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4 int is inside the sentient intelligence, but it isn't the same as "Awakened" (which gives 3d6). I play my druid players intelligence boosted animal companion like Lassy. Able to understand common, and reply with barks. As DM I tell her what her animal companion does when not in combat, but she gives it commands in combat.
I have a couple of thoughts. "brutally raping" the daughter is really unnecessary, and in groups i've played in it's way over the line. Very inappropriate. Burning the spell book, making the paladin fall, what are you going for as DM? If you want to have the party fail, they will fail. You set up the scenario. You win. Yay? Are you deliberately setting up a scenario where your players don't enjoy themselves? Are you trying to create a game where they pick the characters they want and then you take it away? I'm not being antagonistic, these are questions you need to ask yourself in setting up this one shot.
One mechanic I've used as a DM is "Your training/experience tells you that ______ " to represent both character class training or high mental stats. Ask your DM to help you out. She will probably be a little resistant to this kind of direction since it can easily lead to a feeling that the party is being overly directed, but it sounds like your concerned with not being able to portray your character effectively. Talk to the DM.
I would like a copy of the final version also. I love what I've read and look forward to using it in my home game. : schmidtjohnt@gmail.com
Lune, I agree that RAW this should work. Boon companion's cap is, in my opinion, a guide that applies to all AC boosting. The rules intended for Animal Companions to be capped at character level, and I would be shocked if the poster found a table game that allowed the Companion to exceed this cap.
Goldenfrog, the problem people have with their response is likely because what you want to do, optimize as the DM, isn't a thing that can be done. As the DM you hold all the cards. All you can do as DM is move the goal posts. As DM you are the chef preparing the meal for your players. Currently your players are scarfing down their food. You want them to have some challenge and want to cook differently. If you follow Williamoaks advice, it's akin to serving rocks in place of normal fare. +5, +6 encounters have much higher defenses and often a tremendous increase in defensive choices. In my own games this often leads to fights where some of the characters feel like they are ineffective (and not having fun). When it works, it can be an epic battle against a vastly superior force. Do you want your players to have to break their teeth a little (feel challenged when they normally smoke through battles)? The other option you have, because you can move the goal posts is to create victory conditions besides "kill everything that moves". Think of these as more of "serve so much food they have trouble eating all of it"
If you made Dexterity a viable alternative to Strength without any feat tax, you make Strength moot. Dex already boosts AC, there would be virtually no reason to have a strength based character, beyond the 13 needed to qualify for power attack. One of the big things that annoyed me about 4e was the way they wrote attacks around which ever stat they wanted to key attacks off of. It worked great from a crunch perspective, but no matter how handsome and persuasive the bard is, it makes my brain hurt that he stabs harder being more charismatic.
Suthainn, thank you for the link. I missed the italic'd description at the top of the pfsrd. This discussion isn't about "has a tail" it's about "has a tail that makes a mechanical difference in the game" Suthainn, your argument makes sense and your point isn't unreasonable. I just don't think it's as cut and dry as some people are arguing.
I've read through the Kobold entry a few times in the PFSRD, nowhere does it mention that THEY have tails. The picture doesn't show a tail. Why is it unreasonable to think that Tail Terror causes a tail to grow/thicken/appear? Kitsune have a feat that grows an extra tail as part of the fluff (Magical Tail). I understand the argument that humans don't have tails, but the discussion isn't about a human, it's about a human with alternate racial ancestry (which is confusing since it's retroactive to being born by virtue of taking a feat). 1 Human takes Racial Heritage feat (We all agree this does nothing)
2 Human takes Tail Terror (We all agree the Human meets the prerequisites "Kobold, +1 BAB") Does not imply that the character grows a tail, but tails aren't mentioned AT ALL anywhere under kobolds, requirments, as limbs, etc. The only place I can find anything on tails growing/having is in the Eidolon rules. Humans (actual, you know, real world) can have tiny tails. It's rare but it's an actual thing. Real humans can have them, but Pathfinder humans can't? It's not a normal thing for humans to have tails, but it's not outside reality. Feats already grant limbs/body modifications/scales/horns/claws. This is part of the narrative that Pathfinder uses. The character must be assumed to already have been of an alternate racial heritage for the feat to make sense. I understand the point that humans don't have tails, ergo Tail Terror doesn't function. This is a perfect example of something that needs FAQ'ing. My two cents.
First point. The racial heritage feat language is clear. It lets the character take 'tail slap'. Second point. Does the feat 'racial heritage' give the character a tail? That's unclear. Being partly Kobold could give a little tail to the character. It might not. This part of the feat chain isn't clear. Third point. Do you have to have a tail to take 'tail slap'. RAW the feat has the prerequisite "+! attack, be a kobold". The implicit having a tail requirement is assumed in the "be a kobold" part. Clearly you have to have a tail to be a Tail Terror. The way I read it, the alternate racial heritage lets you take any ridiculous hybrid feat you want, and it makes you some kind of tail having orc mutant. It doesn't explicitly say you grow a tail for being part kobold. 1 Be an Orc = no tail (no question)
Exotic Weapon Proficiency Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1. Benefit: You make attack rolls with the weapon normally. Normal: A character who uses a weapon with which he is not proficient takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls. Special: You can gain Exotic Weapon Proficiency multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of exotic weapon. If you don't think Exotic Weapon Proficiency gives proficiency, I don't know what to tell you. A:Fearless Aura grants immunity to fear to characters in a Paladin's Aura of Courage B:The bonus is removed from Aura of Courage because the paladin has the Fearless Aura feat C:Aura of courage grants it's bonus to saves vs dragon breath via the Dragonbane Aura feat. Where are you getting B from?
Spell Resistance granting "unbeatable SR" doesn't qualify as a precedent such that immunity = infinite bonus. The logical corollary to "immunity equals infinite bonus" is any automatic success would also be an infinite bonus. This isn't how pathfinder treats immunity or automatic successes. I honestly don't understand where your confusion comes from. The Dragonbane aura says "gain the bonus from aura of courage to saves vs dragon breath". Fearless Aura doesn't change the bonus IN ANY WAY. There isn't even an implication that it changes the bonus. The Aura becomes +4 vs fear effects (and also immune to fear effects).
The animation magic recalls the soul from the dark plane they goto after they pass (Hell, Ghenna, the Abyss). The LG Necromancer makes an alliance himself with those dark souls, and in reanimating them, gives them a chance to fight for justice or defend the weak. These good acts can/will help the dead beings soul migrate to a higher alignment. Even mindless undead like zombies and skeletons can have the screaming essence of dead murderers, brigands, or lawyers who repent their evil life now that they have experienced their afterlife. I imagine huge punitive social repercussions also for raising the dead.
All this talk of snowflakes and ponies has brought back memories of some of the more cataclysmic derailing i've had occur in games over the years. One game I played in years ago we had a rogue who was working as a bounty hunter/assassin. The party was unaware that he had "dead or alive" contracts on some of the NPCs. We were all set to interrogate a prisoner for information about the MacGuffin and out of the blue he stabs the NPC, killing him with a coup d'grace. What's the DM's roll in games where there's intra-party conflict. The DM liked all the players, he approved all the characters. Should he have been a peace maker between the players? Should he write narrative feeding the assassination storyline? What do you think about intra-party conflict in general? Do you have it in your games? Do you enjoy it?
Orthos, I don't mean anything critical in this. I would like to use your post as a reference to make an unrelated point. an Adventure Path is a perfect example for me of the limitations of the XP system. If you beef up encounters because of a stronger party (which I almost always end up having to do) by rule the party should get extra XP for the fight. Extra XP makes the already strong party over-level the content and exacerbates the problem of them being stronger than the written encounters. The party deserves the XP, they've earned it. One of the big reasons I like the already written APs is not having to write an entire campaign out. I work full time and goto school, I need the assistance to have a well fleshed out adventure. Keeping the party in the level range the AP thinks they should be keeps the encounters closer to where I want them to be, challenge wise. If your party is doubling up the expected level, aren't they blowing encounters up left and right? Laurefindel, if your party gets enough XP to conveniently level when you want them to your mechanically getting the same effect I do by not bothering with XP. Do you track the parties XP? I like the idea of giving players a metric for their advancement without losing the benefit of keeping the pace what I want it to be.
I've given up on XP entirely. Incentivizing is great from a narrative perspective but the bonus of A) not having to track XP and B) being able to control the pace of character advancement outweigh the benefits. When it's narratively appropriate to level, they level. If I want more of a sandbox feel, I have them level when they've accomplished something major, or a number of minor goals. Splitting the parties levels punishes players who don't attend every session (We have one who is on call all the time, he makes about half our sessions). If you want to reward the players who fight the battles instead of get drunk in bars, give them loot or recognition. My two cents.
Know what's better than consensus? http://youtu.be/nIQfIj-RLyw Seriously though, everyone should have fun as their goal in the game. I know for myself, I will reserve the perjorative "special snowflake" only for the most heinous of Prima Donna players in the future.
Played in a 3e? game with a guy who's sorcerer (after a prestige class) did untyped fire damage. He said his fire was so hot it would burn even fire elementals and demons. We never let him live it down.
I am generally against monster races, and the monster-ier they are, the less I like them. Kobolds are a good example of a monster that I would allow, because the world is full of kobolds. You see them everywhere, they are virtually always evil, but you see them. Human NPCs would likely comment/discriminate against a Kobold in a game I run, but I would make that clear to a player wanting to play a Kobold in character creation so s/he didn't feel punished for the choice after the game started. Talking horses? not so much. An innkeeper aught to be shocked by an Illithid cube wanting to rent a room. Drow are attacked on sight. Dragons cause people to flee in terror. The monster race rules lay out rules in case people want to use them. I don't think races in particular must necessarily be included just because they are stat-ed out. DMs put a lot of work into the game, and we often have an idea of how we want our game to play. Lets turn the question around. Steve finally finds a game he can play his Horse in. Everyone is shocked he can talk. None of the shopkeepers will sell him anything, and he doesn't have pockets anyway since he's a Horse. The Innkeeper tries to stable him. Is it fair for a DM to let someone play a very exotic race and then have a bunch of in game negative consequences? I don't think so. I think that takes away from Steve's fun. Should Horses be stigmatized in Golarian? I think so. I think Horses are weird. I think people should think Horses are weird. I know it's a high fantasy game, but even fantasies have and should have limits. Without any limits on what to expect, you have no way of anticipating how the world works and making rational decisions.
I think we should come to consensus on what we're talking about with snowflakes then. I think it describes a situation where someone wants to play something at the expense of the rest of the group that defines a snowflake. For me it's a person who knows the group includes a priest of the sun god and a paladin who wants to play a necromancer *because it's in the rules*. They know that this character will have goals diametric to what other PCs want to do. It's a person who's character steals from other characters causing the game to derail. I don't think snowflakes are the people who want to be unique, per se. To me they are the people who want to be unique and don't care if it ruins other peoples' fun or not.
New to the Paizo boards and really enjoying them so far. Things I like about messageboard talks 1) People who post a lot tend to be really passionate about the game. These are people I like talking to, especially over meaty topics like character choice vs a DM's right to world build. 2) on boards, I get what Kirth described, the experiences of people who's tables are very different from my own. 3) I get good theory-craft. Games are only as good as the rules that support them. Numbers give those rules life, and understanding how 19 to hit is 100% better than 20 to hit affects how monsters interact with characters, and how players interact with skill challenges. Many of my players aren't that into crunch, but my understanding how the crunch works is vital for their fun. 4) The whole "Full Casters are better than everyone else" argument isn't one that's come up at the tables I play at or run, but why people think that way I think helps me avoid issues where a someone playing a fighter might feel overshadowed if there aren't enough encounters in each day, or I don't pay enough attention to the pacing.
I'm interested to hear what you as a group think of the way my table handles rules disagreements (which are what spawn most of the DM demands in my experience). I'm not talking about "I should get to play this or that character" arguments. I think the My Little Pony thread exhausted that topic nicely. I've been playing since ODnD, and my players are all also veterans. Our problem is versions bleeding into one another. Can you take an AOO in pathfinder for drinking a potion? Someone remembers you can't (4e) someone remembers you can (3e), noone agreed. We settle the debate with a show of hands until after the game. Do you like "Tiny Democracy" as a vehicle for rules adjudication over DM fiat/stopping play to look the rule up?
I think the grocery store analogy is very nicely done, however I think the meal is more accurate to the point. To extend your meal analogy, it's not that each person is ordering their own dish when they make a group. They are making a soup and each person contributes their own ingredient (a character). Everyone eats from the same pot (playing the game together). If one person wants to add anchovies (which are an available choice) because they like them, everyone eats anchovies. On the point of Pathfinder being high fantasy I have a question more than a comment. I have played tabletop DnD since the 80s. I love it as a game and I love medieval fantasy as a genre. DnD is unquestionably high fantasy with fireballs and raising the dead. I feel like there aught to be some descriptor for fantasy that includes awakened animals and talking energy bodies beyond 'high fantasy'. I just don't know what to call it. Tolkien (who I think most people would agree is a good standard for a fantasy setting) had a few talking animals in his work, but they weren't central characters. I think an awakened pony would have seemed out of place among the hobbits and dwarves. There are games that extremely exotic races belong it, but I think they should be the exception and not the rule.
Call it "the Special Snowflake Inn"
Harpy's victims move towards them using the straightest path. Have the druid roll a knowledge check to remember that victims get an additional saving throw if they move into a dangerous area. The Druid can throw down a flaming oil slick for example. You could have a brazier in the room directly in the players path prompt an additional save. The charm works while they are singing, have the druid or the animal companion's grapple cause them to stop while they fend off the attack. Worst case, when one of the characters starts to get chomped on, perhaps that would cause the other characters to realize they were walking into danger. That might set a bad precedent moving forward, but no-one wants a TPK if they can avoid it.
MDT, that's an amazing set of rules you linked to. I'm going to start running RoTRL adventure path soon and I love the idea that my players can have already fleshed out rules to build up businesses in Sandpoint. Now someone should come up with rules for guilds now, especially guilds of harlots....
Be sure that his tavern gets giant rats in the basement at least once a month. It's not a penalty for him since wandering adventurers come clean them out.
The question of playing an awakened pony is better than the one of playing a demon. A demon would have level adjustment issues, the pony wouldn't. The real issue comes down to 'I want to play something disruptive/inappropriate to the setting/immersion breaking'. It's possible in games you play that talking ponies are common and it would make a fine addition to your game. In the games I run, the world is very vanilla to classical DnD settings and ponies that speak are entirely out of place. You can justify anything you want in High Fantasy. Talking horses aren't even out of bounds from classic mythology, looking at unicorns and animal lords. What they are though is immersion breaking as player characters if you have classic races represented by the other players with one outlier. You are going to have fun at the expense of other players, and I as a DM am not only allowed to disallow it, but it's my responsibility to ensure a cohesive and fun game environment. Lazy DM'ing is letting you play "My little pony" when everyone else wants to play DnD. If everyone wants to play 'My little pony' then great, but you don't get to play whatever you want just because you can shoe horn some justification based on a Tardis going through a warp gate into the matrix causing a horse to pop into existence who has class levels and is awakened (even if that's entirely possible in a make believe world).
No, there isn't a Fullblade equivalent in pathfinder. 2d6 is the best you can do with a two handed weapon.
First of all I entirely agree with you that exhaustion is the next level of fatigue. Where we differ is in reading them as mutually exclusive. The way I read it you can be no condition, n.c.+fatigued, n.c.+fatigued+exhausted. You don't take penalties from both fatigued and exhausted, but you are both, and in many cases exhaustion comes from being fatigued multiple times. From the pathfinder SRD "Doing anything that would normally cause fatigue causes the fatigued character to become exhausted. After 8 hours of complete rest, fatigued characters are no longer fatigued." Since the exhausted only lasts 10 minutes per raged round, I thought it was important to point out that he would revert to fatigued when the exhaustion ends. (which is how I read the rule) In response to your post, I suppose a character could suffer an effect that would exhaust them that wouldn't otherwise make them fatigued, but I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.
Short answer, no. You rage and use Furious Finish. Your now fatigued. You use Roused Anger to enter a second rage and use Furious Finish again. You now end rage 2 and become BOTH fatigued and exhausted. Furious Finish makes you fatigued again (not a big deal since Roused Anger lets you Rage-cycle). Roused Anger says when you end rage 2 you become exhausted. Nothing in Furious Finish prevents this from happening.
A tactic that works beautifully is tall grass. In my experience you need to use this sparingly because of how much of a challenge it can be for a group. 6 foot high grass is total cover past a few feet, and it will allow your monsters to play cat and mouse with the party (who are unlikely to make use of flight at this level). If you do have someone fly up, that person becomes the primary target for any missle attacks that Team Monster has available. I also agree, your goal shouldn't be 'get the archer'. You SHOULD be looking for ways to make the other characters have opportunities to shine. Is there a rogue in the party? Perception and Stealth will let them ferret out enemies that the party can't see. A fighter? Up close and personal lets him do his thing when the party bumps into something fight-able. Maybe the cleric can cast 'endure elements' on the party and light swaths of grass on fire to smoke the monsters out. |
