Reelin's page

The 80's were so rough on D&D that when the 2nd edition came out the Assasin class, and all references to the names "devil" and "demon" were removed to help give the game a better image.

What i find amazing is that several, apparently experienced, GM's are saying that their games are working very well without MIC and some people are saying that the game can't work without MIC. Where's the breakdown in logic in this?

Reminds me a famous scene from a famous movie:

"I cut your arm off."
"No you didn't."

Interesting question.

To me, a campaign is the story of a group of adventurers over the course of their careers from beginning to end. There are many stories and adventures throughout this career, some lasting a few sessions, some lasting dozens, all put together make a campaign. Some of the individual members of this group might change, but the overall group is the same.

well, i am confused. I'll first say that I am totally new to any RPG so... If Paizo doesn't want to make adventure paths up to level 20, why is there a level 20?

Not everyone uses the Adventure Paths or uses them exclusively. Even if Paizo doesn't ever make Adventure Paths that go to 20th level, that doesn't mean that no one else has campaigns that go that high. You can write your own story line tha brings you up to 20th level. That's why there is a level 20.

I have played 1st and 2nd Edition extensively and 3.x a little. I have to say that while I have very fond memories of the old days, the rules changes that 3.x brought about has done nothing but improve the game. And Pathfinder has done even more to improve it. The game was groundbreaking back then but seriously flawed.

What makes a game good is the people that play it, not necessarily the rules.

THAC0? Bah! Am I the only here that remembers the Grappling rules from 1st edition? If you want to know what complicated is, you should look at that! We once wasted half a night's game time (about 2 hours) figuring out how our over-weight druid can grapple a guard. It took that long to calculate the chance(and argue all the poorly phrased rules). It was fun though. I can probably dig up my old DMG and look it up...

Either you prefer rolling, or you don't. That's it. It's an opinion, and you're entitled to it. And you're not wrong or right when you choose a preference, because that's all it is, is an opinion on something subjective.

Forgot to point this out in my post.

Very true words. There is no right or wrong in this.

I keep seeing this "hopeless characters" business. 4d6 drop the lowest is statistically equivalent to a 15 point buy. Is this too low? Are these characters hopeless.

I respectfully point out that the people complaining about hopeless characters are the pro point buy people, not the pro rollers. Like you, they are worried that they will roll bad characters so prefer the safer point buy system. And that is a perfectly valid reason. No one argued that rolling prevents hopeless characters.

The common theme I see among the "roll-the-dive" crowd is a real love for high scores with no "dump stat".

I question the logic in saying that rollers only want the high stats. If high stats is all one is concerned with, a simple raising of the points is all that is needed, as you pointed out. One can get consistently higher scores by raising the points to 30, 40 or even 50 over rolling dice. Why bother with the rolling? The exact answer varies, but following simple logic points out that high scores is not the reason.

At this point, it really seems like it has nothing to do with "I like rolling" vs. "I like point buy". It's "I like high stats" vs. "I don't care about high stats".

It seems to me more "I like higher random stats vs. I don't want someone having higher stats than me." But yeah, it is silly to argue preferences. Unless we are all playing together there is nothing to argue about.

It's been a standard in my games to do 4d6 reroll 1's (once) for a long time. You get better than average rolls and usually prevents hopeless characters. If someone beats the odds and rolls poorly then you have them take a short break from rolling (this hopefully breaks up the bad rolling mojo) then have another roll. 2 sets of rolls is the norm. I will allow a 3rd set if the first 2 are bad (after a short mojo altering break). If after that they still roll badly I'd give them a 20 point buy option.

The best reason I see for point buy is that characters can be made outside of game time and brought in. That is hard to argue against. But it still doesn't sway my preference for rolling. Character generation is a large part of the fun for me.

What I am getting at is since you do have the option to start things fairly in the game, I feel you should. Pretty much every game is that way. In Magic, both players start with 7 cards. In Monopoly, everyone starts with the same amount of money. With Settlers of Cataan (if you have played it) everyone lays down two houses and two roads.

Just about every game I have played, you start out evenly. Why? Because if you don’t, it gives an unfair advantage to others. I don’t see why this should be any different.

I would say the main difference, that has been pointed out several times, is that all the games you mention are competitive while, presumably, Pathfinder games are cooperative. There is no score. There is no win or lose. There is no one player "beating" the other. One character being better statistically than the other takes nothing away from either in terms of the goal of the game.

I like to think of a game as a story, not a game. The mechanics are nothing more than a way to further that story. Just how a character in that story contributes to it is not necessarily a function of its stats. Play the story as it is given and what resources you have and see how the story plays out. Your fighter may not be the epic, greataxe swinging monster that cuts through a dozen orcs in one swipe but rather his friend that covers his back and makes the witty comments. Both contribute to the story. A good dm will put situations where all players can contribute to the story in a signigicant way. Nothing about a story has to be "fair" or "balanced" between the players. It just has to be fun.

Point buy makes for generic heroes that are all the same. Two fighters, same strength, same constitution, same charisma makes for a boring story for me.

I much prefer 4d6, sometimes allowing 1's to be rerolled (depending on the campaign). It makes the character more personal. Yes, sometimes one person will roll better than anyone else but that's how life is. Not everyone is created equal. Never had anyone complain about someone that rolled really well. Point buy is fair and even but makes life kinda boring.

The main problem with dices are some players that won't play with low or average rolls, they will kill their character in the first encounter in order to roll again until they get high stats.

Funny, I had a character that had the worst rolls (using 4d6 drop lowest). 13 was his highest stat. This was 1st Edition so he had no bonuses at all. It never even occurred to me to get him killed so I could reroll! I don't know why. It makes perfect sense NOW. Back then it just....didn't.