Reliken's page

> if you add the total XP for each monster, without combining CRs, you'll get the same number as you do by combining.

CR and XP are not the same: you're talking about XP, but the OP was talking about CR. If you have two CR 1 (ie. 400 XP monsters) you get 400 + 400 = 800 xp (ie. 2x). If you have two CR 1 monsters in an encounter that encounter has a CR of 1 + 1 + 2 = CR 4 (ie 4x).

But, then, okay, wait.

I have my party fight two CR1 creatures. Each creature is worth 400XP.

Do I award them 800xp (400xp per creature), or do I award them 1,200xp (the reward for a C4 encounter)? I was assuming the former, but it sounds like that'd be wrong and cheating my players a bit, yeah?

Because in terms of game balance, the game design considers two CR1 creatures to be a CR4 challenge? Or, in other words, a party with an APL of 2 facing two CR1 monsters would not be considered a "normal" encounter (APL) but a "hard" encounter (APL + 2)? Is that right?

Seems like this is critical for me to understand, so please someone clarify!

Everyone in this topic, you're all amazing. Such great conversation, fantastic ideas, excellent discussion. This thread is a prime example of what I love about these forums. Fantastic. And yeah, Snowblind's right: Sap Master rogue here.

Take the Golden Legion's Stayed Blade feat.

THIS... is perfect, for my purposes, at least. My DM listened to my arguing that I should be allowed to say I don't kill people, but ultimately overruled, saying that's just something I'd have to deal with for being such a powerful, deadly character, unless I wanted to deliberately pull my punches - he was fine with me omitting sneak attack when I am eligible, but as we discussed ITT, that has its own problems.

But he also said if I could find a published, in-game rules solution, even if it was not a primary source, that he'd allow it. So now I'm golden... A golden stayed blade ;)

Thanks, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, and everyone!

My character, a rogue, level 9, is generally anti-death., and wants to avoid killing at all costs. All of his attacks are strictly non-lethal.

Here's the problem: he also deals a lot of damage. Sneak attacking a flat-footed opponent deals, on average, 42 damage. If he rolls max, 60 damage, or 120 on a max-crit.

So, if I'm sneaking up on someone that turns out to be a first-level mook, or even a CR 2 3rd level NPC, one good hit and I could very easily kill them. It's even feasible to do on some CR 4, 5th-level NPCs [although the hit would need to be a crit or they'd need to be particularly weak, like a wizard] - and that's all true just if I'm the first one to hit any of them! Put me in a group with my fellow PCs, fighting enemies who have already taken hits, and, well, it's unrealistic to expect I'm *not* going to kill NPCs.

This puts me between a rock-and-a-hard-place, as it seems I only have two choices:

#1) Abandon my character's core identity. End up killing people, unintentionally, and just deal with it. This is a very anti-RP option that I do not want at all.

#2) Neuter my character. Unless I know an enemy I'm fighting is a higher-level NPC, do not sneak attack them, do not flank with my allies, do not take out enemies while sneakily scouting ahead for my party unless I am, somehow, miraculously sure said enemy is at least CR 5 or greater. This threshold requirement will scale up as we continue to advance in the game.

Neither sounds fun. Is there a third option I'm not thinking of here? I could ask my DM about some sort of house rule, such as allowing me to forego some of my sneak attack dice at my discretion, I guess, but even then I'm going to have to severely neuter my character since I will never have any way of knowing with clarity which enemies I'm fighting are low CR and which are high. The only way this could feasibly work is if I had a way of knowing my enemies' CR or maximum HP, and AFAIK there is no way to do that in-game short of being a slayer. Deathwatch exists but is basically useless for this purpose.

Is there maybe some 3.5 peripheral material, or a 3rd-party source or something from Dragon Magazine, that has a spell or equipment item that allows a PC to determine enemy CR/max HP/anything that would be helpful here? I really don't know what to do. =/

Thanks.

It is absolutely astonishing that:

- This thread is more than four years old
- Two years after this thread was made, Jason Bulmahn appeared out of nowhere and said this thread was going to be addressed in "the next FAQ"
- Two years and an untold number of FAQs after THAT, this thread remains completely unaddressed.

Anyway, my interpretation of RAW is that, indeed, you:

#1) Initiate a charge action
#2) Make your charge attack at a +2 attack bonus and gain -2 AC
#3) Attempt your overrun. Without Improved Overrun, this will provoke an AoO.

I don't have a problem with that. Moreover, the silver bullet for my interpretation, in my opinion, is the bullrush text:

Bull Rush: You can make a bull rush as a standard action or as part of a charge, in place of the melee attack.

Compare that to...

Overrun: As a standard action, taken during your move or as part of a charge, you can attempt to overrun your target, moving through its square.

The full text under the bull rush maneuver specifically mentions that your bullrush maneuver is in place of your melee attack. So, you can bull rush as part of a charge, but your bull rush attempt is made instead of making your melee attack.

That clarifying text does not exist under the full text of overrun. This leads me to believe that overrun maneuvers are different.

Nihimon: Thanks! Glad to be here ;D

Haven't gotten it set up on the Land Rush, at the moment - with our current minimal membership I'm not sure how much we'd be able to get. I'll hopefully be involved by the next update, in any case.

As an emissary of the Dagedai Alliance, I welcome The First File to the River Kingdoms and hope that we can sign you up as one of our chartered companies to help protect and expand our interests outward.

Regardless of that, it seems we may have mutual interests and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Working together is something TFF generally supports. Mutual interests always makes such efforts more conciliatory.

First of all, that's still an error and it should be addressed.

Secondly, although it's not an "error," there are still those numerous important points of net-use that are very unclear and that, at this point in time, all require DM fiat rulings when there should be something official.

There are also issues that should be discussed re: net's maximum range, the futility of TWF, and various mechanical issues (IE if you fail the opposed strength check!).

Finally, even if there's only the one error, it's clear based on the discussion there's been throughout not just this topic but also here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2n1zs?All-Tangled-up that the net rules are incredibly confusing, ambiguous, and need to be phrased better in a way that makes more sense at first glance.

In fact, Steve, many of the points raised AFTER your post in the thread you linked (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2n1zs?All-Tangled-up#24) - especially by Beldhyr - still have not been addressed.

Which means this has been an open issue known to be unclear and awkward and contradictory for almost THREE YEARS and there still hasn't been an official response... pretty disappointing =/

Just a note - we're still recruiting!

Net and Trident has some contradictions with the TWF section, but it otherwise works as written. All it does is gives +2 to damage and confirmation rolls against entangled opponents with any light or one-handed weapon (not just tridents).

I've got the last bit, but the contradictions are important to clarify. Is it meant to normally be a two-handed weapon, or is it meant to be a one-handed weapon? This matters a LOT for people who don't take the feat but still choose to use a net, and it also matters in terms of the feat itself: was the feat designed in oversight? Did the people who wrote the feat think that a net was normally a two-handed weapon, and therefore thought they were expanding options by taking the feat, rather than not getting anything new from it?

Where do you get Sang Net as a Two-handed weapon? My copy of the ARG, and the PRD, list it merely as an exotic weapon, and specifies it works like the net (making it an exotic ranged weapon as well).

Whoops, looks like this bit is an error. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons lists it as a two-handed melee weapon.

Quote:

If you control the trailing rope, does the net count as an unattended weapon for the purposes of requiring sunder attempts to attack?

If you aren't holding the net it's unattended.

I feel like there could certainly be made an argument that, by holding the net attached to the rope, you are holding the net. And, if this ISN'T true, it makes nets sufficiently garbage. All it takes is one free attack at AC0, doing 5 damage, and the net is obliterated? Even if you invest a bunch of money to make your net magical, if you're using it beyond level 5 it's trivial for any character to destroy it. AND, there aren't even special rules listed about if bludgeoning or piercing weapons are exempt from damaging nets! These are more examples of things that CAN be solved by DM fiat, but that SHOULD be addressed by the text.

Quote:

Can the trailing rope be attacked separately from the net?

The trailing rope is not the net, therefore it is separate from the net.

Okay... so it CAN be attacked? Does it have the stats of the net, or of rope? If there's a taut rope running through a 5-foot square at waist height, shouldn't that make the square difficult terrain?

Quote:

What happens if you fail your opposed strength check to prevent an enemy from moving beyond the 10-foot reach of your rope?

The opponent moves away. If the rope is too short you have no choice but to drop it. There's simply no mechanic for the opponent to drag you about by the rope.

So the maximum thrown range of the net is 10 feet - what's the maximum length of the trailing rope? Is there a reason you couldn't tie an extra five feet of rope onto it? Re: there not being a mechanic for being dragged if you fail the check - why couldn't there be one? There are special rules for what happens if you fail various CMBs by 10 or more, for instance - why not have a special rule for failing opposed net-controlling strength checks?

Thanks for the link - it helps, but despite that the biggest areas from my original post remain unaddressed:

TL;DR SUMMARY:

- Various official Paizo sources declare that the net is a one-handed ranged weapon and a two-handed ranged weapon. Different items/feats/documents reflect each of these.

Again, this is still important. Seems the snag net thing was an oversight, but we still have two conflicting definitions of how ropes work. Paizo should get us an official ruling one way or the other.

- The first half of the "Net and Trident" feat is largely pointless

Again; this is 100% true if a net was already a one-handed weapon, and is all-but-inarguable even if it wasn't, due to the mechanics of wielding a net and a melee weapon simultaneously.

All of this is doubly true if the feat was drafted by the authors based on an internal misunderstanding of Pathfinder net mechanics (based on the item description it seems clear the authors believe a net is a two-handed weapon, and that they were adding an option, but in actuality they may not have added anything). If the authors were wrong about net mechanics, than the feat should be reworked or at the minimum reworded to reflect that.

Requiring TWF as a pre-requisite for Net and Trident seems unfair as a net-and-trident character will rarely actually make use of TWF; she'll mostly be making only her normal, iterative attacks with one weapon

TWF being a Net and Trident pre-req is a pointless feat tax on what is already a UP feat progression. It adds all-but-nothing to the fighting style of net-and-trident.

Now admittedly, TWF does start to add some benefit if you take the Net Trickery feat at BAB+6, because in place of attacks you can attempt to blind a foe, but a) this is at BAB+6, so why not make TWF a pre-req for Net Trickery but not Net and Trident, and b) it's still a very modest benefit - most of the time you're still making only normal, iterative attacks.

AND:

Despite all of the above, the feat COULD still be useful IF you could throw the net beyond 10 feet, but the net's description clearly states that 10-feet is a net's maximum range, so that's awash.

If you're throwing a bundled up net, why can't you throw it further than 10 feet? Surely sailors throw nets further than that all the time! They might not be very precise, but if you're throwing up a folded, bundled up net, it can get some serious distance on it before it hits the ground.

First: "Net" is listed under "(exotic) ranged weapons." Okay, so far, so good. The rules at this point don't specify if it is a one-handed or a two-handed weapon. The "Combat" section of the CRB, under "Two Weapon Fighting" and then "Thrown Weapons" specifies that the net is a one-handed weapon, but there's a contradiction we'll discuss later on. For now, we'll leave it at this: the net is a ranged weapon with a MAXIMUM range of 10 feet (meaning, you can't throw it any farther than 10 feet away).

Second: We have the Net Adept feat, from Ultimate Combat. The Net Adapt feat says that, normally, a net is a ranged weapon that imposes a -4 penalty on ranged attack rolls if used unfolded. However, with "Net Adept" feat, a character can treat the net as a one-handed MELEE weapon with 10-foot reach, and there is no melee penalty to using an unfolded net.

Okay, so far, so good.

Then, however, things get tricky. The Net and Trident feat says that a net is normally a TWO-HANDED ranged weapon (this contradicts what the CRB says), but that with this feat you can treat a net as a one-handed RANGED weapon. This portion of the feat is - mostly - pointless. First of all, the CRB claims that you already treat the net as a one-handed ranged weapon, making this part of the feat 100% completely pointless.

If that's wrong, however, and it IS normally a two-handed ranged weapon, given the benefits of the feat "Net Adept," this portion of the feat is STILL mostly pointless.

Why? Because we already know the net has a maximum range of 10 feet, what advantage does using it as a one-handed ranged weapon give you over using it as a one-handed melee reach weapon? Even if your Ranged Attack modifier is higher than your melee attack modifier, the fact that you make touch-attacks with a net makes such a benefit minor at best. Further still, net adept takes away the penalties for MELEE attack rolls on the use of an unfolded net - meaning, they don't apply to RANGED attack rolls on the use of an unfolded net - meaning, even if your dexterity modifier was superior to your strength modifier, it'd still be superior to use the net as a melee weapon rather than a ranged weapon to avoid that unfolded penalty.

Despite all of the above, the feat COULD still be useful IF you could throw the net beyond 10 feet, but the net's description clearly states that 10-feet is a net's maximum range, so that's awash.

Add to all of this, there is an exotic two-handed MELEE weapon, the SNAG net, from the Advanced Race Guide. According to the item description, a "snag net works like a typical net exotic weapon," but again: it's listed as a two-handed melee weapon with 10-foot reach - but a typical net exotic weapon is a ranged weapon (sometimes listed as one-handed, sometimes listed as two-handed)!

Another issue: to take the "net and trident" feat, you have to take the feat Two Weapon Fighting. This is basically a feat tax. First of all, neither a trident or a net are a light weapon, meaning you'll be taking -4 to both attacks when you use them. Okay, that's a minor setback, but I can deal with that. However, with the way net-and-trident would work, you will basically never make use of TWF!

Let's say it's my turn, and I'm making a full attack. I throw my net (at 10-foot reach), entangle the opponent, five-foot step in, and make my second attack with my trident. Okay, that's all good. ... but after that point, you're no longer making any second attacks with your second weapon! You're holding onto the trailing rope, but you're only making one attack with your one weapon, which means you don't take TWF penalties (meaning there's no benefit to taking TWF)!

As a net-and-trident character, 90% of the time you aren't getting *anything* out of TWF, because your off-hand is just sitting there holding onto the net. I *guess* you get uses out of it if you're using a snag net, but that's an addendum to the rules (Advanced Race Guide came out way after Ultimate Combat).

Finally, as far as nitpicking goes, there's a LOT that's unclear about nets. If you control the trailing rope, does the net count as an unattended weapon for the purposes of requiring sunder attempts to attack? If a net is sundered, is it destroyed or does it merely gain the "broken" condition? Can the trailing rope be attacked separately from the net? What happens if you fail your opposed strength check to prevent an enemy from moving beyond the 10-foot reach of your rope?

Most of these issues can all be solved and addressed by DM fiat, but that's a LOT of ambiguity that there really should be official rules about.

TL;DR SUMMARY:
- Various official Paizo sources declare that the net is a one-handed ranged weapon, a two-handed ranged weapon, and a two-handed melee weapon. Different items/feats/documents reflect each of these.
- The first half of the "Net and Trident" feat is largely pointless
- Requiring TWF as a pre-requisite for Net and Trident seems unfair as a net-and-trident character will rarely actually make use of TWF; she'll mostly be making only her normal, iterative attacks with one weapon
- There are numerous important points of net-use that are very unclear and that, at this point in time, all require DM fiat rulings when there should be something official

hogarth: I'll look into For A Lady's Honor, and RegUS, I'll look into Game Lords thieves guild RPG stuff. Both may require a lot of work to convert, but if nothing else I'm sure they'll offer good inspiration. MeridiaCreative: I need to look into it some more, but there's a chance that Streets of Zobeck just might be perfect! Thanks for the suggestion.
xobmaps: I'll have to look into the Evil Hat setting guide, too - thanks!

Ive kind of been kicking the idea around of using the kingmaker rules for a thieves guild building campaign.

Start the players off as lower class citizens in a massive metropolis getting hooked up with an existing gang. Then they gradually start their own guild/gang and begin building it up. Just have to retool the kingdom rules to fit into city districts instead of wilderness.

Flavor-wise, this is a really cool idea. If you end up doing it, please tell me how it goes! I'm quite curious.

Gator the Unread, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. It definitely would need to be built differently than other campaigns... but I think that's what attracts me to the idea so much!

Majorat: I haven't looked into Second Darkness much - why do you think the first book would be go od for this?

Vicon: I've heard a lot of people say I should play those games, but have never gotten around to it... Now I just might have to...

The hardest part about all of this is that this is a campaign I want to PLAY IN more than I want to DM, haha.

Lord of Elder Days: Glad to hear it! I'm sure we'll be able to come to an amicable arrangement.

theStormWeaver: I hope so.

ZenPagan: Thank you for your offer. I shall look further into Aeternum Pax Gaming and get back to you.

Reliken wrote:

But by far my favorite, and the one that I think we can all acknowledge seems like a really obvious direction to go in, was the idea for a full BAB arcane caster:

master_marshmallow wrote:

i'd like to see a full BAB arcane caster to complete the RPS cycle with paladin and ranger

paladin- religion caster
ranger- nature caster

in 3.5 there was the hexblade, but he's kinda weak compared to the witch or magus now

the attributes he'd have would look like this:

Full BAB
d10 HD
casting progression starts at lvl 7 and offers 1st-4th level spells
CL = level -3
Good Saves- Reflex, Will (Pally is Fort/Will and Ranger is Fort/Ref)
INT is primary casting stat (to oppose the Paladins CHA and the Rangers WIS) most likely leading to it being a prepared caster

Some bonus to attacking- comparable to the pally's smite or the rangers FE

option of a companion-esk bond- most likely a familiar, or an arcane weapon bond

class needs to be thematically different from the magus- designed more for combat with spells for utility and assistance rather than spells for combat

most likely proficient with simple and martial, and only with light armor for ASF problems

access to CLW, as lvl 2 spell, CMW as lvl 3

class features designed to be unique, and not just a parallel to the other classes (ranger and paladin) as the hexblade was

i'd like to see something like that be done

May I suggest you take a look at the Battle Scion from Kobold Press? It has received very positive reviews and is exactly what you describe!

My concern with Battle Scion - not having played it and only having read about it- is that Force Blast sounds like it might be a little OP/unbalanced. Mainly when compared to equivalent Paladin/Ranger abilities, 2d4 3+int times per day even at level 1 is just… really strong. And then it doesn't scale well, so I guess there's that. I like master marshmallow's thoughts on it. I also have mixed feelings about Arcane Aura, but I've no idea on how this is actually executed with the class so it might just be fine.

That said, I definitely like the flavor and look of it, and I'll probably give it more attention down the road.

I also think it'd be neat to see something that's the reverse of the Battle Scion - a caster (arcane?) with full, not-nerfed arcane spellcasting (IE as a wizard), but with the slightly improved BAB progression of the Inquisitor and some mild combat abilities. Or a jack-of-all-trades class that has some benefits (and some drawbacks) as compared to just multiclassing.

Read Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch for some ideas. or just read it because its my favorite novel of the last 10 years.

It's great, and actually what inspired me to start thinking about this type of adventure.

It would be an interesting idea to do adventures a bit more focused than the usual generic any class/random adventurer types. Something focused on thievery, as you're looking for. Or centered on a mage guild. Or a quest for paladins. All sorts of ideas, well rooted in the genre, but hard to do with the standard assumption that any published adventure needs to work with almost any random assortment of characters.

Probably too limited in appeal for an AP, but it might work well in the new larger module line. Or 3PP, obviously.

I don't know about the general AP people, but I really really dig this idea. There's a custom campaign I've written that I'm running right now that's based on a similar kind of idea - the PCs work for the military of a government, and have been recruited to go on a spy mission into a warzone.

Many non-spylike classes can be made to work, and the PCs still have a lot of choice for how they deal with things, but the story and the objectives and the encounters are much more rooted in that idea of infiltration and espionage than they are "traditional" D&D tropes.

Robin D. Laws The Worldwound Gambit is a tale in Golarion about a team pulling off a long con. Maybe use this as a starting point for your own adventure? If nothing else, it will give you an idea of what kind of party mix could work.

I'll look into this - thanks for the suggestion!

I like many of the ideas ITT. I want to see more official Paizo classes, and I definitely want them to keep away from getting into the 3.5e problem of bloat fluff worthless classes. I've liked many of the suggestions in here, and I think a lot of them have a lot of potential. Among my favorites are the idea for a full on steampunk class, a shapeshifter without the nature element, and a class based on working with a party/giving orders - I guess maybe a better fleshed out, better balanced, more interesting version of The Marshal from 3.5e?

But by far my favorite, and the one that I think we can all acknowledge seems like a really obvious direction to go in, was the idea for a full BAB arcane caster:

i'd like to see a full BAB arcane caster to complete the RPS cycle with paladin and ranger

paladin- religion caster
ranger- nature caster

in 3.5 there was the hexblade, but he's kinda weak compared to the witch or magus now

the attributes he'd have would look like this:

Full BAB
d10 HD
casting progression starts at lvl 7 and offers 1st-4th level spells
CL = level -3
Good Saves- Reflex, Will (Pally is Fort/Will and Ranger is Fort/Ref)
INT is primary casting stat (to oppose the Paladins CHA and the Rangers WIS) most likely leading to it being a prepared caster

Some bonus to attacking- comparable to the pally's smite or the rangers FE

option of a companion-esk bond- most likely a familiar, or an arcane weapon bond

class needs to be thematically different from the magus- designed more for combat with spells for utility and assistance rather than spells for combat

most likely proficient with simple and martial, and only with light armor for ASF problems

access to CLW, as lvl 2 spell, CMW as lvl 3

class features designed to be unique, and not just a parallel to the other classes (ranger and paladin) as the hexblade was

i'd like to see something like that be done

I also like the idea of fleshing out some of the more interesting PrCs into full on independent classes.

Oh baby, yeah it would be. I feel like such a thing HAS to exist somewhere... right?

And, what the heck, once more!

Council of Thieves summary: Once the seat of mighty Imperial Cheliax, the decaying metropolis of Westcrown now stands wrecked and ruined, haunted by mysterious shadow beasts and besieged by the agents of the nation's new diabolical rulers. Amid this chaos, a growing schism in the city's influential Council of Thieves threatens to tear Westcrown apart unless a new group of heroes rises from the ashes of empire to chart a new destiny for the lost souls of the city.

So I wasn't sure how much actual thieving/conning you'd be doing, and how much you'd just be trying to bring peace. Hmm.

Making my own campaign is probably the best way to go. Just a lot of work, haha!

Gosh this board is fast.

Bump.

Not necessarily "rogues," mind you, but... A party that would pull off a heist. It might have need of some rogues, sure, but also perhaps a bard, a wizard, a fighter...

I'd love to run an adventure that focuses on the misadventures of an enterprising group of bandits/thieves/conmen. Pathfinder is ideal, but anything from 3.5 could be easily converted. Heck, even 3.0 something!

Any advice?

Annnnnd again.

Even though I funded the technology demo!

Is there any way for me to help support the game at this point?

Totally protecting people who don't want to be attacked from other players seems like a bad idea to me. Especially since it's all about enhancing player interaction and players fighting each other is a big way to interact.

If there is to be any restriction in place, and I don't think there should be, the way Runescape did it is pretty decent, IMO. There are no-PVP areas, and then there is a PVP area. When you are in the start of this PVP area, you can only get attacked by other players within a level relatively close to your own, and vice versa. The further you go out, the bigger that window becomes until eventually anyone can attack anyone. This type of a system could be adapted to PFO, I think.

But again, I don't think there should be any such system in the first place.

I'm gonna give this a bump.

I'm not sure if the benefits would be worth all the work implementing this would require, but I really like the idea =)

Yeah, I took that non-denial as admission to being a Goon as well. Unsurprising given the m.o.

You want to make a name for yourself on Something Awful? Troll a forum. If you get the denizens riled up, that's a win. If you get the mods riled up, that's sweet, sweet tears of rage you brag about. You get an owner riled up? It's as good as counting coup! Put that trophy on the wall and brag about it forever!

I'm not much fun for Goons.

@TerraNova - We'll be very open to a dialog with the community. We'll likely even have some sort of community body that forms in some sort of official advisory capacity. We're not running a dictatorship, we're running a dictocracy. That's where everyone has a fair chance to make their point and vote on a direction, then I decide what to do. If I thought I could create from whole cloth a functioning, healthy society all by myself by fiat I'd be delusional. It takes community effort and community involvement to make a society work.

I always think it's interesting when people focus on the worst case scenario. "What if I accidentally type "F&+& you"?!?!?!?! I'll get banned without appeal and lose everything!"

Come on guys. We're not idiots here. Nobody wants to ban anyone. Nobody at Goblinworks has the time or the inclination to go looking for one-off derp derp and go through the immense hassle of banning an account. It's the Nuclear Option. We use it when there's no other good course of action.

Let's focus on the best-case scenario:

People who actually do want to rile others up just for the lulz are kept to a minimum, and the community views that behavior as so aberrant that it self-policies to a large degree the kids trying to be cynical/tough/ironic/sarcastic/hip/cool who just don't know any better, and acts like the body's immune system when it's someone who is actually interested in pouring gasoline on the place and burning it down just to watch it burn - identifying them quickly, bringing attention to them swiftly, and...

This whole response makes me feel a lot better about the ambiguous rules policy.

Thanks Ryan.

Elorebaen wrote:

What is "good" is defined by Golarion, so if a person's pet name isn't appropriate for Golarion, then they will need to change names. What is described in the blog seems a fair balance between the in-character atmosphere and pet names. Personally, I would be happy to give up pet names if that meant we never had to see crap OOC names.

I don't think it would be very wise for GW to enforce such naming conventions, and 'appropriate to the setting' is largely up to personal opinion.

Enforcing language appropriate(non-offensive) and 'real'(actually looks like a name) names would be far enough. I would bet limiting name conventions too much will aggrivate more potential players than those who want RP all the time and never see an 'Immersion breaking'(again this is largely up to personal opinion) name. I don't want to see this game turning into a hardcore RP centered game, because I want to see a large audience participate in this game, if Ryan really wants to do for sandbox MMO's what WoW did to themeparks, his target should be larger, and the vast majority of the MMO crowd does not partake in RP. Right now PFO's vocal following is mostly RP players, there are only a few of us that like the game because of the mechanics and have no inkling to RP, this ratio will most likely shift directions once the game is in the alpha-beta stages and is receiving more press.

The only names that should be changed after creation are the obvious ones, fringe names should be default to the player, a name report should also not reach the eyes of a moderator until there are multiple reports on that player(a few dozen at least). Doing otherwise would be a waste of money and forcing multiple reports ensures that the name is widely regarded as out of place. Something like a name that is a reference to a pop-culture icon, but sounds like it belongs in the setting should also be allowed, like the 3 stooges in Diablo 3.

I think this post touches on some very important points and didn't get enough attention. I, too, think too strict enforcement of naming conventions will just alienate a wider audience of players and hamper PFO's ability to grow.

Even if there aren't a LOT of lopsided bans, the fact that there is so much potential (even just for a few, going under the radar) for it to happen really, really unsettles me.

Maybe it's just because I'm an American, but I'm a big believer in the saying "It is better to let nine guilty men free than to convict one innocent man."

Yeah, these rules will let us catch a lot of bad guys and they won't be able to argue their way out of it by citing rules or petitioning or whatever... But I'd be willing to bet money there are going to be undeserving, unmerited, unwarranted bans, too, and those innocent users will just be screwed.

On the one hand, I really like that idea. If it's "you have 20 strength, now you have to look like this," not so much, but if it's "you have 20 strength 18 constitution and 8 charisma, so these are different options available to you for appearance," I like that a bit more.

... on the other hand, what if I want my dude to look untypical? A really strong dumb looking guy who is actually quite intelligent, for instance?

Up the penalty for speeding to a year in jail with an additional 6 months per 5mph over ... you decimate the number of offenders you have. Now no one is going anywhere near 80MPH because that's 5 years in jail.

Ryan is setting up the same thing, except in his world their are fewer cops and you get 20 to life if you get caught going even 1 mile over the speed limit.

This doesn't work in real life because laws go to court and have to be clear. GW is making a game that has policy and that means they can make the rules up however they like and change them whenever they like. Does it suck... sure, but that's only if you are in the habit of being a jerk.

1) Harsher sentencing has been shown to not really have much of an impact on law breakers. See; DUIs, drug use (especially crack cocaine), prostitution, and so on.

2) The problem with "there are fewer cops and you get 20-to-life for going even 1 mile over and GW can make the rules up however they like and chain them whenever they like" is that it's a system that openly invites and embraces corruption on the side of the moderation team.

Get into a disagreement with a moderator? Sorry, a week ago you said something offensive and now you're banned. Make a trade with some guy that ends up being not very good for that some guy? Unfortunately that guy is friends with a moderator - looks like you're getting banned now!

The reason in real life laws "need to be clear" and go to court is because it forces accountability onto those who enforce the law, and it allows for protections of abuse of power. Without clear laws and an ability to hold those with power accountable, there would be nothing stopping the State from becoming a corrupt, totalitarian, power-hungry, irrational entity. And if you think that "man is inherently good" and "would choose to use their power for good, not for evil," I encourage you to look at pretty much anything from history ever where those in charge had that much power.

*******************

SUMMARY: If there's no defined rules, if the only definition is "whatever we say, goes," there's 0 accountability for moderators, there's every reason to cheat and game the system if you are a moderator or have the ear of one, and there's no fair process of appealing or knowing if a moderator's decision was a subjective stretch or an actual fair decision.

Caedryan wrote:

Well, I still think you have a point. It's somehow ironic - that's my European view - that it's perfectly okay to poison people, to shoot them, to stick a sword in your enemy's chest, to probably kill entire tribes of goblins to put weakening curses (-> torturin) and what not, while it's forbidden by banning law to talk about a sexual act.

The internet is rampant with sexual predators. Since this won't be a "Mature Content" game, children will be online. Allowing sex, minors, and adults in the same forum is usually not a good idea. GW's implementation of this rule is not only to protect children playing the game, but to protect its naive adult population as well. You don't know who is on the other of the keyboard. Some adults can be manipulated by young teens and while the teen may have instigated the whole situation its still the adult that gets charged. Its a common sense rule aimed at protecting children. It keeps GW and Paizo's names clean in the public eye.

Actually, the specific rule does NOTHING to address this. The rule says you can talk about sex as long as it's in a PM and it's mutual - meaning if some sexual predator develops a friendship with some kid, and the kid says he's open to it, they can talk about sex and the child can get abducted or whatever it is you're afraid of.

Banning public mentions of "yeah, I enjoy sex" really doesn't do ANYTHING to combat child abduction. And, for the record, while that DOES happen via the Internet sometimes, the actual statistics and rate of that sort of this is pretty statistically small - people just freak out about it and assume, like you did, that "the Internet is rampant with sexual predators."

******

I've seen a lot of communities (whether they be in games, private servers, forums, whatever) that try to implement content/context filters like Goblinworks has mentioned here - you can technically type any word you want, but type a certain combination of words in the wrong order (to make a statement "sexual" or "offensive") and you'll get banned. They've all failed miserably.

The problem is that what is "offensive" and what is "sexual" and what is actually mentioning "bodily fluids" and what is an innocent "BRB, gotta take a pee" is totally completely and entirely subjective. Not just to the players, but assuming you have enough moderators to handle the website each one of them will have different personal views of what is offensive and what is sexual and so on.

This type of filtering doesn't seem like it works in the modern era of the Internet. It's trying to tighten your grip around grains of sand, and that just causes them to slip through your fingers. Obviously GW is going to try it, but I'm really expecting it to not work, to drive away players, or to backfire.

As much as I respect their principles and reasons for wanting to enact those context filters... I don't think it's a good idea.

And I'm sorry if people can't say what they want in public chat, but if my 13 year old son is playing a game, I don't want him hearing about bestiality, S&M, or any other left field adult shenanigans. Good call GW.

But it's A-OKAY if he hears about a gang of robbers waiting for a lone bard to exit a pub late at night in a back alley and club him to a bloody pulp until he's lying on the ground, drowning in his own blood, as they steal his every possession and leave him to writhe and slowly die in agony on the ground?

Most of this sounds good, but I DO hope you'll allow for an appeal process. IE in the case of a misunderstanding over a name (maybe you assume a name, used prominently in some little-known book, is copyrighted, only to discover that it's actually a legitimate name that just fell out of use 200 years ago) or bodily fluids (guy gets banned, but turns out it was a misunderstanding and actually he just meant to say "be right back, i'm gonna go take a bathroom break"), that sort of thing.

Ryan, you think you can make randomly generated dungeons work, right? What's to stop a group from designating its members as the "Spot the Random Dungeon Team," who will do the exact same thing with going through your randomly generated dungeon as they did with the Foozle?

Whatever controls you plan on implementing to prevent that from happening could easily be implemented upon a rare creature or a rare mob.

Heck, if you really wanted to, you could just make rare creatures significantly more "scripted" than standard creatures.

Meaningful human interaction is what happens when one person needs the help of another person to do something interesting.

Exceptional loot is material that generates an exceptional profit when sold at the market price because obtaining it is hard, time consuming, complicated or some combination thereof.

Right. Soooo:

Make hunting for and finding the rare creatures something that benefits from teamwork.

In the same way that randomly generated dungeons will exist, put out randomly generated rare monsters. But, in order to find them, a set of qualifications must be met. You have to track them for so long, you have to stumble upon certain randomly placed elements (their den, a site of a recent kill by the monster, that sort of thing), you need to talk to a few people to gain research and insight into them, that sort of thing.

In theory it's possible to do all of these things on your own, but successfully finding (and killing) the rare monster will be MUCH more doable if you have allies you are working alongside.

Require success in defeating these difficult creatures depend upon teamwork.

Does Tony ever end up hearing really interesting news from unique or interesting sources?

It's already been established that Tony occasionally hears about certain violent accidents, but I'm just curious as to how much (in the way of secrets, rumors, plans, that sort of thing) Tony intends to hear in his day-to-day. From folks like military leaders, high-ranking officials, potential members of rebel factions... that sort of thing.

I'm asking just because I'm legitimately curious, and am not at all acting as a representative for The First File.

Yeah, can't imagine that could possibly be fun. No sarcasm intended.

You'll have to move your character around to maintain position. You'll have to face the right direction. You may have to change gear. You may have to select targets. From time to time you may need to run around to get into a new formation or escape when your formation crumbles.

You'll have to communicate with your formation leader letting them know when you need help or have a target of opportunity or see something happening that is meaningful.

You'll have to decide when it is the right decision to break formation coherence and flee (or make a crazed one character charge), and when to suck it up and die while at your post.

You might have to mount or dismount. You might have to activate or deactivate buffs or debuffs. You might have to counterspell or take some other action to negate an incoming hostile effect.

Two units that clash in melee might dissolve into a scrum of individual 1:1 combat and you'll have to be ready to deal with that eventuality.

Your unit may be disrupted by a successful charge or AoE effect and you could suddenly find yourself cut off and have to rally at a different location.

You could get assigned to a new unit and have to make your way across the battlefield to get to that unit while avoiding, deflecting, or negating incoming hostile effects trying to kill you.

All of that will be going on while you are following the chain of orders to generate Combat Power and act coherently with the rest of your formation.

And if you're leading that formation you're going to have an incredibly expanded list of things you'll have to pay attention to and act on as well, which will become more complex the larger the formation you're leading and the more capable the soldiers in that formation are.

So no, I don't think it will be boring, I do think it will be fun.

I think this may be one of the first "detailed" looks at what you are thinking for the mass combat system. Specifics have been sparse in the past, and quite a few of us were worried that there wouldn't be much room for "choice" on the part of the general soldiers - that all the choice would be up to the commanders and the regular soldiers would just be playing a rhythm game.

Understanding all of these further elements that take place, and that individual soldiers will have the ability to make their own independent choices (SOMETIMES to the benefit of the army, sometimes not) makes me much less skeptical about this system.

I'm really excited.

How would you implement this idea in a way that maximized human interaction?

Make hunting for and finding the rare creatures something that benefits teamwork.

In the same way that randomly generated dungeons will exist, put out randomly generated rare monsters. But, in order to find them, a set of qualifications must be met. You have to track them for so long, you have to stumble upon certain randomly placed elements (their den, a site of a recent kill by the monster, that sort of thing), maybe you need to talk to a few people to gain research and insight into them.

In theory it's possible to do all of these things on your own, but successfully finding (and killing) the rare monster will be MUCH more doable if you have allies you are working alongside.

I'm sure we will have such a unit. Our primary goal will generally be to kill our enemies. Dead is dead; whether our enemies die on the field of battle, due to sickness and foul weather, from being eliminated in their sleep, or even from unfortunate "accidents, a dead enemy is a dead enemy. Information is a powerful weapon, too; any information that can help us to kill our enemies would also, certainly, be valuable.

Any options that effectively reduces the numbers of our foes will be considered.

For operations requiring particular numbers or sets of skills... Yes, I can most certainly see us enlisting the aid of a totally legitimate bread making business, to... feed our troops.

Your chartered company sounds similar in many respects to The First File.

We may work together at one point or another, but I imagine for the most part we will develop a (hopefully friendly) rivalry.

I've decided it would be in the best interest of The First File if I bumped this thread.

Ninja 4, taking tricks for smokebombs and invisiblity so you can disappear and end conversations prematurely
Monk 1, gain unarmed strike, choose improved unarmed strike as your monk bonus feat, and for your chosen feat choose "Superior Unarmed Strike" from the 3.5 book Tome of Battle - your fists now do d8, and will do d10 once you hit level 12

go mostly ninja from here on out. get the trick for exploding shurikens (batarangs) and maybe poison for your smokebombs and put in something that causes unconsciousness or sleep

and, if your DM will let you, take "Knockout Punch" and "Improved Knockout Punch" from D20 Modern - Knockout Punch lets your FIRST unarmed attack against a flat-footed opponent automatically crit threat, Improved KOP turns that first auto-crit threat into an x3 critical.

**ALSO, I would argue Batman's WISDOM should be higher than his intelligence. LUCIUS FOX actually is the one who INVENTS the majority of Batman's inventions - Batman is able to innovate ingenius ways of using them, he comes up with unique and bizzare ways of combining multiple inventions into one useful gadget. That's wisdom, not intelligence. Granted, he makes a lot of stuff too and is super smart, but if one has to be higher, I'd say wisdom.**

the one thing that sucks is there is a 3.5 book with a Ranged Disarm feat, which would be PERFECT for using those shurikens with, but they require Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot, which make it not worth it if you are trying to make a build as true to Batman's as possible, unfortunately =(

This is a good topic with good ideas! But it looks like Mark Kalmes already realized that ;)

Also keep in mind that this model means that while you may have to pay for say, the first six months, if you can establish a reliable revenue stream you can then play the game completely free. This already happens in Eve where once you get past a certain point you can trade in PLEXes (Eve skill training time) which means you don't have to pay a thing!

If this really is the case, then I feel a lot better about the pay-for-skills model. Is skill training... instant? Like, in EVE, you buy a better ship - do you just "buy" better fighting abilities? Or do you have to devote in-game time to developing it?

Do we know if different skills (magic, swords, leadership, healing, etc.) will cost different amounts to train? Or if there will be a limit to how much you can train at a time?

ALSO, everyone always seem to talk as if there are two options - a $60 box price, or a F2P model. Isn't there... something in the middle? People worried about hackers/undesirables getting in on free to play, why not introduce a SMALL startup cost - say, push the game at $15 or $30 box price. From there, you can pay for skill training, pay the extra $15/month for extra or whatever and what have you.

This minimizes the downsides of the F2P model but also doesn't incur a huge ding on players wallets for having to pay $60 for a game plus a $15 for extras fee plus $XX in skill training costs.

Sooo... the ONLY way to get better at things is by purchasing "training," whether with real money or in-game gold?

>_> You can't just, you know, go do things (fight monsters, train sword fights with your friends, etc.) to get better?

I think it's also worth noting at this point that a lot of folks seem to think the Real Money Auction House of Diablo 3 (not to mention the fact that the developers have outright said they've changed the design of the game to emphasize the auction house) is a big part of why D3 isn't pulling in the numbers or replayability that its predecessors did.

My basic philosophy boils down to two points:

- With two equal characters, one character shouldn't be able to win just because his player has a fatter wallet

- If one player puts 40 hours a week into playing and training his character, and one player puts in 4 hours and $100 a week, the guy who has put in the 40 hours a week should be the superior character.

Under this system, a player nation can't go out and start conquering the world, even if it excels and is the very best and is undeniably the most powerful player nation... because all of the other nations can just choose to not fight it.

Wars will likely only ever occur between similarly matched/sized forces, never leading to a smaller country going up against long odds and coming out the victor, or a juggernaut force laying waste to small settlements.

I don't know, I get you don't want to force players into PvP wars if they don't want to be in them, but... telling me that my nation can't invade/attack/take over (or lose to) this neighboring country because the other players don't want me to really takes away from the whole immersion "players create the game world and decide what to do and make their own stories" aspect that's supposed to be at the center of the game.

Are there any plans to address this, or... is this just something we'll have to suspend our disbelief about?

Reliken wrote:

Given your primary pursuit is knowledge...

I understand the confusion, but that's not really accurate.

Our primary In-Character pursuit is building our library.

Our primary Out-of-Character pursuit is probably best explained in this post. In essence, we want to fully engage the game at every level, which means we'll be doing everything we can to be a top-tier Player Nation.

Well, in-character there are justifications for us working together, and there are certainly some out-of-character goals that coalesce as well. Nothing to help your top-tier player nation like the premiere military of the server ;)

Onishi: I definitely think you're onto something there. A high-functioning military will certainly require significant training, and having another chartered company pursuing similar goals would help give both of our companies a bar to shoot for.

I agree that in all likelihood overtime it seems we'll either end up as stiff competition with each other or join forces, and I could see both results ending up as a good arrangement for both of us.

Nihimon: It's certainly a possibility. Given your primary pursuit is knowledge and our primary pursuit is military perfection, I imagine there might be a lot of opportunities for us to help each other.

Not building empires, huh?

... >_> Isn't that kind of what player nations are all about?