MaestroVolpe's page

Somebody go ahead and send me an e-mail to let me know when the pendulum tips the other way and I actually spend as much time playing at a table as I do wading through the bureaucratic nightmare that is PFS.

In Season 6 we'll have our Meal Tracking Sheet so we can prove that we ate three times a day, right?

Kinda makes it harder to justify purchasing the book when it's officially less accurate than an internet message board, eh?

That's kind-of like reading a bathroom stall to get really good legal advice.

Thanks.

New Evolutions

The following evolutions are available to all summoners.

2-Point Evolutions
Shadow Blend (Su): In any condition of illumination other than bright light, the eidolon disappears into the shadows, giving it concealment (20% miss chance). If it has the shadow form evolution, it instead gains total concealment (50% miss chance). The eidolon can suspend or resume this ability as a free action.

Shadow Form (Su): The eidolon's body becomes shadowy and more indistinct. This shadow form grants the eidolon constant concealment (20% miss chance), and its melee attacks affect incorporeal creatures as if it had the ghost touch weapon property. The eidolon's melee attacks deal only half damage to corporeal creatures.

I understand that Fetchlings are legal (with a boon) and typically racial benefits are exclusive to their race, however I was understanding that these evolutions, as quote above, are available to ALL summoners.

For PFS games I was attempting to use Shadow Form in order to be more effective against an incorporeal threat and was informed that somewhere on here is a board ruling from somebody important that says that in fact, no, these evolutions are only available to Fetchling summoners (and their eidolons).

Could someone please link me? It was kind-of frustrating to find out that a solid tactic was legal RAW but negated due to a message board conversation that I can't seem to find with all the strength of Google. Obviously the text has yet to be updated.

As far as RAW, yes. You should be able to have your eidolon search with you.

My personal opinion is that you're using your eidolon the same way every other summoner does, as your main character and the "character" is the waste of flesh that stands in the back.

Every other player at the table would get one chance to complete the faction mission that they are given, but you want two chances because you're a summoner. It's a "Useless, annoying side-quest"; why do you care enough to want to use two skill rolls?

"Every other player at the table would get one chance"

except for Wizards, Witches, Magus, etc etc etc

Your previous statements obviously show you have some strange qualms with summoners in the first place. I have yet to see another summoner in play, but my summoner and his Eidolon work in tandem.

Yeah, my summoner will cast Mage Armor on his Eidolon.
And then on the monk.
And then on the Kensai.

We all find our own niche in battle, and I'm so warm and fuzzy that you have a personal vendetta against mine.

And the faction missions may be an experience similar to pulling teeth, but it should be obvious that the reason I try to perform these duties is because of the reward, which carries the potential of affording life-saving wands.

Excuse me if I happen to notice a lot of agitated groans from BOTH sides of the GM screen whenever it comes time to DEAL with them.

Hey folks.

I'm creating this thread about a situation that had me scratching my head a few weeks back. I was trying out the Summoner class and things were going nice until it came time for the faction missions (please read: Useless, annoying side-quests that at best devolve into a simple skill roll and at worst cause endless frustration for the GM, friction for players of opposing factions, occasionally completely distract from the actual mission-at-hand, and heavily discourage Pathfinders to follow their third tenet "Explore, Report, COOPERATE" ).

My faction mission was one of the better ones, and by that I meant all I had to do was make a perception check, which I failed yet my Eidolon succeeded. The GM thought that my Eidolon was incapable of helping me to search for books on a shelf ( or a letter on a desk, or WHATEVER, FORGET YOU, YOU'LL DO IT ). I was confused as to why my Eidolon would be incapable of assisting me in these tasks.

The GM's view was that my Eidolon, as a summoned creature, was too stupid to do anything but perform basic tasks, like mauling goblins until they make that crunching sound.

My view centered around the idea that my Eidolon, bearing an INT score of 7 (some of you have characters with INT scores lower than that) and fully capable of speaking any language I speak, is fully capable of a thought process along the lines of "Oh, you're looking for a letter? I'll keep my eyes open".

Discuss! :-)

I typically just use variants of Greek names, but now that I know so many people care I'm naming all of my characters after the first celebrity and company I see in a commercial.

I hope you're all ready to meet the bard named Alec Baldwin Capital One

So. Awesome.

I've been noticing a trend in the global battle between those of us being attacked by invisible perpetrators and our clever little ways to detect and outwit them.

Of all the times I have had to detect someone under an invisibility effect, only once has it actually been helpful and furthered our progress in the task.

Every single other time it's been a circumstance where our party is fighting an enemy who is scripted to poof and flee upon defeat, but our stubborn party doesn't want to admit the obvious truth as we spend an insane amount of time on needless rounds casting Glitterdust, closing doors, etc. until an hour later we're all blind and crawling through a house wondering if that damned invisible monster got away.

A) Why is it so popular for Paizo writers to make all of their baddies turn and run? How is it that EVERYONE we fight has an invisibility spell? Why does EVERYONE have a guaranteed success at fleeing the party? I understand personnel with important attachments to the plot, but even wild monsters are making this happen in painfully dragged-on scenarios where every agonizing round is spent trying to delay and kill/capture an enemy that will get DM-ruled into escape every time.

B) Fellow Party Members: KNOCK IT OFF. We don't get paid for every bug you squash, I don't see why we should drag on the END of combat just because dead and gone are not fungible for you.

WHEW!

I've personally had a less-than-awesome experience with the roll20 PFS group. You may want to check out IronHelixx ( http://www.warhorn.net/iron-helixx-pfs ) or another group instead.

For one thing, I've never received the chronicle sheet for the first game I played with them a week ago and both the GM and the organizer have refused to respond to my e-mails asking about the matter.

To add to this already shifty event, our game for today just got canceled "due to lack of players". The weird thing is, this table filled up (and has people waiting-listing to play) a week ago and the game isn't scheduled to take place for several hours. Besides, I've seen empty slots fill up in SECONDS.

As for other possible groups, there is TECHNICALLY a West Coast group ( roll20 PFS I believe is based in OK, IronHelixx in TX ), but it's essentially an empty shell with zero games actually taking place. If you ever see a game getting set up there, let me know please.

So if anyone finds a reputable, functioning group for playing PFS online, please let me know. I live way up in the mountains and this is my only access to PFS.

Good luck to you as well, OP

Many thanks!

I'd hate to un-hijack this conversation, but this is the first I've heard of these two factions being discontinued.

Can anyone send me a link to the announcement so I can be better informed? I can't seem to find anything.

Sure. Especially if you don't start from the beginning of the "too safe" thread that started in 2011.

Are we really going to have another thread that is discussing these two threads?

Listen, if we're going to discuss a thread within a thread, I need to hire Joseph Gordon-Levitt to kick the chair out from underneath me in case I get in too deep.

…Sometimes I just hire him to do that even when I'm awake.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt sweeps me off my feet.

Not to discredit Leonardo DiCaprio.

I get the feeling if I was good friends with Leonardo DiCaprio and he ever did something stupid, I'd call him "Leotard" and we would laugh and then make out a li'l bit.

Wait, what were we talking about?

fewer* human PCs.

A variation of Don't Split The Party: If you want to go off and do something alone, reconsider. Maybe there's a way to get the group involved, and everyone will have fun with it. There are times you can't, but try.

Also, "It's what my character would do!" is never a good excuse to hose the rest of the group. Slant your actions toward helping the group and increasing everyone's fun.

DM: You're dead.

Player: But that's not fair!

DM: Well maybe next time don't try and sneak into a well-guarded fortress all by yourself in search of "shiny things".

Player: But that's what my character would do!

DM: Yes. And he's dead. Now make a character that doesn't do stupid things and see if he lives longer.

Don't overplay your race. I had one person play a catfolk and spent half the game playing with toy mice, eating cheese, drinking milk (often times mixed with thrubdub) and licking himself clean. I'm surprised he even chose to eat food designed for sentient peoples.

I think the level of "wrong" that describes goes beyond simply over-playing one's race.

Actually, let's just condense that advice down to "Don't lick yourself at the table".

…

y'know what? Let's condense that down to "Don't lick yourself in public"

…

Just don't lick yourself.

What a great response! Thanks, folks, I'm loving all the great advice!

And you, Mr. Selgard, at first I thought you were saying "get the heck out" until I read the rest of your message, but now that's my favorite response.

But all of these responses are terrific.

Hopefully my partner in crime and I can get into the game over the next couple of weekends. My schedule is pretty tight these days transitioning out of the Army but I can't wait to capitalize on this new awesome thing they call a "weekend". It sounds amazing.

And hopefully our fresh, new characters won't get smashed into a thin, red paste.
Wait… what color do Tengus bleed?
Yeah, I'm sure it's red.
Mmm… paste...

Hey folks, I was trolling through the different threads and didn't seem to find one of these. Feel free to yell at me if I'm being stupid.

I thought I could poll the veterans around here to supply your own advice regarding the general perils of a new player starting up in a new game. I personally have a focus for folks going into Pathfinder Society organized play for the first time, but feel free to provide any general advice.

So again, this is any advice you veterans have for new players (i.e. myself) about to jump in feet first. Advice relating to: Character creation, styles of play, generally polite behavior, and common faux pas to avoid/ rules that are frequently accidentally broken, and how much is generally acceptable to bribe the GM.

Have at it!

Stormwind Fallacy, my good man. Having a well-built character doesn't make your roleplaying worse. That a lot of people here are able to recognize that the Rogue/Ninja ( and, yes, the Monk ) are mechanically worse built than the other classes doesn't make them worse roleplayers nor the game less capable of delivering interesting roleplaying challenges.

Mechanical concerns over those classes mostly come from people who like those classes and want to love to play them, but feel that they are not contributing enough to party advancement when they do. After all, if your party dies because your character failed on his job, the campaign is over. And adventure paths can be pretty brutal when played as they should be ( 15 pts buy, 4 characters ).

Quite honestly, as of this moment you sound more like you are actively seeking reasons to not play Pathfinder, rather than coming at this with an open mind. If you think we are collectively unable of roleplaying, I'd invite you to peruse, say, some of the frequent alignment threads, where you will see a lot of discussion of the roleplaying aspects of the game.

Quite the contrary, my friend. The reason I set up an account and essentially begged to be proven wrong is because I'm so eager to give Pathfinder a try and find out that I love it. I just have to be careful before dipping into my resources to buy a handful of new texts and core rulebooks.

Honestly, if I was looking at a chance to play a home-brew game I'd be even less worried about having a more flavorful character lost in the cold grips of a combat-heavy game that perhaps requires a lot of skill and pure optimization. As it stands, I haven't been able to find any and in some cases it seems more reasonable to join in at a Pathfinder Society organized game. That's when I got to checking out the message boards and saw that most folks who partake in organized play seem to be single-mindedly focussed on pure optimization.

I guess I get a little worried that in the pursuit of creating a fun character I may inadvertently screw over the whole party and be THAT GUY.

And nobody wants to be THAT GUY.

Thanks for all the great dialogue, this has been a great exchange of ideas and for the most part you've all been very warm and welcoming to a Pathfinder newbie. I can't wait to roll out a character and head to the local hobby shop.

Don't give up so soon.

These boards are heavily populated with people who are deeply into optimization and very judgmental about anything less than completely optimal, usually in a purely mechanical, heavily combat-focused sense.

Some of the optimizers are broad-minded enough to realize that the way they play is not the only way there is to play, while others are stubbornly resistant to the radical concept that different groups can and do play the game in diffewrent ways and love to throw around terms like "MAD", "gimped", "useless", etc. about anything that doesn't meet their own definition of a strong character.

They are useful to listen to only if you intend to play in/run an optimized game, or if your existing group begins to optimize. If you aren't, ignore them.

Be assured it is still more than possible to play PF in any style you and your group wants, and many, many people out there are playing rogues, fighters, monks and other less than optimal characters happily and could care less that their choice was "not optimal". Many times, those characters end up being the most effective and memorable in their games because in the end, it is a how a character is played that truly determines its success, not the numbers on the stat sheet.

Thanks for the well-needed voice of reason.

In the long run Pathfinder has already succeeded in something that hasn't been done in almost ten years-- it's got me pouring through texts, sitting cross-legged surrounded by heavy books, rolling dice and taking notes. I'm going to look into signing up for a game as soon as I can.

Okay, so what I'm really hearing from all of you is that ALL of my fears are hugely confirmed.

Rogues/Ninjas are collectively seen as completely fungible, mostly useless in combat and therefore unwanted, and nobody likes a character with a well-rounded set of abilities because apparently min/maxing is the only way to go.

This does not sound like a tabletop RPG I would enjoy.

Which is a pity, this game sounded like it would be awesome.

Providing an answer that steers away from mechanical game-balance answers and focuses purely on the flavor of the character (mmm… bard…)

I would say that it's because Wizards and Sorcerers and Arcane magic in general is recognized to be the universe-bending, divining, exploding side of the magical coin.

Where as Clerics and Druids focused primarily on the inherently benevolent nature of divine magic to provide protection and healing (with some other cool abilities).

But Bards are born out of a universal drive for adaptation. He or she is a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. In a typical party the Bard watches the fighter doing his drills and takes mental notes. He keeps an eye on the rogue to try and master that flick of the wrist. He peers over a wizard's shoulder while they study their spell book and he even listens to the quiet prayers of the devout cleric, perhaps to see if there's a good song in there, somewhere.

It just makes sense that a character obsessed with always having SOMETHING to provide in any situation, however small, would manage to find a way to cast a cure spell.

I've been seeing a lot of interesting responses and fortunately minimal levels of animosity, so if you folks wouldn't mind I was wondering if I could perhaps expand the scope of my question in order to address a more deeply-rooted concern.

I haven't been able to play a tabletop RPG in almost ten years. Before then I was in love with 3.5, so when I moved to Washington and got a chance to settle down I thought I'd get back in the game only to find out that it'd been replaced by 4th E, which basically got rid of everything I loved about the game.

Then I heard about Pathfinder, which seems to have been made by folks who had the exact same thought that I did, only they actually did something about it.

I haven't played this game yet. I'm still in the Army, so I technically earn below the poverty line, so I'm going to do my research and make sure this is going to be a fun game before I lay down what little coin I have, and so far there are a few concerns cropping up.

It seems that there is actually a healthy debate as to the inherent value of having a rogue in the party, as seen above, since some folks seem to feel that a rogue's combat prowess is an oxymoron, and since their skills can be replaced almost entirely through spells.

The idea of a party going off without a rogue and being completely cool with it makes my hair stand up like the sound of bones against pavement or a geiger counter or the first few bars of a Justin Bieber spell.

The other concern is my recent discovery of the term MAD, which I've deduced to mean Multiple Ability Dependent and seems to be used purely as a pejorative. Whenever I played 3.5 we had two types of players-- the well-balanced, rational player, and the min/maxer. We used min/maxer as a pejorative. Because those players were always the 14-year-old (physically and/or mentally) who was convinced that they should be able to kill absolutely everything in the game in one hit but brought nothing to the table in terms of story or character depth.

So those are my thoughts. I beg you folks to reassure me that I'm completely wrong.

P.S. let me guess, Monks are considered to be a useless joke as well, right?

*Alternate Class

A ninja is a rogue alternate class. Archetypes are similar but different.

(Sorry to nit-pick. Just a point that has to be made.)

I can not conceive of an instrument precise enough to have allowed you to split that hair.

I wasn't thinking ninjas were over-powered in the sense of being god-like, merely it struck me as odd that ninjas had their own Tricks to choose from as well as being able to have their pick of any Rogue talent they think is shiny.

My point was that it seemed to make the Rogue a half-step from being pointless.

Although judging from the responses I'm getting the heavy impression that nobody likes Rogues or Ninjas, period.

Something you folks have against the sneaky types?

After looking across the information for rogues and ninjas it appears to me almost as if rogues are obsolete. The vast majority of their abilities are identical and not only do ninjas have their own Tricks, they can instead take up a rogue Talent.

It seems like the ONLY thing a rogue has that a ninja can't is Trapfinding and the ability to disarm magical traps. Granted, this is an important skill, but it just seems a little slim in determining the difference between the two.

In the long run Ninja just reads like an over-powered archetype than an individual class.

Someone please come tell me that I'm wrong and that I'm an idiot.
And, y'know, tell me why so I can stop being an idiot.