watch deadliest warrior Yeah, about that, I'd rather don't, especially if I want a realistic approach to the issue. Anyway, Pathfinder and D&D are made almost entirely made by unrealistic rules, so I don't see why these ones make you scratch your head, and the rest of the game doesn't.
None, because RAW does not actually exist.
and the Monk/Druid got the unarmed damage bonus to all natural attacks (I lost the rules argument over that one). Say what now? Ok, let's cut to the chase: your problem isn't class dipping, or overpowered stuff, or akward personal relationship. The problem is that your players are munchkins.
I did find a new group. The problem is, all the bad stuff is happening again. Personally, I'm starting to think this is probably with me, not them, because it's happening with multiple groups. Rule of thumb: when entering a new group, never be the first to GM. You need some time to adjust yourself to the group's favoured playstyle. I bet a lot of the problems you are facing right now would have been expected if you saw someone else DM before you.
Though I must ask: why don't you want them to level dip?
Just be honest and ban all multiclassing at the start of your campaign. You have the right to do so as a GM. With all the archetypes available now, it's not like it will be missed.
I don't want realism, I want believability. If something breaks immersion, then it's not fun to me anymore.
I honestly tought that this was a thread about gunslingers.
You know, with "balance" being the thing this board seems to argue about the most ("Is X balanced?" "Why is this archetype unbalanced?" "Paizo please fix the balance") I'm honestly surprised by all the support that random stat generation gets. While I find every other complain about the "balance" completely subjective, the fact that people don't start with the same attributes right at level 1, regardless of the class they choose, is unbalancing. End of the story. As for contrived methods of fudging with the stat dice once you rolled (roll 5d7 +1 reroll 2s then solve a quadratic equation, and if you don't like it ask for doing it again), what's the bloody point? I thought you wanted random stats, not ALMOST random ones.
Now quick! Choose one of the following answers: 1- I like to roll for stats
If you answered with "all four of them", congratulations! You are one of the guys from my former gaming group. May he die in a fire also.
But Golarion was never Medieval Fantasy, Golarion is, technologically and socially wise, more like Reneissance Fantasy, and is so vast and diverse to booth, that you can find pretty much everything from Aztech jungles to Pirate islands to large metropolis to Eastern empires to barbaric wastelands to even freaking revolutionary USA. Everything has their place there, and I don't see many people complaining that having all this things "disrupt my idea of Medieval Fantasy". I can see that you may find guns out of place IN YOUR OWN SETTING, but Golarion is not your setting, is a fantasy kitchensink where nothing is too out of place to not have its niche. Guns can, and probably will, become commonplace in the future of Golarion, followed by technological advancements of similar kind.
This is why I find all the complaining about Gunslingers quite baffling, especially when somebody says that "guns that target touch AC break suspension of disbelief" in a setting where CREATING ENDLESS WATER FROM NOTHING (not to mention all the 0° level spells) is something even the crappiest caster can pull off, and nobody ever mentions the enormous implications that this would have in a believable setting. Why the double standard?
...threads?
Question: During the gaze, how many "rounds" of time are you actually gazing at the person? As many as dramatic tension requires. Duels, as I see them, should happen outside regular Initiative, and take whatever time it's necessary: they could last 1 round or 50 rounds, during which other people not in the duel stand around and watch the outcome. Outsiders may influence it in some way, but if a third party attacks during a duel between two opponents, it's not a duel anymore, it's regular combat.As far as I am concerned, the duelists could move, talk and taut during each phase. They could even have flashbacks, during which a character may remember how his opponent killed his family or something similar. Actually, I think I'm going to include a sort of REVENGE bonus to the final roll for a character that roleplays a nice little flashback of that kind. The Duel rules, by all means, need to be tested and fleshed out, hopefully with the help of all the people willing to try them. So every question, feedback and suggestion is well accepted. By the way, I'm going to post some more info about Hangman's Noose in a while, complete with locations and relevant NPCs.
As my grampa told me a long time ago, "be wary of anyone who starts a thread over the Paizo forum with the phrase 'why would anyone', for he is usually looking for trouble".
Alternatively, the idea of a "pathfinder" that, perhaps, "finds paths", as they say, could be a natural construct of the English language, and unrelated to any other use of the term.From the text, it actually looks like they praised Pathfinder instead. Alternatively alternatively, sometimes it's just nice to wear your tinfoil hat.
Pardon my unannounced intromission into this certainly fascinating and rather educational debate, but I was pointed in the general direction of the thread in question by a fellow reference librarian whom I believe uses to partake in similar discussions on a regular basis. Since the aforementioned argument is, without the shadow of a doubt, associated with the interesting and multi-faced profession of the individuals who are known in the colloquial language as "bards", and since I would undoubtfully be included in this category, even tough the same category would be difficult to define precisely, I figured out I could have come here and present my case for the other participants to decide. Consider the following: as you can clearly extrapolate from my personal character sheet, which can be easily reached by moving your mouse cursor over my own name tag and the clicking over the same name once with the left button, I can hardly be considered a person whose role is to enhance, or "buff", if you will, the preexistent abilities of an assorted team of daring adventurers. My "job", so to speak, is to search for intriguing and most of the time obscure pieces of information about the creatures, objects and locations the adventurer group mentioned above might encounter during their surely eventful journeys, and to provide this information to ears willing to ear. If they find the information produced in such way useful for them, then I would be glad to have been of some help, but that's not usually something I should be concerned about. Therefore, I find the whole issue debated here perplexing and preposterous, but quite interesting nonetheless.
EVERYTHING dies quickly in the Tomb of Horrors. That's kinda the point of the Tomb of Horrors.
To get the best out of the game, a strict division and balance of the party roles is absolutely necessary. It usually goes like this: - The powergamer/munchkin
Of course you can also assign double roles, like the rules lawyer/mass murderer or the powergamer/balance advocate with the Evasive Cheater prestige class.
Except we explained why they are mechanically inferior to other options that give the same flavor? And you outright rejected them? Some of the people here are very proficient in the mechanics they speak of and some of those to the point where people pay them to write said mechanics. If they could not look at something like a feat or an archetype and say "this is bad" without having to roll up a character and play in a physical game then we'd never get any work done. I will shamlessly copypaste my views of the subject from my a post of my own in a thread that was exactly like this one. I'll just edit something to add more points. Hopefully this will explain why I keep refusing "legitimate" claims of suckiness as unfounded. By this logic, I'm not allowed to point out that a table only has three legs because I'm not a carpenter.Also, how could I dare say a movie is terrible if I'm not Steven Spielberg ? How is it even possible -or allowed !- to say a book is bad if you're not able to write something better ? Preposterous ! I'll try to explain why it's not the same thing, and the examples cited are inappropriate. What follows is obviously my opinion, I hope you realize I'm not telling you how you should play the game, but how I would play it. You see, unlike a table (which is already built) and a book/movie (which is already finished) you HAVE the power to reshape the game you play. Let's consider the following.
Are you basing this on first impressions only, or have you actually tried the option?
Ok, I guess everybody has their own special abilities. And your conclusion was?
Then don't take it.
Then take it.
Then houserule it.
But the developers don't playtest everything and don't balance everything, since they have other things to do and since they kinda expect you to do it yourself anyway, adjusting the game as you like.
If you are not happy with how you spent your money, there are loads and loads and loads of other roleplaying systems to try. You should do it anyway because it's good to try lots of different things.
Then houserule it.
Oberoni Fallacy is the crappiest excuse ever to not get your hands a little dirty. If you encounter something that you don't like in a game and you decide to whine about it and call the whole system badly designed instead that just wind it and houserule the bloody thing already, that's not "enforcing the Oberoni Fallacy", it's "being lazy". This is ESPECIALLY true if you are actually proficient in the mechanics to determine they are flawed in the first place. If it's broken and you realize that, then fix it already.
By this logic, I'm not allowed to point out that a table only has three legs because I'm not a carpenter.Also, how could I dare say a movie is terrible if I'm not Steven Spielberg ? How is it even possible -or allowed !- to say a book is bad if you're not able to write something better ? Preposterous ! I'll try to explain why it's not the same thing, and the examples cited are inappropriate. What follows is obviously my opinion, I hope you realize I'm not telling you how you should play the game, but how I would play it. You see, unlike a table (which is already built) and a book/movie (which is already finished) you HAVE the power to reshape the game you play. Let's consider the following.
Then don't take it.
Then take it.
Then houserule it.
But the developers don't playtest everything and don't balance everything, since they have other things to do and since they kinda expect you to do it yourself anyway, adjusting the game as you like.
If you are not happy with how you spent your money, there are loads and loads and loads of other roleplaying systems to try. You should do it anyway because it's good to try lots of different things.
Then houserule it.
Oberoni Fallacy is the crappiest excuse ever to not get your hands a little dirty. If you encounter something that you don't like in a game and you decide to whine about it and call the whole system badly designed instead that just wind it and houserule the bloody thing already, that's not "enforcing the Oberoni Fallacy", it's "being lazy".
I go to complain about the balance issue over the Paizo forums.
This thread is filled with comedy gold. Thank you to everyone who contributed. Except the OP, who came across as a bit of a Richard. The hell are you talking about, his name is clearly Tim. CAN'T YOU BLOODY READ? P.S.: Anyone else wants to play the Tomb of Horrors with the OP limitations and just blunt sticks? Maybe Tim could be the DM. Will you step up to the challenge Tim?
So is your stance that you cannot have fun with a character who is mechanically sound? Or that it is more difficult to have fun with a character who is mechanically sound? No, he's not saying that. I'm saying you should not have to sacrifice effectiveness for fun. Why the hell not? I see no problems with that. As Sean K himself said in another thread very similar to this one, "If you want every choice to have the exact same balance, you need to play a different game". There are plenty of games out there that are addressing the issue you are talking about (for example, 4th edition). Pathfinder isn't, so why are you asking it to be something that it isn't?
Second, there is an optimizer and a min-maxer[...] The problem you have is that while your are a respected optimizer, you are sometimes lumped in with the dirty min-maxer.I don't think they are so different. They are both trying to mathematically achieve what they are looking for. And I don't find one dirty and the other one to be respected, they are both legitimate way to play. But you can be a ''That Guy'' (do you by any chance browse /tg/ ?) if you optimize, if you minmax, heck,even if you are a good roleplayer. That is a IRL issue that has nothing to do with how you build your character. And to answer your question: no I don't minmax not because it's detrimental, but because it's boring.
My two coppers. I don't personally find optimizing to be mutually exclusive with roleplaying. I find it, however, to be mind-bogglingly boring and ultimately pointless. In my experience, optimizers play "builds", rather than characters, because they start to build their PCs stat first, adding the concept later. I find this to be backwards and I'd never do that, but they seem to have fun nonetheless (and a good roleplayer will play an interesting character even if it was conceived as a bunch of numbers) and who am I to say that their fun is "wrong". Nevertheless, the idea of going through all the manuals, picking only the options that are meant to be powerful, and leaving all the non-powerful ones (even if they fit your character concept perfectly) and then do a lot of math doesn't appeal to me. I'm fine if someone else in my group does it, but it really gets on my nerves if the same person then starts to whine that "your character isn't effective enough, you are holding us down". This is very, very, very annoying. Also, I disagree with your opinion that in fantasy fiction most of the interesting characters are the ones that are good at everything. To me, it's the exact opposite of that: a character that is always effective and without flaws (optimized) is very boring and there is no sense of threat when he's faced with danger. A character that is good at one thing only and crappy in the rest (minmaxed) suffers from similar issues: it'a one trick pony. I wouldn't call these sort of character interesting if I saw them in a work of fiction. Even Superman has his kriptonite. Then there's the fact that, in my opinion at least, it's not even worth to optimize. Optimizing presumes that you know every possible choice you can make, you know how everything is going to play out during a session, and you can foresee everything the DM is going to throw at you. All of this is not possible in most sistuation, at it boils down to statistics, damage prevision and other boring calculation. No amount of math is going to save you from a Nat 1 on a critical situation. And I found that if you are somehow able to easily overcome every challenge the DM throws at you, this leads to an escalation of power, effectively putting the DM against the player to see who's going to make the life harded to the other. I've seen this happen and it's not pleasant, especially if you actually don't give a hoot the whole issue. My point is: you can be an optimizer and a good roleplayer. I don't think it's worth the trouble, and it could potentially lead to problems, but it's your game and you should do whatever you find the most fun. But fortunately you can be a good roleplayer and a bad optimizer and still play an interesting character. Roleplaying without optimizing is possible. Without roleplaying, not so much. PS: what moustaches have to do with this issue?
Apparently, the point of this thread is for you to say we're having badwrongfun for wanting our archetypes to be both useful and flavorful. Sorry for treading on your sacred ground. So making a thread about something over the internet is perfectly fine, just as long you don't expect people to actually comment giving their opinions. Those party poopers.
You're saying that it's impossible (or undesirable, which is even worse) to have archetypes that are both mechanically useful and flavorful. Where did I ever said that. What is this, 4chan, were we like to put into each other's mouth words that were never said? Yes, I do realize that you can have the same flavour with the regular class. To this, I reply: then what is the bloody point of the thread. You want a Sacred Sheriff without "gimping" yourself? Use the regular class. You want a gun at level 1? Use the archetype. You want to do something else entirely? Suit yourself, it's your game. Complaying if an archetype is not as powerful "as it should have been" it's, in my opinion, a made up issue, as it is every argument about overpowered/underpowered options/classes/whathaveyou. It presumes that somehow you have played everything ever and have an extensive knowledge about how everything is going to go during a game, which is frankly impossible (90% of these threads are made by someone that HASN'T played the class/option in question, but he is somehow magically capable to know if it's "umbalanced" by just looking at the numbers). And it ultimately boils down to "my character kicks your character's ass".
Worse from which point of view? The one that this archetype lets you have guns at first level? The one that makes you play a Sacred Sheriff, the character you always wanted? The one that there is really no point in discussing maths in a game about fantasy adventurers? Now, before the endless balancebalancebalance mantra ensues, I would like to point out that while maybe many players cannot comprehend why would you choose something that is mechanically worse that the core, and would rather have a game where everything is obsessively balanced, many players actually can understand why you would pick something flavourful over something "balanced", and that's because they have fun with it. I'm just glad Paizo is not catering only to the first group.
I think that they are a fine way to introduce a mechanical significance to a background element. People who like to come up with character concept first like these, and minmaxer are gonna minmaxing anyway, it's not like a low +1 skill or ST is going to throw the game off balance. If your players come up with contrived reasons to justify why they have that trait just because they like the bonus, it's usually a sign that they will do that for feats, spells and whathaveyou, regardless of the fact that traits are available or not. Besides, they are optional, so I don't really see the issue. Removing the mechanical bonuses? Well that's just "describe your character picking from this limited list of features", which is actually worse than not having traits in the first place.
Hi, new on the forum here. I made this picture of the Pathfinder Iconics in pixel version, and someone suggested in another thread to use them as avatars, and that this is the right thread to ask for this. Feedback on the pic appreciated.
Sup everyone, first time poster, long time PF player.
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