VoltySquirrel's page

I've been eagerly awaiting this book since it was announced. I'm actually fairly new to tabletop RPGs, having only been able to play a grand total of maybe 16 sessions. One thing that always killed me was character generation. I generally knew what I wanted out of my character but just trying to navigate the nearly 600 page book is a chore. I have managed to brute-force my way into learning the game all on my own, but still manage to get stuff wrong. I sincerely hope this book fixes that. Can't wait.

There are corrections. The book is in it's like 6th printing now? Anyway, there's been a fair bit small changes made to the CRB. However, I wouldn't waste 50 bucks on a new version of the CRB. Just download and print out the errata and stick it in the back of the book.

As someone who just got into P&PRPGs about a year or two ago, I can honestly say that this book is perfect for me. While I do understand the basic rules for character creation and what have you, it's easy to forget every minute rule. I mean, we're talking about a system where the rules for making a character are spread out over the first 8-10 chapter of a 600-page book. That daunting as hell. Suffice it to say, it becomes very hard to remember every little aspect of the system. So, color me very interested.

This reminds me of an old Gygax called Dungeonland. It's essentially "What if you went and your party went down the rabbit hole? Even better, what if Wonderland was a total meat grinder?" It was very cool, if not a bit unbalanced. Seeing that mixed with Wizard of Oz would be pretty cool. Color me interested.

This thread wouldn't be complete without the actual quote of CN:

Quote:

Chaotic Neutral: A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those others suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as he is to cross it.

Chaotic neutral represents freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal.

A.K.A Chaotic Not-a-Single-F***-Given. It's basically a self-absorbed dick, so the line between neutral and evil gets blurred a lot with this alignment.

Many players see this as a hall pass to do whatever they want in a game regardless of what the other players or DM want for the game.

Which is why I pretty much restrict it in my games. If I know the player can play the alignment with some semblance of "responsibility", then sure, go ahead. That I have no issue with. My problem are the people who do crap like randomly stab people or become arsonists, for their retort to be "Hey man. It's what my character would do! Chaotic Neutral!" Stop that. Quit lying to us and just say you wanna play The Joker. At least you're being honest.

I know this is spiteful, but as a Broncos fan, I refuse to take part in this discount. It still hurts. D: (But seriously, thanks for being cool, Paizo. Discounts are always nice. ;P )

My favorite build was a Dex-based, Half-Orc, Tetori Monk named Grovus Armitage, known to his friends and victims as 'The Strangler.'

A closet sociopath with a heart of gold, or at least tarnished silver, Gorvus had a proclivity for letting his friends wander in first and then taking advantage of the inevitable confusion to follow them in quietly and apply a +1 garrote to the most important looking opponent on the field.

My fondest memory of him was when he let his friends spring an inevitable ambush set in a bandit camp as he snuck through the thick brush nearby. The encounter was supposed to be a bandit leader (rogue) with an advantageous set-up and his mooks. A custom trap when off and the rest of the party was dazzled and also essentially giving the bandit leader Hide In Plain Sight against them for reasons of DM-ery.

Grovus wandered out of the underbrush just after this happened and promptly spotted the strangely well-dressed bandit crouching behind a wagon. Figuring he was important, the Strangler snuck up behind him and looped his garrote over the unfortunate sod's throat and started dragging him off into the underbrush.

The rest of the PCs rallied and started picking off the bandits who were perplexed as to why their fearless leader had yet to start doing the same to the PCs. One eventually looked over to see what was happening but by then it was too late, the Strangler had their leader pinned and it was a race to see if the lack of oxygen would claim him or the gradual sawing motion of the garrote. Efforts were made to free the poor sap but the Strangler was very hard to hit.

My DM was remarkably frustrated by this turn of events.

So essentially you made Agent 47? I can dig it. :D

Monkdopus.

Okay, you can't say something as ridiculous as "Monkdopus" and not elaborate.

VoltySquirrel wrote:

Every once and a while, you find the rare player who wants to break the mold and get a little weird with their character. What are some of your favorites, both those of your own design and those you've played alongside with?

"Cleric is a party support character!"

But when you turn the buffs on yourself you make a very capable warrior. Give them a bow and you'll be raining death from afar.

A self-buffing cleric is like a D&D4e fighter with AEDU powers in Pathfinder hahah.

"Wizards are frail and should stay out of melee"
Not if you're a GRAPPLEMANCER!

With the right familiars and shapeshifting forms, wizards can turn into horrible tentacled grapplemonsters that would make a tetari monk green with envy.

Digging the "Let's turn the casters into melee gods" motif you got going on here.

Is this an "or" thread or an "and" thread? I have a lot a really great unconventional characters...that aren't really unoptimized.

Characters like the Raven King, Hama, or Abikae.

To say nothing of Batman, Santa Clause, or the Marshmallow Man.

Or how about the tiny ratfolk who flies about on his own tumor steed?

I'm chock full of unconventional.

** spoiler omitted **

It was really just a way to get unconventional builds out there. Some players who are boring would call those unoptimized.

Also, holy s***, these are awesome! I especially love Hama. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Carrie, had Carrie kept it on the DL and was more calculated. Good work, my friend.

Every once and a while, you find the rare player who wants to break the mold and get a little weird with their character. What are some of your favorites, both those of your own design and those you've played alongside with?

For me, one of my favorites was this rogue build my best friend ran. Rather than run the typical nimble thief, he wanted to try his hand at a rogue who's a big brute who will rob you blind by clonking you on the head with his club. He was inspired by a particular character in TES IV: Oblivion, who was an assassin with no real subtlety. The build may not have played to the class's strengths, but it made for some truly fun moments in the campaign. For instance, his version of looting a safe was to just nick the darn thing and blow it open with explosives back at base. If we wanted to get into a room through a locked door, he'd just bust the lock with his warhammer and burst into the room. You may call that borderline fighter/barbarian play, but he added the needed deviousness to it that made it all work.

Even as a relatively new DM I can tell that these are some nice changes. The Nimble Strike is really the big one here, though. I do agree that it should be focused, however if that becomes the case then it should be a feat that you can take multiple times. You never know when a player will decided, "F this, I'm done with the rapier. I wanna try something else."

Like someone else said, the ability to use spells does sort of compensate for having a small amount of skill ranks per level. However, as you point out, Wizards and Witches have a clear usability advantage over light-spell users like the Paladin and Magus. My suggestion would be to tweak the skill rule just slightly so that only the fighter get the 4 + INT MOD with the rest getting 3. That way there's a bit more a happy balance.

Like I said though, I haven't DMed all that much, so point out if I'm wrong here.

The overlying rule here is just don't be a d*** about it. Subtlety is the name of the game here. Don't outright single out players, don't repeat ad-nauseam, etc.

Hell, here's a creative way to do it that can also be used as a quest hook: have a thief or bum or something break into their camp and steal something. Could be a bag. Could be a coin purse. Hell, you could kill two birds with one stone and steal the wizard's spellbook. Now, of course, roll all the necessary perception and stealth checks so it's legal. When they wake up in the morning, inform the players that something is stolen. I guarantee that 9 times out of 10, the party will leave as soon as they can to chase after that thief. In the hustle and bustle of packing up or simply just running off after the thief, the cleric/wizard forgot to pray/prepare spells. You could then tie this into a quest line about a shady thieves guild or something. Or just use it a a way to shake up the party. Either way, in the process you've done two things: 1) denied your casters spells for the day, and 2) created a very memorable moment in your campaign.
Yes I stole this idea from someone else now shhhhhhhhhhh.

My one concern would be simple. Is hw rolling the hp of every foe the party faves or are they getting the half plus treatment. That would seem a bot unfair to me. If the pc warrior could have low hp because of fickle dice than so should the big bad. IMO of course.

When I've DM'ed I've tended to do the same. However, this had more to do with having an efficient party that wasn't getting much of a challenge from combat. I had to start thing of ways to creatively make the game more challenging without kneecapping the players. I think it worked out well.

VoltySquirrel wrote:

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Just remember, there is only one real way to avoid the "jerk DM".

Be the DM.

I've done it. I just want to actually get to play for once.

OT: Yeah, he doesn't care. "I like my PCs squishy. Despite what the rules say, and I am aware that this mode of starting HP exists, I will still be forcing you to roll HP anyways.:)" From the sound of that, it seems like I'm not going to be staying in this campaign for very long. A DM who likes for his players to be able to be one-shot at level one doesn't exactly seem like a good DM to me. Oh well.

A good GM is not required to follow all rules as written--in fact, few good GMs do. A good GM should tell the players the important house rules up front. For the more situational house rules, good GMs bring up the relevant ones when it becomes clear that it has a significant impact on player and/or character autonomy.*

Sounds like this is a good GM. If you don't like the rule change and the GM is resolute, either accept it or find another game.

*Note: All this is off the table for monster abilities, homebrew spells, and so on, so long as the GM makes a reasonable attempt to correctly categorize the change by CR, spell level, or whatever, and doesn't make these alterations out of sheer spite. It's okay if all orcs are immune to electricity in the GMs world, but not if the GM made it so simply because one of the players is an optimized shocking grasp magus.

For me, it's not just the hp rule that bugs me about the guy. It's the things he said during character rolling, in general correspondence, etc. I'm willing to give the dude the benefit of the doubt. If I didn't I would even be showing up for the game at all. At the moment, however, I have reservations. That's all. This has nothing to do with a hatred of house rules. I've used them myself as a GM. This has more to do with a general gut feeling about the guy.

Just remember, there is only one real way to avoid the "jerk DM".

Be the DM.

I've done it. I just want to actually get to play for once.

OT: Yeah, he doesn't care. "I like my PCs squishy. Despite what the rules say, and I am aware that this mode of starting HP exists, I will still be forcing you to roll HP anyways.:)" From the sound of that, it seems like I'm not going to be staying in this campaign for very long. A DM who likes for his players to be able to be one-shot at level one doesn't exactly seem like a good DM to me. Oh well.

It is what it is, I s'pose. :P

Well, thankfully I have no real commitments to this game. I found it through the LFG section on Roll20. I've mentioned the specific rule on HD in the book to him (even going so far as to screencap it), but if this was intentional and not just a mistake, whatever. I'll let it ride for a session or two. If it seems like he's being harsh, I'll just bow out. No biggie.

I already knew you're supposed to take the full HD, but when I brought this up during character rolling he shot that down and asked me to roll it. I'll try and bring up the specific rule in the CRB, but if he shoots that down, I'll just have to hope that he's not a dick about it, I guess. Whateves. Thanks anyway!

Okay I think I get it now. Thanks for the help!

I recently rolled up a new character for a new campaign I'm joining, and I got shafted hard when it came to my HP roll. I rolled a 2 on my d8, which with CON bonuses gives me a measly 4hp. Essentially, I can be potentially one-shoted by practically every weapon in the game, which is a problem for a melee-focused class like the Magus. Now, my GM seems like the type who's fairly harsh at low levels, so I get the feeling that I'll become a target for NPCs. Now, I've tried my best to work my way around this, such as springing for Studded Leather instead of just Leather in order to bump up my AC, but even still I can tell this is going to be a rough 1st level. So, what else should I do to try and avoid having to re-roll in the first hour? I'm guessing one option would be to try and avoid melee combat altogether, choosing to instead rock the 1d3 from Acid Splash/Ray of Frost, limiting my melee interactions to situations where I can get a confirmed kill without getting hit. Any suggestions?

So, slight noob here, so if anything seems obvious, it may not be to me. Sorry. Anyway, I just rolled up a Bladebound Magus and while I've always been dying to give the class a try, the two core mechanics of the class have given me pause, those being Spell Combat and Spellstrike. While I understand how they both work, I don't quite get how the two are different. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Specifically, what's the difference between casting and spell and then attacking and casting a spell through my weapon, and in which situation would I use one or the other?

Also, I read somewhere that with spell combat you can do this thing where you can make a melee attack, take a five foot step back, and then cast your spell, all without taking an AoO. I'm assuming this is true, but any clear confirmation would be nice.

Okay, so, hypothetical scenario.

I'm using a warhammer, which has a critical of x3. in the news system, that would mean that I have a 19-20/x2 crit. I'm attacking a dude with an AC of 14. If I roll a Natural 19, I'm doing (2x1d8)+STR Mod. If my various attack bonuses on that roll added another 5 to the roll, giving me a 24, I would do triple damage.

If I rolled a natural 18 in that same situation, I would have to have a +6 attack roll bonus to get that double damage, due to me being out of the threat range.

Am I reading this correctly?

This isn't Pathfinder, but a year or so ago I was playing Star Wars: Saga Edition, and there was an encounter where we were meeting with a Rebel leader to offload a bunch of guns we had nicked from an Imperial warehouse. Right as money was about to change hands, a group of Imperials busted in and started to go room-by-room, hunting us down. After all the usual Perception, Initiative, and line-of-sight nonsense, I took over the game for a little bit and laid down a battle plan.

Using logic that I had probably learned while playing Frozen Synapse, I concocted a very organized and methodical battle plan that went off perfectly. We didn't take a single point of damage.

Not exactly the most thrilling story, but at the time? I felt like a damn tactical genius.

So, I'm about to start playing a game on Roll20 with this dude, and while I'm eager to start playing again, I've run into one issue: he wants to house rule crits. To be frank, I can't wrap my head around the rule change. I've had a friend on Twitter explain to me the basics of it, but any extra help would be appreciated. (And, yes, I know, I probably should just ask the GM, but he's yet to respond to my Skype inquiries.)

So, here's how he describes the rule change:
- I do not like the Critical hit system in both D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder with a fixed double/triple damage.
New System: The threat range is still kept (if not written on item, the threat range is a natural 20). If an item has a higher multiplier than x2, each reduction in integer increases the threat range by 1 until the multiplier is a x2 (a x4 becomes a threat range of 18-20).
If the natural attack roll is within the threat range, the attacker deal "n" degrees of critical strike if the total attack roll totals to more than [Target's AC+5n].
If the natural attack roll is not in the threat range, the attacker deal "n" degrees of critical strike if the total attack roll totals to more than [Target's AC +10n].
For each n degree of critical, attacker deals n*(damage dice). So a triple critical with a trident is a (3*1)d8=3d8. STR modifier does not get multiplied.
If the target receives at least 1 degree of critical, target must roll DC13 Constitution check. Failure means the attacker rolls for critical effect (or I can use the SRD's Critical Effect Generator).
If you critical fumble (rolling a natural 1 on an attack roll), roll DC13 Constitution check. Depending on how badly you fail I will give you a negative effect.

Anyone willing to sort of simplify the wording here for me?

Why only take one? the difference between 6 and 7 players isn't that big of a deal. Since your gonna have to modify the module for 6 players anyways, I don't see the extra person being that big of a deal.

Part of the issue is playing space. My table only has enough room for 6-7 people total. Anymore than that would require a new space to play in. Mostly though, it's just because I only feel comfortable managing 5-6 players.

As for the other queries, I've decided to go with the guy who wants to be a pally. If a player falls through, I'll let the other guy in. As for any of the other suggestions, I'll take them into account. I'll probably encourage the pally to play a hospitalier, but I won't force the issue. If we end up still getting trashed in fights, I'll just modify some encounter and throw more potions their way. Thanks for the help, though.

The problem is, I don't know which of the two will fit in better. I've played with the cleric before, and he's fun to play with. As for the other, I don't know. He's never played a tabletop RPG, so I don't know at all what type of player he is.

Okay, so, I'm a first time DM and a mildly inexperienced player of RPGs. A week ago I started a campaign with me and 5 other guys on the Crypt of the Everflame module. We have a monk, a barbarian, a wizard, a rogue, and a ranger. Beyond the ranger, no one can really cast healing magic. I have two other people who want to join, but I can only take one. One of them wants to be cleric but I'm not sure if he'll be enthusiastic enough for the game. I've tried to get him to roll up his cleric but as far I know he hasn't actually done anything with it yet. The other is enthusiastic, but is insisting on playing paladin. That's fine and all, but I don't think he realizes that he would end up as the primary healer for the party. So far, I've just used a pregen cleric to heal the party in the period of time in which we don't have any healing magic of any kind, but as soon as the adventure is done, she's gone. So, my question to you is this: who should I pick to join the game? The cleric or the pally?

That's actually a pretty good compromise. I'd love to see how many short-sighted players would take the non-caster version just because the spell resist is nice.

I'm liking what I'm seeing with the signs and races. I'm not a huge fan of the magic system idea, but maybe I'm just not thinking about it right. As for the Atronach, I can't think of a way to account for all three elements of it. The spell absorption is just too much of an abstract concept when it comes to the type of magic system PF uses. Maybe a professional designer like Bulmahn could figure it out, but I sure as hell can't. If it were up to me, I'd ditch that aspect of the sign altogether.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I'm still going to house rule it, but it's nice to know that for future reference.

So, I'm going to be running a 20-point buy game pretty soon and I was wondering about the skill ranks given every level. My question is this: if a PC in my game is a fighter, who gets 2+INT Mod skill ranks per level, with an INT score of 8, does that mean he gets 1 rank at first level due to the -1 INT Mod or does he at least get two, no matter the ability mod? I'm probably going to house rule it so that they would either way, but I still would like to know what the official rule would be.