Mazaku's page

I'm not saying a Rogue should be as poor at fighting as a Fighter is at Detecting Traps or Moving Silently or Picking Pockets. But imho increasing their "Back Stab" ability from maybe once per fight (1.0 and 2.0) to every almost single round of a fight (flanks are just that common at least in my game) then increased again to every single attack made during every round of every fight... well, when I was running 1.0 and 2.0 I never saw the horrible "Oh my, thieves....

.... I really hate the Paizo forum habit of not quoting entire messages. In any case, I did at least get most of what I wanted to comment on.

Bringing 1.0 and 2.0 into the discussion is pointless. The systems are literally so different from 3.5 as to be not worthy of comparison, particularly in terms of damage. 10d6 was a big deal in 2.0 because you capped at 10th level hit points, and didn't have the same kind of whooping bonuses to hit points that you get in 3.5/Pathfinder. 10d6 is NOT a big deal anymore. One sneak attack does not decide combat when monsters frequently have hundreds of hit points.

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The obsession with Combat capabilities as the primary contribution of a particular class is an unfortunate side effect of the MMO-ing of pen and paper gaming, imho. The rogue has many other contributions to make to the adventure success (note: adventure success, not just combat success) than what they can dole out in the fights that occur. Obviously the style of the gaming group is a big factor. If a group runs combat after combat and that is the primary focus of what they are doing at the game table, ala MMO gaming, then DPR equalization is much more critical to ensuring each player feels they are contributing equally. This was the thinking behind 4th Edition as far as I can tell.

You've brought up MMO's multiple times here - at least three and I'm not through the first page of this thread - as the rational behind rogues sneak attacking repeatedly. You do know that most popular MMO's came out AFTER 3.0, yes?

One would be advised to keep in mind that fire damage is halved vs. most objects, including ships, and that hardness applies. Each fireball is likely to do single digit damage against a ship.

One would also be advised to consider that while roasting low level rogues and/or fighters that make up the majority of the pirates is mighty good fun, and a great way to show off the PCs power, the real threat to the colony is in the form of the various special encounters built into Tides of Dread. Encounters that are not easily dealt with via fireball.

Let your PC shine, let him have his fun. Let him kill some of the pirate crews. In the scheme of things it isn't likely to be an issue, especially given the difficulty he is likely to have with the vrocks and the golems.

Mazaku wrote:

Third time - Wizard capstone (20th level) abilities for Conjuration, Evocation, and Universalist? Same as beta? Removed? Changed?

Conjuration: At 20th level, you can change the duration of all summon monster spells to permanent. You can have no more than one summon monster spell made permanent in this way at one time. If you designate another summon monster spell as permanent, the previous spell immediately ends.

Evocation: At 20th level, whenever you cast an evocation spell you can roll twice to penetrate a creature's spell resistance and take the better result.

Universalist: No capstone. Their Metamagic Mastery ability scales (1/day at 8th, an additional time per day every two levels after 8th), but that is all.

Your God of Knowledge,
Nethys

Thank you, thank you, 1,000 times thank you.

Third time - Wizard capstone (20th level) abilities for Conjuration, Evocation, and Universalist? Same as beta? Removed? Changed?

Wizard capstone (20th level) abilities for Conjuration, Evocation, and Universalist? Same as beta? Removed? Changed?

I don't suppose you could share the capstone abilities for Envokers, Conjurers, and Universalists (Wizard Class) if they still have them...

He could do that... or he could let the barbarian's player learn the value of teamwork the hard way. My experience has been that players who are bound and determined to go tearing off on their own do so until they have the lesson of "Your characters can and will die when they go off too far from their buddies" the hard way. One of my current players took two Adventure Paths to learn this lesson.

Not saying that spikadelia shouldn't talk to him. If the player does not heed the warning ... well, too bad. He'll be lucky if the only deaths are NPCs.

The problem with this approach in the STAP is that such a player can do in the entire team with poor choices or trash the plot by getting important NPC's killed. While I fully support letting players learn from their mistakes I'd rather not punish the entire group because of one impulsive person. I've seen such actions create personal hostility between players.

Awful idea. Half the benefit of getting extra attacks is a reduced chance of wasting your entire turn on a single bad roll. Besides, in my experience comparing 3 rolls to an AC isn't terribly time consuming. Far more often are problems on the DM's end arbitrating monsters that he isn't as familiar with as he should be. Seriously - I've seen DM's take five minutes to run one monsters turn.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Problem my group had was that they didn't have Knowledge (Dungeoneering), so no one knew about the Split ability... barbarian won initiative, full attacked, all suddenly all four of them are getting attacked by separate puddings.

Neither did mine, but they learnt all about Split under Dark Mountain Pass in Here There Be Monsters...

I know of a couple groups that completely dodged the first fight though in Dark Mountain Pass, either because they never checked that side of the complex, because they spotted the pudding and saw no need to fight it, or because they they went within 10ft. of it.

I went through and read all of the OotS comics over a few days last week and was kind of bummed when I had to wait so long for a new one. How often do new strips come out? Once a week? Or at random intervals?

Mostly random. I've seen it at once a week, once per ten days, and multiple times a week.

Mazaku wrote:

I don't suppose your players could be convinced to post their final character sheets?

A few of them may well still have them. Be forewarned, they are monstrous to behold. :)

Of course they are. Why else would I want to see them :D

I don't suppose your players could be convinced to post their final character sheets?

Let me also add, 5 clerics: Wow. No wonder you make your encounters as lethal as you do and view death as temporary.

carborundum wrote:

Say Turin, was that item ever statted up for 3.5? I'm thinking of having Olangru summon harem replacements and put the girdle on them, hoping the PCs loot it and wear it. Thing is, I vaguely remember it being a one-shot item, and giving him a custom-made two-shot version just to mess with them at short notice seems a bit of a stretch. (Even if he was good friends with Khala, which he isn't IIRC)

I did indeed stat it up in the campaign journal if memory serves. They are "affordable" as one-shot items - as "use activated" they are minor artifacts. The cabin boy had a half-dozen of them. As one-shot items, they're remarkably affordable. ^_^

EDIT: A Madman GM's the Savage Tide can be found under the linky.

Hrm ... there seems to be some random chattering at the end of the journal...

After taking a substantive look at your journal I judge my earlier statements as a mite rash. I hope you'll forgive me, I have an immense dislike for DM's that treat their players characters like disposable diapers with the sole purpose of being shet on and thrown away.

Upon a closer look it seems you've had most of the same party for some time and those PC's have been able to develop significant attachments.

This thread addressed a number of the issues that people have had with the adventure. Much was made about the incentive to destroy the tear.

Elora wrote:

Oh, I like! I'll be snatching this Olangru up to mess with my players. They actually just finished the Crimson Sunset, but they left Olangru behind when they escaped Fogmire. So I've been planning to bring him back into play at some point...

The GFK Olangru? There are so many nasty ways to tweak his basic "scout" concept into cruel, vicious and brutally enjoyable character deaths. :)

Yes there are, but as a GM you have a duty to abstain from doing such. Put bluntly, as a DM you have the power to at any given time kill all the PCs, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it 'within the game'.

As the GM you are there to challenge the players, not to take perverse joy in killing off their characters so you can brag about it on the internet.

I thought the point of Pathfinder was it remained compatible with the earlier edition?

I'm fairly certain that the experience charts, like the wealth by level charts, are not OGL, and thus cannot be reprinted. There is however nothing to stop you from using the 3.5 experience/wealth charts with a 3.5 Adventure. That is to say there is nothing about Pathfinder that forces you to use their experience chart.

I haven't looked at the numbers closely, but I suspect that you won't find many issues running it even if you do use the medium Pathfinder experience chart. From what I understand it is supposed to progress at roughly the same rate as that found in the 3.5 core rulebooks. If you run into issues you can always give out roleplaying experience to make up the difference.

Experience per encounter can be found for Pathfinder on page 292 of the Beta book.