recursive.faults's page

I was running a game where the characters were fighting a creature who was more or less insane. One of the players tagged it with Alchemist's Fire and the creature focused on him instead.

So the creature ran up and grappled him and killed the player by burning to death, and collapsing on the player burning him too. The creature was 2 size categories larger than the creature.

That scenario has gotten me thinking. It was no stretch at all to say that all of his scrolls and normal possessions had more or less burnt up, but if he had more flasks of things, potions, etc, wouldn't they all break/shatter/pop upon the creature's collapse on him, or being set on fire?

Also, a lot of players I play with wear the Adventurer's Sash to keep their potions and Alchemist's fires handy. A smart, malicious NPC (In my mind) could make a touch attack on the sash to burst the alchemist fire on the PC and suffer the splash himself. I'd melee would be like making a non-lethal attack and suffer the -4, but only hit touch AC since you're actually only aiming for an exposed "Bomb". Ranged, I'm not sure what penalty they'd suffer to do the same.

So here's the question, what on earth do the rules say, and how would you all rule a situation where characters were purposefully smashed/wrestled into the ground or have their exposed flasks broken?

Seems to me that grappling could be very dangerous/interesting.

I know this is some pretty well travelled territory in most regards, but I think we could all benefit from having a place we can all look (If not in a book that those wonderful people at Paizo publish) to see how these scenarios have been handled in the past.

I'd love to see this turn into a repository of successful positive techniques that help DMs and players enhance their games while weeding out so many of the things that can ruin games and friendships.

A note about powergaming. I think that some people will consider this cheating and others won't, so for those of you who do, simply look at this as unbalancing the game.

I'll begin with my scenario, what I've done, and what I'm considering next. I have a player who builds excellent characters. They have depth, goals, personalities, and even when the temptation is there, doesn't metagame. He does, however, build overpowered characters. His characters always outshine everyone else's in combat. My way of handling that is to make small subtle consequences that are a result. For instance, he casts a lot of fire and explosive spells in a house, it collapses. He melts the bad guy and so does the treasure. He kills a PC he is brought to trial.

Now, that isn't my problem. My problem is that he feels it is justified, if not encouraged, to change the rules to suit his needs. This includes making new spells, feats, etc. He does this without my knowledge or consent most of the time.

To his credit, he does try to be as fair as he can with these liberties, but I have found issues with all of his creations to date, and I have only found out about them after he has used them, and not before.

I handled this by pulling him aside and saying that, now that his character is in an immediate danger of dying, that we need to talk about his new character. I told him that I realize that he gets a tremendous joy from finding weird and powerful combinations in the rules, and what while that does unbalance the game, he is an exceptional role-player, and I think that is fantastic. I also told him that I cannot allow him to take any more liberties with the material that is written. That it was cheating to do so, no matter how small and fair he feels his adjustments are. I ended it with saying that while I may not allow whatever it is he is looking at, that he has to tell me, because it is my job as DM to make those calls, and not his.

His response was that every book makes it very clear that the rules are only guides and should be changed to fit what is fun. He doesn't feel this is cheating, and I would love to find a printed definition of what he was doing to say that he is cheating, but I have never seen anyone describe this as a problem.

My next step is, while I would love to reach a perfect understanding with him on this, to just tell him that I am adamant about this, and I will not allow it.

That is my scenario, and I would be very interested to hear all of your opinions on this and other instances of cheating and how you think it is best to solve them.

Okay, before everyone lynches me for saying that I think alignment is one of the weakest areas of the Pathfinder RPG, please allow me to explain.

Alignment, should be, a foundation for a character to base their actions out of, and a DM to pass judgement on those actions. A character that is Lawful Good that steals candy from a baby should be an immediate red flag to both DM and player. However, alignment is only addressed in a very quick and topical manner in the rules which leaves huge sweeping interpretations on what all of the various alignments really mean when it translates into player actions.

It could be that your group doesn't really dwell on alignment and the ramifications of it, but I think that it is a crucial tool for players to build interesting characters.

So, the rules are combat heavy in Pathfinder. That is intentional and I don't disagree with that choice. However, I would like to bounce two ideas for managing alignment off the minds of everyone.

First is something we'll call the alignment slider. Essentially all it is is a cross that has the steps for alignment, the vertical axis could be Good/Neutral/Evil, and the second is Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic. Players would put chips on the two axes for their character and slide them appropriately as the game progressed. Now, the crux of all of this and the entire thing is what defines Good/Evil Lawful/Chaotic in terms of actions. Well, that should be a group decision. I think that the DM needs to complete a list of actions for type of alignment. For instance, a list of actions that are unmistakably Good and cannot be confused with Neutral or Evil. That list should be worked on with the players so they understand the basis for the system.

Now, the reason I say that there should be sliders is so that players can better see what is happening with their players. Being able to touch something makes it a lot more real and significant than just writing it down. The slider and the chips will bring a tremendous amount of focus to a player and their actions as it relates to alignment.

Second, is a system I am currently using and I basically stole the idea from another system and tweaked it. I don't let players write down alignment at all. Instead I have them write a simple sentence or two that is their character's core concept/motivation. Those two sentences serve as the purest essence for who the character is and what they will always tend to do. A DM can then secretly translate that into alignment. Inevitably some people's motivation will not easily translate into a single alignment, but that will probably still be fine.

What I found with this system is that when the chips are down for the players, and the temptation to metagame their sorry butts out of a tight spot, I can read that statement to them, and they wind up playing to their characters.

I allow them to change their motivation after any serious or traumatic event occurs after a session to reflect any changes that their character might have undergone. For example, I had a cleric that as a player, doesn't grasp the concept of good and evil, but has aligned themselves with a Good god. Her first motivation statement was, "Set everything on fire and heal it!" So I worked with her so that she understood that if that was who she was, she would be evil and her god would forsake her very quickly. She then picked one that was much more appropriate and it focused around protecting the hurt and healing their wounds. Now, she violated that twice. First she tortured someone, and brought them back to life to torture them again. Second, she watched someone murder an innocent child. She lost her god's favor after that, but she understood why because she could look at her motivation as her character and immediately see how she violated it.

I've written far too much at this point, but I'd love to hear anyone's criticism on these ideas and hear your own!