cranewings's page

In RPG's, and to a lesser extent, in bad science fiction that I love, the characters can generally do whatever it is that they feel like they need to do.

It is hard to come up with believable anarchy in science fiction, what with technology and all. So what are all they ways it can be done?

Mad Max / Post Apocalypse: There is no society around to enforce order.

Epic Points of Light: Each planet is its own jurisdiction. If you commit a crime on one planet, you can just leave. "I have the death penalty on 12 worlds." You can still deal with bounty hunters, but the governments of the different planets don't assist each other, even with lists of wanted people.

Fatal Flaw in Security: If it were mirrors edge, you can always just run away on the roof tops and the police lose track of you.

Too Respected: The PCs can use their Picard / Kirk powers to just ignore command and do what they want. As long as they are always successful, there is no penalty for ignoring the chain of command.

What else? This is important because I'm trying to formulate how the PCs can get away with murder in my next science fiction game. Right now, I'm thinking it is #2, where the worlds are enemies, privateers are an issue, and no world prosecutes criminals for crimes they commit on other planets.

There is still the technology issue: so stealth will be key and in Battlestar Galactica style, once a ship jumps it is nearly impossible to track.

Considering how small the bonuses are from magic items, and how little they change by just doubling your wealth, are they even really an issue when compared to the giant problem of character builds?

A sorcerer with enlarge person and sleep is way nicer to have around than one who rides in on tenser's floating disk shooting magic missiles.

A fighter with a long bow and a bunch of shooting feats is way nicer to have around than a swashbuckler with paired dagger and rapier who rides in on a horse.

Does it really matter if my magic items give +2 Strike, +2 Damage, +2 AC, +2 Saves or +4 to everything? It's just 10%. It is nothing compared to the decision to have a decent Charisma on your fighter or choosing to give him mounted archer instead of deadly aim.

If you were playing an RPG set in something like Fallout, Robotech or Starwars, and you had the option of designing your own Iron Man / Warmonger style suit of armor to wear:

How many pages of material would you be willing to read to do it?

My old gaming system has 30 pages, 8x11 font 8. It is quite a task if you aren't highly motivated to have a new hobby building power suits for RPGs.

Thank god the idiot that shot her used a gun and not a bomb. If he had shown up and used a fertilizer truck bomb instead of the gun, a ton more people would have been hurt or killed.

I don't think taking guns away from people like Loughner will make a dent in killings; it might make them worse, as they are forced to resort to explosives to get their point across.

Furthermore, I don't think it is a good idea to restrict weapons to crazy people, even like Loughner, because the government could use any sign of unhappiness or suspicion as a basis for a decision to deny you your right to have a weapon. I think we need these weapons because we are the kinds of people who are one step away from fascism at any given point and if in the next generation or two, we go all Nazi Germany by throwing all of the Arabs into concentration camps or attempting to deport all of the Mexican Immigrants, they need to make sure that they have enough weapons to fight back. The ability to use an up your butt kind of law, like a no sale to the crazies law, would let the government come through and disarm the most capable fighters ahead of time.

So, I just took my first Ninjitsu class and I wanted to talk to the brain trust about my experience with it, given the vast amount of fighting knowledge we oddly have here.

The first thing we were shown is this punch, about which I have some strong negative feelings but am trying to reserve judgement, where you push off with your back leg and try to spear the target on a stiff arm.

Fighting stance is with the front foot pointed forward, back foot pointed out 90 degrees, and "hands up" being much lower than what boxers consider hands up, shoulders purposefully relaxed (not covering the neck or jaw at all). You push off with the back leg but keep the back foot planted, which widens your stance. Your hand comes out a little, with elbow down and slightly bend, fist vertical. The arm doesn't move during the punch. There is an active attempt to keep it fixed and rigid through the whole hit. Afterwards, you relax and step up, ready to do it again.

Skipping all of the obvious criticism about how they don't spar and are probably vulnerable to being punched in the face, my issue is really just how weak this punch is.

Force = Mass * Acceleration, or specifically, how much and how quickly your fist decelerates after you hit something with it. The faster your hand is going, the more opportunity for a strong deceleration there will be: Momentum = Mass * Velocity.

Mass is something we can't do a whole lot about, at least in terms of how big a person is. The thing we can control is how much mass is involved in the impact. That's why punching with your whole body is stronger than just pushing out your arm. Velocity on the other hand, is something that is easier to train.

This ninja punch basically relies on getting its force by committing most of your weight with the lunging step. Because there is no hip turn and no arm motion to speak of, it is slow as crap. Real slow. Like, all day slow. Not only that, but even if their hands were up normally, because there isn't any arm motion, it is stuck out their for a long time and you can't block with it either. Sorry, said I wouldn't go off like that. I'm more interested in the force = 1/2 a normal punch issue.

This guy believes that the hip turn and arm motion that most people use when they punch generates a factitious force that feels stronger or more useful, but really isn't. He believe that this is the only really strong punch a person can do.

Anyone on here have any experience with Ninjitsu that can shed some light on this?

Doesn't it stink when the GM drops a fight on you that you can't beat, and the party decides to run, but one of you can't get away?

Paladin in Plate
Halfling Rogue
Dwarf Cleric

If the GM is going to have encounters that he knows you can't kill, for example, a powerful monster in a dungeon sandbox, should he tell you before the game starts (probably yes)?

And if he does tell you, is it fully stupid to make a character with a movement of 20'?

Without passing judgement on any of them or on GM's who have a problem with this, I just wanted to brain storm some ways to keep the party moving, despite having burned through some resources or being afraid of failure against a BBEG. Adding to the list would be helpful.

1) The Literal Timer.

If the party doesn't finish their task in a certain amount of time, the window for succeeding in it will close. Variations include: Hostage Crisis, Magic Doorway Closing, Ingredient Needed Before Whatever Bad Thing Happens (magic stops working, person dies, buyer leaves), Ritual Completion at X Hour

2) The Threat of Increasing Difficulty

Once the party starts doing damage to the enemy, word will travel that they are coming. If a minion fails to check in, the enemy will go on alert. Therefore, once contact with the enemy is made, the party has invested interest in hurrying. This requires a balance on the GM's part: that the increase in difficulty for not getting the job done quickly is significantly worse than doing the job with limited resources.

3) Pointless Attrition

The trail to the enemy is so fraught with peril, including intelligent and bothersome wondering monsters, that staying in the campaign area longer than necessary is unacceptable. The players may believe that each day will be equally difficult and that no advantage will be gained for waiting.

4) Looming Death

Similar to the counter, there is a random daily chance of encountering a superbeing unrelated to the adventure at hand. For example, the goblin dungeon is next to a red dragon the party can't kill, and there is a 10% daily chance of meeting the dragon. Be prepared to wipe the party with the dragon if they drag their feet.

In my next game, I plan on cranking the Wealth By Level way over the limit, almost totally with wondrous or spell and feat granting items, but also stat and damage boosting items.

The thing I'm worried about is the PCs attack becoming so strong that enemies who can stand up to it will wipe the party due to its low defenses.

I was thinking of attaching HP / AC / Save boosts to the items so that the party scales up completely, almost as if they are gaining levels.

Ideas?

I was curious if anyone else reads KOTD and it reminds them of their old gaming groups?

I've always thought that my GMing was similar to Nitro's. I've had a number of GMs that remind me of B.A. and/or Nitro. Something that we all have in common is that we all started back in the 90s or earlier.

The last 10 years or so, whenever I play with someone who runs in a game store, RPGA or PFS, or who started after 2000 all runs their games the same way: grid and marker, move your figure on your turn even while out of combat, reading directly from a page written by someone else.

I don't get it. It isn't like it is an age or experience thing because when we all started, we started the way we are. What's the deal with the new way?

How important is spell combat for a Magus? I'm first level with my new PFS character.

STR 18
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 13
WIS 7 (for fun)
CHA 11

Feats: Cleave, Power Attack

My plan for the character originally was to play him as much like a rogue as possible, using spells like vanish to get in position and then using that great DPS to wreck something. Right now I'm using a Glaive sense most of my spells are buffs I can just do outside of combat.

After the last game though, I'm starting to feel like there might be a big lack of utility in PFS. There isn't much coordination sense you just show up and play with whoever is there with whatever they brought. It seemed like almost everyone came to do combat.

So I'm thinking of either multiclassing as a rogue and building up my UMD some more to cover healing, or just forgoing picking up spells used in combat and rounding out the character with more utility spells like "Knock." If I do that though, and stay straight Magus, I'll basically be playing a fighter with low HP and AC in combat. The glaive helps, because I can try to avoid being the guy up front.

Any thoughts?

My spell list right now, after the first game is: Vanish, Protection from Evil, Unseen Servant, Feather Fall and Shield.

People on face eating zombie cocktails of bath salts, PCP and cocaine are pretty fearsome. Thank god they don't tie off their arms and legs with rawhide tourniquets before the run a muck, but they get close enough.

The world is filled with stories of police and bouncers fighting these guys. About the only thing that works is piling on them with 4 or 5 people and holding them down. Being immune to pain, they are immune, in effect, to all of the pain compliance techniques of electrocution, breaking ribs with clubs, shooting them with small caliber weapons, and so on and on. No one really seems to get that all that stuff, however damaging, is still just pain compliance.

So how does a single person defeat someone on the drug cocktail if pain and fear don't factor in, especially if the victim of the attack is unarmed?

I found one video of a cop hitting a naked dude high on PCP allegedly, with a solid right hook and knocking him out with his first hit. This leads me to my main idea about this and what I would kind of like to talk about. Is it any harder to just knock one of these guys out? Nothing in the drugs should make your brain respond any better to being bounced off the inside of the skull. Better still, I haven't found any videos of these guys keeping their hands up or doing anything to try and defend themselves.

For beating one of these guys, is the most important quality to develop real knock out power?

CNN Article

It sort of pisses me off how much power Justice Kennedy has, being the only swing voter. What's the point of lifetime appointments if the justices are just going to email David Axelrod or Eric Cantor and ask them how they should vote.

Still, I'm glad that it turned out this way. I think the court did the right thing.

I've never seen much in the way of an AR olympics around here. People scoff at healers and if they have a shield they are hitting someone with it. Defense is low on the list of priorities.

On the other hand, lots of people seem to think that a character should be able to solo a creature of CR = CL in 1-2 rounds. On top of that, the same people seem to think that the GM should tailor encounters to the group and that PCs dying is wrong.

So I ask this: is the fascination with DPR and the belief that the GM should let you win related, not because DPR is the best way of winning (over armor / healing / defense) but because sense you know you will win no matter what, winning faster than the other PC is all that matters when it comes to feeling useful.

Best Things a GM Can Do

- Have a complete picture of the world in mind so that he can answer questions without making anything up.

- Design a world that conforms both to historical and genre expectations so that the players can rely on their intuition to guide them.

- Avoid rules changes during a game that cause players to have WTF moments.

- When there isn't a clear answer and you don't have a serious stake in the fight, side with the players. More simply - pick your battles wisely.

- While adhering to genre convention, avoid SPECIFIC items from the genre that would remind the players of the source material. Really avoid specific items from other genre. Don't put Afro Samurai in your Historical Fiction game.

- Try your best to keep the world in motion and have NPCs behave as much like real people as possible.

Best Things for a Player to Do

- Avoid being specifically disruptive by arguing about rules, derailing the game by making constant jokes, or pointing out the GM's source material.

- Talk to the GM and gain a clear understanding of your character's level of power relative to the world, and then play that rather than attempting to make the game something it isn't.

- Take actions in character, in relation to your character's personality, rather than just playing yourself and trying to win. If the battle mat interferes with your pure mental image, ask to get rid of it. Only you know if it is a problem for you or not.

- Paint as clear a mental image of the character as you can. Detail his skills, history AND his equipment so that you can make clear decisions, rather than having to step out into the metagame and ask the GM for favors.

I was wondering if anyone had a link to an article or book, or knew anything about how a magnetic field influences objects at a distance. I just finished a physics class mostly on electromagnetism. Towards the end I asked the professor what the mechanism of action that causes a magnet to affect the trajectory of a particle was, to which she answered, "We don't know. We suspect that a magnetic field curves space somehow, but we don't know how it curves space. We have models that predict behavior but you can't take the model for reality. We really don't know what's going on."

Other blogs I've read or watched talk about all the forces that act at a distance act by transferring energy by emitting photons, which sounds like b*~@&#$! to me, not that I'm really educated.

Anyone have any insight into this?

So I'm going to start a new campaign this summer, probably, with a special set of gods. The idea is that 5 dragons killed or drove off or claimed to drive off the gods of the world and now live on mount olympus (or whatever).

Clerics get their powers in a ritual when the dragon touches them and plants a magical seed in their chest which grants more and more clerical power as it grows. Unlike normal clerics, clerics of the dragon gods don't have to worry about a code of conduct to keep their powers. As long as they use their powers meaningfully (get experience) they will grow in power.

The trade off is that you have to do what the dragon wants because you basically become his familiar. He can see through your eyes and if you piss him off he might have you killed (at least until you get strong and smart enough to defy the order).

Mortals believe the dragons are gods. Really they are just mortal dragons. The dragons have commandments that people believe came from the gods but really just have to do with the likes and dislikes of the dragons.

I could really use 10 good commandments that sound religious but feed into the idea that the gods aren't real.

1 - The only true way to worship the gods is through the sacrifice of jewels to the pit of olympus. For the gods gave you the sun, so to you must give the gods all that shines in return.

Got anything else for me?

Something I've never liked about D&D style characters is how they are always adventurers and always specialized for adventuring. Sometime I'd like to play or run a game where the pcs are made as if they already lived their lives in some way before they started adventuring.

Maybe they could start out at level x and they should be super specialized towards a real sort of life style. Soldier, sailor, spy, enchanter, temple priest. I envision these characters as having extra penalties, like a peasant archer not being skilled in other weapons, or temple priests having sorcerer bab, hd, and weapon skills.

All this, and they wouldn't level. Treat them as peak human. Maybe they get some feats.

I think this would be a lot of fun.

cranewings wrote:

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Actually, I don't think he is saying that. What he's saying is that the overall aim of the campaign should not be wilfully (or even unwittingly) derailed by player actions. If there is a timed situation, and the players decide to chill instead, there will be a noticable consequence. But that should be explained to them, either in game through a mouthpiece NPC, so they know - so that if they decide to chill, it's not because they didn't know what the potential consequences might be as players.

I know it isn't railroading, but this has always bothered me a little. Why explain it to them? What's the point?

Having an obvious best solution or course of action, especially when you have players whose characters you can count on to do the right thing, really sort of forces the plot train down a certain tunnel. For example, the party knows about a bad guy. The bad guy has a minion that gets captured and lets the PCs know his master is going to town X. Odd to the players, no one knows why he would go there, not even the mook. At this point, the party could go investigate the town or go do a dungeon for fun. If the mook says, "he is going to kill everyone in that town to make a point," I think it helps with PC decision making too much to be done all the time.

For me, the game is a lot more fun if not everything is on the table. The players have to be proactive in getting information in character or else things they wouldn't want to happen, happen before they know it. That way, there is a level of something extra to think about, "what do you think is going to happen?"

Well, the main point of being reasonably explicit is so when you subsequently turn round and say, "Well, you didn't do X, so now Y has happened and you have to fight the summoned Horde of Dread when you could have just fought the evil wizard's henchmen," and they say "Well, how was I supposed to know that?" you have a leg to stand on.

A tactic I like to use when I'm running games is to give foreshadowing by combining clues of different types. For example, during game one, I might have an NPC say, "I would go to any length to kill the Sheriff of Nottingham." Then in the next game, I might have a rumor that there is a dungeons housing a powerful cursed artifact. The third game, I might mention that angry NPC has gone on a trip. If questioned, his family might say he went to find a treasure in some area dungeon.

Three games, three weeks, three clues. I tell my players to write things down if they seem important. Important things include NPCs and open quests. If in a game or two I pop out this bad guy with a major evil artifact and wreck the PC group with a killer CR +4 or +5 fight, it isn't because I'm trying to be competitive or that I'm trying to punish them - I just think this is the nature of the game. By not spelling every little thing out to them, I give them room to figure things out or make their own way. Just because this villain pops up doesn't mean they have to get in his way - just that if they do it will probably kill some of them.

I've often heard that fighters are extraneous because wizards can just summon a creature to buff and do the fighting for him. What creature is that?

Personally, I've only GMed for one or two summoners, and I don't think I've ever seen an Eidelon make it past the second round of a fight the party was worried about. It must be something else?

What's the first summon monster level and monster that replaces the fighter?

Anyone else playing it? I just got to the third act with my Witch Doctor, "Verbena." I'm feeling pretty excited.

This whole way I've focused mostly on defense. She uses a shield instead of a fetish, vitality higher even than intelligence, but still intelligence, and the spirit walk power under my middle finger at all times. Despite all that, I don't feel like killing is that hard, although my other character is a wizard and I haven't played the barbarian yet.

I'm going to be running a low level game with super common firearms treated as simple weapons.

It is really easy to get a touch AC up above where you can be shot by a first level guy with a gun. Dex +5, Monk level 6 +2, Dodge +1 and Combat Expertise +2 gives you a touch AC of 20, and the penalty to shoot back isn't that big of a deal because you will only need like a 10 or 11 and you have a massive dexterity to deal with it. Combine that with the fact that the PCs can get easy AC buffs like protection from evil and they will be, like most PCs are in most games, immune to the common people.

Running a game in a society where firearms are common, and having PCs that can easily just ignore that fact seems to break down the fundamental characteristics of running that setting. Sure, the PCs are special, but the supposed deadliness of the situation should make them choose caution over combat whenever they can.

Are there any RAW ways of bumping up the deadliness of commoner firearms / commoner Gunslingers or am I stuck with my ham-handed house rule that firearms ignore all HP except what you gained at first level?

Important note: yes I own other RPGs, yes I've played and ran them, no I'm not going to run them, I am going to run Pathfinder.

Seriously.

The only argument I can see for it is that my hard core character could die forever because of the lag caused from being on the auction house server, so I might as well use it.

In half a level, I'm going to get a +15 to my damage that I wouldn't have if it weren't for finding a cheap spear on the AH. I don't know how I feel about it.

So, I thought I'd post the annoying character I made for the contest. Hopefully whoever fills the last slot doesn't just counter me on purpose (;

Karn the Traveler

If he beats anyone, I'm sure they will find him highly annoying.

I'm working on my upcoming (this Sunday) E6 Steam Punk game. I don't know a whole lot about Victorian London and in the short Steam Punk game I ran before, I sort of glossed over the setting in favor of the fantastic elements.

In this one, because we will be playing it for a while and because the party will be level one, I'm trying to come up with a good feel for the technology and society.

Because of the alchemy that allows Steam Tech, technology can be a little weird and professional scientists and engineers will be more common.

So imagining an overall 1880's feel, but open to creating the world with more tech, what should I include?

Telegraph: are police stations connected?

Telephone: Are police connected? Who owns them? Are they available on the street?

Power Plants: Coal fired? What can the power be used for? Is this still gas light or electric light? I'm partial to gas light myself.

Airplanes: I know the first combat plane didn't get a kill until 1915, but the image of red baron style fighters buzzing around the airships is pretty cool.

Repeater Rifles: I know they are invented. How popular are they? I think the british military was still using muzzle loaded rifles in the Boer War.

Machine Guns: I guess I need these if I'm also going to do aviation.

Help? Ideas?

I know there is a lot of hate on the magic Christmas tree. One chap was just talking about it in another thread. "I hate +X items."

I agree. I've always thought it was stupid. As someone who has played a lot of Palladium, I got used to magic swords being magical: letting you fly, making you super strong, talking to you, granting you spells, summoning suits of armor and so on and on.

But there was a catch to that: the really magical stuff in Palladium always seemed pretty predictable. Because magic was magical, but there was a system of metaphysics, generally speaking, the same kind of stuff happened an awful lot.

In Pathfinder, we have these really crappy boring (in my opinion) magic items that suck up our gold, the Big 6 +X items. I've played in a couple of games, and run one recently, where the players knew about the big six, paid the coin, and wrote them down with very little thought or fan fair. They just got it out of the way and we got back to playing.

Once it was brushed aside, the game was actually really magical.They traded an artifact book for a nymph's shaw to get a dragonbane sword, had a key to the abyss, visited places of magical power, and in general had to discover what was going on. This was, in part because most of the party wealth was tied up in the Big Six and afterwards, there was a lot of interest in the truly magical. This was helped along by the fact that the Paizo books are really just stuffed full of incredibly interesting magical ideas, spells, and items I could use to make my game unique.

If the game got rid of the Big Six items, or did away with crafting and or magic item stores, what would replace the Big Six as the necessary tools of the trade? If you got rid of every element of player decision making in magic items acquisition the GM could keep it interesting, but if the players have input, they are going to have their favorites. Those favorites will be based on the common elements of the game and I wouldn't doubt that a lot of groups would come to the same conclusions about what's good.

So what would that be? A magic carpet so you can shoot down at your enemies or a boat of folding so you can always get away? A portable hole and an immovable rod? Endless water? Spell storing? You see the problem?

The big six isn't the problem. If there is a problem, its that the players have a say in what they get and they will just pick the same thing all the time: the most useful thing they can think of. The Big Six is a compromise. It tells the players, "if you are going to pick something, pick these. The GM will add flavor later."

One of the defining features of the super hero genera, which is what you basically have when you let the player characters obtain a significantly higher level than your NPCs, how do you create a "story" where the heroes come up against the same villain more than once.

A part of the problem is the fact that most players, even good RPers, assume that their characters are pragmatic killers and will put a bullet in the head of anyone that they think they can't control. Imagine 6 Batmen in a group, anyone of which would kill the Joker before putting him in jail. You can't really build a bad guy up unless he is powerful enough to either beat the party, or has so many HP that two rounds of attacks, with the inevitable crit, can't outright kill him.

So imagine you and your players want a heroic game with recurrent antagonists, but the players simultaneously don't want to play along. How do you handle it? What classes to you make the bad guys? Do you make them higher level? Do you keep them out of combat and give them a bunch of escape powers? All three at the same time? What's your game?

When you have your GM hat on, do you find that certain characters in your game tend to get killed more often?

I sure do.

In the last game to 8th level I ran, I think I killed about 6 characters, and all of them had something in common: they had more resources devoted to attack than defense.

The Gunslinger with the low Con and light armor, the monk grappler, the barbarian, the light armored archer, and so on. Meanwhile, the halfling healer with the 32 AC when fighting defensively and the spear wielding, full plate / high dexterity paladin would just wade into the middle of orcs by the dozens, giants, trolls, giant animals, whatever. They took a while to kill what they were fighting, but they always got it.

In the mean time, characters like the barbarian and the monk get swatted off like noisy crickets. Sure, the monk could throw two grapples in a round and tap out clerics 4 levels higher than himself. Sure, the barbarian had the highest melee damage total I'd ever seen, and yeah, the ranged characters tried to keep some distance, but they couldn't rely on their strengths during fights they didn't start and when push came to shove, these low AC, high damage characters got focused down and pushed back hard.

Low damage, high AC characters with a spread of abilities DO GET ignored in my games. The bad guys, seeing what they are, basically have no choice but to neutralize the heavy hitters like the barbarian and the gunslinger right away, because they can't go the distance against someone else while getting hammered - not to mention characters like the barbarian and the monk are easy to take out. Then, once they are gone, the sword and shield fighter, the heavy knight, the defensive and healing cleric, they go the distance and win, usually with little to no damage at the end.

Do we have it wrong?

I added some skills and changed a few abilities, gathered from changes other posters have made. Sure, this makes the class more powerful, but I think it will be fun.

The Rogue

Hit Dice: d8
BAB: 3/4
Fort: Poor
Ref: Good
Will: Poor

Skill Points per Level: 10 + Int Modifier

Class Skills: The Rogue’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Dex), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Dungeoneering, History, Geography, Local) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str) and Use Magic Device (Cha).

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

The Rogue is proficient with all simple weapons plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, short bow, and short sword. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

Class Abilities

Opportunist Strike

At levels 1, 3 and 5, the Rogue gains 1d6 damage to SA as the normal rogue ability. In addition to the normal conditions for applying SA damage, the rogue can apply SA damage against an opponent who is Dazzled, Entangled, Exhausted, Frightened, Grappled (even if by the rogue), Panicked, Shaken, Sickened, Staggered or Stunned.

Skill Set

At level 1, the rogue gets to select 4 skills. These skills gain a bonus equal to half his rogue level, minimum +1.

Evasion

At 2nd level, the rogue gains Evasion, suffering no damage on successful saving throws against area of effect attacks.

Rogue Talent

At 2nd, 4th and 6th level, the rogue gets to select a Rogue Talent.

Trap Sense

At 3rd level, a rogue gains an intuitive sense that alerts him to danger from traps, giving him a +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps. These bonuses rise to +2 when the rogue reaches 6th level. Trap sense bonuses gained from multiple classes stack.

Uncanny Dodge

Starting at 4th level, a rogue can react to danger before his senses would normally allow her to do so. She cannot be caught flat-footed, nor does she lose her Dex bonus to AC if the attacker is invisible. He still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. A rogue with this ability can still lose his Dexterity bonus to AC if an opponent successfully uses the feint action against him.

If a rogue already has uncanny dodge from a different class, he automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.

So I'm thinking of making a new fighter class or two: one that exalts the virtues of Napoleonic Warfare and one the doesn't, like a Veteran of the Boer War kind of guy.

The British Soldier is going to basically fight standing up, without using cover (thinking hiding or taking shelter is cowardly). This guy is going to rely on discipline and brute strength to win fights. Initiative will be important for him because he pretty much needs to win initiative and kill his opponent to avoid being shot.

The Veteran is going to be a more modern fighter with modern ideas, such as using Stealth, looking for cover, and being fast.

Any ideas to throw out? I'm working on them now, so I'll check back periodically. I'm only writing them up to level 6.

This is for my game set about 1880 London. Along the same lines as the Gunslinger I posted earlier, here is the wondering Samurai I'm going to allow.

The Bushi

Hit Dice: d10
BAB: Full
Fort: Good
Ref: Poor
Will: Good

Skill Points per Level: 4 + Int Modifier

Class Skills: The Bushi’s class skills are Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Engineering, Local, Nobility, Religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

The Bushi is proficient in all light, medium and heavy armor along with simple and samurai weapons. Bushi are not proficient with shields.

Class Abilities

Sword Drawing Art

At 1st level, the Bushi gains the feat, “Quick Draw,” and a +2 bonus to Initiative.

Focus

At 2st level, the Bushi can “Focus” on a specific enemy, gaining bonuses against that individual until he is dead. This ability can be used any number of times per day, however the Bushi can’t select a new target until the first one is dead. If he fails to kill the target, he may not select another one until meditating at dawn the next day. The Bushi gains a +1 bonus to strike against his target, and an additional +1 at level 6.

Perfect Technique

At 3rd level, the Bushi gains a +3 bonus to any one skill.

Honorable Blade

At 4th level, the Bushi’s blade becomes as strong as his will. As long as he has a lawful alignment, a weapon in his hands can’t be sundered. If some event were to break, damage, or adversely affect his weapon, he gains an additional Will save to negate its effect (on the blade), even if the effect normally wouldn’t allow a save.

Bonus Feat

At 4th level, the Bushi gains a bonus fighter feat.

Master of his Craft

At 5th level, the Bushi can reroll one failed skill check per day when using the skill he mastered with “Perfect Technique.”

Unshakable

At 6th level, the Bushi can no longer be dazzled, shaken, frightened, panicked, staggered or sickened.

For my next game, I'll probably only run until level 6. This gives me the added benefit of being able to quickly and easily write up new classes. Behold, the Gunslinger:

The Gunslinger

Hit Dice: d10
BAB: Full
Fort: Good
Ref: Good
Will: Poor

Skill Points per Level: 4 + Int Modifier

Class Skills: The gunslinger’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Engineering) (Int), Knowledge (Local) (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Stealth (Dex) and Swim (Str).

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

The gunslinger is proficient in all light and medium armor, martial weapons, and shields.

Class Abilities

Leap for Cover

At 1st level, the gunslinger can always go prone as an immediate action. If the gunslinger goes prone in response to a ranged attack, the decision to do so much be made before the strike total is announced.

Sleight of Hand

At 2nd level, the Gunslinger gains a +2 bonus on his Initiative.

Bonus Feat

At 3th level, the Gunslinger gains a bonus Fighter feat.

Hard Boiled

At 4rd level, the Gunslinger gains a +2 bonus on Willpower saves vs. Compulsion effects and fear.

Firearm Training

At 5th level, the Gunslinger can select a single firearm type of choice. When using that kind of weapon, he gains a +1 to strike and a damage bonus equal to his Wisdom modifier.

Bonus Feat

At 6th level, the Gunslinger gains another bonus Fighter feat.

A breast plate adds +6 AC but can be penetrated directly and covers less than 50% of the body. Cover, on the other hand, can't be directly penetrated and covers more than 50% of the body, yet it only produces a +4 to AC.

Should these be higher or is there a reason for this?

I'm not sure if this goes in Advice, House Rules, or Rules question. It seems like there should be rules on this however I can't find them, so I'm asking for opinions, RAW or not, on how I should handle it.

The party is supplying their allies with a number of cannons to use at a battle. They will have the advantage of reaching the ford first, and have a chance to set up the cannons before the orcs arrive. The orcs won't try to cross during the day, instead waiting for night to fall.

Crossing the river is difficult terrain, so they are going to be slow going across. Even so, I don't expect the party to get more than a few rounds off before orcs are across. The main issue is that there will be a HUGE number of orcs crossing here.

So what effect do cannons have when firing into a mass of people?

How can I do it as a fighter?

Is it easier to just be in heavier armor, but take fleet a bunch of times?

In my game, only gunslingers build and use guns because they are chosen by the god of the forge, Clangadin.

Clangadin wants to make all men equal, but his influence in the wider world is limited as his status as a dwarf god. Well, the gunslinger is about to popularize guns by using his skills to arm 400 men with canon fire against 3000 orcs and their dragon.

Of course, gunslingers represent divine intervention as their technology is a gift straight from the forge god. This gives some room for divine intervention from Bane, combined with the fact that he has more to lose than anyone from the followers of all gods demanding that their gods permit the technology.

So tell me, what should Bane do?

So tonight, the party came across a village that provided sacrifices to the dragon they just killed and magic to the orcs. There were slaves about town and evidence of human sacrifice, so they decided to take their five 7-8th level bad selves and wipe out the armed free men and druid. Well, having heard about the dragon dying, everyone in town basically just flees into the woods from certain death, morale already broken.

The town druid goes and grabs his werewolf friends and sends them after the party (who free 15 people and had a bunch of men at arms wondering around with them). It isn't hard for 4 werewolves to track some 36 people and 8 horses.

For the werewolves, I used the these guys with a few minor differences. I raised their CR one, added a bite, got rid of the sword, changed the element of the quickened energy projection, added pounce, removed the resistances, added Fast Healing 5 / Silver, kept size, reduced reach, removed fire damage... so really in the end they weren't too similar, though the stat line and powers were about right. Technically the wolves have something better than planeshift - side step, which doesn't miss and lets them travel through a parallel universe that looks about the same.

So these nasty, nasty creatures jumped the party while they were camped, two on each of the PCs on guard. They slapped the rifle out of the gunslingers hands and beat him down a cliff. Imagine two werewolves, 9' tall, clawing, biting, and throwing energy projection as a swift action. After just 5 or so rounds pretty much the whole party was down (well, the cleric turned invisible and ran off, the gunslinger was awake again but playing dead, and the wizard and ranger were both out). So the monk takes off running to the top of the cliff and all four follow, yelling that the chase is on.

The monk isn't able to out grapple these things and he can't do enough damage for it to matter, so against his usual nature he takes off running, giving the cleric time to restore the party.

I let him make contested Reflex saves, which he is good at, to reflect his attempt to outrun them (which he does really well) and acrobatics checks (to ignore the difficult terrain in the forest and hills) which he almost always beats the 20 I arbitrarily set the DC at.

After a few minutes of running, one has broken off and side stepped into the Umbra, two are falling behind by more than a round, and the third which has gotten a few swings in, has fallen a step behind. I give the monk a choice at this point: he sees a wide open field he can run faster through, or a creak leading to a rift in the ground he can crawl into. He goes for the rift and climbs in. It is too narrow for the wolf in full glory, so it changes into its direwolf form and proceeds after him into the hole.

Sure enough, the lowered CMD is hittable for the monk. He bides his time, wins initiative, and manages to pin the direwolf in one round. The wolf tries to change back into its full form, despite the cramped space, so that he can crush the monk and dig his claws in. The monk takes an AoO for the form changing and manages to tie it up.

In exchange for the beasts life, he gets it to promise to call off the hunt. It honors it, and after much snarling, snapping, and arguing, the other wolves in the creak (who didn't see their leader tied up) agree to withdraw and side step, not to be seen again.

There are an awful lot of similarities.

In both, there is a dogmatic adherence to the letter of the rules by its most devout followers.

There is uncertainty that you are really involved in the same activity if you come up with to many of the rules and ideas on your own.

Religion is hostile towards role playing, or at least use to be, in kind of the same way Burger King is hostile towards Wendy's. Burger King wouldn't target Wendy's unless they thought they were selling the same thing (in this case, a weekly Sunday activity with a charismatic leader).

In both role playing and religion, the primary fruit of your work stays in your head.

Both include a wide variety of superstitions believed to various levels by its members (dice can go bad, energy in the dice, dice gods, ect...).

Anything else?

Im thinking of changing touch AC for guns to include Natural Armor, so that rhinos and dinosaurs aren't being shot automatically by revolvers.

In exchange, I might let guns add Wisdom to damage.

This is a pretty straight forward question:

Could a party ranging from 6-8th level, consisting of a Transmuter, Gunslinger, Monk, Healer Cleric, Paladin, and Ranger Archer fight a CR 11 Red Dragon and 10 5th Level Switch Hitting Orc Rangers?

The new Starwars mmo: I don't get it. Is there a strategy? It seems like the badguys just stand in the field looking at their phones until I walk up and... Press #1 until my smuggler is done shooting? It doesn't seem hard or like there is anything to think about.

So my party is hitting 8th level. One or two are already there. The amount of time it takes to prepare a game becomes intolerable for me after a certain point. At the low levels, I usually spend about 3 hours writing plot points, NPCs, descriptions, finding period names, looking up historical facts, blah blah blah. Then when I'm done with that, I crank out some stats for goblins or 3rd level fighters or whatever in about 5 minutes and I'm done.

That's not the case at this level. I spend longer reading about a single monster I might use than I spend writing up all the combat encounters at APL = 1. To help this, I've been trying to cut as much fat out of my prep time as possible.

1) I've stopped writing up treasure. Unless a magic item or artifact is straight-up what the game is going to be about, I don't detail it. I just inform them that the horde is worth X GPs and that they can spend it when they get back to town. Any magic items in the found in the hoard can't be identified until they return to town to consult Toban's Spirit Guide or whatever. By then, they can just sell them and buy whatever they want.

2) Moral Grey Areas and Puzzles: I try to put as much decision making and discussion into the game as I can. Usually after just a minute or two I can tell what the players are going to decide to do, even if they argue about it for another 10. This gives me time to read up on monster abilities or detail stats while they are talking, and helps insure I didn't bother writing something up that they are going to bypass anyway.

3) Recycle Statistics: if I write up a dungeon or town and the PCs don't go their, I make sure to keep track of it and retool it for later. I don't have time to write up fresh NPCs when the players managed to not meet them in the place I thought they were going. While it isn't something I'm proud of, if you haven't seen it yet, it hasn't rendered.

For a special occasion in a few weeks we are going to have an all day game marathon spotted with trips to the Chinese Buffet. The party is going to be about 7-8th level and will be supported by an 11th level cleric and 9th level mounted fighter, in addition to about 100 soldiers.

They just wiped the red dragon god of the orcs, and so the orcs are going to kill all humans in the valley.

This is a 1-20 world, but the normal peak of human ability is 12 before they go to planescape. Ideas for the makeup of the Orc army?

Ideas to facilitate the fun of the battle? I'm planning on splitting up their allies for the players to run.

So, I've only read the Gunslinger rules once, never play myself, always GM and I run rules light. That means I don't know crap about the finicky inner workings of the system and only really look into them when something new starts to become a problem.

The gunslinger is starting to get there. For the most part, I just trust my players to play by the rules and I don't really look into it unless I have to.

The gunslinger was kind of a piece of crap character for quite a while. He was a musketeer rocking 1d12 + 4 once a round for quite a while and he ran out of grit unfortunately quickly. He hit 6th level a few games ago, and around 5th he picked up rapid shot and the party pulled their wealth and got him enough coin to build a pepperbox rifle. Sense that point, he has been owning.

He had a rough go of it the first 4 levels so I've been turning a bit of a blind eye to his exploits the last few games to make up for it, but there comes a time in every rules-lite GM's life when he has to buckle down and read a book, so I'm about to write up a Gunslinger.

Are there any obvious oversights I should be looking for that make the gunslinger better than he should be?

In my game the evil races are born evil and are irredeemable. Orcs are born full grown from the earth, so I don't have the women and children problem.

Drow on the other hand, have children. The party is getting to the point where they are going to find the kids in the Drow layer. I'm looking forward to the image of all the Tinker Gnomes they have rescued rushing into battle and slaughtering all the Drow children.

I mentioned that they marched in a line and started singing the "lets kill the drow" song and whistling as they went to battle. The image of all those ruthless midgets killing drow kids is a bit of dark humor. Better still that they are being led into battle by a Paladin.

So what can make this better?

This isn't really a Paladin alignment thread, at least in that I don't have a problem with this. Drow in my game world are born irredeemably evil, and can't change.

So the party is smashing its way through to the under dark. They took a shaft into the earth and found the Drow defenses were mostly designed to keep their Tinker Gnome slaves down, rather than things above out. Well, they get into a bad skirmish. The APL 5-6 party came up against a Cleric level 9 who had time to summon a Bearded Devil, 4 first level crossbowmen, and 4 House Ardize honor guard - 3rd level fighters. The cleric entered with darkness and silence on the second round and butchered the gunslinger.

The party fights their way out and eventually overcomes the Drow, except now they are kind of agitated.

So they travel a little ways and find the Cleric's chambers along with her luxury harem - 5 Drow males, mostly nude but for spidersilk togas, shaved skinny bodies, no weapons, and fear in their eyes.

The paladin's player say, "I cast Detect Evil." To which I reply, they are indeed evil. He seems a little unsure what he can get away with, so I give him the encouragement I once heard on an episode of Teen Titans, "you know, there is a difference between scared and sorry."

"Purge the Drow!" he said. And so the party went to town on 5 evil / unarmed Drow men, beating them to death mostly with hammers as they screamed in their high girly voices.

In my game last night, the monk used his tiger claw technique to bull rush a dryder (spider centaur) into a river. I ruled that it rolled belly up in the water and floated down stream, because I couldn't figure out how it could swim.

Before I hear the chorus of people saying it wasn't being tactical enough, it was guarding something by the river, and didn't know the monk could burn ki to run good or bypass difficult terrain by running on top the mushrooms.

Anyway, he basically one-shotted a CR 7, so I awarded XP for that part of the encounter.

Should I have, or did the terrain effectively reduce the CR?

Enchantment

In order to create a magic item, the mage must obtain the physical form of magic, “tass.” Each point (dram), of tass represents 1 level of power for the creation of magic items.

A mage must obtain as many points of tass as the required caster level of the magic item.

Finding Tass

Tass itself can usually be purchased for about 1000 gold per dram from people who know what it is but have no use for it. If no one is around to sell it, which is usually the case, there are a number of other ways the mage can acquire it.

Magic Mushrooms, Fire Flowers and Lightning Born Mistletoe

In the same way magical creatures are born into the world by the hand of the gods, magical plants are sometimes found in nature. There is neither rhyme nor reason regarding their appearance, other than they may appear where fairies celebrate and angels walk. Each plant contains 1d4 points of tass and can be found at places of power including ley line nodes and fairy mounds 10% of the time if the site has gone undisturbed for at least a year.

Magical Creatures

Creatures born of magic have tass hidden throughout their bodies, though no simple butcher has the technique to extract it. This magical energy is stored in different organs and fluids depending on the time of day, alignment of the stars, nature of death and the anatomy of the creature itself. Successfully extracting tass from a supernatural being requires a Knowledge Arcana roll DC 10 + 1 per point of CR. On a successful roll, 1 dram of tass can be extracted per two hit dice of the creature.

Tass taken from a sentient being is very dangerous to use. Such energy carries a part of the spirit of the creature and some say memories of its death. There is a 5% chance per point of the creatures CHA score that a curse will fall on either the wizard who uses the material or the object he creates. This chance is increased by 50% if the creature is normally infused with dark chi or negative energy. It is increased by another 50% if the creature is a normal resident of one of the outer planes (meaning that its earthly death was just a temporary setback).

Random Fortune

Occasionally a spark from the forge of the gods falls to the earth, a magical stone is generated from the union of earth and sky, something falls out of a rift, or is left by an angel. Such magical energies are potent and usually best used for one thing or another in particular. There is no accounting for luck so be thankful if you ever come across such an object.

Generating Tass

Sacrificing your Spirit

A magic user can permanently burn either two points from his constitution or one spell per day to generate tass for the creation of a magic item. This expenditure of personal energy creates 2 points of tass in the case of Con or 1 point per spell level in the case of a spell slot. A magic user can only perform this ritual 3 times in his life, as each use loosens his mortal coil. The fourth attempt requires a DC 25 Will save. Failure results in death.

Unholy Sacrifice

Tass can be created by performing a ritual sacrifice. Anything from a rabbit to a princess can be sacrificed in order to create the magical energy. In general, one point of tass is formed for every 3 points of the victim’s Charisma, with an additional point for any one of the following: royalty, virginity, magical ancestry, spell casting ability and superior physical fitness (the magical, fairy-blooded sorcerer, daughter of prince of Ansalon would be a very efficient victim).

In the case of unholy sacrifice, the object AND / OR the wizard receive a curse. This curse can often be predicted or selected by arranging a pact with a powerful otherworldly being. The curse will still be there and will never be lessened, but it can be made more convenient for the wizard and more favorable for the goals of the Alien Intelligence.

Distilling Tass

Sometimes a wizard can be so fortunate that he is able to build a stronghold on a place of magical power. For example, the Ivory Tower of the Order of Reason in London is built on the crossroads of several Ley lines. Such a stronghold must be constructed with the highest level of intelligence, with each and every stone placed in alignment with the stars and every room, hall, window and door arranged to draw in magical energy. Building a structure such as this requires some five times the cost of an ordinary stone building.

Each month, a single Craft Alchemy check, DC 25 can be made to extract a single point of tass from the air itself. The random nature of magical energies means that this check must be rolled (the wizard can’t simply take 10). With the GM’s permission, the alchemist can automatically generate an average amount of tass, including fractional amounts per month, based on his skill bonus.

Notes on Enchanting

This system isn’t necessarily designed to block player characters from making magic items. A great deal of time can pass between adventures, giving the party to distill tass. Besides that, the player characters will venture into the most magical places, giving the GM plenty of opportunity to place tass if he desires. The point of this system is to explain why the game world isn’t flooded with magic items just because there are wizards who could, in theory, make them. Tass is very hard to come by, very rare, and only the most adventurous are likely to turn up with much of it.

Imagine an exiled warlord who tried to take the crown and failed.

5 years later he is in his keep, hatching a plot to get an ancient artifact: a book that reveals the will of the gods. Unfortunately, the book slips through his grasp.

A player character decides he wants to trade it to him, figuring it is a celestial book and that the worst it could do is turn him good.

So, he gets the book and reads that he shall never rule again. He reads that the new human tribes (of which the pcs belong) are to purge the valley of the horde and that he needs to follow or get out of the way.

He is an 11th level, NE cleric with Lawful tendencies.

What next?

The party just got a magical spell book that can predict the will of the gods. There is a puzzle to opening it, but I suspect that they will figure it out.

Also, the gunslinger took a duel in the name of his god, then pussed out and got the party to jump in and help when he started losing.

I need to put a game together for tonight. Ideas?

Something I've never liked about Role Playing Games is how difficult it is to decide what to do when a player character dies. Let's say the party is on a quest with four stages, A-D.

A - The paladin dies, so a new character joins the group.

B - The new character and another dies, so two new people join.

C - An original character dies and one of the new characters leave, but two new characters join.

D - Boss battle - everyone but one new character dies. Three new characters join the group.

They still get to win. In fact, as long as the group is allowed to make a new character every time they die, they could ford a river by making a bridge of their previously drowned characters.

I ran into something like this a long time ago (3.5) in an evil campaign I ran called, "The Seven Man Siege." 7 PCs of 5-7th level were trying to take over a city with a 9th level fighter for a lord, a 10th level conjurer, and a group of 5th level minions. Every morning at dawn, the wizard came out and attacked the party's camp. Every night, the evil 7 attacked the city.

The wizard was successful in killing at least 1 PC more times than not. Then, that player would write up a new 5th level character and join the group and the party would go break a bunch of crap in the city or try to find someone to assassinate or something to steal. The problem was that the players were doing damage to the town, but any damage done to the party was immediately undone because I didn't want a player to have to sit there and not play, or play a peon and not be able to contribute.

What I decided at the time was that anytime I killed a PC, the lord of the city would get a new mid-level peon. I wrote up some 5th level NPCs and got to add one or two after each attack at dawn. This REALLY motivated the players to quit screwing around and dying, because more than they wanted to be evil and have fun, they wanted to WIN. It didn't matter to them that it was gamist or arbitrary. It just made them play harder.

Right now I'm running a bit of a meat grinder sandbox. We decided to start playing with the rule that new characters come in at level 1 no matter what level everyone else is at. On the fast experience track, a 1st level character will hit 7th by the time that a 7th level character hits 9th, and there is every possibility the 7th level character will die before then and cycle back to the back of the line. While it has been fun for now, the survivors are breaching 6th level and the gap is getting to the point to where it is hard for new characters who come in to stay alive.

The high level characters literally have to jump around and draw fire to keep them alive.

What I would LIKE would for PC death to have real repercussions, like the failure of the current adventure. If the party is trying to get the gold, and two guys die, that means they lose. Of course, if we played out the same area without new characters joining, the remaining ones would die. Unfortunately, the PLAYERS will press on any quest to the point of death and letting them do that can take hours, during which time the players who characters died just have to sit there. So you do what every fun GM does and let them get back in quick with new characters - but you sacrifice continuity, have silly reasons for new PCs to join, and gloss over the failure to stay alive by letting the group beat the dungeon anyway.

You could do the old school thing of having players take over minions in the dungeon, but who wants to keep track of a bunch of crappy torch bearers just on the chance someone dies, and then you have the problem that the new character is just too weak, or the continuity problem of why this person wasn't already helping more.

I've handled PC dead in a lot of different ways with different rules over the years. I've probably used every system anyone thinks of as typical. I've just never been satisfied.