Then, you could have used the two feat slots to pick up Snake Fang and Snake Sidewind and be able to negate 2 attacks and make 3 counter attacks at 2nd level.
Snake Style lets you use your sense motive in place of AC against one attack as an immediate action, but to my knowledge you don't get to negate two per round because you only get one immediate action. You would still need to take snake style to counter attack with fang or sidewinder.
What's really going to piss off your GM is when he realizes that as a Master of Many Styles, you could have skipped Dodge and Crane Style and gone straight to Wing and Riposte.
Then, you could have used the two feat slots to pick up Snake Fang and Snake Sidewind and be able to negate 2 attacks and make 3 counter attacks at 2nd level.
I was not aware of that. Noted. Thank you very much, I might use that in other campaigns. So why do people say that the monk is underpowered as a combatant?
What's really going to piss off your GM is when he realizes that as a Master of Many Styles, you could have skipped Dodge and Crane Style and gone straight to Wing and Riposte.
Then, you could have used the two feat slots to pick up Snake Fang and Snake Sidewind and be able to negate 2 attacks and make 3 counter attacks at 2nd level.
That wouldn't work for a few reasons:
1. MoMS can let you skip the second feat in a style chain, but it says you still need the first. So having Crane Wing and Riposte without Crane Style isn't an option.
2. At level 2 you only have two bonus no prerequisite needed feats. If you are using both of them for Crane feats, then you don't qualify for Snake Style because you need 3 ranks in Sense Motive.
Noted. I usually activate it after combat starts as I find constantly being in it, legal but unrealistic for rp-ing.
Imo, its unrealistic that you can't have the style before combat opens and you have to spend an action to adopt the stance. Opinions may vary. Besides, only really benefits martial characters, and its okay to give them nice things now and then.
The GM is no more important than any other player in the game. He absolutely does not have the "last word" in any situation because you, as a player, are always entitled to take the last word... "quit", preceded immediately by the second to last word, "I". A GM can't do much on his own if he drives off all his players with asinine rules adjudication; make sure you remind him of that. This is a game of many players; and the GM is one of those players. Any decisions regarding the game should be made with mutuality in mind and a GM should never make a knee-jerk reaction like that because this isn't a situation of "GM-vs-Players" as some take it to be. You took the feats expecting they'd work as stated in the rules and he suddenly flips those rules on you because it's too hard for him to deal with? Who's brow-beating whom here? You're already taking a penalty to attacks when fighting defensively and you gave up the benefit of Flurry for higher BAB and number of attacks with the archetype... tell him to grow a pair.
Noted. Though I think telling him off is not going to happen as the Dm is a long-time friend I would rather not lose over something like this. I think the Dm does have the last word in quite a few situations, though I believe the Dm over-ruling what is written after the session has started is annoying.
1. MoMS can let you skip the second feat in a style chain, but it says you still need the first. So having Crane Wing and Riposte without Crane Style isn't an option.2. At level 2 you only have two bonus no prerequisite needed feats. If you are using both of them for Crane feats, then you don't qualify for Snake Style because you need 3 ranks in Sense Motive.
Nope. MoMS lets you ignore prerequisites for style feats. That includes skill ranks, and the need for previous style feats.
Nope. MoMS lets you ignore prerequisites for style feats. That includes skill ranks, and the need for previous style feats.
Read the fine print, sonny jim.
"Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style)."
What's really going to piss off your GM is when he realizes that as a Master of Many Styles, you could have skipped Dodge and Crane Style and gone straight to Wing and Riposte.
Then, you could have used the two feat slots to pick up Snake Fang and Snake Sidewind and be able to negate 2 attacks and make 3 counter attacks at 2nd level.
That wouldn't work for a few reasons:
1. MoMS can let you skip the second feat in a style chain, but it says you still need the first. So having Crane Wing and Riposte without Crane Style isn't an option.
2. At level 2 you only have two bonus no prerequisite needed feats. If you are using both of them for Crane feats, then you don't qualify for Snake Style because you need 3 ranks in Sense Motive.
Ok, that's what I thought. Thanks.
Here's what it says for MoMS:
Bonus Feats
At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not have to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path.
The bold part tells you that you still need the base style feat in order to get the advanced style feats. The fact that all of this is under the Bonus Feats heading says that requirement ignoring is for bonus feats, not all feats. I wish your interpretation was correct, but I don't believe it is.
Noted. I usually activate it after combat starts as I find constantly being in it, legal but unrealistic for rp-ing.Imo, its unrealistic that you can't have the style before combat opens and you have to spend an action to adopt the stance. Opinions may vary. Besides, only really benefits martial characters, and its okay to give them nice things now and then.
Noted. I can agree with that.
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If Crane Wing is broken, then Deflect Arrow is broken. Cause crane wing is everything Deflect Arrow is, but for melee only.
1) He can use range to attack you. You can't defend against that with crane.
2) He could use enemies that sneak up on you. You have to be aware of the attack, not flat footed, and have one hand free, while in crane style.
3) He could use multiple enemies, enemies with multiple attacks or various other things like that.
A smart DM would attack you in such ways often to avoid that feat, but at the same time not enough times to make you feel you're wasting it.
Regardless of how much defense you have though, it doesn't make bad things go away. You can be nigh untouchable, indestructible, but since you can be worn down slowly... Eventually the enemy will win if you cannot defeat them.
And as a MoMS, you gave up more attack power by sacrificing flurry of blows and the ability to have a High BAB (FoB uses High BAB with -2 pen)
Yes, I have both the Crane Style and Crane Wing feat. I am a Human Monk 2 Master of Many Styles. I used my bonus feat from being human to get Dodge, I used my feat from being level 1 to get Crane Style, and my bonus monk feat to get Crane Wing. At level 2, I used my bonus monk feat to get Crane Riposte. My strength is a 18 so I have a +4 strength bonus with my +1 BAB giving me a +5 on melee attacks. When I'm fighting defensively I have a 18 AC 1+ from Dodge, +3 from Dex, +1, from Wis and +3 for fighting defensively with Crane Style. When our party fought the Drake, I did the most damage to it. That plus the fact that I completely dodged it's breath attack due to Evasion and deflected the one tail swipe that would have hit me. So that's the low down on how we are fighting. I'm also not quite sure how balanced...Can you be more clear with what's going on here? It sounds like you have both Crane Style and Crane Wing, its next tier feat. Crane Wing is a very good feat, but it does come with some downsides. First, you're investing both of your Monk bonus feats into this style, meaning that your damage outlook is pretty poor. Second, it only really helps YOU, and as a 3/4 BAB class taking a –2 penalty on anything hurts. So either you're probably going to miss fighting defensively, or you're not going to be attacking at all. Without doing much else, your monk isn't very threatening and if you aren't doing much to threaten your opponents, there is absolutely no reason they should bother trying to attack you after one, maybe two rounds.
When built to be defensive, the monk is actually very strong, possessing good saves and via Crane Style, a decent armor class. Your GM needs to be prepared for the fact that he's dealing with a character who is designed to be good at not dying, and when you're investing most of your resources into doing that its hardly over powered. Just remind him that its a –4 penalty to flurry while fighting defensively and he might calm down a little bit.
You're only attacking at +4 if you're fighting defensively. Or did you roll at +5? That extra +1 can make a difference at low levels.
It's like a mirror image & and a fire shield spell. Are those overpowered?
Arguably, mirror image is more powerful, because it can negate more than one attack per turn and being able to temporarily focus effects is in general better than being able to have endurance.
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Here's what it says for MoMS:
Bonus Feats
At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not have to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path.
The bold part tells you that you still need the base style feat in order to get the advanced style feats. The fact that all of this is under the Bonus Feats heading says that requirement ignoring is for bonus feats, not all feats. I wish your interpretation was correct, but I don't believe it is.
And even if you were somehow able to take Crane Wing or Crane Riposte without taking Crane Style, you have to be using Crane Style in order to use Crane Wing. So if you don't have the feat for Crane Style, you can't enter Crane Style, and having Crane Wing would be pointless. Similarly, taking Crane Riposte without taking Crane Wing wouldn't do anything, since you only get the attack from Crane Riposte after you deflect an attack using Crane Wing. The waving of prereqs let's you take style feats earlier, but not really out of order, because they are designed to build on each other.
I stand corrected.
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Also, it sounds like your group and GM might be fairly new to Pathfinder? If that's the case, I can understand his reaction, but there are so many other abilities in Pathfinder much more powerful than this. It makes it annoying and difficult to hit you, but a Monk's got to have something. That 18 AC and one deflected attack really won't be that impressive when you get flanked by two ghouls or ghasts with three attacks each. A fighter spending 600gp can match that AC while two handing a great sword, power attacking, and dealing much more damage on average. Sure he couldn't deflect an attack, but he'll also have more hitpoints.
Edit - fixed a typo.
I would ask to scrap the monk and make a whole new character of a class he's not going to nerf. Rather than bend over backwards trying to make my existing character work around his pointless houserule. *shrug*
Also, you can point out that you can't even use it the first round of any combat. You have to be in crane style to use it, which you can't enter until you use a swift action on your first round of combat. If anyone wins initiative on you then you can't block their attack even if they don't have a surprise round and you aren't flat footed.
And that's only true of the first combat of the entire day, by RAW. Style feats say you need to enter them at the start of combat, but has no limit on when they *end*... in fact, it doesn't LET you end it without a combat... Personally, I think the requirement to wait to enter the stance at all is stupid, but there's basically two ways to handle the text:
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.
The insano-RAW way: You must wait for a combat (does, "I pick a fight with that chair!" count? hell if I know...) to enter a style. But then you remain in it all day, so you start with it up in all future encounters that day.
The reasonable way: Walking around all day with the stance up is probably not intended. However, needing to have someone trying to kill you in order to find the focus to enter your martial arts stance is even dumber, so there's no reason you couldn't just enter it before getting into a fight anyway, other than say...getting ambushed while resting or the like.
Either way, you get to start the majority of combats with your style feat(s) active.
Crane style at level 2 is OP. At first levels no one does multiple attacks, and even when surrounded getting hit by more than one attack in extremely rare. Even if you rutinely get hit by 2 attacks per turn (quite unique a case when you have dodge and are fighting on the defensive) you cut the incoming melee damage on half. And the cost is 1 feat because the other 2 feat you need as prerequisite are quite good feat by themself (dodge a bit less but by virtue of interaction between mechanics, when deflecting 1/round getting hit less is even more powerfull).
I've no real complain against crane when taken at the appropriate levels, because even if powerfull is still manageable. But at level 2 is game-breaking.
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I despise that kind of behaviour by DMs.
If I couldn't persuade him of the legitimacy of my PC, then I'd change to a PC with 20Str, Power Attack, greatsword and Paladin or Barbarian, wearing the best armour I can afford, all vanilla straight from the CRB so he has nothing to whine about, then kill everything in sight in one blow.
The insano-RAW way: You must wait for a combat (does, "I pick a fight with that chair!" count? hell if I know...) to enter a style. But then you remain in it all day, so you start with it up in all future encounters that day.
The reasonable way: Walking around all day with the stance up is probably not intended....
Actually the insano-RAW would be that you only need to get in a single combat and then you could have it up for all future encounters ever as nothing in the ability says that style feats deactivate while sleeping :).
The intent of the rule is that you need to spend a swift action at the start of combat to benefit from the style feat. Does that make sense from an in character perspective? Not really, though maybe it is something about the adrenaline of combat which allows you to actually put the style feat into effect. Outside of combat you may understand the techniques and be able to replicate them ineffectually, but it isn't until that moment of combat and the adrenaline hits that you can actually put it into effect. A massive stretch but that is about the best I can come up with.
Actually the insano-RAW would be that you only need to get in a single combat and then you could have it up for all future encounters ever as nothing in the ability says that style feats deactivate while sleeping :).
So... if I wake up and suddenly know crane style, I can point to my bed and say "YOU! Are my eternal rival!" and enter crane style, and from that point on anytime I sleep I'm in an awkward position ready to deflect my attackers and defend myself? Lots of mental imagery there...
Actually the insano-RAW would be that you only need to get in a single combat and then you could have it up for all future encounters ever as nothing in the ability says that style feats deactivate while sleeping :).So... if I wake up and suddenly know crane style, I can point to my bed and say "YOU! Are my eternal rival!" and enter crane style, and from that point on anytime I sleep I'm in an awkward position ready to deflect my attackers and defend myself? Lots of mental imagery there...
Big Dumb Fighter: "Dude quit making such a racket over there I am trying to sleep"
Crane Monk: zzzzzzzz Thwack *Parries bed post* zzzzzzz Thwack *Parries bed post*
Noted. Though I think telling him off is not going to happen as the Dm is a long-time friend I would rather not lose over something like this. I think the Dm does have the last word in quite a few situations, though I believe the Dm over-ruling what is written after the session has started is annoying.The DM/GM is within his rights to do so. Core Rulebook Page 402, Column 2, last paragraph. During the game a GM makes a ruling, and that's it - the time for discussion is afterwards, or during a break, not in the middle of role-playing. My esteemed colleague Kazaan has apparently had some bad experiences with abusive GM's, who (the GM's I mean) should have actually read the book instead of the PRD.
Technically rulings refer to judgments about how the rules interact with a given situation, a ruling isn't changing the rules it is a decision on how they are applied. Changing the rules is technically creating a house rule, which is totally within the GM's right, but to do it in the middle of a session is kind of a dick move. Though sometimes the GM is unaware that he doesn't like a rule until he sees it in game, but you need to be sensitive as the GM to how it feels as a player to have the rug pulled out from under your feet when you change the rules on the fly. Better to run with the rule as written for the session then discuss changing it after the session.
Malusiocus, you nerfed your own character. If you had taken a level of unarmed fighter (fighter archetype), then two levels of master of many styles, you could have gotten all the way down the Crane Style feat chain by L3.
If Crane Wing is broken, then Deflect Arrow is broken. Cause crane wing is everything Deflect Arrow is, but for melee only.
1) He can use range to attack you. You can't defend against that with crane.
2) He could use enemies that sneak up on you. You have to be aware of the attack, not flat footed, and have one hand free, while in crane style.
3) He could use multiple enemies, enemies with multiple attacks or various other things like that.A smart DM would attack you in such ways often to avoid that feat, but at the same time not enough times to make you feel you're wasting it.
Regardless of how much defense you have though, it doesn't make bad things go away. You can be nigh untouchable, indestructible, but since you can be worn down slowly... Eventually the enemy will win if you cannot defeat them.
And as a MoMS, you gave up more attack power by sacrificing flurry of blows and the ability to have a High BAB (FoB uses High BAB with -2 pen)
This is a very good point. I think I shall bring it up next time I see him. Thanks for that.
...Yes, I have both the Crane Style and Crane Wing feat. I am a Human Monk 2 Master of Many Styles. I used my bonus feat from being human to get Dodge, I used my feat from being level 1 to get Crane Style, and my bonus monk feat to get Crane Wing. At level 2, I used my bonus monk feat to get Crane Riposte. My strength is a 18 so I have a +4 strength bonus with my +1 BAB giving me a +5 on melee attacks. When I'm fighting defensively I have a 18 AC 1+ from Dodge, +3 from Dex, +1, from Wis and +3 for fighting defensively with Crane Style. When our party fought the Drake, I did the most damage to it. That plus the fact that I completely dodged it's breath attack due to Evasion and deflected the one tail swipe that would have hit me. So that's the low down on how we are fighting. I'm alsoCan you be more clear with what's going on here? It sounds like you have both Crane Style and Crane Wing, its next tier feat. Crane Wing is a very good feat, but it does come with some downsides. First, you're investing both of your Monk bonus feats into this style, meaning that your damage outlook is pretty poor. Second, it only really helps YOU, and as a 3/4 BAB class taking a –2 penalty on anything hurts. So either you're probably going to miss fighting defensively, or you're not going to be attacking at all. Without doing much else, your monk isn't very threatening and if you aren't doing much to threaten your opponents, there is absolutely no reason they should bother trying to attack you after one, maybe two rounds.
When built to be defensive, the monk is actually very strong, possessing good saves and via Crane Style, a decent armor class. Your GM needs to be prepared for the fact that he's dealing with a character who is designed to be good at not dying, and when you're investing most of your resources into doing that its hardly over powered. Just remind him that its a –4 penalty to flurry while fighting defensively and he might calm down a little bit.
+4. I didn't make that clear. but yes I'm taking a +4 while fighting defensively.
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Malusiocus, you nerfed your own character. If you had taken a level of unarmed fighter (fighter archetype), then two levels of master of many styles, you could have gotten all the way down the Crane Style feat chain by L3.The character already has the entire chain at level 2. See
Yes, I have both the Crane Style and Crane Wing feat. I am a Human Monk 2 Master of Many Styles. I used my bonus feat from being human to get Dodge, I used my feat from being level 1 to get Crane Style, and my bonus monk feat to get Crane Wing. At level 2, I used my bonus monk feat to get Crane Riposte.
It's like a mirror image & and a fire shield spell. Are those overpowered?
Arguably, mirror image is more powerful, because it can negate more than one attack per turn and being able to temporarily focus effects is in general better than being able to have endurance.
Yes, but it could be argued that both mirror image and fire shield have a chance of failing when you're trying to cast them along with the fact that fire shield has a 1 round per level limit while mirror image has a 1 min per level limit and can be extinguished faster if the enemy rolls high enough. Crane Style feat tree is a passive that you can't overuse aside from the fact that you deflect once per round.
I would ask to scrap the monk and make a whole new character of a class he's not going to nerf. Rather than bend over backwards trying to make my existing character work around his pointless houserule. *shrug*
Also, you can point out that you can't even use it the first round of any combat. You have to be in crane style to use it, which you can't enter until you use a swift action on your first round of combat. If anyone wins initiative on you then you can't block their attack even if they don't have a surprise round and you aren't flat footed.And that's only true of the first combat of the entire day, by RAW. Style feats say you need to enter them at the start of combat, but has no limit on when they *end*... in fact, it doesn't LET you end it without a combat... Personally, I think the requirement to wait to enter the stance at all is stupid, but there's basically two ways to handle the text:
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.I will scrap the character if the Dm chooses to stick with this decision and I will not the style stance rule for future encounters with people playing monks.
The insano-RAW way: You must wait for a combat (does, "I pick a fight with that chair!" count? hell if I know...) to enter a style. But then you remain in it all day, so you start with it up in all future encounters that day.
The reasonable way: Walking around all day with the stance up is probably not intended....
Crane style at level 2 is OP. At first levels no one does multiple attacks, and even when surrounded getting hit by more than one attack in extremely rare. Even if you rutinely get hit by 2 attacks per turn (quite unique a case when you have dodge and are fighting on the defensive) you cut the incoming melee damage on half. And the cost is 1 feat because the other 2 feat you need as prerequisite are quite good feat by themself (dodge a bit less but by virtue of interaction between mechanics, when deflecting 1/round getting hit less is even more powerfull).
I've no real complain against crane when taken at the appropriate levels, because even if powerfull is still manageable. But at level 2 is game-breaking.
Noted, though I disagree as their is a plethora of ways to overcome the style.
Crane style stance isn't very good.
What's great is the crane wing and crane riposte. Those are high level feats though, which makes them rather balanced, and you need to invest into another feat before you can get either of them.Someone might say "but MoMS ignores the prerequesites so it's OP!" — not so fast! MoMS cannot use Flurry of Blows — hows that for OP?
I don't know if the GM is aware, but he should know that the feats you have access to (and used) are instead of the crucial/powerful ability "Flurry of Blows"; that is HUGE.
Also, I'm not sure if it's just you that were implying this (perhaps unjustly), or if it was how the GM actually reacted, but it seemed a little bit like he kinda was just looking for something to call OP because you did good in a single fight. You made your rolls, so whether you were OP or not you'd have done well. The way you described it make it seem like he had issue with your success rather than issue of the balance of a specific mechanic.
I think you really need to discuss it more with him as much as possible; the fact that the MoMS doesn't get FoB, the fact that the wing/riposte only works once per round (which is still nice, but limited, monks aren't considered OP— more-so UP, etc.
If the GM has issue with the whole crane feat chain, simply have monsters attack the MoMS less — that wastes all 3 of the MoMS feats right there, and because he can't flurry, MoMS's DPR/DPS isn't going to be particularly good. It's a bit meta-gamey, but the GM can do that as much as they want kinda. At the least SMART enemies would understandably not go for the nimble monk when there's other targets to go for.
It definitely would be bad to walk out (or even threaten it), I agree. I'd only walk out of the GM was constantly doing this over and over, particularly to numerous people. If he doesn't budge, that's just the way it is, and you play on regardless; it would make sense at the least to give the option of a re-spec since the feat doesn't work the way it was thought...
I will see how he responds to this. Thanks for the input.
I despise that kind of behaviour by DMs.
If I couldn't persuade him of the legitimacy of my PC, then I'd change to a PC with 20Str, Power Attack, greatsword and Paladin or Barbarian, wearing the best armour I can afford, all vanilla straight from the CRB so he has nothing to whine about, then kill everything in sight in one blow.
And I think he would be ok with that. The issue at this moment is none of his monsters can hit me.
Noted. Though I think telling him off is not going to happen as the Dm is a long-time friend I would rather not lose over something like this. I think the Dm does have the last word in quite a few situations, though I believe the Dm over-ruling what is written after the session has started is annoying.The DM/GM is within his rights to do so. Core Rulebook Page 402, Column 2, last paragraph. During the game a GM makes a ruling, and that's it - the time for discussion is afterwards, or during a break, not in the middle of role-playing. My esteemed colleague Kazaan has apparently had some bad experiences with abusive GM's, who (the GM's I mean) should have actually read the book instead of the PRD.
Understood and this is exactly what I'm doing. I let his ruling pass during the game as I didn't want to take away from the other players and I am currently composing a list of reasons why his ruling was hasty and should be re-considered.
And I think he would be ok with that. The issue at this moment is none of his monsters can hit me.I despise that kind of behaviour by DMs.
If I couldn't persuade him of the legitimacy of my PC, then I'd change to a PC with 20Str, Power Attack, greatsword and Paladin or Barbarian, wearing the best armour I can afford, all vanilla straight from the CRB so he has nothing to whine about, then kill everything in sight in one blow.
Tell him to stop using 1 strong monster and start using 2 or more weaker ones. Crane style vs double teams is interesting compared to crane style vs a heavy hitting whatever.
Malusiocus, you nerfed your own character. If you had taken a level of unarmed fighter (fighter archetype), then two levels of master of many styles, you could have gotten all the way down the Crane Style feat chain by L3.
I'm all the way down the Crane Style chain and I'm level two... so....wut?
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Yet, the reason the GM nerfs it is because, if he sees it as OP, (which in this case he shouldn't) the options to make the game the same for all the players is 1.)Nerf, 2.)Bring in a more powerful foe for 1 person to take. Now option 1 is unliked because it can shut down a build, but option 2 leads to TPK if the 1 powerful player goes down because the fight was appropriately challenged for him, the dice got mad, and everyone else didn't stand a chance. Otherwise, a player might feel unchallenged by the game, which takes away from it.
Yet, the reason the GM nerfs it is because, if he sees it as OP, (which in this case he shouldn't) the options to make the game the same for all the players is 1.)Nerf, 2.)Bring in a more powerful foe for 1 person to take. Now option 1 is unliked because it can shut down a build, but option 2 leads to TPK if the 1 powerful player goes down because the fight was appropriately challenged for him, the dice got mad, and everyone else didn't stand a chance. Otherwise, a player might feel unchallenged by the game, which takes away from it.
or #3 the GM finds some of the myriad of creatures that don't rely on a single melee attack and uses them once in awhile to challenge the monk and the rest of the time he allows the monk to use his cool ability to block an attack to feel like a damn hero.
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or #3 the GM finds some of the myriad of creatures that don't rely on a single melee attack and uses them once in awhile to challenge the monk and the rest of the time he allows the monk to use his cool ability to block an attack to feel like a damn hero.
That works in this case, but my post was more of a general reason as to why a GM may nerf something.
or #3 the GM finds some of the myriad of creatures that don't rely on a single melee attack and uses them once in awhile to challenge the monk and the rest of the time he allows the monk to use his cool ability to block an attack to feel like a damn hero.That works in this case, but my post was more of a general reason as to why a GM may nerf something.
Agreed the things you listed are reasons GMs use to nerf things. Sorry for the misreading of your statement. There are other reasons to nerf things as well, but those are probably the main ones.
The issue at this moment is none of his monsters can hit me.That's likely the source of his problem: He's falling into the attitude trap of the game being "GM vs Players". It isn't. He, as GM, should be looking for the PCs to succeed just as much as the players of those PCs. The GM, himself, is a Player; one with a rather unique role to play, but a player none-the-less. His role isn't to see to it that the other players fail, it's to see that they succeed, but in a way that's challenging and fun and epic and interesting and still carries the possibility of failure. Remember, in any RPG, rumors travel at least 2-3 times as fast as your party so, by the time you get to a new area, a good number of the ruffians in the area know that there's this pretty badass Monk in the group who is practically impossible to hit in melee. So, they're going to come with an archer or two. Not impossible to overcome, but it gives you a run for your money. The solution is almost never, "It takes more than minimal effort to overcome that ability so I'ma nerf it." He has drills and screw drivers and saws and Dremels and all sorts of tools at his disposal... he need not resort to wantonly flailing a sledgehammer.
Noted. I was trying to think of a way in which he could adapt to face my monk without meta-gaming and I really like your rumor idea. I will remember that as it is a really good excuse. So far, some of the explanations for some of the things his characters have done seems a little meta-gamed. We were facing down slave traders who we were trying to escape. I broke off from the group and 2 of the slave traders followed me. I backed myself into a doorway to face them and they suddenly ran off, as he explained they were on a timed limit and they had taken to long to capture me, and so they were running back to there boss... even though they had me in a corner... and it seemed like they were maybe 1 or 2 levels higher than me... that smelled pretty meta-gamed for my benefit, but I made the decision to face these guys even though the Dm had told us they were higher level then us so I felt that if these guys were a higher level than I was, I deserved to die. So that's also a issue I'll have to address later on.
Edit-LOL I should look up before I post.
Tell him the wing isn't overpowered. All he's gotta do is throw range at ya or a breath or magic at ya and u can't deflect it. That dragon shoulda been doing full attacks and would have hit yaat least a couple times if ya was up on it.
As far as the aoo, well a lvl 2 character has the abilities of a lvl 5 or 7 monk...really nice abilities I might add. But as long as he throwing range, magic, etc etc everything except melee atks at ya, ur wing is rendered pointless.
But losing flurry of blows and point out all the other benefits u are losing out on as well and that should sweeten the pot for ya.
Edit-LOL I should look up before I post.
Tell him the wing isn't overpowered. All he's gotta do is throw range at ya or a breath or magic at ya and u can't deflect it. That dragon shoulda been doing full attacks and would have hit yaat least a couple times if ya was up on it.
As far as the aoo, well a lvl 2 character has the abilities of a lvl 5 or 7 monk...really nice abilities I might add. But as long as he throwing range, magic, etc etc everything except melee atks at ya, ur wing is rendered pointless.
But losing flurry of blows and point out all the other benefits u are losing out on as well and that should sweeten the pot for ya.
Noted. I have already composed a list of things to screw over and Kazaan brought up the game mechanic of rumors which gives the Dm an excuse to start using tactics to thwart my build without heavy meta-gaming. I'm not sure how good the "losing flurry of blows" argument is going to go as I was planning on going Staff Magus level 3 with the Additional Traits feat going Magical Knack and Reactionary.