Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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A cleric with channel negative energy and without selective channeling (or too low charisma to exclude the whole party)
An alchemist that misses the shot and the bomb scatters to friendlies (or, a friendly is included in the splash from the beginning).
A spellcaster who can't throw that cone/fireball/cloud without hitting a PC or two.
A positive energy channeling character in a party with a dhampir/A PC undead lord with a corpse companion
(Before you go ahead and say that it's completely legal to bust the corpse companion in, I'd want you to consider wether or not it's completely legal to butcher that eidolon/familiar/Animal companion just because your PC is superstitious/hates animals - Now, back on topic):
Obviously, you're not allowed to kill other PCs. I presume that this means you aren't allowed to -deliberately- kill other PCs. Saving your arse by positioning yourself behind the others, leaving a weaker PC in the front and getting killed? I'm fairly sure there's no rule against that (Since it would boil down to intention).
What I'm more interested in, is: Is it completely forbidden to use spells/abilities which would cause harm to a friendly PC? Ie, your wizard won't be able to fire off the fireball because there's not enough room, even if the chance for casualties is small and it could end the fight/Possibly prevent a TPK? Or would you need the players permission to do so? ("Hey, I'll shoot this fireball, you have evasion so you should be all right and make the DC - there's a small chance that if you don't, you're dead. Is that all right with you?")
Or is the no PvP more like a "hardcoded" resolution - Sure, you can shoot the fireball and drop the PC into the negatives, but since you're not allowed to kill him, he won't die?
Also, is the rule against PvP just to prevent open, "till death" conflict, while still allowing something like "Yeah, thanks a lot for leaving me hanging in there. *punches you in the face, 1d3+1 dmg, non-lethal*" style of RP where the goal -isn't- killing the other PC?
In the end I think it all boils down to the most important rule: "Don't be a jerk", but I'd still want to hear your thoughts about this.
(Side note - I'm not saying nor debating that the "no PvP" rule should be lifted, rather, I want to know how much, if at all, it restricts certain AoE-capable classes and RP. For example, a wizard accidentally scorches your animal companion, so you decide to take it out on him by painting the walls red with his familiar.)
One option would be to simply disallow such actions/characters from play, but for example the spellcasters would take quite an unfair penalty if a single character, with bad positioning, negates half of their spells (or rather, prevents them from using their abilities to the fullest).
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In AoE situations, it boils down to GM discretion. If there is animosity between the players (which is normally obvious) I'd question an AoE being dropped. Normally, what I see "Hey, I'm dropping a fireball here. You're in the way. Any major objections?" I allow the table talk because it prevents feelings from being hurt.
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There are going to be a wide variety of opinions shared here. Everyone is entitled to their views. We understand that Paizo is not foolish enough to paint themselves into a corner by trying to define PVP as narrowly as the rules lawyers would like them to. Pretty much my only rule is "Don't be a jerk". Beyond that I leave it to each individual table to decide how much PVP they can tolerate. If everyone's having fun, I let them go nuts. If one person looks uncomfortable I ask the offender to reconsider. I've seen PCs killed by the AoE attacks of other PCs. The risk of death is a part of the excitement in this game. Obviously at conventions GMs have to be very careful to side-step the PVP issue since there are a lot of strangers playing together. It's different when you are playing PFS in a home-setting or at a regular gameday. You gauge your players and remember that one player's fun should not come at the expense of another's.
Frankly I would love to see the PVP rules lifted as a player, but I cringe to think about it as a GM.
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I was under the impression that "friendly fire" was allowed, as long as the other PC isn't the intended target. In other words, "Don't be a jerk."
This actually happens fairly frequently in my group, usually with minor damage stuff where nobody cares. I remember one time I had to blast one of my teammates with Burning Hands to get a bug swarm off her. Missed alchemist fire throws seem to come up fairly often, too. And even hits with alchemist fire cause minor splash damage to the PCs adjacent to the intended target.
Of course, this is also why my fire domain cleric will be picking up Improved Initiative at level 5 - it's the same level she gets Fireball. I'd rather blast the bad guys BEFORE my teammates engage them in melee.
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How I always run it is that the players must give permission for the AOE to hit them. Most of the time, players are willing to take the chance.
I know I was. I failed my save against a friendly fireball (ouch) while the only enemy in the radius made his save. But said enemy was a spellcaster in the process of casting a summon spell, which then fizzled.
Totally worth it, IMO.
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I'm going to +1 for the "Players must consent OOCly" camp. This is doubly true for spells that do not damage, but instead disable the PC in some way (Glittterdust, Black Tentacles, etc.). Whether you intend malice or not is moot; the party wizard who thinks it's perfectly alright to drop fireballs with party members included is being a jerk by thinking it doesn't matter. One bad reflex save is all it takes. And this is over a decade of organized play; it never ends well.
This stands for companions as well; they are often the mechanic through which the PC does their thing in combat. Taking that away on a whim isn't fun for anyone, and intentional or not, is still being a jerk.
That said, I share with the party if there are things I don't mind my PC being included in area of effect wise at the start of the module. Cold spells? Sure, don't worry about my winter witch. Fire damage? Summoner has immunity via aspect and his Eidolon is both resistant AND has evasion.
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We always work with the ask everyone in the AoE if they mind (no one has yet), the only instance of pvp in which we didnt ask was when one of our party was suggested (the spell) to get reinforcements for the BBEG (we skipped a couple of encounters) so the barb took her AOO as he went past (nonlethal of course) and dropped him in 1 hit.
As a rule, attempting to disable magically co-erced PCs isn't really PvP (if it were, any spell/ability that could create this situation would be banned for NPC use).
That said, PCs should be attempting to disable the PC versus outright killing, but I've seen some nasty fights where it became a Dominated PC or the Party...so take that with a grain of salt.
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As a rule, attempting to disable magically co-erced PCs isn't really PvP (if it were, any spell/ability that could create this situation would be banned for NPC use).
My cleric got gutted by my VL's raging, dominated barbarian a couple of weeks ago. Took me to about -14 in one hit. Dead, dead, dead. Such are the vagaries of combat. If I coulda stopped him short of killing him I would have, of course, but there was just no way I was gonna get him.
In summary, what happens when a player loses control of their character cannot be held against the player, and if they present a clear and present danger to the rest of the party then they need to be neutralized (as gently as possible, of course).