ericthetolle's page

I have to bring up the Murphy's Rules:

"In a 30-minute RuneQuest battle (Chaosium) involving 6000 armored,
experienced warriors using Great Axes, more than 150 men will decapitate
themselves and another 600 will chop off their own arms or legs..."

Butt let's see...

The Champions referee who proudly told me "So I looked at the player's character sheet, and I saw he had "Hunted by Mechanon" as a disadvantage. So I think to myself, "Hey, Mechanon is an evil robot that doesn't care anything about humanity. So he just nukes the city and kills the guy. Five minute game, dude!"

And then there was the D&D DM who redid the encounter table to be TRULY random- everything had an equal chance of being encountered. There was an qual chance of meeting 1D20 orcs as there was an elder dragon. Which is why, as soon as the 1st. level party started walking down the road, *rollrolllroll" "You meet a lich. Roll for initiative." ONe round later, "Yo're all dead. Make new characters."

But the worst?

A friend mentioned the first time she gamed, with the first guy mentioned above as DM. The scenario boiled down to in the first five minutes, "Your elf is caught and raped by a hundred orcs. ..what? You failed your Hide in Cover roll!"

The one mentioned that was brought to my table did have horrendous chances to hit, so he might have been taking the right -6/-10 (or -4/-8 for light weapons) on the attacks. I want to say his first attack ended up at +1, and the others all at -3 to hit...he just wanted a chance to look fearsome I think.

Of course, he didn't get the chance to do a single full attack with his eidolon that scenario...

My experience with a Summoner was pretty much

And the Barbarian saunters up..
"I attack." "You hit! 28 damage! He's dead!"

No, if any character class needs to go away, it's the rogue. That's not a PC class, it's actually a punishment inflicted on players who don't know better.

The new kid comes into you're party He is using the gunslinger twf pistol build . hows the TWF hand crossbow rogue gonna feel about it.

He's playing a rogue- OF COURSE he should feel bad. You don't play rogues to feel god about the game, you play them because someone said "Hey, we need someone to maybe remove a trap once per game session. Maybe. If the Wizard is to busy." He should feel sad and useless even if the other characters are all playing monks.

Decanter of Endless Water- fill the entire mansion full of water, then dispel it.

Let's see...at 13th level, the spell produces a mansion 39,000 cubic feet volume. A Decanter of Endless Water at full power produces a flow of 5 gallons per second, or .6684 cubic feet per second.

It will take 39,000 / .6684 = 58348.2944 seconds to fill the Mansion, or 16.2079 hours. I hope the BEG brought a good book while he's waiting for you...

My wizard once crafted a couple hundred pounds of steel into a 3' diameter dome, with several narrow viewing slots. He then used Tenser's Floating Disk to give himself a personal hovertank.

Succubi are pretty good at that. I've had campaigns where succubi have attempted to screw with Paladins for their own amusement, and sometimes get upset and in a huff when the Paladin doesn't falter from their attempts at upsetting him. In rare cases, the succubus may even appear before the Paladin and demand he explain himself because she wants to know why continues being a good guy when she's been shoveling loads of **** all in his face from behind the scenes.

And a really well played paladin can leave the succubus shuffling her feet and questioning her own life choices. I've seen it done, and it's really entertaining.

One of the cute things 4E did was have one of the familiars be a devil that a wizard of any alignment could have, with the assignment of corrupting the player character. My Lawful Good cleric who happened to have been born a wizard (and who was sure that all that dark magic could be turned to pure ends) had a familiar who had a number of intense conversations. she was getting more and more frustrated toward the end of the campaign that her offers of knowledge kept getting perverted to good.

Because combat is highly abstracted, and involves a lot of maneuvering, parrying and blocking. Just because a weapon can theoretically cut through anything, doesn't mean it just slices through it like a hot knife through butter. After all, your kitchen knife is harder than the chopping block, but it'll take some time and dedication to cut through it.

It also occurs to me that sharpening adamantine weapons and tools must be a major pain.

You know, I figure if a city an afford the gold it would take to cover itself in an anti magic field, obviously there's some inflation in effect. So, a 5th level wizard should be able to afford a couple scrolls of Gate, and use them to summon a couple greater Fire Elementals. Someone with the right sourcebook could probably get something even more effective, but merely a fire elemental in a anti-magic field shrouded city would be enough to burn the place to ashes.

Incidentally, with Paris being 30 million square feet, and an antimagic field being 20' radius, that gives a requirement for 23, 885 antimagic fields for full coverage. Does anyone want to calculate the cost?

Because all classes should have all good saves?

Why yes, they should. That was one of the major balancing elements in 1st. and 2nd. edition D&D. High level fighters especially were very likely to shrug off spells cast at them.

Thank you for pointing out one of the areas in which WoTC really screwed up the game system.

I come from the true old-school basic D&D plus Arduin Grimore plus anything else the GM wanted to toss in style of play. Did the GM read Starship Troopers last night? Well now the orcs are wearing powered armor. The paladin is wearing glowing plastic plate armor. Gaming was gonzo back then, and I simply do not understand the mentality that calls for D&D to be some pseudo-medieval Europe analogue (read, a highly inaccurate preconception of what Europe looked like).

Why people want to mae D&D as vanilla and boring as possible, is beyond me.

From the other week:

You find out the GM insists on treating your wizard's familiar using the same rules as animal companions. Even though the owl has a higher intelligence than the party barbarian...

There's a line that a guy who used to game with Gary Gygax was fond of saying. Repeat this three times:

"No gaming is better than bad gaming."

"No gaming is better than bad gaming."

"No gaming is better than bad gaming."

Follow that advice. In game actions won't fix an out-of-game problem, especially when one of the people encouraging the problem is the GM. Give an ultimatum, and then take everyone who is not a problem, and leave.

Words simply fail me. There are not enough facepalm gifs on the internet to describe this idea.

Acquire a scroll of Wish.
Cast Wish: "I wish to gate in something that can easily kill the monk and that absolutely hates monks."
Deal with the consequences of the DM making the spell go awry.

Make sure you have a Dominate Person scroll.
Get a scroll of Plane Shift.
Plane Shift to the Aliens universe.
Use Dominate Person to acquire a UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship and pilot.
Dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

So if you want to trip a lot take the feat; or carry a whip or halberd with you?

Or, they could fix the combat maneuvers and feats systems like they should have 10 years ago. Wen CHAMPIONS has a simpler and more effective grappling system, it's a sign that things are really screwed up.

No.

The area of effect of greater create demiplane cast at 20th level is 400 10' cubes. About the size of a small office building.

Scaling is arbitrary. The second Wish is for a universe at a scale of 10e^-9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999. Of course since this is a Wish outside of the normal boundaries of Wish, it goes horribly awry. Which explains the world we have today.

God created the earth and heavens. God has an infinite area of effect. An army of 20th level wizards are like tiny ants compared to God.

Actually, properly phrased, Wish has an infinite area of effect- especially in 2nd. edition. Just be verrry verrry careful how you phrase things. Otherwise you end up with nipples for men.

From the last couple of PFS sessions:

When all diplomacy fails in the face of the gnome whatever-he-is and the paladin gunning for a fight.

When the gnome whatever-he-is wanders off to fight some blobby thing that has nothing to do wit our mission, because evidently he is the only person in the party getting XP from killing things.

Magically trapped door. Rogue? Disable Device? Anybody? Bueller? What the HELL is the Pathfinder Society thinking? Their contact SAID there would e traps, and THEY SENT NO ROGUE! Are they selecting teams based on marbles dropped from a rotating drum?

Also, there is no way that the Kansas law would have held up in any reputable court of law. Denying anyone public services like police, fire, and DMV would set civil rights in this country back at least 50 years and I can't imagine enough people would actually want to be on that side of a such a law, especially with midterm elections coming up.

My suspicion is that the backers want the law struck down by a court, so they have an issue in the next campaign. they also want to see it go to the Supreme court, to add to a narrative of "Judiciary out of control".

Nobody is going to take Weapon Focus out of the game just because seven league leaps are in it.

Well no, but it's likely that in Pathfinder 2nd. Edition they'll break up Weapon Focus into a coupe of feats. And maybe require prerequisites.

Meanwhile, the dev. team will also fix some of the glaring weaknesses in primary spellcasters that have made them so weak.

I apologize for invoking the Tier system in my post. I wasn't attempting to debate the validity of the Tier system or any ranking system in particular. And I recognize that full BAB is an important resource. I'm just doing my best to quantify how important it is in relationship to other resources.

Well, as a thought, let's take that hypothetical class you posited, the one with the attack and utility abilities, and compare it to the Barbarian and Paladin. to do this, let's take BAB completely out of the picture; let's just compare the powers and abilities that each class has. How do they match up? If your class, well call it a "Warcaster" has equivalent abilities, then an equivalent BAB would be appropriate.

As for the general case for BAB? I would say it depends, but matters less as the tier increases. My ninja would have loved an extra +2 to hit at fifth level, because hitting vs AC was essential for her special ability to trigger, and she was starved of chances to hit. But I think she would have liked even more an ability to actually pull off backstabs regularly. My archer Bard didn't care about BAB so much, as shooting things was typically the last thing he did in combat. My wizard didn't care about BAB at all- I can't recall any time she actually made a to-hit roll. Oh yeah, she would toss the occasional Alchemical Fire until she learned replacement spells.

To start with, talk to the people of Constantinople about honor and chivalry. So much for the concept of honor ever really applying in real combat.

Anyway, I consider the honor argument against guns to basically be because guns go against the highly reactionary nature of fantasy and fantasy gaming. It's in the same category as the arguments that "There were no people of color or active women in European history! Therefore I don't want them in my fantasy!"

As demonstrated earlier, the whole "honor" thing in gaming boils down to a fantasy where the elite are inherently better than the commoners, and can crush any uppity peasant Weapons like bows, crossbows and guns in this view threaten the fantasy of being part of a domineering elite and taking vicarious revenge against the "peasants" in one's life.

Personally, as an old time gamer I think guns fit into D&D better than honor does. The original essence of D&D had NOTHING to do with medieval notions of honor: it was a bunch of desperate folks going into dungeons to gain wealth using small unit tactics. Anyone insisting on "Honorable combat" in an original D&D game would be left stripped of gear and tied up for the wandering gelatinous cube, because they would be a threat to the rest of the party getting away with the loot. Guns on the the other hand, are just another weapon, and won't keep the characters from acting intelligently.

So let's try turning this thing around. What if this was being used on YOUR character? What if someone was selling your character sweets that you just cant help but love, and in the process,your character's secrets were being divulged. And then the person who drugged your PC uses those secrets to get an advantage over you, and to make money.

What would you call them,and more importantly, what would you expect to do about them?

Turn that around and that's what you can expect to have happen to your character.

I'm encountering a weird situation- up until a couple of months ago, the message boards loaded fine on my Android based Galaxy S3 using Dolphin Browser. Then abruptly it just got stuck indefinitely loading.

This is getting into a "Those who Walk Away from Omales" issue. I honestly don't think a good character should simply accept evil that is around them. that's even more the case for a paladin, who's very existence is devoted to fighting evil.

On the other hand, it'snot so simple as running and attacking anything evil. My feeling is that there's a lot of minor evils that may distract a good or lawful good character from their primary mission. In other words, arresting a jaywalker may keep a murderer from being caught.

There's also an element of appropriate response; for a lot of minor evils, a word or homily may be enough. On the other hand, major societal evils, like slavery or oppression? That may well be too much for a single person with a sword to deal with, and trying t do so may render them unable to give what help they can. Which isn't to say they should ignore evil- contributing to organizations that are acting to change the society, preaching against the evil, shaming those who benefit, all are things a good character could do without taking up arms.

BUG FIX REPORT

Bug Title - Monk Feat problem - Crane Wing Feat

Date Seen - 2011-2013

Versions - Pathfinder v. 1.0

Bug Summary - Players finding monk attractive class to play.

Bug Description - Bug in UC feat "Crane Wing" (Combat) renders Monk class attractive to players.

Severity - Major

Bug Fix Action - "Crane Wing" feat modified to remove attractive elements.

Bug Fix Results - Monk Class no longer attractive to players.

BUG FIX SUCCESSFUL

TICKET CLOSED

watre wrote:

Everybody know that if a 20th level fighter walks up to 20th level mage, the mage prolly wins even if he has no expensive components and neither have any magic gear

But why?

Why has to be so?

Because a flawed paradigm. Because dnd wizards are Gandalf, while dnd fighters are Boromir. And of course Gandalf> Boromir.

Actually, simply because of bad 3.X design. Back in 2nd Edition or earlier,if a fighter got up and personal with a magic user, the magic user was terrified. Lower hit points, the fighter getting multiple attacks, fighters having incredible saves, magic users losing spells for any damage...in fight after fight I saw a fighter close with a magic user and the magic user frantically backpeddaling and trying to retreat, or quickly dying.

Of course this resulted in the power gamers whinging about how weak magic users were. So, if you look at 3.X, one thing they did is take every limiting factor on spellcasters away. Casting time, maximum spells known, spell disruption, requiring going up a level if one fails to learn a spell, spell purchasing scarcity, availability of scrolls...and then people think spellcasters being overpowered is natural.

It's not that 3.X took its design philosophy from Magic the Gathering that's so much the problem, it's that they didn't playtest the results well, and as a result, there's a "White and Blue cards are awesome, Red and Green cards suck" situation. And then they never fixed the fundamental problems with the system. And so by the time Pathfinder came out, there was a strong contingent of people going "This is the way things are supposed to be! Spellcasters rule, martials drool!" Unfortunately, you can include the designers of Pathfinder in that contingent. And that's where we are today, with no fix in sight.

Honestly, in fantasy settings I tend to assume that humans were brought from Earth. the more "realistic" the setting, the more I tend to think that. There's something in my mind that says if the geography and much of the biology is different, that humans shouldn't appear, much less make something parallel to Earth history. For instance, in Game of Thrones I tend to speculate what European medieval country was kidnapped to populate Westeros.

The truth is, when the adventurers get to the top level of the ship, they'll find a lazy human, a hologram, a cat and a neurotic android.

What the...when did Elan start putting points in Intelligence? Or did the Player finally look at his character sheet and realize his Int was a 14 and not a 04?

Back when it was open-ended like that, we'd try to think of fun one word commands, like vomit or disrobe, that would take a foe out of commission for multiple rounds.

Back in the days of Vampire the Masquerade, the first level of Dominate was a one-word command of any verb the target could comprehend. In one episode high up in a skyscraper, the PC said to his opponent "Did you know? 'Defenstrate' means to hurl oneself out of a window. And also, DEFENSTRATE."

As for my spell choice? "Predict Stock Market". At one hour advance notification per level, I should be able to get massive returns on my investment, very quickly.

Hey, the OP just said "Wizard spell". He said NOTHING about custom wizard spells.

From a practical perspective, there's a difference between playing in a constant group where people can cover for other people's lacks, and a PFS group. In a PFS group there's no guarantee other player characters will cover for your weak characteristics, so buying down a stat may well get your character killed.

For example: in three separate scenarios I've been in, spellcasters have had to climb ropes in an emergency, and the ones that have bought down their strength have wasted valuable rounds trying to get up off the end of the rope. On one occasion, this nearly lead to my wizard being eaten by a seatiger. On two other occasions the wizard couldn't bring his firepwer tobear because he was too slow.

On a different occasion, my wizard had the chance to talk to a leader of a bunch of kobolds, since she was the only one who knew Draconic,and nobody had Diplomacy. She barely made the roll to make the Kobolds listen to an alliance proposal- if she had bought her Charisma down, the group would have ended up in a nasty fight right before the main boss.

So roleplaying or other considerations aside, in PFS play at least, buying down attributes makes one vulnerable, sometimes dangerously so.

Eh, if I were a GM, seven words would take care of the problem:

"We're using 2nd. Edition Fireball area rules."

After you fry your own team a few times, you'll slow down.

so the bottom line is...we're comparing a Tier 4 class to a Tier 4 class. sounds about evenly weaksauce to me. It doesn't however, match the title of the thread, which is "The Rogue is Not Underpowered".

Now, try comparing a rogue with some other martial class, like Barbarian, ranger or Paladin...oh wait, those are still Tier 4. OK, how about Rogue vs. a Tier 3 class like Magus, Inquisitor or Alchemist?

Or, *snicker* Rogue vs. Summoner. Go on, argue that Rogue is equal to Summoner. Go on, I want to see that.

Cleric.

......what?

For me it's not the people who drop their INT to 7. It's the people who drop their INT to 7, but then don't play their character that way.

But that's traditionally D&D. Back in the day, with original D&D, characters with 3 Int and 5 Wisdom were tactical geniuses who were experts at figuring out complicated puzzles, and characters with 3 Charisma were able to do stirring oratory that would make Shakespeare tear up. Admittedly stats didn't mean that much back ten, but still, ignoring the implication of stats when convenient was an accepted part of the game.

Frankly if people don't want min-maxing,the solution is simple; don't use point buy systems. Point buy is implicitly designed for min-maxing. Instead, roll stats with 3D6 in order, like God and Gary Gygax intended.

I've been considering a paladin/ gunslinger build myself. I quickly decided that Holy Gun was actually a weak build. However, Mysterious Stranger/ Divine Hunter synergizes together very well.

Somebody obviously wished for the thread back.

As for me, back in the days when Wish actually meant something, and the GM said that selfish wishes world be punished and selfless wishes would be enacted...

"I wish everyone would be nicer to each other, and stop being mean, and take care of each other and live together in peace and harmony..."

At this point the gm, in the form of the god granting the wish was going "Shutupshutupshutup SHUT UP!"

Pity the game ended before I saw the effect of that wish...

The best way to handle a gunslinger in a game is with the same fairness and dedication to fun that any other class receives.

If you can't do that, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Based on the advertisements I see for mmorpgs, I thought this ess the default for all servers.

I mean as long as you're going to treat women as sex objects anyway, you might as well be honest and go straight for porn.

The important thing to remember is that Elvin eyes, they're watching you. They see your every move.

My elf wizard has decided that the interlopers ( as she calls humans) don't actually need to be exterminated, as long as they keep supplying her with coffee and chocolate.

Make sure your build has some combat utility and be sure to laugh at all those saying the rogue is pathetic and useless as you have a great timsneak attack .

Until you run into someone with a 50gp potion of Blur. Or that time there was an aberrant you couldn't sneak attack. And the time you all were stuck on a ledge fighting flying dogs, and there was no way to move to get a flank.

And then you run through a certain PFS scenario at fifth level and spend the first combat running in fear, the second combat nauseated, the third combat asleep, and the fourth combat in Darkness unable to sneak attack. And oh yeah, the only trap was detected and avoided by the cleric.

And hey, flanking? You've got a gunslinger and a ranged paladin for the damage dealers. You're stuck doing 1D6 with your short swords. Which is OK really, because while you're maneuvering into position, the paladin and gunslinger just killed everything. It occurs to you that if you had played a bard, you could have cast Haste or Slow, or performed, or done SOMETHING useful.

I love rogues, I wish you well.

I do too. Which is why I'm not going to play them again in Pathfinder.

How to have fun with a rogue?

Play World of Warcraft.

Or play 4E. Or Dungeon World, or GURPS, or Fate Core, or Hero, or Mutants and Masterminds, or True 20, or any of the many other games that give good support for playing a stealth-and-skill based character. But don't bother in Pathfinder.

I'm saying this as someone who's quitting playing a Ninja after more than a year, it's most likely that you'll abandon your rogue after you reach something like fifth level, as the frustrations of trying to play that class build up. I've repeatedly seen people in the local group start playing rogues, and then realize the problems with the class and give up in frustration. I thought I could do better, but then I have to admit they're right.

Also frankly, I'd rather people didn't play a rogue, because if I'm playing in a PFS scenario I want characters that can enable success, not be a load on the party. So if you want skills and face ability, play a bard; if you want combat and stealth play a ranger. But don't waste a slot that can be given to a more effective character.

Can I weild a fishing trawler? A properly constructed Cthulhu should be vulnerable to fishing vessels.

Great. They've got new classes. Pity they haven't gotten around to fixing the damn Rogue or Monk classes.

Odds are at 8th level he will be flying, and probably have some sort of defense against fire and arrows up That's why during the combat, you should open up with a scroll of Dispel Magic, or even better, Anti Magic Field. Then hit him with flaming arrows, alchemists fire and the like. Be sure to have your Use Magic Device skill up, and drink a skill-boosting potion to pull it off.

My ninja is thinking of retiring, because she's already 22 and she's not getting any younger. She doesn't want to turn into a Christmas Cake after all.

The " Use Anti-Magic Field" argument always kind of amuses me, because it's flat-out saying that the best way to deal with high-level mages is with a high-level spell. Hmmmm....

I ban the Player's Guide, GM's Guide, and Beastiary 1-3. You don't have a problem with player's playing inappropriate things, if you don't allow players to play characters.

It may be considered harsh, but mark my words, GoSRoP, no matter what books you ban, if you allow player characters you'll only cause trouble for yourself. Cut to the chase and ban em first

Remember, the ideal situation in this case is to punish the player so badly for taking this feat that he leaves your group, and disses you on the internet for years afterward. If you can get the rest of the group to quit as well, that's an added bonus.

On the player's side, for maximum jerkishness I would use first wish to summon the efrit's master, and offer the efrit's true name to him in exchange for rights to call on the efrit. That should get some cover from the efrit side of things.

For class? 1st level bard from 1st. edition D&D. Picked because that class requires one to be a 5th level Fighter and 5th level Thief. Alternatively, a 1st level Mystic Theurge will give me access to third level wizard and cleric spells per the prerequisites- having Cure Disease will be vital in my plan to gain immense power and wealth.

As for the magic item, that's's simple: a 1st. edition D&D Ring of Three Wishes, as that doesn't have the limitations that later rings do. Admittedly it's extremely risky, and it'll have to have the wording of the legalese involved in the wishes gone over by several contact lawyers and science fiction writers I know. It's a major start up expense, but it will be worth it.

As for the wishes, the legalese will boil down to three commands:

Teleport anyone else subject to this offer naked into intergalactic space. Eliminate any competition or potential heroes before they become a problem.

Second wish, wealth. This can go a number of ways; even the weak Third Edition Rings can produce 15 million dollars worth of wealth, and a properly worded 1st. edition Wish could give me free-and-clear control over an industry.

Third, something useful, like a permanent transformation into an AD&D lich, including all powers and all spells. 18th level magic-user abibylities and immortality should give me the resources to reshape the world as I please.

As for the rest of you, there is no need to worry. I shall be a wise and tolerant monarch, dispensing justice fairly and only setting nightmares to rip out the minds of the evil and wicked. Or anybody I don't like.