Timespike's page

While I can certainly see the point of some of those who have complaints, I found the setting itself to be a very interesting and worthwhile thing (I picked it up over at RPGNow, then picked it up again in the free talk like a pirate day promotion, just because)

Anyway, it reminds me a bit of some of the small press RPGs like Burning Wheel in that the setting is largely implied rather than expressed. That's actually a cool thing, as far as I'm concerned, though if LPJ wants to release more material about the world, I'll likely pick it up. The core idea of the setting is a unique and refreshing departure from the typical fantasy RPG setting, and I think that's the thing I most appreciated about it. The designers seem to draw on Fallout, Mistborn (The Khymer seem like an homage to the Kandra), and zombie fiction rather than Lord of the Rings and Earthsea. That's pretty cool, in my book.

I can't condone going weaponless for any character of any class like you recommend. Even if it's just a non-magical mace, especially at low levels, you WILL run out of spells. At higher levels, you WILL encounter a dead-magic area. It's unconscionable to refuse to pack a weapon and make yourself completely useless in these situations.

I'd agree with the "prevailing wisdom" in here that ranger/alchemist seems the way to go. I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, but I wonder if maybe a few levels of psychic warrior wouldn't also be a good choice - the effects of the magic Geralt uses could be replicated that way, I'd think.

Another idea: Play a witch. You can heal party members, and a lot of the hexes are fantastic support effects for your allies or extremely troublesome debuffs for your enemies.

That party needs a primary caster in a bad way. Based solely on the needs of that group, I'd play a wizard or cleric, myself.

Some visual flavor ideas:

1. A shadowy figure in a tattered, hooded robe with a scythe (spend the feat. Why not?) and a raven familiar that serves as a "guardian of the crossroads"

2. A fairly normal-seeming guy who's an old sailor or something and has been known to curse people.

3. A stereotypical evil necromancer - black robes, bone fashion accessories, a sickle at his belt, etc.

4. A VERY normal-looking "royal falconer". Clean shave, short hair, tabard with the heraldry of someplace Not From Around Here (feel free to put whatever hidden symbolism you have in mind here!), a nice, functional dagger at his belt and a heavy falconer's glove. The hawk familiar completes the picture. Could either be a secret guardian or an insidious threat. Or both.

The pact magic books by Radiance House were both excellent. You could run an entire game based on nothing but pact magic and its affect on the world using those books, and it would be awesome. Also: the amount of crunch in there is staggering.

The Iron Kingdoms Character Guide and Liber Mechankia by Privateer Press were both fantastic. I loved the steam-fantasy elements there and have cannibalized a lot of that content (gun mages, warjacks, etc.) into my own setting.

I really liked the Holy and Unholy warrior classes that Green Ronin put out. A great take on the whole paladin "debate".

If your party already has primary divine and arcane casters, a Mystic Theurge can be a great "third caster". They won't be able to match the raw power of the Wizard/Sorcerer/Witch or Cleric/Druid/Oracle, but they should be at least as useful as a Bard/Inquisitor/Summoner. Probably more, because if you focus on utility and support spells, you can cast and cast and cast and CAST. Having two primary spellcasting classes worth of spellcasting to draw on means you have a LOT of magic up your proverbial sleeves every day.

The recession has finally caught up with me and my wife. Please cancel all of my subscriptions.

Thanks for the great game, everybody. When this was at its peak, it was so compelling my wife was reading it as fiction.

For Timespike, Kyran Semnir.

Great rendition! Almost exactly what I pictured. I like the detail around his collar and the stowed shield. He's constantly switching out what he's armed with depending on the situation, so that fits quite well. Thanks for the effort you put into this!

While I'm not going to argue for their inclusion (because you've asked me not to) it might be useful to understand why the Archmage, Blackguard, Dwarven Defender, Hierophant, Horizon Walker, and Thaumaturgist were cut, if you've got a minute. (I suspect the dwarven defender may be in a dwarf issue of Pathfinder Companion?) My curiosity is killing me.

Just on a very quick glance-through, I think the new dragon disciple is awesome. The actual spellcasting advancement is a good thing, but I wonder if it's maybe a bit too good? As it stands, a dragon-blooded sorcerer almost should take this PrC. Massive hit dice, all kinds of powers, access to all but level 9 spells, higher BAB... ...that's quite a list of toys. Still, I can't help but love it. So.. damn... cool...

I see what you're saying, but 'the long run' of a PBP game is very different from a table-top one. It took us 6 months to gain a level. It'll probably take longer to hit the next one. She needs to hit 4th level before she gets a new tier of spells, which may be more than a year away.

The way I see it, in a PBP, it's best to load up on the 'bottom level' of skills and spells, as that makes you more worthwhile as the game plays out.

But we're playtesting. Might it not be better to treat this as a tabletop game?

Fighter might be an interesting choice. Even a single level will give her a nice bump to her hit points, and being able to use a wider variety of weapons is always good. (She's also got a good number of potential teachers; Kyran, Umlo, Korpi, and, to a lesser extent, Grond and Devrin can all teach her to use weapons and/or armor) Even some padded armor is nice at low levels, and she could eventually pick up the arcane armor training/mastery feats from the beta. Weapon finesse and the +1 BAB would certainly give her a boost to hit, and since she's focusing on touch attacks, her less-than-stellar STR score won't be all that much of a detriment. If you stick it out with Sorcerer, though, you'll get a nice bloodline power at level 3. (Cold resistance is nothing to sneeze at. Ever since Frostburn came out, ice magic has been in, you know?)

Speaking of playtesting, that was an awesome first level. Ironically, it seems our worst enemy was gravity, or possibly poor bridge construction (got four of us at once!). I'm quite relived that if Devrin goes down again, I have the means to at least stabilize him now. Other than that, and reiterating that there are some absolutely awesome roleplayers in this little group, I've got nothing. First level of Pathfinder doesn't feel notably different from 3.5 or even 3.0, though I do like the new way of handling skills.

I'm liking the new paladin rules for lay on hands. Kyran actually winds up ahead of where he'd be under the old ones by 2 points/day. Just call me THE STABILIZER! If you want any real healing, you'll still need to look up the cleric.

Oh, that reminds me, he's leveled, including his Underwhelming Hit Die.TM Oh, well. At least under the new rules for favored classes that means he gets 5 hit points instead of 4...

[Edit: Scratch That. I'm taking the 4 HPs and giving him a rank in Sense Motive instead.]

I spent a skill point raising Diplomacy, one on a rank of Intimidate, one on a rank of Heal, one on a rank of Survival, and the last one went into a rank of Linguistics so I can talk with the dwarves and understand their cryptic bearded mutterings. Kyran's going straight paladin until at least level 4. Once he can cast Divine Sacrifice, I'll think about multiclassing into ranger. Then again, maybe not. Choices, choices.

I'll try to get second-level Kyran up tonight when I get home. Sorry it's taken so long, work has been something else lately.

Hey, go for it, Jade! Glad you guys like it so much. :)

Upon further review, you might want to take the second part as:

I beat you in da beating place

da beating place is in da face
I not care 'bout your creed or race
I just beat you in da face

or something similar when you record it.

If my memory serves (away from books at the moment) Ogres are even stupider than goblins. Proper grammar and enunciation might strain the suspension of disbelief. ;)

I voted. McCain.

My copy shipped, so I've got the PDF. Some quick observations:

The Golarion Solar System looks pretty interesting. Some interplanetary adventuring would be a blast for a future AP.

Paizo continues to make the scariest CR 1 monsters around. Akatas are really fearsome-looking. They're up there with reefclaws for "that can't possibly be CR 1!"

Thank you for the clarification. Sorry I got so close to the line; that was as much player uncertainty as anything else, so I appreciate you letting me "slide" as it were. I'm actually trying NOT to portray Kyran as one of those "gray" paladins that're tarnished and continually flirting with a fall; I want him to be a more straightforward, kind-hearted sort of character. As it stands right now, he's a bit dismayed that his party mates are so bloodthirsty. as for the speech above, he was actually trying to save Gogmurt's life with it, though the goblin couldn't know that. Be that as it may, if he shows up and hurts innocents again, Kyran will make good on his threat before he gets a chance to surrender.

Some that I've used:

Van Helsing "Journey to Transylvania" is my dedicated "fighting atop a moving train" music.

The Witcher A number of good ones in here.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest "The Kraken" is good fight music.

Jurassic Park Again, a number of good ones in here.

The Orange Box Fun!

Note that I feel compelled to add: Kyran's NOT going to consign a captive to a horrible fate, but he also realizes that fear is good at keeping goblins, who aren't known for their resolve, out of trouble. If Gogmurt does somehow make himself a pain, he'll get Umlo and Fern to help him decide what to do, but at that point, Gogmurt will likely be a combatant again and they'll just strike him down. Under no currently forseen circumstances will he tap Korpi's decision making abilities...

Timespike wrote:

Yeah. It seems odd to me that to some people LG = Imperium of Man (warhammer 40k). The Imperium of Man is LE if ever a society was such a thing. They are genocidal, brutal fanatics bent on conquest. How do you get LG out of that?

Anyone finding any faction in Warhammer 40,000 any flavor of Good is seriously doing it wrong. Hell, the closest thing they have is the Tau, and they're quickly racking up war atrocities(though they're still way behind the Imperium, who have made it an art form).

Also, don't forget Atticus Finch!

And man, that NPC supplement sounds terrible. I'm tempted to check it out out of morbid curiosity alone.

D'oh! You're right! If Atticus Finch isn't LG, I don't know who would be. The other example that always comes to mind for me is The Confessor. (Astro City: Confession)

Yeah; the 40k universe is basically LE (Imperium) vs. NE (Necrons) vs. CE (Chaos) vs. CE (Tyranids) vs. CE (Orks) vs. LN (Eldar) vs. NE (Dark Eldar) vs. N with SLIGHT good tendencies (Tau)

Just wanted to ask this:

Anyone here ever have trouble with DMs who demand that all LG types, especially Paladins, must be played as either morons or bigots and then penalize the player when they don't "get it right"?

Let me assure you, it gets real tired, real fast.

Yeah. It seems odd to me that to some people LG = Imperium of Man (warhammer 40k). The Imperium of Man is LE if ever a society was such a thing. They are genocidal, brutal fanatics bent on conquest. How do you get LG out of that?

To me some notable LG archetypes would be:

Honest Cop (Examples: Commissioner Gordon from Batman Begins/The Dark Knight)
Heroic Doctor (Example: Richard Jadick)
Virtuous Politician (Examples: King Arthur, Winston Churchill)
Compassionate Scholar (Example: the professor from The Chronicles of Narnia)
Noble Servant (Example: Alfred Pennyworth)
Righteous priest (Example: the monsigneur at the beginning of The Boondock Saints)

A couple of good fictional examples of characters who could be seen as paladins in D&D terms would be Solomon Kane and (humorously enough) Carrot Ironfondersson (Discworld). Either of these would be fine in any game I ran.

I really hate alignment in D&D and other games. Let's take something completely subjective and make it into objective crunchy bits!

Frankly I just play the damn game and if an action is good or evil it's no sweat off my snout.

Burning Wheel's beliefs & instincts or GURPS disadvantages seem better at modeling real behavior and would fit your criteria. ;)

I played in a d20 Modern campaign where we all played Roman Catholic priests that were part of a secret organization within the Vatican that basically did what Buffy did. It was interesting, because the usual carrots (money, babes, stuff, etc.) didn't apply to a bunch of dudes who had vows of chastity and charity and poverty.

We still managed to get into trouble, (my Jesuit surgeon actually had to do a ton of community service at one point!), but it was a really fun challenge to act good AND play in a game that was inherently violent. We couldn't kill innocents, obviously, but we also couldn't kill disarmed but really evil mortals either. We had a trio of nemeses that we HATED, but the one time we got the drop on them, we couldn't shoot them because they were unarmed. It was very frustrating, but in a good way. When the demons came out to play, we were able to pull out uzis out of our medical bags and go to town, but when it was possessed folks, or just common criminals, it was a bigger challenge because we had to be careful not to kill them.

That sounds like a fantastic game!

Here's my take:

In order to play a truly good character your PC must be capable of self-sacrifice. I'm talking pinnacle of good here; the ultimate standard. The sort of person that when the Archfiend says "If you don't kill this village I will kill this little girl," they say "That is on your head, not mine. Any you kill will be set free and our souls will be pure while yours remains tainted."

In the end, not the sort of stuff of a typical D&D campaign. The typical hero is at best a little bit selfish - they want to survive, they want to have the situation have the best outcome, and most of all they think in terms of the Material Plane. Going beyond that isn't really the concern of a player in most campaigns. It makes no difference if you are just blaze good or self-sacrificing good, so why make the extra effort?

In the end, there is no incentive to play a good character because it just feels boring. If you go all out you get no reward, so there are easier alignments to play.

Really? Because IMHO that kind of drama is what great gaming is made of, if handled right.

Timespike wrote:

And as far as the badass thing goes: Hogwash. I played a paladin in a Ravenloft game that was, I daresay, one of the most badass characters either I or any of the other players or GM have ever seen. Black armor, grim attitude, ferocious combat style, but also utterly selfless and almost suicidally brave. When there were innocents in danger or evil afoot, his own safety didn't matter to him at all. There were at least five or six times during the game where I thought "he can't possibly survive this" and he did. The guy was an absolute roadmap of scars by the end of the game, though.

That sounds like an incredibly awesome character! I would love to have a game with him around.

Yeah. He was an absolute blast. Probably my favorite PC ever. Oh, and the character in your avatar, Roy Greenhilt, is further evidence that Lawful Good can be absolutely badass, now that I think of it.

Inspired by Why Are People Reluctant To Play Clerics thread. (That and players.)

I have noticed a trend in my years of GMing and playing.

PCs usually range from unsavory to down right evil.

Is this because of a lack of understanding?
Is this because of desire to be "badass"?
Is this so they can play the popular anti-hero?
Is this because of villains are thought to have more fun?
Is this because it's easier?

In ending, why can't people play a whole group of f-ing good characters for once?

I don't give my players a choice. They have to play good PCs. That said, I've never even really had any complaints about it.

Personally, I find it very hard to play any alignment but Lawful Good as a PC, and I likewise tend to favor paladin and/or cleric characters (though I often toss in some levels of ranger, rogue, or swordsage to get some stealth in there). Playing evil or neutral characters makes me feel like I need a shower afterward. Playing chaotic characters is so far outside my own modes of thinking that I usually can't pull it off convincingly, or the character is mildly chaotic and overwhelmingly good.

Strangely, I have an easier time with neutral and evil characters as a GM. More detachment, maybe?

And as far as the badass thing goes: Hogwash. I played a paladin in a Ravenloft game that was, I daresay, one of the most badass characters either I or any of the other players or GM have ever seen. Black armor, grim attitude, ferocious combat style, but also utterly selfless and almost suicidally brave. When there were innocents in danger or evil afoot, his own safety didn't matter to him at all. There were at least five or six times during the game where I thought "he can't possibly survive this" and he did.* He was so intimidating to evil people that the GM actually houseruled his paladin's aura of courage into an archon's aura of menace. The guy was an absolute roadmap of scars by the end of the game, though. Hell, he started the game with some wicked facial scars from a wolfwere attack. (five parallel scars that ran from his left temple diagonally down and to the right across his face, finally terminating at this jaw on the right.)

*He fought off a small army of goblyns alone while defending an innocent peasant woman and child. He smashed an evil artifact he knew would explode (it did). He charged a squad of professional assassins. He challenged the Jongleur to a duel (and won). He picked a fight with a vampire in its lair. He fought through a mob of mind-controlled slaves with his bare hands when they had no such restriction (he didn't want to hurt them, but he killed the hell out of the being controlling them) he climbed a wall of razor-sharp crystals with a passenger he didn't know whether he could trust or not on his back.

Its standard in PF RPG, as it stands now and it isn't changed, for undead to get their Cha bonus for hit points.

I can never remember the name, but there is an OGL feat from the Tome of Horrors III from Necromancer games that give this ability to undead in 3.5.

Death's Blessing.

umm what book is unholy toughness in? That sounds like a good ideal.

also In the game I will be using it in most undead cant cross salt, and salt also injures them. Since thats a world thing though I left it out.

glad ya liked it been in my head since I came up with the name. My players are gonna just love it.

Unholy toughness is only on Closed WotC monsters. So come up with a new term. Graveborn resilience, maybe?

I like the idea of grave knights. Sounds more powerful and less cheesy than death knight anyway.

A paladin who chooses the lesser of two evils though with good intentions is still choosing EVIL, is he not?

I've never bought the catch-22 approach. If the paladin is in such a situation through no fault of his own (if he got there through arrogance or bad judgment, it's a different story) I can't see a deity stripping him of his paladinhood.

But (going out on a limb here and playing gamer personality sage) since you picked Cheliax as your PFS faction, I imagine the idea of a paladin is ridiculous and/or abhorrent to you, and you'd see them falling as inevitable, appropriate, or both. (I could easily be wrong, of course.)

Here's how I do it:

If a paladin has to chose the lesser of two evils and does so with good intentions, he's probably fine. Working with the evil guy to escape would be perfectly acceptable. Besides, the final arbiter of the paladin's paladinhood is his deity. If the deity would act in a similar manner, the paladin's doubly okay.

This also means that paladins of different deities act VERY differently.

The paladins of Myrtain (LN), god of retribution, are scary people. They will kick in your door without warning, very roughly take you into custody, and haul you off to be hanged. If you resist, they will take you down savagely and without pity, fighting VERY dirty and brutally. (When you get kicked in the groin by a paladin, you know you're up against Myrtainians...) They are hard, forceful, and more than a little ruthless. They don't care if you can be redeemed. You did wrong, and you'll face the consequences of your actions, dammit. Most evildoers actively fear them, because they are a bit terminator-like. However, in order to attract Myrtainians, you have to be worse than "pedestrian" evil. A dishonest, price gouging merchant, common thief, local bully, or similar petty nuisance isn't going to get any resources diverted his way, though if they present themselves as a tempting enough target of opportunity, individual Myrtainians may do something (usually of the intimidation variety). A serial killer, demon cultist, or rapist, on the other hand, is hosed.

By contrast, the paladins of Essellos (CG, and the only CG deity with LG paladins), goddess of redemption, will reason with, cajole, and attempt to subdue without harm most enemies. Their high priestess is a redeemed erinyes devil, so they take this very seriously. They use deadly force only in defense of themselves or innocents, and even then, they prefer to cripple or knock out foes. They do this because they want to get them back to the holding area in the temple where they can be shown that there is indeed another way.

This doesn't even touch the gods of Harmony, Purification, Courage, Protection, Magic, Competition, Fate, Judgment, etc.

Lawful Good is a very diverse alignment with lots of room for subtlety. Different deities will see it in vastly different ways, and so will their agents.

Korgoth wrote:

Wow, it's been a while. With the wall of force, Stormwrack has rules on ramming ships, so I would use some variant of it. I'm pretty sure one of my old DMs used that same trick on us a while back. If the PCs keep dropping mass heals on your undead baddies, try life ward from the spell compendium. It's death ward for undead, basically. I think there might also be a spell where both positive and negative energy heals you, but don't quote me on that.

There is a binder's vestige that does that. Azerbaijin or whoever. The demi-lich from Tomb of Horrors.

Acererack, I believe. The word you used is covered by Knowledge(real-world geography). ;)

Some other tricks (some of this gets pretty "mature" in nature, so use at your peril; I haven't used all of these myself for that very reason):

+1 level of warrior has no effect on CR, but raises BAB by one, which can give an extra iterative attack.

By devoting your evil NPCs to an elder evil, they get bonus vile feats at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. I do this with a LOT of my baddies.

Identically-uniformed enemies with different capabilities and mirror image spells can wreak untold amounts of chaos, as the PCs frantically try to figure out which one of the masked figures they're fighting keeps casting stilled spells at them. Dwarves are GREAT for this. A party of dwarves can have a melee character, a fighter1/wizard 5/runesmith 1/whatever x, a cleric, and a fighter/rogue all dressed in identical dwarven fullplate using waraxes and tower shields. Which one's the healer? Which one's the guy sneak attacking me? Which one's the REAL tank?!

Don't be afraid to use monsters or villains that compliment each other. I have a mercenary unit called the Scorched in my homebrew setting. They're fire mages who use brass men (Tome of Horrors 2, page 20) as security. Brass men are healed by fire damage, and are otherwise fairly typical CR 7 golems (high DR, immune to most magic, etc.) The same brass men would be great ground forces for a pair of red dragons with some good metabreath feats.

Legion devils and carnage demons get more effective the more of them are around.

If your bad guys are both evil and pragmatic, they'll quickly realize that because the PCs aren't evil, any innocents in the area are now a valuable tactical resource. Human shields, fell animated AoE spells, even mob-style kidnapping and murder all become valid tactics.

Are any of your PCs undead or constructs? If not, they need to rest some time. So don't let them. Have villains hit them every two hours like clockwork as they try to rest for DAYS at a time. Thought you'd be able to just rest and recharge? Think again. The undead ninja death squad might not have killed you, but the cleric's running out of healing spells and the wizard is down to scrolls, and they just keep coming. If you have undead and/or construct PCs, they've got their own vulnerabilities, and when they're used as overwatch, they can be exploited. A summoner with greater invisibility is the party's worst nightmare in this case, especially if said summoner is a sorcerer. The summoner can dog them for a LONG time, or even trade off with another one or two buddies and just keep them ragged before the "real" attack shows up. No XP for summoned creatures, either. Sneaking past the sentry and attacking sleeping PCs also works.

Terrorist tactics are both despicable and effective. Use hit and-run (or teleport away) tactics with AoE spells in crowded areas. Snatch people important to the PCs and mail them body parts. Have enemies surrender and then explode when the PCs move to capture. (The various "cyst" spells from Libris mortis work well for this)

When PCs fight fiends, have the fiends get their help from time to time.

Use the environment to your advantage. Make them fight devils in a lava field or water creatures in a hurricane or flooded area. Having to fight biting aquatic things in chest-deep water at night should give them the willies enough to hamper their tactical skill somewhat.

Trapping them in underground tunnels that are flooding QUICKLY should also induce no small amount of fear. Being drowned deep underground where none of your allies will ever find you to bring you back is a terrifying and ignominious death.

Villains are RUTHLESS. Coup de grace maneuvers should be a normal part of any bad guy's fighting repertoire.

All of this said: your success as a GM is not measured in PC body count. It's measured in how much FUN everybody is having. If your players are enjoying themselves and you're enjoying yourself, you've got a good game.

Thank you. :)

It's refreshing that great customer service is a given for Paizo.

Is charged for the low cost UPS shipping in the total and is declared as standard shipping in the email and summary. Which way is it going, and if it's going USPS instead of UPS, can I just apply the shipping cost difference ($2.99) to Pathfinder 14 when it ships?

What is a legion devil? Where is it from? One of the Codices?

Fiendish codex II: tyrants of the nine hells.

And the aim isn't to force a TPK. That's no fun. It's intended to make the PCs go "HOLY [CENSORED]! We've really ticked some people off!"

My answer to all "My PCs are killing everything!" threads: legion devils. Lots and lots of legion devils. Or, alternatively, a smaller number of legion devils with multiple levels of crusader each, and focusing on devoted spirit and white raven maneuvers & stances. That will give your PCs pause. Throw in a new villain, some kind of hellish general, who uses them, if need be.

And then there's the "evil ambush" tactic. Your villains, who by this time know who the PCs are, send a team of experts to deal with them while they're in a busy city on some errand. This also utilizes legion devils.

Phase 1: The team gets into place, using stealth and/or stealth enhancing magic. The snipers use their true strike abilities (items, probably). Expert 9, disguised as a merchant who has something the PCs REALLY want, gets their attention, drawing them all into a tight cluster in the middle of the intersection.
Phase 2-surprise round: As the PCs enter the busy intersection, preferably one they share with a large number of innocent people, the first four experts put up walls of force to block the four streets of the intersection and number five blasts the largest crowd of people he can see with a fell-animated, moilian fireball. That should create a mob of horribly-burned zombies that will attack the PCs. (This expert is an accomplished necromancer and has all of the corpsecrafter feats, so these zombies explode in secondary blasts of negative energy when killed. The remaining three experts fire +3 unholy collision crossbow bolts poisoned with wyvern toxin or something even nastier at the three most obvious spellcasters in the group. (at a +20 bonus, thanks to true strike)
Phase 3-first round: The necromancer casts a quickened summon undead V spell followed up by a summon monster spell of the highest level he can cast. Experts 6, and 7 drop into the intersection to engage. Experts 1 and 2 do the same thing. Experts 3 and 4 cast additional walls of force, sealing the "floor" and "ceiling" of the intersection. Expert 8 drinks a potion of invisibility and moves out of the direct line of fire to replenish the legion devil HP pool as needed.
Phase 4-second round: experts 1 and 2 cast additional summoning spells and then move to engage. Expert 5 casts divine power. The 3 legion devil crusaders rush the PCs with poisoned weapons.
I think you can take it from there. At this point, the PCs are trapped in a sealed box with a whole bunch of enemies, and more getting summoned in all the time. If they manage to dispel a force wall, the two remaining mages on the roofs hold their actions and put in a summon spell before closing the box again.

Experts 1 and 2: Human Fighter 1/Wizard 5/eldritch knight 2/abjurant champion 4
Experts 3 and 4: Human Wizard 4/sorcerer 1/ultimate magus 7
Expert 5: Human Cleric 5/Master of Shrouds 7(spell and deathbound domains; weak will and shaky flaws, corpsecrafter, fell animate, DMM fell animate, quicken spell, Hardened Flesh, Tomb-Tainted Soul, Destruction retribution, nimble bones
Experts 6, 7, and 9: Legion Devil crusader 6
Expert 8: Legion devil favored soul 6

EVERYBODY in this team has tomb-tainted soul. It allows expert 5 to toss around negative energy at will and use his exploding negative energy suicide zombies as a healing burst for his allies as well as a way to attack his foes. Expert 8 will stay outside the walls of force and ruthlessly exploit the legion devils' hit point pool with repeated castings of healing (in this case, inflict; tomb-tainted soul, remember?) spells once it gets low. That means that the source of all of the hit points for the legion devils is beyond the PCs' reach behind a wall of force, and thanks to the legion devils' shared hit point pool, until the pool gets emptied, they're all staying up. That's

Thought begets Heresy; Heresy begets Retribution!

Innocence proves nothing!
Burn the heretic!
Kill the mutant!
Purge the unclean!

Admittedly this may not work with some games.

The one sticking point on the no-association thing for me is that it can make some paladins seem pretty wishy-washy on the whole redemption thing. Redemption is rarely a quick and easy process, and a paladin that cleaves closs to the associate rule can seem quick to give up and consider someone a lost cause that they would otherwise stay beside and try to pull towards good.

Of course a paladin shouldn't be expected to keep working with Mickey Murdersalot, but I'm not referring to those extreme cases.

It's never a good idea to think of the Imperium of Man as anything but evil. (Lawful evil, to be sure).

In what will probably be the first and last recommendation you'll ever see out of me for a Mongoose product, there's a section in the back of Quintessential Paladin II that deals with The Paladin Code. It gives you 21 different things to consider and rate from 0 to 3 on. (0 being the most lenient; about what one could expect from a normal good adventurer, 3 being the strictest; sometimes ludicrously so, and there is a detailed description of what each rating means) all paladin codes should add up to at least 15, with 25 signifying a strict code. I went through and rated all 12 of the paladin orders in my homebrew setting, and the strictness rating went from 15 (paldins of the the very pragmatic gods of Harmony, Retribution, and Fate) to a staggering 37 (the dragon emperor of Sentoria's personal guard). I'd highly recommend that book to anybody who gets a lot of stickiness and/or arguments out of the paladin code. It's a steep $15.39 at RPGnow, but I imagine one can find a dead tree edition much cheaper than that at an FLGS or online retailer if one does some looking.

Timespike wrote:

Paul Watson wrote:

Papa-DRB wrote:

Zootcat wrote:

Threeshades wrote:

Mindflayers, Beholders and Yuan-Ti are copyrighted

and Displacer Beasts and Umber Hulks

and Githyank and Githzeri (sp?)

And the Grell

Carrion crawlers and Slaad, too.

okay its a few more than i thought... but its still the minority. And from what i heard of paizo, they'll find worthy replacements.

Ya think? :) I don't miss gith, slaad, grell, yuan-ti, displacer beasts, or umber hulks; I never used them anyway. And mindflayers and beholders are easily replaced with other aberrations. Most of my bad guys are some form of humanoid, anyway.

I run pretty high-powered games, and I don't bother with point buy or rolling dice. You get 18, 18, 16, 14, 13, 10. Put 'em where you want 'em, slap on your racial modifiers and let's play already.

Saern wrote:

Timespike wrote:

Besides, it's much easier than that. Legion devils, man. Legion devils. Throw six of those at the players and watch them run like hell. They'll all have +28 to hit with those longswords they use, PLUS flanking bonuses, and unlike most creatures, you can't just pick one or two off to ease up the pressure, because they share hit points in a big ol' pool. If that still isn't hard enough, just give the legion devils crusader levels...

Ah, yes. I remember fondly the spit-take I almost took when I read their stat block....

I passed over them when I was looking for devils to challenge my lvl 8 group - If I had taken a Troop of those (CR 9), this would have been a nasty encounter, with a total +36 attack bonus for each creature, and 152 hp for the bunch. The individual damage might not be that high, but nearly every attack would be a hit. Nice hint!

Stefan

Oh, and don't disregard the crusader levels! Having strikes that increase the whole group's attack bonus, or replenish that hit point pool will make them even nastier. Pretty much anything from the devoted spirit and/or white raven disciplines will do the trick.

neceros wrote:

Timespike wrote:

Besides, it's much easier than that. Legion devils, man. Legion devils. Throw six of those at the players and watch them run like hell. They'll all have +28 to hit with those longswords they use, PLUS flanking bonuses, and unlike most creatures, you can't just pick one or two off to ease up the pressure, because they share hit points in a big ol' pool. If that still isn't hard enough, just give the legion devils crusader levels...

Ahem. Well, my paladin sorcerer could potentially have an ac twice as high as your to hit. :)

The best thing to do to a munchkin is:
1. Tell him he's being a jackhole.
2. If that doesn't work, enforce a one splat book per player rule. Core + one book only. Works wonders.

Your second option also works well as a litmus test. Have a new player and want to see if they are a munchkin? Say "core+1 only" and if they get upset you probably have a munchkin.

I don't think I'd ever do that to a player. If they're playing, for instance, a paladin, I see no reason why they can't use (for instance) complete warrior, the book of exalted deeds, complete champion and complete divine. All of those are tailored to the specific type of character they're playing. A paladin with power attack, divine might, improved shield bash, divine shield, battle blessing, resounding blow, awesome smite, and quell the profane isn't game-breaking at all, but it sure would be fun to play.

I've found it's best to just make players show me what they're doing and approve it.

Then again, my bad guys tend to be pretty nasty, too.

veector wrote:

Some have suggested it will kill the boards because the CharOp guys will somehow ruin the feel of the game. I need this explained to me I guess.

I think a lot of it stems not from CharOptimization itself, but from the tone that a certain minority of self-proclaimed CharOp "experts" insist on posting in: snide, condescending, passive-aggressive, and in general as annoying as humanly possible. Nobody wants that tone around here.

Wait second!

I was a semi-regular over in the CharOp boards and I was helpful and courteous (I actively strove for it). I even put together some humongous reference threads that took up a LOT of time to make people's lives easier (a compiled list of "looking to mix X with Y? Then these prestige classes will be useful" and a thread that catalogued and rated substitution levels and alternate class features.) Not everybody who hung out there was nasty.

Papa-DRB wrote:

Zootcat wrote:

Threeshades wrote:

Mindflayers, Beholders and Yuan-Ti are copyrighted

and Displacer Beasts and Umber Hulks

and Githyank and Githzeri (sp?)

And the Grell

Carrion crawlers and Slaad, too.

Two can play at the optimizing game, and as I have something like 200 d20 products to draw on in print alone, and as I'm the GM none are banned or restricted...

Besides, it's much easier than that. Legion devils, man. Legion devils. Throw six of those at the players and watch them run like hell. They'll all have +28 to hit with those longswords they use, PLUS flanking bonuses, and unlike most creatures, you can't just pick one or two off to ease up the pressure, because they share hit points in a big ol' pool. If that still isn't hard enough, just give the legion devils crusader levels...

If you take barbarian at level 1, you're a barbarian. Illiterate, savage, and so on. I've always figured that characters who take it later have tapped into some reserve of inner rage they had and just kinda... ...snapped.

Timespike, I am so digging what you are saying that I had to go read your profile and your blog.

Here is my perspective...
I have my own children to raise and I will not make it my job to even attempt to teach another adult how to act like a decent person. The "Golden Rule" is in affect at all times. If they do not have themselves under some modicum of control then they must go away.

Thanks! I hope you found at least some of it interesting. I don't even have children, but I have a similar attitude. If the player doesn't care about the fun of the other people at the table*, or just doesn't care, period, that's bad. It's also worth noting that a bad roleplayer isn't always "bad people," it's just that gaming, or gaming with your group, may not be for them. I have some friends that I like as friends but won't game with any more.

*Which is really what most behavior classified under "munchkin," "power gamer," and/or "rules lawyer" falls under. There is something much more important to that player than their fellow players having fun, whether they realize it or not. There's a great episode of the Sons of Kryos podcast (episode 55) that deals with that. Jeff, Judd, and Storn may not be the final authority on all things game theory, but I'd at least put them in the same category as Monte Cook, Robin Laws, Luke Crane, and John Wick.

No, optimizing and playing powerful characters is not the part that some people need to grow out of. it's the "all about me" mentality that seems to go hand-in-hand with it on occasion. i'm perfectly aware that some people can create awesome characters, role-play them well and fit in (I have one in my group), but what happens if one person makes an "optimized" super character when the other three players don't (either because they aren't as mathamatically and strategically minded or because they choose not to), and the DM hasn't planned for it. now you have one character doing everything and running roughshod over the entire campaign. the one guy may be having fun, but the other 4 aren't. at this point he has two options, assuming he's been approached by the DM about it. he can either chalk it up to "suck it up. this is my playing style and everyone will just have to deal", or he can take one for the team, sacrifice some of his own awesomeness so that now everyone can have some fun. That's growing up.

There's another option: make it part of the story. If you have one combat god, and a couple of competent and heroic, but obviously less-powerful characters, why not call it what it is and work with it. Unless you're playing a supers game (or Mage: The Ascention which is essentially the same thing) the odds that Mr. or Ms. Wargod can be in more than one place at a time are slim indeed. Let them keep enemies busy while the other go sneak off and do something else while he's kicking ass, and just switch back & forth between Mr. Stomp and the rest of the party. Or, have him captured and make the others rescue him. (If it sounds like I'm speaking from experience, I am.) There's a lot you can do with that set of circumstances as long as everybody buys in.

joela wrote:

Joseph Silver wrote:

Seriously.

Us CharOp regulars in the 4E forums do a very good job of finding "bugs" in the system. In our quest to build the most powerful characters, we expose the hard-to-find loopholes and flaws in the rules that the playtesters missed.

So how about it, almighty moderators? Can we have a CharOp forum for Pathfinder?

Need? Nah. Want? Sure. I can always use new monsters to hurl at my unoptimized PCs.

Do CharOps forums encourage a 'DM versus players' arms race which destroys some games?

I think if that happens, you've got bigger problems than an optimization board.

Actually, the more I tried to talk to him and tell him my side of it the more he said it was me and I was a bad DM who couldn't roll with what his players threw at him. Since I wrote the last response, I've decided to not invite them back and have found new players on the Atlanta MeetUps D&D group. He really pissed me off by saying, "A good DM should be able to handle what his players throw at him and roll with it. But thats just coming from someone who's played for 30 years." Real classy, douche.

Response: "A good player works with the GM to create a fun experience for everyone at the table. But that's just coming from someone with manners, social skills, and a grasp of gaming theory that goes beyond 'I hit it with my sword'."