Mr. Tomo's page

It seems that the people argueing against our point seem to miss that this is the crux of the matter, not that we as individual GM's can change the depiction in the module. Having such an extremely deplorable attitude by the major LG goddess of (strong emphasis mine) justice and honor and righteousness of the setting canonized by no one less than James Jacobs as to what appears to be normal behaviour for her is extremely disappointing to me. It bears no resemblance to what I'd expect a deity of those three aspects to embody.

Is it any different then LG Paladins burning supposed witches and discriminating against those who don't look or believe like them?

Anyway, I don't think it's all that strange for her to be tough on the PCs, especially since she's sending them to basically face off against someone who would and did do worst, and ended up changing her herald, who I would presume was far more good then any mortal.

The change is replacing TWF with Fighting and casting in the same action, which alters the action economy of the game and assures that any option for classes who wanted a free hand fighter is going to be something that has to be counter balanced against the magus.

Except that's not much of a change and only applies to the Magus being played. No Magus being played, no need to care about Spell Combat. There isn't any counterbalance necessary.

Not to mention it means every GM needs to understand the nuances of how spell combat interacts with the rest of the system, something still being sorted out in various FAQ questions.

No, it only means that GMs who have players playing a Magus needs to understand Spell Combat, which honestly isn't that hard to understand. And considering there are FAQs about all the classes still going on, that's hardly a "Magus" issue. Spell Combat isn't any more misunderstood then any other class ability.

It added complexity to a simple problem.

Don't see the complexity.

In the case of the Magus, spell combat narrows the class to one handed weapon use, tending toward dervish dancers, so that we can have what? A two weapon fighting variation that only works logically in the metagame aspect of action allocation.

Well a TWF class would be using a one handed weapon regardless, not that you can't use a two handed weapon if you wanted. And I'm quite sure there aren't as many Dervish Dancers as it's made out to be. Even if there were, that goes to the problem of Min/Maxing, which is an issue for every class, not just the Magus.

It seems more like a thought experiment than an interesting and flavorful class, and I don't think there is anything it does that couldn't be done as well if not better without the new mechanic which limits future choices.

I'm not seeing how it limits any future choices. And I would be quite interested in hearing a way to make an effective fighter/wizard without a new mechanic.

And I'm hoping that with this book they will do more of the "create something interesting to play that doesn't quite work well with the system currentl" and less of "Look at this cool idea I might be able to make work with enough playtesting"

As this really doesn't apply to the Magus, not seeing an issue.

Exactly what options for the developers and designers did the Magus change/effect with the introduction of Spell Combat that no other class ability changed/effected?

Also, pretty sure there wasn't a way to make an effective fighter/wizard without a new mechanic.

I'd actually argue that as education improves, you see more experts then commoners.

And even if we assume the classes are something voluntary, I'd much rather be an expert then a wizard.

Thats a discussion for another day.

Good point.

Now, this tl;dr comes with these points I've been trying to make:

1.) You always need men, even with magic.
2.) There's a hell of a lot more to warfare then the stats of the people fighting it (Geography, politics, etc).

I do admit, my examples might be a little janky as they're more pre-rennissance nationstates and less 'kingdoms.'

I agree with the second point, but not really the first. Even with the majority of them having only an Int of 10~12, I think they would still be more useful then just being commoners. I mean, them being wizards wouldn't prevent them from doing the same work as commoners, they simply would have a better advantage in doing said work. For example, Mage Hand to move things and Mending to repair broken tools. It's not as if they would lose something by becoming wizards, other then time I guess.

I have actually shown you the rules, multiple times. You simply choose to stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'NYAH NYAH NYAH' every time someone says something or points to rules you don't like.

No, you have shown me rules stating that spellcasting in a settlement is of a certain level. But nowhere in the rules you posted contradicts what we were previously told, that while there can be casters in the lower settlements, it's not the norm. Nothing you have given even implies that there will always be spellcasters in every settlement, which is what is being argued. I directly responded to the rules in the Game Mastery Guide, whereas you wrote off me using the core rules as "house-rulings". So sorry, but it seems like you're the one going "Nyah Nyah Nyah" here. I asked for a simple thing, the ruling stating that every settlement would have a caster. Since there is no such ruling, there is nothing contradicting the core rulings.

I actually don't see a problem with a large chunk of the farmers being low level spell casters. If you look back in mythology, how many farmers wives were midwives?

I see it as perfectly acceptable for farm wives to be adepts or low level oracles, healing, blessings, and such.

That's what the Heal skill is meant for. Anyway, that reasoning just doesn't work. If anyone could become a spellcaster, then why wouldn't everyone become one? Magic would clearly give them a advantage over the everyday toil and they would never again have to worry about food or water. There wouldn't be any reason for one not to become a caster. The world you're talking about is one where the majority of people are casters, which changes the act of war far beyond what's being discussed here.

I don't think we're going to have any reason to continue, you are at a stance where nothing I say is going to matter, and frankly, I find your stance simply unsupportable. At this point, I think we have to agree to disagree.

My stance isn't unsupported. It's back by the actual rules, and while I have asked numerous times, you have yet to show any rules invalidating them.

Bolded : Spellcasting is limited by the level of available spellcasters in town. See that sentence? It is the limiting factor on what spells are available. That means it is the new rule on the limits of spellcasting services.

Except there's nothing contradicting the previous ruling. There's nothing stating that no longer will you only occasionally find a caster as previous stated, but now are guaranteed.

Itallicized : This line explains that the limit is based on spell level and town size. The entry specifies what is available.

And again, nothing contradicting the previous ruling.

See this section, this section specifies what those minor/medium/major entries mean. This is the section that covers why a Thorp has 50 to 30,000 GP worth of magic items for sale above the default base value that are available.

There are even expanded rules to modify that spellcasting. That's why they had to hammer out the exact numbers available. Before, it was hand-waved for the GM, but when you put in specific rules, you have to be specific. Odd little symmetry there, yes?

Don't see what changes about the argument of there not being many casters.

Under the CRB entries, it was left up to the GM exactly how much having a magical group or leader would affect spellcasting. When they wrote the settlement expansion, they codified it. As we see above, a Thorp run by a high priest or archwizard or magical monster attracts more magic, and thus you increase the spellcasting limit from 1 to 2. Doesn't mean the archwizard can only cast second level spells, it means he probably has an assistant who can cast 2nd level and is willing to do so for money, and a 3rd level cleric is probably in town, attracted by the archwizard.

That actually supports my argument more, since a settlement run by an Archwizard would not be the norm.

And again, by codifying it, they can work out ways to get you exactly what you want. If you want low magic, you can give every city the 'Superstitious' quality, reducing the # of spellcasters. Before, under the rules you are quoting, this was a GM handwave with no codified rules. But now it has specifics, it reduces spellcasting by 2 levels. That means Thorps and Villages don't have any casting going on. Alternately, a magically aligned holy site thorp is going to have 4th level spells available. It gives the GM a way of gauging the amount of magical power he should have based off what sort of settlement he wants.

That's sort of the whole point of putting out a rules expansion, to clarify and codify parts of the rules that were 'iffy' on how they were defined before. Same thing applied to Tien weapons and armor, previously they were sort of hand-waved at, katana = bastard sword, etc. Then they expanded the eastern weapons & armor in the ultimate combat book, and now all that stuff had specific entries and stats. Doesn't mean that suddenly people in Tien switched what they were wearing, it means they finally expanded upon the rules for those things that they hand-waved before.

Which doesn't change the main argument at all. You have basically been claiming that the previous ruling have become invalid, that there are now casters in every village and one can get any spell of a specific level. But there's nothing of the sort in the actual rules. There's nothing contradicting the original rules. You can not claim that magic is common under the rules when the rules say nothing of the sort.

Ultimate Campaign doesn't touch these rules for settlements. Thus it's moot.

Ultimate Campaign mentioned a spellcaster in relations to settlements, mentioning how a 3rd level wizard going to a small settlement would create waves, while going to a large town or city would hardly have an effect.

They didn't reprint the rules in the errata of the CRB because it would require reformatting the entire book to accomodate the new rules in Gamemastery. They simply can't do that, and have stated such in the past. There are previous examples of rulings and FAQs that don't make it into the core books (The best one is the monk flurry rulling about flurrying with a two-handed monk weapon, the original monk flurry rules are still in the book, which have been stated prevent such a thing, but the FAQ stands and allows it, because they can't errata the entry without affecting the formating).

They wouldn't have had to reformat the entire book. They merely would have had to change a single paragraph from mentioning how not every town or village has a spellcaster. Heck, they already listed the settlements and the common spellcasting level from a small town upward. It would have meant like adding in 18 words, with just as many being removed. So that argument just doesn't work.

Because it has been superseded by subsequent published rules.

This is how rules work. In every published RPG in recorded history, the current 'ruleset' is the most recent published rules + errata/FAQ.

So, while the Core Rules do indeed have the text you cited, those have been expanded upon and fleshed out within the Gamemastery Guide (which was published after the core rule book, and which use 90% of the information from the CRB).

If you insist on using only CRB, you can argue your stance. But you also have to throw out any rules book other than the CRB, and also throw out any errata that hasn't been published and any FAQ answers.

I quoted you the most recent set of rules, I don't really understand why this is hard for you. What is the published rules? The published rules are the rules published. If two rules conflict, which do you follow? The most recently published rule takes precedent, unless superseded by a subsequently published errata or FAQ.

Except there's nothing superseding said rules or con. I have asked several times for the ruling that states one can now find a caster [u]every time[/u]. There's nothing in the Game Mastery Guide stating this, therefore there is no contradiction being made. Until you can actually show this, the core ruling is still valid.

And for the record, the Core Rulebook was errata this year, well after the Game Mastery Guide was published, without any changes being made to the spellcasting rules. Ultimate Campaign also came after it. So the whole "most recent rules" argument is null.

However, this feature of the Roman military was not the norm among ancient armies. The Roman infantry grew into the most maneuverable heavy infantry seen anywhere in the entire world up to that point; it is not a good example of a typical ancient military, because Roman proficiency in the command and control of small, flexible units of maneuver was thoroughly exceptional.

Well I was just using it as an example of viable force not needing a large number to be considered one. I didn't intend for it to be taken as a standard or anything.

Actually, in the case of Europe, the first crude firearms arrived in the first half of the 14th century and hand cannons were developed within 50 years. Through the time period of the 14th through 16th century, the military revolution spawned in part by artillery and small arms had radically transformed the face of war. A 16th century army appeared very different than a 14th century army. There's a lot of controversy over the Early Modern Military Revolution, but pretty much everyone agree there was a huge amount of change in military tactics and strategy. The bottom line is that technology does get used, and will lead to changes in warfare. Magic can easily be used as such.

I thought that the first ones were brought to Europe during the 13th century via the Mongol invasion. And it was in the late 15th century that they first became apart of the regular infantry by the Ottomans. Anyway, Magic would be different though, right? Firearms took off because anyone and everyone could be taught to use them much quicker then other weapons. Magic on the otherhand, would canonally take decades to be taught.

The most recent English bayonet charge was in 2004. And armies in W.W. II commonly used mules and horses to move supplies abd artillery. In neither case should one conclude that this means those militaries were in any way similar to armies from the 14th century.

Well the original point was that the introduction of firearms didn't completely eliminate man to man fighting. That's interesting about the bayonet charge though.

Published rules are not applicable. Only your stance on how you think rules should be applied is viable? Sorry, either it's published rules, ro it's not.

And before you say 'it's optional rules' it's not, that section expands on the existing core table for settlements (check it out).

However, I see no reason to waste time arguing this any more. People who want to go by published rules are welcome to debate with me. If you want to debate your own setting specific rules, then post them. I'm sure someone will debate with you. I see no reason to waste my time doing so.

Nowhere did I say published rules weren't applicable. The entire point is that I gave you the published rulings directly from the Core Rulebook stating that while it's possible to find a caster in a smaller settlement, it's not the standard. That's not "my own setting specific rules". I also gave an example used in the Ultimate Campaign book. Point is, you've yet to show why this ruling would no longer apply.

Mr Tomo, please follow the link to the PRD that I posted earlier. If you're going to ignore the PRD, I don't see how we can have a discussion.

I've seen the link, and the fact remains that it does not work the way you're trying to use it. You're trying to use optional rules meant merely for world building as the standard, and completely ignoring the actual core ruling on the subject.

You and I never started a discussion about one side having magic and the other not having magic. I've never tried to talk about that because it's a dead end conversation.

So you don't remember our discussing magic being used in battle and "exploding" in usage by your own words. That belief only works under the assumption that magic had never been used before, so how were we not discussing that?

As to Roman Units, again, I'm not sure what you're arguing there. Are you arguing that a 60 to 80 man unit was their standard unit? it wasn't. It was just a specific unit. C/P from Wikipedia...

I was arguing the fact that a group of less then a hundred was still viable for organized military combat, so there didn't have to be a large number of people for that.

Not sure what any of that has to do with this discussion, other than the fact that even if you only had 1% of the population as casters, in 430,000 man army that would still be 4,300 casters (and based on the rules under settlements, in the PRD, from the Gamemastery guide, spell casters are more common than that). If we go with the minimums I showed above, that's a lot of casters.

Except that you're completely ignoring the fact that the majority of the casters in a population would not be suitable for military usage and therefore wouldn't be in the army. That logic makes no sense. It would be like saying that because half the population is women, then half an army would be made up of them.

Also, please note the rules I pointed you to don't say 'it's possible' to get someone to cast a spell, it says that that is the level of spell casting that is available. It doesn't say that is the maximum possible spell level, if you do find a spell caster, which is how you are reading it. It says 'In a thorp, you can find spell casting services of spells level 1 or lower'.

You mean the rules meant solely for building a settlement? Where precisely does it said that the rules for spellcasting was changed/modified? Nothing in the Game Mastery Guide states that one will always find a caster. So unless you have another ruling explaining that we should ignore the core ruling...

No, this discussion is supposed to be, how magic would affect the tacitcs used in war. Not, what happens when one side has magic and the other doesn't.

I responded to your scenario about one side using a magic-user. That's what began this discussion between us.

Large scale organized combat does require a lot of people. And if you think that all of human history until 500 years ago was 'wildly charging without any form or tactic' you need to go do some research. Assuming that primitive = stupid is a major idiocy.

No it doesn't. For example, a Roman unit called a Centuria only contained between 60 to 80 men. And historically, it would be about 5,000 years.

A) We're not discussing a specific situation, we're discussing how magic affects war tactics, not sure how you can get more general than that.

We, you and I, were discussing a specific situation.

B) You proved my point. How is magic rare or uncommon when even a 100 person village has several 5th level casters? You read it as saying that's rare. If I have 100 people and have at least 3 casters of 5th level in that group, then that means if I have 100,000 people in a country, then I have at least 3,000 5th level casters. That's not rare. That's common. I could just as easily have 3,000 nobles and nobody would think you couldn't find a noble. And that's only 5th level casters. Let's look up the minimums.

Note : Caster Count is Minimum to cover 90% of available spells
Thorp : 10 People average, 3 1st level casters : 30%
Hamlet : 40 people average, 3 2nd level casters : 7.5%
Village : 100 people average, 3 5th level casters : 3%
Small Town : 1000 people average, 3 7th level casters : 0.3%
Large Town : 3500 People average, 3 9th level casters : 0.085%
Small City : 7500 people average, 3 11th level casters : 0.04%
Large City : 17500 people average, 3 13th level casters : 0.01%

So, in a 100,000 person kingdom, you'd expect (and again, this is an unrealistic minimum because it assumes the absolute minimum to provide the raw listed spell casting services) the following :
100,000 * 0.30 = 30,000 1st level casters.
100,000 * 0.075 = 7,500 3rd level casters.
100,000 * 0.03 = 3,000 5th level casters.
100,000 * 0.003 = 300 7th level casters.
100,000 * 0.00085 = 85 9th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0004 = 40 11th level casters.
100,000 * 0.0001 = 10 13th level casters.

Also note we need to add another 3 15th level casters, assuming a kingdom has at most one metropolis in it given it would require 25% of the population to populate it.

So our total caster population of the kingdom, by minimum is : 40,938 out of 100,000. That is, by the rules as presented in the book, 41% of the population has some ability to cast spells. And that's at a minimum. Even if you went with the 1 caster instead of 3 (remember, rules say you can get any spell cast, which requires 3 casters of the given level) then that's still 13,646 casters per 100,000 (or 13.6% of the population), or over 1 out of 10 people. That's not rare. I'm sorry, but it's not.

How so? The rules outright state that while it's possible, you wouldn't likely be able to find a 1st level caster unless you go to a small town. Nowhere was it stated that you would always find a caster. So your claim about finding a 5th level caster in a village, much less several is wrong. It's not gonna be 3 out of 100 in a village. At best, it would be 3 out of 1000 of a small town.

Ah, the 'only my side has magic' method of debate. Uhm, why is there only one wizard? And why do you get him?

This discussion began over the belief that one army using magic to win a battle. then suddenly everyone else would be doing the same. It really doesn't matter where said wizard came from in the overall discussion.

Not really. Cavalry yes, but not organized mass fighting. Or at least, not because it was something new. We just didn't have the population odo it. We did mass up as many club wielders as were in the area though for battles.

Organized forces doesn't require a set number of people to be used. And it's quite different then wildly charging in without any form or tactic.

Again, the default assumption within the rules (and I quoted things to back that up, odd how nobody arguing against me can quote one single thing from the rules stating magic is rare or only recently discovered), is that magic has been around for tens of thousands of years. So no, saying it would take a few generations is like saying it would take me a couple of weeks to make a few hundred arrows, so bows are useless in a fight.

Aside from the fact that we were discussing a specific situation, not a general one, I'm not sure what rules you are talking about. The core books all pretty much imply that magic is uncommon, and high-level casters are rare.

From the Core Rulebook: This cost assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at his convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell you need to negotiate with him, and the default answer is no.

In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.

So while you may find a caster in a village to case a 3rd level spell, normally you would have to go to at least a small city to guarantee it. And even then, there's no guarantee that the caster in question will even help you, especially with a spell that has a dangerous consequence (like making said wizard the enemy of an entire country).

The Ultimate Campaign mentions how a 3rd level Wizard would likely have to move to a large town or city to not be noticed. Then there's the fact that by RAW, a wizard (the only caster that can be “made”) isn't even prepared for 1st level til they reach the ages of 22. At best, they could stumble upon one of the intuitive casters at the age of 17, but even then we're talking about a 1st level caster. I don't see anything disagreeing with the claims I've made. If it takes at least seven years of training to get a 1st level wizard, then as said, it's gonna take a few generations til they reach a high enough level to actually be of help. And as the Core Rulebook states, buying the services of a high-level caster will completely depend on if said caster is willing, and even then it'll cost quite a bit for a single spell.

And again, I love the argument that this magic that's been around for thousands of years, and for which there are casters all over the freaking place cna only be had by one army, not the other. It's hilarious. Utterly bogus and dumb argument, but hilarious.

Aside from that not being the case, that was never the argument being made.

Which was what I said about 20 times in the thread above. In the post you quoted even, but later in it. So uhm, I guess you are agreeing with me in a manner that sounds like disagreement?

You said, at least in the post I responded to, that a single wizard wouldn't affect a battle much. I disagreed with that, that one would be very effective for a battle. Perhaps not in battle throwing around fireballs as suggested, but that's not the sole thing a wizard would be capable of doing in battle, especially against an army lacking any magic.

First Homo Sapien appears in fossil record : 200,000 years (give or take 5,000)

How long Homo Sapiens fought with non-firearms : 199,700 years (give or take 100 years)

Time it took firearms to take over : 300 years.

300/195,000 = 0.0015

In other words, it took less than 0.15% of human history for firearms to take over completely and utterly. I state again, they took over in the blink of an eye (historically speaking).

By that reasoning, the same could be said for tactics like infantry and cavalry, not to mention organized mass fighting.

Anyway, that really doesn't change the original point. As mentioned, you can't just make a magic-user. It would take a few generations to train one up or find a powerful enough one willing to work for you, and even that's presuming that the opposing force doesn't wipe you out long before you can do that. No, just because one army begins to use a wizard doesn't mean that their opponent will suddenly be able to match.

If magic isn't available, then it's a closely guarded secret, there are no +1 swords floating around, and therefore magic just doesn't affect combat very much. You might have a wizard here or a cleric there in combat, but it's not going to affect things much.

Something being a closely guarded secret wouldn't prevent it from being available (see gunpowder). While it's true a single wizard or cleric wouldn't change much in an actual battle, as pointed out in this thread, a single wizard can be quite useful for an entire military campaign. One magic-user scrying the enemies movement, summoning some elementals, or creating an undead army could easily grant their side the advantage.

Magic is very much like firearms. Once you introduce them into combat, it explodes and takes over. We fought for literally tens of thousands of years one man against another. Then we invented guns. And in a blink of an eye, it changed everything about how we do war. No more masses of men struggling in the mud, it was suicide. The massed volley fire of the Musket Men ended that sort of warfare really fast.

That's not really true. It took hundred of years for firearms to spread, and even longer for them to become a regular part of the military. If I recall correctly, men to men fighting was still going on for quite some time, up til WW1. But in all fairness, the strength of firearms wasn't truly realized til rifling and mass manufacturing. Magic wouldn't have such limits. The limitations of magic would be either genetics, “being chosen”, or the sheer time necessary to learn, none of which would make the spreading of usage as long as firearms.

There's a critical mass point for magic, so yes, it could be that that +1 witch suddenly makes it go off. But it's more likely that +1 battle fought and won by magic. Just like archery started an arms race, and just like firearms did, magic would as well.

Even if a battle is won by magic, that in no way would mean that the opposition would/could begin using magic. They would still have to find a magic-user. If magic was presumably unknown before due to there only being a few magic-users existing, the king and his generals suddenly discovering magic isn't gonna suddenly make more appear. They can't just start producing magic-users out of nowhere. It's still gonna be rare.

Atarlost wrote:

You can't rely on having witches. You can't have witches unless the patrons cooperate.

What you can get are alchemists, who aren't very good at it. You can maybe get clerics if you have an organized religion on side, but you can't organize any other non-wizard-like casters very well unless you have a long running sorcerer eugenics program.

Either magic exists and is available, or it isn't. Can't have it both ways.

Pick one or the other, left side of road safe, right side of road safe, middle of road, squish.

Magic exists, or magic doesn't exist, either safe. Magic exists when it doesn't interfere with cinematics - Squish!

Pretty sure you can have it both ways. Witches aren't like Wizards, where you can give some guy a spellbook and he learns magic. Witches are created by an outside source. You can make a wizard, but not a witch. At best, you can eventually find one who's willing to help.

And just because something exist, doesn't mean it's available. I would think it's like how gunpowder was around for centuries before it became widely used in warfare.

Mr. Tomo wrote:

According to the GM Guide and NPC Codex, the lowest level a "knight" would be is Lv7(for a PC class) or Lv8 (for a NPC class). A knight wouldn't really be part of the average troops anyway.

Neither of those sources are typical representatives of NPC character archetypes, they are merely representative of the NPC character archetypes that the PCs are likely to encounter.

For example, a knight might be a low-level warrior, or perhaps even a fighter, but that's not the knight the PCs encounter, no. The one they are like to face is 7th- or 8th-level. After all, the NPC becomes more important the moment he interacts with the PCs.

Where did you get the idea that those were "minimum" levels?

I suppose that could be said of the NPC Codex, but the NPCs in the GM Guide are suppose to be generic representatives. And given that real world knights were a whole separate group from the run of a mill soldiers, and were only called knights after years of training as a page and squire, it just doesn't seem reasonable to have the example used be as one is talking about a standard warrior.

As for the levels, I simply looked for the lowest NPCs called a knight and used their level.

This is the first time I have seen any evidence that the average troop would be 2nd - 3rd level. My entire premise is that the average troop has kit less than 1000gp, which makes him 1st level (or 2nd level NPC class). Even poor knights would cost only about the same as a scroll of fireball, making them 1st level (assuming they are PC Classes). Richer knights would be 2nd - but only if you follow the rules for equipment as listed in the core rulebooks. If there are other rules, it would be helpful to know.

According to the GM Guide and NPC Codex, the lowest level a "knight" would be is Lv7(for a PC class) or Lv8 (for a NPC class). A knight wouldn't really be part of the average troops anyway.

Mr. Tomo wrote:

Rebel Arch wrote:

But if I roll well enough to give my Wizard a 12 CHA to fashion him like a magician, I don't see how I'm hurting other players, or making the Wizard harder to challenge. Anybody built like a face is going to be better in that role, and my CHA is just to give me the flavor and freedom to play him how I pictured. And if there is no face, I just helped the party out.

You can easily do that with point buy too. The only way that wouldn't work with point buy is if you literally want your character to be the very best in that role in addition to your regular role.

Yes I could, but it's not fun to me.

I was disputing the idea that higher total stat bonus, which isn't likely, but possible with rolling, doesn't break CR system.

So it's not so much a mechanical or technical issue as you just wanting to roll a bunch of dice around.

Unless you scale things up, it would break the system. In most situations, having completely high stats would eliminate any real challenge. The only way it could work is if it's the GM making these decisions and willing to put in the effort to make it work. Not really a decision a player should be making.

But if I roll well enough to give my Wizard a 12 CHA to fashion him like a magician, I don't see how I'm hurting other players, or making the Wizard harder to challenge. Anybody built like a face is going to be better in that role, and my CHA is just to give me the flavor and freedom to play him how I pictured. And if there is no face, I just helped the party out.

You can easily do that with point buy too. The only way that wouldn't work with point buy is if you literally want your character to be the very best in that role in addition to your regular role.