Weird- you guys are totally right on the giant thing. I could have sworn I had a GM (since Pathfinder came out)at one point who wouldn't let our party use Hold Person (I think) on giants. But I wasn't in the habit of questioning my GM so his quirky ruling superseded my belief in what was correct and sort of stuck.
Anyway, thanks for the clarification on dropped items. I honestly think I might keep ruling it the way I described in my games just for personal preference (I don't see it as massively game-breaking, after all) but I do appreciate the input.
Definitely reminds me of why I used to enjoy this community so much to see such a lively, helpful discussion.
It may be a tiny bit nit picky but I have always thought that because the text in enlarge person states that "items worn or carried" become large that when an enlarged creature picks up a weapon it magically resizes. I admit this doesn't make too much literal sense, but it came up in my group the other day thusly:
An enlarged battle cleric of Gorum was disarmed and went to pick up his sword. I had to look up the wording of the spell and since it didn't say it explicitly I had to look at the previously cited wording and asked myself: "Is he carrying it?" and since the answer was "yes" I ruled that his sword became large again, since it was now, by definition an "item worn or carried"
Also, Enlarge Person definitely doesn't work on outsiders, giants, etc. It explicitly states "one humanoid creature"
So many classes can heal right now that I don't think I've seen a Cleric in one of my groups in at least 3-4 campaigns. The dedicated healer may be so much Betamax to the Blu-Ray of today's diversified healing portfolio.
Current group has a Summoner, Druid, Paladin, Magus, Fighter and Inquisitor. Summoner heals his Eidolon, Druid heals himself and his AC, Paladin mostly heals himself after (shocker!) charging in and getting himself chewed into a soggy mess, Inquisitor heals as she needs it, sometimes herself, rarely a spot heal on one of the other PC's.
Only the fighter doesn't heal and honestly, he doesn't take too much damage with the Eidolon, Pally Mount and AC always up in my grill.
They've burned a few potions in their brief yet illustrious career, but several cure wands sit largely unused in the party treasury.
So, if for some reason you don't have healing capable PC's, I would offer the following advice, I would say:
-encourage tactics that help ameliorate damage (total Defense, aid another, etc) and avoid any one pc taking the bulk of the damage if possible by rotating the front lines and keeping the battlefield dynamic
-healthy use of summons/pets/controlled creatures
-wands when necessary (UMD can help with this)
Hey, Mab! Long time no see... Miss you guys.. Running Kingmaker right now and constantly trying to imagine what you guys would do in any given situation..heh.
Just to jump in with a tiny bit of clarification, the only exemption from AoO that I have ever been able to find aside from successfully casting defensively is a spell that is a free action...
pfsrd wrote:
To cast a spell with a somatic (S) component, you must gesture freely with at least one hand. You can't cast a spell of this type while bound, grappling, or with both your hands full or occupied.
and
pfsrd wrote:
Generally, if you cast a spell, you provoke attacks of opportunity from threatening enemies. If you take damage from an attack of opportunity, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + points of damage taken + the spell's level) or lose the spell. Spells that require only a free action to cast don't provoke attacks of opportunity.
Tyler: [sarcastically] Hey, Elliot, where's your goblin?
Michael: Shut up.
Steve: Did he come back?
Pretty Young Girl: Hi, Elliot.
Greg: Well, did he?
Elliot: Yeah, he came back, but he's not a goblin. He's a spaceman.
Steve: Ooh, as in extra-terrestrial!
Tyler: Where is he from, Uranus? Get it? Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it, Ty.
Tyler: Get it, your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it.
Elliot: You're so immature!
Greg: And you're such a Sino-Supremist!
Elliot: Zero charisma!
Greg: Sino-Supremist!
Elliot: Zero charisma!
Greg: Sino-Supremist!
Elliot: Shut up, Greg!
Greg: Sino-Supremist!
Elliot: [yells as he rides off on his bike] Zero charisma!
Greg: You wimp!
... watching those lovely commercials from Fast-Food chains that sell food that will make it too hard to get out of that comfy-chair...
I take issue with the idea that fast food chains sell actual food! They are basically drug peddlers who get to wrap up their wares in food-style packages and market them on TV.. ;)
"Getting fat, while starving to death? I'm lovin' it!"
If you'd be uncomfortable doing it during a movie/concert/live performance/book club etc., please don't do it at my table during the game.
Of course, your mileage may vary. There's always the exception that proves the rule.
Even when I'm GMing, I like to keep my phone within arm's reach for the lull times, and I occasionally break this rule, much to my chagrin, sometimes just out of habit. I've considered turning it off but more often than not, there is something out in the real world that demands at least my peripheral attention.
I just think a session (for many players a weekly or monthly, hard-to-plan, hard-to-make-room-for sort of thing) of an RP which is basically collaborative storytelling, warrants a little bit of consideration for the people in attendance who are trying to maintain some immersion or even just keep the game flowing.
The original Manual of the Planes was good, but I really enjoyed the planescape boxset. The concept of sigil is something I really enjoyed.
I love the Planescape boxed set! I have been dying to run a Planescape campaign since, well... forever... Sigil is amazing and so well done from a technical standpoint. I still play PS:T from time to time to scratch that Lady of Pain itch...
Of course that means the various incarnations of the Planes supplements have been among my favorites of all time, but aside from the Core books (Which I lovingly dogeared, every edition and every one) my all time favorite supplement was the 3.5 Draconomicon.
The artwork, the pregen dragons, well everything. I still love that book with a passion. It is one of the few supplemental RP books that I view as enjoyable outside the context of RP.
Win their hearts and minds! I find twinkies and/or mallomars help extensively in these cases.
But seriously, what your party is doing reminds me of the special ops performed during WWII by the allies using info gathered by the breaking of the Enigma code. Obviously WWII was the first war where some serious grey area issues began to permeate the theater of war, and extensive care was often taken by the allies to avoid collateral civilian damage (nuclear bombs and firebombing notwithstanding), even at the cost of fighting a lengthier, less efficient war than could have been...
I won't offer you particulars, but keeping those sort of guidelines (capturing rather than killing enemy combatants, using intelligence to take out key leaders and resources, perhaps using some form of propaganda ala the radio and billeting campaigns of WWII) in mind might help keep your paladin from having a very bad day and would probably make for more interesting role playing than "we wait 'til lunch and fireball the mess hall"...
Barbarian: (Dwarf) Ahira (guardians of the flame)
Bard: Jon-Tom (Spellsinger)
Cavalier: Jaxom (Dragonriders)
Cleric: Alia Atreides (Dune)
Druid: (Aasimar) Gandalf
Fighter: Barak/Karl Kullinane (Also GotF)
Monk: Kwai Chang Kaine (Kung Fu)
Paladin: Jack (LOST)
Ranger: Dar (Beastmaster)
Rogue: Sidney Bristow (Alias)
Sorcerer: (Tiefling) Lady of the Green Kirtle/Queen of Underworld (The Silver Chair)
Wizard: Tim Hunter (Books of Magic)
Witch: (Goblin?) Aughra (Dark Crystal)
Hmmm.... this topic inspired the germ of a cool idea for a story arc.. A cabal of powerful casters create a reign of terror (illusory as well as substantial) through many of the methods expressed above, except that they are doing it to make their own defensive services more desirable and expensive... pretty basic but could make for some cool gaming.
IIRC, we ended the Erylium encounter with my raging barbarian grappling and drowning her, so it wasn't as aggravating as it could have been. Mighty satisfying as a matter of fact..
26: The Spanish "Grande y Felicisma" armada, finding perfect weather en route to their invasion of Britain in 1588 conquers England with numerically superior forces and eventually reinstates Catholicism across Northern Europe with a subsequent series of wars and inquisitions.
I have a Paladin in my current Second Darkness group. He is a human paladin of Torag, named Apose. Before the campaign I ran a brief solo adventure for each character. In the Paladin's, he consults with a senior knight of his order who provides him with a few pitiful possessions and explains his mission and why he has been sent to Riddleport, a notorious den of thieves. I picture the guy as the dude from Morrowind. Elder scrolls aficionadoes know who I mean...
Apose is tasked with investigating the Gold Goblin and Vancaskerkin. In this, he is cast as the highly upright, highly moral undercover agent. He is instructed to basically keep his mouth shut and his eyes open and report back regularly.
This is aided by the fact that I wanted the characters not to have any concept of class within the game world, so I decided that turnabout was fair play. There is no way that Vancaskerkin himself would say: "This guy's a Pally, let me feed him to the hogs"
Spoiler:
Furthermore, while they figured out V. was evil fairly early on because of Apose's abilities, I went to great lengths to stress that many of the people of Riddleport are, in fact, evil and seem to get along with one another just fine (relatively). He also basically (as per the AP instructions) wound up trying to convince them that he was seeking reform and redemption.
In the end, though, when they had had enough of Saul's shenanigans, they Charmed him and wound up killing him while he had his guard completely down. The rest of the party was considerate enough to send the Paladin out to get milk while they did.. or something like that... Furthermore, killing Vancaskerkin at that point was essentially Justice as he had tried to kill them at least twice, proving he was beyond redemption.
As far as what is going to happen in Chapter IV, I gave the paladin an amulet from the Knight of Torag that allows him to atone once a month if he is doing Torag's work. Hopefully he will have the sense and good timing to save it and use it at the appropriate time, because he will most likely have to do things that he (and Torag) would find distasteful.
Anyhow, in a nutshell, I don't think its a deal-breaker as long as GM and player can work together to "find the middle path"...It might be significantly more difficult with a GM who did not recognize the myriad shades of grey that span from capital "G" Good to Neutrality.
5: The Creche:
Dimensions: cavernous and low, perhaps a smidge over 5' at the highest point, a roughly circular chamber about 30' in diameter.
This grotto is slicked with moisture and the stone walls are covered in emerald green lichen. The floor itself is muddy and rocky, but in patches the moss extends across the cave floor to form soft, welcoming bowers. In most of these is the cracked shell of a 3' long jade-like egg. The cracked eggshells are still filled with a gelatinous substance a similar color of green to the lichen adorning the walls. The cloying air is humid, warm and sweetly rank with an offal-like stench. Sounds echo strangely, making it feel as if the very cavern is breathing.
I don't know if your GM would go for it, but a clever adaptation my ren-faire gaming group came up with was the use of a sling that one wore over the shoulder to which one's crossbow was attached.
When adventuring with, say, a low level mage, one would keep a crossbow loaded on this sling, fire it and then "drop" it, at which point it would still be "worn" or "carried", meaning it would reduce with you if you later chose to cast reduce person.
The crossbow can be an unwieldy weapon as it is, and this little "trick" helps make it a better option. Of course, now that most casters have abilities which allow them to do crossbow-esque (or better) damage several times per day, the frequency with which crossbows are even used by such classes has reduced considerably.
For our latest campaign, Second Darkness, I asked the group to roll their characters "in secret". It also resulted in a party of very versatile, self-healing types. I am enjoying the interplay immensely. I really wanted to stress a less meta-game approach to character design and play and I feel it succeeded.
That being said, I have been a party to the "We need a cleric" conversation, on both sides of the screen, many times.
I find with experienced players, the belief that one "needs a cleric" is a fallacy, however, as creative tactics and caution can go a long way to reducing the damage a party takes.
Howdy and to echo the sentiments of a few other posters, very well written and interesting, thought provoking post.
I think that those of us who would be welcoming and warm tend to be quieter than the vocal minority of people who make you feel the way you do perhaps because of temperament.
Throughout my life I have tried to get young people into gaming because it provided such a powerful and positive valence in my life and I would love for others to experience the joy of discovery and the deeply informative process of exploring archetypes and even participating in and coming to ownership of classic story lines the way I did when I was younger.
I started gaming at around 8 or 9 years old. I was lucky to have a great group of guys to play with even back then. My experience with gamers has been universally welcoming and satisfying, but I recognize I have been lucky.
My 12 year old daughter played Pathfinder with us over the last two weeks while she was visiting from Colorado, and my group made every effort to make her feel inclusive and cut the "That's what she said" and the like to a minimum. I am so proud of them and also of her. She embraced the core concepts better than some (adult) gamers who have been playing as long as I have and fully embraced role playing.
She was an active and thoughtful participant and made me feel like she really had something to offer the group. At the end of Monday's session, I presented her with her own set of dice (my old "character killers") and a dice bag. I think she's a full fledged gamer now.
I hope your experience continues in a more positive vein and look forward to discussing some of your literary choices. I myself cut my teeth on Narnia and Tolkien's universe and continue to hold those books and many others in high regard. I think the idea of a world greater than ours where ordinary people could do and become extraordinary things is what appealed most to me about the books and eventually the game.
Thanks for posting and getting this discussion going!
The Pathfinder rules clearly state that Attacks of Opportunity are resolved by "interrupting" the flow of combat, which is returned to only after the attack is resolved.
So did the 3.5 ruleset.
To quote the 3.5 SRD: "An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character’s turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character’s turn)."
So why the radical face-heel-turn on player's opinions of trip builds, and the consensus of how this works? What changed?
To answer your question in regards solely to myself:
Pathfinder caused me to more critically re-examine the rules and take ownership of them because they made so many "common sense" revisions and clarifications, plus they involved all of us in the play-testing, which I both appreciated and embraced.
I did not fully understand that rule in 3.5 (so it was more open to abuse) but considering that during PF Beta play-testing, my group was much more prone (no pun intended) to getting out the rulebook and looking something up, we discovered that the rules did indeed prevent the "trip-lock" and went forward from there.
The Pathfinder rules clearly state that Attacks of Opportunity are resolved by "interrupting" the flow of combat, which is returned to only after the attack is resolved.
There is no assumption. All attacks of opportunity are resolved before the action that provoked them is resolved. The prone victim is still prone when the AoO occurs. If the tripper wishes to trip them again, they must wait for their turn.
Considering that the trippee uses a move action to stand up it is still almost a certainty that they will be within move and attack range the next turn unless the tripper loses his action(s) for some reason. Still potentially combat ending, but it gives a clever player or DM a chance to escape, as opposed to the alternative which can be very frustrating to say the least.
I first played D&D on lunch break from school in Madison, NJ in 3d grade. My unimaginatively named Dwarven Fighter, Joe was my first character. I played with a group of guys I'd just met, but through gaming we became fast friends.
Back then, there were three channels on the tv (four if you count a very grainy, ghosty PBS) Pac-Man was the hottest video game, D&D still came in a box, and The Empire Strikes Back was about it for special effects. It's amazing how far imagination can go towards entertaining a young kid if you let it.
I've played with many groups since then, but Jeff H, Max and Greg are at every session I play, in spirit anyway. I was lucky to have such a bright, creative and dedicated group at an early age.
It's not a tangential issue. Our lack of border security is the root cause of both issues. They are, in this part of the country intertwined.
So, to recap the thread so far, Arizona is taking harsh steps to combat illegal immigration because Mexican drug and people traffickers have turned a national park on the border into a no-go area which means clearly that in fact Arizona is not taking harsh enough steps to combat illegal immigration and in fact its existing harsh steps (which have significantly damaged the state's reputation on a national and international level) are completely ineffective?
Or at least, that's what the situation appears to be so far.
Are we paying attention, logic fans? That's what we like to call a tautology... Or as our friends south of the border might be inspired to say:
Yep, everything about the witch feels pretty comfortable and in line with the power of the group I play one in, but I feel a little cheap when I stack a -4 to saves with a -4 to attacks and so forth.
I would be amenable to my GM houseruling that out. As it is, I only use it when I feel I have nothing else to do, or on the rare occasion when we meet a single creature who outclasses us by a mile. We faced a half Dragon Bebilith as a three man party in the last encounter we did in that campaign, for instance. Without my stacking torrent of debuffs, we would be advanturer canapes by now.
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."
-Pat Paulsen
Sorry if I offended anyone. I admit that the last part was glib and snarky. I have a tendency not to know when to hold my tongue when it comes to issues I care a lot about. Wish I could take it back, but I said it, and honestly, logic aside, its how I feel.
I realize that I am not going to change anybody's perception here that illegal immigrants are dangerous and job stealing "blood suckers", but I encourage you to remember that the same thing was said about Irish, German, Italian and other immigrants, some of whom came here illegally and might even have been your own ancestors.
Most people don't assume I'm one ethnicity or the other. It just seems that it happens more often and with more inconvenient consequences in the south and west than it does in the northeast.
And, I hate to point this out, but lets reverse the situation here. Say I, as an American citizen, leave the US without a passport or valid immigration to another country. I won't even use Mexico... lets say I go to England. And while there, without said passport or identification, I have a child. Should I expect my child to automatically have English citizenship?...
And that is, in fact, how it works. I will refrain from commenting on the political nature of this thread, because it is a tempest in an interwebs teakettle but I was born to an American father and a Dutch mother in London, and I still carry my British (now EU) passport to this day.
For the record, all three countries have made me feel phenomenally welcome and taken care of me in their way. The US has hosted me virtually all my life (Permanent Resident), I was raised and schooled in Holland and when I needed to go back to Europe suddenly to visit my dying grandmother, the UK made damn sure I was on the next plane in spite of some hitches with paperwork.
I have always felt like a citizen of all three countries.
Oh, and by the way, since I'm brown, I probably won't be visiting Arizona anytime soon. It's too bad. I used to look forward to visiting Arizona for the Ren Faire each February/March so much, and to be honest, if a bit too forward, my daughter was conceived there, although born here in NY.
Probably a good thing that she was, because otherwise some might accuse me of having had an "anchor baby". Around here people don't make that distinction as much, but then again here in the state of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, we don't see immigrant as a bad word.
Since I will probably play in this campaign, I figured I should chime in. I think Brambley is right that if you are going to restrict the spells and items, you may want to increase the PC's base power through more generous point buy and/or attribute increases. I know I would feel more comfortable as a player in a campaign like that. The limitation can seem somewhat arbitrary and the boost to power makes it feel more like a quid-pro-quo situation.
In the campaign I'm currently running, I gave the characters a generous array and have them increase their attributes by 2 pts at 4 and 12 (1 at 8 and 16). I fully expect and would relish hefty dc's from the players and smite-a-licious damage from everyone at high levels. I want to be able to beat the stuffing out of these characters and have them bounce back, smiling, ready for more.
I think that in my next campaign, the power level will be scaled back a bit (although not to the extent that Fergie is proposing; there's a reason we constantly tell him he is evil) because it would suit the atmosphere of the campaign better.
I wanted this current campaign to feel bigger though, and I appreciate that stat generation method and scope is one of the ways a GM has to control the tone, setting and scale of the adventuring party.
A party of heroically strong adventurers is going to behave different than that "ragtag band of rebels" with barely more than ordinary stats.
As for me, I will most likely play a caster in Fergie's new campaign. I feel like there is never a shortage of fun stuff for a caster to do, and as long as you are not concerned about doing the most x or the highest y, you'll enjoy yourself and make a difference.
My current character in Fergie's campaign rarely has encounter-ending moments but when he does they are a doozy and they usually occur well into combat as a result of judicious buffing (& debuffing), battlefield control and tactical synergy with the rest of the party.
I feel this might be a part of Ferg's rationale as well. Limiting the party's resources can have the effect of making the party rely on teamwork and strategy more often, using aid another actions or flanking, for instance.
While I generally agree with the sentiment that Leadership should be primarily used for PC's, (Heck, I used to think Fighters should get it as a bonus feat at L9, inspired by the old AD&D rules for fighter followers at higher levels.) One of the most enjoyable encounters I ever designed was a retread of "Expedition to Barrier Peaks", wherein an evil mind flayer had crashed a spaceship a millennium ago.
I designed the mind flayer as an Illusionist/Mastermind (not sure where that PrC came from- complete psionics or something?) and stocked his spaceship with dozens of humanoid followers "collected" from around the area.
I actually ran his low level followers as a "mob" (3.5 DMG2?), comparable to a swarm under 3.5 rules and as they surged forward and tried to crush the life out of the party, the spiked chain wielding Fighter had a field day almost literally mowing them down.
His higher level follower was a more vanilla mind flayer with some melee capability and along with a few creatures added to the final combat (additional CR, not covered by leadership) it was an entertaining, challenging, yet ultimately heroic encounter for the party.
We're fortunate in our gaming group that we have two gm's who are 100% committed. If one of us couldn't make it for some reason, the other could probably run their campaign on the fly.
As it is, we do three weeks on, three weeks off. Two weeks was too short to establish campaign continuity and four too long to break from either campaign and preserve continuity.
My players are by and large fairly considerate and on the ball. We meet once a week (usually on Mondays) and play for between 4-8 hours. On the rare occasions when there are conflicts we try to work together to make up a date everyone can attend. I view players as a precious commodity.
We just had someone quit the group for personal reasons, but it worked out okay because he was the one player with an inconsistent schedule and ongoing familial commitments.
On several occasions, friends from my days on the road (Ren Faires) swing through the state, or old friends will pop in and grab a character to sit in on a session. We generally look forward to these guest players but we recognize that with a guest player it is more likely than not that the evening will have a more social component to it than usual, so we don't get too stressed if it is not as cohesive as it would normally be.
I used to scale a PC's alignment on a scale of 1-5 (If I recall, Neverwinter used a similar tracking system) for each component. Neutrality was zero, or the absence of motivation towards one of the valences or equal motivation towards either. I would never change a PC's alignment more than one step at a time and without reason, but it was helpful to track.
For example, a Necromancer, experimenting and communing with the dead has slowly eroded his morality (Chaotic 3, Good 1) if he loses the final rank in good (by perhaps experimenting on a living creature) he becomes Chaotic Neutral, slipping further would push him into evil.
Because of the morass of issues caused by the broad spectrum of interpretations of alignment, I have lessened my focus on it in the game considerably and abandoned such a tracking system. This is mostly due to the fact that my players are a mature bunch who generally play their alignment, and more importantly generally play heroic characters.
As for your second question, you can pick from the entire cleric spell list every day. When a new book comes out, talk to your DM about the new spells in it. Clerics do have a spells known list.
Fixed that.
As a GM, I still reserve the right to deny a cleric spells prayed for which I feel for some reason the deity would not see fit to grant.(i.e: a cleric of a cold based deity who memorizes nothing but flame strikes day after day)
That being said, I almost never invoke that privilege.
I had a group of Ranger/Paladin elves stop the law breaking party and demand a fine for not being lawful good.
I was expecting a tense standoff and some good negotiations.
The witch PC made a fantastic knowledge check, and identified the elves as good guys. The party all paid their fine with surprisingly little resistance, and continued on their way.
Anyway, the idea is that lawful good can be just as much trouble to neutral or chaotic characters as evil. Often an over zealous paladin or cleric can be a good antagonist to keep the party on their toes.
I must admit I was a little disappointed I didn't get to smite them...
Most of my arguments for this have been stated clearly above by other posters, but ultimately, even if you consider it option 3, it is a rather ineffective and underpowered spell.
I am not sure why it is provoking what seems like so much passion.
I'm pretty sure the flight hex is activated as a standard action, similar to other hexes.
I've been playing a witch for several sessions now, and have been impressed by the versatility and balance of the class.
With patience, you can have a profound effect on battles in a multitude of ways and often, with perfect timing. In last night's session, I stayed invisible and buffed the party for most of the first fight (against Wyverns) and in the second fight, I maneuvered around, setting up battlefield control with the druid and ultimately ending the fight with a well timed (and poorly saved against) fear. I'm very happy with the class.
Love the change to flight hex in the APGP. Makes it a much better option.
How a GM handles transparency on a monster or NPC's hp is up to him/her. It's not something we wanted to hardwire into the rules. My preference is to describe to the players what the foe looks like—"He seems barley scratched" or "He seems like he's almost dead."
I also don't bother hiding how much damage they've done to a foe, since that's something the players could track if they weren't lazy about it. :-P And besides, telling them, "You've done 134 points of damage to him so far," is a great way to let them know they're up against a really tough goblin.
Don't you hate when you get a nasty barley scratch? Personally I get a worse reaction when I get cut by rye, but those grain-wounds can be annoying ;)
In all seriousness, while I sometimes joke "That knocked him from orange into red", aside from the descriptive quality of wounds, I only offer more specific information in response to direct questions. Even then I limit it to a brief description rather than actual hit point numbers.
When I GM, I let the dice fall where they may. Sometimes a crit on either side will result in death. That is the kind of game we play, and for myself as GM or player I wouldn't really want in any other way. Some folks limit death to specific story events, but I think letting the dice decide is the best way to avoid hurt feelings.
I don't think a crit killing a wizard at 3rd level should really surprise anyone.
QFT
I've been the one kicking on the end of an ogre's blade most recently in one of Ferg's campaigns and I can say I never felt shafted (except by my own dice) for one NY minute.
Outside of organized play, I am not sure there really is such a thing as GM cheating.
I've always vacillated between Cleric and Wizard, but lately I've been playing a Witch and find it offers some of the best parts of Wizarding with just the right amount of healing and support. My favorite character ever was an Elf Cleric/Wizard "Astrologer" I played in a 1e campaign many years ago...
I think by now, every player knows who and what everybody is, but I remind them liberally that their characters still don't and probably never will. I discourage mechanical table-talk and rules-lawyering quickly and try to retain a grip on the narrative as it relates to each PC.
Thus, they remain individuals, being drawn into an adventure rather than the artificial construct of the "party". I expect this to happen at later levels, when it makes more sense. Great iconic teams often begin as adversaries, unsure of one another or without any great sense of kinship. At mid-to-high levels, the party gels more organically into a seamless unit. Roles and tactics become more defined by the nature of the game.
I also encouraged the players to pre-create a second character in case they just couldn't find a fit in the party, or in case of sudden PC death.
A character in this campaign has no reference of "wizard" and "paladin", "domains" and "feats".. I feel that playing like that seems to instill our sessions with the wonder and sense of discovery that drew me to RPG's in the first place.
It still adds a great dimension, led to some very clever and ingenious builds, (everybody is capable of and sometimes does, survive solo) and enhances the mysterious, moody and edgy atmosphere of the City of Cyphers.
I just have to say that I love that! Skills have always been a favorite part of the game for me and this is one of those adjustments to the rules that just really sits well with me.
"I said, Edith Bunker from 'All in the Family'! Not too bright, but wise as all hell. Or to take a counterexample, Richard Nixon. Get it?"
-Joel Rosenberg, "The Sleeping Dragon". (Karl explaining the concept to novice player Andrea)
I've been providing arrays of ability scores for the players to arrange any way they wish. This is satisfactory to me and I think my group has adjusted to it nicely, coming up with some very clever builds.
The rules of the game seem to be fairly clear about how such a situation is handled mechanically but it seems that it may become difficult for some to synchronize this process with the narrative flow. I appreciate that. I often find rules getting in the way of a good time. In life as in gaming.
To me (and my group, I believe), the slight hiccup in suspension of disbelief is vastly preferable to the DM (or Player)deployed, uber-tripping (often spiked chain wielding) nightmare that was all too commonplace before the clarification and implementation of the updated rules...
I think the rules say that you can never sell off in order to take your final level.
I remember having the same problem until we figured that out, but i haven't played in a while. I never play Munchkin without 3 or more. The chaos of multiple players is what makes it fun :)
