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Well if you want to be the best at [certain weapon type] you are probably a Fighter. At which point you are, for most of your career numerically better than any non-fighter with that weapon type and better than all other fighters who didn't pick that weapon type for levels 5-19.

If you pick another class then best at certain weapon wasn't actually the fundamental core of your character.

Right and I am a whopping +2 better than another player. That doesn't make me feel very special.

I understand that my build would be much more versatile than another not of the same focus. Sure I can do 50 things with my weapon and player B can do 2. But we both have virtually the same chance of success and THAT is what bothers me.

Optimizers can do better but they won’t be too much ahead of the rest.

This is the part that I have trouble with in 2E. I have been playing/running it for a bit and it is a fine game but certainly not my favorite. If I want to try and make the best "insert ability or character type here" that ever was I am maybe a few points ahead of the curve if I really try to nail it. Yes maybe I have more choices on how to achieve the goal. Sure I can swing my sword in 15 ways while that guy can only do 3 or 4 but the fact that mechanically he hits just as often makes me feel like my extra flair is pointless and just window dressing.

The "tight math" is what I really dislike about the new system.

This is a non-apology apology. You're shifting the blame of your offense onto others. You can play the game how you like, but when you play an adventure where you're tasked with saving goblins and you instead kill them because "they're goblins," people are going to call you out.

I honestly wasn't looking to offend anyone though. Also, I didn't realize I necroed the thread, I forgot to look at post dates. (facepalm)

@Arcaian Yeah, my first adventure I ever played was keep on the borderlands. Our DM just said, monsters live there, go get 'em.

You make a very good point though. In most adventures I have ever played the evil humanoids have been doing evil things. In this particular adventure it was not true. Allowing my players to get away with that behavior, even if it was in character for them, was mostly laziness on my part but still not excusable.

Clearly I cannot make a point here. My roleplaying background comes from almost 40 years of adventurers clearing dungeons, fighting orc hoards and saving villages from nearby evil humanoid encampments. I guess my group is not the kind to put real world morality in our game about being powerful adventurers looking to have fun fights and get cool gear.

If I offended people, I apologize. I am not saying any other play style is wrong. I, and my players, feel like expecting every drow to be a Drizzt and every sentient monster to be a potential ally muddles what is supposed to be a black and white escape from our everyday confusion.

My group in Extinction Curse is trying to redeem a Xulgoth. Not abduct him. Not brainwash him. Redeem him. He isn't even a default character, as far as I know. Just a random dude who we took the time to talk with and said "yo. we know you want to kill everyone because of this stuff your people have been told. some of it is true. most of it applies to only a very small number of people." We invited him to our circus and were like "you are safe here."

Treating people AS people is way more complex and deep than being a murderbot.

IF you are going to play that way, though: it should be with the intent of exploring the horror of evil acts committed in pursuit of good. It should be a critical look.

To be honest, my group still prefers a good dungeon crawl. We played a good way through the Slumbering Tsar mega dungeon before the DM had to stop due to scheduling issues.

Yeah. The sentient-species-as-irredeemable-evil is the laziest of approaches.

While I agree, we then need to remove the alignment portion of the bestiary template. Don't list something as LE, NE or CE if the GM and PCs are not supposed to see them as, well, evil.

Ok, to add some background info to my earlier post.

One of the PCs is a ranger whose father and older brother died during the goblin wars. He is the primary reason the goblins died in the first adventure (more on that in a moment). Another is a gnome alchemist who certainly didn't argue for their lives either (the hatred mechanic may be gone but the player highly doubts a whole species has forgiven and forgotten).

The PCs agreed to track Calmont but never agreed to contact the goblins. After they killed the lizard thing they could hear the goblins arguing above and the gnome and ranger lobbed oil and alchemist fire up to the are above. Calmont escaped injured and they found and captured him later.

When they returned to the town they had the halfling in tow and truthfully reported that they had no idea what had happened to the goblins (they never checked but I had already determined they were dead). One member of the council, Jorsk, never really trusted them after that.

They did all the tasks they elves had except the matchmaking as they discussed it and decided that if the two elves seem happy with their situation they were not comfortable interfering.

And yes, some goblins might be non-psychopaths but this is right from the bestiary:

While some goblins are civilized and have worked hard to be considered upstanding members of humanoid communities, most are impetuous and vicious creatures who delight in wreaking havoc. These goblins think nothing of slaughtering livestock, stealing infants, or burning down a building purely for momentary delight. They revel in playing malicious tricks on taller humanoids, whom they call “longshanks.”

The only orcs they killed were a random encounter in the jungle and I hadn't read anything in the adventure that said they were close allies of the elves. Maybe I missed something.

It's fair to be disappointed in a piece of work from a company when it fails to hit the mark. However, Paizo hits the mark FAR more reliably than other companies, recognizes when their customers are unhappy and work to improve the situation instead of staunchly refusing to acknowledge issues, and even when they miss the mark the result is still better than others.

Don't get me wrong, I love Paizo all the way back from when they took over the magazines.

I am just struggling to find characters that I want to play from a mechanical standpoint.

I was thinking of playing a witch but after reading this thread I don't think I will bother.

I keep hearing the argument, or maybe just a general sentiment/hope, that "they should get better with more supplemental material."

This is reminding me of all the times I want to get a new video game on release but then I read about how it is missing features or is buggy and everyone says "wait for the first few major patches and it will be great." I don't want Paizo to have to patch their classes before they become playable.

I don't have the GMG so I was unaware of the ABP. Yeah, that will fix my problem. We are currently level 8 and the fighter had a +1 flaming katana that the party pooled their resources to get. The rogue is currently just using twin +1 daggers.

The players were excited when they found a +1 striking greatsword (no one uses 2 handed though). When they transferred the rune to one of the rogue's daggers the rogue was a little upset that now the magic rune of destructive magic only added a d4 instead of a d12. He traded that dagger to the master smith that was upgrading the katana to help pay for it.

This is why I said they don't like them flavor-wise.

So, the designers worked hard at removing the big six because they didn't want mandatory magic item "taxes". Then why are striking runes and the assumption that weapon users have them, baked into the math of the game?

Thematically and flavor-wise my group hates them. Both the rogue and the fighter have yet to get one.

What are your thoughts on the necessity of these runes for anyone that plans on regularly using a weapon in combat?