fast-paced affair. Keep in mind what makes combat fun for each player/character, and make sure there's an opportunity to do so. I know that's general advice, but it's even more important in this scenario. Likewise, identify what it is about this encounter that makes it interesting, and be sure to incorporate it.
Some people really like it!
/goes back to trying to figure out how the heck one paints a mini :(
It sounds like you got exactly what you were asking for. I'd bite that plot hook, and bite down hard. Trouble is bound to come, but that's half the fun of these kinds of things.
I am a HUGE fan of the new pathfinder sorcerer class. Not only is it chock full of flavor now, it has all the power of a wizard, and none of the complicated rules baggage (such as spell tracking).
There's also something to be said of everything your character can do being innate. Sorcerers are SO powerful, a thread recently determined that they could not be effectively incarcerated. They are so potentially dangerous that the only practical way to contain them and their powers is to kill them.
A wizard without his spellbook is a glorified commoner. A fighter without his weapon is a less skilled aristocrat. A sorcerer, completely naked and stripped of his gear, is still an extremely powerful sorcerer that can turn into a dragon and eat your village.
It's really compelling, I agree.
I've never played a full progression caster before (outside of Cons/1 shots) and I admit that Sorcerers look very appealing both conceptually and mechanically.
I like my favorite class because it's so good at what it does. No class does it all well, but my favorite class is of solid benefit to a well-rounded party.
Yeah, I guess it'd depend upon the game - that strikes me as an odd interaction, as the creature probably does have hooves (as the actual Arsinoitherium seemed to), it just doesn't have a listed hoof attack.
The consistency is a really solid plus for him, I think. At no point would I be sad to see Tonk on my side of a fight.
Gotcha. I'd completely forgotten about school slots.
Even so, this is less "Wizards dont really have less spells per day than sorcerers... they just don't," and more that Wizards can spend gold on magic items that alleviate the fact that they have less spells per day than Sorcerers, and at higher levels, they can even use this method to surpass the amount of spells per day that a Sorcerer has.
Do I have the long and short of it?
EDIT: High-level spells sooner is a pretty big advantage, no doubt. It's the Wizard's strength as I've always understood it.
Having looked it over, I do not believe that Trample would work with just having trample (EX), as the feat text specifies that you need to be mounted.
Trample:
Trample (Combat)
While mounted, you can ride down opponents and trample them under your mount.
Prerequisites: Ride 1 rank, Mounted Combat.
Benefit: When you attempt to overrun an opponent while mounted, your target may not choose to avoid you. Your mount may make one hoof attack against any target you knock down, gaining the standard +4 bonus on attack rolls against prone targets.
Having said that, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work when mounted. It's admittedly a lot of text, from classes I'm unfamiliar with.
I assume when you talk about RAW, this is the whole flurrying in armor bit? I've never really looked at this archetype, so I'm not familiar.
Additionally, it's a lot of text to look over the full 20th level build - it's possible that's why people are skipping - it's a lot of time to go over all the details. Having said that, Tonk looks like he'd be a hell of a lot of fun to play with - that many AoO's is just good times for adjacent allies.
I'm not a Monk guy - can they normally trip for their flurries? Because HOT DAMN, man - that last block looks nasty. :)
At first level, a Sorcerer has 3 level 1 spells/day. A Wizard has 1.
At sixth level, a Sorcerer has 6 level 1, 5 level 2, and 3 level 3, for 14, 3 of which are highest level.
At sixth level, a Wizard has 3 level 1, 3 level 2, and 2 level 3, for 7, 2 of which are highest level.
At thirteenth level, a Sorcerer has 6 spells/day for levels 1-5, and 4 for level 6, for 34, 4 of which are highest level.
At thirteenth level, a Wizard has 4 spells/day for levels 1-4, 3 for level 5, 2 for level 6, and 1 for level 7, which is 22, 1 of which is highest level (which is one higher than the Sorcerer can cast) and 2 of which are at the highest level the Sorcerer can cast.
...
I'm not trying to argue with you, but I am not certain I see what you mean. Could you explain? (This would actually be useful, and in the spirit of the thread, as I've never really "gotten" Wizards as opposed to Sorcerers)
@ Detect Magic - true story. It's a hard archetype - the nimble, Errol Flynn swashbuckling type - to model in PF. I'm pretty much in your camp with the character-heavy approach. In my biweekly (with my Inquisitor, and the aforementioned Monk) our Ninja & Ranger had a rooftop race/parkour competition while the Inquisitor & Magus went to visit a Haberdasher contact.
The feats of skill and one-upsmanship that ensued make me look forward for when our Monk rejoins us.
ROOFTOP OLYMPICS TIME! (Everyone's playing Assassin's Creed except for me)
@ Sitri - if it helps, think of the Inquisitor as being kind of modular - with the right judgement active, it *is* a full BAB class, as the to-hit bonus scales to make you essentially full BAB when it's active. Instead of a to-hit bonus, you could instead have a damage bonus - it's basically like Power Attack, which also scales. Once you get Bane, it's better than full BAB - as you're slightly ahead of the to-hit curve against anything you're fighting, provided you have a swift action to use.
@ Lloyd Jackson - That relationship - between deities and their worshipers is one of the coolest things about fantasy settings, and the Paladin plays with that in a pretty cool, visceral way.
An Archer Paladin also one-shotted the first Dragon I ever ran. Awesome for them!
I'm torn. I've loved my Monks (straight Monk outta the Core!) and I actually don't think they need a fix.
Cool! What is it you like about your O.G. Monk? I've got a Drunken master buddy who is a lot of fun for both the player and the rest of us, and I do love my Zen Archers - but I've never actually seen anybody playing a straight outta Golarian Monk, so I can't speak to it as much.
...
Although now I want to roll up an NPC group of urban monks based on NWA...
Wow, this thread is revolutionary. Almost as revolutionary as the search function on these boards.
Why?
Why not? I've certainly demolished my own productivity by utilizing the search function on these boards. It's been useful and cool, especially when looking through things like class guides. But I've also found the aggregated "Guide to the Class Guides" to be useful and cool.
So why? What's the value added? It's already worked for me - I've never played a Ranger, never really got into them - but the Ranger love has already got me thinking about some fun ideas. Inspiration for one of my least favorite classes? Value added.
I'll add to this too: Inquisitors are awesome, because I'm always wanting to try different builds, swap out features and whatnot - and Judgement is pretty much doing that at combat speed. They can do a lot of different fun stuff in and out of combat - and then they get 3/4 spell progression on top of it! I really dig all the interesting options.
One of the more successful games I've GM'd is a Star Wars RPG. We've jumped systems twice - we started in Saga edition, which just didn't work for what we were doing, jumped to a prototype system I'm building (which worked much better than I actually expected it to), and for the last relaunch, shifted to a modified Pathfinder.
This last shift has actually been wildly successful at giving us the feel we were looking for, which is admittedly more EU than the core films - our games are not very action-heavy. Still: it's a cool world with some very interesting themes to play with, and the PF rules have worked pretty well for us.
@LazarX - Star Wars: Legacy is what made me want to run a Star Wars game. No doubt.
Simple premise, my friends: there is a class that is awesome. You know it. I don't. But I could, if you'd tell me!
Then we would both know awesome things. And that would be Super Rad.
Basically, I think there's real value in talking about why you enjoy playing a particular class, why it's fun, what it does well, what's interesting, etc. If I've never played that class (or archetype, no need to be picky) before, tell me what I'm missing out on. It's my hope that this could be a fun little idea catalyst.
Which is, I think, unfortunate. I think the basic premise could be really cool, and act as a sort of idea catalyst, showing why people enjoy certain classes that one might not otherwise consider.
Maybe we should start another thread, with a more clearly-defined setup? Less "justify your silly non-1e class to me" (which I don't think was actually the OP's intent) and more "explain why playing this class is awesome and fun."
Really, with all that multiclassing, and with one massive stat, I'd strongly consider a Zen Archer monk over a ranger. Still take that level in barbarian if you must, but I'd consider urban Barbarian if you go that route.
Put that 23 in Wisdom, the 19 in dex, buy a wis-boosting headband and win at life.
Although I may have missed the window of opportunity to be useful to you. :/
That's one of the great things about RPG's - our answers might be totally different, and both be correct. Playing with what alignment means can be incredibly rewarding, or it can lead to frustration; and a lot of this depends on the other participants, both players & GM.
The biggest thing I'd say you'd want to look at, is hashing out these topics with the gm in question.
Playing with someone who is inebriated will lead you to this place. (caveat - unless everybody's doing the same thing i.e. "Hey, we're all drunk - let's play Risus! Who's had the most to drink? Ok, you're GM'ing!")
It sounds like you have a case of vastly different social expectations - you guys expected to play Pathfinder, your friend expected to get drunk and troll you.
Make sure to align expectations next time, would be my suggestion.
I get it, I get it. 4 banned schools is a big hurdle to overcome. Using guns and not being a gunslinger is a suboptimal way to use firearms.
Even so. If the consensus is that Pathfinder Power tiers basically go
1. Full Progression Spellcasters
2. All the other things
as I so often hear, is this really such a terrible archetype? Can you still be an effective spellcaster with 4 banned schools, if you pick your spells carefully? And get some cool blasting options for your trouble? I'm not saying "make a 'slinger that's as good as a stock Wizard.
It's not a wizard. Not a gunslinger. Not a Magus.
But if Wizards > all the other things, I can't help but think there's room to still be a viable character, and a contributing member of a party. Anyway, I'm sure there's either something I'm missing - which is likely, as I've never done a high-level caster - or there's a role this class can fill.
AC 18 at 2nd level isn't that heinous. Also, the following things will still smack you around:
* Ranged attacks - maybe they don't hit, but there's no counter, either
* Ranged touch attacks - Firearms, ray spells, things like that - no worries, you'll get hit by some of these. Everybody does.
* Magic Missile. 100% of the time. Accept no substitutes.
Some modules are going to play to a character's strengths. Some, to weaknesses. I would point this out to said GM, that yes, melee attacks are going to miss this character with some frequency; but there are many things that aren't melee attacks.
We usually get GP value stuff, honestly. In one of my games, we're very behind the curve in terms of WBL, but ahead of it in average party level and character creation point-buy (25 point buy in Council of Thieves, 5th level party just stomped through the Asmodean Knot) so we tend not to worry about it, as it tends to balance out.
In other games, gear's been so scarce that this barely comes up.
Thanks Darth, this is roughly what I was running across. Although I had missed a couple of those.
I had looked previously at the magus, but didn't see a firearm option, didn't notice the myrmidarch stuff, which is cool because it actually just says ranged rather than specifying a bow or bolt.
Though in fairness, a Spellslinger is still a full progression Arcane caster.
I'm curious. If conventional wisdom states that full progression casters are the apex of PC power, then wouldn't a full progression caster who trades some schools for DC boosts and some (literal) blasting options still only be mostly overpowered?
This is less a challenge, and more of a question - I've got a Gunslinger/Spellslinger NPC floating around, and they seem pretty capable in my experience.
Am I missing something? Or is this like quantum physics discussions, where it needs to be clarified which interpretation and assumptions we're using?
Additionally, Half-Orcs can swap out their racial weapon proficiencies for Flails, Dire flails, and perhaps more excitingly, Spiked Chains.
Spiked Chain + Teamwork feats (Coordinated Maneuvers) + the combat expertise feats + Judgement bonus to-hit can actually make your character a viable disarming/tripping combatant. Add to that the Half-Orc's intimidation bonus, which works beautifully with spells like Blistering Invictive, and the intimidation feat chains (Dazzling Display, Cornugon Smash and the like) and you've got some versatile and powerful options.
Thank you for your input. I feel that it is important to note that the Chain Fighter racial ability does not give you proficiency with spiked chains, so you'd have to use another feat to get it. It allows you to treat spiked chains as a martial weapon, and then you'd have to pick up a Martial Weapon Proficiency feat to use it.
Meep, you're totally correct - I forgot that Inquisitor's don't get the full suite of Martials.
Welp, I need to move some things around on a character sheet.
Human Halfling Bard 1
STR 8
DEX 18 (Including the +2 Racial)
CON 12
INT 13
WIS 10
CHA 18 (Including the +2 Racial)
Light Armor, Shortbow, whip & Rapier.
Take the Feat that grants two traits (as I don't think that you get traits in PFS, unless I'm mistaken) and us it to pick up Helpful (Halfling) and either Maestro of the society (to help their Bardic Performance keep up with the higher level party) or Magical Lineage for Happy Grease times (Extend, Enlarge, Focused, etc.) later on. Or another trait that fits the concept, you know.
The main idea is to get that +4 on aid another checks - out of combat, you'll get to ensure that everybody's succeeding wildly, and you've always got something to contribute. In-combat, use the whip or rapier to do aid another actions, granting the inevitable 2-handed power attacker a huge to-hit bonus, to go with your Inspire Courage to-hit bonus, and make friends for life!
This would, I think, be a character that can viable contribute - albeit in an indirect fashion - in just about every encounter, while letting the player poke at different things, and joining in pretty much whenever dice are rolled. A good introduction to Pathfinder, Society, and the world.
If this person is new to RPGs in general, I'd frankly avoid bringing them in to this kind of situation in the first place - most First Characters I've seen have a pretty strong lean towards being The Hero.
When you're 2 levels behind the party, you're not the hero, and with per-game XP, you will always be inferior to your buddies, mechanically speaking.
Oh, I don't think the Bard will outshine anybody - just that this party is pretty well set up to benefit from the Bard's versatility.
Having said that, everybody has the chance for awesome combat spotlight here:
Rogue: With this many flanking partners? It's like Christmas and his birthday all at once! Roll ALL the dice!
Bard: Yep.
Fighter: The steadfast anchor. Smacking people into position for the 4-person Boot Party? This is pretty much your event coordinator - it's a violence party, and everybody dances, no exceptions.
Monk: See above, but using mobility to get into position, lots of full attacks, stunning fist means they're probably the Rogue's very best friend. Also, I'm so glad your party has somebody with common sense powers (can I borrow them? ^_^)
Paladin: To quote Isabella from Dragon Age, "She's a woman-shaped battering ram!" Damage, damage, and occasionally, just to prove a point, more damage. Plus the aforementioned utility.
...
Yeah, that's a shiny party. Every one of those characters sounds like a blast to play.
I don't know if some of you are getting the point of this thread... if a 0 XP character sits down with 4 third level characters and has a character that isn't specialized, they're going to have a bad time because whatever they can do, someone else can do better. If you give them a combat-effective character that can hold their own starting from 0 XP, they'll actually be contributing to the group, and that will make it a more fun experience. Sure, the min/maxing to get a 20 stat might be over the top, but it's also a good way to add some oomph when everyone else is far more powerful than you are.
If you think these builds won't be fun, post your own balanced builds that you think would be more fun for a 0 XP character sitting down with four random third-level PCs. Of course it can be done, but generally it will push them into more of a support role (which depending on the player might not be as satisfying,) and the fact that they're only playing a single session will mean they won't get to use some of their capabilities.
Oh man - that amount of level inequity is a terrible idea for tabletop encounter-heavy gaming. Is that common in PFS? I've only played in it at conventions, and my University gaming club runs a PFS-ish sort of event with rotating GM's - but it's house-ruled pretty far away from standard. That's a pretty solid way to actively discourage new players, which is kind of the opposite of what I thought PFS was trying to do.
Sigh.
If you've got a 2-level discrepancy, then forget about being a direct combatant. An archer bard w/lots of skills sounds about right - handle those social checks, inspire courage, and for the love of Desna never get into melee. Play an interesting character that can still contribute something, but accept that mechanically, you're going to be a second-class citizen in combat.
I also like using words from other languages, particularly Russian nouns.
Word. Also, don't sleep on Russian Verbs! "понимать," pronounced pah-nee-MAHT', means "to understand, to gain understanding," and sounds Wizardish, at least to me.
Yeah, Channeling is something I like quite a bit - especially when the damage is spread equally throughout a large group. Post-fight huddle, guys!
Sure, it might only heal 1d6 points of damage. But it's Area of Effect, so in terms of HP economics, that's multiplied by number of people it affects. In your case, a basic channel can heal 5d6, for an average of 17.5 recovered party HP.
That's 1 use of the most basic version of an ability. Your wand of CLW will be restoring 1d8, so 4.5 HP on average. So that's 3.89 uses of your wand to get the same effect - that's basically 58 gold, 4 silver you didn't spend.
In some cases, this math doesn't play out - but look at that party. Everybody's going to get a little dinged up. @Caulhoun is on point with this one - Channeling is your friend.
Yeah, your Bard is really going to shine in this group - I'd suggest everybody pooling resources to get scrolls & wands for your Bard. This way, you've got options when you need them. The above-mentioned wands will be literal life-savers. Scrolls of situationally useful things like Detect Secret Doors, Comprehend Languages, Ghostbane Dirge, Delay Poison, Versatile Weapon, Remove Curse and so on. Scrolls are everybody's friend.
Battlefield control will rely much more on quick thinking and creative use of the environment than traditional approaches like the Wall spells. Having said that, this can be quite a lot of fun:
In a tavern? Flip tables - hey look! Cover, difficult terrain - make archers sad at you, and melee classes unable to charge. Fight a war of attrition.
In town? Well, the fruit vendors aren't going to be happy. But you will!
In a dungeon? Dungeons have corners! Make them come to you - use the stone walls etc. to your advantage - set up ambushes. With ambushes, it really is better to give than receive!
Basically, your play style might shift more toward a "Jagged Alliance" or "X-Com" type of turn-based combat - this can take a little longer, but is quite fun. Conversely, that many combatants + Bard = Happy Fun Violence Time.
