LackLusterLife's page

ok now this is just getting upsetting. seems unless you have some street cred or whatever passes for that around here, your post where you tried your best to make a well reasoned well thought out post gets ignored. or better yet if your not agreeing with the general mindset of these "regulars" you once again get the glazed over.

but know what, i can live with that, but here i am asking for some help and i still get nothing. while same six people argue the same thing in four different threads.

whatever

i know it says to put questions about rules in the appropiate design forums but considering i only see the one for races im just gonna ask here.(if there is one woops, this place's layout is confusing).
edit: in fact it likes to eat my threads D=
it at this one

so i've always been interested in poisons and diseases and when i started d&d was more then a little disappointed with how little they were actually used, and doing so no matter what it was used for was evil. stabbing an evil dictator =good; poisoning an evil dictator = bad.

so when i saw the rules for pathfinder poisons i had high hopes. so first of all pathfinder gives all kinds of poisons but no rules on applying them. then there was some confusion on my part when reading what yall had, did the first hit require a save or did that always work? or what about the frequency, i have no idea what the frequency on the stat boxes actually mean.i remember there was some stuff in the old dm's guide but im a player not a dm. then there's also making poisons. im assuming it is alchemy due to the fact it says it can make antitoxin, and to cure it you need to understand making it. but there's no guidelines at all about that, but in the poisons section it clearly states you can make it.

then there is higher level games where some players literally have the stats to never fail their saves against the poisons. makes someone who spent the lower levels working towards using poisons rather useless. so would there be a way to distill(i think thats the term) it to get a more potent version with a higher save? i think it would probably be a craft check where if you messed up you lost that batch if it was, that is if there is no ruling on that. then the checks would get progressively harder as you distilled it more and more.

anyways what about disease creation? similar questions about that. i know it can be done, in fact there's peoples jobs today that revolve solely around creating horrible horrible things. so translate that to place where you just dont die from disease but can rise up and go bite people, and theres just as evil people with access to magic that doesnt have to follow the rules of nature. in game how would you do it?

the idea of giving feats as you are suggesting wouldnt solve anything really. the argument is over the classes and their abilities, having a feat to fix hurts the class just as much. now if a feat is a must have to equal casters its taking up a slot that originally was an open option to help customize a melee class. also what if it isnt a fighter with his plethora of feats? everyone else has a very limited selection and has to choose wisely and might need that feat slot for some other important feat.

and i have a quick story of my own of melee ownage. this was a level 5 campaign and the group had just defeated the big bad boss deep in the cave. the rogue was down, the almighty spellcaster was plum tapped out due to the shear volume of the boss fight, the cleric had run off due to some moral code that he followed to help someone else in the cave, and the barbarian (me) was at 5odd hit points. now i tried to stop the cleric but he just had more life then me and was willing to kill me if i tried to stop him. so the caster was physically weak and couldnt carry the rogue so my muscles had to trudge along with him on my back. first encounter i got hit once taking me to 1 but destroyed the mooks. second encounter got taken to -3 but took the 2 mooks with me. now this left the caster the only upright person, so what did he do? spent check after check bringing me back with his rather lousy healing skill. he finally got it, just in time for the next random encounter in which i went under again, but not without one hell of a cleave taking both mooks with me again. sadly caster boy couldnt bring me back fast enough for the next one. so tpk. but i want to point out, the caster was completely reliant on me to get us out, and all i did was have an axe, nothing fancy. and i got us farther then he could have fully charged, with only 5 hit points managed to kill 7 mooks, carrying another person on my back while at it. he even congratulated me on getting us that far out (3/4 of the way) after the game.

you ever just think that most of the problems might come from the splatbooks? those were pumped out pretty fast theres no way they could have tested it all.

ive always played core with some splat rarely placed here or there, like a little every few games rare. and ive always enjoyed it

i'm a fighter man myself and more than understand how a wizard might outshine a fighter. it does seem like quite a delema doesnt it. but ive always thought of it like this. sure the caster can cast fly to get to the top of the cliff when i have to climb it but when we both get to the top of the cliff ive lost nothing and the caster is out a spell and cant do it again tomorrow.an as the day wears on, as long as i have hitpoints im always working at top efficiency, while the casters selection of options are slowly wittled down. of course there is the slew of magic items a fighter can have to give him an edge in combat when he needs a magical helping hand. but that has nothing to do with the character of the characters.

in the end it comes down to the fun factor. an while some people might enjoy the absolute number crunching to make a god, more then the majority enjoy role playing aspect. now as long as you have the setup to atleast not die in combat what more could you ask for. it doesnt matter the class as long as you have fun. and someone said something about looking for a story when a competent spell caster was worthless; i more then have one for ya.

it was a ravenholme campaign i want to say,and we were underground looking for some artifact that would help destroy the count. now there were two casters, a cleric and wizard. now it was the usuall setup cleric was almost all healing and wizard was the boom boom guy. so we were making our way down the tunnel and was pretty sure we were closing in on the lair of the artifact. then these monsters popped out, i dont remember their names but they are floating brains with beaks and tentacles. so they came out us and we quickly found out they had a paralyzing touch. then to our utter dismay it turned out they were immune to electricity and some other energy type. an our poor wizard specialized in those two energy types. now he had fiquired with two energy types he was set and so had we, cause it had worked pretty well. but as the brains advanced the barbarian and fighter were able to hold their ground for a bit thanks to the high fortitude saves against the paralyzation. but the monsters had multiple attacks and numbers, and as it goes you only had to fail once. so they advanced took the cleric out and were coming up on the wizard. he had one trick left, that spell were you get to transform into a monster, and he picked that big big artic worm with a burning hot back. an guess what proceeded to get paralyzed right after the spell. so there, he was a good caster and rendered useless shearly by chance. on a happier note the burning hot strip killed a few of them as the wizards worm body sat there while they tried to coup de grace him. it was like a dumb child and a hot stove. but eventually they stopped and the spell wore off and you know the rest.

whenever i see this argument about casters > melee i cant help but think of a few things.

first of all, everyone seems to forget something very important. while the almighty wizard was leveling he was putting all his money towards new spells, improving spellcasting, and items to cast extra spells. so its obvious the caster has been doing something to get these levels. then whenever people mention the fighter apparently he didnt go adventuring. think about it, while the caster was buying new spells and such, the fighter was buying new armor, weapons, miscellaneous helpful magic items. that the fighter didnt learn a few things while fighting to gain his levels. the fighter is not a helpless person!

now im going to play a fighter in an upcoming beta campaign, starting level 6th. so im just slightly out of reach of all kinds of cool things. that hasnt stopped me from planning what to get! then once i look at the list i cant help but see, hey!, there are some decent anti caster things on there that i didnt even mean to be anti caster! like the swords i will be wielding are a good example. i was debating with myself on getting spell storing on them so i could get some of those wonderful low level spells put on them out of combat. originally it was for things like blindness/deafness and ray of enfeeblement. you know, just things i could use to help turn a fight my way if needed. though if going against a caster those spells could easily turn towards the direction of touch of idiocy, dispel magic, and hold person. wow look at that hit really messed you up. now as for the armor i was going to get energy resistance without a doubt in my mind but whether or not spell resistance would be added is iffy, i would have to see how caster heavy the campaign is. was gonna get a certain brooch alongside with some boots that would help cut the ground between me and my enemy. i was also debating cape of the mountain bank or just a plain old cloak of resistance. both decent choices to put a crimp in a casters style. so as you can see, just the things i was gonna get anyways would server as good anti caster materials if i really wanted to do it. i would not be helpless. an the higher the level the more gear with tricks i would naturally have.

now the caster is another thing i want to discuss. why would he be so intent on the fighter going down first in a fight? or atleast taking him out of it? its because of a simple fact. the fighters job is to either protect the caster on his side so his guy can take the original caster out. or the worse option he is going to cut a swathe of destruction towards him then add him to it, then he may or may not continue in a different direction. in the end every caster knows one very important fact, a sword to the gut is a sword to the gut no matter how big a fireball you can cast.

so just think about that in the caster vs fighter debate i beg of you. cause remember you can counter magic with magic but try blocking a sword with it.

ive never been a fan how a cleric is a must have for a group. it always means someone gets stuck with it even if no one wants to play it. or atleast someone feels an obligation to usually. in the beta game im about to play one of the other players is going cleric just because we dont have one. he really doesnt want to play it but he doesnt want to play in a game where we will die a quick and horrible death as he put it. it would be nice to see other classes able to fill the role so you dont need a cleric to not die a painfull death

now for how it would work? i remember there being a feat in some splatbook where the driud could give up his ability to spontaniously cast summon natures allie to cast a regeneration over time spell. it sounded good but i thought the feat didnt give enough healing.

as for the bard, he could have some spell like ability that he can use with his bardic performance. thats a little more iffy but im not sure if you could really trade anything out there

i dont know if its just me but ive always been slightly bugged on how casting works with the spell slots. if i cast all my third lvl spells and i have like 3 more 5th lvl spells. i want to know why i shouldnt be able to take that energy and use it for those spells ( consider it a sorcerer for this example). i obviously have the energy available for it.

if it worked more like it did in video games (dont hate me i dont know the feelings about it here) where you have so much energy and the spells cost a certain amount. the spell lvl could be how much it cost. where sorcerers have amount A and can cast spells till they get to that amount. Now wizards have amount B (B>A) and prepare their spells before hand filling up on spells till the amount of the spell lvls are >= what they have in power points.

now in my mind its especially wrong that arcane casters have spell slots. divine casters im more ok with it considering they have to get it from a divine source and blah blah blah. sorry so lost my train of thought.

so i was just wondering what the feelings are about this are around here. discuss?
(this didnt post the first time. i think so forgive me if it posted twice)

i dont know if its just me but ive always been slightly bugged on how casting works with the spell slots. if i cast all my third lvl spells and i have like 3 more 5th lvl spells. i want to know why i shouldnt be able to take that energy and use it for those spells ( consider it a sorcerer for this example). i obviously have the energy available for it.

if it worked more like it did in video games (dont hate me i dont know the feelings about it here) where you have so much energy and the spells cost a certain amount. the spell lvl could be how much it cost. where sorcerers have amount A and can cast spells till they get to that amount. Now wizards have amount B (B>A) and prepare their spells before hand filling up on spells till the amount of the spell lvls are >= what they have in power points.

now in my mind its especially wrong that arcane casters have spell slots. divine casters im more ok with it considering they have to get it from a divine source and blah blah blah. sorry so lost my train of thought.

so i was just wondering what the feelings are about this are around here. discuss?

ill just throw this out there, make the vital strike feat an optional rule in combat. if you have extra attacks you can automatically give them up for a bonus damage dice. i mean your skipping on crit chances and whatever extra damage your weapon can do for the attacks that have the most likely chance of hitting to do more.

and i took a good hard look at some random spells, combined with my knowledge of spell casting trying to find a way to shorten the casters turn. now im almost never a primary caster so forgive me if this is horribly wrong.

instead of rolling the saves why not roll the chance of overcoming? if the spellcaster rolls for his spell it *should* be easier to just look at the save and pass or fail the spell. thats versus the everyone gets to roll idea that we have now

say your doing mass suggestion against a group of creatures with +5will and +3will. add something like 10 or 15 to that save and then the caster rolls and if he beats the +3's but not +5 you automatically know an entire group failed and the other half didnt. as for what the caster rolls maybe its a d20 + spell level or something, like i said not really a spell guy here. so 1 roll versus many is all. sorry if this just breaks magic or something

im new here myself and have only a few years under my belt and havent seen any game +9? (not toooo sure been awhile).
while i havent seen the high end lvl games theres been many closer to the mid lvl games. while i cant see why any melee based class wouldnt get vital strike and improved im ok with them being feats. and let me just say right now, im a fan of TWF, have been for the longest time and pathfinder made it even more viable. but even with all the extra attacks my turn is still over faster then any spell caster i happen to be with. i mean an extra attack swing takes what? 10 extra seconds if theres a crit and confirmation along with whatever special effect the monster has?

what really slows combat down is spells, the guys at paizo should be looking into making spells quicker.

depending on the spell ive seen several minutes spent on getting all the saves rolled, who gets what effects, and how long it last for each person. theres just something wrong there. in fact ive avoided taking any pure caster class on several occasions because of the sheer amount of paper work involved in getting prepared and during battle. thats the time waster not the fighter having a few extra swings of whatever he is swingin around. i just cannot understand why everyone is hollering about the BaB. make spells simpler and faster is what needs to be done.

well my 2Cents

ps. much <3 to paizo on the new fighter

i recently played a lvl 3 pally in what amounts to a really long oneshot, and i couldnt help but notice there wasnt much i could really do either.
i was a gnome and had a rather high armor class so i dealt even less damage then a usual pally. the smite helped a little but in the end it was still just one extra attack per day that did a few more damage on top of my already abysmal amount. i even lucked out everyone i attacked was evil since i never once used detect evil, just never had the time when it mattered. in fact almost every other game ive played in had a pally and ive never once seen detect evil used. maybe its just the group i play with but its just never came up. every time smite would be used it hit an evil creature, all you have to do is take the situation and creatures into account and bam instant detect evil. guy in bar fight, probly not evil; guy guarding evil cleric as they burn something down, more then likely evil. detect evil is just something that sits there alongside all the silent buffs.

and as for the lay of hands ability. i had to read the new one several times to get it. its just way more complicated with the charges and special options. im not a fan. especially now the remove disease and poison actually dig into the healing you can do. i liked them being separate. and since mr gnome was the only one with healing abilities in a party of three i have to say i noticed the lack of real healing abilities in battle. it got to the point if we thought it wasnt do it or death moments we would just wait till after the fight. otherwise it just wasnt really worth doing mid battle. in fact i think the end the only mid battle heal i did was one right before a voluntary 6 story fall on the hurt monk. and i still had to potion him up after the fall which reminds me :pally 1, monk with slowfall 0:

but ya thats my experience with a pally and let me leave you with one last note. a gnome opening a sharks mouth from the inside with a battle cry of "i want to live!" is pure funny.
(edit: holy crap i just realized i said pally the entire thing, forgive me for my WoW days XD)