You're also missing a big point here: RPGs are not books or other passive media. If your character is an a*~@&&~, everyone at the table has to deal with you acting like a jackass for 4-7 hours at a time every week. It grates. It gets old. It really doesn't add as much to the story as you think it does.
Characters can have conflicts without a player going out of his way to make everybody miserable at the table week in and week out to make the story "better". The BEST CASE SCENARIO is this kind of character gets a quick comeuppance and is either replaced or learns their lesson...as all of my AND your examples do. This either results in an isolated incident or a revolving door character. In either case, it's just as well handled by an NPC.
The healthier conflicts (and more interesting ones) are all represented in those same media. Gimli and Legolas have a rivalry, but neither would ever betray the other. Roy and Haley conflict...but Haley also has the best interests of the party in mind, just like the rest of them do. And so on, and so on.
Ideological conflicts add more to the game without being a betrayal of trust.
That's...not a good analogy. This is sports, not a grand quest. This is exactly like what it is: An athlete doing what athletes do.
This is like getting mad at a football team because while they're on their quest to win the Superbowl they need to play all these other stupid teams first and do exhibition matches and commercials and charity events on the side.
If you want to put it in LotR terms though, what's happening right now is Frodo and co. made it to Mount Doom midway through The Two Towers and threw the ring in...only to realize it was a fake ring, and this was a fake Sauron, both destroyed. It's now been months with no sign of the threat. The orc armies have all but disappeared. The real Sauron (and his ring) are in the wind.
The heroes have no way of finding him, so while they wait for Gandalf to track him down or the evil baddie to show himself of his own accord, they settle into a routine of daily life.
This is the time in a story where you get character interaction and development, and get a sense of the charaters' personalities without a looming crisis. Which, let's face it, Tolkien didn't do much of.
Which is fine, because not every story needs to follow the same exact structure and keep the cast laser focused on their goal (particularly in this case, where in the grand scheme the stakes are nonexistent).
Think of your favorite groups of heroes. Think of Star Wars and Firefly, or of the fellowship of the Ring and Order of the Stick.
All of these make my point for me. There was no real betrayal by an ally in Star Wars (Solo repented almost immediately). The one betrayer in the Fellowship died. The minute Jayne went from "useful a!*&@@%" to actually betraying the party for money...Mal nearly killed him, and he vowed never to do it again under pain of death. Belkar was kicked from the group the second he became more inconvenience than help...only reason it didn't take is because of a mind wipe.
This?
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What would you choose, having a rogue who finds traps for you yet sometimes helps himself to some of your coins or to have no-one and be killed by a swinging axe trap?
It's a non-issue. Mechanically you never need a Rogue. Use the money you saved from everyone in the party getting the Rogue's full share AND not having a chunk of it stolen to buy a Wand of Summon Monster. Or hire an NPC. Or anything else.
RP-wise, it doesn't make sense to keep someone around either unless your character's an idiot or for some reason you don't really need the money.
Tiger Mask W
I am growing increasingly worried about the crumbling authority of wrestling referees. Wrestlers seem to be able to break rules with impunity. One wrestler in this series picked up a referee and used him as a club. He wasn't arrested, banned from wrestling, or even disqualified from the match.
Also, I was enjoying it more when it was about one man's struggle to avenge his mentor who was crippled in the ring. Somehow it turned into a show about one man's struggle to take revenge on the wrestlers who ate his friend's cake, or whatever the current episode is about.
The revenge plot has taken a sideline because he was duped by the big tournament. He got into this to take out Yellow Devil and to destroy GWM if possible.
Problem is, he took out a fake Yellow Devil and that trapped him in a contract...GWM is now using him to make more money and cement their Japanese audience.
None of the current fights are related to the revenge plot because he got screwed over by contract.
But the thieving rogue is a fantasy trope engrained in our minds. It is an interesting character to play.
Never understood how it's supposed to be interesting. It's annoying AND nonsensical. Any party with two brain cells between them all would boot (or worse) the klepto at the first opportunity and hire someone who can be trusted.
If they steal from their allies, they can't be trusted not to backstab in more literal ways later.
You're probably one of those people who think Kender are cute, aren't you? I've got my eye on you.
5E has no dead levels, if you count access to new spell levels.
It doesn't...but then again, it also lacks significant choices in what those abilities are and those abilities being significant in the first place. You get most of your playstyle defining stuff in the first three levels and the rest is a mixed bag from meh to cool just like Pathfinder.
That's really my main gripe too. If you could (without further investment) Charge, Spring Attack, use Standard action hit abilities like the Brawler's Knockout and other thematic "big hit" things it would be more versatile and I'd be more apt to take it.
In violence, media manipulation, fear-mongering, spreading dissent. In how we're used like fighting dogs, given a slap on the nose and thrown into a ring, mindlessly attacking one another instead of biting the hand that slapped us on the nose, in breaking the cycle of violence and hate.
This may be a nitpick, or just a consequence of the analogy, but doesn't this just redirect the hate and violence, not stop it?
Arguably you are redirecting it in a justified manner toward a deserved target, but it still perpetuates that cycle. Which I guess is the main problem. Violence begets violence but it's damn hard to stop violence without violence in the grand scheme.
I have my two cats, a big calico (Rosie, 8 years) and a little grey longhair (Misty, 3 years).
Rosie was a package deal with her sister (Reese), originally, but she got sick a few years back and we had to put her down. I adopted Misty not long afterwards because Rosie was so lonely. Thankfully they've bonded well. =)
Rosie is currently deforming my spine by being half on the arm of my chair, and half behind me where I made the mistake of bending in to type.
At 16 lbs (and yes, that's her healthy weight, says the vets) she is more able to muscle in than your average cat.
I've had other pets (dogs, hamsters, turtles) but none have lasted as long as these two, nor any have I gotten so close to. They do a decent job of keeping me sane, when they aren't actively driving me the other way (Misty has decided she's an outside cat now, and goes on little adventures during the day).
Readied Vital Strikes with a bow to interrupt spellcasting. Can completely shut down an unprepared spellcaster.
So can a normal bow shot, except you don't need to spend 3 Feats on it that are practically worthless at any other time. 1d8+12 or more is still a pretty hefty Concentration check to pass.
Even better, you can then spend those 3 Feats on something that does work on a prepared spellcaster, so you can send a flurry of arrows downrange to get rid of those Mirror Images, or ignore their Blur or Displacement. And then when they're dead, they can't cast any more.
Wind Wall and its ilk screw you either way, of course, but again you haven't wasted 3-4 extra Feats now.
How was Winterhole the former capital, it has like fifteen buildings and a third of those are burned down.
Maybe they need to stop fighting each other and start f*#$ing. Seems like they're having population issues.
Just saying, there seems to be entirely more bears and dragons then people.
A few years back the volcano in Morrowind erupted, destroying pretty much the whole island. That sent a shockwave across the ocean, causing an earthquake in Winterhold and a good 90% of the city fell into the sea (you can actually see some of the ruins down below the college if you go in that ravine).
It's the main reason the inhabitants of Winterhold town hate the College, they resent the fact that so much of everything was ruined but the college is still standing, and some people think they caused it for whatever reason.
Alex has consistently pissed me off in almost every episode this season. She's worse than f%~!ing Laurel over on Arrow, and that's saying something.
She has such an entitled attitude. She makes the wrong choice, b&%&!es people out for calling her on it, doubles down on the bad choice, and then for some reason everybody apologizes to and makes up with her because her bad choices were cleaned up by them.
It's like everyone in this show is a masochist and Alex is their personal torturer. And mine.
"Oh, please Alex, give me more pain. Make more messes for me to clean up. F#!~ up Alex! F!~~ up harder! Please!"
To play Devil's Advocate, Danny was 10 when he was rescued, so he started training a bit later than Davos (Steel Serpent) and the other K'un L'un kids did.
He also does quite a bit of work reforming their government later on by taking down Yu-Ti as part of a rebellion (during The Immortal Iron Fist) and installing a more righteous man (Lei Kung) as the new leader. Due to some weird succession stuff I don't quite grok, Danny is actually the "rightful heir" to the title. He also (along with the other Living Weapons) averted a crisis that could have destroyed K'un L'un and the other cities like it.
So he is their savior...in as much as being a superhero he's been a LOT of peoples' savior.
"But wouldn't making him Asian perpetuate a stereotype?"
The problem is that the whole existence of Iron Fist centers white people in an culture where they shouldn't be centered. Its the same rational as to why people were angry off about the Egyptian God movie that starred a bunch of British actors. Or the movie that took place in ancient China and stared a Bostonian......
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So what happens when you get someone genuinely interested in the character enough to go back and find out more about him because "Finally... an asian-american character", only to find out that he never was one to begin with. How do you deal with that fallout?
People probably would be happy given that he's always been kind of a racist character.
I've read a lot of Iron Fist stuff at this point and I still haven't found the "racism" people keep talking about.
His parents died, he was adopted by Lei Kung, and raised by K'un L'un's ways.
"Cultural appropriation" claims = Bullshit. Unless you want to tell, say, a white boy raised by an Asian family they should "act more white" (or an Asian one they should "act more Asian") so as to avoid appropriating the culture they were adopted by.
That seems to be the main leg people try to stand on, and nowhere in the books does Rand espouse the superiority of one culture over another, even after he is disillusioned by his former home not being as great a place as he thought (having a corrupt government). He doesn't discriminate against other races, either positively or negatively. He doesn't even spout off with any racist stereotype "Ancient Chinese secrets" or anything you could point to that makes the character racist.
Near as I can tell, being a white martial artist is taboo, and that's it?
If I'm understanding it right, the Ninja uses TWF with a Katana with a Effortless Lace and a random loot drop Wakizashi. In this case it probably is needed on the Katana, not only to be able to TWF with the light off hand (which the Katana might be if he's using the shocking Wakizashi primary... I would), but also to make it usable with Weapon Finesse (He previously mentioned the Ninja only has STR=10) So he's likely using dex to hit. The Character was probably intending to TWF with Dual Katana's, but got a pretty impressive Wakizashi that is good enough to use for a while until he gets additional feats or can afford to make a better Katana.
I should stop commenting on things late at night or immediately after waking up.
Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
To the GM, I do suggest you make sure you know where items are coming from so you can keep track of what they do. The item in question (Effortless Lace) is from Giant Hunter's Handbook, and is powerful (overpowered) enough that it's been specifically excluded from PFS play.
Being banned in PFS isn't really an indicator that it's too powerful. PFS dislikes certain playstyles, particularly Dex based ones and defensive styles. Most things are banned for either flavor reasons (see: Vivisectionist) or in the interest of keeping build variety within manageable bounds.
An invisible creature ... ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonuses to AC
Not wrong so much as it was super early in the morning. I should have written, "Doesn't make them unaware."
Which IS actually relevant in some cases, to be fair. The Vigilante has a few abilities that only work on unaware targets and IIRC so does the Assassinate ability (which the Ninja CAN get).
darkfireslide wrote:
To answer everyone's question about the Ninja sneak attacking and doing so much damage, here's the math.
He was flanking an opponent with the NPC cleric, so he gets his sneak attack. He two-weapon fights with a Katana (He uses something called like an effortless ribbon(ultimate equipment I think) to make it a light weapon)
Just so he knows, this is a waste of money. As long as your OFF HAND is a Light weapon, you don't take the larger penalties to TWFing, so making the Katana Light and then using it in your main hand is absolutely pointless.
He's also probably going to feel the pain later when he realizes that for that extra +1 average damage he's going to need multiple Weapon Focus or Improved Critical or whatever Feats to complete his build because he's using two different weapons.
Also 40dmg in 1 rnd from a lvl 5 ninja is a good rnd. Even with Vanish it is only +20 Stealth, people get a Perception Check and sounds like he was in the open so doesn't get too add any of his Stealth bonus. Then he had to wait a round to get a full round attack.
Minor point, but... Nope. Can't do that. He's hidden, he declares attack, that starts the surprise round.
Characters who can act in the surprise round get to make one standard action. They cannot make a full round action.
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Spend another ki point to add an attack. Most likely he was duel wielding, for -2 per attack, but the flanking offset that.
See above. None of that can happen.
What has to happen is the guy has to stealth. Someone else has to trigger the surprise round. The ninja must not attack. Then he must attack while the for is distracted in the 1st round after the surprise round.
The stealth here is irrelevant as far as I can tell, from the description it looks like he's turning invisible as a Swift and then Sneak Attacking.
It IS worth noting that this only gives him one Sneak Attack. If you, GM, were letting him Sneak Attack for the whole round because he went invisible, that shouldn't be the case. The first attack gets SA because of Concealment but the subsequent attacks are normal. The 40 damage figure was bugging me but I didn't really pay attention until now. Even with 3 attacks unless they all crit, without Sneak Attack he's not hitting 40.
From what I could tell, her adamantium coating was incomplete. Her chest, for example, seems completely unarmored. There's a quick flash of a medical chart at one point I couldn't get a great look at that might shed more light.
It's possible her implants were strategically placed to give maximal combat benefit (claws and spurs only, basically) while not impeding her ability to grow (and so, she could be further enhanced at a later date.
@Sundakan, I recognize these things about the Inquisitor after reading about it and made a guide with recommendations on spells to choose, which abilities to use, and how to use them, including mentioning that now at 5th level he can do like 2d8+12+4d6 damage in a round if both his shots connect with rapid shot and he has the right buffs on with Bane. My concern is that the Inquisitor is very complicated even though I realize it is quite strong. It's ironic that a strong character sees a weaker character doing decent damage without realizing that he himself is already that strong.
It's not really irony, it's the difference between a skill floor and a skill ceiling. The Rogue has a very low skill floor, and a very low skill ceiling. I.E it takes very little effort to take a Ninja to its highest natural potential (the ceiling) and also very hard to completely screw up, because your whole class is pretty much handed to you (the floor).
Inquisitor, on the flipside, has a relatively high floor (not super high, but higher compared to a Ninja, Rogue, Ranger, etc.) and a much higher skill ceiling.
What this translates to is a very powerful class (if you build it right) that is very easy to f%~% up and leave as barely more useful than a Commoner.
darkfireslide wrote:
As for the level, while he is a new player, it's also an incentive to keep him showing up. If everyone is the same level regardless, it seems less fair to everyone who always shows up. But maybe I'll bump him up or give him some bonus exp so he's not so behind.
Shit happens, people need to miss sessions due to work, illnesses, family emergencies, car trouble, conflicting obligations, etc., etc. Punishing someone for having a life isn't the way to go about things.
All it's going to do is, instead of incentivizing people to show up (which...getting to come and play a fun game is their incentive already, is it not?) it's going to disincentivize people to join or KEEP showing up. You're going to make them feel bad because their toddler has a fever, their transmission is shot, or they have to work the graveyard shift the day of your session and on top of all that shit now they're a level and loot behind.
Sorry if that sounded too much like a lecture, I've just never seen that turn out well. Best case scenario someone gets sulky. Worst case, the group breaks apart.
darkfireslide wrote:
But anyway, my concern is that the problem will continue because, as a newer player, he won't take the time to actually learn the class to play it. Which means he'll still just be a second class archer because he's not using his immense repertoire of abilities, and if he doesn't want to learn magic, he might as well play a Fighter, I guess. Which, I know, from a minmaxing perspective isn't fantastic, but it would be better for how he's playing the class.
I mean, the new guy didn't bother to read about the class at all. He only knew how to do Cure Light Wounds and make attack rolls. And that is really, really bad for an Inquisitor. I probably wouldn't have let him play the class if I had had a more active hand in him making his character (just like I probably would have restricted him to core races as well). I didn't know much about the class and figured he and the Ninja could handle learning the character. Clearly this was a mistake on my part. I understand the class now, but that just makes me worried more that he will basically just be a second class archer for the rest of the campaign. I gave him the option to rebuild, but I guess we'll see what happens.
This is a separate problem. Not wanting to read the rulebook (or, at least, the parts that pertain to you and your character) is a bad sign for your continued interest in the game.
Then again, it's quite possible with a class like this that he read it and then forgot them. Compare/contrast the Inquisitor to a Ranger (a good beginner class with a loooooooooooooooooooooowwwwww skill floor and a moderate skill ceiling).
Inquisitor, 1st level: Domain, judgment, monster lore, stern gaze, spellcasting. Two of these abilities (Domain and spellcasting/Orisons) require you to make choices from a huge list of options.
Ranger, first level: Favored Enemy, Track, Wild Empathy. Two less abilities. Only one has to be chosen from a list, and that is a small-ish list that can (and should) be significantly narrowed by the GM telling you viable choices for the game.
Inquisitor 2: Cunning initiative, Detect Alignment, Track More fiddly bits. Fiddly bit counter: 8
Ranger 2: Combat Style (and Feat). Pick a fighting Style, here are some Feats to guide you on how to make a reasonably good user of that style. Fiddly bit counter: 3
You get the picture.
darkfireslide wrote:
As a side note, can anyone tell me classes apart from like Fighters and Sorcerers that are good for newer players? It seems like in Pathfinder most classes have a bigger learning curve from before and I'm not sure what to recommend to people.
The aforementioned Ranger, and his Slayer cousin. I'd recommend them above Fighter, as they are both stronger AND easier to play.
Paladin, Barbarian, Brawler, and Swashbuckler are all also decent.
Just a note, making him play a lower level character than everyone else doesn't really help matters. Particularly when you've gimped him by shutting him off a level behind his biggest damage booster (Bane).
Inquisitors when played right are one of the most devastatingly versatile and combat ready classes in the game. Much better than a Ninja (which is one of the weakest classes in the game, though better than a core Rogue).
Problem is, Inquisitors, as you've noticed, require a LOT of resource management and understanding of the rules to make work.
I'm going to go ahead assuming he wants to keep playing this character, not do a full rebuild, and you can look at the general assumptions for what an Inquisitor is tooling around with active at any one time and try to pass that on.
Your standard 5th level archer Inquisitor is gonna be tooling around with a longbow. He apparently has a 14 Str and 16 Dex which is...not great, but workable.
So, at a base level with his Masterwork bow and 16 Dex he's going to be at +3 BaB, +3 Dex, +1 weapon at a base level. He likely has Point Bank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot as his Feats. So, a total of +6 to-hit with two arrows. Not too shabby. Not great either, but not too terrible.
He's throwing two arrows a round downrange for 1d8+3 apiece. Average of 15 damage. This IS too shabby.
Cool part comes in with buffs.
Start with Bane. At this level, reserved for the tough fights since you've only got 5 rounds, but at high levels with Greater Bane and a Bane Baldric you're using this every round. This adds 2d6+2 to every hit, and +2 to every attack roll. So now he's looking at +8 to-hit and 1d8+2d6+5 (average of 33 damage if both arrows hit)
Then, for the boss fight, he's got Judgement. He's probably going to want the attack rolls option. Add another +2.
This is discounting buffs. At low levels your options are pretty meh. Divine Favor, Wrath, and Bless.
As you crawl higher, however, you have access to most of the self-buffing spells in the game. Stuff like Heroism. And at low levels you can identify the boss room, throw down Divine Favor, Weapon of Awe, and Bless, then Wrath it up on the boss and rip his sorry ass a new one.
However, and this is really the take away: At low levels you kinda suck without buffs. Your job as an Inquisitor at low levels:
1.) SEE EVERYTHING. KNOW EVERYTHING. You have tons of skill points, a high Wis, and bonuses to monster skills. You should be up to date on all your monster knowledges, as well as Perception, Survival, and Sense Motive. Split ranks in Survival and Sense Motive if you can't afford a 14 Int, but still.
2.) F*+& THIS GUY IN PARTICULAR. That fully buffed Inquisitor (even with a meh stat allocation) is throwing down +15 to-hit and 1d8+2d6+11 on each shot to that one man you really need to go away forever. Given your class abilities and that you're an archer, you need to try real hard not to win Initiative, know everything about the enemy, MAYBE spend a round buffing if you couldn't pre-buff (though with a Ninja specced into heavy stealth use, you should have a good scouting system down)
At higher levels you slowly layer more stuff on the buff pile, and that stuff has a longer duration so you can stay prebuffed and have most of this stuff active for most of your fights, and you have buffs that give you extra senses and defenses so you can see and negate danger better, and etc., etc.
The upshot to all this is: If your player is up to accepting that A.) He sucks now unless he blows a bunch of spells and B.) He needs to do a bit of class research and actually USE all of his abilities, he CAN do that much damage. And more. Ninjas aren't exactly powerhouse damage dealers.
Side note: If he wants to be a bit more like the Ninja and just wants damage, show him the Sanctified Slayer archetype. He loses Judgement for Studied Target and some Sneak Attack.
What seem to be rapidly turning into one in our 5e group is "Does he have a nose ring?"
First session we're fighting some gobs/hobgobs/bugbears and the Bard wants to cast heat metal.
"I cast it on his weapon."
"He's not wielding a metal weapon."
"What about armor?"
"Hide."
"Does he have anything metal on him like-"
"No, he doesn't have anything metal"
"-Like what about a nose ring?"
"..."
"..."
"Yeah, okay, whatever, he has a nose ring!"
So the nose ring is heated, the bugbear gets burned and has to rip the ring out of his nose, and we move on.
Of course, now every time we come across an enemy the first question after they're described (particulary if it's something like "wearing leather armor and wielding clubs") is: "But are they wearing nose rings?"
This was a good god damn movie, way better than I was expecting.
I agree the villains were meh, but honestly this being a character piece the villain is largely unimportant anyway.
Laura's actress was really good. If she hadn't been, this movie probably would have been garbage. The raw talent to sell being that dangerous and sometimes menacing at that young an age (and still do the emotional scenes very well...the little snot dribble when she cries really sold it) is really hard to find. I won't be surprised if she's a big name in a few years. I'll be disappointed if not.
Currently they're dealing with the fallout of God's sister, a dead mom and now Lucifer's love child. (I kid you not. He got out and did it with the USA president's intern.)
Don't forget he was possessing the president when they conceived.
Also you all can say what you like but I still don't see how you can like a show that constantly keeps making crap up and then goes back later to say "Nope! That's not what happened!" when later they will say "Actually we lied. It totally did happen."
Because it's a mystery. And a mystery with an unreliable narrator, no less.
It's a fascinating type of story because you have three or more separate mysteries running at the same time. Whoddunnit, is the narrator telling the truth/correct about whodunnit, and was it every really dun at all?
This series will likely be an absolutely miserable rewatch once all's over and done with, but not everything needs to be the perfect popcorn show.
It's also good that it isn't chained by shoehorned comic book references. I see no reason why it can't be its own interesting story without ever mentioning the words "X-Men" or anything related to them.
I didn't even know who David Haller was, and probably wouldn't have given a shit if I did without this show, and near as I can tell that doesn't matter. That's a good thing.
I haven't watched it yet, but I plan to. The early 2000s series was really good. It's one of the Adult Swim anime (along with Trigun and Full Metal AAlchemist) that got me into anime to begin with.
No point in arguing with Sundakan about that stuff he doesn't believe in trying to get verisimilitude in DnD. Nothing against him its just not his preference.
I like verisimilitude. It's realism I think is silly.
All verisimilitude requires is INTERNAL consistency. The whole game works on Artistic License Physics (and Biology, and Geology, and everything else, for that matter).
It is not a perfect simulation of our world, nor is it meant to be.
If it did, dragons wouldn't be able to fly, Giants would collapse under their own weight, and Lightning Bolt wouldn't work underwater.
Pathfinder only models the veeeerrry basic assumptions of reality. Gravity exists, muscles make you stronger, people need to eat and breathe, and sharp things hurt.
You go any further than that in any branch of science and things break down. The ecology for particularly huge animals, magical beasts, aberrations, etc. make no sense (they usually live in places with not enough food to sustain them). Not counting that they generally don't follow the square-cube law and thus your Giant Dire Wolf snaps its dainty ankles and suffocates under its own weight.
House cats can easily kill human beings, no contest.
The average person can hold their breath for two minutes without any training, and without strain.
Hot weather rules make it literally impossible, if applied to the real world, for people here in Florida to EXIST during the summer, much less even hotter climates.
Complaining about the one time this one magic spell only 17th+ level character can cast didn't model reality is just asinine. If you reaally care about how physics and whatnot are modeled, start by rewriting the core assumptions of the game, 'cuz they ain't any better.
Haven't watched anything new lately, but I introduced the kids to SAO -- they loved seasons 1 & 2, but won't watch SAO2 because of subs. :/ In fairness, I never finished it, for unrelated reasons. Anyone want to rate it for me, maybe I'll get motivated to finish it!
So far my wife is not an anime fan, but I ordered Spirited Away over the weekend, which I think will be up her alley. Can't wait to watch it with her and the kids!
the kids aren't into subtitles?
I would disown them immediately!!!!!!
More to the point, they're into SAO?
I know kids aren't supposed to have taste but still.
Cut the gorilla some slack, he could barely string two words together a few months ago.
It's almost like viewing episodes out of context in a tv series makes it seem worse than it actually is.
Incidentally, that's part of the reason why Firefly was canceled.
The bigger one is that it was a ridiculously niche property that relied on an intersect of sci-fi fans and Western fans, both of which are niche markets in their own right overall.
Meanwhile the Flash is a tv series that falls squarely into a currently booming market (comic book adaptations) and is above average entertainment in its own right.
Nothing incomprehensible about it if you apply about 2 seconds' thought.
It would basically kill RP between characters from different regions and going to different regions. Not everybody has the skill points to spare on Linguistics or can cast Tongues, so you're basically just encouraging murder-hobo behavior since diplomatic solutions require communication.
I'm lost on your reference to Pacific Rim. That was an international cast playing an international group of characters that are part of a multinational armed force in a movie set in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Compare it to, say, the Godzilla movie in the late 90s.
The only thing I can think of is apparently using giant robots and monsters is appropriating Japanese culture? Which is...slim, to say the least.
This "power" is yet another example of hiding something behind a feat or class ability which really ought to be available to anyone, using their CHA and perhaps perform (oratory) or similar skills.
The thing that bothers me the most, is that it doesn't have a "normal" line. Anyone should be able to gather a crowd, and often enough, a crowd will form when you don't really want them too, or just aren't trying at all. I can see this class archetype getting a huge bonus to it, in various ways, but the mechanic really should be accompanied by a "normal" line showing how any Tom, Dick or Harry can try it too.
It's way too late in the game for anything this reasonable. You can't wipe your own ass without a Feat or class feature, and it takes a three Feat chain to get somebody else to do it for you.
I'm also a little bothered by "Who knows? He could have rolled a bunch of crits and won somehow."
That's not a winnable fight. Theoretically (nearly) any fight is winnable if I roll all 1s and the player rolls all 20s. Just because you roll the dice in the open doesn't make it a winnable fight. The GM has the responsibility of setting the scenario to be fair.
In that case, if I'm reading it correctly, it was basically a case of suicide by duel. If the player's cool with it and knows what they're getting into, that's fine by me.
Also since it was a single PC down, not a TPK, it would be easier to recover from.
He went in knowing there was an upwards of 90% chance they were going to die, but did it anyway. They had enough extra loot and Plunder saved up to afford a Resurrection, and he was curious as to how strong exactly Harrigan was.
The character was actually capable of dealing enough damage to murderize Harrigan in a round or two because...Bloodrager, he just had the world's shittiest AC for the same reason and never got a chance to make more than one swing.
I also disagree that the fight is unwinnable even if it requires immense luck to pull off. Chances are slim, but it's a possible fight. It's the difference between tangling with something stronger than you and tangling with a ball of fiat that says "You lose, no matter what".
That really boils down to different definitions of "unwinnable" though.
I wouldn't make a habit of throwing those kinds of encounters at them, but if they pick a fight with something they know is way stronger than they are, that's how it goes.
Yes. OOC he knew it was a bad idea, but he was an Orc Bloodrager and I had Harrigan talking all kinds of shit about how he barely limped to the finish line (Hirgenzosk really did a number on their boat. As in it would have sunk without Make Whole) and would have been third place or less if he hadn't cheated, Jrahk is an incompetent captain, etc.
Ended it with "Come at me, bro" and Orc pride and all that.
He got resurrected only to be trapped by the Immortal Dreamstone in the next book.
...having been stopped by police thirty-something years ago because they thought I *might* have *gaming paraphernalia* (their words, not mine) and only dodging that bullet because I picked up a model plane kit that day rather than the D&D module I'd been planning on buying...
...Was there some law outlawing "game paraphernalia" on the books somehow? If not, what was their game plan, you think?
"This man is carrying perfectly legal materials! Cuff him!"
The jokes, of course, cover a huge violation of civil rights in the form of an illegal search anyway, but what can't you laugh at?
I like Oblivion better than Skyrim in a lot of ways, myself. If the base mechanics with how spells are cast/weapons used and better enemy scaling weren't in Skyrim I might still be playing Oblivion.
The DLC are pretty easy to find in Oblivion BTW. You get an announcement and it adds a quest when they load. The one for Shivering Isles is "The Door in Niben Bay" IIRC.
Please, please, please tell me that said GM doesn't have a character with the party.
About the only thing that could make this worse would be a badly-run GMPC.
$5 says the plan was for them to get their asses kicked by uber-pirate and then be pressganged into his crew, where they'd tag along on epic adventures and chronicle pirate man's success.
I started playing New Vegas again recently. Tale of Two Wastelands, to be specific. Started in Fallout 3 as the Vault's Chaplain (an occupation I've never gotten before, actually) and made a goody-goody sort of character.
Of course, this being the Wasteland, my character got worn down a bit. After making the hard decision to execute Doctor Lesko to prevent any further "mishaps" and having to kill a bunch of people to escape from Tranquility Lane (yeah, it freed them from their eternal torment, but I was still murdering them) followed by your dad's lack of sympathy or real concern for his son, I left the Capital Wasteland and became a Courier, hoping it would lead me away from unnecessary bloodshed.
Nine years later, we learn what a naive child Bellerophon (a name he assumed after he met his bestie Ulysses) was.
Just reached the Strip, plan to join the NCR. Have some business to settle with Benny before I leave, though.
