Zhayne's page

There's a 3pp feat called Deadly Finesse in the Path of War book that does this. Check it on pfsrd.com.

I usually call the blessing deck 'the timer deck'.

To me, part of the class balance is the alignment restriction.

Roleplaying in no way serves as any kind of balancing effect, because it's purely subjective. Note how many threads come up asking whether or not a paladin should get hosed, and that there's never any real consensus? That's why it doesn't work as a balancer, because you may or may not be able to get away with things depending on the GM's view on things. (See: Baby Goblin Slaughter threat #58392).

1.0 may have been more (anyone who says totally I will call a liar) setting neutral, but times are changing and the devs are pretty locked into PF2 being more tied to Golarion.

Hopefully, they'll realize what a colossal mistake this is very soon.

1. Not everybody plays on Golarion, so your cries of 'against the lore' are meaningless.

2. It just means PF needs to get with the times ... and amply demonstrates, yet again, why alignment is frelling stupid.

1. Problem players will be problem players, no matter what options there are or aren't. "It's what my character would do" is shorthand for 'you made the wrong character for this game'. This is why you have a 'session zero' before any dice or character sheets are touched, to make sure you don't have a problem character, or player, on your hands.

2. If you don't like 'em in your game, don't allow 'em. Lots of people seem to be looking forward to the little buggers, no reason your likes should impede theirs. You don't like the idea, then ban 'em, or hell, go hog-wild rock the casbah and change the lore so goblins AREN'T illiterate pyromaniacs in your game world.

3. Goblins, like all sentient beings, are individuals, no some hive-mind genetic experiment. If you don't demand/expect all elves to be tree-hugging hippies, dwarves to be drunken craftsmen, or whatever, then expecting all goblins to be insane pyros is just hypocritical.

It is much easier for a GM to relax a restriction than to impose one (in general). I'd much rather keep paladins LG.

I have to disagree with this. In the paladin example, it means some fairly significant restructuring of the class. On the other hand, if all-alignment paladins exist, it's easy as pie to just say 'LG only'.

Here's the thing ... if you put lots of player choice and flavor options in the game, then individual groups can pick the flavor/lore options they want. How this doesn't make everybody happy, I simply cannot fathom.

If there are non-LG Paladins, then people who prefer only LG paladins can say 'Only LG paladins in this world'. It may not be a compromise, per se, but it gives everybody what they want.

This means you can CREATE YOUR OWN world, lore, and flavor more easily.

Some of us don't give two squirts of (urine) about Golarion.

IMHO, the ideal setup would be to create a completely mechanical book,then a 'Golarion Campaign Setting' that narrows the options for 'canonical' Golarion, while leaving things wide open for those of us who make our own worlds.

graystone wrote:

if I want my fireballs to be powered by tiny fire elemental dolls that explode, why force me to stuff it with guano and sulfur?

Because part of identifying a spell as it's being cast is observing the material components.

If you can use anything you want, then that particular mechanic stops working.

And yet, you can ID a silent, stilled, material-eschewed spell ...

Keeping expensive components (a theoretical balance method) and foci is okay. I'd rather they be balanced some other way, but at least that's something.

Lame, stupid stuff like throwing bat poop or swallowing a live spider? No. Get rid of that idiocy.

DRD1812 wrote:

I tend to use point buy in my games, but random methods have been growing on me lately. What about the rest of you guys? How do you balance the thrill of rolling for stats with the need for balanced gameplay?

Relevant bonus comic.

Point buy only, either as player or DM. This gives everyone a fair chance and makes it easier to balance the game as a DM.

And it means you can build the character you WANT to play, that you envision. I once rolled a character with such stupid high stats (in front of the GM, who said after we were done, he wanted me to buy him a lottery ticket), that I said I was just going to lower some of them, because 'prissy non-adventuring noblewoman who never did anything herself suddenly out of the manorhouse for the first time' wasn't going to have a 14 STR and CON (yes, everything I rolled was 14 or higher).

As far as min-maxing/dump stats/whatever goes, I find characters with distinct strengths and weaknesses more memorable than jack-of-all-trades-no-particular-strengths-or-weaknesses.

Oy. I just rolled my eyes so hard, I checked out my own ass.

This is accounted for in the age determination, with wizard being a 'trained' class and thus adding the most years to your pre-adventuring career.

Memo: Me

--Stop playing at 12th level. 'Legendary' proficiency just looks absurd.

Being Small, as written now, already makes you weaker without a STR penalty; you have to use smaller weapons and lighter armor. The STR penalty on top of it is just insult to injury.

Zhayne wrote:

Neo2151 wrote:

The only difference is the casters have the magic baked in, while the non-casters gather the magic from without.

Which is another way of saying they aren't magical, their stuff is. Remove all gear, armor, weapons from the characters, and it becomes obvious who is 'magical' and who is not.

Superman without gear = Superman
Iron Man without gear = Rich alcoholic

Something of a difference there.

rich alcoholic with the ability to call all his gear and surplus gear to him at a moments notice.

... because he has gear that does it. My argument stands.

4E Warlord, with non-magical healing included. With rare exception, Warlords were all I played during 4e. I LOVED them.

I want the game to be equally playable with four fighters as a cleric-fighter-rogue-wizard combo, or any other combo.

I want every player to be able to play what he wants, when he wants, without having to worry about 'plugging holes' or 'filling roles'.

I don't want anybody 'getting stuck' playing something they don't want to because 'the game' makes it necessary.

Does anybody else agree with this?

Cardio and endurance training, basically. If you're like a lot of adventurers, you're going to spend huge chunks of your time walking around; that's going to build up your stamina.

Seconded. It would make things easier for people who run games that take place largely at sea, or in deserts, where armor wearing should be rare.

Making a single attack with the hand (what hand? Some spell, I'm guessing?) is a full round action, using TWF is a different full round action. Since you can't simultaneously take two full-round actions, you can't combine the two.

ohako wrote:

1st-level magic can be used to perform assault, arson, and seduction. Cast anything, anything at all out in the open, and it should be well and rightly assumed that you're trying to do one of those three things. There's three ways around this problem:

With that level of fear and paranoia we should also assume it is illegal to walk around wearing magic weapons or armor, carry or display magic items of any sort, be accompanied by any non-equinine animal companions, etc.

In other words, it would be illegal for adventures of any ilk to walk around with their adventuring gear, almost all of which can be assumed is useful for killing and plundering.

You say 'fear and paranoia', I say 'logic and common sense'.

Now, to be fair, a lot of this has to do with the setting. In my game, it's entirely possible for a typical person to go their entire lives and never once see a spell cast, or anything that most people would call 'a monster', or a magic item. There's not magic academies in every major city. The local priests aren't spellcasters, just devoted religious people.

So, yes, the dire wolf stays out of city limits, you check your dangerous gear at the city gates, and if you don't like it, you can turn around and go somewhere else.

These sacred cows would make for some wonderfully delicious burgers.

And I suppose it goes without saying ...

I want multiclassing to actually work, especially since there's no fighter/mage or rogue/mage combo class in the starter book.

The Paladin should basically be a cleric that's less spellcasty and more fighty. If an individual GM wants to limit the Paladin to one alignment, then he can do that. If an individual player thinks the Paladin has to be LG, then he can choose to only play that kind of Paladin.

It's far easier to include things and let individual GMs remove elements they don't like.

That said, IMNSHO, alignment and power-loss mechanics need to go the way of the dodo.

For the record, this is a terrible idea. I've had three goblin PCs, and two of them were a$$&%*$s about it.

So, what you're really saying is, you had two a**hole players, and that was the problem.

My personal 'list of classes I care about':
Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Alchemist, Magus, Oracle, Ninja, Arcanist, Brawler.

I'd like to see a spontaneous Magus, and a no-spell Ranger. And for the love of Solus Prime, A VERSION OF THE 4E WARLORD.

That's all the first-party classes I'm interested in.

My main thing is going to be races (or 'ancestries'). Hopefully there'll be something other than the Tolkien Four-plus-three in the main book, if not ASAFP.

Something I'd been thinking about lately, during a break from my 'rebuilding the Cleric' project ... why do Sorcerers cast spells?

I'm not sure how they're supposed to have suddenly figured out words A,B and C and gesture D, sometimes combined with object (Focus) E results in a spell, somehow identical to those cast by everybody else.

It seems to me that innate power like that shouldn't require gestures or incantations or foci (at least PF gives 'em free Eschew Materials ... 'Why did you swallow a live spider?' 'I dunno, but watch me climb this wall!').

DSP's psionics feels like a much better fit for what the sorcerer is supposed to represent, or possibly the 3e Warlock, whose abilities were unlimited.

Anybody else ever felt a disconnect between the sorc's mechanics and what they're supposed to be?

Surely Paizo will listen and realize this isn't what we, as a community, want.

I believe the expression to be used here is ...

'Speak for yourself.'

Alignment needs to go. It's dumb.
If this take Paladins with it, I'm fine with that. The Paladin as-is (or as-was) was too narrow to be its own class. As a Prestige Class or archetype, though, it's fine.

If there is a paladin, and there is alignment, then paladins should be of any alignment. Why? Because it's easier for the GM to remove things than add them. If old-school GM wants LG only, he can put that in his house rules.

Speaking of corvids, there's something I've been meaning to try.

Go to a public place and give your best Nazghul scream. Then, feed all the crows in the area. Repeat this in different locations, in a gradually expanding range, at all hours. (You might get complaints. Ignore them.) See if you can't teach all the crows where you live that whenever you unleash a unholy scream, they'll be getting food. The hope is that you can attract all the birds in earshot on command.

In the shadowy ally, the moonlight glints off the heavily built man's knife. The d4 doesn't impress you, but that strength modifier could put you in negatives. He's asking for the money you have on hand. You're scared ... but it's nothing to what he'll feel in a moment. You open your mouth and let it hang open as a spine-chilling sound issues forth. The black birds gather, cawing and jostling each other and finding places to perch.

"Do not linger in the dark places of the world," you whisper, hoarsely. "You are not the darkest monster the stalks the night." With a dry chuckle, you walk away.

And the Poetic Justice Police arrive, as you use crows to prevent a murder.

Being smarter wouldn't change their memories, but they'd be better able to elaborate on them.

Scorching ray is subject to full fire resistance, a simple resist elements cast at level makes maximized scorching ray scorching ray do 12 damage. Hellfire ray does over double that vs the same defensive. and infinitely more against fire immunity.

The fact that your GM doesn't use resurrection for antagonists of merit speaks to the campaigns you play in.

Edit: and its FAR more damage than a ranged/multitarget divine spell should do.

It's also Sixth freaking level. If it were second level, you'd have an argument. So, instead of comparing it to Scorch, compare it to other sixth level spells.

I don't care about the 'divine niche' thing. I think role protection should take place at the table level, not the game level.

I don't use resurrection for protagonists either. Dead is dead, and there's no afterlife, and no 'hell' to be condemned to.

That's the nice(?) thing about religion. Enough mental gymnastics, and you can justify anything.

I figure, LN cleric of Z-K would be in the camp of 'torture/murder/etc. people who deserve it' rather than it being a recreational activity.

Following up on Sideromancer's excellent post ...

Anything that happens in concordance with the unaltered laws of physics on a particular plane of existence is, by definition, natural. So long as the closed system that is the Prime Material Plane (or whatever PF calls it) remains closed, anything that occurs is natural.

Druids should get a bug up their butts when something is added to that closed system, aka extradimensional entities, monsters, or effects. Outsiders, for example, should be on the Big Hate List.

I think "save" implies it has to be someone else. If the paladin heals himself, then he clearly did not need saving. It's like claiming that winning a fight while in negative HP with diehard counts.

If at any point you're alive and they aren't, you won. Sure, in a few rounds it might become irrelevant, but you did win.

I would definitely argue that anybody who is low enough on HP that they can die in the next round needs saving.

... psionics is complicated? Maybe before the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but they're simpler than spellcasting by a long shot.

I'm of the belief that Sci-Fi and Fantasy are the same thing, just told differently.

"I must say, you cast that Open Portal spell effortlessly."

N.B. Just because you can break a class doesn't mean you have to. If you see something you think is broken, don't take it, or don't use it at maximum efficiency, or whatever.

Just ... hold back.

Now, for the real oldsters out there, you want some sci-fi/fantasy mix? Thundarr the Barbarian.

The 1e DMG even had rules for converting/mixing D&D with Gamma World (and Boot Hill), so the idea was even on the mind of the OG (Original Gygax).

The reason the vitalist seems so scary is that it does something no other class can do: heal efficiently during combat.

I think another part of this strategy is to be willing to throw resources at acquiring a card that vastly improves your deck. Groups I've been in have done that a few times, even if it would risk the scenario being a loss if the card was "worth it".

Every time I've played Runelords and someone has a solid Ranged character, we will move heaven and earth to acquire the Deathbane Crossbow.

A native outsider is an Outsider with the native subtype. It IS an Outsider. The qualification doesn't specify it has to be someone else, so you fit all the qualifications. You're good to go.

I really need a better name for it ...

Anyway, to me, some of the more interesting character ideas are the ones that are non-traditional ... Dwarf fighters, yeah, seen a lot, but dwarven sorcerers? Unfortunately, so much stuff is dependent on ability scores that even a -2 can be a major detriment. Also, some races have stats that don't lend themselves to some traditionally thematic builds. Dwarves seem like shoo-ins for clerics or paladins, but that Charisma penalty makes them less good at it.

So, my idea was a trait that lets you add 2 to an ability score:
1> Only if you have a racial penalty to that score, and
2> Only to determine feat prerequisites and class abilities.

You must choose a specific ability score for each time you take the trait, and you can't generate a net bonus with it, only negate penalties. You can take it more than once for the same stat, though, either negating multiple -2s, or completely negating a -4, etc.

So, a halfling fighter puts a 13 in STR, then takes a -2, having an 11, meaning he can no longer qualify for Power Attack. He takes the Prodigy: Strength trait, then he's considered to have a 13 for feat prerequisites, so he can take Power Attack. However, his STR is still considered 11 for encumbrance, attack/damage rolls, STR skill and ability checks, etc.

A dwarven sorcerer does something similar, a 16 Charisma gets reduced to a 14. Now, he can only cast 4th level spells, and his save DC is 12+Spell Level. Taking Prodigy: Charisma, he can now cast 6th level spells, and his save DC is 13+Spell Level; however, he still only gets a +2 to Charisma skills, etc.

Thoughts?

Agreed with PossibleCabbage. Prep casters make good utility casters because they can leave slots open to fill on the fly, or easily craft scrolls with utility spells on them. Spontaneous casters need to make every spell selection count; if you can't imagine casting that spell multiple times in any 'adventuring day', you shouldn't take it.

For what it's worth, canon is that the cards are replaced, making it entirely possible to draw something twice. Not replacing cards could skew something that's very carefully balanced in a particular way.

"Carefully balanced" and "Deck of Many Things" are not two phrases that relate to one another.

No surprise round. The barbarian was fully aware of the opponent prior to the action. It doesn't matter if he thought the spellcaster was friendly or an enemy.

You played it exactly right, it's like two gunfighters in a duel. Initiative yes, surprise no.