Vestigia's page

Greetings!

In my latest Pathfinder campaign I've been planning to give a player character a unique piece of heavy armor as a reward for a quest he's been undertaking. The challenge now is to make the armor powerful enough to feel like a real reward but not too powerful for a level 5 character.

I've been thinking of making it a +1 fullplate armor which gives it wearer DR/bludgeoning, since that feels quite fitting for a heavy armor.

How much would DR/bludgeoning be worth in an item? I didn't find any armor special ability or material that gives this quality to an item, so I'm forced to improvise. I think DR 2/bludgeoning would be an approriate amount, how pricey would this make the armor?

DR 2/- (from an adamantine medium armor) costs 10 000 gp, so presumably DR 2/bludgeoning should cost much less than that? What would be an approriate cost, if I made it DR 3/bludgeoning?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Sorry, I was out sick yesterday and stayed away from the boards.

While we are going to do some tweaking to the spell list, and we are going to take a good hard look at when some bloodline abilities show up, and some of the bloodline spells with a similar eye, I think it is safe to say, that all things considered we are fairly happy with this class, and so are the majority of playtesters.

How does the design team feel about the balance between the different bloodlines? At least in the current playtest version some of the bloodlines just seem to have quite a bit more powerful and/or effective abilities than some of the others. What is your stance on this?

Right now Aberrant, Abyssal, Arcane, Celestial and Destined feel very strong yet flavorful, and Dragonic got much cooler now that they got the ability to later turn into a dragon, but the rest really seem to be lacking something. Elemental and Infernal bloodline's abilities to add energy damage to their attacks should probably be usable much more often than now, since the damage is quite low (and the Infernal bloodline faces the additional problem, that their extra damage is always fire, which is the most commonly resisted energy type). Infernal, Undead and Fey bloodlines would all really benefit from (quite) a bit more oomph.

I have seen many others make similar comments about the different bloodlines as well.

Also, are you planning on making bloodrager versions of all the other sorcerer bloodlines? (Verdant, Aquatic, Shadow, Serpent, etc.) I really hope so, since that would give the bloodrager some really flavorful new options.

Look I don't care about the folks saying "wrong game" I see people building characters in PFS drawn from all genres and media.

Furthermore the point is to have fun. And frankly I don't have a group to play a doctor who game with but I do play (and judge) a lot of PFS. This is mostly for my own amusement and also somewhat of a thought exercise.

An additional point - some of the suggested feats really aren't true for all doctors just certain more modern ones (the whole running thing is new and frankly that feat is pretty pointless).

A bard is one approach but I don't think it fully captures the doctor. I'm interested in the more martial side - he's a talker but when pressed can back it up - he's about more than just inspiring others. Though that is part of who he is.

Anyway you can build nearly anything within the framework of pathfinder and especially on Golarion - which is designed to accommodate many genres and styles of play.

As I suggested an oracle of time perhaps rage prophet feels like an interesting approach but I'm looking for other suggestions and approaches.

I'm not looking to replicate a doctor who game in PFS play. (Though mild spoiler - play the last level of Thornkeep - it could easily be played like a Doctor Who type of scenario and I think actually may show some signs of that influence). It is perhaps my favorite scenario or module I've run for PFS so far as well.

I admit that my usual answer to people who try to model very powerful or complex movie/book/comic/etc characters using D&d based rules is: "Can't be done properly, the system doesn't support it."

Indeed a vast vast range of different character types can be created using these rules, and Pathfinder rules are very well suited to portray its intended genre, but they never designed with the needs of for example superhero fiction or high-tech sci-fi in mind (because there was no reason to). Therefore attempting to model some characters accurately simply can't be done within the rules (for example a supernaturally fast character who can run anywhere on the planet in a few seconds and hit someone thousands of times before they can even blink, or super strong character like the Hulk who has moved tectonic plates with his arms, simply can't be created with these rules).

So it really depends on what you want to do here. If you want to create a character who can do everything the Doctor can do, the system can't do it simply because the Doctor has access to such ridiculously powerful technology that nothing in these rules comes even remotely close in power (the Timelords had weapons systems that could wipe out complete galaxies, for example).

On the other hand, you certainly can try capture the flavor and style of the Doctor, if that's what you are after. High int, high wisdom, relatively high charisma, enormous amount of knowledge skills and high ranks in Use magic Device (to model his technological inventions). A bard might be a good class to use, though the bard performances wouldn't really fit, and the bard spell list might not be thematically approriate. You might be able to do it with a wizard too, if you re-flavor the spells as tricks the Doctor does with the sonic screwdriver or his own inventions.

Yeah, that's the thread. Gave me a lot of fun things to facedesk at. That quote is on my favorites list.

Just wanna point out...my quote is much more recent. =)

"If Rolf bites his attacker and decides to swallow the attacker's blood, that's just creepy and inappropriate.

If Rolf swallow's the attacker's blood and his eyes light up with joy and he gets stronger for doing so, that's evil."

^That seems pretty clear cut to me. Biting someone and swallowing their blood is creepy.

Benefiting from it is evil.

I must say though, that it does sound very strange that apparently it is perfectly fine to kill some guy and steal his stuff (as player characters are pretty much expected to do, both in adventure paths and otherwise), but if your character decides to munch on the body afterwards, that's the evil part.

So let's say a dhampir adventurer manages to get into a fight with a goblin for one reason or another. The dhampir happens to be a sorcerer, who then proceeds to shoot the goblin in the face with an acid spell, which horrifyingly melts the victims flesh from his bones. The dhampir watches as the goblin melts into a pile of organic sludge in unimaginable agony, but luckily for our hero according to the Laws of Alignment in the universe, this was a perfectly noble and lovely thing to do to another person. If however the dhampir had instead cleanly cut the goblin's throat, and then drank blood from the fresh corpse to gain sustenance and quench his hunger, the Universe would regard that as a horribly evil act.

This game (or rather the Golarion setting) does run on some seriously strange morals.

Vestigia, you have completely and utterly misinterpreted what I have been saying if that's what you think.

If you go back through my comments, I never stated my own morality at all. All I did is point out the logical fallacies in others.

And when it comes to playing games, I can play pretty much any morality I want to. In fact I enjoy playing with moral options as a way to visit consequences in a hypothetical universe.

I offer my apologies then. I read through the thread in a bit of a hurry, and too carelessly it seems.

I just happened to see your statement about Rynjin's views being in the very small minority, and had to comment, since the idea seemed so strange to me, and so different from my own experience.

ciretose wrote:

Mister Fluffykins wrote:

. Rynjin has his views which (while I find some of them mildly repulsive) are perfectly valid at his table.

Yes. But he wants us to have to allow them at our tables as well.

Which is where the disagreement lay.

I think it's fair to say that what I read from Rynjin is not that he wants HIS rules enforced at our table, he resents that the rules as written are given greater weight at most tables and so he has to accept them to play. He would prefer that the rule not exist so that there was no bias against his preferred style.

I think that even if that were the case, Rynjin would find that the vast, vast majority of games would be played pretty much the same way because his preferred in-game moral code does not match the huge majority of people's view.

I must admit that I find your latter statement to be quite surprising. Practically all the people I have ever played with over the many years have been keen supporters of morally complex settings and characters, and have held views much closer to those of Rynjin than those of yourself or Ciretose. I remember only one player who wanted to play in very black & white settings, where the characters were all noble shining heroes and the enemies always chaotic evil orcs, demons and necromancers, but he was a devoutedly religious person, which always seemed to greatly influence his views.

I don't know, maybe it's a cultural thing? At least in these parts of the world the majority of players (in my experience) seem to want games with very grey morality.

I've said what I have to offer on the thread topic, and I'm glad that my comments weren't viewed as an attack.

That said, this paragraph I feel I have a response to. Simply, what is entertaining to watch or read is not necessarily entertaining to experience or participate in. Game of Thrones is a big, huge downer of a story that is entertaining to take in, but I'd never in a million years want to be or play a character in it.

I liken it to Battlestar Galactica (the recent re-make, not the original). Any story that starts with the destruction of 12 planets full of people, leaving approximately 50,000 survivors aboard a bunch of ships not designed for long-term support, and those survivors having nowhere to go except a mythical home-world is not something that can ever end with a feel-good moment. Still, the series was darned fun to watch. It was fascinating how things just kept getting worse for these poor people. The main characters were interesting, and flawed... and those flaws kept making more downward spiral. Loved the show. But I can't name a single character I would want to BE. And I'd hate to play an RPG in that story because simply put... it's hopeless.

Hopeless has its place. LG characters are just sticking their head in a meat-grinder in such a setting though. There is no win. Game of Thrones doesn't (to my understanding) have a real win for any good characters. Only loss, pain, and failure in the long term. Play a CE rogue, sure. LG paladin? Why?

Again, I don't mean this as criticism, just observation, but the OP has written his setting and storyline into...

You certainly make fair points.

I think it mainly comes down to what people are looking for in a tabletop RPG. Many people just want to have light-hearted fun with their friends, and be the shining heroes who go on glorious adventures together. And that's perfectly fine of course, but it's not everyone's playstyle.

I personally would love to play in a Game of Thrones style setting (or Battlestar Galactica setting for that matter). I find that in general these grittier settings just seem produce much better stories, and are certainly much more believable. And that's a really important part of gaming for me, I wan't to immerse myself in an imaginary world which feels as real as possible (which includes things such as actions having at least somewhat realistic consequences, people's morality and personality being infinitely more complex than their alignment, etc.), and get to live dramatic and touching and grand stories in such a world together with my friends. The most powerful moments I have ever felt during my gaming history have always been the harder, more emotional (and usually darker and sadder) ones.

Of course sometimes the darkness in some settings might get a bit excessive for most people's gaming purposes (such as the setting of the japanese manga Berserk, one of the very finest manga-series ever made, but not a shred of hope can be found in the whole setting). And Games Workshop's Warhammer and Warhammer 40 000 setting's are similarly dark, and while Warhammer's Old World-setting is one of my favorite fantasy worlds (despite it not being even remotely believable), I do understand why many people can't stand to play any games set in it. When one of the starting careers in Warhammer Ropeplaying Game is "Rat Catcher", you quickly realize that heroic destinies and glorious deeds don't come easily in that world.

So I would happily play in the opening poster's games, but clearly the paladin's player isn't so enthusiastic about his GM's gaming style. I suppose you need to have a nice long chat with him about what you both want from a game, and if some compromise can be found. If he wants to play a high fantasy campaign where morality is black and white and the heroes get to always win, and you want run a dark fantasy campaign where the world is often unfair and heroes sometimes get to die in the gutter, it will be quite hard for him the play in such a campaign.