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Hiya! I recently subbed to the Starfinder APs, but my order for Starfinder Adventure Path #7: The Reach of Empire is still listed as Pending (the next AP in the subscription, Starfinder Adventure Path #8: Escape from the Prison Moon, has just been listed as Completed). I subbed during the tragic Websitefall, so just wanted to make sure it didn't get lost in the explosion. Thanks!
It also might help to talk slowly, and in relatively short bursts. If you play a relatively calm character, you can pretty easily get away with a slower cadence of speech. One small thing I do when I'm about to speak in-character is to adjust my body in some way. For example, when I roleplay my know-it-all Lore Oracle, I typically lean back in my chair, thrust up my chin, and spread a giant smirk across my face. It really helps me say things in-character without getting caught up in the "oh gosh geez did I really just say that it sounded so stupid" mindset.
I guess these are more taunts than jokes, but hey. From my home campaign's vivisectionist/beastmorph alchemist: "I can transmute lead into gold. But I'm about to transmute your face into the ground." *Group walks in on evil wizard (that we wanted to interrogate) casting a long spell*
If I am not going to go away for some personal time, because I made a commitment to my friends, neither shall they. Or they can not come that day.Gaming before sex Hama? Seriously? You must just be a joy to hang around with. :D Gotta agree on this one, and I think this extends to the simple "don't be a jerk" rule. If I tell my friends that I am going to hang out with them for a set amount of time and then don't show or leave mid-way through, I feel like it's telling them that I don't value their time as much as I value my own. Moreover, since table top gaming tends to require a set number of people - having a single person missing can have drastic effects of the difficulty of any given encounter - leaving the group mid-session is quite a bit different than leaving a group of friends during some other activities, such as seeing a movie or bar hopping. Conversely, if someone texted me, "Hey babe, we want to play Pathfinder tonight...everyone is free, just need you," while I was with my girlfriend, I would say no for the same reasons. ...Well, some of the same reasons. But the number one reason being out of respect for the time of the person(s) with whom I have made a prior commitment.
Just last week, my party and I are in a dungeon filled with demonic apes and clerics of Demogorgon. We finish an encounter and then decide to move on. My party leader tells us all to move very quietly and carefully (Stealth checks). I immediately call out, "I start singing to 'inspire competence, +4 everyone.' My whole group just stared at me for like 10 seconds waiting for some sign that I'm joking. Sadly...I'm not. Then it hits me.And the silly thing is, this has a precedent. I was actually expecting something else entirely. But OotS is pretty awesome too!
I feel obligated to mention Olenna Tyrell from Game of Thrones. Or rather, from A Song of Ice and Fire, as she has thus far appeared more formidable in the books than in the TV show. Minor Spoilers: Olenna serves as an excellent foil to Cersei Lannister. Where Cersei tries to gain and solidify power by controlling people through her blatant sexuality and with outright threats, Olenna is an old lady who is the true leader of the Tyrell family. She rules through subtle manipulations, and appears to be a very sweet old lady. Beneath it all, she is obviously one of the most cunning players in the "Game of Thrones."
I am now very tempted to make a Gray Gardener with a weapon named Madame Guillotine.
Sure they are. It even says so in their entry. It's just got to be for a damn good reason, and they've got to seek an atonement periodically. I imagine they'd be most likely to cooperate with lawful evil types, as a lot of those can pass themselves off as "good" like nobody's business. Sure, they still ping evil on the metagaming ray--I mean detect evil--but are the most likely to find occasional common ground with lawful derp.Well... Paladins aren't allowed to travel or play with 'Evil' characters. Therefore the bakers alignment is VERY relative to the Paladin. "Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good." Essentially, a paladin can work with an evil character, but it needs to be for a reason. Moreover, a paladin can arguably "play the long game," and try to make the evildoer see the error of their ways, but this is again reasonably contingent on the ability of the paladin to know what the wizard is up to.
This is a bit of a misrepresentation of the opinions of why Crane Wing is overpowered. The arguments against it tend to be more against its power to utterly mitigate successes. Even against powerful / multiple foes, CW still lets you block a single attack, which will reduce the damage taken in addition to ignoring any possible attack "attachments" such as poison, grab, trip, etc. I still think it got nerfed too hard, but it could have at least used a few changes to allow 20s, "attachments", and the like to hit. As it was, it was a bit out of line with the general power of feats. Whether or not feats need to be more powerful to make up for the martial vs. caster disparity at upper levels is up for debate, as I've seen more people argue this point as of late.
One of my players recently convinced a two-headed ettin guard that they were, "there from the union," and that they were going to try to survey conditions and make sure that the workers - the ettin included - were being paid their proper wages. He even played to the ettin's greed by stating that, since it had two heads, it should be paid double. After a few excellent Diplomacy and Bluff rolls, the ettin was thoroughly convinced that it was underpaid and overworked. Or, at least, one head did. One of the rolls was so close to success that I decided that one of the heads fell for it, while the other remained suspicious. The party sorcerer then cast the unadulterated loathing spell on one head, with the target of its hatred being the other head. This started the ettin arguing with itself, eventually leading to one of the heads knocking the other out (with the aid of the party). The remaining head - the one which believed the party almost unconditionally at this point - allowed the party to pass, even giving them a gift for granting it a temporary reprieve from its "stinky, stupid, smelly second head."
The main problem is that if the OP's character is, in fact, evil, he would detect as such to the paladin, which would significantly change the paladin's in-game interactions with the OP's character. If the paladin currently doesn't know about the situation in-game, the evil aura should be enough to at least trigger some suspicions. GMs aren't infallible, either. The GM certainly has the final call, and if the GM says the OP's character's alignment is neutral, that should end the debate. That doesn't mean the GM should completely ignore a player's concerns that someone is committing evil acts while keeping the "benefit" of being neutral.
Honestly, this sounds more like Neutral Evil to me than anything else. I'm not sure I'd call that Lawful, and it's a fine line on the Neutral/Evil side as well. What are you doing with the information you glean? Rather, what kind of information are you allowing to be sold by your rogue "front man"? If it's all information, that seems more on the side of evil. If you are selling only information about, say, corrupt officials and other information that is being used "for the greater good," that's more neutral. Essentially, though, your character is drugging people for profit. That doesn't sound Lawful or Neutral. You mention it not being any more evil than a charm spell, but if you are using charm spells to obtain information to sell, that's still rather evil. It's a very cool and flavorful (heh heh) idea, though, even if I'm not certain the character's alignment reflects his actions.
I also GM. And I know PFS doesn't allow variations from what's within the book. I think the point was that CW essentially scales off the number of enemy attacks that are made, which can overhaul CR values. Moreover, allowing the player to choose which specific attack to completely invalidate can potentially render certain monsters borderline useless against that individual. Attacks with special abilities attached to them (rend, trip, grab, etc.) - which are often there to help monsters overcome action economy - also fall by the wayside if the attacks do not connect. It also somewhat encourages metagaming, as foreknowledge of a monster's abilities can change which attack is being blocked. (This is not a primary concern, but I figured I would mention it) So, it's not a problem of lazy GMs. It's a problem with the feat itself. I don't think anyone here is opposed to the idea of Crane Wing, but its in-game application allows it to be more powerful than other feats. Whether or not feats should be more powerful in order to allow martials to scale like casters is arguably up for debate, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
It seems odd to me at least that people who made it happen to also be really huge voters. You would think that they would be exempt from voting or their votes would be removed from the contest prior to a result phase. In addition to what James Casey said, the final decisions in Round One were made by judges. That means that while the top 100 or so were generated by public votes, the finalists were chosen by the judges. In Round Two, nobody can vote for themselves more than once.
I would definitely love to see the Tian races get some more love. The samsaran is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting races from an ecology standpoint, and very little has been said about them. I mean, they're practically Time Lords (like the Doctor from Dr. Who), but there are so many unanswered questions. How long does it take them to reincarnate? Can they be resurrected as normal (as a playable race, I assume so)? Where do they reincarnate? Do they need to be raised as children, or can they essentially raise themselves, having already undergone a former life? What causes samsaran children to be human? Where did they come from? And several dozen more. So, yes, I would like to see a race guide with the Kitsune, Samsaran, and Tengu, at the very least.
Sheesh, nobody mentioned my Frozen reference... I don't know if that reference made me feel elated, or gassy. ...But I'm somewhere in that zone.
I was actually hoping for a few Improved Familiar critters, given the CR and setting. I do agree that some of the monsters seemed to be more geared towards "this could live in an urban setting" rather than "this thrives in an urban setting," but a good number of them felt like they fit well into the urban environment. I would have liked to see more social monsters as well, but that is more of a personal preference rather than an actual critique from me.
I'm in agreement with the others on the CR. It feels like you took a CR 15 or so monster, stripped off several abilities, and dropped the DCs of the ones you left in so that you could get it down to the round's CR restrictions. I'm not a great big fan of a CR 3/MR 1 monster bestowing mythic ranks, either, and I have a hard time seeing it able to embark on a rampage of destruction when most villages in Golarion have sufficient resources to slay it. EDIT: If it were described as, say, a "fractured portion of Ammut's essence," I'd have a much easier time accepting it. All that aside, I feel like I can "see the developer underneath" the monster, and I am very likely going to vote for you to advance to the next round. I've really enjoyed your item and monster submissions' mojo, and would like to see you continue.
I really wish this guy had an attack other than a single, very specific, supernatural ability. This feels more like a haunt than a monster to me. That said, it'd be a really cool haunt. I really want to vote for this one, but I'm undecided at this point. If I do wind up voting for it, I'll be voting for the designer rather than the monster. Best of luck!
You mean if monsters can't do all of their cool things to this one PC. I suppose, but monsters don't always get multiple "cool things," and they can't always Acrobatics past the beefy tank-man to get to the sweet, juicy wizard meat. I just wanted to point out that I think Marthkus is misinterpreting a lot of arguments against CW as GMs wanting to restrict players from doing cool things. It's more about the fact that Crane Wing restricts other aspects of gameplay for the GM. ...I think. I might be putting words in their mouths.
True, but it seems weird and metagame-y for an unintelligent monster to suddenly realize that the enemy is adopting a Crane Style stance and adjust their tactics. If I need to resort to metagame knowledge to deal with a problem, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In a game where typical combat only lasts a few rounds, spending the first round to realize that the opponent can block hits is a bit of a waste. Like I said, I was not entirely opposed to the concept of Crane Wing, but its in-game application was out of line with the general power of feats.
It rendered multiple monster strategies ineffective - which were built into the core of the monsters' ideas during their design - and that's in addition to the potential critical hit blocks, among other things. It was an overpowered feat, plain and simple. EDIT: @MrSin: I am so tempted to try to find a way to make a Whale Tossin' encounter work, now.
Tail slap, then bite.The grappling monster could still attack and grapple. It just had to attack twice. This works somewhat, but there was a discussion earlier about the validity of using this method. Moreover, it assumes that the monster isn't attacking all at once, or that the CWer can't process the attacks anyway but individually. I'm sure there would be arguments about whether or not the PC would be able to tell how many attacks are coming towards him/her (not which will hit, just which attacks the creature is using), and a smart player is always going to block the bite. Generally, bites are worse than tail slaps, especially when the creature has "arcs of brilliant energy filling its mouth."
The grappling monster could still attack and grapple. It just had to attack twice. It has to hit twice. And that's assuming it has multiple attacks with grab attached to 'em. If a monster's core schtick is to chomp down on its prey, make a free grab attack, and then swallow whole the next round, the old CW renders that strategy ineffective.
Part of the problem is that many monsters have effects on successful melee attacks, and those tend to be a core part of the monster's ability to overcome a party's action economy. Grab, which allows a monster to make a free grapple attempt on a successful melee attack, allows the monster to spend the turn attacking AND make a grapple, rather than simply doing one or the other. Crane Wing, or more specifically the old Crane Wing, completely threw that off. From a design standpoint, it was a very cool idea for a feat, but the old version was overpowered in its execution of the idea. To be fair, I think the new version is underpowered, but I'd rather see an underpowered feat than an overpowered one.
Phoenix squints at the remaining creature a short distance away. His face scrunches itself as he attempts to discern what manner of creature it is, but from the puzzled look on his face, it is obvious that he is coming up with nothing of relevance. "Well, Demonsbane obliterated one of them easily," mutters Phoenix, "and I'd rather not waste a spell determining if they have minds susceptible to confoundingly contrasting colors, sooooo..." Phoenix shifts behind Drallidur, and drops his crossbow to level once he no longer runs the risk of shooting a bolt into her back. The soft thrum of the crossbow marks the sound of the bolt hurtling off towards the tentacled drifter.
*sigh* Because if PCs can do their cool thing the GM is losing. I think it's more of a "if monsters can't do their cool thing." Disclaimer: that is not the main reason I appreciate the CW errata, although it is a minor consideration.
I'm rather wondering why the dragon doesn't just fly around and breath weapon both characters to death. Do they not get one that young or something.
How about if it was before you saw the result of the roll? That alone would make it possible for it to be misapplied, meaning it won't always work to negate an attack. It would go a long way, I think, although it wouldn't necessarily address the problem with additional effects on hits, such as grab or poison. I'm not adept enough with my probabilities to remember how to calculate it out how selecting prior to the results of a roll would affect total hit chance, though. I think the simple fact that the feat made criticals fail completely in addition to essentially giving the enemy one fewer successful hit made for an overpowered feat. Obviously some people disagree, but this is the one part of the feat that I find myself repeatedly finding to be a bit too strong, even for its investment. EDIT: To put it another way, I feel like the current version of Crane Wing has the potential to be balanced if it allowed the +4 to be taken on any attack (not pre-decided), and allowed Riposte to trigger off the deflected attack, but I haven't done a number crunch or playtest of that option. It would allow critical hits through, and exceedingly high rolls to hit, but would still keep the same spirit of the current CW.
Isn't it just 2 feats (3 for Riposte)? IUS is given for free, and Dodge is taken from the Bonus Feats list, which is rather shallow, meaning the monk isn't giving up some amazing feat for Dodge. And regardless, my main problem was with the ability to deflect a single attack of your choice, always and without fail, after seeing the results of the dice. I think that taking away both the "always and without fail" and "on any attack after the dice are rolled" has made Crane Wing underpowered, but it was overpowered with both aspects on it.
There's still a chance of melee getting through. A CR 5 Very Young Black Dragon has a +9 bite and +9 two claw. That's a 24.3% chance of one hit getting through. Meanwhile, assume a 5th level monk with Crane Wing. The same dragon needs to hit twice in order for a single hit to actually get through. In order for the dragon to have a 23.9% of actually dealing damage to the monk, the monk needs an AC of 23. That's not difficult to reach, and the monk doesn't suffer armor penalties for movement. Most importantly, though, can completely negate a critical hit. The fighter had a 13.5% chance of being hit by a critical, while the monk has a 0.7% chance. That's a pretty major difference. And this is assuming a monster where all three attacks do not have status effects or combat maneuvers attached to them. A monster that relies heavily on grab, trip, swallow whole, etc. will have a much harder time getting any of those effects to hit the Craner.
I'll concede that point, but part of the issue (or at least, MY issue) is the fact that Crane Wing is a defensive build. Arguably, part of the point of minor encounters - ie, "easy" encounters prior to a more challenging encounter - is to force the players to expend resources. Spells for casters, HP for melee (which leads to divine spell consumption, or potion consumption), and X times per day abilities for both. Crane Wing removes a lot of the consumption of those resources because it can be used once per round, and the prevention of HP loss can remove any lasting impact of the encounter to the party as a whole. Going back to what Coriat said, I'd rather lose 45-14 than 20-0 if it means that the upcoming matches are going to be more interesting as a result. And the chokepoint problem holds true for high AC/DR, but at least there's some potential for damage being put on the board. Coupling high AC/DR with Crane Wing reduces the chance of getting through even further.
Do you feel the same way about, say, a paladin who makes any saving throw on a 2, that you have to cut down on saving throws against the whole party now? That's a bit different. A Craner can hold a chokepoint while keeping the party from being hit by melee. A paladin who makes a saving throw only saves itself. Most AoE saving throws expect that at least a few members of the party make the save. Melee monsters tend not to expect that they rarely hit, if ever. I get what you're trying to say, and there are other optimized combinations of feats, spells, classes, etc. that can lead to problems, but my problem still comes back to the fact that Crane Wing is a single feat that lets the character become a One-Trick Pony.
To expand, it's what I call the "Pony Problem," in that having a Craner is similar to having a One-Trick Pony character in the party. They do one thing very well (in this case, it's dealing with a small number of melee attacks), but aren't always as well suited to dealing with problems outside of that scope. So, how does a GM deal with the Pony? The GM has to cut down on the number of encounters where the Pony shines, because those fights tend to all go the same way. The GM then needs to up the number of non-Pony encounters to keep the game interesting. To me, at least, this feels like I'm punishing the Pony for making their character that way, and like I could have made a wider variety of encounters if the player hadn't made a Pony character; I could have included more single attack monsters or the like in the case of the Crane Style feats. Therein lies my fundamental problem with Crane Wing. I feel like it hampers my options as a GM.
Alot of things in the game will break an AP it's not hard to do and it's not limited to crane style monks. Laziness and GMing do not work together this has always been true. Again, my problem is not "man, it sucks having to modify encounters." It's the fact that I feel like one player has forced me into what is essentially an arms race to continually scale up monsters, while ensuring that those monsters don't outshine the rest of the party. And while a lot of things can break APs, its usually a combination of spells, feats, or somesuch that breaks it, rather than a single feat (even if the feat is part of a feat chain).
I quite liked on of the traps in the Shattered Star AP: Trap:
Upon walking into the room, there is a strange blob that asks the PCs "What is your query?" The blob is essentially a research assistant that has been trapped to keep out inquiring minds that don't know the password to disarm it. RESEARCH ASSISTANT CR 9 XP 6,400
This trap has some interesting effects that only trigger based on specific actions the PCs take, rather than an arbitrary sawblade that swings down when they open the door.
Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here.Problem is, adding in another T-Rex takes a CR 9 encounter up to CR 11. That's a decent jump in difficulty when one character is problematic, and this is my main problem with Crane Wing. It makes it that much more difficult to balance an encounter, because scaling monsters up or adding in more monsters can potentially lay waste to the rest of the party who has their front-liner tied up. If the T-Rexes are only attacking the Craner, that's fine until one hits and uses its grab/swallow whole, and then there are two T-Rexes that turn towards the rest of the party that no longer have their "defense guy." The problem is that I am running an AP, so the as-written monsters don't really function in a lot of cases. I'm fine with running a heavily modified version, but it is much easier to simply use the errata and run the encounters as they are written. The main problem is that I need to scale up encounters based on one player, which makes the encounters rather unfair to the rest of the party, especially if the Craner is knocked unconscious, hit with a status effect, etc. I feel like I'm punishing the party because of one person's actions.
Then perhaps the CR system is an issue. I don't see how you get "well then we shouldn't even try because the DM will just make us win" from "CR is not necessarily a reliable measure of what the party can face."I meant that CR has very little value to me in-regards to what would be a challenging encounter for any specific party.Then it has no meaning... If CR is malleable to that extent, though, then APs become much less valuable because the CR is too variable. As far as I can tell, Paizo wants to try to balance our CR to be as close as possible to an indication of actual challenge. Crane Wing tends to mess with CR, as it essentially runs off the number of attacks the foe can make (in addition to the usual factors).
Add a caster to the all melee enemy group. Oh man, Crane Wing guy will shut down that one T-Rex? Add another that will attack the rest of the party or gang up on him. You don't have to completely rewrite encounters here. Problem is, adding in another T-Rex takes a CR 9 encounter up to CR 11. That's a decent jump in difficulty when one character is problematic, and this is my main problem with Crane Wing. It makes it that much more difficult to balance an encounter, because scaling monsters up or adding in more monsters can potentially lay waste to the rest of the party who has their front-liner tied up. If the T-Rexes are only attacking the Craner, that's fine until one hits and uses its grab/swallow whole, and then there are two T-Rexes that turn towards the rest of the party that no longer have their "defense guy."
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