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Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.-James
Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it.
A GM who dispells rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.
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In this case, I'd agree with Cartigan. Characters should behave appropriately for the character. For some, this is going to be an efficient tactician; for some it won't.
I might (and have) make a character make suboptimal choices, because it fits the character, but not because it fits the story. The point at which character choices are altered for story rather than character reasons is the point at which I am no longer playing him.
See this is an attitude I see that makes no sense. Real people are fickle mush heads. They change their minds all the time and do things against what they believe is their own nature. Some people act one way in one setting (work) and another way in a second setting (home) and a third way in another (the club or bar).
A character is a simulation of a person who is in a fantasy world. I suppose you could play him as a rigid character type who never goes against type but that is not what good characters really are. They make exceptions to their own beliefs because it is easier or more fun or even more difficult.
People who do stupid stuff and then respond with "that's what my character would do!" are the worst players. The break what is a social game by essentially saying "this is MY ball and I will play it how I like!" give me a break. Work with the DM sometimes you might have fun.
Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.-James
Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it.
A GM who dispells rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.
Have not heard the stoy?
If it's true then that means that the DM just wanted the characters to fight those shadows and guess what happened, a character died because the precautions he had took in order not to die didn't work just because.Does that seem like DMing to you?
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You know, the first time I ever used Rope Trick as a player, it got dispelled in the middle of the night for an encounter where my character died (halfling sorcerer with 8 strength hit by a greater shadow for max strength damage in the first round). You know what the funny thing is? No one else ever saw any spellcasters.
Hey, man, I told you that it was an invisible halfling wizard who was trying to get the shadow off his tail. You were NOT cool about it, dude. MaaaaaaaAAAAAaaaaan.
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No, it seems like poor DMing to me. Maybe the DM was burned by rope trick before, i know it's not an excuse, but humans do irrational things for silly reasons all the time.
If my players constatnly used rope trick to spend the night in it, i would also do something about it. PLus, there is only a 5% chance of a random encounter during nighttime in civilisation and a 15% chance in the wilderness...no GM is gonna roll that high on percentile dice all the time.
What a player who casts extended rope trick every night does, besides the completely legal and smart way to avoid nighttime encounters, is to rob the GM of the chance to make a fun nigghtime encounter. I always thought that the players and the GM should work together to make a fun game.
Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it.
Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.-James
The whole ability of a GM is defined by how much of a jerkass he is. If your GM complains about you using utility spells for their utilitous purposes, that says A LOT about the GM.
In this case, I'd agree with Cartigan. Characters should behave appropriately for the character. For some, this is going to be an efficient tactician; for some it won't.
I might (and have) make a character make suboptimal choices, because it fits the character, but not because it fits the story. The point at which character choices are altered for story rather than character reasons is the point at which I am no longer playing him.
See this is an attitude I see that makes no sense. Real people are fickle mush heads. They change their minds all the time and do things against what they believe is their own nature. Some people act one way in one setting (work) and another way in a second setting (home) and a third way in another (the club or bar).
A character is a simulation of a person who is in a fantasy world. I suppose you could play him as a rigid character type who never goes against type but that is not what good characters really are. They make exceptions to their own beliefs because it is easier or more fun or even more difficult.
People who do stupid stuff and then respond with "that's what my character would do!" are the worst players. The break what is a social game by essentially saying "this is MY ball and I will play it how I like!" give me a break. Work with the DM sometimes you might have fun.
Please explain to me, in detail, why a character being played as the character would act in the best interest of the real-world DM that said character does not know either exists or is conducting the world as table-top game for the player of said character.
Role-players need to get their ducks in a row. Either you are role-playing your character how he would act or you aren't and you are one of those damn dirty tabletop gamers. Your argument hinges on a player playing a character that fits neither in the story nor in the group. That is YOUR fault, your PARTY'S fault, and the DM'S FAULT for letting you play a Drow in a party of Paladins because it is "thematic" and "full of role-playing potential." And then you play it to the hilt. If your character played as it would act doesn't fit into the group, then it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.
I don't CARE what any of you say, a DM is, and SHOULD RECOGNIZE, that their job is to conduct a game for the people playing PCs regardless of their actions the DM does or doesn't like. If the DM does not find that fun, he should not be a DM. As a DM, your job IS to get "your characters" killed and your challenges overcome. You are put in the specific position of losing, in so far as you can win or lose D&D. It's not the players' job to humor you by taking actions you want them to take out of character. You either construct a railroad where no deviation is possible or you follow the players along on their ATVs.
No, it seems like poor DMing to me. Maybe the DM was burned by rope trick before, i know it's not an excuse, but humans do irrational things for silly reasons all the time.
If my players constatnly used rope trick to spend the night in it, i would also do something about it. PLus, there is only a 5% chance of a random encounter during nighttime in civilisation and a 15% chance in the wilderness...no GM is gonna roll that high on percentile dice all the time.
What a player who casts extended rope trick every night does, besides the completely legal and smart way to avoid nighttime encounters, is to rob the GM of the chance to make a fun nigghtime encounter. I always thought that the players and the GM should work together to make a fun game.
If the players are using Rope Trick, maybe they don't find "fun nighttime encounters" that interrupt their sleep fun in the bloody slightest. Fun for the DM is not tantamount to "fun for everyone."
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Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it.
Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.-James
The whole ability of a GM is defined by how much of a jerkass he is. If your GM complains about you using utility spells for their utilitous purposes, that says A LOT about the GM.
So all GMs are jerkasses to an extent, no exceptions? Nice.
I agree with the complaining part...if he doesn't like what the player does with a utility spell, well, he got means to fix that or just let it be if it doesn't mess with the game too much. But what if there is an important story elemetn that should happen at night, but it cannot because the players are tucked in a small dimension?
So all GMs are jerkasses to an extent, no exceptions? Nice.Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it.
Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.-James
The whole ability of a GM is defined by how much of a jerkass he is. If your GM complains about you using utility spells for their utilitous purposes, that says A LOT about the GM.
It can range from 0% to 100%.
"Omg, people are using Rope Trick to sleep soundly at night! How do I fix this so I can have random encounters to interrupt their sleep?!"High percent jerkass.
But what if there is an important story elemetn that should happen at night, but it cannot because the players are tucked in a small dimension?
Then I suggest he retool it. Why should the DM screw with the rules or the players instead of slightly tweaking his own story?
Allowing players to use 'safe tricks' is fine. If it helps the story by occasionally making the trick unsafe (or even seem unsafe) helps keep the tension up, even if it's not going to have a long term effect. "Ok, we've an 8 hour rope trick. Rogue take first watch, Fighter second, Cleric third. Wizard will sleep 8 hours."Sure it means that characters (except the wizard) only get 6 hours of sleep, it has no game mechanical effect and if they never have their 'nest' disturbed again, it enforces that they're adventurers and shouldn't take anything for granted.
Well said -- when I was making a suggestion on how to "deal with" Rope Trick, it wasn't so that there could now be random encounters nightly - it was to allow that something might happen on occasion -- just to show that not everything is 100% safe -- especially when the encounter is a little less of the "random" variety.
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The whole ability of a GM is defined by how much of a jerkass he is. If your GM complains about you using utility spells for their utilitous purposes, that says A LOT about the GM.
So all GMs are jerkasses to an extent, no exceptions? Nice.
Cartigan didn't say that at all.
Your response seems to assume that all GM's complain about players using utility spells for their intended utility, at least to an extent. This is not the case. To give you an example, I have never complained about a rope trick.
I may sometimes complain about Combat abilities being a little too strong. Misfortune, for example. Geez Louise. But utility spells? Those are spells that are making my life as a GM easier, not harder.
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Please explain to me, in detail, why a character being played as the character would act in the best interest of the real-world DM that said character does not know either exists or is conducting the world as table-top game for the player of said character.
Role-players need to get their ducks in a row. Either you are role-playing your character how he would act or you aren't and you are one of those damn dirty tabletop gamers. Your argument hinges on a player playing a character that fits neither in the story nor in the group. That is YOUR fault, your PARTY'S fault, and the DM'S FAULT for letting you play a Drow in a party of Paladins because it is "thematic" and "full of role-playing potential." And then you play it to the hilt. If your character played as it would act doesn't fit into the group, then it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.I don't CARE what any of you say, a DM is, and SHOULD RECOGNIZE, that their job is to conduct a game for the people playing PCs regardless of their actions the DM does or doesn't like. If the DM does not find that fun, he should not be a DM. As a DM, your job IS to get your "characters" killed and your challenges overcome. You are put in the specific position of losing, in so far as you can win or lose D&D. It's not the players' job to humor you by taking actions you want them to take out of character. You either construct a railroad where no deviation is possible or you follow the players along on their ATVs.
It really is not that binary to me. It is a social game where if everyone works together there is a lot of fun to be had. Players and DMs who forget that and try to force their own view on the whole game can make the game hell. Simply look at all the problem DM/player threads for evidence.
I agree on your theory of DMs. It is exactly my theory. The DM is always "losing" the game. By the same token DMs have a finite time to prepare and make mistakes. Sometimes they make an assumption that turns out wrong. Now in some of my games that has lead to hilarious results. But if the Wizard teleports the party around everything I have prepared for that game then a problem results. I am not prepared to play for the point the characters have reached. Now I could try to wing it but that will not be very effective. I could say, "hey you reached the end of what I have prepared for today and great game. Here is 10,000 xp for all the monsters you avoided."
My group worked with me. They used teleport tactically and I hand waved long distance travel so they were not burning spells on it. The would march into the material I had prepared and i would run them a good game. It was fun. It is less fun to have hours of work invalidated in 5 seconds.
I prepare so I can lose to the players. I just want them to show up and beat the things I prepared.
edit: I just want to add that I am not saying I want to railroad my characters. But we played for 8 hours at a time and prepping for that amount of playing required a lot of work on my part. I think that they have some duty to humor me and not just skip the whole thing. Skip parts? Sure, I expect that. But the whole game's worth of adventure. No.
True, i agree. I guess i'm out of arguments on this one. You make sense.
Then I suggest he retool it. Why should the DM screw with the rules or the players instead of slightly tweaking his own story?
I think you'll need to raise the CR on those daylight immune vampires then. Of course, that's screwing with the rules too, allowing vampires to attack during the daytime. What the heck though...
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Just want to point out that winging it as a GM (in response to impulsive player actions) is not all that tough with the proper tools, and need not be less satisfying for them or you.
If you employ just a bit of tech at your table (Kyle's Combat Manager getting the highest possible recommendation here, and possibly Herolab), you are always a few clicks and a small bit of imagination away from a memorable encounter.
Ad-libbing is not a skill everyone is going to thrive at, but it's become scads easier than it used to be.
If they can teleport past it, then they never had to go into it anyway. There was nothing prepared that compelled them to slog through the dungeon - the dungeon was just a challenge to overcome to get somewhere else. Teleport overcomes that challenge and they get the EXP for it, that's how the game is defined. If you want your players to slog through a dungeon, you put invisible rails on it. The players want something in the dungeon that the have to fight through the dungeon to get through and if important enough, the item wouldn't be scryable or the inner dungeon transportable into. Moreover, if your players are capable of just teleporting to the end result, why, exactly, are you wasting your time preparing intermediary difficulties? DMs should know more about what their players are capable of so they can make the best educated guesses about what and how to prepare. If you know your players are probably going to skip your dungeon, don't even bother making one. The dungeon has ceased to exist. Only make those challenges that your players have to go through.
You want players to act in a predesignated way, that you designate, instead of how they would act or should act. You are wasting your time to make content that you want them to go through, regardless of what they want or can do. And then you are pretending you are running a sandbox game so aren't putting any sort of rails on it then complaining when they make a sandcastle on the wrong side of the box.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Hey you got an early warning about a DM, if you took it to heart then you found another one and were better off for it.
Yes, because the whole ability to GM is defined by hating a single spell and using game mechanics to sometimes disrupt it. A GM who dispels rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.
You're a little harsh here, Hama, but yes, I pretty much agree with you here.
I think you'll need to raise the CR on those daylight immune vampires then. Of course, that's screwing with the rules too, allowing vampires to attack during the daytime. What the heck though...True, i agree. I guess i'm out of arguments on this one. You make sense.
Then I suggest he retool it. Why should the DM screw with the rules or the players instead of slightly tweaking his own story?
The vampires leave a body drained of blood where the PCs are bound to find it. The PCs conclude that there are vampires about killing people and thus decide on their own that they must be up at night looking for vampires. Look, I just fixed your adventure!
Oh wait, you wanted the vampires to catch the PCs unawares to have an epic middle of the night surprise combat. Sorry, that's what Rope Trick is supposed to prevent.
A GM who dispels rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.
LOL. (I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. . .)
So you wouldn't play with a GM because certain NPCs in the game are smart?
"I only play with GMs who make dumb NPCs."
*shrug*
I think it's as stupid to argue that rope trick makes players immunze to attack as that it is to argue that it's overpoweredz. Any spell should be good at what it was designed for 80% to 90% of the time.
For those that are arguing Rope Trick is broken, it's not. It's a useful spell with built in limitations, no hiding the rope, rope visible, limited space, can't pull up mounts, etc.
For those that are arguing Rope Trick should be the ultimate defense to night time ambushes, that's as stupid and bogus as arguing it's over powered. It has limitations built into it, such as the rope being visible, not being hideable, easily dispelled, etc. The whole system is built on the idea of checks and balances.
What happened to common sense? Why is it that suddenly GMs that allow the rope trick to work 85% or 90% of the time are dicks suddenly for that other 15% of the time? When did it become GM evil if he doesn't let the players have everything their way from a plot standpoint? When did it become that GMs are dicks if they don't redo their entire plot to accommodate one spell?
As has been stated, a lot of this is also based on what's going on in the story. If you are in a wilderness, rope trick should be hard to beat, if you're smart about where you leave the rope hanging. If you're in a desert, it's harder to hide. If you're in grassland too. If the BBEG is aware you're in his lands, and he's actively searching for you, then it becomes much less effective. Especially if he has scry or magic sensing henchmen running around. And before someone says 'Evil, no scry on people in RT', please remember that you have to be in the real world to cast RT, which means you can be scryed casting it and crawling up the rope to disappear.
Everyone get off their freaking high horse 'Evil GM' and 'Evil Player' horses and try looking at the balanced point of view. And yes, I know that at least one poster in this thread couldn't get down off his own opinionation if you used a forklift, but for everyone else, please think about a balanced approach?
Sorry mdt, common sense only applies to the following things:
Random magic item placement should always be tempered with good common sense by the GM.
Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition.
Practicality: Halflings are grounded in hard work and common sense. Halflings with this racial trait gain a +2 bonus on any one Craft or Profession skill, as well as on Sense Motive checks and saves against illusions. This racial trait replaces the fearless and sure-footed racial traits.
So only halflings, random item placement, and the Wisdom attribute use common sense as a rules source.
(Maybe what that's really saying is most of the posters on this thread have a low Wisdom score and *definitely* aren't halflings.)
*shrug*
I think it's as stupid to argue that rope trick makes players immunze to attack as that it is to argue that it's overpoweredz. Any spell should be good at what it was designed for 80% to 90% of the time.
For those that are arguing Rope Trick is broken, it's not. It's a useful spell with built in limitations, no hiding the rope, rope visible, limited space, can't pull up mounts, etc.
For those that are arguing Rope Trick should be the ultimate defense to night time ambushes, that's as stupid and bogus as arguing it's over powered. It has limitations built into it, such as the rope being visible, not being hideable, easily dispelled, etc. The whole system is built on the idea of checks and balances.
What happened to common sense? Why is it that suddenly GMs that allow the rope trick to work 85% or 90% of the time are dicks suddenly for that other 15% of the time? When did it become GM evil if he doesn't let the players have everything their way from a plot standpoint? When did it become that GMs are dicks if they don't redo their entire plot to accommodate one spell?
As has been stated, a lot of this is also based on what's going on in the story. If you are in a wilderness, rope trick should be hard to beat, if you're smart about where you leave the rope hanging. If you're in a desert, it's harder to hide. If you're in grassland too. If the BBEG is aware you're in his lands, and he's actively searching for you, then it becomes much less effective. Especially if he has scry or magic sensing henchmen running around. And before someone says 'Evil, no scry on people in RT', please remember that you have to be in the real world to cast RT, which means you can be scryed casting it and crawling up the rope to disappear.
Everyone get off their freaking high horse 'Evil GM' and 'Evil Player' horses and try looking at the balanced point of view. And yes, I know that at least one poster in this thread couldn't get down off his own opinionation if you used a forklift, but for...
Making the rope unable to be pulled into the space and unable to hide at all was already an action taken for "Omg rope trick is broken, we need more random night encounters!"
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If they can teleport past it, then they never had to go into it anyway. There was nothing prepared that compelled them to slog through the dungeon - the dungeon was just a challenge to overcome to get somewhere else. Teleport overcomes that challenge and they get the EXP for it, that's how the game is defined. If you want your players to slog through a dungeon, you put invisible rails on it. The players want something in the dungeon that the have to fight through the dungeon to get through and if important enough, the item wouldn't be scryable or the inner dungeon transportable into. Moreover, if your players are capable of just teleporting to the end result, why, exactly, are you wasting your time preparing intermediary difficulties? DMs should know more about what their players are capable of so they can make the best educated guesses about what and how to prepare. If you know your players are probably going to skip your dungeon, don't even bother making one. The dungeon has ceased to exist. Only make those challenges that your players have to go through.
You want players to act in a predesignated way, that you designate, instead of how they would act or should act. You are wasting your time to make content that you want them to go through, regardless of what they want or can do. And then you are pretending you are running a sandbox game so aren't putting any sort of rails on it then complaining when they make a sandcastle on the wrong side of the box.
There are lots of reasons for the characters to need to slog through a dungeon even if they can teleport. To be honest this has never happened to be me. I always give the characters (and players) reason to enter the dungeon (usually find the macguffin). But lets go with something besides spells because none of these spells every really caused trouble for me.
You are basically saying that the players of this game have no responsibility to help the game run smoothly. And I can't accept that premise. If my games are fun with invisible rails then I think that should be satisfactory to everyone in the group.
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A GM who dispels rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.LOL. (I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. . .)
So you wouldn't play with a GM because certain NPCs in the game are smart?
"I only play with GMs who make dumb NPCs."
Unfortunately, Internet cannot convey sarsacm. If sarcasm was a liquid, anybody reading my post would get a deluge of sarcasm flowing from their monitior. The deluge would be so strong, that the stream of sarcasm would pin them to the opposite wall and rip the monintor out of it's place and punch through the wall/window it's back is turned to.
So only halflings, random item placement, and the Wisdom attribute use common sense as a rules source.(Maybe what that's really saying is most of the posters on this thread have a low Wisdom score and *definitely* aren't halflings.)
Wonder if I can talk James Jacobs into errating Rule 0 to include the following line.
"With all rules in this and all other books produced by Paizo and their partners, please realize that Common Sense should be used with each and every rule."
As a GM, I pretty much agree with Cartigan 100%. I've been GMing almost exclusively since I started playing the game, and I've tried to soak up every piece of good advice I could over the years, and I've tried different things that worked and didn't. I would hand over heart say that this is a GM problem, not a spell problem, not a player problem. Get better or get out of the GM-chair.
In my collective experience as a GM, don't fear your players' power. Understand it. Let them have their fun, because it's not going to stop anything that you can do that actually matters.
You want spells throwing monkey wrenches? Dude my players had a genie entourage by level 13 or so (whichever level you can call efreeti). Aladdin's deal time. 2 for 1 wishes, no strings. Bam, infinite wishes. Worse yet, it was 3.5 D&D at the time, and they could just produce money out of thin air. I rolled with it. I told them they could use the money and resources as they wanted, but they'd need to take downtime to craft their own items (at this point there wasn't that many artisans pumping out good items anyway), and they went back to playing. After building a school and a base, and getting their +5 inherent mods, they kind of forgot about the genies for the most part.
The game went on through 25th level as well, before I had to call it due to scheduling differences. It had some of the best character motivations I've seen in a tabletop session, and we all had a lot of fun telling a collective story. The game itself began at 1st level, and went on for several months, and we met as much as many as every other day or so during the summer months.
Also, for the record, +5 to every ability score isn't that bad. *chuckles*
Unfortunately, Internet cannot convey sarsacm. If sarcasm was a liquid, anybody reading my post would get a deluge of sarcasm flowing from their monitior. The deluge would be so strong, that the stream of sarcasm would pin them to the opposite wall and rip the monintor out of it's place and punch through the wall/window it's back is turned to.
Oh.
So only halflings, random item placement, and the Wisdom attribute use common sense as a rules source.(Maybe what that's really saying is most of the posters on this thread have a low Wisdom score and *definitely* aren't halflings.)
I wonder if I can talk James Jacobs into altering the Rule 0 section to include 'Use Common Sense at all times with all rules in this and any other Pathfinder rules book'.
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Unfortunately, Internet cannot convey sarsacm. If sarcasm was a liquid, anybody reading my post would get a deluge of sarcasm flowing from their monitior. The deluge would be so strong, that the stream of sarcasm would pin them to the opposite wall and rip the monintor out of it's place and punch through the wall/window it's back is turned to.A GM who dispels rope trick and proceeds to attack the characters with bandits who have a wizard is a bad GM. He should never be played with.LOL. (I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. . .)
So you wouldn't play with a GM because certain NPCs in the game are smart?
"I only play with GMs who make dumb NPCs."
Something must be wrong with my sarcasm synthesizer I only got a tiny trickle.
If they can teleport past it, then they never had to go into it anyway. There was nothing prepared that compelled them to slog through the dungeon - the dungeon was just a challenge to overcome to get somewhere else. Teleport overcomes that challenge and they get the EXP for it, that's how the game is defined. If you want your players to slog through a dungeon, you put invisible rails on it. The players want something in the dungeon that the have to fight through the dungeon to get through and if important enough, the item wouldn't be scryable or the inner dungeon transportable into. Moreover, if your players are capable of just teleporting to the end result, why, exactly, are you wasting your time preparing intermediary difficulties? DMs should know more about what their players are capable of so they can make the best educated guesses about what and how to prepare. If you know your players are probably going to skip your dungeon, don't even bother making one. The dungeon has ceased to exist. Only make those challenges that your players have to go through.
You want players to act in a predesignated way, that you designate, instead of how they would act or should act. You are wasting your time to make content that you want them to go through, regardless of what they want or can do. And then you are pretending you are running a sandbox game so aren't putting any sort of rails on it then complaining when they make a sandcastle on the wrong side of the box.
There are lots of reasons for the characters to need to slog through a dungeon even if they can teleport. To be honest this has never happened to be me. I always give the characters (and players) reason to enter the dungeon (usually find the macguffin). But lets go with something besides spells because none of these spells every really caused trouble for me.
You are basically saying that the players of this game have no responsibility to help the game run smoothly.
Let's just say yes. I see no reason why the players should forego using utilitous spells to bypass challenges which they have no reason to have to overcome directly. If the DM isn't taking into account that they can just bypass an encounter, he isn't doing due diligence. A pointless encounter never should have time wasted on making it.
I wonder if I can talk James Jacobs into altering the Rule 0 section to include 'Use Common Sense at all times with all rules in this and any other Pathfinder rules book'.
So only halflings, random item placement, and the Wisdom attribute use common sense as a rules source.(Maybe what that's really saying is most of the posters on this thread have a low Wisdom score and *definitely* aren't halflings.)
That would be beyond glorious. . . .
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Let's just say yes. I see no reason why the players should forego using utilitous spells to bypass challenges which they have no reason to have to overcome directly. If the DM isn't taking into account that they can just bypass an encounter, he isn't doing due diligence. A pointless encounter never should have time wasted on making it.
I actually agree with this. A GM should be prepared for his characters. He should know what they are capable of. The worst thing a GM can do is to be surprised by something a player can do. I know my player's characters. most feats and most special abilites. And allso their choice of spells. They do not surprise me. Except, of course, with some unorthodox usage of a skill/feat/special ability, that would never occur to me.
I actually agree with this. A GM should be prepared for his characters. He should know what they are capable of. The worst thing a GM can do is to be surprised by something a player can do. I know my player's characters. most feats and most special abilites. And allso their choice of spells. They do not surprise me. Except, of course, with some unorthodox usage of a skill/feat/special ability, that would never occur to me.
A GM should absolutely be prepared, and should know his players characters, and his players. This is not always possible (like right now, I have 5 new players in a game and am still learning about them).
The GM needs to decide what kind of game they want to run. For example, I detest Scry & Fry. So in my world, Teleportation magic is nearly impossible without expensive bulky material setup in advance. Think teleportational nodes, which limits those spells. This makes travel more common. Ship, roads, etc.
The GM needs to decide if the planes are used a lot, or are hard to get to permanently (summoning works for only short periods, gating requires expensive bulky equipment, etc). Once they know what they want in the game, let the players know, and be consistent.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I agree 90% with Cartigan when the game is being played: play your character as faithfully to the in-character decisions you think he would choose to make.
The 10% comes in when the players have to bend or back-justify some reasoning. Sometimes its because of the limitations of the story. "Would we seriously trust this ranger, even though we have evidence that a well-organized cadre of doppelgangers know we're onto them? Of course not! It doesn't matter if he's a new PC; my character certainly doesn't know that!"
But sometimes there's a problem with playing in character. "My rogue grew up in an orphanage and was taunted for years. He has a hatred of orphans, which I've never told you guys about. But he really, really, really hates them very, very, very much. There's no way he would ever try to rescue them."
The problem with that is in the character-design stage, not the play stage. Don't design characters who hate orphans but keep it secret from everybody, including the GM. Don't design characters who are likely to betray their friends to the Inquisition. Don't design disturbed loners who hate being members of teams.
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That would be beyond glorious. . . .I wonder if I can talk James Jacobs into altering the Rule 0 section to include 'Use Common Sense at all times with all rules in this and any other Pathfinder rules book'.
So only halflings, random item placement, and the Wisdom attribute use common sense as a rules source.(Maybe what that's really saying is most of the posters on this thread have a low Wisdom score and *definitely* aren't halflings.)
And yet nothing would change.
A GM should absolutely be prepared, and should know his players characters, and his players. This is not always possible (like right now, I have 5 new players in a game and am still learning about them).
I actually agree with this. A GM should be prepared for his characters. He should know what they are capable of. The worst thing a GM can do is to be surprised by something a player can do. I know my player's characters. most feats and most special abilites. And allso their choice of spells. They do not surprise me. Except, of course, with some unorthodox usage of a skill/feat/special ability, that would never occur to me.
You should be able to be prepared for what actions the characters could take given the data on their sheets.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Count me in the camp of following two rules on RT (and similar things):
1. Don't screw the player ALL the time for using the resources they have to avoid encounters.
but also
2. It's perfectly fair to use in-game countermeasures for common PC bypass tricks SOME of the time.
Whether #2 is forbiddance or similar stuff to block teleporting, discovery and ambush of PCs in a rope trick (whether dispelling it, climbing inside and attacking, or lying in wait for PCs to come out), monsters with special senses vs. habitually invisible characteers, high winds against flying PCs, or whatever doesn't matter. What matters is that PCs learn two things:
A. They DO get to play with their toys and have them work most of the time.
B. No toy is always going to work as well as they would like it to 100% of the time.
You don't need to arbitrarily hand-wave or fiat countermeasures; there are plenty of things in the game world already to counter things.
The aforementioned halfling sorcerer getting killed in 1 round by a greater shadow? Them's the breaks of playing a low-STR character. You chose to have a low stat there to enable higher stats elsewhere, which worked great most of the time... but sucks the first time something targets your low stat. That's a PC getting to play with his toy (better stats elsewhere) and it working most of the time, until it doesn't. :)
As for the dispel of the RT in that encounter, though, *THAT* part sounds like shenanigans, since there was apparently no caster to cast the dispel. The shadow could've just flown right into the RT, though, if it wasn't full (though even so it could in theory have attacked into it even without entering it.
I wonder, should a rope trick actually be 3-dimensional rather than flat. That would actually make the 8-creature limit make sense. The rope is the vertex at the center of four adjacent squares--CUBES actually, but it enters the RT at a point, not a line.
Essentially, you have 8 cubes that touch that entry point, four cubes radiating out and extending below, four more radiating out and above. It's an extradimensional space, so maybe up and down are irrelevant; every creature enters a space that abuts at one corner on the RT entry point. The size of the cube doesn't matter.
Just thinking...
I think it might be acceptable to try and dispell the rope trick if you had someone who was a fake admirer talking to the Pcs that was actually a spy for the bbeg and that extracted they use rope trick or something similar to hide in ropes. And BBeg suffered a defeat and is still kicking. If you give away your magical secrets then your players might have a problem. Also a spy encounter should keep the pcs on the toes and then they could encounter the spy in a the bbeg hideout.
If someone wants revenge from the pcs and they have figured there tricks out might be a time when it is okay if the pcs say oh we hid in the rope trick to a spy.
Otherwise it does not make sense.
I wonder, should a rope trick actually be 3-dimensional rather than flat. That would actually make the 8-creature limit make sense. The rope is the vertex at the center of four adjacent squares--CUBES actually, but it enters the RT at a point, not a line.
I've always imagined it like an old firehouse pole. A hole in the floor with the rope extending up to 6 feet above the hole, and one 'square' in each direction off that. So you climb all the way up, and then step off onto the floor of the space. In the morning, you step off and grab the rope and ease on down.
The shadow could've just flown right into the RT, though, if it wasn't full (though even so it could in theory have attacked into it even without entering it.
Of course, why would it?
I think it might be acceptable to try and dispell the rope trick if you had someone who was a fake admirer talking to the Pcs that was actually a spy for the bbeg and that extracted they use rope trick or something similar to hide in ropes. And BBeg suffered a defeat and is still kicking. If you give away your magical secrets then your players might have a problem. Also a spy encounter should keep the pcs on the toes and then they could encounter the spy in a the bbeg hideout.
If someone wants revenge from the pcs and they have figured there tricks out might be a time when it is okay if the pcs say oh we hid in the rope trick to a spy.
Otherwise it does not make sense.
Scent equipped Minion : Boss? I found the trail, but it was weird. It just petered out, but then it picked right back up again at the same place. It was like they was there, disappeared, and then reappeared this morning and started off that way.
BBEG : Hmmm, so they didn't sleep here?
SEM : Nope, boss. I'd know that, it'd reek of them.
BBEG : I see. <uses item to talk to minions> Everyone, during the night, keep an eye out for a rope hanging out of mid air, or a small hut or house that wasn't there during the day time. Our quarry uses spells to hide at night.
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I'm not going to complane about the players avoiding combat. It's when they learn spell combos to kill off encounters with two spells it starts geting old.
Lets see some realy bad things players can do to your encounters.
Web then fireball = Starts level 5 and works till you get cloudkill.
Web then cloudkill = starts level 8 and works wonder up to level 12 or so.
black tentacles then firewall. Starts level 8 and works untill level 14 or so.
Cloudkill then force cage = starts level 14 and works for any thing not immune to posion.
There are alot of two spell combinations that can destory encounters. And your complaning about rope trick?
And yet nothing would change.
At least then the concept of following a rule as written without any common sense applied would technically be violation of the rules as written.
Because a rope hanging down from nothing generally means a sleeping meal.
It can mean one with a DC 22 knowledge arcana check (:
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And yet nothing would change.At least then the concept of following a rule as written without any common sense applied would technically be violation of the rules as written.
One, common sense isn't common.
Two, if they aren't going to be reasonable about the rules, adding a rule about being reasonable isn't going to change that.
And yet nothing would change.At least then the concept of following a rule as written without any common sense applied would technically be violation of the rules as written.One, common sense isn't common.
Two, if they aren't going to be reasonable about the rules, adding a rule about being reasonable isn't going to change that.
Yes but at least when the pontificate on the forums, blowing hot air about how their way is 'The One True Way' and everyone else is an idiot, you could point to the passage and say "You are violating RAW!" :)
Because a rope hanging down from nothing generally means a sleeping meal.The shadow could've just flown right into the RT, though, if it wasn't full (though even so it could in theory have attacked into it even without entering it.Of course, why would it?
How so? The rope doesn't go anywhere, just up in the air.
How so? The rope doesn't go anywhere, just up in the air.
He's being sarcastic. . . I think. . .
Dang, we need a sarcasm character. How about (!) for sarcastic. What about (!!!) for very sarcastic. . . ?