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I suspect he was Mistah Green before, anyone else suspect any other aliases?If he's not Mistah Green, he's a remarkable simulation.
The Mistah Green who argued rogues could get epic level feats at 10th level.
Yeah...I give it a week before he has to change accounts again.I wonder what his next sockpuppet name will be?
I suspect he was Mistah Green before, anyone else suspect any other aliases?If he's not Mistah Green, he's a remarkable simulation.The Mistah Green who argued rogues could get epic level feats at 10th level.
Yeah...I give it a week before he has to change accounts again.I wonder what his next sockpuppet name will be?
I vote for Greasemonkey.
I suspect he was Mistah Green before, anyone else suspect any other aliases?
I thought that for a while, but now I really don't. Very similar beliefs about the nature of the game but the posting style is more than a little different once you get past that.
The system is intend to accommodate all manner of playstyles. If yours causes these problems, why not make a small handfull of house rules that bring the game into what you would consider balance?
The system has woefully failed in its intent, then. As for a "small handful of house rules," I started there a year ago, and have now rewritten the entire game just to keep melees viable past 11th level -- and I'm still not done.
I DM for houstonderek. My intelligent villains are intelligent, and he knows to expect that. Poor tactics kill PCs, or even entire parties -- have before, and continue to do so. But by ruthlessly tilting the odds in their favor, the PCs can cause major villains to go down without a chance.
That's the kind of game I like. And Pathfinder doesn't provide it.
Very similar beliefs about the nature of the game but the posting style is more than a little different once you get past that.
Agreed. Codzilla's posting style is slightly more similar to Crusader of Logic's -- although different enough that I certainly believe him when he says he isn't Roy.
Really, folks, is it so hard to believe that there are at least 3 people who play a Level III game? Derek and I are at a hard II, and no one confuses us with anyone else.
Really, folks, is it so hard to believe that there are at least 3 people who play a Level III game? Derek and I are at a hard II, and no one confuses us with anyone else.
Yes, but you acknowledge there are other ways of playing the game, even if they aren't your cup of tea. Plus, you are courteous and reasonable.
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I suspect he was Mistah Green before, anyone else suspect any other aliases?I thought that for a while, but now I really don't. Very similar beliefs about the nature of the game but the posting style is more than a little different once you get past that.
I think he just doesn't even try to post real examples anymore because it caught up with him last time.
Way to similar and way to convinient for him to appear shortly after the other one left is disgrace.
I really hope they are the same, because otherwise there are two of them out there...
Plus, you are courteous and reasonable.
?!
Please tell that to my sister-in-law, who calls me a "living hyperbole" -- and to my wife, whose preferred adjective for me is "incorrigible"!
I really hope they are the same, because otherwise there are two of them out there...
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I don't know you. I do know what you said, because you said it. And based on your own words, in which you admitted you would ignore the rules based solely upon not liking the outcome it is a fair call. Especially since you reiterated this in the very next post.
But you stated I was a bad DM. That my argumentative friend is a very subjective statement to make on such limited information, and given people have different play and DMing styles, is also non-sense. If you had said, as Kryt did, "you are not MY type of DM" that would have not taken issue. Notice the difference? Kryt effectively said I was a bad DM, for HIS type of play. You made a blanket statement, he expressed an opinion. End result, Kryt and I are able to have a civil discussion even if we DISAGREE on points. Whereas you are still taking flak from nearly all quarters.
And thanks to the "down with XP squad". Would anyone be interested in a thread to discuss how to translate AP's & other XP-based adventures into DM-based leveling? I would be interested to hear of experiences.
Self-reflection, just a suggestion,
S.
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Really, folks, is it so hard to believe that there are at least 3 people who play a Level III game? Derek and I are at a hard II, and no one confuses us with anyone else.Question for you, what exactly are these levels? I haven't run into that terminology before.
Based on CoDzilla's posts it involves ignoring all limiting rules while giving yourself all of the class features of all variations at the same time.
Level 4 is just wearing a pointy had and swinging around a wand shouting "I win! You fail!"
Not my cup of tea, but whatever floats your boat.
I'm feeling almost masochistic enough to ask Mistah Green...er...CODzilla if there is a RACE that you are WRONG if you aren't playing. Does that make me a sick, sick man?
If it does, I'm right there with you. I'm also curious - CoD, is there a "wrong" race to play?
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I'm feeling almost masochistic enough to ask Mistah Green...er...CODzilla if there is a RACE that you are WRONG if you aren't playing. Does that make me a sick, sick man?If it does, I'm right there with you. I'm also curious - CoD, is there a "wrong" race to play?
I'm going to guess that as long as you pick a race with a boost to your casting stat, you're fine.
Also, what is the correct specialization? And what about focused arcane schools? Oh yeah, never mind, you don't have the APG. :P
Not that you were asking me, but I think Divination (Foresight) is ridiculously good. :P
Even if you're "stuck" with Divinations as bonus spells -- it just does too, too much to shore up what would otherwise be weaker points of the class.
Question for you, what exactly are these levels? I haven't run into that terminology before.
It's a shorthand system I devised specifically for discussion on this very thread, but one that Codzilla and others instincively recognized.
I. Story hour: Rules are loose, enemies do really dumb things if that makes the scenario seem more "cinematic," and plot immunity is a given unless the challenges are nerfed. Ruling by DM fiat is prevailent. Pathfinder supports this level of play splendidly -- but, then again, you don't really need a game system at all at this level.
II. Practical rules knowledge: The players know that Toughness in 3.0 was a bad feat, and why. They understand that playing a Mystic Theurge is a selfish excuse to hurt your teammates, and why. They know that melee sucks after 11th level, and why. They play intelligently, but everyone involved has a "gentleman's agreement" to keep things within a certain band -- no one too gimped, and no one too optimized. This is very difficult to pull off unless you know your players pretty well. It's even more difficult with a game like Pathfinder that's so riddled with inconsistencies and trap options. It's what my houserules are aimed to facilitate.
III. Moderate optimization: Intelligent enemies are intelligent, and feats may be re-assigned. Death is quick and merciless. All characters need to pull their weight, or the party gets killed. Traps are generally eschewed unless they can be built on to achieve something more useful. Sub-optimal options frowned upon.
IV. Hard optimization (Trollman game): All sub-optimal strategies are branded as "traps" and removed. The remaining game therefore has minimal options, and eventually comes to resemble chess.
The players know that Toughness in 3.0 was a bad feat, and why.
I once played with a 3.0 living game fighter who not only took Toughness, but spent literally all of his feat slots on it. I am not kidding.
They understand that playing a Mystic Theurge is a selfish excuse to hurt your teammates, and why.
This is interesting to me because "dedicated team buff-spell guy" always seemed like one of the few practical uses of MT as a PC. Care to elaborate?
They understand that playing a Mystic Theurge is a selfish excuse to hurt your teammates, and why.This is interesting to me because "dedicated team buff-spell guy" always seemed like one of the few practical uses of MT as a PC. Care to elaborate?
A 5th level cleric/3rd level wizard/1st level mystic theurge is simply a 6th cleric with a cohort, but they get only one action between the two of them. Meanwhile, that 6th level cleric is trying to adventure with a 9th level party. He can't pull his weight at all, so they end up spending all their time babysitting him, or else let him die ASAP and then get a replacement who can perform level-appropriate tasks every once in a while.
It's a shorthand system I devised specifically for discussion on this very thread, but one that Codzilla and others instincively recognized.
Hmm...you seem to be missing a playstyle - ours:
Rules as Written. Those that want to optimize can, those who choose to play "story hour" style can. That's up to them. The DM just applies the rules to the situation at hand. Rule Zero is frowned upon.
Question for you, what exactly are these levels? I haven't run into that terminology before.It's a shorthand system I devised specifically for discussion on this very thread, but one that Codzilla and others instincively recognized.
I. Story hour: Rules are loose, enemies do really dumb things if that makes the scenario seem more "cinematic," and plot immunity is a given unless the challenges are nerfed. Ruling by DM fiat is prevailent. Pathfinder supports this level of play splendidly -- but, then again, you don't really need a game system at all at this level.
II. Practical rules knowledge: The players know that Toughness in 3.0 was a bad feat, and why. They understand that playing a Mystic Theurge is a selfish excuse to hurt your teammates, and why. They know that melee sucks after 11th level, and why. They play intelligently, but everyone involved has a "gentleman's agreement" to keep things within a certain band -- no one too gimped, and no one too optimized. This is very difficult to pull off unless you know your players pretty well. It's even more difficult with a game like Pathfinder that's so riddled with inconsistencies and trap options. It's what my houserules are aimed to facilitate.
III. Moderate optimization: Intelligent enemies are intelligent, and feats may be re-assigned. Death is quick and merciless. All characters need to pull their weight, or the party gets killed. Traps are generally eschewed unless they can be built on to achieve something more useful. Sub-optimal options frowned upon.
IV. Hard optimization (Trollman game): All sub-optimal strategies are branded as "traps" and removed. The remaining game therefore has minimal options, and eventually comes to resemble chess.
I must be an awesome DM then becasue each of my players falls into one of those categories (with myself falling between a II and a III), and they're all happy so far...
A 5th level cleric/3rd level wizard/1st level mystic theurge is simply a 6th cleric with a cohort, but they get only one action between them. Meanwhile, that 6th level cleric is trying to adventure with a 9th level party. He can't pull his weight at all, so they end up spending all their time babysitting him, or else let him die ASAP and then get a replacement who can perform level-appropriate tasks every once in a while.They understand that playing a Mystic Theurge is a selfish excuse to hurt your teammates, and why.This is interesting to me because "dedicated team buff-spell guy" always seemed like one of the few practical uses of MT as a PC. Care to elaborate?
Oh, yeah, he's absolutely dead weight for a long while. Really, just about all of the quasi-multi-class PClasses were/are.
Although that being said, why wouldn't you just be 3 cleric / 3 wizard / 3 MT instead?
Those that want to optimize can, those who choose to play "story hour" style can. That's up to them. The DM just applies the rules to the situation at hand.
I must be an awesome DM then becasue each of my players falls into one of those categories (with myself falling between a II and a III), and they're all happy so far...
Those are "level I" games, under the disguise of being something else. It's a short-term fix. They'll work quite well at low levels, I expect, but by 12th or so I suspect the optimizers will get really tired of babysitting the gimps, and the gimps will get frustrated with being constantly overshadowed by their more-optimized brethren. I've seen it happen more than once.
I must be an awesome DM then becasue each of my players falls into one of those categories (with myself falling between a II and a III), and they're all happy so far...
No offense, but aren't you the guy who was arguing that high-dex monk is awesome in another thread?
Although that being said, why wouldn't you just be 3 cleric / 3 wizard / 3 MT instead?
Illustrative purposes only. Take a Clr 3/Wiz 3/MT 1 and you've got a Clr 4 and a Wiz 4 who each automatically lose a turn every round. Certainly you don't have the equivalent of a 7th level character. 2nd level spells (max) are kind of pathetic when your teammates can throw 4th level spells.
Those are "level I" games, under the disguise of being something else. It's a short-term fix. They'll work quite well at low levels, I expect, but by 12th or so I suspect the optimizers will get really tired of babysitting the gimps, and the gimps will get frustrated with being constantly overshadowed by their more-optimized brethren. I've seen it happen more than once.
Considering that I've run plenty of campaigns the same way over a long career of DMing, I'm going to call BS on this. Not every optimizer gets tired of "babysitting", nor do all non-optimizers of the world have an inferiority complex.
Illustrative purposes only. Take a Clr 3/Wiz 3/MT 1 and you've got a Clr 4 and a Wiz 4 who each automatically lose a turn every round. Certainly you don't have the equivalent of a 7th level character. 2nd level spells (max) are kind of pathetic when your teammates can throw 4th level spells.Although that being said, why wouldn't you just be 3 cleric / 3 wizard / 3 MT instead?
By PF core, I agree with you; with 3.5 stuff in play I think it's a little less clear cut. Practiced Spellcaster (x2) at least gets your caster level up there.
You do end up with a character who has a lot of lower level spells and can easily afford to throw them at buffs that aren't especially worth your while as either the straight cleric or wizard. Your DCs will always suck, but as a buffbot for the rest of the party I don't think it's all that bad of a character.
Granted, Leadership has been banned or effectively banned in nearly every 3.X campaign I've ever played in, so that may skew my opinion.
Granted, Leadership has been banned or effectively banned in nearly every 3.X campaign I've ever played in, so that may skew my opinion.
Yes! System flaws can be overcome (or at least minimized) with houserules -- i.e., by changing the system. That illustrates my overall point in this thread exactly.
No offense, but aren't you the guy who was arguing that high-dex monk is awesome in another thread?I must be an awesome DM then becasue each of my players falls into one of those categories (with myself falling between a II and a III), and they're all happy so far...
LOL
None taken, and yes I was.When played as a skirmisher, a high dex monk with Weapon Finesse: US, doesn't suffer from "flurry of misses". That's all my point was.
I wasn't trying to say he took the place of the frontline fighter.
Considering that I've run plenty of campaigns the same way over a long career of DMing, I'm going to call BS on this. Not every optimizer gets tired of "babysitting", nor do all non-optimizers of the world have an inferiority complex.
It doesn't always happen, but if often does happen. You're thinking of it partially the wrong way, though, or maybe Kirth explained it partially the wrong way, I'm not sure.
What usually happens is not:
Weaker (mechanically) player gets upset about not being able to do as much damage or whatever as stronger player. Stronger player is upset that weaker player isn't doing more damage.
It's usually more like:
Weaker player gets frustrated with being less a member of the team and more a mascot/sidekick/waterboy. Combat happens and stronger player takes care of it before they get to contribute. Non-combat problem situation comes up and while weaker player is trying to scheme up a solution, stronger player has already solved it.
At it's core, D&D/PF is usually a team game. It does tend to wear, eventually, on the weaker players that they don't actually get to contribute. It does tend to wear, eventually, on the stronger players that they feel like the whole burden of the team's success is on them.
Edited to add: And yes, the stronger players can go out of their way to try to let the weaker players contribute, or to help set them up to shine, just as Michael Jordan could theoretically play basketball with a bunch of grade school kids and not just utterly make them feel bad -- but after a while, that, too, gets wearing.
LOL
None taken, and yes I was.
When played as a skirmisher, a high dex monk with Weapon Finesse: US, doesn't suffer from "flurry of misses". That's all my point was.
I wasn't trying to say he took the place of the frontline fighter.
Ah, got it. I probably misinterpreted you in the other thread then.
Ah, got it. I probably misinterpreted you in the other thread then.
LOL
None taken, and yes I was.
When played as a skirmisher, a high dex monk with Weapon Finesse: US, doesn't suffer from "flurry of misses". That's all my point was.
I wasn't trying to say he took the place of the frontline fighter.
More than likely...I probably also got worked up over CoD's endless decanter of BS and got snippy. My apologies :(
What usually happens is not:
Weaker (mechanically) player gets upset about not being able to do as much damage or whatever as stronger player. Stronger player is upset that weaker player isn't doing more damage.
It's usually more like:
Weaker player gets frustrated with being less a member of the team and more a mascot/sidekick/waterboy. Combat happens and stronger player takes care of it before they get to contribute. Non-combat problem situation comes up and while weaker player is trying to scheme up a solution, stronger player has already solved it.
Sounds like the same thing to me. Getting frustrated because someone else is outshining you due to choices you made is just lame.
At it's core, D&D/PF is usually a team game.
Usually. Unless you run the game as "a group of individuals who may or may not stay together" rather than "team battle".
At it's core, D&D/PF is usually a team game.Usually. Unless you run the game as "a group of individuals who may or may not stay together" rather than "team battle".
Sitting around waiting while the rest of the group or another player splits off and does something without you tends to wear after a while, too. There's a reason why game design has gone away from that direction.
I've seen one game where it was made to work pretty well; they had two co-DMs.
Sitting around waiting while the rest of the group or another player splits off and does something without you tends to wear after a while, too. There's a reason why game design has gone away from that direction.
On you. It wears on you. And people like you. We reglarly have party splits and it doesn't wear on anyone.
On you. It wears on you. And people like you. We reglarly have party splits and it doesn't wear on anyone.
Sitting around waiting while the rest of the group or another player splits off and does something without you tends to wear after a while, too. There's a reason why game design has gone away from that direction.
Hey! Whadya mean "you people"?
;)
On you. It wears on you. And people like you. We reglarly have party splits and it doesn't wear on anyone.
I humbly suggest to you that, in this respect, there are more people like me than people like you. There's a better than decent chance it wears on someone in your group who is too polite to say something about it.
When I was 15 and gaming I didn't give a damn if the party split and I had to go play Street Fighter 2 on the Super Nintendo with the other people left out of the split. Now that I no longer have virtually unlimited free time you best believe it wears on me if I have to spend four hours watching the other half the party get murdered by huge centipedes.
No, no it doesn't. That's a house rule. Giving a CR 20 monster 880,000 gold worth of gear instead of 137,000 or what have you only raises it to CR 21.
To reiterate: Not only do they get a decent amount of treasure already factored into their wealth, if you increase this wealth by a factor greater than six, such that the Balor is geared up exactly like a PC it's only counted as a single level higher encounter wise.
Sorry you're going to have to show me, in the PF rules, where it says that the treasure given in a monster's stat block can be used by the monster. I know, people will make the common sense argument but ya know "I'm shooting fireballs from my hands!" and all that. It's a game, and rules are rules. You can ignore those rules in favor of more common sense, the rules are very malleable, but doing so ups the CR. You can't argue that monster X is mechanically strong because YOU have housruled giving all monsters +Y, then say they need to be allowed these things because of LOGIC. Logic has no place in the rules my friend. A balor has a +1 unholy longsword and a flaming whip. That's it. Your only argument is that when you don't follow the monster creation guidelines to determine CR then Melee are screwed. Everything else is just repetition of your...erm...misinformation.
BTW there is a difference between hyperbole and strawman. I made no strawman arguments, only hyperbolic reflections of your own claims. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Again, DPR doesn't need to be as high as you claim, because that calculation assumes that 1-you only have 3 rounds to kill it which itself assumes there is no healing mechanic, and burst is fairly strong that 2-tactics don't come into play and 3-that the casters are doing nothing. In a realistic scenario, like the one I posited with 3 CR 7s, the arcanist will likely remove one as a threat in the first round by battlefield control, which buys the group at least 1 likely 3-infinite rounds of focus on the other targets, which in turn increases life expectency and therefore reduces your PAR DPR. You can't full attack on round 1 (assuming this isn't a surprise round) unless you are a mobile fighter, a beast totem barbarian, or an archer; fair enough. Furthermore this DPR calculation, like those in AMIB's DPR olympics thread (one you should check out if you haven't) is sans party buffs like Haste, so realistically someone with an expected DPR around 60 goes up to 75.
One of the groups I'm in right now is Barbarian/Fighter/Druid/Cleric/Rogue/Ranger/Psion, though we rarely have everyone there in a given session. The cleric rarely does anything but healbot, the druid isn't melee capable and spends his time throwing around conjured fire, and the psion either blasts or debuffs the enemies. However, I (the Barb), the TH fighter, the rogue and the ranger dish out SO MUCH dpr that almost every encounter is trivialized. We have fought intelligent casters (knew we were coming, pre-buffed, tried to refuse engagement with summons, etc.) several CRs above us and trounced them. I'm not even optimized as I had to bite the bullet on some things because my character is the tribe's "leader". Our group is not typical, and the adventures tend toward meat-grinderness, but it is FUN, and the DM knows how to challenge US.
I humbly suggest to you that, in this respect, there are more people like me than people like you.
That's definitely true. That's part of the reason we have a difficult time bringing in people who have played with other groups. Well, that, and we roll for ability scores. But that doesn't mean we're going to change the way we do things. Each of us has DMed over the course of our career as a group, and we all do things this way and expect the same of the players, so no, there isn't someone harboring a secret disappintment.
The "Shadowrun Decker" problem was a very common issue with most of the designs from the 90s and earlier.
The essential problem is that splitting the action can be handled by some groups and GMs but for the most part it involves a large percentage of the group sitting around doing nothing while the skill specialist does his thing.
While D&D doesn't have as much of an issue with this as Shadowrun did, you still see remnants of this in the rogue's scouting role and quite honestly the development of the diplomancer for dealing with social problems.
It's not a great design if the specialist can't do squat during combat scenarios and the rest of the party can't do anything during the specialist's spotlight time.
One of the conceits of the genre is that you never split the party but it's for logistics as much as anything else. In a rules dense combat focused game it's simply to hard to run simultaneous scenario development for most (but not all GMs). Rules light systems actually do much better in this regard.
The essential problem is that splitting the action can be handled by some groups and GMs but for the most part it involves a large percentage of the group sitting around doing nothing while the skill specialist does his thing.
That's always been part of the game for us. Even our newer players accept that as simply part of the game - not everyone is going to get equal spotlight time in every game session. it would be downright boring if they did. Yes, that means many times people end up being sidekicks. I don't personally think that's such a bad thing.
The essential problem is that splitting the action can be handled by some groups and GMs but for the most part it involves a large percentage of the group sitting around doing nothing while the skill specialist does his thing.That's always been part of the game for us. Even our newer players accept that as simply part of the game - not everyone is going to get equal spotlight time in every game session. it would be downright boring if they did. Yes, that means many times people end up being sidekicks. I don't personally think that's such a bad thing.
I've seen it happen successful in some groups but for the most part especially with younger gamers it often results in a bunch of problems. If the game starts looking to much like a game of Ars Magica the non-wizards can often feel frustrated.
This is incidentally why most GMs have also abandoned the old practice of having groups with differing experience level. I've seen some groups where the newer players don't get to start at the same level and in some cases lag behind the cohorts in terms of power level.
In extremely social games where combat is a rarity it can work but in combat heavy games having wildly different levels of competency have often resulted in rancor and disappointment.
This is incidentally why most GMs have also abandoned the old practice of having groups with differing experience level. I've seen some groups where the newer players don't get to start at the same level and in some cases lag behind the cohorts in terms of power level.
That's a practice I never personally used, as I felt the whole deal was kind of arbitrary. Now in the Conan RPG, I award individual experience, but that's a decidedly different system (though d20 based) that handles that kind of thing much better.
The essential problem is that splitting the action can be handled by some groups and GMs but for the most part it involves a large percentage of the group sitting around doing nothing while the skill specialist does his thing.That's always been part of the game for us. Even our newer players accept that as simply part of the game - not everyone is going to get equal spotlight time in every game session. it would be downright boring if they did. Yes, that means many times people end up being sidekicks. I don't personally think that's such a bad thing.
In fact, I have seen game systems designed arround this, mechanically giving main characters for the adventure more power to affect the game world and cycling between main characters from one session to the next.
That's always been part of the game for us. Even our newer players accept that as simply part of the game - not everyone is going to get equal spotlight time in every game session. it would be downright boring if they did. Yes, that means many times people end up being sidekicks. I don't personally think that's such a bad thing.
Would your opinion change at all if it's always the same players being the sidekicks?
If that's not what happens, I submit to you that the gulf between your "good" players and "bad" players may not be that big.
Would your opinion change at all if it's always the same players being the sidekicks?
Actually, we have a couple of people who always seem to play the sidekick, so no, it wouldn't. Me, for example. It's rare that I'm in the spotlight.