Tribalgeek's page

I would say that if you are going to play the playtest keep the ancestries the same, and see what they do down the road. If they wind up still not being to your guy's liking when the full thing comes out then house rule away.

I say this only because the play test is meant to test what's been put out if you start house ruling it the feedback you can give about it isn't as useful.

I think this could have been a great idea to have feedback of people who create their own adventures to see if the rules for creating monsters are good and balanced.

I stopped playing pathfinder since i couldn't get the monster building rules. I'm not the kind of DM who just throw around stats and magically get a well done monster and balanced for the encounter i plan.
And i was waiting 2E with impatience to see how it works as Starfinder did a really good job with it and i'm really disapointed they didn't put it in playtest...

Unchained has monster building rules in there.

In addition to what other people have said Vic Wertz has come out and said that they will be getting an accessibility version of the play test pdf out.

I would be very surprised if they did. Unless they need to test the monster building rules specifically they probably don't want to add more variables that could throw off the results of things they want to test.

I still haven't even been able to get to the surveys keeps taking me back to the main play test page.

Considering they have admitted that a couple things not being there, like everyone being trained in unarmored defense I would expect this a case of it's supposed to be there but is missing and we will get it back in the first errata.

I appreciate all these handy guidelines and once i have finished the book and run the games i will use them.

I would like to know one thing though when it comes to giving feedback.

In regards to the playtest, are the new player and GM guidelines part of the things that we are expected too, and can give feedback on?

Last thread I made in this got blocked and many post(i didn't think were offending) were deleted. A thread by another user descended into a flame war and was deleted.

And if those guidelines are part of the playtest, how do you suggest we give feedback without running the risk that mods lock down threads or label any feedback political?

The reason I'm asking is because I play in and run groups that will display behavior that is prohibited by the new guidelines (edgy humor racist tropes, s~+@ talking, talking down IC) and i'm wondering if enforcing these new guidelines (Since they are much more explicit than the old ones) was expected to be part of the playtest.

Jobe I think you are reading too much into certain parts about it while missing other parts.

The important part is that everyone playing with you is having fun. If your group enjoys the way you play there's nothing stopping you guys from playing the way you already do and more importantly as long as everyone at the gaming table is having fun there's nothing wrong with it.

Is there a good way to transform the PDF to lighter text on a dark background, to reduce eye strain? Has anyone found a method?

I'm partially blind, and work on computers during the week (not a smart decision, I know, but I can set adaptions on my work computer, if it makes sense). The playtest PDF has wonderful language, but it's hard to read more than a few pages at a time without pain.

Enabling Accessibility in my PDF Editor/Viewer gives me this.

I would convert it to a Word Doc and adjust it then, but my computer goes boom, given the size of the document.

Any advice?

I may resort to slicing it into smaller files, and re-rendering it then, but if someone's found a method, I'd rather try that, first. Converting to DOC can rearrange text, unintentionally.

Just to let you know they are working on an accessibility version of the pdf. I think Vic said it should be up in a couple days and I saw that post yesterday. So I would say by Monday or Tuesday they should have one out that hopefully works better for you.

I'm guessing it will be avail 8/7

Anyone else think the Rogue Multiclass Archetype is unbelievably weak? Like, laughably so?

You only get 1d6 sneak attack, ever, and only with agile and finessable weapons, and that's if you spend the dedication feat and another feat.

Meanwhile Wizard multiclassing can get up to 8th level spells?

So to get sneak attack through the multiclass feats you need to take 2 feets. To get up to 7th level spells for wizard you need 4 feats and to be legendary in arcana.

This tells me 2 things the first is that likely these aren't the full extent of the rogue multiclass feats, and 2 if you spend 4 feats you are going to get a bigger pay off than spending 2.

mach1.9pants wrote:

I'm wondering if this lack of ways to break out of the standard tropes is on purpose, to narrow the focus of the playtest, it makes it easier to test narrow rules. The problem is tho, pathfinder has so long been about options (millions of them when you add in third party) that players will focus on what they've lost rather than trialling the chassis. If this is the case Paizo would do well to explicitly state this, in HUGE letters, somewhere.

They mentioned that about multi classing, only core four given, but I think it applies throughout the rules

I'd be very relieved if this were true. I sincerely hope it is. I'm not at all positive that's the case, however. They said that pretty explicitly on the Multiclass Archetypes. Nothing remotely similar has been mentioned in regards to Signature Skills.

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Side note: I screwed up an example above Fighters do have Crafting as a Signature Skill. Dunno how I missed that. The general point still applies, however.

I'm going out on a limb a little bit by saying this, but my expectation is that yes they are limiting our options to allow more focused testing.

Why do I expect that? Because they specifically said they are giving us limited options at this time for things like multi classing.

I have the pdf so when I need to make a token of someone specific or a creature I just can't find I use the windows snipping tool, and then token maker to make my tokens.

Paladin, doesn't get much better than that for an AP full of undead and evil people. So many smite opportunities, plus if you don't trade it away your immunity to fear will be a big help.

I have a hard time feeling bad for some of the complaints about the new eidolons mostly because the specifics are what people are complaining about.

"I can't do this the exact same way/the way I want to anymore so it's bad."

Pathfinder/Dnd has never been a game where you could make everything, some concepts just don't work with the base rules, it happens. Re flavoring Fluff can help.

I like the changes I actually might build a summoner now, I can actually look at these and go hey now I get a pet and the ability to make it better as I level instead of getting this shapeless blob and trying to come up with something that isn't the same pounce machine as every other eidolon you hear about.

Rynjin and Kudaku wrote:

Stuff about tiers

Are there any official or standardized description of these tiers?

Nope they started on the old 3.5 boards as a way of ranking how powerful/useful a particular class was.

It really comes down to wizards at the top rogues and monks at the bottom.

Snorb wrote:

5. SMAAAAASH! Hit: In ye olden days, a fighter could take a -5 penalty to an attack roll made with a two-handed melee weapon. If he still hits his target, the lucky fighter adds his Strength score to his damage in addition to his Strength modifier and weapon damage.

I don't recall that one. What edition was that?

That really gives a whole new meaning to Power Attack Full

Because I have a gnome in the party I can throw.

Tribalgeek wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Tribalgeek wrote:

I kind of want to see the actual text of Greater Feint's Stamina ability, because if it is only until your next attack it is actually worse than the base feat itself.

It was paraphrased correctly, and its use depends on your situation and what actions you have on a round by round basis, since it's a swift action, not a move (for instance, it's great for the round when you move up to a target and thus don't have your move action).

I can see it being used in that case, but what I want to know is if you can choose between the stamina version and the non stamina version even when you don't have to spend stamina.

Ah, I see. You may misunderstand the way the stamina system works, my friend: If you have a stamina pool, you gain access to a shiny new way to use each of your combat feats, which usually costs stamina. But you still have all the other effects of the feat too.

All is well then thanks for clearing it up for me.

Tribalgeek wrote:

I kind of want to see the actual text of Greater Feint's Stamina ability, because if it is only until your next attack it is actually worse than the base feat itself.

It was paraphrased correctly, and its use depends on your situation and what actions you have on a round by round basis, since it's a swift action, not a move (for instance, it's great for the round when you move up to a target and thus don't have your move action).

I can see it being used in that case, but what I want to know is if you can choose between the stamina version and the non stamina version even when you don't have to spend stamina.

I kind of want to see the actual text of Greater Feint's Stamina ability, because if it is only until your next attack it is actually worse than the base feat itself.

There's a werewolf ap?

Seriously guys, let it go this tastes like trolling.

The still being MAD is disappointing to me. Otherwise I think the new would actually be playable, maybe not what everyone wanted, but playable.

Yeah I think that's what everyone is really waiting with baited breath on is the monk still going be to be very MAD?

At least some if not all subscribers have their pdf's now and are leaking info into the unchained thread, that being said I haven't seen anything real informative about the monk.

Could someone give an example of the new poison system?

I gave up very quickly. They were okay with the monk hitting less, doing less damage, having to be a magic item to not be MAD, and thought only having the UC stuff as decent archtypes was okay. There was no convincing that group of anything.

The rogue is fine. You just suck as a player for not realizing this.

I got told that as far as the monk goes the other day.

As far as the open carry link: Most of the country considers it illegal to open carry unless you are an officer or agent of the government. And even some places where it is legal to open carry (like my home state of Michigan) you will still be arrested for doing so. You will probably either be held and released with a warning or charged with disturbing the peace.

I think maybe only in Texas or Arizona can you open carry and the police won't care. Hmmm also probably states like Montana or Wyoming would view open carry without concern.

There's actually more states than you think that allow open carry. Texas isn't currently one of them. I know it's not what you picture when you think of the south.

Hell California allows open carry. That being said there is a big difference between openly carrying a pistol on your hip, and walking around in what would be equivalent to what the swat team wears to raid a house.

So the simple fact of going everywhere armed would be nuts.

As long as the players are having fun I'm usually having fun. It sucks when they just blow through what should be a challenging encounter, and can be a bit of a downer for me. I don't mean when they overcome a fight with less difficulty than I thought they would, I'm talking about one hitting the boss of an ap book.

To that end the only fights I really worry about ever making sure live up to what they should be are the ones that are supposed to be challenging. Boss fights should be boss fights, they shouldn't result in character deaths, but they should require strategy and use a good chunk of party resources.

I wonder if Shadow Strike will be given to the rogue so human rogues can shank people in dark alleys without spending a feat.

Also a rather random question that probably won't be able to be answered until after the book is out but...
with the new eidolon base forms being outsiders instead of random hodgepodge, what would Balazar's (iconic summoner) eidolon based on? Protean?

Protean

Buri Reborn wrote:

Xethik wrote:

Unpublished/beta. I believe spells like level 2 Haste were added late into the cycle. The summoner was not originally intended to have access to 9th level spells in disguise, just the summoning ones from full casters.

I didn't realize Antipathy, Dominate Monster, and Teleportation Circle were so game breaking one whole level earlier than a wizard.

My thoughts exactly, I never saw their spell list as game breaking in any form. So Haste is a little cheaper as a potion now, whoop dee doo. That few hundred GP is really so game breaking

I think the problem only really came in when people used shenanigans to get that spell added back to their list early. I never looked at the summoner spell list enough to see where that problem might come from.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Lemmy wrote:

You aren't "fixing" the Fighter by adding super long feat chains, are you?

Nah. But wouldn't it be cool to get more out of taking those existing super long chains if you're willing to shell out the feats for them? Because I think so!

For me, maybe in theory, but no, not so much in practice, as the more feats there are, the more opportunities there are for the feats to not fit together well, get misinterpreted, to get passed over in comparing relative strength and weakness in comparison to other feats, or to just be duds.

In addition, having long feat chains can make establishing changes in one feat in the chain require considerable more complexity by way of how it interacts with other feats in the chain. The crane style feats are one example of what I speak of.

Not to mention how long it can take to get to some of those feats. If you're not going to be able to realistically complete the chain by twelfth level it's to long.

Okay that preview really makes me want to see the book.

I'm not saying we don't need labels, it's how we use them that is the problem, that we boil people down to just that label instead of person. People as a whole are more than just one thing, labels help inform us of who they are, but a person isn't just one label they are many.

Claxon wrote:

Tribalgeek wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I'm confused about this situation.

From what I understand in order to have genderless or mutable gender wouldn't we need new races that have a backstory that supports such?

I mean we have cis, and we have trans. We have male, female, hermaphroditic.

So I'm not sure what exactly your talking about.

Nonbinary are like trans in the way that the body they were born with doesn't represent their gender. For some they see themselves as both male and female at different times. So a new race wouldn't need to be built.

So, as I understand then, the desire is to have a person who doesn't specifically self identify as cis or trans or male or female but "shifts" between all these?

Now, I'm not opposed to being opened to stuff. But this seems overly foisting of PC-ness. To be honest, I can't even tell you who the gay or straight iconics are. The only 1 know to be different really is Shardra. I really don't want gender or sexuality to be the focus of any of these characters. So I guess I'm not that personally interested.

I don't know. I feel like this comes off rude, but I'm not trying to be. I'm just not sure we need to cover absolutely every combination of the sexuality and gender spectrum.

They exist in the real world, why is making them exist in a fictional one "over-fostering PC-ness"?

You are making a pretty big jump from "have a character that is genderless" to "genderless is the focus of their character". Valeros being a cisgender male certainly isn't the "focus of his character". My ex-partner's genderfluidness certainly isn't the "focus of their life".

This underlying assumption that including an important a character that is not heterosexual/not cisgender suddenly makes it a "gay story" is far more more dangerous than those people that picket funerals because it is insidious: you say you're not "opposed" to the idea and immediately follow that by saying that "It isn't necessary".

That just...

People turn it into the focus though, whether they be for it or against it. It sucks, that it's going to be what that iconic would be boiled down to, but people on both sides of the fence are going to do it.

Every time something is done if something stands out as not average about that person it's going to be the focus, whether it be religion, gender, orientation. We as a species like putting labels on things, and when the label is what stands out that is quickly what something becomes just the label.

I'm confused about this situation.

From what I understand in order to have genderless or mutable gender wouldn't we need new races that have a backstory that supports such?

I mean we have cis, and we have trans. We have male, female, hermaphroditic.

So I'm not sure what exactly your talking about.

Nonbinary are like trans in the way that the body they were born with doesn't represent their gender. For some they see themselves as both male and female at different times. So a new race wouldn't need to be built.

I'm a bit conflicted I like what paizo is doing with the iconics so that they are inclusive as much as possible. There is also the fact that this is a role-playing game which means it can be what ever you want. If you want to play a trans character or a gender fluid character you can.

On the other hand I also see some of the people that come out of tumblr, and I worry that the more paizo does this the more and more we are going to see people asking for and getting upset when their specific gender, orientation, body type, age group, or way of thinking isn't represented. This realistically is probably just the pessimist in me seeing the worst possible outcome.

I have a simple rule when dming, either warn the players that they might face things they can't beat, or don't put things in because the players will attack anything...and sometimes win.

thegreenteagamer wrote:

It wasn't my game, I was merely a player.

Eventually I left. Then it happened with the next group. So I eventually left.

Then I started my own group. Then it happened again...

I think one of the reasons PFS is so popular is many gamers are flaky bastards who couldn't commit to regular attendance if you offered them a salary for it. Oh, they talk a good game, but when push comes to shove I've seen people cancel for reasons as petty as:

To go drinking,
because they're tired,
because they have homework (that they've known about all week and they literally had the day before off also but just didn't do it then),
because they scheduled an event coinciding with it - again having other days around it off but not using them

and quite a few more. Stuff happens, yes, but I met SO MANY players who put regular attendance so low on their priorities that absolutely any random event could present itself and they will drop everything to run off and abandon their gaming.

I did eventually find a good group.

edit - also, it usually wasn't in a row. We'd play and every other session two players, almost never the same two, cancelled, and the GM had a strict one player cancel and we keep going, any more and we cancel rule. So we'd cancel. But when you only normally play every other week, like we did with that group, and they cancel every other game...once a month ah is just insufficient for continuity. I thought these were friends, too, so I gave them a little leeway. I have since found out leaving was the right choice, for more reasons. But yes, it kept happening...

For online games and players that are new to you just run a module first. Once you get a good group switch over to a campaign. <--What I would do now.

I got really lucky with an online group, decided to run iron gods since I have no one to play with locally. Ended up with a solid group, now we do a book of iron gods follower by another gm running a book of mummys mask. One of my old group members has joined and is going to start rotating gm duties as well. Sometimes you get lucky.

Lost one last night in the haunted wreck. They opened the poltergeist door shortly followed by the will-o-wisp door. At that point at least one death was inevitable.

They had nothing to deal with the poltergeist invisibility. All three in that room failed will saves against frightened, and couldn't make the reflex saves against the grenades.

The person who opened the will-o-wisp door had a reach weapon, and once the wisp closed he couldn't do much thanks to being in the hall and stuck between the gunslinger/wizard and the wisp.

When they finally got that worked out another char stepped up to tank the wisp and ate a crit, and once the wisp had a dying char right there in front of him he wasn't going to give it up.

After that mess of an encounter we ended for the night it was close to time to end anyways and one player needed to rebuild.

Oh yeah it would be rough no matter how you look at it. You could reasonably approximate the sheet, but initiative tracking would be a pain. You would need a ton of macros built to be any sort of quick about your turn with all the different charms you can use. Then you add in the different combos. So much to try and track.

I really want to see Exalted 3.0 but it keeps getting pushed back

Exalted is not the first system I'd choose to run in a PbP...

Roll20 would be somewhat good for exalted just because of being able to use the attributes and ability system for the sheets.

So basically high-level Exalted is Gurenn Lagaan. Got it.

In a way it can be, things are very over the top, at times, but you can run crazy anime style action games or have full on court intrigue games.

TarkXT wrote:

Tribalgeek wrote:

Exalted the only game where defending the earth from a meteor means knocking it back into space with your sword. Or better yet whacking it into an opposing empire.

I tried running it once, but my group just couldn't stick with it. I really want to play sometime.

That's at Essence 2-3.

At Essence 4-5 your eclipse caste convinces the meteor to go to another part of the wyld with a strongly worded letter.

That's exaggeration!

** spoiler omitted **

Don't forget the Sidreal Martial Artist who simply makes the event not happen. It was never happening you were only imagining the meteor.

I really want to play Exalted again. Any game that makes anime actions look tame is worth playing.

I've got a great idea for a game
These games start out great and then they disappear. They are usually run by good gms, who for some reason just can't stick with the game. They either have to many great ideas or are a bit flaky. You hold out hope and try it each time, but every time you end up with just another char that got used once and no more.

Had a Gm that did this so f!%+ing often. His games were great, but usually he would only run a game a few times max before he couldn't make it, needed time to build stuff, or had another idea. It was a pain in the ass.

Honestly I've never disliked any of the OWoD stuff.

I just really really really hated the way people played it.

Their was angst and hoplelessness, and then there was people who tried to act angsty and hopeless. Or act like Malkavians. Badly.

But I don't get that with Exalted. I love playing with old exalted players because they are constantly pushing the envelope on s&+! they can pull. New players are a treat too as they start to slowly come to the realization of "holy s!%~ I can do that!" dawns upon them.

It's the game where I can say "You are agents of heaven appointed by the fates to ensure that things go smoothly. Bill Murray is stuck in a time loop and you must solve this problem by judo chopping the very concept of causality." with a straight face.

Exalted the only game where defending the earth from a meteor means knocking it back into space with your sword. Or better yet whacking it into an opposing empire.

I tried running it once, but my group just couldn't stick with it. I really want to play sometime.

God forbid someone like a character and want to build a PC based off off that character.

>_<

I don't think it's a problem when it's sometimes, or when it's based off of an established character but not the exact same.

Hell right now I'm playing in a Mummy's mask game where mine and one of the other players chars are based on Sam & Dean Winchester. They aren't clones.

Some people have just played long enough that when someone used to play a drow they were trying to do the same exact thing as Drizzt, same essential back story same fighting style, and with a name close to Drizzt. So we probably do get a little knee jerky about it.

For me the playing a clone of some famous book or movie char got old, because I played with one person who never had an original idea for a char. Every single one was a clone, often times right down to the name. It gets old.

At the same time I have seen people help others on this board build chars from movie or anime. So maybe it is just a reaction from drow, most people have played with one where it's the same thing so it's hard to stop the eye rolls even when it's a new player who hasn't encountered this issue before.

Tribalgeek wrote:

We have all run into that player who wants to build a half drow half dragon with a mangled back story just so they can be different.

Nononononono. Mine was half-drow, half-frost giant. Sheesh, man. Can't a special snowflake get even a little respect?

As much as I love R.A Salvator, I really wonder if he should be blamed for drow being the race of special snowflakes or if it was just a natural part of the race and the settings.

Threads that bring up a dead horse idea that often has people up in arms about it (martials suck, rogues suck, paladins fall, etc) and don't add anything new to the discussion, instead just asking for opinions, or for people to prove it.

We've got so many of these topics, you can just find them and read the chaos. If you've got something to add, okay. But just dropping a bomb and sitting back to watch the fireworks. :/

Ahh yes the monthly or weekly rehash of the same topics over and over. We all know everyone's thoughts on the subject they can be left alone unless something changes.