SockPuppet's page

Ibfind it interesting and ao far not particularly unfair... he raises it according to cr guidelines. He mentioned thay the group has enough info to realize the dungeon is run by something intelligent.

The group isnt gatherinf any info it soundsnlike. So they dont have any clue how deep the dungeon is. If they up and leave and sleep anyone unsafem it makes sense he bad guy would retaliate. Or that he'll gather morw minions, or just take everything and leave.
Inly possible issue hete would be he bad guy bosses choices. If he didnt research or spy on the group, I imagine he would assume they were very strong after nukinf his home. Likely would escape if that went down.

Rp games arent video games he world doesnt freeze when your not in hat area. The dm sure is making them the center, since they are actively winning etc. But he just isnt pulling his punches.

Right on.

I think, the more I think about it and look at the module, he will just cut his loses and run with what loot he has and leave the door open so the party can hassle his down stairs neighbors.

Thanks for the advice gents! I'm inclined towards the hard core throw down but there is room for some love. It works right in with the story.

just gotta think outside the box a little, which when in the middle of a game can be a bit difficult, but having people to bounce ideas off of helps, that said, if you'd care for it, so long as it's not kingmaker, we could message via skype or do it privately and you can describe the scenario in more full detail, so long as it's not kingmaker, I don't care about spoilers.

I appreciate it. I'll message you on here and let you know if I need some ideas.

if they do go for a wooded area, he could save himself a lot of hassle and set it on fire, he doesn't have to risk himself or his remaining mooks, it gives the players a non-combat challenge to overcome so that they don't need their combat spells and such, and afterward, they could come back for him, or as I suggested earlier, he could get away, rebuild and they can cross paths later.

Food for thought for sure!

If that's the way you play it, fine, I don't know what the particular dungeon is, he could set it on fire, use a portable ram, I don't know, but if he leaves, that leaves it open for a wonderful return, bitter at the loss of his base, he starts to train, becoming bigger, badder, instead of some one-shot villain, he becomes the characters arch villian, at least for a few more stories.

Well, the structure is specifically not burnable as a part of the story, and while he could do the annoying thing of just trying to keep the party up, he would be kept up himself. The party has wiped out most of his mooks at this point, having already cleared the guard shack and barracks. If he suckers the party into a fight, but is too close, it isn't going to work for him because he risks getting crapped on by save or suck spells.

Without knowing what his schtick is, I doubt the party would choose to stay in a barricaded structure instead of retreating to the woods. If they don't capture and question the guy they are about to throw down with, they won't get a chance to find out.

Anything is possible. I just think it is interesting.

So, in case you aren't trolling (which I'm sure you are... or at least I hope you are)

The only "smart" and "tactical" way (referring to the dragon statement) to beat this is to rush headlong into a kamikaze style, all in attack. Not doing this means they are nut-less and undeserving of finishing the rest of the story and knowing what happens. It also means that playing a mage is a dumb idea because you should melee and carry potions so that you don't need rest. They should psychically know when to and when not to use spells if they are dumb enough to play spell casters. It also means that they are dumb for wasting time creating real characters and creating back stories instead of making shallow characters so that they don't care when they die pretty much instantly. Also, they are dumb for wanting to know what happens in the story instead of being mindless murderhobos.
I'm not asking a question, just making a statement from the point of someone who is not you.
There is no way for them to know how deep in the boss is.
There is no way for them to know that they should conserve their spells.
There is no way for them to know the singular "correct" method to win especially when that way flies in the face of reason(a good gm always builds several ways to win a scenario).
Thankfully they will soon know that you have no intention of having fun with them or telling a story, instead you want to have fun at their expense.
Again, this is all in case you don't know any better/ aren't trolling (which I am pretty sure you are, I just can't help pointing this out).

Have you just never taken a prisoner for questioning in an RPG or buffed a rogue and sent him ahead to scout?

Team game bro, and you need more than butt-kicking to play. Someone's got to pass the ball and someone else has to spy out what the bad guys are doing. If you can't manage that, you aren't going to find much of a story anyway.

I think he's playing perfectly, and if these guys don't expect there to be a big bad in a dungeon that takes you from level 1 to 4,well... Besides, there should always be one room in a dungeon that you can barricade to get some rest, or at least heal and prepare for another push.

If they barricade the kitchen, this guy will just leave town with the few minions he has left. The party won't get his treasure, but they will effectively pass the level.

He doesn't have the man-power left to siege a room, or even smoke them out.

thegreenteagamer wrote:

The consensus answers seem to be that most people either do not play the game as is, or that those who do are not nearly as vocal about it..

There is no consensus. The vast majority of the people who play the game as it is... are those who stay off the messageboards (for reasons which I've outlined previously). which are disproportionately represented by the vocal malcontent segment of the population.

So in other words, it's the latter case.

Totally.

I'd rather eat chalk than play PFS but the PFS gets like 50 people at a time to their events near my house. Near as I can tell, they play by the book as hard as possible.

"I hold my action to back up while he comes forward."

"You can't do that. You must move your figure on the board totally on your turn and you won't know where the NPC moves until his turn."

Is this a group that has clearly stated they love hard-mode challenges?

Yeah, I told them I'm running the module as written, besides what adjustments I need to raise the level of the first few sections. I told them that I am going to play the enemies intelligently, and that I'm rolling all my dice in the open. In return, they wrote some of the most power gaming, min/maxed pieces of crap I've ever seen and I let one of them put 100% of his starting wealth into his magic items so that he could get that next level cheese.

Most groups, from my experience, generally expect that if the DM gives them any kind of plot hook, it is something they have at least half a chance of doing successfully.

I think they could win the module. All they have to do is nut-up and finish the level without resting. The decision to rest or not is theirs. I PREDICT that they are going to rest, because players like to hit the BBEG with full spells. That is a mistake here.

A dragon is a dragon. Fighting a dragon in a narrow cave is a lot different than fighting a flying dragon, spitting fire while you hang on a cliff. You don't kick in the dragon's door, then go back outside. That would be suicidal.

This is the same thing. The party doesn't know what's at the end of the dungeon because they haven't scouted and haven't asked - they haven't taken any prisoners.

A good adventure is survivable because you either prepare a good escape or you come at it the right way. Doing neither is relying on luck. Sometimes that's fun. I like going to Vegas.

If they rush this guy in his room, they can beat him. If they wait for him to come looking for them, it is going to be a whole different story.

SockPuppet wrote:

graystone wrote:

It sounds worse than that DominusMegadeus. It sounds like he's buffed up the chief minions enough that they wouldn't be able to clear it the first time ("They are going to be hurt so grievously") and if the try to back off, they get ganked. It's a lose/lose situation. He might as well kill them off and they can start with a winnable adventure.

It is winnable, but the wizard has blown through 2 spells before the fight on minions the DPS characters didn't need help with. He's going to have to cast some more during this fight. Worse, the priest has already hit the channel twice. The NPC cleric is going to start dropping that negative channel and healing the evil thing. Immediately though, he's going to turn invisible and continue to buff it.

The party made so much commotion in the next room that the enemy priest has already cast two buff spells and taken cover. First thing on his turn, he is turning invisible.

So what you mean it that it was possible, but they didn't do everything that a person that's read the module would have done. Now that they've "screwed up" the next room's gone from hard to super hard and it's not even the boss fight.

Really this sounds like it started circling the bowl as soon as the players used more resource than you thought they should have.

For one, I didn't write the module. For two, I did almost the totality of the CR boosting by adding more of the weakest creature and PC class levels to other, isolated NPCs which is wildly considered the most underpowered way of writing an adventure.

People kick in doors because they like kicking in doors sometimes. That doesn't make it the right decision every time. Sometimes it is the right decision. Sometimes you get a wizard, sleeping in his bed. Sometimes though, you get a priest that was ready for you and was buffing a heavy hitter.

I think losing is fun. I lose characters all the time when I play.

I lost a character in a fist fight with gunmen.

I lost a character trying to tame a nightmare.

I lost a character taking point on 15 occasions and doubling up on natural 1s.

I lose a lot of characters cause I play to the hilt. That's how I roll.

As a GM, I don't play other players turns. That's just rude, and I don't dumb the game down enough so that they can win when they make a wrong choice and roll badly.

SockPuppet wrote:

graystone wrote:

It sounds worse than that DominusMegadeus. It sounds like he's buffed up the chief minions enough that they wouldn't be able to clear it the first time ("They are going to be hurt so grievously") and if the try to back off, they get ganked. It's a lose/lose situation. He might as well kill them off and they can start with a winnable adventure.

It is winnable, but the wizard has blown through 2 spells before the fight on minions the DPS characters didn't need help with. He's going to have to cast some more during this fight. Worse, the priest has already hit the channel twice. The NPC cleric is going to start dropping that negative channel and healing the evil thing. Immediately though, he's going to turn invisible and continue to buff it.

The party made so much commotion in the next room that the enemy priest has already cast two buff spells and taken cover. First thing on his turn, he is turning invisible.

I've noticed after reading through your older posts that, if you're being completely serious, you like running things with no concern for fairness to the players. You do not make them special or make reality cater to giving them a decent chance of success, or any chance of success at all. Namely, ignoring the CR system entirely. If you have a group of players who is fine with that, and have stuck with you knowing that, then all you have to realize is that it's a very uncommon play-style among the forum goers, or at least the vocal ones.

Your hilarious story about how your party is a coin flip away from dying horribly with no recourse (and apparently they've already lost because the wizard cast a spell.) is not going to be funny to anyone else except in an 'it makes no sense' kind of way.

What doesn't make sense? The lady and the lions is real life, real talk yo.

Let the dice fall how they may.

Have you read the game masters guide? A game master is a host and story teller. You are not the enemy of the players. YOU ARE NOT THE ENEMY OF THE PLAYERS. You win when your players are enjoying them self, not when your plot devices, pawns and dice rolling defeats them.

The host provides a challenge. A challenge includes the possibility of defeat. Is it my fault that they kicked in the doors and warned the enemy priest they were coming? No. Is it my fault that the wizard is blasting off spells when the DPS characters could handle the mooks? No.

If you can't lose, there is no point in thinking, and by extension, no game. These aren't 8 year olds. They are grown men. I'm sure they can take it on the cheek and roll with it.

It sounds worse than that DominusMegadeus. It sounds like he's buffed up the chief minions enough that they wouldn't be able to clear it the first time ("They are going to be hurt so grievously") and if the try to back off, they get ganked. It's a lose/lose situation. He might as well kill them off and they can start with a winnable adventure.

It is winnable, but the wizard has blown through 2 spells before the fight on minions the DPS characters didn't need help with. He's going to have to cast some more during this fight. Worse, the priest has already hit the channel twice. The NPC cleric is going to start dropping that negative channel and healing the evil thing. Immediately though, he's going to turn invisible and continue to buff it.

The party made so much commotion in the next room that the enemy priest has already cast two buff spells and taken cover. First thing on his turn, he is turning invisible.

Seriously? "Okay guys, you made it out of the dungeon. You're resting? Cool. Who's standing watch? Okay, roll Perception. You failed? Aww, too bad. You're all dead. Scrap those characters, and start over again."

"Hey guys, where you going? Whaddya mean 'Screw you?' I thought it would be GREAT!"

Haha, it would be better if it were like that. Maybe they will camp at the bottom or a landslide and make it quick.

Roll perception. What was that, a 19? Not quite. Two arrows whistle past into the wizard's bunk. Take 28 damage. Everyone roll initiative.

Bad guys go on 17. You charge him? You channel? Ok. Take another 12 damage from arrows priest. Sorry you were still hurt. Weren't you out of channel already?

It would be a blood bath.

You're a terrible person unless you hint at some point that there is a genius supersoldier leader who can see them without them seeing him.

In cases like you've described there's no reason to not outright tell them to f$#@ing clear it the first time. You're going to waste their time, kill them, and then have to redo all the character creation.

That's just like, your opinion man. I absolutely hate it when GMs play my turn for me. Deciding to retreat or push is a calculated decision and a good chunk of the thinking and fun.

I'm not hinting at anything, beyond the fact that someone organized the dungeon. If they fail to ask any of the creatures or case the place before the end and investigate beyond just kicking down doors and killing everything, then they must not be curious what lurks at the end.

Besides that, I think it is funny.

So, I'm running a dungeon adventure I picked up. The dungeon is for 1st level characters and builds them up through a higher level.

My players didn't feel like starting at level 1, so I made a deal with them. They could start at 3 and I would only advance them every couple of dungeon levels so that after the 3rd or 4th, they would be on track with the adventure. The first level of the dungeon, I would modify by raising the CRs by 2 of each encounter, and the second / third level I would only raise by 1.

It is a lot of book keeping, but it is manageable at this level.

So the first level, without getting into specifics or easy to identify spoilers, there is an encounter that is a little worse than a CR 3, but not quite a 4, that I boosted to a little worse than a CR 5. The first level creature gained two class levels and another creature gained the advanced monster template and became large.

While I expect the party to demolish the encounter, they are going to burn spells and use healing. There is just no way around it. The encounter had synergy already and now it is off the hook. The two NPCs really build off one another and can do some damage.

Despite the creatures in this dungeon being dumb as a box of rocks, their leader is very smart. Not only is he smart, but he is sneaking, ruthless and capable of dealing a lot of damage from a good distance away. If you play the module straight through, you are suppose to catch him alone in his room. While he can defend himself, you are starting the fight. That beats the hell out of arrows during the surprise round and the round after both going unanswered, which is the other way this can play out.

This is what I think is going to happen:

The party is going to throw down with the BBEG's chief minions and kill them. They are going to be hurt so grievously, they are going to try to escape the area, camp, heal up and come back later.

If they try that, there is just no credible reason for the BBEG to ignore the party. Watching them limp off from his lofty perch is just going to incite him further.

I can't, in good conscience, let the party ransack this place, make this dangerous enemy, and walk away like bosses.

Either they come hard and go all the way, or they die full of arrows in their sleep.

I'm not really asking for advice. I'm just putting this out there for general discussion.

Good call gents, thanks.

I'm pretty stoked to run the game.

Corrik wrote:

Zhayne wrote:

I have no idea why Fire Domain clerics don't know Fireball. That's a freakin' no-brainer.

Fighters don't know fly because they aren't spellcasters.

Shouldn't it be up to the player to determine whether or not their fighter is a spellcaster?

If the player wants to play a spellcaster, he should probably pick a class other than fighter.

On topic: I wish they would consolidate down to wizard/cleric/druid. Other classes should be assigned one of these lists as primary, with a list of additional spells, similar to how domains, bloodlines and patrons are handled.

That would be the best overall.

SockPuppet wrote:

For example, a barbarian with fleet twice and under the effects of expeditious retreat has a speed of 80. He can move 40', strike with a reach weapon and escape 40 feet. By using any terrain to put a bend in the path he takes, he could prevent his enemy from charging him back after his move. If he also has sunder, he can break his opponent's bow.

That's nice and all... but said Barbarian could also just pounce and kill the enemy outright rather than set up all these contingencies.

Ultimately the massive reduction in damage keeps Spring Attack from being sustainable at mid or high levels. At level 4 or 5 when everyone is only make one attack anyways, sure, works great. But nothing in your post really contradicts the fact that the feat scales horrendously and that making a single attack against a single target stops being a winning strategy later in the game when it causes you to do a third or less of your expected damage.

Prolonging combat by two or three rounds ends up being as great a risk (at least) as any you're solving by spring attacking away.

Look at my above posts for context. I get that pounce is better in a game where it is known that in 99% of cases the GM will not let the players lose anyway, either by GM intervention or by adventure design where challenges can't be lost. If that is your scenario, there is no reason to spring attack or heal. You only excel by dealing more damage faster than other PCs.

If you are in a game, sandbox perhaps, where many many NPCs can't be overcome initially or without planning, or at all, escape and healing are more important.

Here is a match up:

Fighter 1 / Barbarian 4 with Boots of Speed, Enlarge cast by a wizard and a +2 Long Spear

1 - Dodge
1 - Mobility
1 - Power Attack
3 - Sunder
5 - Spring Attack

Orcish Fighter 10

Power Attack, Bull Rush, Cleave, Toughness, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Iron Will, Improved Iron Will, Furious Assault

This guy is dressed in full plate armor and wielding a massive shield and long sword. He is also armed with many other weapons, including an AK-47 enchanted with fireball bullets. He has a speed of 30.

In this scenario, the party got into a big fight and the barbarian is squaring off with this bad dude, regrets it, but would like to get the job done.

So, he moves 35', performs his sunder with his 15' reach to destroy the firearm, and then retreats around a corner of a building. The orc double moves up to him and takes an attack of opportunity. The barbarian withdraws until he has room to set up his hit and run. He performs the action again. The orc double moves to catch up because he can't charge around the corner of the building, suffering an AOO. The barbarian again withdraws, avoiding his AOO. This continues until the Orc withdraws or dies.

Get it?

You don't take these options to win more fights. You sacrifice the ability to win some fights to survive or win fights that would ordinarily be lethal, as a part of a holistic strategy on the part of the party to stay alive.

This isn't your 9 year old's Pathfinder module I'm talking about.

Spring attack is nice from a design standpoint, but has massive scaling issues. If you pick it up as soon as possible it's pretty effective, but a couple levels later you're cutting your damage in half and it goes downhill from there and that's not even discussing the fact that you're down quite a few (slightly dubious) feats to get there.

Maybe if you could vital strike with spring attack and if the Swash got both as bonus feats you might have something appealing at medium and high levels though.

It only seems that way because you are taking it out of context. Think about how good the feats could be if you pair them with other tactics.

An enlarged, lunging fighter with a long spear using mobility into an area separated by a rift or river, through a doorway and back behind cover, or near to an area affected by a spell like sleet storm or darkness is devastating.

In an open room for one on one combat, you need to get your movement higher than the charge of your opponent.

For example, a barbarian with fleet twice and under the effects of expeditious retreat has a speed of 80. He can move 40', strike with a reach weapon and escape 40 feet. By using any terrain to put a bend in the path he takes, he could prevent his enemy from charging him back after his move. If he also has sunder, he can break his opponent's bow.

If you give the mobility fighter a ring of free movement, he could team up with a wizard who casts a powerful battle field control spell to waltz in, deal damage, and retreat unharmed. Even if an opponent were holding an action to hit him, that could also be counter with magic, such as improved invisibility on the fighter or darkness on those in the spell if the fighter has dark vision.

Most simply, the party could set up in a doorway or at a choke point and let the fighter bust heads with spring attack, and retreat through the trapped area.

Finally, and most importantly, a fighter could use mobility to walk right past another fighter in a narrow dungeon, hit the cleric or wizard behind him, and then return to a place behind his team, probably suffering only a single attack that likely missed due to his high AC.

Mobility and Spring Attack only suck if you are just throwing them out there in a random forest skirmish or ambush with no tactics. You team that shit up with the party magic like you always do anyway, and it works like a charm.

SockPuppet wrote:

Human Rogue 6 - Sneak Attack 3d6

1 - Weapon Finesse
1 - Dodge
2 - Combat Trick - Mobility
3 - Two Weapon Fighting
4 - Rogue Talent - Escaping Stunt
5 - Weapon Focus
6 - Combat Trick - Spring Attack

Human Fight 1 / Rogue 4 - Sneak Attack 2d6

1 - Weapon Finesse
1 - Dodge
1 - Mobility
3 - Rogue Talent - Escape Stunt, Feat - Weapon Focus
5 - Rogue Talent - Fast Stealth, Feat - Spring Attack

I don't promise those write-ups are exactly right but, Rogues are mobile fighters. You get past DR with SA damage.

Mostly right, but....

Unless you're a swashbuckler archetype rogue you can't have combat trick twice. Instead you have a rough time at first level to take mobility at level one and finesse rogue as your level 2 rogue talent. If you're a human you can also grab another talent at level 6 using the racial favored bonus and get weapon focus freeing up your level 5 feat for anything else.

Or take weapon finesse at level one, weapon focus as your level 2 talent, and finally mobility as your level 5 feat. All works to the same effect mostly.

Scout archetype and make sure you move enough to get a sneak attack on every Spring attack.

Ah ha, thanks for the tip. I would never have expected a cap on taking combat trick. Been playing that one wrong for years.

Look at this prick: I bet he'd be fun to play.

Dwarven Fighter 6

1 - Dodge
1 - Power Attack
2 - Mobility
3 - Nimble Moves
4 - Spring Attack
5 - Fleet
6 - Lunge

Human Rogue 6 - Sneak Attack 3d6

1 - Weapon Finesse
1 - Dodge
2 - Combat Trick - Mobility
3 - Two Weapon Fighting
4 - Rogue Talent - Escaping Stunt
5 - Weapon Focus
6 - Combat Trick - Spring Attack

Human Fight 1 / Rogue 4 - Sneak Attack 2d6

1 - Weapon Finesse
1 - Dodge
1 - Mobility
3 - Rogue Talent - Escape Stunt, Feat - Weapon Focus
5 - Rogue Talent - Fast Stealth, Feat - Spring Attack

I don't promise those write-ups are exactly right but, Rogues are mobile fighters. You get past DR with SA damage.

Question for the Forum

I'm about to run the Emerald Spire and I see it going really wrong.

The book says, "The town of inevitable taxes adventurers 30% to operate."

I get that the writer is trying to drive home this idea that the regime is iron fisted in the way any gamer can understand, but I am afraid it is going to ruin the module.

These things have an implied agreement between GM and player that the party is going to actually do the adventure. The counter agreement is that the GM isn't going to put the party through something they wouldn't do.

This is what happens:

The party hears about the law and refuses to play the adventure. Instead of going to Fort Inevitable, they march out 25 miles to get away from the hell knights and set up camp at another town. They buy a wagon and act like travels to get to the spire. If they are caught or bothered by the hell knights, they will either be kill or be killed because no pc is ever captured without something ham-fisted. If they do escape, the GM has to activate the hell knights, derailing the whole dungeon. If the party ever makes it to level 1 of the dungeon, they will already be like live 4.

Then the GM has to restat the dungeon or let it suck. Either thing blows the point of buying a module.

Beyond that, there wouldn't be any other adventures in town either. They would just leave. It isn't like there would be much work, besides the spire, for adventurers within 20 miles of the highly efficient and motivated hell knights what wiped out banditry anyway.

That makes sense, because Hell Knights would have a monopoly on violence, and wouldn't be permitting armed travelers through their lands really, anyway.

It is a cute setup, and I like it if it were a novel and the main character couldn't leave town because of his dear sick mother, but for an RPG this 30% tax blows, and so do the lawful evil (good) Hell Knights.

This whole back story feels like a trap to derail a game. Why can't the town just be ruled by the lovable but incompetent Frodo and his 15th level wizard body guard, the bumbling and otherworldly half demon what destroys PCs who attack the castle?

This is my real question, to anyone who has played the Emerald Spire: if you drop the 30% tax, do the players end up with +30% WBL, all things being equal?

Flipping through the adventure, it looks easy with such low CRs in the first 3 levels.

I'm glad to hear that you GMs had to soft ball the game. My plan is to run the adventure faithfully and see what happens, with dice in the open, killing PCs if the dice fall that way.

I was afraid this thing was a walk in the park.

I'm as happy with Pathfinder as I was with 2e before I knew how to be picky.

The hunger for new editions, when you boil it down, is a hunger for rewrites of the classes. They could write a book anytime they wanted called, "Ultimate Base Classes," and put just anything they want in it. The classes aren't balanced as it is. If they put another class that was exactly the same as the Fighter but had a better REF save and 2 more skill points, I'd spend 40 bucks on the books just for that.

mechaPoet wrote:

To be fair, I'm not sure that many classes that are supposed to be "mobile" really are. Even pounce is just a way to get a full attack on a charge. It's a strategy that's easily thwarted by terrain or crowds (and unfortunately, the only way that I can think of right now to ignore difficult terrain is to use dragon style, which only a Master of Many Styles monk could combine with the pummeling style feats). Even if you do get pounce, you're still just full-attacking once you're in melee.

So there are certainly problems with the swashbuckler's mobility (among other things), but I think it's largely rooted in the turn-based and action-based combat system. Within this system, it seems that what "mobile" actually means is:
-class features that are geared toward characters with high dexterity: finesse, good reflex save, dex-based mobility skills, limited to light armor, the dodge bonuses from nimble
-opportune parry and riposte could be considered a form of "mobility;" with combat reflexes, a swashbuckler could "quickly" defend against many incoming attacks
-a (sadly small) number of deeds that affect mobility, like derring-do and kip up

So the swashbuckler could be considered mobile in a sense. It's just that a lot of that mobility seems rooted in the fiction of the game (the imaginary image of the swashbuckler making quick rapier thrusts and parries--mostly it's the arm that's mobile), and makes the swashbuckler "mobile" and "fast" within the given 5' grid square/hex they occupy.

What I think we can ultimately take from this is that this is a problem that's larger than just the swashbuckler, and is inherent in the way that melee combat works in Pathfinder in general. What I'm curious about is what "mobile" should actually mean in this system, and how to implement that onto the swashbuckler. Some ideas:
-breaking the rules on charge lines: allowing change of direction mid-charge, charging over rough terrain, being able to use acrobatics while charging (like the 3.5

...

What stops you from taking spring attack? I've played a lot of characters like that. I think mobility and spring attack on a dex based fighter works just fine.

The reason people don't bother with it is because GMs and modules cater to the idea that 99% of the time the party can win any fight without healing or running. If you don't need healing or escape or MOBILITY, the only measure of success is how fast you crush encounters, or how much more damage you do than another player.

If 1/3 of encounters are unwinnable for an optimized party and the PCs know it at character creation, you see a whole lot more shape shift, spring attack, healing spells, fog clouds and horses.

Question for the Forum

I'm about to run the Emerald Spire and I see it going really wrong.

The book says, "The town of inevitable taxes adventurers 30% to operate."

I get that the writer is trying to drive home this idea that the regime is iron fisted in the way any gamer can understand, but I am afraid it is going to ruin the module.

These things have an implied agreement between GM and player that the party is going to actually do the adventure. The counter agreement is that the GM isn't going to put the party through something they wouldn't do.

This is what happens:

The party hears about the law and refuses to play the adventure. Instead of going to Fort Inevitable, they march out 25 miles to get away from the hell knights and set up camp at another town. They buy a wagon and act like travels to get to the spire. If they are caught or bothered by the hell knights, they will either be kill or be killed because no pc is ever captured without something ham-fisted. If they do escape, the GM has to activate the hell knights, derailing the whole dungeon. If the party ever makes it to level 1 of the dungeon, they will already be like live 4.

Then the GM has to restat the dungeon or let it suck. Either thing blows the point of buying a module.

Beyond that, there wouldn't be any other adventures in town either. They would just leave. It isn't like there would be much work, besides the spire, for adventurers within 20 miles of the highly efficient and motivated hell knights what wiped out banditry anyway.

That makes sense, because Hell Knights would have a monopoly on violence, and wouldn't be permitting armed travelers through their lands really, anyway.

It is a cute setup, and I like it if it were a novel and the main character couldn't leave town because of his dear sick mother, but for an RPG this 30% tax blows, and so do the lawful evil (good) Hell Knights.

This whole back story feels like a trap to derail a game. Why can't the town just be ruled by the lovable but incompetent Frodo and his 15th level wizard body guard, the bumbling and otherworldly half demon what destroys PCs who attack the castle?

This is my real question, to anyone who has played the Emerald Spire: if you drop the 30% tax, do the players end up with +30% WBL, all things being equal?

I hear ya.

I'm running a sandbox and just level characters when I feel like it.

I don't force them to take fights. If they detect the enemy and don't like it, say a CR 8 at first level, they are welcome to not fight. That's the whole strategy - pick your battles, get the treasure, advance yourself. Picking bad fights is a quick way to die.

Ha, well, I don't follow the CR rules. A first level party can fight a pack of 10 or 12 kobolts if they have the tools, (sleep spell, long bows) but could never, ever, in a million years kill a 6th level cleric with a feat spent on heavy armor.

Hello,

I'm working on a dungeon for tomorrow's game.

The central character is a CR 12 Green Dragon with a horde of kobolt worshipers.

Is there a convention for how powerful his lair guardians would be - the ones he keeps around while he is sleeping?