Mystery Meep's page

I've had it happen a number of times, mostly with an old group I later ditched whose playstyle was fundamentally meanspirited; the reward for them was in breaking the game and 'winning' against the GM and other players. If I had been interested in that sort of competition it might have been fun, but it was sort of explicitly.... /not/ what I or the other players in the group wanted.

Mystery Meep wrote:

The spellbook is built as a weakness that's meant to be able to be gone after.

I disagree. Its an awful form of 'balance' created by fluff. Its the difference between being playable and going home for the evening because you can't do anything.

I used to think its a great challenge to protect it, but it turns into tedium. It turns into an ever looming threat that bores me after the umpteenth time someone wants to break my character. It is not fun not to not have the spell book, and DM fiat bypasses any form of protection you had.

Not really--if you lose your spellbook, you still have the spells you'd already prepared to help you get it back. Now, if a DM just takes it by fiat ignoring whatever you did to try to protect it, then yes, that GM is being a jerk.

It's not really 'fluff' though--it's hard mechanics. I agree though that it's kind of tedious and not a /good/ balancing factor. Just that, as written, it is one.

The spellbook is built as a weakness that's meant to be able to be gone after. You can softball it and ignore that if you want, but that weakness is meant to be part of their balance. That's why the Spell Mastery feat exists.

Anyway, as for the actual topic, I like the flavor of wizards, but of the two I prefer the mechanics of sorcerers without a contest. Preparing spells is tedious.

Then if he's cocky, I suggest you prepare to do a lot of shirtless flexing after he changes back. You could even make a bit of a running theme out of it.

Then what purpose would these serve other than level dips? If they can't act as replacements for the current classes, but they don't have actual class features to stand on their own, what are they supposed to even do?

Try wearing loose, baggy clothing that's less likely to end up torn?

I would say that a rules-heavy system like Pathfinder being turned classless would probably be closer to gurps in its slowness. FATE, for instance, is classless, but is also much, much lighter on rules.

It basically follows this chain: if you can pick more or less whatever abilities you want as you level up, subject to certain totals and restrictions, then why have classes at all? Why not just cut out the middle?

Now, you could certainly have such a system and have pre-made example templates analagous to the classes we have now. But overall, if you're going to make that move, why bother with classes?

This presumes that part of your 'feat every level' includes turning certain class features into feats, as otherwise again, there seems to be little point.

Those counters do make a lot more sense, and that would be the issue that would need to be handled there. It's not really the approach I'd prefer anyway; it's a little clunky. What I'd rather do is give this theoretical robed divine caster class features that benefit from being unarmored or lightly armored, or just not give them proficiency in armor at base to begin with.

But while I would definitely like to see this 'priest' type myself, I agree that there's no reason to get rid of the old one, since it's not as if having more classes is a /bad/ thing. And you would definitely want to replace the combat utility with something. Either some offensive options in the spell list, some kind of buffing features akin to the bard's, or an expansion on some of the special abilities in domains.

More skills might also go a long way for it. The cleric isn't exactly weak as it stands, so weakening it isn't a problem for me--the issue is mostly that the cleric is already light on interesting abilities, so removing the 'boring but useful' decent BAB and armor exacerbates that further.

Mystery Meep wrote:

It doesn't really logically follow that you'd have to make no divine spellcaster able to cast in armor just because you make one divine spellcaster who doesn't cast in armor. That's not really how logic works.

I'm saying that divine magic as a whole, as a rule doesn't ever incur a spell failure chance from casting in armor. If you want to break that rule you are rewriting how divine magic works in general. If you add the spell failure chance to the cleric, I see it as adding it to all divine magic. Now you could just say that the other classes get feats that are similar to Arcane Armor Training and Mastery, but the Paladin would for example get a version that reduces it to 0% in heavy armor, the Ranger would get a version that reduces it to 0% in medium (but still has some chance if they wear heavy), but then what do you do about the Druid? He's a full caster like the Cleric. if the Cleric incurs full failure chance, shouldn't the Druid?

To me there is no logic in giving divine spells a failure chance to one class without giving all divine spells a spell failure chance.

You can certainly say that, but it's not correct to do so. Deciding that one specific case has additional rules is not the same as changing the rules for an entire category. Your problem is entirely illusory.

Mystery Meep wrote:

A class-based system isn't as flexible as a classless system, that's true. But if you want a classless system, you're probably better off seeking one out than modding Pathfinder to do it, I think.

Don't think I actually said I wanted or even thought PF should be a classless system.

It's the logical endpoint of what you're getting at. When you've moved entirely to generic classes, you might as well be classless.

It doesn't really logically follow that you'd have to make no divine spellcaster able to cast in armor just because you make one divine spellcaster who doesn't cast in armor. That's not really how logic works.

It is true that they'd need a little adjustment to their spellcasting or class features, but it's not as if any of the full casters are particularly hurting for effectiveness.

Probably the reason the cleric is set up the way it is is a bit of a 'consolation prize' for being stuck as the healer, but I think this thread displays there is at least a little bit of demand for a robed priest type.

...And comparing something to the wizard and saying it's weaker is pretty much going to be true regardless.

A class-based system isn't as flexible as a classless system, that's true. But if you want a classless system, you're probably better off seeking one out than modding Pathfinder to do it, I think.

I am all for it, but I like my priests in robes for similar reasons anyway; the mystics and such I remember from books and stories are more like that, and I'd rather have an emphasis on spellcasting than on 'I can fall back on hitting things.'

...And the current cleric is hard to do that with because I feel awful for not using class features. Which is a personal problem, yes.

Of course, I don't necessarily see a need to replace, though keeping the old one as an archetype works a_OK.

Again, you are conflating impulsiveness and low-wisdom, as well as a startling degree of callousness, with the chaotic alignment.

If every CG character is an idiot, then yes, LG is the superior option. But I don't really think you're being intellectually honest in your comparisons between chaos and law.

The biggest change, imo, between 2e and 3e was the addition of the skill system. Now, rather than most skills being primarily a roleplay concern (with the exception of thief skills which were a specific thing), almost every kind of non-combat task is handled by a roll that requires investment.

And suddenly, because they treated skill points like a bonus, instead of the central part of the system they now were, that caused problems.

So I'd say it's a pretty huge change, easily on the level of 4E's move towards standardized powersets. And that's not even getting into the huge changes in multiclassing and experience tables.

In a game like that (to Nicos), then the fighter's lack of skills hurts a whole lot less. I mean, nobody complains that the AD&D fighter doesn't have any skill points because they aren't necessary!

They need those ranks if they're to be expected to be able to contribute meaningfully in skill-based situations, which amount to 'everything that isn't combat'. And that's important if your games don't determine everything important in combat!

They need it if you don't think spotlight-based design to the extent that Pathfinder has it is good design.

And besides, frankly, 'if you take this one very specific combination, you can have your skillful fighter!' isn't good enough.

So, an LG character is able to differentiate between laws that are good and laws they should oppose, but a CG character is unable to differentiate between pointless, negative restrictions and 'something they'd do anyway'?

No, you're stacking the deck in favor of law.

Unfortunately, I just can't figure out what's productive about your statement, EldonG. It really just comes off as a smug 'Well, you're still wrong, so as long as you admit you're wrong, you can do whatever you want.'

It's cool that you haven't experienced a problem! I have, and know others who have, primarily because I play in and run skill-heavy games. I'm not interested in telling everyone to play nothing but bards, rogues, and rangers, so I'd prefer instead if the fighter could contribute better at its base. Besides which, I think the fighter should keep its oldschool niche as something of a leader, or the warrior you see in books and the like who actually has more to do than just hit things with a stick.

Thus, the fighter is inadequate... despite being, at least in terms of its aesthetic, something I like.

Besides, there are a lot of reasons not to come to this specific forum and complain, and only a subset of them include 'everything is fine.'

LazarX--that's simply not accurate. Chaos is focused on 'the individual', not necessary 'me, myself'. Chaos supports overall freedom over restriction; they can work together in groups, they just prefer to do so without hierarchy, or on an ad-hoc basis.

What you say only holds true under a flawed understanding of the chaotic alignment. If it were just 'all the negatives of being non-Lawful', what possible purpose could its inclusion as distinct from the Good/Evil axis serve?

Chaotic characters can and do build lasting things.

There isn't one; people disagree. But I say, more skill points per level; skills are an important subsystem that every character should have access to, and if a class's niche is 'skills' then that class doesn't deserve niche protection.

Your argument doesn't really hold up. They gave some extra skill points, yes, but not enough. And yes, some people will choose to dump Int all the way down to 7... which they can still do, without getting more skill points out of the deal.

This doesn't give them anything more to dump for more damage, and I don't really care about the min-maxers. I care about the fact that the baseline for a 10-int character's skills should be higher than it is.

I think the biggest balance problem is the idea of the niches as spells, skills, and combat, or any similar breakdown. Spells shouldn't be a separate niche entirely from 'performing non-combat tasks' or 'performing combat'; it's not at all unreasonable for a mage focused on blasting to be roughly on par with a warrior focused on violence. It just requires a bit of a paradigm shift.

Basically, the wizard doesn't need to be the catch-all do everything class. We could instead have a greater variety of more focused mage classes, and thread skills into each class.

But that's kind of a tangent, since I don't see PF doing that.

4E accomplished this in one way, but, as mentioned above, that's not really the only possible way to do it.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. My favorite was a CN party member who was childhood friends with the other members of the group, and while their excesses sometimes seemed a little over the line to her, they were her friends, so she stuck with them. Her real motivation was <x personal thing> anyway.

Hooray clarity

I can't really see how balance is the death of roleplaying at all. If we assume that each character in the group is roughly as powerful as one another, then... play continues precisely as it did before, with each member contributing and needing to have their own story and points of interest.

The only thing a lack of balance seems to add is to open up the story where one character is the important one and the others are his henchmen, which you could already do by making that one character higher level than the others.

Awww, thanks! I appreciate the assumption, at least--but I think I'm not actually arguing with you about what we think we're arguing about.

It's less that I'm suggesting that a neutral character should be non-neutral, and more that, for reasons of that self-interest, if it came down to a choice they'd rather deal with a Good character than an Evil, purely on the basis of which is more likely to stab the neutral character.

Or at least, that's what I intend to suggest; I may have been unclear with it, too. Mostly, I imagine neutral characters simply don't think about good and evil terribly often, because I think the majority of neutral characters are neutral because their primary concerns are things other than morality. (Druidic neutrality, i.e. 'balance', is weird and different.)

But the overall point is that for the reason above, I could see a neutral character fighting evil. Not for general wish to protect others, but specifically to protect either themselves or those close to them from those who might try to harm them. Aside from that specific example (which I'm sort of pointing out just to be 'fair', it's still not good enough to suggest a CN evil-fighting paladin to me), I'm pretty much with you on neutrals.

I don't mean leaning towards an alignment as in 'I'm sorta this...', though I think that's valid for someone who's in the process for an alignment shift.

I specifically mean that a neutral person, given the choice between good and evil, will probably pick the side that helps other people and not the side that is most likely to harm them. After all, would you rather have a neighbor who bakes cookies and shares with everyone, or a neighbor who might murder you?

(drastically simplified, yes)

Oh, definitely. I could more easily see 'neutral will side with good more often than it does with evil' for the reasons I brought up, but not enough to justify evil-smiting neutral paladins absent another reason for them to exist, such as some religious issue.

If you're neutral and you want to avoid someone messing with your stuff, you're better off learning a way that works against any alignment.

Evil is just more likely to make a bad neighbor, since it's evil.

'4E' brings with it the emotional and historical context a lot of people who'd be on these boards have with it; WotC's marketing campaign at its release alienated many players, and so frankly part of PF's appeal is and has always been 'It's D&D, but not 4e!!'

So I actually figure that's most of it; the ideas presented after that don't matter, because people have stopped listening anyway.

Actually, I could buy neutral being against evil very, very easily. Neutral isn't altruistic as a rule, though they may be when it comes to specific people, because it's the details that matter to them; they don't care about the broad ideals of good or evil, necessarily, but about the people or societies important to them.

That said, 'good' isn't going to wreck your stuff just because it's in the way. Evil will! Opposing evil can be done through pure self-interest.

Okay, I'll actually buy that. In a game wherein you don't have to scrape up every bonus just to contribute, a fighter can do OK by spending a few resources to have better skills. (Traits, for instance, don't really hurt anything being devoted that way.)

The problem I have is that it has so little of this capacity--the baseline capabilities of the other martial classes are already better simply because of their skill lists, and what I want out of the fighter is the classic hero in stories, who gets by on her wits and skill and often makes a good leader.

But really, it's not just the fighter. I just think it's bad design for things to be planned around 'good in combat, bad out of combat' because that locks out an entire important section of the game to that class. Skills should be something every single character can do, not the province of a particular class.

Which is why I'm pretty much 'for' 4+ being the minimum, details of how to balance it aside.

The funny thing is that despite my argument, I am traditionally in favor of LG-only paladin because of the weight of tradition, basically. It has a very specific meaning and that works... except that I've recently been convinced otherwise that protecting that very narrow niche is less important than allowing and encouraging the broader 'holy warrior' type that the cleric just doesn't do well enough.

Also alignment arguments have basically killed my fondness for alignment restrictions.

The stormwind fallacy doesn't mean that optimizers can do no wrong. All it means is that optimization is not necessarily exclusive with actual roleplaying.

If you have an optimizer who's doing it to 'win' to the detriment of the other players, they might still totally have a great concept and a lot of roleplaying ability! That doesn't change the other potential flaws in the system, though, any more than someone being bad at or preferring not to engage in optimization means that they're thus a good roleplayer.

Fighters don't have that luxury, because all those 'extra feats' they have they have /instead/ of dedicated class features on par with the other classes. A barbarian gets rage and rage powers; a fighter gets combat feats. Just because the fighter gets to choose, through their feats, precisely what aspects of combat they're good at does not actually mean they're better in combat.

They have the option, yes, to sacrifice their combat ability for more out of combat ability, but they have that option no more than does any other martial class.

They don't have 'more' combat ability that lets them focus elsewhere, they just have customizeable combat ability, and less out of combat ability by default because of their lower skill point total and lesser class skill list.

If you think the Takers are CG, then you either don't understand the Takers or you don't understand CG. 'The strong get what they want and deserve it for being strong' is firmly E.

In fact that's the problem I've noticed, Aelryinth; you definitely seem to think that LG is the highest form of 'good', and that law is just inherently better than chaos. For instance, viewing sleeping around as chaotic /and/ also a moral failing--which it isn't. It's only a moral failing to sleep around if you are doing so while in a committed, exclusive relationship, because then you're going against what you agreed to do/not do.

LG and CG are both selfless; that's what 'Good' means.

But no seriously the Fated are pretty much the opposite of CG, they are CN if you are being incredibly generous, at best.

No reason, really. The GM tailoring encounters to the group is a good thing. Unless your group all agrees that it's part of the fun, then optimization to that degree is just going to be disruptive and you shouldn't get any significant benefit from it.

But 'optimization' is sort of a meaningless word these days; it can mean anything from natural 'take options that synergize well together' to 'try to break the game over your knee.'

I think you have it a little backwards, actually: if there is a temple to Sarenrae in the area, then at least within the temple, the scimitar is a common weapon in the area, for religious reasons.

That said, just using a mace instead is fine, too.

Evil doesn't have to mean stupid or without any connections; you just have to make sure that the characters have a personal reason to stay together.

Not really relevant to me, since I don't do evil games.

But as to when they'd be okay with it: if the group happened to be more interested in the drama at stake than persisting with their own characters. It's a valid playstyle, even if not everyone shares it.

'Evil game' is usually code in my experience for 'players want to be jerks to one another and have it be legitimized'. Not always, but pretty often.

I don't see how the Witch is at all gratuitous, personally. It adds a very much missing element that none of the other classes were able to do effectively: the arcane (or at least unarmored) healer. Truthfully, that's the part I care most about as regards it. I want my life mage, basically, and 'just don't use your class features' as a cleric doesn't cut it.

If you love animal companions and mounts, go for the mount! Just make sure to tell your DM that you really want a mount so she doesn't put all your adventures in cramped dungeons.

If you're in a game where you can't affect that... Well, save the character for another day.

There's simply no level of intelligence at which your character can declare his or her knowledge of every twist without it being obnoxious in an out of character capacity, unless your group happens to enjoy the irreverent genre savvy approach. It breaks suspension of disbelief too much, and tends to come off as smug instead of actually clever.

I used to only support LG paladins, but ever since reading about published paladin codes that were 'show no mercy to your enemies' and seeing more 'your alignment means you can't care about <x>', I just can't bring myself to worry about alignment restrictions. Go nuts!

It's really just taste, not inherent to point buy. I do not recommend actively restricting other races by giving them fewer points; this will seem arbitrary and cause your players to resent you in a way that just banning something wouldn't.

If you want your groups to be mostly human, you have two better options: ask your players to play humans, or give humans some small (or large, if you want to go crazy) bonus; extra class skills might do it fine, based on their social class or background. Or go crazy and offer them a +1 to a second stat in addition to their +2 to any stat of their choice.

It's best to have it available, but to also know when to use it: for instance, if your foes are weak, you're better off layering on the offense instead of wasting time healing, which just gives them more of a chance to attack. If you /aren't/ likely to be able to take them before they can strike back, then yeah, it might be time to heal.

Tell them! If you tell them, and you also tell them what you want out of the game, then they can work with you. If they're just going to do their own thing instead of working with the GM, well, why are you running for them to begin with? Say you want a grim survival horror game, and if they don't, they can just say as much.

It's not really a relevant challenge, unfortunately. Not only will this scenario simply not come up in the course of any standard game, but it doesn't matter what the fighter does solo because the game isn't meant to be played with a party of one.

I like fighters, at least conceptually; the competent warrior who succeeds through skill at arms and a bit of cleverness is very much the classic hero! It's just that the fighter as written doesn't really deliver that.

I also just use 'circle', as in 'spell of the third circle'. It works well enough; spells are clearly divided in this way in terms of power in-setting, so why not just call it that? And it sounds better than 'level'.

Tradition, and one I'm really not sold on at all. But then, I'd rather play the healing mage than the armored cleric. There is the problem of balance, though, in terms of just adding them on directly: wizards can already more or less do everything else, so this would exacerbate that problem even further.