burkoJames's page

I agree that the rules state that when an aggressive action is declared, combat begins. Many people state this is to prevent PCs from declaring "I ATTACK FIRST". However, I would like to point out that the rules in fact encourage the opposite - trying to avoid saying anything the DM can ever interpret as mildly aggressive in intent. It ends up playing a game of Schrodinger initiative.

I was in a game where we were going up against an Alarune. We did not know what she was at the time, it was disguised as a Person of Authority, but we knew she was fake. I know after the fact, from reading the module, that the Alarune wanted to sucker us in as close as possible, to get us with her calming spores. We were all riding the Giant Dino Wildshaped Druid in our party. The Druid player explained to our GM that the goal was to walk close, and then charge the fake POA. Because he expressed his intent to attack at some point, and despite that his attack vector was to do exactly what the NPC wanted, while 150 ft away when neither side wanted to initiate combat...we rolled initiative.

Schrodenger's initiative is where a person who has not initiated combat and is not disposed to make the first strike gets initiative. I encounter it often with my Lawful types - I have not yet seen clear need to fight, and because the actual triggering action hasn't in theory occurred yet, I have no idea what to do with my initiative round. I know, from the init roll, that the guy is actually a bandit that will attack me on his turn, but acting on it would be metagaming. It sucks. It never seems to be a problem for the opposition however. Ive had my injured monk about to jump into a pool of freezing water drinking a mage armor potion initiate combat, no bluff check that i was drinking another potion, they monsters *Knew* that i was in fact buffing myself for a fight, not drinking the endure elements before jumping in the lake.

I am not wishing to argue house rules, I recognize the RAW. My question to this thread would be how others reconcile Schrodinger's Initiative in their own game.

Small note....Eidolons, by the CRB definitions Nefreet linked, are not summoned creatures, except when summoned via the 1 rd spell. Which is why at some point this concept should have been clarified. Nothing in the description disallows a summoned creature from returning with non-summoned objects. And again, they aren't summoned creatures, because the 1 minute ritual is not a spell. If you want to play that game.

So here is a spoiler free case i encountered, that did not have an intimidate immunity. it was a 7-11 season 0 or 1 scenario The big bad flesh warps their family and i presumed minions when they fail. The party took out a room of enemies, and stabilized one guy and tried to interrogate him about his boss and minions. This minion had 'fight to the death' morale. He is restrained and unable to restart his bleed out by preforming a stressful action, which he would have otherwise done.

I told the party that he would not give them information. Intimidate will not cause an enemy to perform an action that would cause them harm, or in this case be tortured. They could not threaten him with worse then torture and death. I got so much grief for this ruling.

The various limiting factors on intimidate, No self harm, "friendly", not mind control, are designed to be the balancing factors on a stupidly low DC. But a lot of players refuse to accept those limitations as ok. Ive been told by a venture lieutenant that I shouldn't restrict the abilities of intimidate on an enemy who would otherwise slavishly throw himself upon the PC's swords despite his 10 friends failing to even scratch them. There are circumstances where Intimidate would not work. A level 1 is not going to intimidate Grandmaster Torch surrounded by guards (though mechanically they could). Hence, "immune to intimidate".

It really depends. IN FFXV, the prince is obviously the main character, and his friends are clearly supporting characters. But I could easily see a campaign where the group, with the price as their leader was the main character. Its all about how the NPCs interact with the compainions of the heir. Have those in the resistance praise the individual contributions of the others, have them recognize that its this 'strike team', not just the heir that is solving the issues. Make them feel valuable. Its also going to rely on the heir valuing in-game and out of game his PC allies. Its very possible, but it requires that the world see them as a unit with a clear and defined leader rather than the prince and his lackies. Perhaps build to that point with success, but if the other players dont feel their contributions are valued by the 'resistence' or that the usrpers consider them part of the threat, it doesn't matter if they are more combat effective - they will check out during the RP, and that will undermine your story.

Use a laser printer. Ink jets are just money sinks

let me add a wrinkle to the 'the tail can't carry things' debate: the tree hanger feat. now that tail can carry an entire medium creature with all of its gear, but not a one pound item? honestly, it can retrieve an item from my bag, but not hold it? how does it move the item to my hands then?

So, i started cruzing through the stickied thread this morning, and discovered an answer to a question ive had for weeks.

I bought a ring of eloquence for a effrit-blooded scorceror. I thought getting the series of elemental languages (auran, aquan, ignan and terran) would be cool and themeatic. And after all, I choose the skill in my head band of intellegence, and a few other items of a similar nature exist, with factors chosen by the creator of the item that have other legal options.

I looked at the Additional Resources, the Campaign Clarifications, the Organized Play FAQ, and the Advanced Class Guide FAQ. None of these sources listed any restrictions on the use of the Ring of eloquence, and the item description states other language combinations exist.

So imagine my surprise, after playing the character last night and locking in the purchase, when i started reading a thread compiling blog and forum posts clarifying rules for organized play and found a link to a Sep 2014 blog post which produced official PFS rulings. Do I now need to keep an entire archive of the blog at hand as yet another source of rules? What is the point of the Additional Resources, Campaign Clarifications, and Oraganized play FAQ pages, if I still cant reliably determine what has and has not been ruled legal for play?

I find, in most cases, that those who require an uncommon or rare race to make an interesting character are either using it as a crutch, or are just prejudiced against humans.

I haven't found one who builds a character where the race is a necessary or critical component of that character, but is rather a shorthand for stereotypical traits or a providing a mechanical benefit.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to play other races. But you need to be honest about it. I prefer dwarves and gnomes, and it shows in my character list. But I can't think of a single one whose race is what makes them interesting. I have a Dwarf who loves to take charge because, as a dwarf, he knows how to mundane things better. But it could just as easily be a human referencing his local region instead (think Chekov and Russia). The race isn't what makes him interesting, the personality is.

From a certain standpoint, my most boring Pathfinder (PFS) character is a Nagaji Brawler/Rouge. She is dumb as rocks (Int 6, after a level up boost), with a high strength (20+). In combat her primary attack is head butts. She owns a caravan to smuggle goods back to the Nagaji Empire, its the reason she adventures. She's pretty cookie cutter. But the Table and I have fun with her, because its the character that makes it fun, and the character isn't largely defined by her race.

My most interesting character is however a uncommon race, a Tengu. He's a Monk (Sensei) / Inquisitor (Preacher) of Irori. This character's motivation in life is a lot more tied into race - His goal is to elevate the Tegu people and make them stop being the dregs of society by encouraging the race to strive for self perfection. But if I wanted to play with this build in a game that didn't want Tengus? Its a different character, sure, but I could play it. I could find other hooks in the lore to work with. I've been playing D&D since AD&D 2nd ed, and I still haven't run out of unique personalities to work with. I play a uncommon race because it fits with my character or help define an aspect of the character. Not because I need the race to have any idea at all.

I had a friend who couldn't play a 'normal' character. They were boring. He had to have a gimmick. Children. A caster who got a rod of wonder and would use it to the exclusion of any other tactic. A pacifist involved in combatting the world destroying evil. It was weird. He was so upset when I ruled he couldn't play a kobold, because in my homebrew setting, many 'evil' races like kobolds were in fact *evil* races. In a cosmic sense, the evil races were created by the malevolent elder god "Destruction" (later to be revealed as Tiamat) with the goal of ending creation. There was no question cosmically of nature vs nurture in this campaign, Evil races were by their nature evil, and would not have been able to be on the PC side of the campaign arc, whose goal was to prevent the freeing of Tiamat and the end of creation. Told to restrict himself to just about anything else he couldn't do it. If he couldn't have his special snowflake Kobold, he literally couldn't find his character interesting (until he chose a child with no PC class levels). His character other wise was a bog standard rogue, taking little mechanical advantage of being a Kobold, and whose personality was easily transplanted into the child. It could have been a gnome or Halfling just as easily. But those were too "generic" and "boring". It needed to be something highly unique so he could highlight his uniqueness to everyone.

And that I find is the case with most people who need an uncommon or rare race - They demand to play a race that is in-setting rare and unusual, and then whine when it turns out that, like in the real world, uniqueness is not necessarily a positive trait to have when travelling from village to village.

Why do I insist on playing common races? I don't. But I don't reject playing them either. But I would imagine most people gravitate towards standard fantasy races because A) they are new, and the common ones are familiar, B) they are in fact common and therefore have fewer issues travelling, or C) They are in fact common and therefore it requires less explaining why they are present at the beginning of the campaign/adventure.

Second sentence. The one nefreet bolded? That sentence is a broad policy statement, and its phrasing makes no sense if it was only supposed to apply to the Adventurer's Guide. Given the significant complaints that occur every time they stealth errata some option by reprinting it, a policy of "You don't need to buy a new book to use an option you already had" solves serious concerns about bait and switch that were getting leveled at Paizo. It undermines the reason we need to have and bring those resources in PFS, and its questionable how that policy would work in practice because of those reasons, but it makes quite a bit of sense in the "don't be a dick" arena

I want to apologize for the posters who want to quickly comment rather than provide either a substansive "yes, those numbers are correct", or trying to explain how to do things. In short, yes, it all adds up. Feats or magic items might provide additional bonuses that have non-stacking types, but in general, the base AC animal statistics, the 4th/7th level advancement, and the AC table benefits all combine to produce the "base" statistics.

Your numbers are correct. However, in the the belief that if we leave it at that you or another poster will need to revisit this question, I want to explain how we get there.

Lets slow this down a bit, take it step by step. Please bear with me for some of my comments - Others who may not be as versed in the rules as you may see this post, and I am wrting for them as well.

As a note, you should link to your sources in the furture. D20PFSRD (where it looks like you got those screenshots) is posting that information legally, there is no reason to hide the source of that info. And information not in the tables is needed as well.

Paizo PRD entry on Druids, for refrence.

First, the 1st level AC bear. From the List:

Starting Statistics: Size Small; Speed 40 ft.; AC +2 natural armor;
Attack bite (1d4), 2 claws (1d3); Ability Scores Str 15, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6; Special Qualities low-light vision, scent.

So we use those stats to calculate the Bear as if it were any PC or NPC. We apply the bonuses from the AC Table as well, noting that an AC has D8 Hit Dice as per the Druid entry on Animal companions.

Now, no major changes happen until 4th level, when the bear gets the advancement. This changes the base bear, but only in the ways specified.

4th-Level Advancement: Size Medium; Attack bite (1d6), 2 claws (1d4); Ability Scores Str +4, Dex –2, Con +2.

Since the AC table is cumulative, you just need to adjust the base bear with the above bonuses, and then apply the Bonuses in the AC table.

That gets you (with the ability increase to con):

Now its just incremental changes from the AC table. That gives us, at level 9 (both increases in CON)

And there you go, a level 9 Bear AC.

Now, the bear as an AC does not grow again. Its an unfortunate design decision, and does seem small. It does however provide a solid melee companion with no issues traveling through the 5 ft wide cooridoors common in dungeons.

I am unsure how I would design a large size bear companion. Perhaps a second advancement at 7 as a house rule, but make sure there is a drawback beyond the -2 dex for size.

Kurthnaga wrote:

I must be somewhere near aboyd as Rob has frequented my store previously, and I have to be honest I have no clue where he could be talking about. I do however acknowledge that I've seen cheating before, and it can be an issue here to an extent. I've even been told by a store official that regardless of how little a certain player knows of his own character, or the correct function of the rules, that since he spends quite a bit at the store I can't really remove him. We have since gotten him a bit better on the rules side but sometimes his numbers are still odd, and not even necessarily in his favor. He'll roll a low number on a skill check he's decently proficient in and just accept his failure, even when he may have succeeded. Truly odd.

If someone rolls a '1', there have been two ways I've seen GMs run it.

Either

A. Automatic Failure, even if the character has +30 in the skill

or

B. Potential Failure, taking into account the bonus.

The distribution has been about 50-50 on that, so if someone did have a good modifier but ran into that enough times, or heard the rough DC for things for a given scenario enough times may start to think that the die roll 4 plus 25 isn't going to amount to anything...

as a note, in PFS, #1 is wrong. there is absolutely no auto fail on skill checks. Automatic failure only occurs where specificly spelled out, which occurs in the attack roll and saving throw entries.

The following is just my opinion, feel free to skip it...

The only person who KNOWS what the point of the OP's question would be the OP, right? I mean if someone asks a question, the only person who would know WHY they asked would be the person who asked, esp. when the question is asked on an internet posting board. In this case we had a number of people who then responded to UNASKED questions - or attributed motives to the OP for WHY they were asking the questions they asked. After all - someone just wouldn't ask a question without ulterior motives, right? (sorry - Sarcasm creeping into my post - I'll try to control myself better). The questions asked were:
"Mostly curious, anyone tried building an intentionally fallen paladins, stupid wizards, or other class that really can't use the majority of it's class features? Anyone find any good builds?"

IMHO: if I had asked the above questions, people would have jumped to the conclusion that I was trying to tie this to the Take 10 rule in some way - or perhaps that I was just being an idiot. (shrugs) If someone with no posting history (a newbie to PFS) had come on with the above they would have gotten several responses telling them that they shouldn't do that - phrased nicely so as not to offend the new guy. But this was posted by someone that appears to have had "history" with several regular board personalities - so they seemed (IMHO) were quick to respond to what they felt where the posters "ulterior motives"... rather than just responding to what was asked.

Language is widely regarded as an effective way to express an idea to other parties. If you do not have a grasp of language i can see how the idea that you can communicate your desires to others is a bit baffling. but you seem to have a decent grasp of the idea of language. You clearly expressed a 'point', that is that you feel people have unfairly judged the point of the OP because of his posting history.

The OP originally expressed that his key desire was to see a build that could not use the majority of its class abilities. That wan't unclear in the OP. However, having no knowledge of the OPs history I still jumped to the why question. a PFS character should be designed to fill and be effective at one or more adventuring roles. Pathfinder Field Agents are, in theory, skilled adventurers capable of handling any role. So we question why you would try to force a Fighter with 1/2 bab and a d6 hit points into the ranks of the Pathfinders, he clearly isn't very skilled, and his skills (swordplay) don't match the training he has received (wizardry). (Remember, conceptually, if a character is a level 1 wizard he spent years training at an arcane school, or under an older wizard, despite not having the ability to perform the magic he was being taught).

So the question is, what is the goal of creating a build like this? Placing flavor over base competance is generally considered to be a jerk move in organized play. I refuse to play in home gmaes with one of my friends because he does not think the ability of a character to survive is at all important when compared to the entertainment of having a useless actor be forced into an adventure and feign death whenever combat starts. I certainly dont want to play in a game where that character is somehow a Pathfinder Field Agent.

Im not saying you have to be optimized. But saying how could we build a fighter without the feats, or weapon/armor training (fallen paladin) or how should we build a fighter without the feats, bab, HP, or Armor/weaon training (Stupid Wizard) and still be an effective class? its an interesting thought exercise and can maybe work with a campaign designed around the ideas. But this is about PFS, and therefore you have to assume the answer to the question will be considered for use in PFS, and therefore you have to ask WHY?

So of course people are going to question that motive. I did.

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

This isn't what the OP is talking about. He's not talking about dipping. He's talking about making a single class player who can't perform in his class.

Love it. Don't ask, just assume I'm doing something to screw with you. My entire point is purely curiosity of what others had tried. And specifically, I was/am looking for "good" builds which focus on ignoring some key part of a class.

Except thats not waht you said.

anyone tried building an intentionally fallen paladins, stupid wizards, or other class that really can't use the majority of it's class features? Anyone find any good builds?

You said you wanted to see if anyone had success with a build which could not use most of its class features. Your second wizard Doesn't qualify, he finds workarounds to use his class features.

Your 'for flavor' decision to make a fighter with a 1/2 bab class with a d6 hit points with almost no weapon proficiency and absolutely no armor proficiency is not a good build idea. Its an interestingly flavored build, but those stat enhancements aren't going to make up for your lack of armor or weapons. and they wont keep up with all the features you lose.

You, in context and with examples, asked for a build in which a character can not perform in his own class. That was an entirely accurate assessment.

WormysQueue wrote:

No matter what you might prefer, 4E was a valiant effort to innovate D&D, and they even might have experimented too much with the innovations.

Except when you have a dominant market position, making "a valiant effort to innovate" away from your flagship product is just bad business practice. They still teach about Coca-cola and the infamous "New Coke" debacle. If you have a dominant market position, you don't innovate away from it, you expand your position. Coca-cola, for example, learned well. After "a valiant effort to innovate" away from Coke (the infamous New Coke debacle), they have instead done the sensiible thing and simply innovated by expanding their line. Diet Coke was a runaway success, so when they introduced Coke Zero in 2005, they kept the Diet Coke line. Now Coke simpliciter is the most popular soft drink in the US, Diet Coke is number three, and Coke Zero is number 10. (And they're rolling out all sorts of variants as well -- [Diet] Cherry Coke, [Diet] Vanilla Coke, etc.)

Wow, this is horribly misinformed about business. When you have market dominance, failure to innovate causes stagnation and eventual loss of market power. That's what happened to coke - Pepsi had recently innovated their formula, and was gaining market share. Pepsi was winning taste tests and, due to Diet Coke's entry into the market, Pepsi was approaching market leader status. "Expanding the line" had actually split the market between coke and Diet coke, allowing Pepsi to be seen as the dominant soft drink in the US.

Coke reformulated and came up with New Coke. Taste tests showed that people preferred New Coke to Coke. If they just released New Coke, they would continue to split their audience. Given whta they saw with the release of Diet Coke doing just that it made sense. Coke was losing market share everyday. So the replaced Coke with New Coke. For reasons unknown, this upset soda drinkers who had not been purchasing or consuming the old Coke. So they reformulated Coke, renamed it Coke Classic, and revitalized the brand. Coke Classic quickly regained the top spot, despite losing in taste tests to New Coke and Pepsi.

Coke needed to innovate to maintain its market position. It made errors in the presentation of those innvations, errors no one could see coming. But its failure wasn't in the choice to innovate.

In fact in the fast paced world of software there is even a term for innovating a new market and moving your user base into it - Pivoting. D&D 4e was an attempt to pivot away from some of the deep conceptual flaws D&D was still carrying around. As D&D 4e my gamer friends hated it. But that was just an issue with branding. Call it Gamma World and they generally enjoyed the system. Because it wasn't bad, it just failed to meet user expectations of D&D.

They needed to innovate, because D&D 3.5, the product line was growing stale. Sales were falling. Continued Market Dominance was not guaranteed. And as mentioned elsewhere, Hasbro was pretty restrictive in what they would allow D&D to consider part of their product. D&D 3.5 was built primarily on 3pp and First Party Campaign settings. Hasbro wanted neither of those. so they needed a new line.

You can see some paralells to the coke/new coke debacle in fact. Without innovation D&D was going to fall apart (because of Hasbro's interference mainly). So they rebuilt the product, and had a great idea to tie it into a series of computer products, including a virtual tabletop with rules integration. It was a great pitch. I was excited. But then people got it, and were upset it wasn't the game they had been playing for the last decade. Combined with the failure to launch most of the tools that were intended to justify the continual investment into DDI (due to the way the system was made, Rules access didn't require you to pay EVERY month), the system never caught on in any way. So the took the basic framework and once again reworked it, and created something, that while different then what people wanted, was close enough to bring gamers back in.

Pathfinder's development came down to Wizard's, or more likely, Hasbro's, decision to completely in-house development of 4e supplementary material. Paizo produced Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine. But a big con was coming up, and they had nothing to sell, because they were locked out of 4e. So they innovated. They took the binder of house rules from one of their in-house developers, and began refining them into the game we know as Pathfinder.

This thread is bloated with multiple people giving the same general responses.

The same genreal responces, yes. The same specific responces, no. WE are each giving you our own opinon of the subject as it pertains to your concerns. A PFS Developer came in to provide perspective on the campaign goals as they relate to your concerns. A lot of people are asking for specifics of your experience to try to provide a more customized, personal responce to you, something that specificly applies to your circumstances, but you talk in broad strokes and absolutes providing us little of substince to respond to.

I want to give you some advice. If you want to convince me of your point, provide a detailed, specific, consistent point. And then, when people disagree with you, instead of dismissing everyone in a single sentence claiming they all say the same thing and that thing isn't applicable, address one or two posts. Quote them so we know who and what you are responding to (there's a handy quote button on each post). and then address their specific points and why you disagree with them. It produces a stronger argument that I am more likely to be swayed by.

I know a great deal of my experiences are actually based on limitations or lack thereof from videogames. Disgaea is a series where the level cap is 9999. Single player RPGs like Fallout has multiple options for each situation or possibly allow you to be able to do everything by yourself so you are self-sufficient.

Disgaea and Fallout are self contained single player adventures. Fallout 1 & 2 notbaly have a very loose, very small story. Most of the game is in exploring the wasteland. And you are trying to apply your experiences in these games to team based cooprative storytelling adventures. They are apples and oranges. I ask you, can you name a video game with story based co-op multiplayer, that allows for braod customization and character types with widely divergent approaches to the game? I can't. Borderlands has levels and customization, but every character has the same basic approach - shoot it until it is dead. There are some multiplayer D&D-based games, but most are again centered on combat. Neverwinter Nights, a great game, but the multiplayer was all User based content, and the options availible to any given player were limited by what the writer of the module wrote into them, because things like dialog were not being created on the spot by a GM, but preprogrammed.

Yes you can be self sufficient in Fallout, do everything yourself. If fallout were a multiplayer co-op experience, Your buddy is either limited to playing the game how you are playing it, or you both are failing to work towards a common goal. Lets say you are carefully sneaking through a nest of sleeping Deathclaws. But you buddy isn't built for stealth. He gets board waiting for you to win the encounter again and just fat boy's the whole lot. A few survive, a fight breaks out. You both survive. Who is having fun? He had to sit around and watch you solve the game with stealth a bunch. You got nuked, and didn't get to win by stealthing through an encounter. You two are built for different play styles, and so aren't cooperating. Its no fun.

PFS adresses this by not allowing PvP, and empowering the GM to remove players being diruptive to the group. They also enshrined cooperation as one of the key tennants in the society. This is to encourage players to work together to solv solutions, rather then have one ubermensh who runs rampant on the entire scenario.

Home games solve this by communicating between the Group and GM and deciding, together, what kind of game they want to play. But even then, a mix of the three types of gameplay - Combat, Social, and Skill based problem solving/puzzles - appear, so that diffrent people can take different roles and everyone can get a time to shine.

That's not a PFS problem, nor is it exacerbated by PFS. Even if you went to 20, and could do everything, Someone who specializes is probably going to be better at some things than you. there are some challenges that might need a dedicated rogue, for example. its inherent in the pathfinder system where multiple characters exist and have different capabilities.

You can do everything, and get to be pretty self sufficient. In fact, that's why we keep encouraging you to create a well rounded character that can socialize and fight in some capacity and handle some skills (depending of course on your particular character and number of skills). You wont be the best at everything (combat is a good example where not being 'the Best" isn't necessarily a bad thing), but you will be capable of a lot, making you genreally self reliant.

You focus a lot on the number, and a lot less on its actual value. A level in pathfinder tends to be more meaningful then a level in disgaea. Most single player RPGs like Disgaea are a lot more limiting in what you can do than a single player RPG like fallout. In fact, the fact that you use them as examples, but dont acknowledge the severe limitations in the first.

I did not expect a pen-and-paper RPG to be so limited and yes many of the faults are imposed by the Pathfinder Society Campaign and/or the scenario/module system.

Could you explore this broad declareatory statement? limited in what you can create? of course they are. You are limited to the character creation rules. yes PFS further restricts pathfinder compatible content. But that's not a problem inherent in PFS. People have pointed out that in the home games they play they use a stricter data set, not a broader one.

You say that limited options to deal with things is a limitation of PFS and the "scenario/module" system. Firstly, those words mean someting. Scenarios are the adventures, the stories, written specifically for PFS and are designed to work within the campaign framework. Talking about problems with these will generally lead to improved PFS scenarios. Modules are random off the shelf adventures that sometimes are authorized for play within PFS, but are not PFS specific. Trying to prove a PFS point with these will fall on deaf ears, because they are not designed with the PFS design guidelines.

The documentation for PFS and all the statements from Campaign management encourages creative solutions and not forcing the group onto one specific path. The campaign also discourages solo tactics, or the elevation of a single play style. This game is designed for a group to play, and you have been generally silent on what the group should be doing while you solve the adventure. PFS allows and encourages creative solutions, and scenario writers try to write alternative options. But you don't just have the writer to consider, you also have the GM and the other players. Scenarios run by strict or uncreative/uninspired GMs will be more restrictive, because they wont allow a broader solution set. That isn't a limitation of "Pen and Paper RPG"s, its not a limitation of Pathfinder, it is not even a limitation of PFS. it a limitation you will encounter through out your gaming career, that youve already experienced in your video games, and you seem not to realize it.

Maybe I dont want to save the mutated residents of Vault 113 after they are captured. Maybe I'm angry that they are so useless and want to just nuke the whole oil rig. What do you mean that isn't an option in Fallout 2? Why are you limiting me? Do you see where that might sound kind of weird in such an open world RPG? That how your complaints of story lmitations sound. If you have a good GN that can expand the solution set, and are working with a group that agrees your solution is one they want to try, you have a lot more freedom of choice, becaues your option set is not limited by the need to have the solution set preprogrammed.

PFS does require that your solution set be varied however. As a worldwide campaign allowing over half a million players to run cooperative storytelling experiences with pick up groups of varying in and out of game skill levels, a need to accommodate the 3 major play types and allow all of them to have their turn is essential. Ive pointed out how once you add multiplayer to the mix, things get complicated. If you want a single player experience, you will not find it in PFS.

Ive stated it before in this thread. Theory crafting of characters is more interesting than the gameplay. I like designing things, and limiting the actual reality of that removes the fantastic element.

Yes you've mentioned before how not your sorcerer not getting 7 wish spells ruins spellcasting entirely for you.

In a less sarcastic vein. Theory crafting is great. But even when theory crafting you need limitations. Wealth (Traditionally Wealth by Level). Stats. The fact that you are using Pathfinder RPG and not GURPS or Savage Worlds. not getting GURPS or Savage Worlds content in a Pathfinder Game. The monsters as presented in the rules to compare against. All of these are restrictions you need
to create a character that can be compared to other characters in a meaningful way. As previously mentioned, most Gms have some limitations. Stat generation method is the most common, as it prevents you from just putting 18 in all stats and calling it a day. its again, a complaint that isn't limited to PFS play, and one you will have to deal with alot. You haven't been very specific about why the gameplay isn't fun, but those anecdotes you have told suggest it is a problem with your local groups and their play style that you are attributing to some nebulous PFS rules. or a natural consequence of PFS rules, and ignoring the mass of people who say that isn't true and have fun not adhering to the "requirements" you present.

I need to continue to address the "limiting the actualy reality" comment. As ive said, there are already limits that exist. you've just drawn an imaginary line at which point you say that PFS is too limiting. But you admit you have a very small experience with Pen and Paper RPGs. So the boards have been, collectively, trying to tell you that, in the interests of the story being told or the whims of the GM, some limitations are a regular part of the Pen and Paper experience. This isn't a board game or a video game. You do not play PnP RPGs to 'win'. You play them to tell a story. Different GMs have different limitations. I tend to allow all Paizo content, but no 3pp. I find 3pp to be all over the map in terms of quality and balance. The game radically changes when you add them in, and I don't want to deal with that. PFS is a campaign with very open standards. You see PFS telling you you can't use *this* option and say you are being railroaded, despite the 3000+ options that are perfectly valid. There are well over 3000 feats available as legal character options. As long as you meet prerequisites. Which is another limitation inherent in Table-Top RPGs, and I have seen in Fallout.

The limitations of Pen and Paper RPGs are different than the limitations of Video games. But they both have limits, and in my play experience PnP RPGs have had few restrictions overall.

At least you could let me earn money outside scenarios. My characters could earn 7.65g hourly for a 20-40 hour work week between adventures.

That's a very specific number, and , hey!, a brand new complaint! Keep that drift going buddy!

The time between games in purposefully vague. If we allowed broad, unregulated craft or profession checks, players could be claiming months or years between scenarios and raking in the cash. So obviously we need some rules on it.

PFS actually generally assumes you have a 'Day Job' that your character utilizes to pay for lodging, food, and other necessities. If you want to make more then subsistence wages, you make a 'Day Job Check". This is a craft or profession check (or with boons or vanities a handful of other skills). Craft or Profession checks normally assume a weeks work, but as we have said, PFS doesn't define the time spent in between scenarios. So the created a table, representing the money you made above subsistence earnings. The fact is is that your Wealth goes farther in PFS even if you don't roll for day jobs, because PFS does assume you have a day job to pay the bills. They give you higher wealth then the Wealth by Level table (which is designed to give GMs an idea how much wealth to give PCs), and then dont make you pay for lodging or food. How awesome is that? and they let you make extra money at that day job! awesome!

But lets look at your assertion that you should be earning "7.65g hourly" and that you have a variable "20-40 hour work week". Craft and profession checks do not produce an hourly wage but a weekly one, and the game generally assumes that any day you spend working you invest 8 hours. So your assertion here sounds like you don't know the Pathfinder rules for this subject, which makes your assertion of how PFS should handle it baffling.

Craft checks provide "half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work" So, at say level one you have 1 rank, plus 3 for a class skill, plus 3 for your stat. Lets say you splurged and got masterwork tools for an additional 2. Total of a 9 bonus for your check. that means, at best, you earn 14.5gp (half of 29) in a 40 hour week, or 0.3625 gp an hour. So already we know your statement is wrong. But thats because it lacks detail of the underlying assumptions. so lets determine what those are. earning 7.65gp/hour requires earnings of 306 gp for a 40 hour work week. that mean you got a check of 712. meaning, assuming you rolled a 20, you had a modifier of 692. I can't begin to figure out how you got that bonus. Even if I assume that number came out of a 20 hour work week, youd still need a skill bonus of 286. I call shenanigans. But maybe profession checks have better math. maybe you assumed a profession roll. Well, no, its the same math.

I dont know how you came up with that number. Perhaps you found a price point for crafting a specific item, a low cost exotic weapon probably creates the best cost/time ratio for mundane gear, and did that math purely on that item. And have now extrapolated what you could, in theory earn and claimed it as what you should earn. But I really don't see how your numbers work out at all.

Perhaps you give, and i know im harping on this word, a bit more detail. Show me how you got this number. Otherwise its just another broad, unsupported, and easily disproven statement.

This was my last attempt to find a reason to keep waiting for something to improve instead of going through the motions hoping I can win the scenarios and that the rewards would make things enjoyable.

I wanted to pick fun characters instead of just doing whatever I had to to get the reward, but that didnt work.

Now I cant do either. Its like working a boring job for free.

Dude, the lead designer of PFS is looking for feedback to improve the game. He asked for your personal input earlier in this thread. Putting all these woe is me posts up while ignoring his posts really undermines your case that you are looking for something to improve.

Quentin Coldwater wrote:

ChaosTicket, dude, just accept that PFS might not be for you and move on.

Well if I dont play the Pathfinder society Campaign I cannot play Pathfinder at all, and RPG groups are slim around where I live. When I said earlier this is what I can get, I meant it. But I have to face it that the only RPG available to me is too inflexible. It really is disappointing as I mentioned earlier when I joined the group I asked alot of questions about things I would be allowed to do, but havent been allowed to do so. Were they lying or was the context not about Pathfinder Society but Pathfinder as a whole?

We dont know, because again you are listing a general complaint, without specifics. I can not tell you whether pathfinder supports X, or whether PFS supports X, without knowing what X is. I notice that despite the lead designer for PFS, the person in charge who would be responsible for fixing the problems you have, PERSONALLY asking for your feedback 8 hours ago, with specific guidelines about information he needs, you just shat all over the concept and asked us a question which is impossible to answer without the details you refuse to provide. at this point i will assume you are a troll, and treat your posts as such.

Half the responses here are to ACCEPT the railroading and makes warrior characters to fit the scenario. I actually did that early on when I started the campaign but I got tired of using classes that fit the campaign, not myself. Later on I started thinking about all the experiences I had and made characters based on that. they came out cookies-cutter characters with a Skald, Magus, Hunter, Inquisitor, Warpriest are all very similar.

Just where are the options? Can i talk my way out of fighting the Boss or how about just sneaking past him/her/it? I just see fight after fight. Sometimes I see low combat scenarios and GASP those are actually fun as you can try different methods to complete objectives.

You are engagin in a lot of false dichoitmy here. WHat im hearing from you is "If I have any kind of warrior capabiltiy I have absolutely abandoned any desire not to fight" You are setting up a huge strawman in what we are saying.

You are lambasting us for not letting you roleplay, then tell me that a skald, magus and inquisitor are 'very similar' characters. WHen I play them they are different. Hell I played a Dwarf monk in my last game, and I am now playing a Dwarf Brawler. Both focus on unarmed strikes, they have reasonably similar health and BAB, but they are two absolutely different characters. THe monk was focused on defnese and protecting others. He didn't have the best damage output in combat, far from it, but he kept others from getting hurt. And he he had some skill in diplomacy, which came in handy a number of times. He was a leader. THe brawler? Sneak attack precision headbuts. Hes civil, but piss him off and he will headbutt you into the ground. Sickeningly optimistic but occationally pragmatic. Can't talk his way out of a paperbag. Not a good leader. Has zero fear, and gives zero f$$&s.

I guess what im trying to say if you can't make a sword mage, a divinely inspired cop driven to do what ever it takes and damn the rules, and a barbarian from the frozen wastes whose song induces a massive hard on for fighting in her allies feel like different characters, its not PFS or Pathfinder that are the problem.

Those are some general tips, but many of them are not related to the Pathfinder Society Campaign. The limitations are major. You cannot sleep to regain spells/special abilities(by choice), run away from encounters, use diplomacy to avoid fights or acquire loot permanenetly.

Thats why its railroading.

Im really confused where all my character's gear comes from. /sarc

Really, I see plenty of sorcerers, and bards of all types and flavors. Neither is, on its face, particularly difficult to build or play and I had a level 4 sorcerer in PFS back when playing fit my schedule.

You say all thinking is short term. Ive had entire campaigns that spanned a smaller level swath than pathfinder society. Moreover you claim that because you end at level 12 you are forced to make short term decisions. absolutely not. my rage prophet wasnt ideal for several levels, but was still fun to play and when it hit the ideal level of 7, it got even better. The ability to Two Handed Power Attack with an 18 strength is not "the best reason to be a fighter or barbarian", and only short term thinking would conclude that. In fact, id argue that your real problem is pathfinder itself. you see the system in general in very two dimensional terms.

Just looking at your class comparisons, you focus on one aspect of the character and hyperspecialize. Even your "long term" goals that you talk about are about being able to do one thing. but classes can fill lots of different roles,, and some classes fit some roles better than others. A wizard is good at things a magus isnt, namely utility. A sorcerer is better at flexability. You think that in pathfinder brute physical force is all that matters. but its all in how you build, and in how good your gm's are. Unless its a custom campaign, you will keep running into these problems. Published campaigns might get you to level 17 for those wish spells right at the absolute end, but you certainly arent getting 7 of them. Yes as a caster you sometimes need a weapon based combat role, but you are seriously over emphasising the focus you need to put on it. A light crossbow is a perfectly fine way for your scorcerer to fill out a low level spell slump. And at high levels arcane casters are more about utility than blasting. but if you plan you'll be Ok.

As for giving 9th-level casters unfettered access to more optimal weapons - Why would we need the other classes than? Same with arcane classes and armor - the tradeoffs are there for a reason.

Really, your hangups about winning are railroading you far more than the houserules. Over all your complaints are pretty broadly applicable to pathfinder and dont come down to any PFS houserules.

Well, yes but another example of a time it's told to me the most is when I am looking for advice on how to balance something in my own games that I have created or such, and even after I make this intent clear (more so lately), someone will usually tell me to ask my GM... it's like... didn't I just say that I am the GM looking for advice and opinions?

There are those that will post without reading. those people should probably be ignored

1. As Ive said to you before, being upfront about your role (as a gm) and expressing the fact that you are looking for advice on how to rule rather than looking for a ruling (like a player would) will significantly change how people will respond to you. I doubt anyone whose read the OP will say ask your GM when you have said you are the GM

2. Ask your gm is generally stated when there is an ambiguity or outright silence in the rules, esp. where the boards disagree. At that point the best reaction is to ask your GM. Its not just said to avoid answering the question. Its said because the GM is the final Aribter of the rules.

Its not a 100% answer to all questions, and when clear rules questions come up by players, I have always seen that answer presented rather than just jumping to "Ask your GM".

My current character has recently referenced himself as an adventurer, mainly because "brawler and trap disabler working in the employ for a merchant you've probably never heard of out here" seems a bit of a mouthful.

again, I think the probalem with the system a lot of people are having is that they want the system to do something it wasn't designed to do. If you want to surprise your players with sudden swerves in what skills and spells are capable of doing, Pathfinder is not your system.

To answer the original question Consistancy, the reliablility of the rules do not break the game. They MAKE the game. I heard someone complain that player look to their character instead of the ether to solve problems. What? looking at what I built my character to do and what gear I have on hand to solve a problem is a BAD THING? What? am I supposed to invent a new character trait to solve every problem?

This is a rule couched in GM decision and "typically" and people are taking it as a hard and fast rule that has no ability to adjust and adapt. Almost like people are ignoring all the weasel words designed to do allow it to adjust so they can strawman how bad this ruling is.

Ive discovered his motivation - http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ttjv?Monk-Combat-Maneuvers-during-Flurry-of-Bl ows. he wants to argue that there are no penalties so he can cheese a +20 bab combat manuver for a +3 bab flurry attack.

The Earth Campaign DM really needs to just declare Rocks fall, Everyone dies. Its run its course. The Human setting has clearly reached the same tipping point as the "Jurrasic" setting before it.

In think people should stop assuming this is a complete redesign, given that its supposed to be backwards compatible.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Just let him have a ring of force shield. Each round (assuming weapon is already being held): (free action) Deactivate ring, (free action) grip two-handed weapon with hand wearing ring, make attacks with two-handed weapon, (free action) release the hand wearing the ring, (free action) activate ring.

Also - no GM worth his salt should allow that. The free action amount are totally within the GM's purview, and I know that I wouldn't allow it.

Remember - while mechanically the rounds are in succession, that's just an abstraction to make it playable. The rounds are really all happening at once.

It's all RAW. See above for the description of the ring. Releasing or replacing one hand on a two-handed weapon is also a free action.

Do you also impose a restriction on the amount of ammunition an archer can draw and place in their bow in a round (also free actions)? Or the number of objects a character with Quick Draw and Two-Weapon Fighting can throw (such as an alchemist with Fast Bombs)?

The difference between what you originally argued for, and the archer is quite simple. In the case of the archer his free atcions are spread throughout the 6 second abstraction period ("a turn") to make use of his BAB and Buffs. To reflect what that is representing, every so often durning the six seconds he pulls another arrow and fires. This works wether his turn is in succession or not. The Two handed fighter on the other hand works differently. Remember, when you are attacking, what that represents is you finding an opening somewhere in the 6 second period and attempting to take advantage of it. You do not literally swing your sword once (assuming a low BAB) and then sit there for 6 seconds. you are fighting the entire time. That is why when you swing your Greatsword your buckler stops working without a special training ("a feat"). because you are spending the turn swinging the sword and can't effectively interpose the shield with the same arm.

So, to your force shield example: it only works because of the abstraction. In your example the fighter swings once and sits there the rest of the six seconds. He drops his shield (lowering his guard, but its his turn so none of the enemies can take advantage) , attacks his one swing this turn, and then brings his shield back up. That sequence only works if you have a swquential turn and during that turn your enemies aren't attacking you.

The archer using those free action reloads does not assume a sequential turn order. Your sheild trick does. Theres a difference. Stop acting like there isn't.

I think it has to with assigning an actual racial name rather than a color. Everyone else gets a regional name for ancestory. Caucasian has just been designated the regional term for people otherwise designated white or "of European descent". Why they didn't just chose european probably has to do with american patriotism and ignorance. Youre american not european, but no one knows Caucasus exists.

Additionally, the Term Whites does have strong racist connotations. Im not talking about "reverse racism" here. Throughout Black segregation and amongst racist groups today, the complement to the "No Blacks" was "Whites only". Just as the upper class tries to distance itself from those times by saying African or African-american, so to do we use a term that isn't "White".

Out of curiosity, if you dont have the resources, where did you get the info for these character options? any secondary resource i know of lists where the material comes from...

Well, the WbL guidelines already say a player should never have a magic item worth more than half their wealth, which means a +2 item no earlier than 5 and ABP awards them at 6 and 7. So it doesn't seem like you can really game the system that much.

note, that unless you are starting at level x, the WBL guidelines about how much money can be spent are meaningless. Unless the dm says no item worth more than 50% of your WBL exists anywhere in the world, you could in theory save up and buy something worth more than half your wealth.

to be clear there is absolutely no chance of hitting an ally with a ranged weapon, unless its a splash weapon. Its a common house rule, but its not in the rules.

You get all the god-like immortal benefits of being a lich with none of the big drawbacks? no series of utterly abhorrent rituals that turn even the biggest do-gooder evil to accomplish? Id imagine most would take the offer.

first off, what level is this game? is the person with detect magic always moving at half speed? does he ever do anything else?

as general rules though:

thin sheets of lead or 1 inch of metal defeat detect magic. a magic trap hidden behind lead will not detect as magic. an item in a lead box does not detect

you only detect in a 90 degree arc, and only up to 60 feet. a mechanical trigger that trips a magic device 65 feet away wont be noticed.

Do not discount mechanical traps

also, remewmer rule 0, you are in control. if you need to houserule detect magic you can.

nope, because he can not prepare or cast 3rd level spells. his domain spell still holds to all of the normal spell rules.

Take 10 is 100% allowed by RAW - if you as a GM don't allow it good for your homebrew

Except there are very table variation limitations for take 10, and somewhere there is that ruling that take 10 can be obliviated when you want to increase storytelling tension

Ok, two weapon fighting can be a difficult topic, but ill try to summurize.

First you have your normal iterative attacks (the normal amount you can make because of your BAB). As long as you take no extra attacks, you can attack with as many weapons you want, up to the number of attacks you have. So if you had a BAB of 11/6/1 you could attack Blade A/Blade B/Boot, Blade A/Boot/Blade B, Blade B/Boot/Blade A, Blade A/Blade A Blade B, ect, as long as you only take attacks granted by your BAB.

Now, Two Weapon Fighting. Anyone can get one extra attack with no feats. TWF the feat only reduces the penalty for doing so. When you Two Weapon Fight, one or more weapons are declared the 'Off-Hand'and Can not be used in the main hand attacks. But in exchange you get an extra attack. No matter how many weapons you have you only get one extra attack. ITWF and GTWF grant even more attacks that can be made. But the number of weapons never increase the number of attacks you get.

Well, given that RAW, diplomacy takes 10 minutes of talking to complete, ending a combat in action with diplomacy probably wasn't happening outside of houserules before this.

I think the swashbuckler deed dodging panache is important here. It is an immediate action which interrupts an attack in progress to gain a dodge bonus to ac. The attack cannot be adjusted or adjusted or retargeted, the deed happens during the attack action. Immediates are capable of interupting an attack.

Youre going to be disappointed.

i wouldn't put much stock in your ability to change his mind. But if you want to try go ahead. Id personally avoid him, as anyone who wants to change some basic combat rules based on limited 'experience' is probably not going to stop with the 5ft step rule.

Kryzbyn wrote:

Just play APs without GMs, then. If the rules are that cut and dry as they don't need adjudication, then have at it bro.

Like nobody else buys books except PFS people...

Mr. Willhelm and I do not often see eye to eye, however I will say this.

Pathfinder Society is the only current venue that I have found that requires you to buy books. Now a days due to archives of nethys, the d20pfsrd, and the prd most rule content can be gotten free.

So yes in my eyes pathfinder society is a "Pay-to-Play" game where most other games are freeware.

You know, MOST Pen and Paper RPGs dont have an official SRD. Most other Pen and Paper RPGs are "pay-To-Play". The level of entitlement you show toward the rules is absolutely rediculus. But lets buy your "I Paid For this Feat therefore it works like I say" argument. Does that mean when the rule is FAQed to not work like you say you are entitled to a refund?

Sarenrae
Saren-rae
Saren. (mass effect villain) rae (pronounced ray as per the normal vowel rules)

how is that a mess?

Someone once listed everything that can be found in a spell component pouch and concluded that you can live for days off of what you could eat in one... I concluded that they must be truly extra-dimensional in capacity despite not being inherently magical.

Don't worry about weights and measures. Accept this for what it is, a way of making the game more convenient for casters without agonizing over time-wasting trivia.

except that does nothing to answer the question of where to acquire berries for a good berries spell

I managed to quote The Hitchhikers Guide Movie to my group. DM sent us into Bureaucratic hell, and step one was a long line. At which point, I said, "Don't worry friends, I've got this. Dwarves know how to queue." I proceeded to be incredibly up beat and optimistic about every step of the process, and got everyone again when we were shoved over to a new line to handle 'special cases' with the line "See? Progress."

Why am I "Personalizing" a PDF that has no personalized info in it ?

i may have missed someone responding to this, But Paizo marks your PDF several different ways with personalized info, including your name and email at the top and bottom of every page. I Hear something about a watermark as well, though that might have just been someone abusing the term.

Message Boards. Section them out, don't make me scroll the entire page to look at different method boards. Top menu could scroll with the page. Use some JavaScript. Everything is a full post back, it's horrible.

First off, Javascript is in the process of being shut down automatically by several browsers and/or browser add-ons because of massive vulnerabilities introduced when you run javascript. Its not neccisarily the best answer.

Further more section them off? You mean like they do? where you click messageboards and it brings up forums and a sampling of their subforums? That you can click on to get even deeper levels of sub forums? Maybe I'm just old, but most message boards I use act similar, and I normally have to scroll through boards with so many different subforums. In either case you complaint is not well stated.

You knew this deal would be popular, why are you not using proper server scaling? Third parties will do this for you, Amazon comes to mind. If you are hosting it yourselves, throw some more servers in the LoadBalancer (if you're using one) there really isn't any excuse for server loads these days when you can easily load test your servers with various tools, and have them dynamically spin more servers up when traffic starts increasing.

When EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard can't deal with launch day stress perfectly how do you expect a medium sized publishing company to know how to perfectly handle hundreds if not thousands of times their normal volume? They have significantly improved response times since the Humble bundle started.

Its not flashy, but it gets the job done. I mean really, Paizo went from a 3pp provider for Wizards to (what I consider) the #1 tabletop RPG company currently around, in less than a decade. The website is really the companies outgrown shirt and pants. Could it use a redesign? Sure. But it works.

Oh by the way. I was pretty sure humble bundle was listing shipping, but the beginners box isn't light, and that means it costs big bucks to ship. That's not Paizo's call.

I am really curious why no one is commenting on the clear loophole written into the Tarrasque's regen.

Regeneration (Ex) No form of attack can suppress the tarrasque's regeneration—it regenerates even if disintegrated or slain by a death effect. If the tarrasque fails a save against an effect that would kill it instantly, it rises from death 3 rounds later with 1 hit point if no further damage is inflicted upon its remains. It can be banished or otherwise transported as a means to save a region, but the method to truly kill it has yet to be discovered.

All you need to do to finish off the tarrasque is deal further damage to its remains preventing it from rising from the dead 3 rounds later at one HP. Suffocation kill, then set it on fire.

Accountant. It's amazing how universal that is.

Ok, so I had this dream once, where I was going to run a d20 future campaign, that after a few sessions involved time travel, where you then multiclassed into pathfinder fantasy characters in the pre-tech society, that could loosely be described as renaissance-era Europe at war. It was amazing.