jpraab's page

I just moved into the Cap Hill / Cheesman Park area, but I'd be willing to drive to the burbs for a game. Add me to your list! Shoot me an email if you want to play.

I'm moving to Denver April 1st. It's been over a year since I played Pathfinder, but I do have experience as a GM and player.

I'm more interested in non-PFS play, but I am open to it.

I'll be going to LGSs to find players, too, but figured I'd reach out here as well.

As far as players bumping into tougher creatures--I've done this on numerous occasions, or, rather, THEY'VE done this. I always make it clear that an encounter may be out of their reach, and that they should probably pursue plot hook "x" to overcome this obstacle later, but sometimes they press on. This can create a new encounter--that is, the escape, the chase, the running for survival with low HP, magic, and items--that is a whole lot of fun.

Furthermore it does lend itself to worldbuilding. If the players bump up against something stronger than them, it reminds them that this world doesn't exist just to be exploited for loot or XP; they are exploring a "real" world in which their actions have consequences and sometimes not everyone or everything in the setting has some direct gaming functionality.

That's not to say the PCs aren't the center of our gaming experiences. They are! What I mean is that every NPC or setting should not simply be there for our heroes to change radically. What sense does it make for a group of 2nd level PCs to march into the imperial castle and demand an audience with the emperor or else they initiate combat? They're gonna get tossed out on their butts or in prison, which in of itself makes for a fun set of encounters and new plot possibilities.

I want my PCs to be able to discover the secret lair of the villain early on--but I also don't want to *cheat* them by allowing them to sack it on their first attempt. This game is about the journey, not the plot resolution.

Thanks for the response guys. Good points all around.

Yes. We've never used pre-published adventures. I suppose that all of those adventures ARE built with strict attention paid to all of the design concepts and methods. I've used pre-published material for inspiration; I suppose that if I were to design adventures to those standards I'd quickly run out of free time.

Let me start by saying that being a GM is my favorite experience in tabletop gaming.

I've been gaming for about a year and I've noticed something in most gaming groups in which I've participated.

Nobody is a slave to the rules.

This is a good thing, and I'm not putting that up for debate, because the Core Rulebook itself says that we can do whatever works best. As a GM, I try to stick to the rules as much as possible, but I'll admit that I use far less crunch than the books advise. What I mean is this:

My worlds or locations typically don't have stat blocks. I rarely use tables for item / character / encounter generation. My NPC or monster stat blocks are typically abbreviated and incomplete (if I missed something I come up with it on the fly). I eyeball CR for encounters. I don't pay much attention to how much treasure is too much or too little. I try to build characters and locations naturally and creatively rather than sticking to preset tables and equations.

Don't get me wrong--combat, leveling, and basic gameplay mechanics are all in line with the rules. But when I build scenarios--and when other GMs build them, even for games like D&D 4e--I don't stick to the full crunch and I don't see others sticking to the full set of crunch. That is, I typically don't build everything (monsters, NPCs, items, locations, encounters, etc) from scratch, but I build, rearrange, borrow, recycle, make up, and steal what I need and what suits me and my players.

Now this has never led to any real problems that couldn't be solved with a "+2/-2" solution or some creativity on my part, but when I crack the less-read sections of my Core Rulebook or GMG, I can't help but wonder if I'm missing something critical to the gaming experience by not crunching through everything. I've made an effort to spend more prep time building adventures "by the book", but I'm not sure how much attention to fully fleshing out everything numerically and formally is necessary for a quality experience.

I have a feeling that I'm not qualified to be a convention or Pathfinder Society or official GM because of my philosophy. The other GMs I've played with seem to do things this way too, rarely acting like programs that churn out adventures, and more picking and choosing scenario building methods as they suit them.

If you have any thoughts on this I'd like to hear them. I'm interested in hearing about what chapters or rules are most useful (or not) to you as GMs.

And now for something completly different - the GM Guide still is some weeks/months away and I am looking for help and data for creating a setting (something like the Sewer Rat Setting one of you posted in this thread).

There are sources in the Core Rulebook - but not that much.
Is there a wizard/sorcerer like npc class?
How big are the settlement types in the table for random magical items (hamlet etc pp)?
And much more - I've always been a fan of homebrew, creating own cultures, nations, races etc pp. Are there sources on the web?

1) That's the beauty of these games. Create it yourself. But, if you need a little help, it might be to your benefit to pick up a campaign setting, like the PF Campaign Setting, or any number of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings like Forgotten Realms or Eberron. You can find the 4e versions in bookstores and gaming shops, or the much cheaper (and compatible for Pathfinder) 3.0 / 3.5 versions on eBay.com, half.com, or amazon.com. See how they set up the world and you'll have some ideas in no time. And don't feel bad about stealing settings wholesale to import into your own world! There's also FREE 3.5 adventures floating around, such as the Tomb of Horrors, that you can download to help you see how the pros designed settings.

2) Just build a PC wizard or sorcerer and have the GM use him/her as an NPC.

I'll leave the rest of the questions up to someone more knowledgeable than I.

The game is so rigidly balanced and the mechanics all so similar you CANT powergame. Very little you do will make your character more powerful in 4E. And if you just pick random powers and feats as you move down the line in levels in 4E, your character will still be ok (most powers work all on their own). Pathfinder is not as such. You can easily put together combinations of feats and classes that are more powerful then average, and you can easily make choices that least to a very ineffective character.

Please note that this is not a snipe at 4E. They set out to create a balanced game, and that they certainly accomplished in my opinion.

I guess our definitions differ. Much of my 4e experience between games has been about how builds complement one another for maximum efficiency--one character does this, another does this, etc.--and that comes off as being unnatural. When PCs are asking other PCs to attack them just to get some obscure power benefit, I think that's powergaming at is worst, and the system encourages such exploitation of the rules through a fairly rigid balance system that can suck the creativity out of encounter construction.

However, if you mean finding the most efficient/powerful builds by selecting from a broader base of rules for an individual PC, yeah, I see what you mean.

Just to be clear, I like 4e, but I like PF better because of the flexibility.

Take a whole session together to build characters. My PF group is relatively new to 3x/PF, so we're all learning together. Sometimes our questions are as simple as "wait, do we roll our hit dice or take maximum value" or more complicated combat rules. Discovering the answers on your own through trial and error is much more efficient way to generate authentic learning experiences--you remember what you screw up more than with what you succeed.

Guides are fine, sure, like all the above have said. But my group typically has little to no interest in powergaming, and, if you're beginning like us, I'm not sure if going that route right now is worthwhile. 4e is more conducive to powergaming.

The rules are secondary to HAVING FUN. That's the most important rule to remember.

If anyone is still looking for a weekend game of Pathfinder in the WNY / Rochester area, contact me at jpraab@gmail.com.

Just got the Core Rulebook and Bestiary for Christmas and I'm looking to join a group. I just got into gaming with 3.5 a few months ago. 4th Ed. doesn't really do it for me, so I decided to upgrade to PF. I live out in Churchville but am willing to drive into the city for a game. Hit me at jpraab@gmail.com and maybe we can work something out.