It does raise the bar a bit for someone who is rather new to all this stuff, but I guess that's what pathfinder: basic (or whatever) will be for, so go ahead. I think the product will be better for it.
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Count me in the camp that thinks it slightly odd that "Pokemon" and "Lost Roman Legion" - both concepts that have made large sums of money from mass appeal - should be considered bad ideas, and thus see the question in terms of "bad idea together, perhaps, or at least highly incongruent at fist glance..." In that spirit:
EDIT: (And I'm already blue, so I don't feel the need to S***F out...)
Self: Convincing the rest of the party that my crazy killbot character was in fact an engineering assistant, and that the sweaty, nervous squirming dude next to me was a competent ship's engineer. Others: A player character hippogriff hiding in a giant's desk drawer. For whatever reason, it has become a major reference point in our gaming (i.e. "Ut-oh! Bad guys! If only there were a gigantic desk drawer around...")
Haven't you folks ever seen a teenybopper "chic flick?" It doesn't matter that our high-school heroine is physically attractive - she wears dated clothes and a boring hair style, is socially inept and clumsy, gets shy around the hotties and is basically ignored (at best) by her peers. Over the course of the movie, she'll "learn new tricks" and "become self confident" (pick up some charisma skills and focus feats) and learn to "like herself" and "be herself." (Charisma gain for new level!) Charisma is not about looks, it's about making your looks (and everything else) WORK FOR YOU. If you've got low cha, you simply don't have the self-confidence in your own beauty to get a positive reaction from a guard - in fact, you've probably got your eyes downcast and have a terrible twitch, and any attempt to add a "sway in your step" will meet with disaster, barring a roll (modified by your low cha) that suggests he finds your ineptitude pitiable. I'd say she's as much within her rights to call the character "pretty" as you are to adjust CHA rolls according to her CHA score. If you're really bothered, invent a trait for physical beauty that gives her an occasional bonus in some specific situations. And Mr. Fishy, the characters you're talking about have Iron Will and Altertness, obviously ;-)
I'm still wanting to see an Aztec-like campaign book. Oriental Adventures, the really nifty "Nyambe" book - plus my serious dissatisfaction with the blown potential of Maztica (grrr!!!) - inspired me to do this back under 3.0. I rejiggered some of the stuff to 3.5 and Pathfinder, and I use some of it in my campaign (Olmans!), but I don't know if my notes are coherent enough. I agree with the summoner with less summoning and more edolion options. That class has serious potential, as does the "necromancer!"
Meh, I'm alright with a good part of 3.5 coming into pathfinder -- but if I'm the GM I'm going to limit parts and I honestly wouldn't want to hear any whining about it (discussion is possible -- just respect the final answer when you get it). Indeed. Nor would I consider Pathfinder being "powered up" to be a reason to allow things I normally wouldn't (such as huge swathes of the Spell Compendium). If anything, the 3.5/Pathfinder split was a mercy to DMs because we now have an easier time of disallowing parts of 3.5 we never liked in the first place. More on topic, part of the design philosophy of Pathfinder was to make the core classes a little better overall, to make them more comparable to some of the classes that came along later. It seems counterproductive, therefore, to power up various 3.5 base classes simply because they're from 3.5 and "pathfinder = more power." Keep an eye on the warlock, and don't be afraid to "alter the deal" if the experiment's not working as planned.
I've said my bit on fudging but ... this is pretty funny.
We reached a compromise where he won't add cha to damage, but get 1 invocation/level instead of the 12 over 20 levels it is by default. Err ... if I were you, I'd rather he had the CHA bonus to damage. Honestly. I can't quite predict the level, but I do predict this guy's going to snowball. To echo several posters above, it's not the warlock's damage that's the real strength - it's the invocations. I don't agree you shouldn't use a "D&D class" in pathfinder - the games are compatible. I'd let him play the warlock straight without worries. So he can't match the damage of the alchemist - both characters have other things going on...
Situation 1 gets a 1. ...'Epic' fight my butt. Die, chump. You're family's next. Situation 2 needs more info. Is there a chance of reasoning with the enemy? Is fleeing an option for either side? Most straight-up combats in my game hurt both sides, quickly and badly. They're also risky. Even after a successful round or two, most opponents still have interests other than "fight to the death." Is there any way I can work with this? Chances are, the players will already be trying to "bottle out" - are the caltrops, oil slicks, web spells and the like already coming to the fore? Well then will it wreck my players' suspension of disbelief by having the monsters do something other than continue the fight? What might that be? Could a few pc's recover, or does dropping here mean DEATH? As DM, I have options.
Well done!
Funny thing is, I don't care if he makes level appropriate encounters. I care if I'm smart enough to run if the encounter is too much for me to chew... I knew this was going to come up, I really did. I wanted to say something about it, to head off the subconversation, but I couldn't. Suffice it to say, studpuffin didn't say LEVEL appropriate encounters. He said Appropriate encounters. Had he the word "level" been there, I would've liked it much less.
See, that's it. I don't have fun if I think the GM is going to fudge rolls to enhance the "fun". If he has players that want story hour, she should make paper cannons for them to fight. I want to play a game. I want to know I got to 15th level through luck, forethought, some skill and good planning, not because the GM held my hand. I like to earn what I get. Honestly, getting to 15th level isn't just because of luck, forethought, skill and good planning. Even in a campaign where the GM isn't fudging at all you'll be trusting him to create appropriate encounters for your character to deal with as you progress. It's a community process, in this case, and not one that you can gain through singular play. I find myself agreeing with both of these completely, and yet unable to articulate what it is that connects them.
Thanks! Consider it well stolen.
I prefer that no fudging go on, but if it would enhance the experience or prevent something from becoming boring (such as in Jess' experience) then I would be absolutely accepting of fudging. It's supposed to be fun. I'm of the philosophy that if it sounds really cool or would look really cool then you should let it happen. In the same situation, I'd probably see what I could do with the narrative before I messed with dice. The dice provide results. I tell you what happens next. Reconciling the two provides the creative work-out that gives the game value. (If you're at my table and you want to chime in, go ahead. Sometimes I'll call out a result and see if somebody else gets an idea...) But that's just my play style, and I don't think you're "wrong" at all.
In other parts of the game, I have fun in exploring and role playing and problem solving. In combat, I have a lot of fun if it's totally uncertain whether I, or anyone else, will survive, and if it's quick and deadly, like the big gunfight scene in "Appaloosa" Spoken like someone who remembers pc hit dice maxing out at nine! 3.# combat can really drag, huh? And, as a DM myself, I don't know if I would have any fun at all if I was actively trying to control and know the few things in this game that are uncontrolled by and unknown to me. I'm not into fudging dice, but the reasoning of posters like mista green ("win conditions?" Including getting a magic sword? I honestly don't understand...) seems a little to, I don't know, "alien." Does anyone else not "fudge" simply because they're playing the game, too, and want it to be interesting? Isn't it my job as DM to /explain/ how wonky dice twist the story, and not hand-wave them away?
I don't know if my games - which don't cleave very tightly to the rules - count as much of a test, but one of my players suggested this some time ago, and we went for it. I don't remember it being a big deal at all. I like the idea of the 2-hander morningstar, though. I might crib that!
...scary story of the 'good old days' Wow. Just, wow. Makes you wonder what we're doing now that 60 years from now will be a no-brainer for awfulness.
What about T-Rexs? T-Rex? T-Rex we kill. No value in keeping them alive. At. All. They're supposed to be extinct anyway.
And now, folks want the name changed from High Fructose Corn Syrup to "Corn Sugar." And Monsanto, among others, wants others to stop putting "No Growth Hormones" on their product, as this "unfairly stigmatizes" growth hormones. Sigh. As far as the STD tests: I know hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but sometimes it is really, really hard to figure out what people were thinking. Has the world really changed so much in just over half a century, or were there just some really jerks in control at the time?
Just remembered that one of my favorite dragon magazines had a 3.5 oriental adventures update, and the updated sohei was a heck of a lot of fun. I had the Lotus Dragons training up a cadre of these guys as enforcers. Also the 2E ninja book - while the class itself was uninspired (pretty much a tweaked 'rogue') - was actually a pretty fun read, including some stuff on 'non-orient' ninjas that inspired my world's blue eels.
... I think that's all I need for now, but good to know. Thanks for it.
Cool hero point stuff. Thanks! We might try that and see how it goes. I really like the unanimous approval and player narrative bits - that sort of thing works very well with us. Questions:
... sorry if this is too much of a threadjack, but alternatives are a valid addition to the fudging discussion, methinks.
As a hired assassin, you have to break the law. If if you are going to take money to kill people, you will be breaking the law in most jurisdictions. Otherwise you wouldn't need to be sneaky about it. Unless you're in the Gestapo, and fear of you is exactly what the law rests on. Again, the assassin PrC - who, by definition, kills for money - says nothing about non-lawful. And, law of the land aside, most ninja are tightly bound to their own clans. In most ninja fiction, these clans are highly organized and don't take infractions lightly. Don't get me wrong, I think we need "good ninja" - pop culture is so infused with these it would seem wrong to leave them out - but non-lawful puts us in barbarian country, not assassin country.
Kirth, how do you use action/hero points, and what benefits have you seen? I know that, as a group, we've been known to vote a roll or two "off the island", but it might be nice to have something a bit more codified. Does it make the players feel too "safe" at all? At our table, the problems seem more to stem from the (very, very occasional) string of terrible luck that makes a player feel like he's wasting his time. (When it happens to an NPC, it's hilarious!) I can improv an amusing narrative for a while, but even that can get old. Other than maybe granting another chance to break the streak, or a one-off bonus amid it, could hero points help that?
"Has to kill people" is non-LAWFUL? Are you sure? And keep in mind you're in favor of a ninja who spends his life in training... I don't want to turn this into an alignment thing, but it seems like you're shooting for non-good. Lawful fits a ninja like black pjs.
moves through the shadows of the thread Wait, come back! I want to vote for you...
Hey, guys, remember this?
I think this is a good idea - to the point of thinking that, with the right spell list, we could have a good class on our hands - and I'd hate for it to get lost in a discussion of two weapon fighting, "pewpewpew," and the validity of math when appraising character classes. Why don't we talk about these modifications, here in the thread w0nk' set up to discuss them? It seems to me - based on recollections on exactly what was wrong with the soul knife (neither full BAB nor the ability to stack mindblade effects with existing weapons) - that this could be just the thing we need. We get 3/4 BAB, the weapon bonus, and the Arcane Weapon bonus - sorta like the monk (who gets 3/4 BAB, plus effective full for CM and Flurry), but without the MAD.
I, too, would like ninjas in politics. Every time I vote, I secretly hope I'm voting for an undercover ninja - but, being undercover, they can't tell me they are ninjas. However, the more often I vote, the more likely it is I'm voting for an undercover ninja. I shake the hands of politicians, hoping they'll give me the handsign that shows they're ninjas - but I don't know the handsign, so I guess I'm just looking for anything unusual. And secretly hoping. Some day, we'll have an undercover ninja in politics. Or maybe we already do. A man can dream...
Does anyone remember the Oriental Adventures supplement for 3.0? (Lot5R, I think.) There was a ninja there, yes? Is it salvageable or useless? I just pulled the book off the shelf behind me, and ... <unimpressed sigh> ... this guy's a slightly altered rogue. You could probably house rule him into existence with a few new rogue talents, honestly. If you really wanted to. (Ninja Dodge? Really?) For all my thinking that a non-magical ninja is best, I understand the hunger for a magic'd up version. I think a Prestige Class would be the best route for that. <What? Did nobody tell me it's saturday night? -Puts ROKUGAN back on shelf- Backs away from computer...>
After some thought, I don't think the basic "ninja" should have a heck of a lot of magic attached. I know there are branches of ninja lore that include magic, but by building it into the basic "ninja" class, it says that ALL ninjas have magic about them - this would force the folks that want basically non-magical ninjas into magic use. Even if you're using the ranger as a base, something like rogue talents would be a good replacement and (with some magical options) could probably satisfy both sides. So, a ranger template: Assuming the Samurai is a fighter or cavalier build, should the ninja really have full BAB? And since BAB is now married to hit dice, we get a ninja with a d10 hit die. So, is this an armored ninja (which starts to get odd thematically) or an unarmored ninja with a d10 hit die (which is nearly as odd mechanically)? Once you dial back the hit die, you end up with 3/4 BAB ... which is slowly bringing me back to the rogue. I'm not a big lover of "party roles," but if the ninja gets too "fighter-thief" on us, he's in danger of doing nothing well, or just being straight-up too good. Ninja cliches - which DO include mobs of them getting cut down in straight-up fights - support something much closer to a rogue - and, since the rogue is already such a mutable class, a separate ninja class raises redundancy questions. But to stick with the Ranger (which, despite the above, I do like), my best guess is d10, full BAB, no (or possibly light) armor, talents for spells (fair exchange tbd), and probably some sort of mobility schtick, perhaps a la shadow dancer? Makes even a first-level ninja a fair bit different from the "mob of attacking conspicuous ninjas that die easily" in, say, daredevil or some bits of ninja scroll, but it could be an interesting character of a sort we haven't quite seen yet.
Example ninja at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level. 20 point buy. Created with Hero Lab. Not bad!
I think the underlying issue is you don't agree with my perception of a ninja. No, I just misread your tone, apparently. (I think the ranger idea's not bad.) Sorry for that.
There's that /IS/ again. Waving a Wiki around and saying "therefore, a ninja /IS/ a ranger" just isn't a good enough baseline assumption. If you want to talk about what YOU would like in a ninja, go ahead. But please stop saying (or at least implying) that this is the only way to work it based on your interpretation of ninja-lore as focused through a wiki. To twist a phrase, Your Ninja May Vary. (Also, there's a rogue talent for magic, and if that's not enough, go shadowdancer or something, no? But, as I said above, Ranger is a fine "template" as well.)
But anyway, I miss the days where you could sketch out a quick map of the combat area and use spare dice or coins or whatever to represent the characters and enemies and not have to worry about grids and zones and attacks of opportunity and 5 foot steps and on and on and on. This is part of the reason we build and advance characters as a group. We don't use minis and combat is handled rather simply, so in order for characters to avoid getting screwed, we determine mechanical effects in advance. This is very important, since things we don't (or barely) make use of are built into the rules at several points.
This is why I chuckle a bit when d20 is derided as "dumbed down." We make sure to dot all the i's and cross the t's on players' character sheets, but everything else we do has been about shedding layers of complexity. We don't mind building complicated characters - that's part of the fun, and the main reason we're not exculsively using, say, Labyrith Lord - but I've been a dungeon master for a long time, and 3.x increases geometrically in complexity with each level gained. (And then there are the increasingly lop-sided modifiers. We actually build character groups to avoid these, and still they crop up ... but that's for another time.) I would certainly suggest checking players' sheets more often, though - the system works much better when the numbers are all lined up properly.
(Why does this remind me of a katana debate?) We fiddle with the class "templates" (to the point of actually calling them such), and my players and I have made many characters out of the ranger. It's an excellent template for a character with all sorts of "goodies" - skills, magic, a critter, fighting power - so if that's what you're looking for in a ninja, go for it! That said, that's hardly the only interpretation of what a ninja "is." The Assassin works for some, as do various monk hybrids. Myself - I'd probably make a spy based on the rogue. (*edit for clarity / spelling)
I tried block initiative for a session or two. The quiet players got skipped because they didn't speak up when their block came up and the loud players called their actions. If they stopped to discuss tactics we slowed down combat even worse. Went back to individual order next session. I fully agree. Individual init is probably the LAST thing I'd cut.
If a typical encounter is on average 2-3 rounds in duration the number of d20 rolls has far too much variance. For some of us, that variance is a good thing. Once, a few editions ago, a mid-sized group of PCs ran into a small group of Hook Horrors - a perfectly defeatable foe (not that my players should really know what's "defeatable" - but that's another thread) - in a dungeon. In a bit of a hurry, and hoping they could overwhelm the monsters quickly, the p.c. group attacked. Many horribly lopsided rolls, several lost hit points and two dead characters later, the group - having failed to kill a single 'horror - decided it was time to run. Assuming these large-ish monsters were faster than the party, one of the fighters (played by a new player) bravely remains behind. The party runs into a room where they throw up some hasty defenses, spread the inevitable oil and wait. To save time, I roll all the dice for the horrors at once - and actually show the players the ocean of ones-and-twos I'd just rolled. Everyone - myself included - is thoroughly engrossed as the hook horrors continue to do that for about six more turns, while the player slays them until the final beast breaks, tries to flee, and is cut down. At this point, the player notices that the rest of the table is looking at her in awe and seems at a loss for words: "Well ... my sheet says 'Fighter' right on it..." Needless to say, nobody's forgotten this. Part of what made all of this so awesome is nobody expected any of it. I didn't have a script in my head as to how long this "throwaway fight" was going to last. (Dungeon Mastering "on a script" would be pretty boring for me.) I didn't get worried when the monsters started winning and alter a few die rolls. And if that character died, that PLAYER would have still gotten "mad props," and her next PC welcomed into the party like a long-lost sister.
"I feel sorry for those that I beat up," Pawel said. "But I don't hold a grudge against myself." Apparently, somebody still has some four-letter words in front of his "head."
Fudging Die Rolls to make a combat more "epic" might work for you, but, honestly, it really does cut into the emergent part of RPG storytelling. I'm on the side of the phase spider example here. Bob the archvillian would be plenty memorable if I'd spent all sorts of time extolling his bad-ossity and setting up his scene, complete with "villian speech" - only to be dispatched with a spell and a quip from the enchanter, and a handy pool of lava(!rule of cool indeed!). This is actually something my players would consider GREAT and, after a bit of pouting, I'd enjoy it, too. It would enter the great cannon of game-session lore - that which entices us back to the table each week, to see what happens next. Obviously, it's however you and your players want to play, but I think the loss of that genuine sense of wonder (and having to account for it as DM and STILL make the game 'epic', which is the most fun I have at the job) is sad.
The giant heap of customized (and, worse IMO, largely flavorless flat-bonus) magic items in d20 seems to me to stem from the same source as just about any wonkiness you'll find in the system - open-ended modifiers that escalate at wildly different rates. A combination of the right feats, class features and so on can seriously pile on the "plusses," making magic the great equalizer - and, in an increasing number of cases as you advance in levels - sometimes the only way to remain viable. There's some talk about better saves for fighters in older editions. What was actually going on there was a constant improvement in saving throws as a defense without a counter-improvement in whatever you were saving against. Before 3rd Edition, there weren't any DCs for saves - you either rolled the given number and passed, or did not. It would be like, for example, setting all DC's to 20, across the board, with no chance to improve them. (I know there are hairs to be split, but that's basically it.) Fighters work at high level in (od&d clone) Labyrinth Lord, for example, in part because they more-or-less always take half-damage from fireballs (where were actually scary back then, due to hit-die-per-level caps, etc.), ignore compulsions and shake off save-or-die effects. I'm not saying wizards are "gimped," just that balance is different. Combined with item-use restrictions you can't just circumvent with a martial weapon feat or UMD skill, you're looking at an entirely different sort of balance. I like Pathfinder/d20. A lot. But I honestly don't see how one can play this game into the middle-high levels without letting players have a reasonable amount of magic, if only to keep the mathematics stable.
What's wrong with "I don't know enough about that topic to have an informed opinion?" ?!!? C'mon Mr. Bugleyman! If people actually admitted that, most online conversation would be pretty thin. And Rimmer, +1.
Hey, folks were doing this for poor Dr. Jacobs and it led to a massive, ongoing "joke-post." Don't you want your own massive, ongoing "joke-post"? :-)
Derek, are you sure the argument Avalon's making is just a Hume rehash? That's not how it seems to be rather explictly stated. Aside from a single line on teleology (which, in a theological context, does not exclude a creator god) - I don't see anything to contradict the actual thesis, stated multiple times, that objective morality cannot exist without a creator god. Further, if add a "as a reason for objective morality" to Kirth's post, (after the bit about rejecting anything but a creator) it makes far more sense. It also would've let Avalon expand on alternatives, which I agree seem to come more from Derek's reading of Hume than what Avalon actually said. (I don't know what it is about this that keeps me interested enough to have a stake in it.)
Yeah, me too. To the point of actually going out of lurk mode. I think KG, for one, musta stubbed his toe and be in a grumpy mood - he's usually a fair bit more, well, fair. But, I see it's being resolved, so ... <Lurks>
All I'm refuting is the statement that Avalon's argument "rests on the assumption of a god." It doesn't. It is an argument about a god and a morality. I wouldn't even say it's resting on an assumed connection - that connection is the conclusion Avalon is (was?) trying to prove. (Not even judging the quality of the argument, mind. I'm just reading this out of the text.)
(Avalon's) entire argument seemed to rest on the assumption of a god. You've misunderstood. Avalon was attempting to prove that you can't have an objective morality without a Creator God - not that a creator god (or objective morality) exists, or even that a Creator mandates the existence of objective morality. (I lurk on this thread a lot, so thanks all for a good thread.)
If you push this thread to 3000 posts, what do you win?
What follows are some hypotheticals on how my players and I might have handled this. I'm not saying any of this to say how great my players are (though most of them are, and the newbies are learning!) nor how great I am (they come back. that's all the praise I need.) It's just the best way I can think of to hash out who-should-have-done-what in what I see is a SNAFU: That said... I expect my group would've handled this much differently. Assuming it came all the way down to the moneylender situation, my group - if they even green-lit this "come back later" idea - would probably have sent one member. (With one other member observing somehow and the rest off doing other stuff. Efficiency!) When the guards show up, that character makes up a cock-n-bull story to see if he can weasel out of the situation. If and when he can't, it's time for (1) a jailbreak and (2) a hasty relocation. My players usually consider multiple angles before doing anything not "on the clock." I can't imagine anyone I'm currently playing with suggesting anything so suicidal as an all-out assault on a town of 600 people - which, effectively, lethal combat with the town guard is. Of course, I would've handled this differently, too. I would have introduced the town and important personages (it's not hard to suss out who's-who in a town of 600). I would've let them attempt the heist (I love it when my players come up with their own "adventure" ideas in their down time! Too often, they're far too busy for petty larceny ... and "good guys" besides.), but I'd litter the house with clues about this guy's personality (vengeful?). If there's a massive gulag sitting around in this hamlet, I'd certainly drop some hints at this time, too (construction plans? view from a window?), if I hadn't done so already. To not foreshadow such a strange oddity in a tiny town, only to have it "pop up" when needed would seem too much like I made it up on the spot as punishment. But I also wouldn't include such a gulag in the first place, most likely. Not only does it make suspension of disbelief hard, what fun is a prison if your group can't break out? You DO want them to break out, right? (Of course, I could also have a devil show up, as the post above, or something like that.) I'd also make it very clear to a character faced with the town guard exactly how many guards there were, and if they kept arriving once the alarm was raised (which they would. Also, in a town of 600, expect most of the friendly neighborhood populace would rise up against you as well). Assuming the characters somehow disregarded this and did kill 11 guards, I don't know how much of the rest I'd feel comfortable describing. Either they got away, or they did not. If they did not, they'd pretty much be killed. Time for some new PC's. If they did, the tone of the campaign changes to "desperate outlaws on the run!" The only reason I'd even bother humiliating the group with a description of how their pc's were manhandled would be if I (1) wanted to make the point that these people were BAD and (2) fully intended the group to escape and avenge themselves later. Do anything else, and the group tends to think, rightly or otherwise, that you're power tripping as DM. Finally, assuming we ALL got careless and let this situation play out as described, you can bet we'd spend a while sussing out what went wrong and where, and take those lessons into our next game. We may also take a straw-pull on throwing the session out - something I've only ever done once. ("It was all a dream!" We had a bit of a chuckle about it...) We're all human, and not all gaming sessions can be winners.
This is why I like to leave a lot about my campaign worlds - "outer planes," afterlife, etc., especially - mysterious. Often, a great idea arises through play. (In my game It's been more or less established that demons are NOT former mortals, anyhow. They just spring forth from pure, concentrated chaotic evil, kinda like "incarnum" ;-). If my players wanted a story about redeeming one, though, I'd retcon a few different types of demons in, including ones that used to be mortal.) I suggested a demonic sacrifice because someone mentioned it above and a think a bit of an "answer" as to what happens to a former sacrifice would be cool. (Although, again, one of my players once met a former demon sacrifice in the GOOD afterlife - can't take a soul not freely given, and all that...) Another idea would be for her to have been VERY evil - to the point where some of her past deeds make the PCs rather uneasy, especially when they encounter some of her victims... |