Me and my friend are sort of planing on making 2 characters made to support the other. Their tactic is to delay to one after the other.
The first is a 2-Weapon fighting Knife Master Rouge that Duel Wields Kukris and uses the 18-20 crit range and a feat from "Faiths of Purity" called Butterfly Sting to pass the crits on to the next character to hit the enemy.
The second (mine) is a 2-Handed Fighter wielding a Scythe and using power attack, high strength and eventually the burst magic properties to take advantage of the X4 damage when he hits after his friends crit threats.
I want to know, is this clever or cruel?
I call it cheese, simply because it's cooperation-by-mechanics-and-only-mechanics.
If it were sufficiently fluffy, and not based entirely on twinking specific feats or abilities, I'd be cool with it.
Heck, I just finished playing in a campaign where I and my friend played brothers. We came up with all kinds of combos by conspiring in-character, during downtime.
I see no problems with it as long as your characters have been traveling together for awhile. so you'll have to have your back stories involve eachother, if not then yeah its abit cheap and nonsensical that a rogue and fighter just happen to work super well together
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I think creative team play should always be encouraged and I'd venture that Paizo agrees, given their inclusion of the Teamwork Feats in the APG which essentially require two players to build their Feats in sync.
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I personally applaud you. The game expects you to work as a group. Working efficiently as a team isn't anymore cheap than that.
I honestly don't see a problem with it. It might help if you have some fluff to go with the mechanics but not really.
I played a game where my friend was my brother and we had all sorts of combo moves. Heck every time I put on a pointy hat and play a wizard I discuss ways in which my party member can help maximize a spells effectiveness.
If it was cheese or cheap then Paizo wouldn't have made all those team work feats.
I call it cheese, simply because it's cooperation-by-mechanics-and-only-mechanics.
If it were sufficiently fluffy, and not based entirely on twinking specific feats or abilities, I'd be cool with it.
Heck, I just finished playing in a campaign where I and my friend played brothers. We came up with all kinds of combos by conspiring in-character, during downtime.
I only put the mechanics for the sake of time
we don't start this campaign for a month (we may end up scrapping the idea before then) and we haven't ironed out the back story or personalities yetwe're thinking of picking up the 2 flanking teamwork feats as early as possible
Nope. No problem here. You're building specifically to take advantage of teamwork effects that exist in the game and can't be built for any other way.
Just don't be surprised if the DM occasionally has the enemy use tactics to separate you two.
And we'd EXPECT that, it's part of the game
part of the fun would be trying to set this up in those adverse situations, taking stupid risks and hoping it all works outbut neither of these characters are weak apart
the rouge is still a decently built rouge and the fighter is still a DPR tank, but together they are a real force to be reckoned with
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This is LIGHT YEARS better than a player expecting his character to be entirely self-sufficient. As a DM I am jealous that I do not have such coordination between my players.
Just be wary. Get a couple melee characters with the right teamwork feats and they can never be allowed to melee any opponent at the same time. Ever. The damned tarrasque would go down wondering what happened if those guys showed up undergeared at level 17.
Don't get me wrong, it's awesome, it's just also super-scary when things go right.
(Note to self: Make a pair like this as a BBEG encounter sometime.)
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This is LIGHT YEARS better than a player expecting his character to be entirely self-sufficient. As a DM I am jealous that I do not have such coordination between my players.Really? I prefer my players to have self-sufficient characters. I don't want some hyper-specialists that can't tie their own shoes, but characters that can actually take care of themselves.
I think you have your definitions confused.
TOZ doesn't like it when characters try to do everything by themselves. I personally hate it myself.
Characters working together is awesome and exactly what you want. Let them have their fun and decimate an opponent or three.
That being said the combo isn't overpowering anything. The rogue has spent two feats on it, still has to crit - then the scyther needs to hit within one round.
As a DM it's pretty easy to counter as well. Just grapple the scythe wielder and combo over.
(Note to self: Make a pair like this as a BBEG encounter sometime.)
I was just thinking the same thing.
If I remember right, some of the new feats in the last few books are cooperative, or team feats. So the rules would seem to indicate that something like this is fair and legal.
But the advice I would give is that you don't use this to be non-cooperative with the other players, and that you do come up with some kind of fluff for this. And remember to roleplay it like these guys are a team.
Director of Game Development
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I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while, but I haven’t nabbed the other player’s interest in my group well enough. Two of my character ideas I’ve sidelined so far has been a pair/siblings/whatever of rogues that can really work together (on the silly end think Wily Cat and Wily Kit, but the idea occurred to me through GMing because two of the 15+ year regulars in our group are scoundrel brothers and I’ve always wanted them to play that role). My other hopeful situation is less RAW mechanic-based, but I’ve always wanted to play a situation where a fighter type was a “familiar” for a spell caster. I don’t care which role I play, but I think it’d be fun.
In short and to the OP, I think making supporting characters is a great way to approach the game as long as it works out for your table. I’d be stoked to see that at my table.
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Nope. No problem here. You're building specifically to take advantage of teamwork effects that exist in the game and can't be built for any other way.
Just don't be surprised if the DM occasionally has the enemy use tactics to separate you two.
As a DM I would definitely want to reward these players somehow for playing well together. I love it when I see my players play as a team instead of as individuals that happen to be fighting for the same goal.
Also, I would be careful as a DM myself when I had the npcs respond to their teamwork tactics. If the npcs ever tried to separate those two it would either be because they knew about their abilities before hand through research into the party, or they noticed how devastating those two were together and tried to compensate mid fight. I avoid metagaming with the npc's. I try to have the npc's only act on the knowledge they would have.
In the past I've had a DM that designed almost every single fight to neutralize the strengths of my character. In some fights all my character could do is just pass his turn and watch the other players attack the enemies I couldn't even touch. He even designed a custom monster that happened to be immune to all of my character's better abilities. After the custom monster, I tired of his campaign and decided I needed to have my Saturday nights free. We are still friends but don't game together.
Me and my friend are sort of planing on making 2 characters made to support the other. Their tactic is to delay to one after the other.
The first is a 2-Weapon fighting Knife Master Rouge that Duel Wields Kukris and uses the 18-20 crit range and a feat from "Faiths of Purity" called Butterfly Sting to pass the crits on to the next character to hit the enemy.
The second (mine) is a 2-Handed Fighter wielding a Scythe and using power attack, high strength and eventually the burst magic properties to take advantage of the X4 damage when he hits after his friends crit threats.
I want to know, is this clever or cruel?
If the mechanics are built around a story then it is cool, but if it is the other way around then it is cheese IMHO. In the end though the point is to have fun. I have two players in my game taking teamwork feats together. It started after the campaign started, and while I don't care for teamwork feats myself I think the idea is cool.
while building chars to work together is great, your build borders on munchkinism.
Anyhow, build a nice backgroundstory, like you two survived a slave-arena because you worked together in the past and you're good to go.
(btw. I consider most people that pick a single thing out of a minor book, heavy optimizers, so don't worry, I'm sure your GM feels different)
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Why not? Your DM gets to throw anything he/she wants at you. I'd be thrilled if my players threw a curve ball back at me. The DM is just as much a player as anyone else sitting at the table. Play smart and you'll be rewarded. If your DM doesn't appreciate this, then they probably don't understand that to be a great DM you have to first be a great player.
Presumably, that's what the feat is intended to do (pass a critical on to another PC who can benefit from it more).
Having said that, I think it's kind of a dumb feat. But that's just my personal taste.
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I think it's cool. I also think it would make a great pair of Bad Guys to face in a campaign.
I am all for working together and building a char to work well wit another. I don't think it's any different than a FIghter taking the Feat line for Dazzling Display and a Rogue taking the line up to Shatter Defenses so they can team up to ensure the Rogue is almost always Sneak Attacking.
In a campaign where I play a TWF Pally using sword and shield bash, our Wizard is a big fan of pit spells (true these become limited use when everyone flies) meanwhile I have taken the feats down to the free bullrush with shield attack, so enemy rush forward, pit summoned to seperate, I bull rush the front guys back into pit. Simple but effective.
I would also at some point love to sit down with another player and thrash out chars designed to play together from the get go, backstory and all.
Get a cleric with the Bit Of Luck domain power stood behind them. :)
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I see a recurring theme of people on these boards calling any intelligent use of strategy as 'cheese' or 'cheap'. This really rubs me as I see no problem with actively looking to shore up your weaknesses, work together as a team, or having the means to helping someone else out with their primary abilities.
Awesome idea. Reading this thread reminded me of the scene from 300, where Stelios and Astinos fought back to back and just cleaned house on the Persians.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a visual aid: Now this is teamwork
It's a matter of course for my group's players to talk to each other during character build and make sure we can work together well, with complimentary builds. Now, this is a "within reason" thing--I personally hate the, "well, we don't have a healer so you have to be the cleric" kind of thing, but it's more like, "Well, it looks like we don't have a lot of ranged support, so I'll make sure my character has a decent Dexterity.
Now, I would hope that two characters very specifically designed to be flanking buddies would come up with a good background to explain their mutual training with each other, but the idea is great.
Only thing is--don't get upset when sometimes the GM sets up a situation where flanking isn't going to help you or flanking is going to be difficult (fighting an ooze or caster uses magic walls to help keep people from being able to flank). Now he shouldn't do that all the time, but a clever GM is going to shake stuff up a bit. When your tactics work well, feel proud, but also be sure you're prepared to adapt--and work with your OTHER party members to compliment their abilities when that's the best thing you could do in a given combat.
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I think TOZ is just sad because his/her players don't show the same degree of "let's solve this problem together" cooperation. In fact, I'm picturing TOZ facepalming while two of his players are strangling each other and the third one says, "Since they're not paying attention, I'm going to shave their characters bald as they sleep, OK?"
The group I run has this problem. There's only one level-headed player in the group, and he never speaks up.
As to the OP:
I don't see a problem with this. The game is designed to work off of teamwork. If you're not working off each other, than you're really playing by yourself and your party members are really just NPCs voiced by someone other than the GM, imo.
Even if the build does use 3.5 feats, if the GM allows them, then the GM doesn't really have room to complain if people use them.
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Actually it is a fairly recent Paizo feat, my apologies. That is very powerful; but not too redic. He's basically hitting weakly and hoping for that 1-in-6.5 (later 1-in-4) chance to get the crit so his friend does real damage. Powerful, but not abusively so; if it requires you to confirm the crit i'd allow it. You can even backstoru it.
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I see no problems with it as long as your characters have been traveling together for awhile. so you'll have to have your back stories involve eachother, if not then yeah its abit cheap and nonsensical that a rogue and fighter just happen to work super well together
Farfhd and the Gray Mouser
*edit*
Lazarx beat me to it
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(Note to self: Make a pair like this as a BBEG encounter sometime.)
The CR 17 adventuring party in the Rivals Guide has a big guy set up to stun opponents, and a little guy with the Dastardly Finish feat, which allows him to coup de grace stunned foes .....
I don't think that would go down too well with my group if I did that to them, but it might be worth it just to see the looks on their faces.
If it was something that evolved naturally, as in GM fiat, I'd have no problem with it. As an example, I played in a campaign in which one of the PC Fighters would attempt to mark an opponent with an "R" an obvious play on Zorro...I would then have my Druid character attack the same opponent, and due to some nice die rolls, would strike the opponent every time. Over 3 or 4 sessions, this became a regular tactic in combat. The GM granted my character a +1 to hit everytime the other marked the opponent with an 'R'. This sort of GM fiat, in-game evolution would be cool. However, by creating characters that function together specifically through the use of mechanics is complete cheese, with weenie and munchkin on the side.
WOW...Those were the OPPOSITE responses i expected
I seriously thought I'd bee told
"GTFO, THIS IS WRONG, BLA, BLA, BLA, REAL WAY TO PLAY"
and i personally prefer to figure mechanics first then work a back story then re-work mechanics to fit what i came up with. I find that the character comes out more enjoyable to play and from my teams perspective "what the heck man, your last character(one who i worked the story and personality first) was really terrible, i didn't know you were any good at this game!"
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This sort of GM fiat, in-game evolution would be cool. However, by creating characters that function together specifically through the use of mechanics is complete cheese, with weenie and munchkin on the side.
So 'make it up before the game = bad' and 'make it up during game = good'?
Shenanigans, I say.
This sort of GM fiat, in-game evolution would be cool. However, by creating characters that function together specifically through the use of mechanics is complete cheese, with weenie and munchkin on the side.So 'make it up before the game = bad' and 'make it up during game = good'?
Shenanigans, I say.
In a word, YES. It wasn't something that was intentional. It wasn't something that we as player's were even trying to gain. It was something that the GM threw out their because of how things were happening IN GAME, not by design. Building characters as the OP stated is shenanigans to me. As a GM I'd never allow it. As a player I'd hate to see it.
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If it was something that evolved naturally, as in GM fiat, I'd have no problem with it. As an example, I played in a campaign in which one of the PC Fighters would attempt to mark an opponent with an "R" an obvious play on Zorro...I would then have my Druid character attack the same opponent, and due to some nice die rolls, would strike the opponent every time. Over 3 or 4 sessions, this became a regular tactic in combat. The GM granted my character a +1 to hit everytime the other marked the opponent with an 'R'. This sort of GM fiat, in-game evolution would be cool. However, by creating characters that function together specifically through the use of mechanics is complete cheese, with weenie and munchkin on the side.
So is it cheese to make a character who is capableof doing their job, or should I play an archer fighter who only take Two Weapon Fighting feats so it's not creating a character that's functions specifically through the use of mechanics?
In a word, YES. It wasn't something that was intentional. It wasn't something that we as player's were even trying to gain. It was something that the GM threw out their because of how things were happening IN GAME, not by design. Building characters as the OP stated is shenanigans to me. As a GM I'd never allow it. As a player I'd hate to see it.This sort of GM fiat, in-game evolution would be cool. However, by creating characters that function together specifically through the use of mechanics is complete cheese, with weenie and munchkin on the side.So 'make it up before the game = bad' and 'make it up during game = good'?
Shenanigans, I say.
So does your dm just make everyone's character so nothing is "intentional" or do you roll a d6 and hope that the feats you just choose were good?
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In a word, YES. It wasn't something that was intentional. It wasn't something that we as player's were even trying to gain. It was something that the GM threw out their because of how things were happening IN GAME, not by design. Building characters as the OP stated is shenanigans to me. As a GM I'd never allow it. As a player I'd hate to see it.
So if me and my friend both take Outflank when building our characters, planning on being a combat duo, that's cheese and weenie and munchkin? But if the DM says 'hey, you guys always work together, so you both get +4 when you flank with each other instead of +2', that's suddenly awesomely okay?
Shenanigans.
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Rogues are ultimately cheesy. They do more damage when working together with a fighter to flank for more damage. I will ban them now for being OP.
The teamwork feats specifically encourage this kind of cooperative character design. The game is cooperative. So why shouldn't the character design also be cooperative?
It really does depend on the campaign for me.
If I specifically require the players to be unknown to each other then I make my players roll characters without talking to each other (they have a tendency to try to pick skills that complement each other without any overlap).
If it doesn't matter if they are strangers to each other then I allow it, and make them come up with an interesting back story (barring "twin-elven brothers" seen that a heck of a lot)