Has anyone else noticed that the Gifted Memerist achievement feat requires you to successfully affect 25 targets, not 25 people, with charm and compulsion spells?
And then the wizard charmed the rat swarm, becoming their overlord and achieving greater level of skill in dominating gnolls...
In addition, you should gain the benefit only for the same spell used against 25 targets, not just any charm or compulsion spell. That would make better sense.
A rat swarm is one target.
I do agree with the third paragraph, though.
Has anyone else noticed that the Gifted Memerist achievement feat requires you to successfully affect 25 targets, not 25 people, with charm and compulsion spells?
And then the wizard charmed the rat swarm, becoming their overlord and achieving greater level of skill in dominating gnolls...
In addition, you should gain the benefit only for the same spell used against 25 targets, not just any charm or compulsion spell. That would make better sense.
A rat swarm is one target.
I do agree with the third paragraph, though.
If you read the rules for swarms, mind-affecting spells only affect a swarm if it has a hive mind; rat swarms don't.
But it's not difficult to cast Sleep enough times to affect 25 targets; that's one achievement that's fairly trivial to accomplish.
[Neo2400 wrote] Now the DM has too options
1. Allow the character to have the feat, even though he or she hasn't acheived it IG, but because in terms of fluff they have. This essentially makes the concept pointless, it might as well just be a normal feat.
2. Don't allow the character to have it until the PC meets the requirements IG. This makes it more of a computer game since the character has to meet mechanical requirements rather than fluff ones.
Thats easy number 2. It does not make it any more vidoe game like then the game is now, i mean come on leveling in mid adventure?
they are for IG achievements...Sure I did like 45 times before level 5 I am gonna take that feat, ya know it matches my story.
They are ment for IG play, its like any other thing you earn, and yes you MUST earn it. they are powerful as they are meant to be earned.
I've done something similar in a campaign I'm doing right now.
Instead of "achievement feats", however, the characters earn achievement "points"--like the Xbox 360 gamerscore--for accomplishing anything from story-related quests, to (more often) side quests, using specific skills successfully in a situation, or random chance with critical hits. I expect that the average player should earn 50% of the maximum by the end of an adventure.
What the players can do with their achievements is invest them into a "Hero's Path", a preconstructed set of tiered abilities, becoming incrementally more expensive to invest into to unlock more and more powerful abilities. This allows the characters to use their achievement points to "buy" new abilities, either a lot of relatively weak ones, or invest into a path for increasingly powerful (yet few) ones.
For example, I'm running a campaign set in Darkmoon Vale (See Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Darkmoon Vale), and using adventures set there, starting with Hollow's Last Hope. This adventure (as a 16-pager) has a maximum number of "achievements" of 500 points, with only around 50-100 acquired through story. By voluntarily increasing the difficulty of fights, meeting certain battle prerequisites (such as not getting flanked), and so on, the characters can begin their earning of these points.
An example "Hero's Path" (all named--roughly--after heroes or other heroic archetypes) is El Viento (The Wind). Investing into El Viento's first tier requires 150 points, and grants the "Double Jump" ability
This ability should be affordable during the first adventure. Should a player do exceedingly well, or--more likely--he invests more points into this during the second adventure, Crown of the Kobold King (worth 1000 points, at 32-pages, IIRC), he will be able to afford the second tier, after having invested a total of 450 points into El Viento, which is as follows:
Although these examples--and others which follow--become increasingly powerful, it encourages players to embrace this option, and tailor their character towards its usage. Nevertheless, awarding points for achievements, and having a list of abilities which could be purchased with those points might make for a similar sort of rewards system. More so, "achivement feats" could be purchased, and the feats themselves could become available (unlocked) as the prerequisites are met.
I will concede this method is--perhaps--unusually complex, so its implementation over a large scale would be difficult and time consuming. Still, food for thought...
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I personally don't care for them. i get why they was put in and I get why people like them. It is a bit to video gammy for my tastes. But i don't care all that much. I mean I have never yet played a RPG that I didn't eventually add one or two house rules to or ignoring a couple of other rules.
So if others like them they can add more, just as long as Paizo keeps making high quality stuff and the things I like I won't care.
I personally don't care for them. i get why they was put in and I get why people like them. It is a bit to video gammy for my tastes. But i don't care all that much. I mean I have never yet played a RPG that I didn't eventually add one or two house rules to or ignoring a couple of other rules.
So if others like them they can add more, just as long as Paizo keeps making high quality stuff and the things I like I won't care.
How about changing the prerequisites to something you feel okay with?
Do you feel the feats are 'on par' with others? More powerful? Less?
Why not make them into normal feats?
Take "History of Scars" for example. Why not make the Prereq into something like: "Barbarian 4 or Fighter 4, BAB +7"
(without checking the math)
Current campaign, I made "Find Familiar" a 4e-style ritual requiring 1st ed components. And characters were in a setting where there was no organized magic and thus no magemart to conveniently buy the 100 GP of various incenses and whatnot.
Instead, I gave them a spell with a list of components they first had to decode with various knowledge checks (for example "Minotaur's Hoof" was a folk name for "Dittany of Crete" and they needed an herb, rather than the foot of a bull man) and so on. They went questing for the difficult ones and felt a lot more satisfaction when they actually got their familiars than the average wizard who just gets one at character creation and has it shuffled into backstory.
Having feats as achievements is a good move.
Thats easy number 2. It does not make it any more vidoe game like then the game is now, i mean come on leveling in mid adventure?
Advancing a level in mid adventure isn't video game like. It's an acknowledgement of the fact that the game stats, and especially the mechanic of advancing in levels, is an abstraction on how things really are:
The characters in the world do not really advance in bursts, they become gradually better at what they do. But since such a system would be hell to manage, we prescind abilities into integers. At any given time, the barbarian's "actual" base attack bonus is something like 4.623948395, but the gamer says that's still a +4.
In the same veins, abilities aren't learned from one instant to the other: They're learned gradually, but the game just makes them instant to mark one point where the character is good enough at that stuff to do it effectively. A line in the sand for sure, but without a powerful computer to track abilities more realistically, lines in the sand are the best way to do things.
All this means that at some point, the characters' abilities will overstep another line in the sand, and for me, that's at the very moment their XP go beyond the level limit. That means for me that if the characters gain those XP in the middle of the dungeon, they level up in the middle of the dungeon. No resting or training or anything needed, because they did all that in the time they collected their XP.
I do say that limited abilities that are renewed each day are only gained after resting, or at least spell slots.
But how do you decide if they avoided the healing because they wanted to die, vs. conserving resources or just forgetting?
I use that spongy mass that is lodged in my head. I call it brain. :P
Forgetting to get healed is another problem: The player might overlook that the HP field has a number in it that is less than the total, but the character is in pain, he will remember. I sometimes allow flashbacks if they go into a big fight at less than their full strength.
Beyond that, I simply use my best judgement on whether the guys are being forgetful or conservative or want to play the metagame. I don't play with strangers and know my players well enough.
why for hiding and sniping people?
or getting on their back and planting spider greanades
or for overkilling them?instead of sensible just filling them with all the ammo you have?
actually new multiplayers have dozens of achievements about winnign in different stages, killing different enemies, killing 3 enemies ina vehicle at the same time... killing 4 enemies in 4 2nds :P
Nah, I was mainly talking about people doing stuff like taking the team's air transport and flying it to the edge of the map to gain the 10 minutes in aircraft bonus, or a couple of guys sneaking to the edge, setting up ammo dispensers for each other, and throw grenades into space, just to get a better teamwork score. Stuff like that.
Of course, people sniping is encouraged - if it's teammates sniping. If it's an enemy, I will constantly curse him for being a coward and noob and unable to properly play the game, having to rely on boon weapons ;-)
As I am the only pro-active, organised pathfinder fanboy in my gaming group (well, duo) I am going to hide Achievement feats from my player and if she achieves any of them then i'll give the feat for free.
I know that won't work for every game, but it's perfect for mine.
That was my first idea when I saw them, too. I think it's a great idea, if you can manage to keep them secret.
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In the same veins, abilities aren't learned from one instant to the other: They're learned gradually, but the game just makes them instant to mark one point where the character is good enough at that stuff to do it effectively. A line in the sand for sure, but without a powerful computer to track abilities more realistically, lines in the sand are the best way to do things.
All this means that at some point, the characters' abilities will overstep another line in the sand, and for me, that's at the very moment their XP go beyond the level limit. That means for me that if the characters gain those XP in the middle of the dungeon, they level up in the middle of the dungeon. No resting or training or anything needed, because they did all that in the time they collected their XP.
There are lots of PC abilities that can be explained away by ongoing practice; Hit Points, BAB, increased saves and skill points. These are all being tested in most adventures.
New feats that are simple bonuses to existing actions (Weapon Focus, Iron Will, etc) also come under this category.
Even brand new tricks can be explained away; that complicated maneuver might have been something you were always trying out, but just not quite pulling off. It may (retroactively) explain why your PC rolled that '1' and missed that easy shot last session, because he was being over-confident with his new (but not-quite-perfected) flashy move.
Some abilities are a bit tricker to justify, since they seem to come out of the blue, but in general, this can be ignored or worked around.
In my current game, there recently came a point where the PCs would reach the xp for level 4, but be unable to make a convenient break for civilisation.
I anticipated this, and shuffled a few NPCs around, so they found a paladin prisoner, an existing trusted ally, who had been blinded, so could not accompany them further, but she was able to mentor the PC paladin overnight, to unlock his new powers.
Everyone else was fine, they were just getting better at what they already did, but level 4 for a paladin is rather a watershed, since it marks a break from being 'a warrior with a few supernatural tricks', to being a proper caster, who prepares spells.
Was this necesssary?
No. I could just as easily have handwaved it, and let him level up anyway, or had the inspiration come to him in a dream or vision.
But since I had this more mundane option to hand, I preferred to use it while it was available. There's plenty of points in the future where I'll be forced to resort to the abstract option; why tip my hand now?
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Nah, I was mainly talking about people doing stuff like taking the team's air transport and flying it to the edge of the map to gain the 10 minutes in aircraft bonus, or a couple of guys sneaking to the edge, setting up ammo dispensers for each other, and throw grenades into space, just to get a better teamwork score. Stuff like that.
ahh
point takena friend and me soemtiems helps ourselves attain some achievements, but just in 1 vs 1 games
multi-playersgames really isn't the place for that
Of course, people sniping is encouraged - if it's teammates sniping. If it's an enemy, I will constantly curse him for being a coward and noob and unable to properly play the game, having to rely on boon weapons ;-)
lol, aye
know the feelingthat is the kind of love/hate relationship I have with snipers... :P
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I like em. I'd like to see more of them. I'd encourage my players to come up with their own achievements.
It is a nice mechanical reward for pursuing an in game goal.
I liked the magic food concept from the Elves book too.
And the magical food is definitely MMORPG related...I remember my EQ days...magical food was great...
Now, to incorporate some magical Dwarven brews.....
I like the achievement feats as well, and I will probably give them as rewards...by keeping them secret...
I also like this idea of achievement feats, I might even allow players that use exotic weapons without the feat to eventually lose the penalties...as an achievement...say the first time they level they lose half the penalty making it a -2 instead of -4, call it "exotic familiarity" then they level second time, they actually gain Exotic Proficiency as an achievement. (I mean they have to consistently use the weapon in question, not once during the level). Feat gain through trial and tribulation..that's what achievements are all about I think.
Hierophantasm Interesting system, I'd be interested in seeing more of it.
Well, they certainly caught my attention, and I look forward to giving them a try.
I use that spongy mass that is lodged in my head. I call it brain. :P
Fair enough. The fire resistance one is the only one I really had a problem with. The rest seem fair and fun, and give a healing cleric a reason to play a pacifist, for instance.
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I personally don't care for them. i get why they was put in and I get why people like them. It is a bit to video gammy for my tastes. But i don't care all that much. I mean I have never yet played a RPG that I didn't eventually add one or two house rules to or ignoring a couple of other rules.
So if others like them they can add more, just as long as Paizo keeps making high quality stuff and the things I like I won't care.
How about changing the prerequisites to something you feel okay with?
Do you feel the feats are 'on par' with others? More powerful? Less?
Why not make them into normal feats?Take "History of Scars" for example. Why not make the Prereq into something like: "Barbarian 4 or Fighter 4, BAB +7"
(without checking the math)
Yeah i don't have a problem with them the ones I looked at as feats. Just how they are gained is not something that interest me personally. But to be fair I didn't look all that close at them, I just didn't care for the method they was aquired.
Hierophantasm Interesting system, I'd be interested in seeing more of it.
Cool. I'll post on a different thread, titled "Adventure Achievements and Hero's Paths", if Paizo's okay with that.
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I like the Idea, though not necessarily the rules as given. I think those feats and especially their requirements need some DMs discretion so the "stabbing - healing - stabbing - healing" trap can be avoided. I think, if achievements are handled well IN CHARACTER and in the context of the campaign, they can enhance not only the character but also the roleplaying experience and become great rewards for players. I'm not quite sure, how to put down the requirement rules to reflect this, but i think the idea is worth working on.
In pulished campaigns / adventure paths, you could tie achievement feats to certain encounters (for example: if the player could keep the heated discussion of the council peaceful through diplomacy he qualifies for a social feat, if he used charm spells to get every single servant of that matron to believe he belongs to the house he could qualifie for a metamagic feat, if he delivered the killing blow to most of the goblin kings guards he qualifies for tha goblin killer feat...)
I'm sure with a little work this idea could enhance the game without feeling even remotely video gamish.
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It's as legitimate a bit of game design to me as other experimental designs I've introduced in Pathfinder, such as the haunt rules, the chase rules, and the character trait rules.And for the record, I love the haunt and chase rules. They've become standard parts of my DM arsenal ever since I first saw them. The trait rules aren't as solid a hit, but that's probably because they're harder to steal (have to develop them yourself for homebrews).
For some reason I seem to have missed them, or, at least, cannot recall reading them. In which product are these (haunt and chase) rules detailed?
Well, I officially point the deadly "Finger of Accusation" at Paizo staff for playing too much WoW. This is a direct steal from their Achievement awards...
Frankly, it's as silly as anything I've seen.
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Congratulations Paizo on what I can only call a friggin' ballsy move, but I'm still curious: Was it something you did out of cynicism? Humour? Or just an exercise in freedom to show us you'll do anything you feel like doing regardless of what others think?Thanks for the compliment.
I wrote and developed the Achievement Feats because I thought it was a good idea, and because getting achievements in Warcraft or on Xbox Live or other consoles is very fun and satisfying. In particular, the RPG "Mass Effect" uses achievements to give you bonuses and perks to apply to your character. I was curious to know if that feeling could be supported in pen and paper games, is all. No cynicism; no humor. It's as legitimate a bit of game design to me as other experimental designs I've introduced in Pathfinder, such as the haunt rules, the chase rules, and the character trait rules.
James, is there some sort of math underlying the trait design? I mean, some of them seem to be mechanically "better" than the others, so I wonder if they've been balanced in some way? Many of the FR feats were simply far better than others (for example, every spellcaster I know took 'Spellcasting Prodigy' and, eventually, 'Persistent Spell') and I fear that unless there's a method to this "madness", a lot of the Traits may end up being subpar to a handful of "must-haves". As I often play with (and run games for) "powergamers", that may prove to be something of an annoyance (if not a problem) in the long run.
Also, assuming the mechanics (and wording on some mechanics) will change somewhat, will they be updated to PF RPG? Maybe as a free web enhancement? :)
Anyway, although I might have preferred to see Traits as "full" Background Feats, I still like them. Good work! :)
For some reason I seem to have missed them, or, at least, cannot recall reading them. In which product are these (haunt and chase) rules detailed?
Pathfinder #2 (The Skinsaw Murders) has a haunted house and introduces the haunts. They're a lot like traps, but you get a special check to notice them before they kick in, and if you're quick enough (and a cleric or paladin) you can stop them before they affect you by turning them. (You roll initiative, while haunts always act on init 10)
For example, there's the "Worried Wife" haunt. You get a Listen check to hear a women's voice whisper something. If you notice that, you can roll inot. If you go before the trap, you can try to turn it (its effective HD is 8). If you don't, you are exposed to a flash of memory - a woman's memroy filled with worry about what her husband might be doing. A moment later, you're convinced that someone else is your child and develop a powerful urge to escape the house with that child. This manifests as a suggestion to drag the character out of the house.
Pathfinder #6 (Spires of Xin-Shalast) also has a location with haunts, and #11 (Skeletons of Scarwall) uses them, too. And I think that there might be in other modules as well.
The chase rules are in Pathfinder #7 (Edge of Anarchy), where you have to chase someone across the rooftops.
They were developed to make chase scenes fun and exciting without involving a classical battlemat or just counting squares.
You have a certain number of "squares" (you can represent them by pieces of paper or cards or something; Edge had 15 squares). Each square represents a certain location and there are considered to be a certain distance apart (I think it was 30 feet in Edge).
The pursuers usually start in square one while the quarry gets a head start of a couple of squares.
Every square has two different obstacles, each with an associated roll and DC (example: Gap in Wall: Escape Artist DC 15, Wide Rooftop Leap: Jump DC 25).
Now, everyone rolls initiative. On your turn, you have your normal set of actions - you can cast spells or use ranged attacks (that's what the distance between those location-squares is for: to show you how far you are apart. You could also attack someone on the same square as you (if you want to catch someone, stuff like trip or grapple will help)
And you can move to get to a square further down the line: You can automatically move one square as a move action. Alternately, you move two or even three squares as a full-round action. If you want to move more than one square at once, you'll have to make a check, though: For moving two squares, select one of the obstacles on your current card and attempt that check. For three squares, you must do both.
If you succeed, you advance the squares. If you fail the checks, you either only move one square, or don't move at all, or even get in trouble - the severety of your setback depends on how badly you failed your check(s). In the adventure, which had a rooftop chase, it resulted in you falling off the roof, which meant you took falling damage, and forced you to either climb back up, move on on street level (hard because of the crowds), or even go back to square one where you can use stairs.
The adventure had a number of sample obstacles for that chase, but you can add to them, and for other chases, you can come up with your own, tailoring them to the circumstances. In any way, it does involve a bit of prep work, since you have to make the cards and assign them obstacles
Since I used PF Beta (which meant that most of the obstacles only used a couple of different skills due to the consolidations), I added some extra obstacles with different skills, which also helped those characters who didn't invest in acrobatics, which were almost all of them.
Creative Director
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James, is there some sort of math underlying the trait design? I mean, some of them seem to be mechanically "better" than the others, so I wonder if they've been balanced in some way? Many of the FR feats were simply far better than others (for example, every spellcaster I know took 'Spellcasting Prodigy' and, eventually, 'Persistent Spell') and I fear that unless there's a method to this "madness", a lot of the Traits may end up being subpar to a handful of "must-haves". As I often play with (and run games for) "powergamers", that may prove to be something of an annoyance (if not a problem) in the long run.
Also, assuming the mechanics (and wording on some mechanics) will change somewhat, will they be updated to PF RPG? Maybe as a free web enhancement? :)
Personally, I think that the quest to make sure every option is balanced results in dull game play. Sure, you need to try to make sure that there's a baseline of what a specific power of a specific level should be able to do, but if you render game design down to math, and then use that math to ensure that every option is balanced... then there's no reason to have multiple choices.
When I design stuff, I try to mix the math with the creativity. If that means that some options end up easy to abuse in some cases, I'm okay with that if that means that there's more flavor and interesting stuff going on overall. I could never be a designer for 4th edition with this philosophy, I'm pretty sure.
There IS an underlying bit of math to creating traits. That is: the easiest way to build a trait is to take an existing feat that grants a bonus and cut that bonus in half. But in the end, traits are more a way to bribe players into investing their characters in the world; if they're working right, you can't pick a trait without implying something about your character's personality and history, often implying specific events in a character's past. That's not something that feats (or much else) really does.
I, for one, don't consider a trait that gives you a +1 trait bonus to damage against undead to be mechanically "better" than a trait that gives you a +2 trait bonus to Survival checks. One is better for a warrior, one is better for a survivalist.
If you have a lot of powergamers in your group, chances are you're familiar with their habits and understand their methods, and you should react appropriately. Traits aren't meant to be perks to further numbercrunch your character. They're meant to reward players for bothering to come up with something more about their character than a bunch of numbers and scores. If you have a group that's always trying to squeeze the last tiny drop of crunch out of everything to build the exact best build in the game possible, then you might not want to give them the options to pick traits. If there's only one best choice, you only need one choice.
Am I the only person who sees these as being related to the World of Warcraft Acheivement Point system in only the fact that the word "acheivement" is in the name?
Yes, the WoW AP system tracks the things you do, on a bewildering array of levels. And after accomplishing certain objectives, which range from "friggin' annoying" to "bloody hard" and occasionally peak through the clouds to gaze upon "no one knows how, but you pulled this off", you may get an in game reward. There are actually very few types of reward: titles, pets, and mounts. Lets look at an example from each type.
Title Example: Explore the WHOLE GAMEWORLD. Get the title "Explorer". Hmm, makes sense in a D&D setting, if I explored the whole world, I would probably demand peasants and heralds put "Explorer" before my name when adressing or introducing me.
Pet Example: Acquire 50 Vanity Pets. Get a Skunk Vanity pet as a reward. Vanity pets have NO game advantage. Getting the skunk means you spent a lot of gold in the Auction House on things that don't make your character any stronger at all. Which would basically be very close to the opposite of powergaming, but thats besides the point. In a D&D world, if a PC wants a pet, they can have a pet. It wont do anything in combat, except likely die horribly, but they can have a critter that follows them around and is their bosom companion while they stay up for their watch shift.
Mount Example: Acquire 50 mounts. Get a Albino Drake flying mount as a reward. Ok, thats nice, but since I had to buy a few flying mounts to get that drake, its really not doing anything besides serving as a visual announcement that you spent a ridiculous amount of gold getting far more mounts than you would ever reasonably need. Lets put it this way, you could have ridden in style your whole career with a ground standard, ground epic, flying standard, flying epic mount. About 388 gold. Getting 50 mounts is breaching into 6-7 thousand gold, and a large amount of time spent raising reputation with likely 6-7 factions. You acheived something, all right, but ultimately, its no different from slapping a bumper sticker on your car; your car is not going faster or producing less fumes because of it. Your just making a statement.
Now lets look at these Acheivment Feats. You do something In-Game, which does have the slight hiccup of "what about all the stuff I did to become first level?" Although that is easily avoided by any degree of cooperation and backstory generation between the DM and Player. I'll avoid making a snarky response about how that might be too revolutionary for some, except I just did.
But so you do something In-Game. You have now qualified for a special feat, to be taken when a feat slot becomes available. Much like many prestige classes that have "special" requirements beyond mechanical benchmarks, such as assasin or alienist. Much like the entirety of Weapons of Legacy (mock that book if you like, but I based a Level Adjustment system that actually works off of it, which means theres something good in there).
So the mechanic is not new. At all. It makes as much sense as a dozen other aspects of the rules that we have no problem swallowing (overall), like HP, AC, falling damage, etc. True, it requires a bit of common sense to implement effectively....then again, in 3rd edition, so does drowning.
What do these feats not do? They do not give a person an advantage they haven't earned, common sense nonwithstanding. They do not let a person suddenly gain a new ability that makes little sense in the versimiltude of the campaign, like suddenly becoming better at turning undead despite the fact the party hasn't encountered any undead yet.
To me, these feats are a welcome and overdue enhancement to the feat system that brings it more into the storytelling aspects of Role-Playing and further from the "crunch the numbers" aspects of Roll-Playing. Then again, no two gaming groups play the same way, and so no two groups will have the same opinion regarding a new aspect of play. Everyones mileage may vary, but I hope that Paizo finds that the mileage on this particular model is worthwhile for the majority.
And has been said oft before, if it isn't liked, it doesn't have to be in your game. Personally, I loathe Mongoose Publishing, have a limited tolerance for AEGs works, but think Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary is made of pressed gold. To each their own. Viva Paizo.
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James, is there some sort of math underlying the trait design? I mean, some of them seem to be mechanically "better" than the others, so I wonder if they've been balanced in some way? Many of the FR feats were simply far better than others (for example, every spellcaster I know took 'Spellcasting Prodigy' and, eventually, 'Persistent Spell') and I fear that unless there's a method to this "madness", a lot of the Traits may end up being subpar to a handful of "must-haves". As I often play with (and run games for) "powergamers", that may prove to be something of an annoyance (if not a problem) in the long run.
Also, assuming the mechanics (and wording on some mechanics) will change somewhat, will they be updated to PF RPG? Maybe as a free web enhancement? :)
Personally, I think that the quest to make sure every option is balanced results in dull game play. Sure, you need to try to make sure that there's a baseline of what a specific power of a specific level should be able to do, but if you render game design down to math, and then use that math to ensure that every option is balanced... then there's no reason to have multiple choices.
When I design stuff, I try to mix the math with the creativity. If that means that some options end up easy to abuse in some cases, I'm okay with that if that means that there's more flavor and interesting stuff going on overall. I could never be a designer for 4th edition with this philosophy, I'm pretty sure.
There IS an underlying bit of math to creating traits. That is: the easiest way to build a trait is to take an existing feat that grants a bonus and cut that bonus in half. But in the end, traits are more a way to bribe players into investing their characters in the world; if they're working right, you can't pick a trait without implying something about your character's personality and history, often implying specific events in a character's past. That's not something that feats (or much else) really does.
I, for one, don't consider a trait that gives you a +1 trait bonus to damage against undead to be mechanically "better" than a trait that gives you a +2 trait bonus to Survival checks. One is better for a warrior, one is better for a survivalist.
If you have a lot of powergamers in your group, chances are you're familiar with their habits and understand their methods, and you should react appropriately. Traits aren't meant to be perks to further numbercrunch your character. They're meant to reward players for bothering to come up with something more about their character than a bunch of numbers and scores. If you have a group that's always trying to squeeze the last tiny drop of crunch out of everything to build the exact best build in the game possible, then you might not want to give them the options to pick traits. If there's only one best choice, you only need one choice.
In principle, I completely agree with you here, and I'm not a "numbercruncher" myself either as a player or a GM (i.e. I tend to pick feats that suit the concept of each PC or NPC -- not to maximize bonuses). It's just that more often than not, players tend to go for the "best" or "safe" picks (whether it's about spells, magic items, feats or skills), whether it’s to “protect” their characters and to ensure that they are self-sufficient enough to handle most challenges in the game, or to maximize efficiency in one field of specialization (Initiative, Attack/Damage Bonus, Spell DCs, etc.). In my experience all this happens due to how badly 3E plays at high levels, and the primary reason is the broken math underlying the numbers. If your DM doesn’t care about adjusting the adventures and monsters/NPCs to suit the general “power level”/resources of the party, you quickly begin to metagame even during the character creation process. For example, if you know that the DM likes “min-maxed” spellcasting NPCs, you probably wish to pick feats (and multiclass into a couple of prestige classes) that let you rack up your saving throws. And in such cases (all too often, in my experience) you pick the feats and traits first, and then make the concept and background fit into them.
I’m a fair GM, who adjusts stuff on the fly, but I’ve played in several campaigns in which min-maxing and numbercruching was the only option to survive.
This is why I also like balance and internal consistency in the mechanics, i.e. that there’s some consistent math behind every mechanic instead of X number of subsystems (e.g. I’d like all classes in PF RPG to either have talents like the rogue or point pool-based class features similar to the barbarian). Still, I don’t wish to see PF RPG striving for the same kind of “absolute” balance 4E did – for example, I’d not want to see the ‘+1/2 per level to everything’-ideology being adopted. I personally think 4E went too far in its quest for balance, and as far as feats and background feats go, some of them fit the “gamist” engine poorly, while others are clearly superior to the rest. For example, choosing between +1 to a skill or +1 to the initiative, for most players it’s a fairly obvious choice. Likewise, getting +2 to your AC when you have Combat Advantage vs. getting +1 to all your attacks is a “no-brainer”, at least for most of the players I know. And in the end of the day, the feats are secondary to the powers in 4E anyway.
I’m not sure if I’m making any sense here, but I think there are so many Feat and Bonus types as is, that I’d like to see PF RPG taking them apart, and tossing away what’s not absolutely necessary to the game. There’s so much numbercrunching as is, so I think either the different types of feats/traits should be carefully balanced (for example, at high levels most feats granting +1 or +2 bonus to something are pretty much insignificant) against each other. Or, maybe, traits could be based on role-playing, i.e. if I pick something like ‘Brave’ for my PC, instead of a flat +1 to my Will saves against Fear-based effects, I would receive extra XP at the end of the session (on top of any role-playing/quest XP the GM might give) for role-playing that trait up? Or perhaps even an extra Action Point, if the GM uses them? That would make all traits equal to its other, i.e. I’m not mechanically penalized or rewarded with static penalties/bonuses by taking something like ‘Cowardly’, but if I role-play it well enough, I’m rewarded for it – just as much if I had chosen ‘Brave’. And yet, I think it would encourage more role-playing, because there’s a dynamic reward at the end of the session. I know that most DMs/GMs traditionally have given role-playing XP, but if this was an added “bonus” on top of everything (say, 10% of the session’s total XP for your character), it would be a mechanical lure to role-play more, *without* adding another layer of bonuses to game. Besides, unless there’s a penalty for role-playing badly, I fear that many players see the traits being little more than a small static bonus linked to a word, and it’s up to the GM to decide what to do if you ignore what the trait implies in terms of role-playing.
Don’t get me wrong – I *like* the idea of traits. I just think they could be implemented better into the mechanics, i.e. either via careful balancing, or as a means to encourage role-playing with dynamic rewards instead of “numbercrunching”. Of course, you can ignore the whole trait-system if your players seek to abuse it, but I don’t find that an ideal option – neither would I like to penalize any player for role-playing “badly”, because it tends to cause needless friction.
The way you describe things like brave or cowardly is pretty much how the new World of Darkness rules are doing disadvantages: You don't get a bunch of extra points at character creation so you can get insignificant disadvantages to min/max your character (which is how it often works out in the game systems that do their disadvantages that way), but instead you will get extra XP if you were seriously inconvenienced by the disadvantage - and if you don't play it at all, the ST can consider you "cured".
That might work in PF, too, but since fear has a very tangible effect, it's not bad for advantages to have tangible benefits (i.e. an actual bonus on fear saves is good if there are fear saves around).
The game doesn't really have disadvantages in the sense other RPGs have them, anyway.
But I agree: If they were introduced, it's probably not to give players an immediate benefit for something that hasn't even come into play yet, but rather give them something later, whenever they get a real disadvantage from their disadvantage.
Getting people to roleplay instead of min/max should be the point of Traits or whatever else they're called.
I did a ton of Merits and Flaws for Mage: The Ascension, including a huge overhaul for the revised edition, and the one I'm proudest of is a simple 1 pt Flaw called Bard's Tongue, which is a tendency to blurt out bits of prophecy at inopportune moments.
When designing characters with a group, one player read the flaw and speculated that it didn't seem that bad and freed up a point, at which point one of the other players said, "Oh no! Watch out for that one! My last group, everyone took it, and the storyteller chained the prophecies!"
The anecdote went something like this:
SIDHE QUEEN: I shall not be murdered here in my own home!
PC 1: But you will be...
PC 2: Horribly....
PC 3: When you least expect it
PC 4: Betrayed by the one you love most!
I love it when I find that something I wrote led to a scene like that.
I'm happily using Traits in my game because they're little roleplaying hooks built right in.
The fire-resistance one is the big problem for me, because it rewards a player for playing badly: doing things like refusing to heal up and taking unnecessary risks around fire-using enemies because he wants to be killed or almost killed by them.
Are you going to deny a player his achievements because he didn't ask for a cure moderate wounds between fights?If the acheivement triggered, instead, off of taking a certain amount of fire damage then it would both make more sense and help prevent that sort of metagaming. Being fearless in the face of fire is different than being stupid in the face of fire.
I can see your point here, and think I would handle things like Graverisen and Flametested (in the future) as mystery achievement feats. The PC isn't aware of them until they've qualified for them. That way, no one is looking to die quickly just to get a feat.
So, there would probably be a set of achievement feats in the player's guide, and maybe one or two in the AP itself that only the GM is aware of. Obviously, those would need to be simple things to track like character death, but that shouldn't be happening every 15 minutes should it? (maybe I've been GMing wrong ;) )
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The fire-resistance one is the big problem for me, because it rewards a player for playing badly: doing things like refusing to heal up and taking unnecessary risks around fire-using enemies because he wants to be killed or almost killed by them.
Are you going to deny a player his achievements because he didn't ask for a cure moderate wounds between fights?If the acheivement triggered, instead, off of taking a certain amount of fire damage then it would both make more sense and help prevent that sort of metagaming. Being fearless in the face of fire is different than being stupid in the face of fire.
I can see your point here, and think I would handle things like Graverisen and Flametested (in the future) as mystery achievement feats. The PC isn't aware of them until they've qualified for them. That way, no one is looking to die quickly just to get a feat.
So, there would probably be a set of achievement feats in the player's guide, and maybe one or two in the AP itself that only the GM is aware of. Obviously, those would need to be simple things to track like character death, but that shouldn't be happening every 15 minutes should it? (maybe I've been GMing wrong ;) )
Wow dude, did you really just respond to a thread that was more than a YEAR old?
Welcome to the boards by the way
Wow dude, did you really just respond to a thread that was more than a YEAR old?
Nope, not me. It was someone else. Please stop putting such accusations on my internet. Put it on their internet!
Related true story, my rogue got a WoW achievement for being the first on her server to max out the fishing skill in the most recent expansion. No mechanical benefit, nor did I get a flashy title like "Has Too Much Time." :(
Related true story, my rogue got a WoW achievement for being the first on her server to max out the fishing skill in the most recent expansion. No mechanical benefit, nor did I get a flashy title like "Has Too Much Time." :(
I'm jealous, I was actually trying for that one. :/
I'm jealous, I was actually trying for that one. :/
Is that you, Celarius? (Oh, he got sooo mad at me...)
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My roommate got the 50 mounts achievement.
My Warlock bought his skeletal steeds (that came with the class), and then the first flying mount he laid his eyes on, and was done.
Everybody has their own view on the achievements. It's just one more source of feats, and makes quite a bit of sense, in most of the cases I've seen. Just because the idea started in City of Heroes (or WoW, or EQ2, or whoever wants to claim 'first!') doesn't make it a bad idea.
Wow dude, did you really just respond to a thread that was more than a YEAR old?Welcome to the boards by the way
Yeah, completely didn't notice it was a year old! I'm gearing up to run the LoF campaign, and was spelunking for details on a few things. It may be an oldie, but still a goodie, right? ;)
And thanks for the welcome!
I'm having fun with them in my group. Though I slow them down a bit, I give them a trait that is related to the feat they want then let them pick up the feat once they can place it. It makes my game much easier to run because my players spend some time creating plot threads for me.
That and I don't give them a list of what is and is not part of the achievement system. That way after they work for some thing i'll give them a feat that already exists or a achievement feat or some thing custom that I think really fits there character and how they have been playing there character.
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Related true story, my rogue got a WoW achievement for being the first on her server to max out the fishing skill in the most recent expansion. No mechanical benefit, nor did I get a flashy title like "Has Too Much Time." :(I'm jealous, I was actually trying for that one. :/
I'd like to think you have a better title now, aka: "Jodi's Boyfriend."
True, I am much less concerned about videogame fishing now that I've caught you. :)
True, I am much less concerned about videogame fishing now that I've caught you. :)That's better! ;o)
*hurk* *gag* *hurl*
Keep it in the apartment, you crazy kids! Or at least use the door on your office.
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Creative Director
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True, I am much less concerned about videogame fishing now that I've caught you. :)That's better! ;o)*hurk* *gag* *hurl*
Keep it in the apartment, you crazy kids! Or at least use the door on your office.
If this bothers you, Sutter, maybe you shouldn't have sent your Rovio into Sean's office. Just sain'.
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True, I am much less concerned about videogame fishing now that I've caught you. :)That's better! ;o)*hurk* *gag* *hurl*
Keep it in the apartment, you crazy kids! Or at least use the door on your office.
Hardy har har :oP You know you like it! I saw what you did to my Puffin drawing on Sean's dry erase board! And you're callin' me crazy! You turned my cute Puffin into a puffin' Puffin!!! Heheh!
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If this bothers you, Sutter, maybe you shouldn't have sent your Rovio into Sean's office. Just sain'.True, I am much less concerned about videogame fishing now that I've caught you. :)That's better! ;o)*hurk* *gag* *hurl*
Keep it in the apartment, you crazy kids! Or at least use the door on your office.
I knew it!!! Maybe I should add some rhinestones?
Frankly, it's as silly as anything I've seen.
In Kyoto, I saw a guy riding a bicycle. On his shoulder was a cat. The cat was wearing a cat-sized baby bonnet.
Hmm, ok, I guess that's more cute than silly.
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The adventure had a number of sample obstacles for that chase, but you can add to them, and for other chases, you can come up with your own, tailoring them to the circumstances. In any way, it does involve a bit of prep work, since you have to make the cards and assign them obstacles
Since I used PF Beta (which meant that most of the obstacles only used a couple of different skills due to the consolidations), I added some extra obstacles with different skills, which also helped those characters who didn't invest in acrobatics, which were almost all of them.
Pie Stand: The chaser must fail a DC 20 Fort save* in order to progress, otherwise waste 2 rounds digging for change, and reduce his/her future speed by one encumbrance step, as he/she juggles hot pastry and flicks crumbs out of his/her beard, cleavage and clothes.
(*big, growing PCs need their food...)