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Natural 1 fumble requires a DC 10 dexterity check (not reflex save) or you loose your weapon. It doesn't just drop though, oh no it 'flies' away 10 feet. Naturally this is followed by missing your next turn of attacks as well? Pity the high level fighter...
Mind you the same DM also spent 3 hours rolling up the menu for the inn where the PC's first met. This was 3 hours while the players were there, in fact from memory we actually did the rolling. End result of this - the inn had potatoes that cost 5gp EACH!
In my last game with him this DM also prevented by ranger (archery specialist) from having a bow - just can't get them in this town(?) so you can't get one. It was alright I got one at level 2.
So if one combatant's AC is at or below what you've rolled, and your roll was 1-4 numbers below the target AC you actually hit the other combatant? That's a rule I could get on board with. In fact I might be instituting that at the next session, if my players agree of course. :)In 3.5 we made the -4 optional. If you didn't take it and missed the bad guy but the number rolled would hit an ally, you hit your ally. If you took the penalty, you wouldn't hit your ally.
One possibility in PF is to institute a "hitting cover" rule, since you suffer a soft cover bonus in addition to the -4 for lacking precise shot in some circumstances. That seems more palatable to me than just hitting anytime you miss by less than 4. And you should have to hit an ally's AC regardless.
I tried a system of critical failures that was a partial failure. Roll a 1 on a melee attack roll and you provoke an AoO or your enemy can take a 5' step. If you rolled a 1 on a ranged attack roll, you automatically hit a random creature within range. The ranged attack roll was always funny, especially when the character hit her own animal companion, but it was just crazy non-sense. I shoot at the mummy in front of me but I hit the mummy behind me instead lol Ah, failure is funny sometimes.
Re: shooting into melee
Back in 1st ed AD&D, IIRC, you could shoot into a melee with no penalty. However, if you missed at all, the DM was then supposed to randomize all the participants in that particlur scrum (with larger critters being more likely, smaller creatures less likely) and roll randomly to see who the real target was, and then the PC rolled to hit again vs the "new" target's AC. I say "new" because depending on the number and size of combatants, you could very easily hit your original target anyway after a miss!
You ever have one of those instances where you can't think of a good houserule a guy used in game?(Yo, if you read this man, you already knew how I felt.)
d20 Modern.
Moved to the Star Wars vitality/wounds system. If you are not familiar, I would give it a look some time. I happen to like the system, but this needs to be understood for moving forward.
All of our skills were rewritten (Go Go Super Action DM Custom Sheet!) so that broad, unrelated skills were tied together. Did you know that Driving a car, riding a horse, and piloting a helicopter are really all the same? Almost all the wisdom based skills were left alone for some reason.
Instead of doing skill points, he did "trained points" which I am told were like 4th edition. Putting a rank into the skill got you a flat +5 to the skill, and you can spend a second point for a +3 for a total of +8 base. You can only put a point into a class skill, the other skills were just banned for you unless you multiclass. Everyone had almost every one of his super condensed class skills trained at least. I just grabbed languages after I filled up every remotely useful skill I could. Indeed I had more points than I had skills to put them in.
Half-Level to EVERYTHING. To saves, to AC, to all skill checks, to initiative, to everything but attack rolls. d20 Modern has a class bonus to AC, so this half-level was added on top of that. d20 Modern has very few full attack bonus progression classes, so attack rolls tend to be lower naturally than D&D. He didn't seem to understand what I meant when I said that it would kill high level play, because AC and Saves would have rocketed for everyone, even leveld mooks, well above anything that checks against them like attack rolls and explosion Reflex saves. (As a side note, because of this Two-weapon fighting and grapple was king. Winning relied on putting out more attack rolls than the other guy, so twf was a big help. Grapple, provided you hit the touch attack, let you ignore the stupid high AC.)
(Ended up having level one and two kids being better roboticists and physicists than life long professors.)
Changed the Armor as DR that comes with the vitality/wounds system. He made it so that armor DR applied to your vitality instead of your wounds.
No critical confirmation. If you rolled a threat, it is an auto-hit, auto-critical. The damage goes directly to the wound points instead of being multiplied (as per normal v/w), which are equal to your Con score. The DR that is supposed to save your wounds was not there because of the previous rule. As most firearms are doing between 2d6 to 2d10 damage, you can see how it essentially became a bit of an instant death machine when fighting large numbers of people.
So with all of the above, let me paint a picture of a combat. Five orcs with shotguns against the three man party. Both sides have an obscene AC compared to the present attack bonuses because of that half-level and class bonus to AC. As both sides have DR too from their armor, what hits that do land are less harsh. One player got hit with a crit and falls into the negatives, from almost full hp to two stabilization rolls till perma dead. Essentially, continue the combat untill one side criticals everyone on the other side. It made for exceedinly long, stupid combat. With the half-level to saves, grenades were not even a good option to shorten the fight.
Another rule, one that has a more subtle effect on the game. Had went into a building to disarm a bomb with a timer on it. The bomb went off mid combat, and I was tracking my six second rounds. I was all "WTH MAN?" and he responded that rounds were now 30 seconds to make combat "more cinematic." No other adjustmet was made to the rounds, so you move the same speed in 30 seconds that you do in six, and you attack the same number of times that you do in six.
Did I mention that half of this came out during the middle of a session?
It's a wonder that the party let him near any ranged weapons!I had one player who consistently shot his own teammates. In fact, the very first fight he was in he shot the wizard in the gluteus maximus (look it up), in the first phase of the fight. Then, 3 turns later, he shot the same wizard in the back of the head with an energy ray.
The next game, he shot the paladin with an arrow, and then hit the NPC they were supposed to be rescuing the combat after that.
They finally made him do the scouting routines. He ended up getting his throat slit when he tried to infiltrate an orc camp by himself.
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Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.
The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :P
Ralantar is using a rule from D&D 3.0 that was changed for 3.5. When I DM a 3rd Edition-style game, I propose your version as one of my house rules, because I think firing into the chaos of melee requires some training (Precise Shot).
--+--
One of the strangest house rules I've played under was instituted by my friend Ken, after some over-serious contemplation. In Ken's campaign, sex would sometimes lead to women being pregnant, as usual, but once the fetus came to term, it would teleport into the abdomen of the nearest male, and then be born.
In retospect, my question would be: out of what orifice? Because I've had a kidney stone pass, and that's no fun, and I imagine a baby would be worse.
I had a DM once rule that unless we took a point in a Knowledge skill we had absolutely no knowledge on the subject what so ever. We could worship a god but couldn’t tell you anything about the faith. We could slay a dragon but couldn’t tell you what breathe weapon it used.
Here is one a Player imposed on himself. The wizard started with no spells at all. He wanted them all to be custom and created organically in game. Looking for reagents and searching libraries for research notes. I made him have a spell book with the starter list of cantrips, and first level spells. He threw it away. At level 5 he had one spell. He could make gruel paste that covered the ground in an area similar to a Grease spell. Most useless mage ever.
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Oh, and in 1st edition or maybe 2nd, there was an optional rule that falling damage was cumulative - 1st 10' was 1d6, 2nd 10 was another 2d6, etc. So the DM didn't just make that up. ...
Never in any actual game rules. In one of Gary Gygax's "Up on a Soapbox" columns, he wrote that he had intended that to be the original rule, but that some incompetent typesetter thought that "1d6 per 10' per 10'" was a typo and changed the rule.
This led in the successive months to vigorous debate on the Forum lettercolumn. One gentleman, whose name I can't recall, calculated terminal velocity (at about 250') better synced with maximum damage topping out at 20d6 at 200', rather than 60'. Another letter-writer explained that we should be looking at kinetic energy rther than momentum, and kE does scale better as 1d6 per 10'.
Here is one a Player imposed on himself. The wizard started with no spells at all. He wanted them all to be custom and created organically in game. Looking for reagents and searching libraries for research notes. I made him have a spell book with the starter list of cantrips, and first level spells. He threw it away. At level 5 he had one spell. He could make gruel paste that covered the ground in an area similar to a Grease spell. Most useless mage ever.
This is why role-players and players don't get along.
Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :PRalantar is using a rule from D&D 3.0 that was changed for 3.5. When I DM a 3rd Edition-style game, I propose your version as one of my house rules, because I think firing into the chaos of melee requires some training (Precise Shot).
Ah hah I new it was a hold over from some edition. Thanks :)
Re: shooting into melee
Back in 1st ed AD&D, IIRC, you could shoot into a melee with no penalty. However, if you missed at all, the DM was then supposed to randomize all the participants in that particlur scrum (with larger critters being more likely, smaller creatures less likely) and roll randomly to see who the real target was, and then the PC rolled to hit again vs the "new" target's AC. I say "new" because depending on the number and size of combatants, you could very easily hit your original target anyway after a miss!
It was harsher than that. You made that determination every time, not just when you missed your chosen target. In fact, by the rules, if you shot two arrows at a melee of two creatures, say and orc and your buddy, one missile arrow the orc and the other your buddy.
This is why role-players and players don't get along.
Here is one a Player imposed on himself. The wizard started with no spells at all. He wanted them all to be custom and created organically in game. Looking for reagents and searching libraries for research notes. I made him have a spell book with the starter list of cantrips, and first level spells. He threw it away. At level 5 he had one spell. He could make gruel paste that covered the ground in an area similar to a Grease spell. Most useless mage ever.
Some of us old school guys, actually optimize a character then build his or her story *around* said optimization. Looks like we're in the minority though. . .lol
My original DM from the days of 1e gradually completely overhauled the combat system to use the rules for hand to hand combat found in the 1e DMG. Not a terrible idea, but then he began just making things up, like major NPC's received saving throws to avoid critical hit damage (we were using the old "Good Hits and Bad Misses" charts). His reasoning was they were "destined" to last longer against the heroes, though that was never explained. Even had an NPC Ninja on whom a roll of "Head Struck, Instant Death" pull the arrow from his cranium and take no damage whatsoever because he was the BBEG.
Also, he was always playing his characters as members of the party, allowing them to receive full xp and treasure rewards. Being new to the game, I didn't think much of it at first, but finally realized this was wrong. His adventures were absolutely epic and remain the very best I've ever played in to this day, but his rules drove a lot of other players away.
This thread belongs in Gamer Life, not House Rules. Self-flagged.
the dm I grew up p,aging 1e with only gave xp to people conscious at the end of a fight.
I love my DM and I think he does a great job but....
I swear every single monster we go up against is home-brewed in some way and you never really know how the rules are going to work...
It gets frustrating when there is no baseline for things.
I've seen debates about this very thing in other threads, and on other sites. The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes." Some of these things can be very legitimate, like advancing a monster or NPC, maybe adding some abilities because of their role in the campaign. Some of it though ends up directly handwaving away some of the published mechanics, and or rules assumptions on the part of the players. Things like this need to be addressed before a campaign begins. I think if they are addressed ahead of time, like: "Hey I'm occasionally going to be messing with some of the monsters, and they'll be a bit different than you find in the Bestiary..." Then, if all agree, it can be a good thing, when used in moderation. If it's not addressed ahead of time, it usually ends up a disaster.
In my experience as a player, it has been GMs who adhere to every minor comma and semicolon in the rule book that have caused the players the most grief, not the DMs who impose house rules or make poor rulings on occasion.
Back in the very early days of my GM career, the players attempted to ambush a couple of patrolling dragons. The dragons patrol took them down a river for a short while, and the players climbed trees on each side of the river and waited for the patrolling dragons to fly past.
I think this was first edition. Maybe it was AD&D. Regardless, the fly rules and 3D combat rules at the time were very sketchy. But dragon flying was defined in a pretty straightforward manner.
So, the players waited until the dragons were between them and launched their ambush.
Now, it's probably worth mentioning that at the time I was a physics student about to graduate from college.
So I put my physics skills to use.
The players main attack was a combination of firing arrows at the dragons and throwing some enchanted gems which had various fireballs.
I ended up drawing out the encounter on graph paper, calculating the dragons' flight speed in feet per second, their climb and turn rates, and the speed of the arrows' flight vs the thrown fireball gems...
So I asked them: "OK, exactly when do you shoot and throw your gems?" They said "As soon as they get between us."
As it turns out, the dragons were flying so fast that by the time they threw the fireball gems, at the speed of a major league baseball pitcher (95 mph is what I used, which is ridiculous for a wizard, but I gave them every advantage I could) the dragons were out of range of the fireballs by the time they went off.
Bedlam ensued.
In the end it was one of the most epic battles in my GM experience, and the players and dragons mostly ended up in a draw. The players had to flee under water to escape the firebreathing dragons. Every second of that combat was diagrammed and explained according to the rules of speed, flight and using real world examples of how fast arrows fly or people can throw things.
After the battle was finally over, the players said it was the most awesome fight ever. Even though they lost. They realized that they should have coordinated their attacks and thrown the gems ahead of the dragons so the dragons would fly into them, and that the bows should have been fired after the thrown gems.
So sometimes combining "realism" with RAW can work, especially, as in this case, when the RAW is not clear about some critical things.
the dm I grew up p,aging 1e with only gave xp to people conscious at the end of a fight.
Because, of course, if you were unconscious you offered no help at all to defeating the encounter. That's a terrible rule.
I love my DM and I think he does a great job but....
I swear every single monster we go up against is home-brewed in some way and you never really know how the rules are going to work...
It gets frustrating when there is no baseline for things.
There is a major difference between "home brewed in some way" and "you never really know how the rules are going to work."
I always home-brew monsters. It's a deliberate strategy to counter players who metagame the system by reading the bestiary or monster manuals. I provide information based on what the CHARACTERS would know about monsters, not the players. And I am absolutely unapologetic about it. The whole point of a fantasy adventure is that characters are exploring and experiencing unknown situations and fantastic creatures. When the characters react according to what the player knows about a creature the character would never have heard of, that is metagaming at its absolute worst. And it doesn't happen in my campaigns. Even when I use a monster directly from the book, I reskin it so that it is not recognizable to the players.
This does not include common monsters, such as goblins, kobolds, trolls, certain dragons, etc. Those I assume the characters have somewhat accurate knowledge about so I run them straight from the book. But if the characters are fresh off the farm and run into an extra-planar beast they've never even imagined existed, they will have no idea what they are up against.
As it should be.
If not-by-the-book monsters bother you, please announce that early and often. Without any enmity I must say that is the clearest signal you can send that you will NOT enjoy playing in my campaigns.
I hope you find a GM who plays well with your expectations, but it is not me.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."
Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
I'm going to disagree with you, but I think, only semantically. I'm pretty sure Paizo would love for every player out there to have a copy of every book they publish. Why publish them otherwise. They make the books beautiful and well done, because they want to sell them. So I'm pretty sure they are designed for players and GM's alike. However, and I think brassbaboon points this out very well. There's a VAST difference between what a player should or should not know, and what CHARACTERS do or do not know. I don't think there's any problem with a player having their own set of rulebooks, maybe even a GMG if they want, but what they need to realize is that just because they (the player) have a lot of information, that does not mean that their character would. That's a strong separation that sometimes players need to be reminded of.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
While a valid point, it is important to remember that many DMs are players too, at least occasionally, and expecting them to just turn off their knowledge of the bestiary is a bit unfair. This isn't true for all players that have the bestiary memorized, but it is for enough that as long as they don't let player knowledge bleed into character knowledge, you sometimes just have to accept that the player is going to know what you are throwing at them, even if the character doesn't. The story in your edit sounds like a problem player though, and I doubt that him reading from the bestiary was the only, or possibly even the worst, offense he pulled at the table.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
This is why I have always, from day one as a GM, created my own monsters and reskinned existing monsters to make them unrecognizable. Again, common monsters or legendary monsters which are the source of bardic tales or history lessons are also exempt, so most characters will have a good idea of what to expect from a red dragon. But a Manticore in the desert? I use knowledge checks to provide information that their character may have learned or heard about, which is why the knowledge skills exist.
I would say that about half of the monsters parties encounter in my campaigns are totally unique made-up monsters for which I have created my own miniature. They will have no clue what they are fighting, until they fight them.
Now, if they encounter more of the same monster, then they will know what they know. But that too, is as it should be.
I have never had a player complain about this. And I tell every player before a campaign starts that my style includes made up and reskinned monsters. Most players prefer it that way.
I also play the game and one of the most irritating things for me is when the DM pulls out an obscure miniature and plunks it down with a malicious grin, and one of the players spouts off with "Oh, I recognize that! It's a Xorn! Here's how you fight it."
I usually say "Please don't tell us. My character does not know what that is, and unless I am very wrong, neither does your character."
I have to say for the most part I've not had players with too much monster knowledge. Just my luck most didn't enjoying reading the monster manuals. That and having 4 editions worth of monsters at this point makes it difficult for players to keep them all straight.
The only one I've basically given up on trying to keep players from meta-gamming over are Trolls. At this point.. anyone whose ever played before knows.. Troll.. kill it with FIRE!
Trying to act surprised when the troll gets up again just doesn't work.
I have to say for the most part I've not had players with too much monster knowledge. Just my luck most didn't enjoying reading the monster manuals. That and having 4 editions worth of monsters at this point makes it difficult for players to keep them all straight.
The only one I've basically given up on trying to keep players from meta-gamming over are Trolls. At this point.. anyone whose ever played before knows.. Troll.. kill it with FIRE!
Trying to act surprised when the troll gets up again just doesn't work.
Trolls are on my list of commonly known monsters so I assume that characters are familiar with them and know about fire, or even acid. I consider trolls to be part of the normal growing up story telling which would include goblins, orcs, certain dragons, certain giants and lots of other creatures that I just decide if they are well known or not based on their proximity to civilization.
Talking is a full-round action
I've been limited to only a few words while in combat, but that makes some sense.
I hate that kind of metagaming, and as a player like being surprised with monster capabilities. I have never had a problem with a dm changing around monsters as they see fit, as long as it has some foundation in the rule set. Want to give it a new ability, or beef up it's hd? Awesome, I'll roll a few knowledge checks and see what my character knows. But if you just arbitrarily start fiddling with numbers without accounting for the rest of the system (IE raising saves or ac without adjusting HD, ability scores, CR etc) I get annoyed.
Monsters with abilities I've never seen or heard of before? Aeseome. Monsters with arbitrarily set numbers that dont account for how monsters are made i the system? That I dont like.
Certain monster tidbits should be common knowledge:
Trolls regenerate and needs to be burnt. Acid might be less known.
Dragons-breath is dangerous and reflects the color of the dragon.
Undead take damage from holy water.
This is all stuff that is justifiable as something people know just from listening to stories.
However, the fact that Jabberwocky shoots fire-beams from it's eyes, or that the Rehmoraz melts weapons that come in contact with it, or that Ogre Magi can cast Invisibility at will.... these are not all too obvious.
And the Knowledge/Monster Lore rules support this, as it is a DC5+cr to know about common monsters, 10+CR for the uncommon, and 15+CR for the rare.
And the Knowledge/Monster Lore rules support this, as it is a DC5+cr to know about common monsters, 10+CR for the uncommon, and 15+CR for the rare.
I just wish there was a clearer definition of what you know and a more robust mechanic there. By Raw you learn the same thing about a rare monster with a roll of CR+15 as you do a result of CR+35. That doesnt seem right to me.
I adjust what the character knows about a monster based on how well they roll. So a 35 would tell you more about a monster than a 20 would, even if both succeed.
Just to be clear, when I make up monsters, I use the bestiary format and do my best to balance them against other monsters. That means I list all their defenses, all their abilities, all their attacks, feats, etc. I assign a CR by comparing their abilities to other monsters with similar stats.
It's not as much work as it seems. In 3.5 I had an excel template I used. I need to create one for PF now that I'm running a PF campaign, and I've got a lot of 3.5 custom monsters to convert.
When I create a custom monster I put the description into a notebook, sort of my own personal bestiary...
The weaknesses of a troll might be explained in bedtime stories.
But if so, this is reflected with a KNOWLEDGE check. A low DC, but it still requires a check.
To expect the players--who may also be GMs--to forget what they know is unreasonable. Better to simply alter the monsters. I see no reason not to do so. PLAYERS (not GMs)do not need to know what monsters can do. If they make a check, they can work it out. Otherwise, there's no non-metagaming justification for them knowing.
Guys let it go... return to OPs thread topic pls. I just wanted to remark that the lack of a baseline is frustrating sometimes and something my GM does occasionally. Metagaming or not...
Hmm.... I will comment on what I want to comment on based on the content of the thread at the time, as message boards are designed and intended to do.
I don't believe we need a thread policeman on the forums.
Let it go.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
Now I don't feel bad about placing Rust Monsters inside illusions of Iron Golems. :)
I had to drop the fumble drop rules and double crits after we wasted an entire gaming session arguing about what happens if someone rolls a 1 during the crit confirmation.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
[/i].
I also play the game and one of the most irritating things for me is when the DM pulls out an obscure miniature and plunks it down with a malicious grin, and one of the players spouts off with "Oh, I recognize that! It's a Xorn! Here's how you fight it."
How do they know it's not a Primordial One? :)
I'm going to disagree with you, but I think, only semantically. I'm pretty sure Paizo would love for every player out there to have a copy of every book they publish. Why publish them otherwise. They make the books beautiful and well done, because they want to sell them. So I'm pretty sure they are designed for players and GM's alike. However, and I think brassbaboon points this out very well. There's a VAST difference between what a player should or should not know, and what CHARACTERS do or do not know. I don't think there's any problem with a player having their own set of rulebooks, maybe even a GMG if they want, but what they need to realize is that just because they (the player) have a lot of information, that does not mean that their character would. That's a strong separation that sometimes players need to be reminded of.
The problem with this is it makes Bestiaries a shoddy resource for players, because the GM feels the necessity to "dip their hands" in every bad guy to make sure the PCs are "kept on their toes."Bestiaries are only supposed to be a shoddy resource for players. The only thing a player should be needing from a bestiary is summon, mount, and companion information, and feats for said same.
A player doesn't need 90% of the information in the bestiary, it's a GM resource. I can't tell you how annoying it is to put a bestiary beast out that is a desert environment beast (say a half-lion/half-dragon) when the characters for the first time in their lives enter a desert, and people start spouting off it's weaknesses and using player knowledge about them. And this is people who have characters with no knowledge skill ranks at all.
EDIT : And that's even way less irritating than the guy I had in my game one time that would bring his own set of rule books and when they encountered something would look up every detail of it and read it off to the other players when it wasn't his turn.
oh let me tell you heaven forbid i use a troll ever they instantly go with fire even if the characters have never fought one before. the first tiem i used a troll worked great and then ever after fire every attack.....
heh its ok though later i used a full armored and helmed troll. oh they killed him... so one of the players is carrying him (i forget why i think it was cause they like dhis armor and wanted it) he gets up surprise attacks again full claw claw bite rend killing the poor guy. next they suffocate him go second he has air again back to full health and full attack 3 deaths it took them to figure it was a troll underneath that black armor.
I hate it when DM's create house rules based on real world physics but only regarding non-magic.
falling a certain distance auto kills, or lava auto kills.
or it doesn't matter how high you rolled on your acrobatics a real person cant jump that far without magic.
My favorite idiotic rule moment was in a game from a lot of years back. I was playing a gnome, arcane type fellow. He went to cast a fireball. The DM informed me that I only rolled half damage. When asked why he explained that my gnome was small... so he cast small fireballs.
I packed up my stuff and went home. ;)
And now it's time to rewrite Antimagic field so if an anchient red dragon casts it on it'self, it becomes personal. I think this might be why the GM came up with the size rule.
While a valid point, it is important to remember that many DMs are players too, at least occasionally, and expecting them to just turn off their knowledge of the bestiary is a bit unfair.
I don't think so, I try to do so myself, and I run 90% more than I play. However, for those that have the problem, I have no issue with them putting ranks in Knowledge (Whatever) to represent that knowledge. What I have trouble with is people who refuse to do so, but still want to know all that knowledge OOC and use it IC.
I hate that kind of metagaming, and as a player like being surprised with monster capabilities. I have never had a problem with a dm changing around monsters as they see fit, as long as it has some foundation in the rule set. Want to give it a new ability, or beef up it's hd? Awesome, I'll roll a few knowledge checks and see what my character knows. But if you just arbitrarily start fiddling with numbers without accounting for the rest of the system (IE raising saves or ac without adjusting HD, ability scores, CR etc) I get annoyed.
Monsters with abilities I've never seen or heard of before? Aeseome. Monsters with arbitrarily set numbers that dont account for how monsters are made i the system? That I dont like.
I actually did this to people in a game, and they freaked a bit. Dragons were born as small winged felines. They molted once per month, cycling through all the colors/metals in a year. Then, they molted once per year for 10 years. Then once per century for a thousand years. At the end of 1001 years, their final molt decided their final color for the rest of their life. Who they met and how their life unfolded had a dramatic impact on how they finalmolted. The group attracted a dragon hatchling and didn't realize what it was until after it had molted a couple of times and started breathing breath attacks. :) THen they freaked, since it had 'attached' to them as Mommy (they had been feeding it).
Also in this game were Red Goblins, Blue Goblins, Yellow Goblins, Green Goblins, Black Goblins, and White Goblins.
All goblins had Regneration, and could only be killed by their opposite element (Ice for Red Goblins, Fire for Blue Goblins, Acid for Yellow Goblins, Electricity for Green Goblins, Positive Energy for Black Goblins, and Negative Energy for White Goblins). The first time they ran into a pack of goblins they waded in and started smashing them to pieces. Then they freaked when the shattered goblin bodies began to snap and crack back into shape and rise up, gibbering at them with big grins.
Needless to say, they were not natives to the world, they had gotten transported to a new world at the start of the campaign.
Now I don't feel bad about placing Rust Monsters inside illusions of Iron Golems. :)I'll have to store that one away for future use if I am feeling mean some day. :)
Ditto. :)
I hate it when DM's create house rules based on real world physics but only regarding non-magic.
falling a certain distance auto kills, or lava auto kills.
or it doesn't matter how high you rolled on your acrobatics a real person cant jump that far without magic.
On the lava one.. yeah, I have to agree. Unless you have some sort of defense against heat, yeah, you fall into lava you ain't swimming out of it. However, to me that's the same as being in a cave in underground, or being caught in a tsunami, or having an anchor tied to your feet and being dumped over an ocean trench. There are certain things in the environment that just autokill you.
A fall from extreme height? It's possible to survive. Getting hit by a flash flood? Yeah, you can survive that. Fall off a cliff? Yeah, possible.
Get hit by a flash flood that knocks you off a cliff and into an active lava flow? Uh... no.
I hate that kind of metagaming, and as a player like being surprised with monster capabilities. I have never had a problem with a dm changing around monsters as they see fit, as long as it has some foundation in the rule set. Want to give it a new ability, or beef up it's hd? Awesome, I'll roll a few knowledge checks and see what my character knows. But if you just arbitrarily start fiddling with numbers without accounting for the rest of the system (IE raising saves or ac without adjusting HD, ability scores, CR etc) I get annoyed.
Monsters with abilities I've never seen or heard of before? Aeseome. Monsters with arbitrarily set numbers that dont account for how monsters are made i the system? That I dont like.
I agree; I don't have any problem with homebrewed monsters, as long as they obey "the laws of D&D nature".