I've got a player with a Zen Archer 1/Ranger (n-1) character. A little while ago he asked for a +5 Sense Motive item. There's no such item in the books, but a +5 boost to a skill has a standard price of 2500 gp. He wanted it added to his +5 perception goggles. It seemed like a reasonable slot for the skill, plus the party was in a big city and had time to commission the item, so I allowed it at the standard 1.5x mark-up for stacking on a slot.
Turns out I forgot he had Snake Style. I don't remember the conversation too clearly, but I'm pretty sure he didn't tell me the real reason he wanted the boost. I have effectively given him a +5 to his AC (and touch AC!) once a round for a measly 3750 gp.
Are there any reasons why I shouldn't take the item away?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because there's no reason to?
So he got a good deal out of it and found synergy, its not the end of the world.
I'm not sure on what level he is, but even with Snake Style and once a round, it doesn't precisely render him invulnerable. Its not like he's got Discount +5 longjohns of DR 20/Epic on or something.
And I'm pretty sure snake style just means his sense motive check exchanges for his AC, so well, it was already potentially 20+his ranks before anyway.
Hmm, good points.
Possible counter-argument: As the archer, he almost never takes more than one attack a round when he is attacked. The part of the AP we're in doesn't have a lot of enemies good with ranged weapons.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I.
You imply in the original post that you found what he did to be dishonest.
I am inclined to agree, personally, and if i was also inclined to remove the item that would be the reason why.
While you ideally should know what all of your PC's can do it is unreasoanble for you to be expected to remember every in and out of your PC's abilities.
When they make a new item, such as this one, they need to come and tell you what its for.
"Hey DM, I'd like an item of +5 sense motive for my character. Other skill increasing items are cheap and it fits with him being kinda paranoid, always looking out for liars."
"Sounds good, 2500 is the going price."
"thanks"
*mwahahaaa he fell for it!"
That just doesn't go over well with me.
If you believe he was intentionally misleading you or just being evasive through omission about the true intent of what he wanted made, then you are well within your rights to take the item away from him.
Full Disclosure is an important part of custom magical item design.
II.
Lets assume that he's 100% honest and that there isn't any of that going on.
He got a +5 item at the going rate.
Is it game breaking? Is it causing a problem at your table?
If so- then you need to talk to him about removing the item completely or toning it down.
"Hey Bob, I know I said that +5 was ok but.. its really turning out to be a much greater problem than we initially thought. Lets cut it back to +2 for now. Maybe in a few levels you can upgrade it to +4 or so- we'll see how it turns out by then."
While you Can reorganize the campaign to fight against one character- if the problem is just one item then its far easier to just talk to the player and remove/adjust it.
You Have the right. You Have the authority.
-S
|
You should keep in mind that the item isn't exactly cheap either. For that price there's a lot of other good items he might have bought.
I'm not sure about every class; some classes burn through swift/immediate actions faster than others. Keep a good eye on how he does it; I think there's some important ranger spells/abilities that go at Swift speed, so Snake Style isn't entirely free to use either.
You should probably have a talk with the player about concealing his motives for the item (no pun intended). When players and GMs feel they have to conceal stuff for each other or suspect each other, that's not a healthy atmosphere.
Ask him to be more forthright with you. In return, promise not to be too fast to ban things that look too powerful; voice your concerns but be open to his argument that it's merely powerful, not too powerful.
|
Snake Style works against only one attack per round, at the cost of an immediate action. It's good, but not broken. And don't forget that he has to declare which attack he wants to use the Snake Style on, before the attack is rolled.
Compared to Dodge?
The XXX Style feats have generally serious balance problems. They are made for a different kind of playstile and when used in the usual European middle age style setting of Pathfinder they can be really problematic.Especially when the feat say: "you can use the result as your AC or touch AC against that attack.", so you aren't even forced to use a bad roll.
It is a bad feat even for the time it burn at the gaming table. As the player should decide to use it when targeted by an attack (not when hit), the master should go: "The dragon target you with your bite attack." pause until the player decide to use the feat or not. If he don't use the feat the the master must announce the targeting of the next attack, and the next one, and so on, until the feat is used or all the enemies have attacked the character.
There are plenty of items that add to sense motive. So having the ones for the eyes, or it being too cheap because he uses it for an ability is a poor excuse.
Cloak of the diplomat, stole of justice, seducers bane bracelet, bracelet of bagaining and others all add a bous to sense motive.
It's not a broken feat, and since the player spent time and feats to get the 1/round ability,melt him have it. Every player makes their characters to do something they want to do. If it was an ability that negated every attack then it's broken in that sense. However here, it's not.
Also, regardless of snake style, the PC could have the sense motive item not only for snake style, but also for the actual sense motive. If I told my GM EVERYTIME I got a new item, whatmth reasons were, even if some I didn't know offhand, then nobody would get reasonably good items. Fighter wouldn't get dues list gloves, monk wouldn't get monk robes, ranger wouldn't get companion gear, so forth
Me: I want to purchase a belt of mighty perfection.
DM: what for?
Me: so I am faster, stronger, hardier. Improves my character.
DM: so you want me to give you an item that increases your dex, con, and str modifiers by +3 that will increase your: initiative, reflex save, acrobatics, HP's, fort save, climb, and sim checks. And also make you better to hit, and do more damage. Definetly not.
Me: but it's a perfectly legitimate item to purchase.
DM: nope, too powerful for what you get from it, especially you.
Me: ::quits game due to unfairness, due to character design.::
|
|
You should keep in mind that the item isn't exactly cheap either. For that price there's a lot of other good items he might have bought.
Let's see: a +5 AC deflection magic item would cost 50.000 gp (Snake stile work against touch attacks, so it is at least as good as a deflection bonus). Even divided by 5 for the "1 use each round as an immediate action" limit it would cost 10.000.
2.500 vs 10.000 is a 75% discount. Pretty cheap.
But I would imagine that your approach is not fine. You seem to assume a kind of adversarial position whether feigned or real.. in either event that's not good.
Don't jump to conclusions. I'm interested in game balance. I explicitly asked for reasons to let him keep the item and I got them.
While I still think it's a really good item for the price, it was still a significant purchase at the time and it's not going to stop a determined attacker, or for that matter even be quite as helpful in a few levels.
And while I appreciate the intent with the advice on how to challenge him, that's not what I was worried about.
|
|
Diego: a ring of protection works on the surprise round, doesn't cost a feat, doesn't have a chance of rolling a 1 on the Sense Motive check, doesn't cost a lot of skill points.. I think the higher price is reasonable.
Besides that, you object to Snake Style in a European medieval (fantasy) setting, but not to Zen monks or magic in general? Isn't that a bit arbitrarily selective?
|
|
Maybe you haven't noticed but I have divided the price by 5 to reflect the drawbacks you list.
Consider that the feat give other advantages too, not only the ability to get an alternate AC if you want:
a) +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks
b) you can deal piercing damage with your unarmed strikes
The sense motive part alone is 1/2 to 1/4 (after level 10) of Alertness.
and
I object to all the oriental stuff, the Style feats are one of the more extreme examples.
Several of them can shut down a adversary with a single attack, i. e. a large percentage of the monsters in Pathfinder.
Katanas are "super swords" because they are super sword in the films. Actually they are very "super" because the typical katana is the work of a master and because they are made to fight the kind of opponent you generally found in Japan, i.e. persons with little or no armor.
The would do very little against a late Middle Ages knight in full armor.
I don't even like the monk in my Western style game, but it has been a staple of AD&D and D&D for decades.
|
Remember that he cannot use Snake Style in any round that he uses ki. Zen Archer is a ki-heavy archetype. Just remember that as a GM. I think you will be fine.
EDIT: Clarification. Using ki is a swift action, you cannot simultaneously take a swift AND an immediate action in the same round.
EDIT^2: Okay, I am not clear about that last comment. I looked it up, and while it says that an immediate action is like a swift action, it doesn't say if you take an immediate action it uses up your swift action. It can be inferred, but it also could mean that you only get one immediate action a round, while still having only one swift a round.
|
|
It once per round, and eats up the next round's swift action.
It is not worth soiling underpants for.
A Ring of Jumping provides a +5 to Acrobatics, which is really useful to, well, everyone. 2,500 gp.
Now, this is a staple, and should be your basis of power for skill boosters.
A PC with the Roll With It feat gets about the same boon from this ring, as your player gets from his item.
Except, he had to invest more, and his boon is not as great.
As has been brought up, if he uses Snake Style to use his sense motive roll in place of his AC for one attack (which must be declared when he is targeted and before the attack is rolled) then that uses up his swift action for the next turn. Which means he can't use ki on his next turn. He could use his immediate for Snake Style again on that 2nd turn, but then he still wouldn't get to use ki on his 3rd turn. That uses up his action economy and prevents him from doing other things besides just using ki.
The synergy is strong, but not overwhelming with having an item that gives +5 to a skill. Personally I impose a limit of a +10 from items to any skill. I was playing in a campaign where a monk had snake style and purchased an item that added +30 to sense motive (this was a 18th level campaign). After a couple of combats it was discussed and decided that no, you couldn't have an item with that high of a bonus and it was pure cheese. However, a +10 was decided as the maximum reasonable.
I personally don't think it's a huge problem.
I mean put it this way; A player is there to experience a story via a pre-written AP or other source, and a GM is meant to tell the story, making it as enjoyable for the players as possible.
Granted it may be less fun for the GM if he can't kill his PC's, but then if your PC's can't survive, you have no story to tell because a lot of people I've played with grow really attached to their characters and when they die, they don't want to play anymore.
I agree with these people more than those who re-roll characters, because I see that as cheese and think it's a little too coincidental that the new PC's turned up at the right time in every AP, with no previous knowledge yet knew exactly what was going on.
If a player asks you for something, you give it the go ahead and then forget about something, it's on you.
If I did that, I'd probably just say oops, and as long as it wasn't sapping fun away from the other players, I'd allow it to be used still.
Besides, Hold Person and coup de grace can still kill him. ;)
|
|
Comparing to Alertness isn't really fair. Alertness is not a feat people take unless it's free (familiar) or they need it for a prerequisite (prestige class). You should be comparing it to the good feats the player could have taken, not the bad feats.
+2 to +4 to perception and sense motive is a bad feat ...
I agree that Skill focus (perception) is better if you want to focus on perception alone, but there are classes for which that +2/+4 to 2 skills is a good bargain.|
|
So how come nobody's taking Alertness unless they have to? Because other feats are much better. As an archer, what would you rather have? Precise Shot or Alertness? Improved Precise Shot or Alertness? Improved Initiative or Alertness? Rapid Shot or Alertness? Clustered Shot or Alertness?
It goes on and on; while it's not bad to have Alertness there's always something better you could have had instead.