Sulako's page

Sulako wrote:

I play several point-buy systems. I don't mind them. In fact, my favorite roleplaying game OF ALL TIME is Shadowrun. It's a point-buy game. I love it. The setting, the combat, the crunch...it's all good to me.

What I DON'T like, is a game that offers you an option to roll stats, then punishes you for doing so. Yes, most people don't roll stats as well as I do. I get that, I do. I've rolled some pretty piss-poor stats in my day and been forced to play them. It sucked.

But when I do roll, I always tell the DM that I rolled incredibly well and would have no problem offering up those same numbers for everyone in the party to use. Mostly, this is met with a good response. Though, there are some people that don't like using numbers they didn't generate. I can respect that. It's the same reason I won't play a pre-generated character. I have nothing invested.

The fact is, I, like Daedalus here, am an optimizer. I like scouring the texts available to get every ounce of benefit I can. Some call me a power-gamer because of this. Fine, I'll accept the stigma that comes with that. But to have the numbers to do so, only for the game to outright tell you "NO!" and giving NO reason for it, smacks of just being an angry parent yelling at their child.

It's pointless. It serves no purpose than to be limiting.

Now before anyone wants to try and deconstruct this argument with exaggerated hyperbole, no I don't mean you should be a fighter, but be able to backstab/sneak attack, or that you should be a monk and be able to cast wizards spells. To people that wanna blow it out of proportion like that, f*ck off! I'm talking about stats. It's where the game starts. If the attribute system is warped, it throws the whole game out for me. And being limited to no stat above 18, even though you have the numbers to go beyond that, and the game gives you no adequately explained reason why it's a deal-breaker for me.

If that makes me a power-gamer, then so be it.

It's not a punishment.

You...

Here's the kicker. And everyone seems to be missing this point. With their non-rolling system, no matter what you do, you CAN'T get more than 18 in a single stat. You simply CAN'T. No matter what you do.

But if you roll your stats, you CAN. Because say you roll all 18's. Slim chance, granted, but it's a POSSIBILITY. And not only is it a possibility, it's an INEVITABILITY. Because the law of large numbers. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is GOING to do this. So what do you do? At that point, you can't apply ANY 'Boosts'. At all. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

At that point, you are, in fact, being PUNISHED for rolling high stats. It doesn't matter that they are all 18's already. That is completely beside the point. It is a possibility that was NOT accounted for and it SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Bottom line.

Setting the cap at 1st level at 20 would have, at the very least, allow players that have God's own luck, to build a character instead of getting hosed out of EVERY boost just because the rolled well.

But by having that 18 cap in place, I can't take my highest stat and put it where I want it. I HAVE to put it somewhere I don't want it, thus resulting in a character I DON'T want to play.

That, to me, is PUNISHMENT.

One thing that has been tossed out there in aether (I haven't confirmed it yet, so if it has been, awesome) is that the new Campaign Setting Book is going to take into account all of the events of the previous Adventure Paths.

That's actually pretty dope. It gives the players a tangible effect on the world up to this point. I like that.

Gorbacz wrote:

Sulako wrote:

I can, however, see why Wizards felt they needed a new edition. The OGL was just tearing them apart. The 3rd party material was just a travesty of hodge-podge dumpster fires.

Hey, you really shouldn't speak that harshly of Pathfinder.

Dude. Enough with the gasoline.

Now why not? More gasoline, I say. We got a lot of weenies to roast. ;)

Sulako wrote:

I can, however, see why Wizards felt they needed a new edition. The OGL was just tearing them apart. The 3rd party material was just a travesty of hodge-podge dumpster fires.

Hey, you really shouldn't speak that harshly of Pathfinder.

Hey, now later in that post I did say that MOST of what the 3rd party publishers was bad. Some of it was good.

Paizo also sort of had an inside track as they took over Dungeon and Dragon Magazine in 2003. They knew what would and wouldn't work within the system.

But I stand by my former statement. A majority of the 3rd party stuff was terrible.

Umm, but that is really arbitrary point to make.

Like, why aren't you instead angry that game doesn't allow you to start with ability score of 30? Well that is because 1e didn't allow it either. You are angry that first edition allowed you to start with 20(or higher) ability score while 2nd edition doesn't. But you might as well be angry that rangers and paladins don't have spells anymore or that action economy works differently, you are being angry that change exists rather than about why it exists.

OG Pathfinder didn't put any limits on stats whatsoever. What you get is what you get. No compromise. I like that. I don't like arbitrary limits with no reasoning.

I actually like capped numbers (ability scores, AC), I never liked that 3rd Ed did away with that. I would prefer characters to be capped at 18 for ability scores, the idea of a halfling as strong as an ogre, bothers me.

A halfling, according to the rules as written in 3rd Edition CAN'T be as strong as an ogre at first level. Given the size penalty and their -2 to Strength as to where Ogres in 3rd Edition received a +10 to their Strength score. So, unless your Ogre rolled absolute GARBAGE and your halfling rolled killer, it isn't an issue.

But, if such a thing did occur, while it would be an incredible outlier, it should be allowed because that's the way the dice fall.

See? This just proves what I'm saying. Roleplaying games are about the fantastic and mindboggling OPTIONS for things like this. But when you put the limitations on it, you remove a part of the majesty of the game.

That doesn't sit well with me. That goes against literally EVERYTHING a tabletop RPG is supposed to be.

LOL such anger!

Look, the developers have taken steps so that it's harder to create characters that are unbalanced against each other, which is usually a bad thing at any table.
If your group wants that, just agree to roll your stats and apply whatever bonus you find fitting. Paizo's police won't come to get you.

Also, the fact that you have been lucky when rolling stats so far doesn't mean that you are more likely to roll higher than average in the future. Unless you cheat, of course.
This is a fact.

It's about the OPTION to do so. I want to be able to get my stats that high. Not saying I will. Not saying I won't. But when I go to make the choice and see, out of the gate, that some of my options are limited for NO reason, it's a red flag. It's starting out on a bad foot.

And FYI, when I rolled the block they suggested, I ended up with 18, 18, 17, 16, 16, 16. Naturally, I wanted to put my highest number into my strength, because I wanted to be a fighter. But the GAME said 'NO!' for no G**!+@n reason.

Now yes, it says I could have put the numbers somewhere else, but that should be a choice I get to make. The game should not foist that choice on me. Games that do this are fundamentally broken.

Sulako wrote:

So, essentially, what you're saying is...it was arbitrary. They did it because...they wanted to. Not for any kind of hard game-play reasons. Not because it would DESTROY the game in its entirety. They did it because 'We're the game developers and you have to do what we say.'

That's kinda why I have a problem with it. They give no valid, in-game, mechanical reason why you can't. If they did, I wouldn't be complaining. I'd be unhappy but at least they'd have a reason for it.

The whole 'to make the game lower-powered' is the biggest bullsh!t cop-out reason I've ever heard. It's not up to the GAME to lower the power levels. It's up to the DM. Any DM worth their salt would agree with me on that.

Roleplaying games are what they are PRECISELY to cater to fantasies. Some people just want the fun and intrigue to go along with a fantasy setting and don't mind being just slightly above average. That's fine. More power to them. But some want to be a conqueror that wrecks shop at 1st level and have generated the stats through rolling and bonuses to do that. It shouldn't be up to the game - ANY game - to limit that. That's the DM's job. And if any DM is HAPPY with a game that does that for them, so they don't have to, then, in my opinion, they don't deserve to sit behind the screen and run a game.

Have you even played a session yet to see if your complaints have any actual merit, or are you just complaining to complain?

You are whining about there being ability caps at level one, but not considering the context of all of the other rules for which those caps are put in place. Will your character really be so completely weak as you are want to imply? You don’t know. You haven’t played.

Furthermore, this is a playtest. The developers need a baseline, and therefore put boundaries in place to help them collect data. Dial it back a bit.

Yes. Our group did, in fact, TRY to play a session of this. We made it through about an hour and said 'bag it' and continued our previous Rise of the Runelords campaign because it was, you know, not broken all to hell.

And it isn't about my character 'being weak'. It's about the GAME telling me 'NO!' Like an angry parent, then not giving a reason as to why. I don't mind the cap. THAT isn't my issue. It's that there's no reason - adequate or otherwise - given for the cap. It's a limitation without reasoning. THAT is what I have a problem with. And no, 'character balance' isn't a good reason, because if I can achieve those stats, then so can someone else. Them choosing not to doesn't make the game imbalanced. Their choices are.

I would say this edition is more D&D 4.5, than 5.5...

Because being associated with what has been universally accepted as THE WORST Edition of Dungeons and Dragons since the OG '74 game is EXACTLY what Paizo should aspire to.

Way to go, guys.

SMDH...