So, to address the title-question, (I might repeat what has already been said in the thread, because I'm not reading three pages. I saw some mean-spirited takes very early and I want to spare myself but also offer my simple opinion). I think it's good to see it from other people's perspective and remember that there may be different perspectives in the same camp: From the sub-reddit moderators' perspective, I don't think it's a hateful reason why they removed your threads and changed the rules. *I think* it's purely that your posts made them realized that they had to take a stance on the matter, of letting people advertise a specific kind of paid services on the sub-reddit or not. And they chose to discourage it. Not to thwart you or any other legitimate DMs. But to completely remove any chance of anyone abusing the sub-reddit as a platform - if it is normalized it is much easier for people to get away with scamming or half-assing it. And I don't think there is a real, feasible way of controlling who is and isn't a legitimate, professional pay-for-play DM.
And I think they should be allowed to make that decision for the sub-reddit they moderate, because they are not being payed to moderate. They shouldn't have to take on more responsibilities, it's up to them. --- The users on the sub-reddit who spewed vitriol at you (and some of them may also be moderators, I don't know); I think they're just uninformed, narrow-minded (or possibly just unwell) people who can't restrain themselves from typing negative things.
--- From my perspective, I just don't see why I would pay for a DM when I have my playgroup with decent and good DMs.
I feel like Charisma is a bit underrepresented here. This is something I have changed my mind about over time, a few years ago I would probably not have had these thoughts. To me, Charisma is a very important ability score to invest in, because I want to use it all the time. Charisma opens so many opportunities in the game, just through the skill bonuses alone. To (just) go from inconsistent to semi-consistent in charisma skill check successes is a big thing and changes how I play. Of course, this is a very soft-rules area and the usefulness of charisma based skills varies greatly between tables and who you are as a player.
To me, Charisma is important enough to warrant consideration for every character I build and very often is my 2nd or 3rd highest ability score. And I really do think it pays off, many times. To make it perfectly clear, I'm not saying that investing in Charisma is my favorite way of building unoptimized characters. I'm saying that a character could very well be unoptimized because it doesn't have Charisma (again, this varies greatly depending on what table and player you optimize for - not throwing any stank on other people's preferences). Granted, I have limited experience with PF2 so I can't speak too much about how it works exactly in this edition. Though from what I've seen, there are less substitutes for Charisma than in PF1? (Student of Philosophy, Inquisitions, etc), making me think that Charisma is more important than previously (at least for me). ---
But I do think that they don't have to be "perfectly balanced" (put in citation marks because "perfect" is very hard to define) - what I mean is that I don't think "perfect balance" is needed to enjoy the game (or build/brew characters). And I do absolutely think that they shouldn't be symmetrically balanced - I'm mentioning this because I'm not sure that Charisma should have generic mechanical benefits (like saves). I think that could risk turning Charisma into an artificially useful Ability Score, functioning as an Ability Score tax that you need to invest in (contra an Ability Score that some players wants to invest in). But that's just my opinion.
From another thread:
Rub-Eta wrote:
Any class that requires deep knowledge of the system and options, or a class that has complex class abilities.
I feel like the Ranger is a good class to introduce new players to. It starts as a straight martial class, 2nd level they get a limited option of feats and they eventually get some spell-casting, and animal companions don't require much at all.
I heard somewhere that IF a human had wings and could operate them properly to fly, he would need to eat two sacks of potatoes per minute to stay in the air.
Malik Gyan Daumantas wrote:
That's like saying "a Fighter without feats" or "a Wizard without spells". A bloodrager isn't close to what a Barbarian peaks at with rage, the number of extremely good rage powers makes sure of that. Also, as people already have said; they have well enough rounds of rage. Since entering rage is a free action, enter rage when you actually need it, not at first sight.
Had a bad DM who just couldn't for the life of his campaign make anything interesting. We didn't want to go on his adventure, our characters found much more interesting stuff to do. Every NPC we'd meet didn't want us to go on his adventure (for many different reasons). When we (the players) threw him a bone and went on his adventure anyway, he constantly tried to convey to us how everything we tried was impossible (because he had thought out some "puzzles" with very specific solutions that we in no way could figure out). It was over after one session. The best DM I've ever had made personal side-story-arcs for each PC to follow along with the main story, to spur our characters' motivations. He occasionally posed our characters in very personal situations, just to let us resolve it however we wanted. This way, he offered several opportunities for us to experience drastic character-development with our PCs. My worst DM (who almost made me quit my group and role-playing altogether, before I kicked him out instead):
Oh, it also turned out that he sent dick-pics to one of the player's girlfriend... f**@ that guy.
James F.D. Graham wrote: Long story short: A powerful entity (fey/fiend/genie) decides to empower the wishing well of a small thorp or hamlet so that it actually grants wishes. It really matters what entity is granting the wishes. A fiend would definitely look out to screw people over and twist people's wishes. A fey would probably joke around with people's wishes and cause more of an annoyance rather than a menace. A genie, on the other hand, may very well fulfill the wishes as good as possible. So, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. "I want to be the richest man in town":
I feel like the genie approach is the most interesting one. A girl wished to be the most beautiful woman in the entire country. Now she gets a lot of unexpected attention from several (different "quality") suitors. Jealousy starts to fester among her old friends. All in all, her life changes drastically.
A lot of other wishes could be something that decays and can't be maintained over time. "I want to run a business" - community is to small to actually make said business go around.
This is only a problem since you don't like it. There's nothing inherently wrong with video games or the feel of them. Quote: Long-story-short, they want an action movie. If that's what they want, then the DM (you) should provide it for them. You can't make them play a game they don't want to play, then they'll just stop coming to your sessions. However:
Quote: if there is an encounter too big for them that it is my fault for not presenting a level-appropriate encounter This is a very narrow mind-set on their part IF the don't let you work around it. They should be aware that seeking out the ancient wyvern means a not-level appropriate combat encounter. This does not mean that you have to baby-secure the world and remove all high-level dragons and NPCs. But you should not just present the players with an ancient wyvern without making it clear that the encounter is a chase encounter and not a combat encounter. Such an encounter can still be level appropriate. If they're not fine with that, baby-sit them.
Durable and socially capable are my two common denominators for pretty much all my characters.
I don't like using NPCs that are exact copies from other media characters, unless I'm pulling a prank at my players... They feel out-of-place and they're not my characters and I don't want to be restricted to someone else's cannon.
A very typical encounter setup is for the party to get into a heavily guarded building or area. A castle or the like. First time my group got up to this task, we had reason to believe that the, otherwise friendly, fort may have been attacked by Ogres. We didn't see any guards posted atop the wall to great us when we approached... So we walked up to the fort's ramparts, to the portcullis armored gate and knocked...
"Just knock" became a running gag. We've done this multiple times in multiple games since then, with varying degrees of success. Last session we went the extra mile by stripping and handcuffed two of our three party-members (in an attempt to disguise us as slaves and slaver) before we knocked on the gnoll slaver's garrison. Little did we know, the gnoll slaver was expecting us and knew exactly who we were and led us far into the garrison where we got surrounded by his guards. We slew every single gnoll in that garrison. Moral of the story: Knocking is only stupid if you can't back up your intent.
Dasrak wrote:
I really don't find PrCs to be sufficient. Out of the 100+ of them there is, only a hand full of them are attractive, who actually offer balanced mechanics and distinct flavor. Many times I find core/base/hybrid classes with archetypes to fill the bill of my character concept equally flavorful but with superior mechanical options (not breaking level progression for scaling abilities, etc). Some PrCs are even so bad so that regular multi-classing is better. I also find that a lot of the PrCs come into play way too late for them to actually be considered. I want my character to be online by level 5. And again, I really hate that PrCs are torn between being used as their own separate classes with prerequisites (take any of the PrCs from Path of the Righteous, by far some of the best PrCs I've seen) and blunt tools to hammer out the already poor multi-classing system (Eldritch Knight, Rage Prophet, etc). And about archetypes: There are a lot of sheite archetypes. But there are some really golden ones that makes it all worth it.
18 deaths in two books? I'm surprised you guys didn't leave after 8! "he already went through the campaign and it's no fun for him if it's the same" - This mindset is completely flawed. He's DMing for his own enjoyment only, not his players.
If the DM can't run Shattered Star a second time without ruining the fun for the group, suggest that you play something else.
I don't know. While the newer PrCs have been miles better than the earlier, I still feel like the underlying system for multi-classing is kinda flawed. It doesn't help that PrCs are torn between poor attempts at hammering those gaps and stand-alone niche classes in both flavor and mechanics. Neither of the approaches work as is, right now.
In my current game, one of the other player's character is closely related to the BBEG. This family bond is basically what kicked off the entire adventure.
Remember that everyone is there to have fun. You can treat all player characters differently from one another, as long as the players are okay with the way their characters are being treated. What you should not do is treat the players differently from one another. You can give a player character the 'main character' status. Giving a player the 'main character' status is just playing favorites.
@Yaba: There is nothing that I know of that allows for additional off-hand attacks, except for the Improved and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting feats. They are all tied to BAB, however.
EDIT: A one-armed man can still use and wield two weapons and make off-hand attacks, as long as it doesn't require more than one arm: He can't wield two swords with one arm/hand but he can kick.
Any stats for a playable Eoxian/whatever they're called? Shinigami02 wrote:
You don't need separate stats for the space-mail bikini. It's apparently as protective as regular armor (why else would it be so popular among females to wear?).
Claxon wrote:
No offense but this is one of the worst things you can do to players. You're purposefully setting them up for a catch 22. Probably? I agree with Claxon 100%. If you want to know why this is a bad idea, just take a quick search on these boards and see how many players absolutely despise DMs who does this and are ready to leave a gaming group because of it.
Micheal Smith wrote: Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything. I don't always roll 10's either. I do, in fact, roll it as often as I roll 1's and 20's. So I don't do average either, it's much more spread out...
YogoZuno wrote: Multiattacks (double, triple or quad attacks) will reduce your accuracy. So, while your potential total damage is higher, the actual amount done will vary a lot more over a single shot. I'm well aware of that. Snipers are still not on-par with single trick attacks, though. And you still only need to land two of three/four hits to out-damage the sniper. YogoZuno wrote: In addition, while you don't get trick attack damage, you DO get to apply a debuff, even if it isn't at super-long range. You don't need Debilitating Sniper for this, small arms do this just fine. YogoZuno wrote: Sniper weapons also already have a decent range by default, even without using the sniper property - much longer than equivalent small arms. "Much longer", as in ~20ft longer? Somewhere around the distance that trick attack lets you travel? YogoZuno wrote: Also, the base damage of most sniper weapons is on par with equivalent longarms, and generally slightly higher than same level smallarms Again: Rub-Eta wrote:
Xenocrat wrote: One option is that this is a case of the specific operative rule overriding the general sniper rule unlike a standard sniper you give up your swift action, in return you get to move and add your bonus damage. Not saying that's intended, but it's defensible. No, that's not a defensible option. Nowhere is this stated to be possible. Also, as far as I know, you can't use swift actions and full actions in the same round.
gigyas6 wrote: In this way, they need to be a bit closer to the fight. If that's the case, I really do wonder what the point of the sniper is... EDIT: I'm also not buying into this. Why shouldn't the operative be allowed to use it's class abilities with a sniper while sniping, when a soldier does? I'm referring specifically to their superior BAB, among others.
Can Operatives snipe? Or what I'm really asking: What does"Debilitating Sniper" actually do?
Debilitating Sniper wrote: You can use trick attack with sniper weapons. You do not add trick attack damage to your attack, but the target is still flatfooted, and you can use debilitating tricks. It seems to allow us to use "trick attack" with snipers (though not adding the trick attack damage). It adds snipers to the list of weapons that can be used while performing a trick attack, right next to "a melee weapon with the operative special property or with any small arm", right? Trick Attack wrote: You can trick or startle a foe and then attack when she drops her guard. As a full action, you can move up to your speed. Whether or not you moved, you can then make an attack with a melee weapon with the operative special property or with any small arm. But wait... as a full action? Sniper wrote: If you aim the weapon as a move action and then fire it on the same turn, use the value listed with the sniper special property as the weapon’s range increment. You can still fire a sniper weapon as normal, but it has only the range listed under its normal range entry when you do. This means that "Debilitating Sniper" makes you able to use trick attack with sniper weapons, when you are not sniping... when you are not using the sniper correctly... Am I missing something here?
First of all, are you playing the Rogue from the Core Rulebook or from Unchained? If you're not playing the Unchained one, ask your DM if you're allowed to switch at next level (the Core Rogue is considered the weakest PC class in the game). 1) TWF (Two Weapon Fighting) takes quite a lot of investment if you want to follow it up (with Improved TWF and Greater TWF). As a Rogue, you will have a hard time hitting things anyway, the -2 penalty doesn't help. - It also only grants you an additional attack when you spend a full-round action to perform a full-attack action. This means that you can't be mobile while doing so. 2)You can only create the generic bombs that the Alchemist "Bomb" class ability grants. So: You can make bombs that deals an amount of fire damage equal to your sneak attack and splash damage to all adjacent squares equal to the minimum damage. You will need the "Bomber’s Discovery" talent to gain access to other kinds of bombs (such as Entangle Bomb). 3)Since you're not proficient with medium armor, stay away! Use light armor!
4)It's hard to be mobile in combat. As long as you only stick to one attack, however, you will have the opportunity. Anything that increases your Acrobatics check (so that you can avoid Attacks of Opportunity while moving around your enemies to flank). You should probably look into the "Circling Mongoose" feat - one of few ways to actually make a competent unchained rogue (though it doesn't save the core rogue). 5) I'm waiting.
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