st00ji's page

young dragons head out into the world to raise hell and rebel, before promptly turning into their parents after getting a taste for the shiny stuff.

at the risk of being obvious, when it fits your character concept?

im inclined to agree with kwauss, sometimes it seems like the acronym RAW really stands for 'here is some bogus shit i can get away with by twisting the crap out of the english language'

i think the theory is that MAD classes have better class abilities than SAD classes, so 15-20 PB is supposed to hold them back a bit. once you throw that out the window it changes the whole dynamic. or at least thats how it seems like it should work.

of course if you dont buy into the idea that MAD classes are inherently more powerful (rogue lol) then its a whole different story.

my group still like to roll their stats, and they like having high stats too - so there are usually a few sets of re-rolls until everyone is content. the average PB in the current party is probably around 30, though with only 3-4 pcs at a given session it sort of evens out. they do tend to stomp equal CR encounters with ease though.

the issue im starting to find at APL 8-9 is the creatures that can take more than one or two hits from the barb and fighter tend to be +4 encounters, which means they often have SLAs or similar with DCs that are way out of range of the party, so its getting trickier to build encounters that are still challenging without straying into insta-gib territory one way or the other.

ultimately though the aim is for everyone to have fun, and if thats happening then who really cares how its achieved?

back in the dim old days of ad&d we fought a massive ancient dragon, and my character managed to die twice. she was turned to stone early on in the fight somehow (i forget how) and then returned to flesh. this dragon had a bunch of special abilities from an old dragon magazine, including that old chestnut 'hide studded with treasure'. when it finally died all the treasure exploded outwards, and my poor character failed her save and died again.

cue many RL years of jokes about her being a pillar of society, or having a heart of gold and so forth.

discussions in other threads have led me to ponder this situation a bit lately. invisibility is often bought out as a reason why casters are so OP or whatever, because it replaces a lot of investment in a skill (stealth).

part of the reason for this, i think, relates to how skills changed in PF. when hide and move silently were separate skills, invisibility was useful, but it didnt make you quiet as well. remember when a ring of invisibility used to have a chance of being a ring of inaudibility as well?

spells giving you skill ranks is a neat mechanic in my opinion - but sometimes it causes problems too. not to mention invisibility making you quiet via a bonus to stealth kinda grates fluff wise (for me at least).

my players complain about perception too, and even acrobatics sometimes. in theory less skills was a buff for rogues, but it seems to have had some (perhaps unintended) consequences elsewhere too - particularly when it comes to the argument about casters invalidating rogues / skills in general.

not really wanting to get into a discussion about class balance as such, more interested in peoples thoughts on the way skills and spells interact with the world.

st00ji wrote:

ILU tacticslion.

The same to you, buddy!

...
I think. I'm presuming this is a nice, polite, or otherwise happy acronym/shorthand, along the lines of "I Like yoU" or similar. My... txtlol-ing parlance isn't entirely up to "code"*, so to speak.

* D'ohohohohoh! I'm so clever!**

** Probably not, truthfully.

im pretty sure its supposed to mean i love you, actually.

just thinking about it, reducing 'i love you' to an acronym is kind of sad.

anyway, before this gets too creepy what i really meant was i enjoy reading your posts.

im not really a text-speak kind of person myself, but i enjoy doing it in an ironic sort of fashion sometimes :)

ILU tacticslion.

i dont see the issue with all the so called splatbook stuff. if you dont like it, dont use it. if you do... do!

would someone care to post up what you have to do to stop being frightened? i cant seem to find it.

to me, fleeing something means to escape it, remove yourself from its sphere of influence so to speak. being trapped in a 20x20 room makes that impossible IMHO, and hence brings in the clause about being able to fight if unable to flee.

frightened isint mortal terror though - thats panicked, presumably.

im frightened of public speaking, and i flee it wherever possible. that doesnt make me irrational though.

not sure if this is actually even a match up.

bit of background, im running a face to face game with a regular group, and have a huge dungeon crawl on the horizon. i have been casting around for a way to get the maps up on a screen to make everyones life easier.

it seems like d20pro will do what i want, but i thought i would ask the opinions of others before i commit my cash. i own and love herolab so realm works gets a few bonus points there being from the same developer - but from reading what i can find on their website, it seems more of a campaign management tool - im not even sure if it will do what i need? does anyone have any experience with it?

i have had a bit of a play with maptools but i have very limited time for prep (newborn twins if you please... thanks wifey!) and it seems like maptools requires a skillset i have no time or interest in developing. d20pro on the other hand seems pretty easy to use.

mainly i want to be able to display a map as the party moves about. if it can track initiative and how many rounds of certain buffs etc have to run that'd be great too. all the other stuff realm works seems to do sounds cool but is mainly just bonus material for me.

i dont think i'll go as far as actually running combats through it though - my group love their minis and i cant imagine they will want to give them up too easily.

your thoughts appreciated!

that was a bad move, before you know it its gonna be identity theft central. that demon is gonna sell your name to all his dodgy demon buddies, and they are gonna be making fraudulent credit card charges, opening up library cards and joining rewards programs in your name all over the world.

they only come in boy styles?!

interesting insight into who paizo thinks are playing their games eh?

faq'd for ya :)

ashiel is my hero. seriously, how do you thinkof this stuff?!

frankly talking to him about it before-hand MIGHT work in some cases, but i sorta feel like it cheapens it a bit. the outcome is predetermined, the player knows how it ends - his guy dies and is a hero. why even bother playing it out?

in my 20 odd years experience, the fun comes from feeling like what your characters do influences the outcome of the adventure or whatever. feed him the story in game, build it up, and let him choose. then whichever way he goes, fun is had - no?

neither brit nor lindsay are much to look at IMHO. (at least not these days)

elan from OOTS is probably a reasonable example of someone with high cha but low int and wis.

you could try doing things like believing everything you are told, and interpreting things very literally to convey that lack of brain power.

like someone mentioned, if you start doing overtly dumb stuff that puts the party in danger on a regular basis you are breaking the fun of others.

i actually think fighters are pretty sweet.

if they want more skills, they can increase their int, be human, or pick up feats.

will saves, same deal - theres a feat, they could bump their wisdom some (helps with perception etc too!)

halflings dont exist.

or gnomes.

whats up with the ethereal predators? seems like a pretty scummy DM that would pull that out unless you were being totally abusive.

forget alignment shifts, if my PCs started chopping up townsfolk at random (and guards especially!) they'd be hunted down like dogs.

death is fairly trivialized in alot of games i guess, but murder to me is not a one off 'whoops that was out of character!' certainly i would be asking the player if their character was shifting towards evil.

though ultimately i think the alignment thats written on the character sheet is the players domain, not the DM's. my group has been playing together for decades though, and we often decide things by committee - so someone might get peer pressured into changing their ways, or their alignment i guess. hah!

i <3 fighters.

wow. i wanna play in one of tacticslions games.

i have to agree thats a silly feat.

firstly, its a non-choice - if its available, and you use a reach weapon, you'd be mad not to take it.

secondly, it removes the cost vs benefit nature of a reach weapon. why would a fighter ever use a non-reach weapon when this feat is available?

cake + eating = too hard to resist