fighter/barbarian builds with 2hander weapons who decimate everything in their path.
the rogue who is useless for everything but finding/opening traps.
and I agree about the shocking grasp Magus.
I am sure there are a few others if I thought about it. I have been playing Pathfinder off and on almost 4 yrs now and you see these same tired builds played over and over. I am excited to see new builds, but usually they only appear when someone is trying to break the game.
So I have several ideas for my latest character build for Society play and I need some advice on which way to go. I am trying to take several aspects of a Cleric and trying to mesh them all into 1 effective & versatile character. This is going to be a jumble and I am quite sure I have to leave some things on the cutting room floor.
1. Murderous command seems like a spell thats begging to have a character built around. With a few things like spell focus: enchant , & metamagics like extend, persistent and bounce, I feel like it could be a powerhouse from level 1-12. I wouldn't want this to be the only trick as many creatures are completely immune to mind effects.
2. Chaotic Neutral Cleric who takes a Chaotic Evil god, so they can 1. channel negative energy 2. use sacred summmons to summon chaotic evil creatures from 3-9 as a standard (for some reason only the evil clerics get this, as good got the shaft).
3. Another thought was what Domain I should pick. if I go Evangelist, then I only get 1 domain and I was thinking Animal, to get a free pet to buff at level 4. Then the pet could have my summons to flank with.
If I go Evangelist though, my channeling will suffer and I can pretty much cut out the need to buff my charisma, or take feats to boost negative channeling.
So my debate is now, go full force with Evangelist/Animal Domain with sacred summons & Murderous Command.
or Should I go negative channeling.. cut out most of the murderous command tricks other than maybe applying extend/bounce. take 2 domains like madness for touch of madness, trickery for invisibility/copy cat, travel for transportation and 10 more ft of movement. My spells will be more versatile this way with 2 full domains and my negative channeling could get pretty sick with quicken channel, extra channel, selective channel, phylactery of neg. channel, focusing more on Charisma, than Wisdom.
I feel like i could have everything if I cut out negative channeling and extra spells, but is it everything else worth it? Also things like Touch of Madness, I would need to get my strength to at least a 12 , so I could hit the touch AC to debuff. Which would mean lowering Wisdom max score. Still - to hit, dmg and saves based off my level halved is pretty nice especially if i build it with like a cleric tank build.
Roleplaying wise, I really thought it might be interesting to play someone like an evangelist who goes around preaching the end and better get right with so&so god. One of the issues I have is picking a god that fits. Domain wise, I really like Socobenoth, but the lore behind him was blech. I really liked the idea of an old god like Rovagug or Yog-sothoth that was mainly for cults preaching the end of times.(sorry I am probably butchering their names.)
Thoughts?I apologize for the jumble of thoughts, as this is kind of my problem trying to pool them altogether and find a nice synergy. This character is a good deal different than most of the characters I have made in the past. The majority of mine follow good moral codes or at least goodish and I haven't played any characters that go this far on the other side of the loony bin. I feel like it would be a dynamic character though and not just another cookie cutter character that has the typical roleplay. I once stepped out with an barbarian 1/Oracle 10 build with a very short human who thought he was a goblin and stepping away from the typical character , created alot of fun roleplaying that for instance a regular human wizard wouldn't have.
I came to these boards to see how others felt about the last combat and all anyone had anything to say about was faction missions that conflicted with each other and alignment infractions. Did no one have issues with their group not being able to handle an elder lightning elemental?
I had a group with:
9 rogue
9 sword/board fighter
9 1 barbarian /8 cleric (using a Glaive to dps when not healing)
7 pre-gen monk
7 pre-gen gunslinger
No one was really over the top optimized, but they weren't really having any issue throughout the entire adventure until the very final battle.
so heres the issue, elementals can't be crit or flanked. So rogue couldn't get sneak attack in, & we couldn't get any lucky crits to jump up over DR, so I had 4 characters who couldn't really damage the monster with its DR 10- & AC of 25. The one guy who could damage was the barb/cleric who was too busy trying to keep the party up because of the massive damage the elemental can do in a round. +24 to hit, means most of the characters at 9th level, I hit on a 2. and the one case where I would say they came unprepared is no one had anything to give resist energy or protection from energy, so they were all taking the full 4d8+8 twice a round. 2d8 of it was electricity, so they couldn't have negated all the dmg, but it would have helped to make it more manageable for the healer if they had brought some sort of energy protection.
So I know that if they had any kind of class that could deal elemental dmg that they would have killed it faster, but how was a party such as this supposed to be able to defeat this monster? My players were super frustrated and I couldn't help but agree with their feelings on the matter.
I ran this scenario last night and I gotta say this scenario has some teeth on it. My party was backstepping quick every encounter trying to stay up long enough to widdle down the enemy. I will admit one of the roughest issues was our party levels with the new season 5 rules. We had:
7 Fighter
7 Cleric
10 Inquisitor
10 Zen Archer
9 Rogue5/Cleric3/Wizard 1(used scrolls & wands to have answers)
So this averaged to 8.6 , which rounded to 9. With the rules being that if you have 5 to 7 players and are in the middle of the tiers, you play up with the scale down for 4.
I had 2 relatively new players with their first level 7s, 2 veteran players with multiple high levels and 1 Venture lieutenant.
First Encounter:
Elven Archers and Briarborn beat everyone but 1 guy on initiative. Archers didn't miss once and I rolled 55 dmg on trample. so most of the party took around 61-64 damage before they even got to go. So the level 7s were on the ground a few points from death. Zen Archer apparently didnt take much con, because he was staggered. Inquisitor and hybrid were left to kill the Briarborn. At this point, I had the Elves help the party out by doing the last 10-18 points of damage to the centipede instead of continuing to fire at the party. My opinion, this needs to be scaled down better for a party of 4. (less dmg from trample & lower DC for shutting off the Elves)
Second Encounter:
The rogue scouted ahead and we played stealth games until both parties knew each other was there, but not exactly where. The party moved up and the WISC revealed itself. The Cleric and Zen Archer were pulled in close and grab-released 6 attacks off. Babau's ganged up on the Inquisitor & hybrid. The poor fighter was slow getting across the map, so he got no attacks in. They finally finished off the monsters and no one had dropped, but only because I spread the love around instead of focus firing 1 PC.
Third encounter:
Vinst played around kind of going from so great to see new people in the glade to telling bad jokes that no one got. The Hybrid had a good time as a follower of Calistria talking about permiscous wood nymphs and Bear loving. They made a good diplomacy check and Vinst gave them directions and sent them on their way.
-they never got lost the entire time and because of time we skipped the optional
Fourth encounter:
Fihlrahz(hezrou) critted the initiative and went first. Immediately hit the party with a blasphemy before they could spread out. Poor fighter failed his save and was paralyzed for 4 min. 2 others were dazed. The inquisitor buffed and moved up and the Zen Archer backed away to the farthest corner on the map and missed his 1 shot. Then i pretty much chaos hammered them 2 rounds until they finally unbunched themselves. the inquisitor moved up within 10ft and the next round I took a full attack for around 50-60 dmg and dropped him into the negatives with the harpoon. The 2 healers got him back up and I hammered away more. Finally the Zen Archer stopped missing and the inquisitor moved up for a final blow to kill.
-the 2 biggest issues with this encounter. 1. Blasphemy vs people being forced to play up 2. difficult terrain made this encounter 20x worse and I am not sure, but isn't that supposed to increase the CR of the encounter?
The players still had a good time, but thats only because I managed to keep some of the things overpowered about the encounter in check. wiping folks within 15 minutes of starting the game with 0 ways of preventing it, thats not fun for anyone.
-The entire game I felt really bad for the fighter the most. he basically did nothing the entire 4.5 hrs because of the circumstances. 3 combats and he was incapacitated from the get-go on 2 of them before having a turn.
I would run this again because it is fun, but I would probably be weary of mixing high levels with low levels and ending up in this situation again where we play up with 7-8 level PCs and scale down to 4.
I am running this scenario tomorrow night and I wanted to run some questions by the more experienced. I normally run 1-5 scenarios up to this point and so going into 7-11, things are getting a little more complicated. I swear I looked the rules up, but I still have questions.
a. WISC had 8 tentacle attacks,can you grab more than 1 person with these attacks?
b. If you hit with the tentacle, it does its dmg, then you make your free action grab. Do you immediately get to constrict if the grab lands?
c. Can 1 player be grabbed/constricted more than once?
d. text says "Eukalia strikes through her sporepods and with
magic" Is she able to cast through the sporepod onto the party?
I concur with the above, This is the worst scenario I have played yet. I have only 51 scenarios left to play before season 5 comes, so I would say that's saying something. This scenario is left way too much up to the GM. So he bogged us down for 6 hours of play and then said, since we couldn't kill the boss, then we fail. However, he used the tactics so that after 2.5 hours of fighting the main boss, we had not gotten 1 full attack against him with any of the 6 members of the party. I can't say more without giving it away, but this was not the fun time I was really hoping for.
So I'm pretty new to Pathfinder Society play. Just started up at the game store after moving to town. We played Master of the Fallen Fortress.
** spoiler omitted **
Then we played an encounters adventure called Darkest Vengeance.
** spoiler omitted **
Are all the adventures this brutal? Yeesh!
I believe there are a few answers for the darkness even as low as lvl 1 such as Everburning Torch (110gp) , Ioun Torch (75gp), Aasimars get daylight once per day and Gnomes get Dancing light once per day. If I am not mistaken all of these would easily counter out the deeper darkness issue.
Also, did you ever consider backing out of the room you were ambushed in and drawing the enemy to you and away from its advantage point? Sometimes strategy is just as good as being prepared with an answer. A retreat is sometimes the best answer (although I have almost never seen a group do it).
I had that problem the first time I ever ran a PFS scenario (which happened to be this one). All 4 players had played it before & this was the only thing running in the first slot (Thursday afternoon) at the con - so they were just going through the motions to get XP. One player in particular was obviously metagaming throughout the session, & ended the last "fight" ** spoiler omitted ** It was anti-climactic to say the least.
Everything you described didn't sound like metagaming at all. Maybe there was more to it.
Spoiler:
1. A Wizard maxing out INT(DC) and initiative is pretty much the staple of a good wizard build especially if planning to do AOEs or control the battlefield, heck even so you can get haste/slow off before everyone goes.
2. What other time would this Wizard have used sleep? this was pretty much the only time to use it.
scenarios before:
1. puzzle with a snake
2. warehouse with rats
3. scouting out the orphanage
4. imp with the box
3. Sleep is a great spell, there are a few staples a wizard should use. Sleep would be one of them. so its not uncommon that they would memorize this and hold it for a group of humanoids.
4. as was already pointed out, the only person who could have really been affected was Ledford because the rest of the NPCs should be untargettable in the mist. right?
Is it possible, you knew they had run it before, so you were looking for a reason to accuse them of metagaming? or was there more to it than you let on in first post?
I think color spray in general is just bad. Its really only effective at low levels when its absolutely devastating. (unless you play that oracle build that allows you to use against higher levels)
Also, keep in mind that Color spray is actually different when played by a PC and a NPC.
The NPC is ALWAYS going to have a use for color spray on the party.
However, PCs can take color spray and have it be useless for the entire scenario.
After we were TKO'd in my first run , I thought, wow! Color spray is ridiculous, I gotta make a wizard and use it. So I made a wizard and I memorized color spray. It was never that effective. I almost always was forcing the use of it and 2/3rds of all fights for the next few scenarios it was useless due to space or what we were fighting.
I really think that there is nothing gained by giving level 1 NPCs a spell that shuts down more than 1 pc at a time.
again, thats just my opinion on balance. I believe if in this situation the sorcerer only color sprays 1 person at a time, then its fine, but its left up to GM interpretation.
Just to be clear, i am not proposing that we just not give NPCs color spray. I believe it should just be removed from the game.
How do the baddies know the PCs left the mist? the sorc in in the back? (not to mention the whole "Mist does not actually reach the PCs thing, maybe the sorc ran forward first...?)
Bad advice is not cheating.
Giving Advice based on running the game before is CHEATING.
You would have been gone from my tabe the second it happened.
I misspoke but I didn't cheat.
I didn't actually tell them to not run out of the mist. No one suggested it and so I didnt either because I knew what this GM would do. If the GM wasn't playing the sorcerer unfairly, running back should be the natural reaction of any seasoned player. After the fight was over, I told them why I didn't suggest running out and how we had wiped.
Thats it for me defending my actions.. my purpose was to give examples and actually add to a discussion about the fight.
yes, I have seen this run 4x now and there are some serious issues with this scenario imo.
1) starting out obscuring mist directly on the party with these tight quarters means usually only the guy first in line gets to go toe to toe with Ledford(Barbarian) and no one else gets to do squat but heal/support.
2.) if you back out of the obscuring mist, you get hit with color spray until the odds are not in your favor. (at least this is what happened the 1 time we tried it)
3.) for level 1, Ledford 1 hits a great deal of people
4.) Healer + Barbarian is a lethal combination at level 1 when you basically lock down the range to useless with obscuring mist.
what I keep seeing is the GMs having to TPK the party or fudge the numbers/tactics. Everytime I have played though Ledford has 1 shotted the guy in front within the first 2 rounds. Hes got a 40-45% chance to hit most level 1s and his dmg is around 5 to 14. so he 1 shots a large majority of classes unless he rolls a 1.
So my very first pathfinder game, we backup out of the obscuring mist. they advance and the sorcerer runs up and color sprays us. 3 of the 5 fail. TPK
2nd time, is not memorable but I remember it being a grind where 1 guy did all the dmg.
3rd (at DragonCon) GM did not cast obscuring mist and only color sprayed 1 person at a time. It was a balanced fight trading blows back and forth while the healers worked their mojo. It lasted for like 8 rounds and at the end, 1 person had fallen unconcious from damage and 1 had been color sprayed for 7 turns. We pulled it off and it felt like the epic fight it should be.
4th time, same GM that TPK'd us 1st time, he drops obscuring mist ... I of course warn people we can't back out of mist, or be color sprayed into TPK. So we are forced to stand in the narrow corridors while our fighter dukes it out with ledford. round 1, Ledford runs up and nails the fighter with 18 AC for 12 dmg and hes staggered at 0. 2nd round, he advances and swings at the ranger... then the GM has to immediately go into fudging the dice to not wipe the party. he states Ledford falls out of rage and so he only hits for like 6 dmg. 2 points shy of downing the ranger. so in reality. 2 rounds, and we were essentially wiped.
..Now, you don't drop obscuring mist and my oracle fears. Even if Ledford resist, hes still shaken for 1 round so -2 to hit. Ranger shoots an arrow and possible puts Ledford close to unconscious or the druid sleeps him. The whole point is we have plenty of options until you use 2 powerful spells that are setup by a narrow corridor and they get the jump on us.
TLDR; the scenario's last fight is not balanced the way its written. I would bet if the GM runs it as written, it has around a 40-50% TPK ratio. Wonderful way to welcome in new folks to the game.
I have to disagree with a number of the posts I see here. When I GM for Paizo at Cons (and this is different than being a GM for a local or home game) I am being compensated to be there, volunteer or not. My job is to run the module I was assigned to the best of my ability; this includes running it as close to the written word as possible.
As a GM you should try to LIMIT table variance, not purposely add it. Increasing the DC of rolls because of the previous actions of players is nothing more than punishment, and often is the action of a power-tripping DM. In my opinion a DC should not be lessened either. The only time a DC should change is if the module itself specifically accounts for variance (i.e. If the players helped character X in Act 1, this DC is lessened by 2). I think this should hold true for all "hard" mechanics/rules; soft fluff that does not effect how the module plays out should be where the variance is (What does your character do at the party? Get drunk and starts a ruckus? Sure, go for it.)
When you are a (compensated) GM your goal is to run the best, fairest, most standardized game for your players. They should have the opportunity for the same fun experience that any other table has playing the same module. As a GM leave your lessons, rules, teaching, childishness, and vindictiveness at the door. Yes you should have fun also, but only after you have met the obligations and responsibilities of your volunteered position. You choose to do this. Act like it and be professional.
If you cant, maybe you should not GM for the Society. I dont think the Society will be any less for losing you as a GM either.
Now see this is the GM I want to run with. Check your ego at the door and just run a fair game. Thank you!
Where is this written? I looked over D20 pathfinder and the APG. I can't find anything that says you only get half of the 10 hps an Eidolon is supposed to get. Can you explain where this rule is? Because I have read over summoner and eidolon on both sites TWICE and I can't find what you are talking about.
Racial hit dice always get half their maximum value at first level, just like class hit dice always get their full value. The Eidolon's hit die is racial.
Is this every level that the Eidolon only gets 5 hps + con? So 30 hps at level 6 is accurate and at 12th level, the Eidolon will have only 60 hps if i don't put points into con or toughness?
However, remember that at 1st level eidolons do NOT have good survivability because they only get ½ die hp: ½*d10=5.5hp/HD, at level 1 they have 1 HD, so rounds to 5 hp, +1 for the CON bonus for biped form... Yeah, you have a class feature wading into melee with 6 hit points and it can't wear any armor...
Where is this written? I looked over D20 pathfinder and the APG. I can't find anything that says you only get half of the 10 hps an Eidolon is supposed to get. Can you explain where this rule is? Because I have read over summoner and eidolon on both sites TWICE and I can't find what you are talking about.
I am concerned because my summoner is lvl 6 now and I played him as a master summmoner this entire time. So I am not as familiar with a summoner as much because I haven't played him this way for 17 scenarios. Well Its showing on HeroLab that my Eidolon has only 30 hps and I am wondering if that is correct. Most classes have almost double or double that at level 6.
Thanks!
If you're not having fun, I would say its definitely okay to quit the table and walk away. If you are doing it because of something not going your way that is one thing, but if its the entire session being horrible after 2 hours of play. I don't believe you are obligated to sit there miserable for 2-3 more hours.
in my opinion you have 3 choices:
1. Sit there and go along for the ride and waste 2-3 hours out of some feeling of obligation.
2. Voice your opinion that you don't consider this situation fair or fun and that the entire campaign so far is quite a miserable experience.
3. Pack up your gear and say sorry guys, but I can't continue playing this scenario.
Of 35-40 games that I have played, there is only 1 situation where I was so miserable I wanted to walk away. I didn't and I stuck it out because I was trying not to make waves with the group. I won't do that again though.
I think your best bet is voice your thoughts to the group in a diplomatic manner. If this starts an argument or meets with disapproval and no resolution. Walk away knowing you tried to resolve the situation and Its better to go find something else better to do. If you're like me, I have very few hours of precious free time and I will not spend it being unhappy and angry.
and big eyeroll to the folks who think its cool for the GM to spite kill your character for quitting their scenario half way through.
You could just play a regular ole summoner. Use your Eidolon for a few levels and when you get to level 3 or 5. Get superior summoning and augment summoning. Then dismiss your eidolon and summon down 1. ie at level 3, you summon level 1 monsters with summon monster II. You can only do it once, but you could have 2-4 level 1 Eagles. Then you buff or crowd control.
At level 5, you can summon 2-4 Earth Elementals and create Pit under the bad guys. Earth Elementals can dig into the earth without having to worrying about falling into the pit and taking damage. So put the baddies in a box and then make them fight it out with your elementals. Whatever makes it saves from pit, you let the rest of the party deal with or grease them into the pit too.
The ban wasn't completely uncalled for. I wish they could have just nerfed us to only so many summons out at a time, but the simple answer was they couldn't. Now I am level 6 and playing a straight summoner and I believe my Eidolon is more powerful than any 3-4 summons combined. 4 attacks per round even with charge of 80-120 feet(Hellooooo pounce!). +11 to hit and +2 on charge. Its kind of ridiculous and I think once I actually begin playing him again, my group is going to want my simple summons back. They did far less damage and were much easier to kill. lol
cheers!
One of my characters handled quite simply: he intimidated the character, and the whole party moved to give the NPCs flanks and said they'd be tossing buff spells to the NPCs. Our disruptive friend quickly quieted down.
I hope you're kidding.
No, I'm not. The fight was entirely uncalled for, and could have cost us the scenario. The player backed off, and the game continued. If we had not, the game would have crashed to a halt, and some players might not have returned to PFS if one disruptive player can choose to cause a TPK.
He can't choose anything for the party. The GM simply steps in and says, if you attack this group, They will kill you. If the player insist on combat, you just attack him with all the NPCs and not the party. Bullying him with intimidate checks and threatening to flank is PVP imo and against the PFS rules.
If this was the way my group handled disputes, I would simply find another game to play. Suddenly I feel even more thankful for the folks I play with each week.
Which becomes bullying by the GM instead. How is that better?
2 different things here:
1.You as a group threatening another player
2. a GM giving a player a warning that if they continue down their current roleplay they are going to initiate combat with the group and that the other party member don't want this combat, so you are going to enter it alone.
Thats not bullying, thats the reality of how this situation could play out. In real life, if my friend started a fight with someone for no apparent reason and I didn't agree with it. I would never help beat my friend up, but I also might not jump in there and stop him from getting his ass kicked. I would most likely step in and say "enough" to prevent death and then continue on with the diplomacy with the strangers.
See where i am coming from? Because when I look at this from several angles, I still can't fathom how you think your way is correct.
One of my characters handled quite simply: he intimidated the character, and the whole party moved to give the NPCs flanks and said they'd be tossing buff spells to the NPCs. Our disruptive friend quickly quieted down.
I hope you're kidding.
No, I'm not. The fight was entirely uncalled for, and could have cost us the scenario. The player backed off, and the game continued. If we had not, the game would have crashed to a halt, and some players might not have returned to PFS if one disruptive player can choose to cause a TPK.
He can't choose anything for the party. The GM simply steps in and says, if you attack this group, They will kill you. If the player insist on combat, you just attack him with all the NPCs and not the party. Bullying him with intimidate checks and threatening to flank is PVP imo and against the PFS rules.
If this was the way my group handled disputes, I would simply find another game to play. Suddenly I feel even more thankful for the folks I play with each week.
ha ha, so not what I thought this discussion would be about.
Spoiler:
I thought this was going to be a discussion about the last encounter with the 4 NPC party. The first game I ever ran in pathfinder was this and it was a TPK when the caster got off a color spray on 3 of the the 4 people. I have probably run a total of 30 games now and thats been the only instance anyone has even died. let alone a TPK.
So I was really expecting to hear someone complain about that evenly matched party at lvl 1.
One of my characters handled quite simply: he intimidated the character, and the whole party moved to give the NPCs flanks and said they'd be tossing buff spells to the NPCs. Our disruptive friend quickly quieted down.
Would you allow me to roll an attack, see that I'd hit with a comfortaable margin, and then announce my character had chosen to use the Power Attack feat?
No, I would not allow you to do that.
Now, if you have power attacked 3x and you fail to announce it on the 4th time. Then say after rolling, adding in power attack damage. Then I would 9 times out of 10 give that extra damage to you unless I for one minute think you intentionally did it. Even then I would probably still give you the power attack this time and tell you, make sure you announce it from now on. So only in the situation where I saw someone doing this over and over again, would I might begin to "punish" the player with the strictest sense of the rules.
We are not dealing with machines here or numbers, but people. So I believe when you try to apply black and white rules to a social game with human players, you are missing something there. The grey areas and giving people a benefit of the doubt.
Give the party members a small chance to smack him in the mouth, and if they don't take it, combat begins. The closer they get to death for it, the next time a stupid decision comes around, they'll know what to do.
The problem with this logic is that you're letting one guy ruin it for the rest of the group. You got most of a table trying to do the right thing and one jerk that's probably just trying to get attention. In the situation the original poster described, the new players might not have the will or the desire to stand up to the more experienced player. I see it a lot when I GM though most of my vets don't go off and ruin things and are 99.9% of the time helpful.
I agree with those above that in this particular situation, ignoring the jerk is the best way to handle it.
I think this is very subjective. A player may be opposed to the party but at any time a player wants to begin combat, the party members always have the option of standing by the side and watch them get pummeled into a coma.
You could have simply roleplayed it that disruptive player starts a one-on-one brawl and then fudge the dice so they get knocked unconcious. The whole point of being a GM is that you determine the storyline.
I am pretty new at pathfinder society though, but to me that seems reasonable. It also teaches said player to be more of a team player if you want your team to back his plays.
Does that make sense or seem like a better answer than just ignoring a player at the table? wouldn't it be legal within the roleplaying of a sanctioned game?
If you want your re-roll so badly just pony up the 10 bucks and BAM! re-roll time.
Doesn't excuse the DM from his dickish handling of the situation.
Yeah, tell that bastard this is a rule that is not really a rule next time. Like surprise rounds. And skill checks.
I hardly think wearing or not wearing a tshirt falls in the same line of rules as game play such as rolling an attack or skill roll.
At the very least, the GM should have said. In order to give you this re-roll, I need you to put on the tshirt and wear it for the remainder of the game. That would have been the minimal thing to do if you want to enforce an arbitrary rule.
GM was being a jerk. I would choose not to play with anyone being that anal. Its a game and there is no sense in enforcing that rule which isn't usually enforced but not even mentioning it until the critical moment was another dick move. If the players sit down and the GM says, I have a hard fast rule that if you want your shirt re-rolls, you have to be wearing it. Its important that the GM do that because thats not the norm for our society. I have never seen a GM enforce the wearing it rule. In fact, some of our GMs are nice enough on rare occasion to bring a few shirts in for re-roll.
I started in April of this year and since I learned of the shirts, none have been available for purchase in my size except the god awful yellow osirion shirt, from which I have no toons with that faction. I think if you actually spend 25 dollars on a t-shirt to support Paizo and then you actually carry around that t-shirt to your game. You should get the re-roll... thats my 2 cp
I am curious, Could you not have "nerfed" these guys instead of just straight banning them?
Pathfinder Society tries to keep as close to the written rules as possible.
It's a lot more work for players to have to reference a rulebook and the Society special version of it, and then every GM has to be aware that "Oh, this class doesn't work by the standard rules."
It's a lot easier for the players, GMs, and staff if we just remove the option from play than if we try to jury-rig something that will maybe fix one problem but hasn't been playtested.
Theres alot I would like to respond to what you said, but I don't want it to appear that I am looking for an argument. So I am simply going to respond with:
I guess I don't get whats the difference between Errata and what you call jury-rigging? I run into errata often enough and errata on an archetype like this would be well known by GMs.
The decisions were made after a lengthy discussion and debate on the VC message board. Sometimes, it actually became rather heated because there are VCs and VLs who were passionate about losing their own characters. Everyone with access on that board is bound by an NDA and is not permitted to discuss the contents of the discussions.
Also, I am not going to explain or defend every decision made. Not only would it be difficult to provide a brief of a discussion that is more than 600 posts long over the course of several weeks, but it would also lead to endless arguments here on the general message board.
All I can do is ask you to have faith in the decision making process, and that any decisions we made were not done so lightly, but were done with the long term health of the campaign in mind. We all understand how this affects some people's characters. In truth, even VCs has some characters that were affected and now have to rebuild. All of These decisions were far from arbitrary or authoritarian.
I am curious, Could you not have "nerfed" these guys instead of just straight banning them?
just some examples that came to mind for me were. If one of the reasons for the master summoner was time. How about you limit the max amount of summons to 3-4 at a time? and/or making the summons last rounds instead of minutes like typical summmon spells?
and for the synthesis summoner, couldn't you make the eidolon only give half its stats/armor/resist as contribution instead of full. this would force a equilibrium of stats that might balance it out more.
I imagine you had this discussion as it only seems logical to me to nerf instead of ban. So what were reasons for not doing so or at least attempting a nerf before an outright ban? Because I would have been more than happy to have a limit put on my master summoner as I found myself 90% of the time limiting my own amount of summons to spare the group from taking up more than my share of time during combat.
Thanks for all your prompt responses to questions.
