I'm an old fart when it comes to gaming and not at all n00bish when it comes to huge amounts of cheesy character builds in my gaming group. Problem is that, in order to create an interest in Pathfinder for my group (who are also old farts and don't generally like new game systems), I have to make sure that the cheese doesn't get out of hand so the adventure remains challenging and, thus, interesting. It's a vicious cycle; I run a new game to create interest in it so hopefully I can play, my group brings in cheesy character builds that totally ruin the experience and challenge, they lose interest, no one wants to play anymore. Rinse/repeat.
I need to nip this in the bud. I have no problem using my veto power as a GM but I don't know what to look for in terms of cheese. So my question is what are some of the cheesier/broken character builds that might threaten game balance to look out for so I can avoid this problem?
For the record I'll be allowing Core Book only races but alternate traits from the Advanced Race Book. Any archetypes from Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, and the Advanced Player's Guide. 20 point character builds. No third party rules. Trait selection limited to one from the Advanced Player's Guide and one campaign trait.
You're essentially asking the community to summarize dozens of lengthy threads and discussions that occurred over the span of several years. It's not possible to provide you with the list you are requesting.
That being said, there is an alternative. After several years of playing this game, many on these boards can spot cheese builds fairly easily. They've developed a literal nose for it. I recommend finding out what concepts your players want to run, and asking about those builds specifically. The community here will be more than happy to provide you with specific input on them.
Additionally, I recommend you limit your player's initial concepts. Since this is your first time running Pathfinder stick with the Core Rulebook only. If you're familiar with the game as a player, consider expanding that to the APG as well. Based on your expressed inexperience with Pathfinder as a whole, I would not recommend allowing access to Ultimate Combat or Ultimate Magic.
The best advice to avoid cheese, however, is simply to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game. Know them and love them. Most cheese builds are the result of exploiting areas of the rules that seem weak or vague; most cheese builds don't even function if you are familiar with the relevant rules.
Don't look for individual feats/items/etc but to look at the totals result.
This is one place to kinda help get you looking at totals on by level bases.
http://gneech.com/rpg/pathfinder-rpg/page-42-for-pathfinder-revisited/
The other question I have is what is your primary focus in the game, how are there players "cheesing"? I'm not quite and old fart but I've had to deal with a good amount of player cheese and players who are/were/will-be GMs themselves so the know most of the tricks. The one way I plan games unusually is with the expectation that they will succeed at whatever they choose to do. I then create a set of choice options that change the overall circumstance. Challenges are not "can you defeat the evil overlord" but "can you defeat the correct one." Let them leverage their "I win" buttons but in ways that have repercussions. Done right, and you've basically got them fighting against a mess they made themselves through over application of force.
The other option is to up the ante and if they are getting results like charcters 2 or 3 levels above their listed one, start treating the party like its those 2 or 3 levels higher. Give them the full exp awards but run the game on the Slow progression. Yes they'll start climbing the levels fast, however they are soon going to outstrip their resource pool for a given level.
You're essentially asking the community to summarize dozens of lengthy threads and discussions that occurred over the span of several years. It's not possible to provide you with the list you are requesting.
That being said, there is an alternative. After several years of playing this game, many on these boards can spot cheese builds fairly easily. They've developed a literal nose for it. I recommend finding out what concepts your players want to run, and asking about those builds specifically. The community here will be more than happy to provide you with specific input on them.
Additionally, I recommend you limit your player's initial concepts. Since this is your first time running Pathfinder stick with the Core Rulebook only. If you're familiar with the game as a player, consider expanding that to the APG as well. Based on your expressed inexperience with Pathfinder as a whole, I would not recommend allowing access to Ultimate Combat or Ultimate Magic.
The best advice to avoid cheese, however, is simply to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game. Know them and love them. Most cheese builds are the result of exploiting areas of the rules that seem weak or vague; most cheese builds don't even function if you are familiar with the relevant rules.
Fair enough but I'm not really interested in *why* people have come to the conclusions they have about broken/cheesy character types though. You're right. There are plenty of threads here that I could read if I was interested in that kind of discussion; I was more looking for builds/classes that they found to be hard to deal with so I could take a look at it and make that call for myself.
I'm hesitant about restricting their character building options to Core-only for two reasons though. The first is that I'm planning on running Skull and Shackles and there are a few encounters/NPCs that utilize rules from both UC and UM. If I throw some of those encounters at a group full of... shall we say "stock"... PCs with no option to not be "stock" that might sour them on the experience. Secondly, and least importantly, what fun is a toy you can't play with? :)
Don't look for individual feats/items/etc but to look at the totals result.
This is one place to kinda help get you looking at totals on by level bases.
http://gneech.com/rpg/pathfinder-rpg/page-42-for-pathfinder-revisited/The other question I have is what is your primary focus in the game, how are there players "cheesing"? I'm not quite and old fart but I've had to deal with a good amount of player cheese and players who are/were/will-be GMs themselves so the know most of the tricks. The one way I plan games unusually is with the expectation that they will succeed at whatever they choose to do. I then create a set of choice options that change the overall circumstance. Challenges are not "can you defeat the evil overlord" but "can you defeat the correct one." Let them leverage their "I win" buttons but in ways that have repercussions. Done right, and you've basically got them fighting against a mess they made themselves through over application of force.
The other option is to up the ante and if they are getting results like charcters 2 or 3 levels above their listed one, start treating the party like its those 2 or 3 levels higher. Give them the full exp awards but run the game on the Slow progression. Yes they'll start climbing the levels fast, however they are soon going to outstrip their resource pool for a given level.
The "cheese" I most commonly run into with my group isn't so much min/maxing... there's plenty of that... I don't even discourage it since I don't think tweeking your character to do what you envision them doing is cheesy. The kind I run into most frequently is when there is ambiguity in the rules that allow a character to do something that they shouldn't be able to do. For example, the Magical Knack trait: Does that increase to your caster-level include adding spells per level/known or does it just add to the mechanical CL of a spell cast for purposes of determining the spell's effect (save DC/range/AoE etc.)?
That kind of thing.
If you post them...we will come...
But seriously if you post them we not only say "cheesy" or "borderline" or whatev...we will clearly explain the rules to you and why it doesn't work or what wording they are abusing.
LOL, OK. I was sort of hoping to have an idea of what to tell people was OK to play rather than murdering them off once they get started...oh well, murder it is.
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Don't look for individual feats/items/etc but to look at the totals result.
This is one place to kinda help get you looking at totals on by level bases.
http://gneech.com/rpg/pathfinder-rpg/page-42-for-pathfinder-revisited/The other question I have is what is your primary focus in the game, how are there players "cheesing"? I'm not quite and old fart but I've had to deal with a good amount of player cheese and players who are/were/will-be GMs themselves so the know most of the tricks. The one way I plan games unusually is with the expectation that they will succeed at whatever they choose to do. I then create a set of choice options that change the overall circumstance. Challenges are not "can you defeat the evil overlord" but "can you defeat the correct one." Let them leverage their "I win" buttons but in ways that have repercussions. Done right, and you've basically got them fighting against a mess they made themselves through over application of force.
The other option is to up the ante and if they are getting results like charcters 2 or 3 levels above their listed one, start treating the party like its those 2 or 3 levels higher. Give them the full exp awards but run the game on the Slow progression. Yes they'll start climbing the levels fast, however they are soon going to outstrip their resource pool for a given level.
The "cheese" I most commonly run into with my group isn't so much min/maxing... there's plenty of that... I don't even discourage it since I don't think tweeking your character to do what you envision them doing is cheesy. The kind I run into most frequently is when there is ambiguity in the rules that allow a character to do something that they shouldn't be able to do. For example, the Magical Knack trait: Does that increase to your caster-level include adding spells per level/known or does it just add to the mechanical CL of a spell cast for purposes of determining the spell's effect (save DC/range/AoE etc.)?
That kind of thing.
No it doesn't grant you spells.
It basically just treats you as if you are 2 levels higher...you aren't actually 2 levels higher. The only thing that effects is DC of spells and damage dice. Basically if you have 3 levels wizard and 2 levels fighter and cast Magic Missile then the Magic Missile is treated as if you are level 5 in regards to the number of missiles.