How much do giant gulfs in system mastery affect a game?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

201 to 248 of 248 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.
DrDeth wrote:


Well, yeah, because a longbow IS better than a sling or a crossbow. Thems the facts. It's not a "trap"- the the simple club is there on the list in case you want to use it and that it is way less optimal than almost any other weapon. Real life would punish him too, in fact at the battle of Crecy that was exactly what happened.

Crecy and Againcourt are basically the only two battles ever referenced in defense of the obsoleted longbow. And both do very little, if actually studied for five minutes, for the longbow. The English just happened to HAVE them.

In Crecy, it was rain. A Longbow is no better in the rain, but the English had had the chance to rest, feast and had had the chance to keep their strings dry, while the French Army did no such thing. They were wet, hungry and exhausted, and their cavalry was mired by mud, ditches and a liberal use of caltrops of all things. The crossbows were placed in the front line and not allowed the use of their Pavise [tower shields], and the cavalry? It was at the very rear. The Genoese warned they were in no condition to fight, after six days of forced marching in the rain.

Longbows were used in massed volleys - no expert snipers here, to shatter the enemy infantry while the crossbows were still too damaged to be of use. They had higher elevation atop this.

The french army basically Chernobyl'd their entire battle - anything they could screw up, they did. The Noble in charge claimed the genoese were cowards and scoundrels for pointing out the conditions were at their worst. Yet despite this supposed "loss of crossbows to longbows" they were preferred everywhere other than england.

Technically in game terms, the longbow should prove to be a superior weapon.... IF, and only IF, you've mastered it as an exotic weapon with rapid reload. Not "as soon as you have "weapon proficiency: martial". Right now it's better out of the box, and the crossbow can't even get mastered.


I have to admit, and I really don't mind people thinking bad of me for this:

I've fudged rolls before to give the guy with the really awful stats a better chance, to even up the system mastery gap if you will. A couple of HPs less damage here, a monster going down from a weak blow there, and so forth.


Matt Thomason wrote:

I have to admit, and I really don't mind people thinking bad of me for this:

I've fudged rolls before to give the guy with the really awful stats a better chance, to even up the system mastery gap if you will. A couple of HPs less damage here, a monster going down from a weak blow there, and so forth.

Why roll at all?


Ashiel wrote:
Matt Thomason wrote:

I have to admit, and I really don't mind people thinking bad of me for this:

I've fudged rolls before to give the guy with the really awful stats a better chance, to even up the system mastery gap if you will. A couple of HPs less damage here, a monster going down from a weak blow there, and so forth.

Why roll at all?

great question


gustavo iglesias wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Matt Thomason wrote:

I have to admit, and I really don't mind people thinking bad of me for this:

I've fudged rolls before to give the guy with the really awful stats a better chance, to even up the system mastery gap if you will. A couple of HPs less damage here, a monster going down from a weak blow there, and so forth.

Why roll at all?
great question

Easily answered: to avoid completely writing the scenario.

There is a difference between choosing the outcome and giving minor breaks. It's rewarding someone who wants to try but has no talent more than anything else.

Above all, it's to make the game fun for the whole table. Which is the reason the game exists.

I rarely do so, but have, on occasion, fudged things for exactly the reasons noted. Someone is having fun, but isn't skilled.

It's kind of the equivalent of giving Steve Gedes' group a break after watching them die at level eight repeatedly for several years and simply being unable (or unwilling) to master the system.

It's not really something I like doing often at all, but it's actually a written recommendation in the Game Mastery Guide for the good of the whole table.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

this is clearly an issue of the crossbow industry needing better lobbyists


Ashiel wrote:
You said that you guys never survive past level eight or nine, and I think that's very telling for someone who professes the virtues of poorly balanced rules and the "mechanically viable is bad roleplaying" vibe I get from you and others pretty regularly. It also ties into a complaint of mine over Sean K's insistence that VoP is somehow okay because D&D/PF is easy (which pretty much ignores that more than half the printed material is written to kill or make your character's life miserable; and by mid levels the monsters are wearing their big-boy pants).

If they never survive past level eight or nine, that sounds to me like an issue with the DM. (Could be wrong: I haven't played Pathfinder to level 8 or 9 yet. But I'm pretty sure that if were DM'ing I could manage to lose fights against any party, no matter how mechanically inept the players, if I wanted to.)

I wouldn't say "mechanically viable is bad roleplaying" but I would say "mechanically viable is constrained roleplaying", and I see that as an indictment of the rules.

(Newbie question) More than half the printed material is written to kill? From what I've seen so far (1st books of Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) it's been a cakewalk. Are they atypical? Does it get harder as you go further into the AP's?

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Most published AP's and modules are written assuming a 4 man party with a 15 point buy stat spread and feats spent on things like skill focus and defense boosters (the most recent stuff, like Wrath of the Righteous, got bumped to a 20 point buy, just like PFS). The game is actually balanced for you to "win" it.


Tacticslion wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Why roll at all?
great question

Easily answered: to avoid completely writing the scenario.

There is a difference between choosing the outcome and giving minor breaks. It's rewarding someone who wants to try but has no talent more than anything else.

Above all, it's to make the game fun for the whole table. Which is the reason the game exists.

I rarely do so, but have, on occasion, fudged things for exactly the reasons noted. Someone is having fun, but isn't skilled.

It's kind of the equivalent of giving Steve Gedes' group a break after watching them die at level eight repeatedly for several years and simply being unable (or unwilling) to master the system.

It's not really something I like doing often at all, but it's actually a written recommendation in the Game Mastery Guide for the good of the whole table.

Pretty much this. I also dislike the idea of a player at my table having an advantage over another at a metagame level, and sometimes it's a far friendlier way to deal with it than asking the metagamers to stop metagaming.


Thorri Grimbeard wrote:
(Newbie question) More than half the printed material is written to kill? From what I've seen so far (1st books of Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) it's been a cakewalk. Are they atypical? Does it get harder as you go further into the AP's?

There's pretty much everything in the bestiary from the NPC-geared humanoids to the things that turn you to stone by looking at you to the pit fiends that steal your soul at-will on a failed saving throw.

Then there's the huge number of spells that if they are coming your way are coming to make life harder for you (everything from putting you to sleep, dropping you into another plane of existence, turning your into a bird feeder, or turning you into a bird).

Then the very world itself wants to kill you. If we check the Environment chapter of the core rulebook we found countless yet common situations where you are penalized or directly harmed by your environment.

The Floor hates you (see floors in Environment).

The Dungeon hates you (see cave ins and collapses, molds, etc in Environment).

God hates you (see the weather rules in Environment).

Gaia hates you (see the land rules in Environment).

Science hates you too (see the environment rules in Environment).

And then there are essentially an infinite number of traps (see trap rules in Environment) that are possible to encounter that are above and beyond your general surroundings, the monsters, the gods, the planes, and nature itself hating you and wanting you to suffer, burn, and die. :P


Ashiel wrote:


There's pretty much everything in the bestiary from the NPC-geared humanoids to the things that turn you to stone by looking at you to the pit fiends that steal your soul at-will on a failed saving throw.

Then there's the huge number of spells that if they are coming your way are coming to make life harder for you (everything from putting you to sleep, dropping you into another plane of existence, turning your into a bird feeder, or turning you into a bird).

Then the very world itself wants to kill you. If we check the Environment chapter of the core rulebook we found countless yet common situations where you are penalized or directly harmed by your environment.

The Floor hates you (see floors in Environment).

The Dungeon hates you (see cave ins and collapses, molds, etc in Environment).

God hates you (see the weather rules in Environment).

Gaia hates you (see the land rules in Environment).

Science hates you too (see the environment rules in Environment).

And then there are essentially an infinite number of traps (see trap rules in Environment) that are possible to encounter that are above and beyond your general surroundings, the monsters, the gods, the planes, and nature itself hating you and wanting you to suffer, burn, and die. :P

And if you're *really* unlucky (or forgot to bring them a beer this week), the GM hates you.


Oh, and good adventures usually mix all of these things together. Such as fighting a group of orcs riding on manticore shooting arrows at you while everyone is fleeing an avalanche that's rampaging through a pit-trap infested campsite.

Or it could be something simple like...

Reign of Winter Spoilers:
Being knee deep in snow while all your enemies native to this terrible environment are utterly wrecking your day with their spell-like abilities, ranged attacks, and fatigue-causing cold damage, while you can't effectively move, tumble, fight in melee, and have a hell of a time using ranged combat due to terrain issues like trees and/or weather.


Matt Thomason wrote:
And if you're *really* unlucky (or forgot to bring them a beer this week), the GM hates you.

Haha, yeah. But at least you can do something to deal with all the other stuff. No amount of preparation can help survive a hateful GM. :P

I mean, we can wear armor to help protect against those orc arrows.
We can drink a potion of endure elements to deal with the heat/cold.
We can get a strong survival modifier until we can take 10 to survive in the wilderness without getting lost.
With enough bonuses, we can tumble on a slippery floor.
We can plan to deal with darkness with cool tricks and bullseye lanterns.
We can try to bypass traps with our nice bonuses or spells.
We can try to get magic items that make us suck less in the water (or summon something that can swim us to safety).

If there's one thing system mastery can't help against it's the GM. :P


Ssalarn wrote:
Most published AP's and modules are written assuming a 4 man party with a 15 point buy stat spread and feats spent on things like skill focus and defense boosters (the most recent stuff, like Wrath of the Righteous, got bumped to a 20 point buy, just like PFS). The game is actually balanced for you to "win" it.

I want to meet the group who managed to beat Xanesha like that.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

TarkXT wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
Most published AP's and modules are written assuming a 4 man party with a 15 point buy stat spread and feats spent on things like skill focus and defense boosters (the most recent stuff, like Wrath of the Righteous, got bumped to a 20 point buy, just like PFS). The game is actually balanced for you to "win" it.
I want to meet the group who managed to beat Xanesha like that.

Spoiler:
Xanesha is totally doable for a group of level 6 or 7 (the level you should be when facing her with a party of 4 if you've been picking up the side quests) adventurers. You only need 2nd and 3rd level spells to pierce or dispel her buffs, and many smart PC's won't be dumb enough to actually try and take the stairs up to her, letting her golem and minions drain their resources first. A group that thinks things through will Fly or Spider Climb right up to the top of the tower before she has time do all of her pre-buffing. Rise of the Runelords is as much about not doing the obvious and unwise thing as it is about anything else.

First books of Kingmaker and Wrath probably ARE bad examples. Both of those modules have specific plot/mechanical motivations for making the first few levels easy.

I was not aware of Wrath being 20 point buy- thought it was still 15.

Serpent's Skull, Carrion Crown and the everything is cold APs are all not especially kind to low level guys.


Ssalarn wrote:
**spoiler omitted**

If you have a merciful DM who doens't play her actual cunning and intelligence score. Or if you managed to stumble upon information that would make such preparations a possibility then yes these are things that work.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure she's doable. But a lot of the stories I've read about it are more about the gm than the encounter as written.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
TarkXT wrote:
If you have a merciful DM who doens't play her actual cunning and intelligence score. Or if you managed to stumble upon information that would make such preparations a possibility then yes these are things that work.

Spoiler:
You just took out an elven sycophant and his gang of serial killer worshipping flesh wearers. Then, you either through cunning deduction, speaking with animals, or following a raven found the tower of his evil mistress, whom you should know is his evil mistress if you did any deductive work at all. Unless you're a bunch of blunderers, she shouldn't automatically know you're coming, she's smart, not omnipotent.

But this is probably getting somewhat off topic.

I take that back, this is totally on topic. Accurate role-playing is also a part of system mastery. If you never roleplay or investigate anything and ignore skills, expendables, etc. than many encounters are incredibly difficult. The system assumes you're actually a real adventuring party, not a group of of drunken murder hobos who go around flinging sharp and pointy objects at everything that looks like it might be worth xp and trusting in fate or an understanding GM to keep pointing you in the right direction. Knowing how and when to roleplay and act like real people doing a real job is just as important a part of system mastery as creating a mechanically balanced character. Failing to do so is just as likely to get you killed as having mechanically deficient or unbalanced characters.


Ssalarn wrote:
TarkXT wrote:


If you have a merciful DM who doens't play her actual cunning and intelligence score. Or if you managed to stumble upon information that would make such preparations a possibility then yes these are things that work.

**spoiler omitted**

It doesn't take prescience to make a perception check to hear the battle happening outside. Or do you literally bypass all the encounters first?

Paizo Employee Design Manager

TarkXT wrote:


It doesn't take prescience to make a perception check to hear the battle happening outside. Or do you literally bypass all the encounters first?

If you're smart you do. The Lumber Mill fight is

Spoiler:
nowhere near the tower, so the only heads up she'd get is if you were foolish enough to actually come in through the front door or if the elf somehow books it up to the aviary and scrawls off a good-bye letter. Like I said earlier, Spider Climb or Fly, both readily available at that level and in a city of that size, allow you to pop straight to the top of her tower before she knows you're coming. Once she's taken care of, you just mop up her minions from a position of superiority.

You see that word I ahte. "Smart."

Spoiler:
Some groups would consider it quite smart not to cut themselves off from escape by flying to the top of the tower because then they only have the choice of trying to fly away if they can or going through the minions they just alerted after Xanesha dies (or just teleports down or out).

Other groups would probably just not have the requisite info to understand what she is first. This is a thing that happens too.

In truth there are a lot of smart things you can do up to and including blowing up the damn tower (we had a gnome who wanted to burn it. the only reason we didn't is because of the fear there might be prisoners inside being tortured or something). But a lot of them are bad in hindsight.

Then of course there's the idea that the boss is just going to allow themselves to be ambushed when they have lots of Dimension Door uses left.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Spoiler:
The gnome wanted to burn the giant stone tower..... There were things other than the possibility of hostages preventing that.

If the PC's had the resources to get up the tower, they should have the resources to get back down, that's just (or should be) common sense. THose abilities should actually still be running in most instances.

And bad guys don't "let" adventurers ambush them, they get ambushed by people they didn't know were coming. It's hard to make a concentration check to cast Dimension Door when you've got people up in your grill smashing your squishy unbuffed face in.

By the time you reach her, the party should have enough resources to put the pressure on and keep the pressure on.

I'm sorry you hate the word smart, but that's probably why you couldn't imagine a group of 4 fifteen point buy adventurers taking on a level appropriate challenge when the resources and advantage should be in their favor. Rise of the Runelords rewards smart paly and brutally punishes foolishness, as it should.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Quote:

Pretty much this. I also dislike the idea of a player at my table having an advantage over another at a metagame level, and sometimes it's a far friendlier way to deal with it than asking the metagamers to stop metagaming.

metagaming and optimizing are different issues


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ashiel wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
We also never survive past levels eight or nine, so that probably changes the dynamic.

That's very telling.

Also, fun fact guys...
My games and the games I play in are not tactical miniature wargame fests. Combat-centric games bore me.

I dont know if that was directed to me, but I didnt mean to imply that you only like combat.

I didn't mean to imply that you did (and this is why I don't normally make short posts). You said that you guys never survive past level eight or nine, and I think that's very telling for someone who professes the virtues of poorly balanced rules and the "mechanically viable is bad roleplaying" vibe I get from you and others pretty regularly. It also ties into a complaint of mine over Sean K's insistence that VoP is somehow okay because D&D/PF is easy (which pretty much ignores that more than half the printed material is written to kill or make your character's life miserable; and by mid levels the monsters are wearing their big-boy pants).

However, I was pointing out to the general audience that neither my games nor the games I play in are tactical miniature fests.

No worries. I do value unbalanced rules (or at least I don't value balance). However, I'm not of the view that if you care about mechanics you don't care about roleplaying, so that isn't part of my (intended) vibe.

My overarching belief is that there are a myriad of ways to play. Nobody in my group (beside me) has ever read an online forum, a strategy guide or anything else - I'm very sure we're lousy character builders. Our magicusers all learn fireball as soon as they can, our clerics spend lots of time healing, we don't generally buy magic items (other than consumables) but just accept what we find, we rarely use metamagic, have never had a crafting character, we never plan our characters more than one level in advance....When we do try and "build the best character ever!" i think we end up as the glass cannon someone referred to above - we dont have the depth of knowledge to cover weak spots if we try and specialise. I think we're quite likely to fit in quite well with the OP's group and in my view there's no problem there - it's only going to be an issue if someone with decent knowledge were to join our group (as either player or DM). I think they'd be quite bored.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:


I take that back, this is totally on topic. Accurate role-playing is also a part of system mastery. If you never roleplay or investigate anything and ignore skills, expendables, etc. than many encounters are incredibly difficult. The system assumes you're actually a real adventuring party, not a group of of drunken murder hobos who go around flinging sharp and pointy objects at everything that looks like it might be worth xp and trusting in fate or an understanding GM to keep pointing you in the right direction. Knowing how and when to roleplay and act like real people doing a real job is just as important a part of system mastery as creating a mechanically balanced character. Failing to do so is just as likely to get you killed as having mechanically deficient or unbalanced characters.

I think this is a great point I don't think I've seen before.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ssalarn wrote:
Rise of the Runelords rewards smart paly and brutally punishes foolishness, as it should.

The problem is all of it is subjective to the GM to be faithful to the scenario.

I have a hard time believing that its common because I read around and find that in fact a lot of groups don't find this short cut (which is dubious in its certainty). Or, they enact other plans because they don't have access to those things or ended up a lower level when they did it (we did it at 5 for the record we featherfalled out once we realized what we were up against).

In other words, no two groups will ever do things the same way.

So yeah, good for you. That's not a common story though.

Spoiler:
Usually it's a tough dragged out run down fight. On top of a tower. In a rainstorm against a spellcasting melee beast.

So no, system mastery can only go so far here. Too many random elements and reliance on GM adjudication. That's all Im going to say on it.

But beyond that you're right. Acting like actual freaking professionals is important.


TarkXT wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
Rise of the Runelords rewards smart paly and brutally punishes foolishness, as it should.

The problem is all of it is subjective to the GM to be faithful to the scenario.

I have a hard time believing that its common because I read around and find that in fact a lot of groups don't find this short cut (which is dubious in its certainty). Or, they enact other plans because they don't have access to those things or ended up a lower level when they did it (we did it at 5 for the record we featherfalled out once we realized what we were up against).

In other words, no two groups will ever do things the same way.

So yeah, good for you. That's not a common story though.

**spoiler omitted**

So no, system mastery can only go so far here. Too many random elements and reliance on GM adjudication. That's all Im going to say on it.

But beyond that you're right. Acting like actual freaking professionals is important.

Have to agree there, to an extent. Heck, the party I GMed the battle for had a fairly high level of system mastery, and they had a rough time with Xanesha on account of the random number god not liking them.

That is one thing about pretty much any tabletop game with dice rolls; sometimes the RNG can ruin the best plans the party can come up with. My party really grew to hate the Kreeg Ogres with their Ogre hooks, since I had an uncanny knack for rolling at least one crit per encounter with them. Triple damage critical hits from bad guys can quickly turn an encounter from 'routine easy fight' to 'oh crap.'

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ashiel wrote:
Hey Mikaze, did you ever try out the ascetic character stuff I wrote for you? Was hoping for feedback so I could include your considerations in future stuff.

Not yet, but it's a lock for the next AP I run, starting either at the end of this year or early next, after our twin groups wrap up Jade Regent.

My Shattered Star players no read:
Adding a lot of stuff throughout the AP, and the third book in Kaer Maga is going to have some drama and "shades of gray" conflict added in concerning an imported Vudrani slave-monk caste and naga nobility and issues with them spinning out of PC actions in Curse of the Crimson Throne.

Very long story short, they're all monks trained from birth to act as servants and bodyguards who own nothing their masters don't give them, as a sort of karmic purgatory according to their beliefs. Two of them will be highly likely recruitable, with the rest serving as potential allies and extremely sympathetic antagonists.

It's going to let me do a test run on a lot of monk concepts too, all shooting for different variations of that enlightened monk concept. The battledancing monk/bards with Perform: Dance and the flowing monks are the ones I'm most exctied about. :)

Gonna be all Bollywood/wuxia/film noir hybridization up in that town.

Thanks again for those rules, btw. :D

Liberty's Edge

If you want to describe a whole AP module in a few posts, USE SPOILER TAGS!


Diego Rossi wrote:
If you want to describe a whole AP module in a few posts, USE SPOILER TAGS!

While I definitely agree with this general sentiment (I don't actually care for myself, but I know many people who do), are you responding to Mikaze?

EDIT: NOPE! Okay, no, it was just a dumb moment on my part. You were talking to the other two posters. Got it. Sorry!

(I was really wracking my brain on why I could see the spoiler tags in the post, but you couldn't. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh to me.)


Mikaze wrote:
Thanks again for those rules, btw. :D

You're very welcome. Toss me some feedback when you get a chance so I know what to tweak, where, and why. :)


Ssalarn wrote:
And bad guys don't "let" adventurers ambush them, they get ambushed by people they didn't know were coming. It's hard to make a concentration check to cast Dimension Door when you've got people up in your grill smashing your squishy unbuffed face in.

It isn't.

Spoiler:
Old Xanesha had +18 Concentration. She can also fly. Leaving all the minions alive bypassing the encounters might work wonderfully, or be a dissaster, depending on how Xanesha reacts. If she Dimensional Door as soon as she sees the PC, you are in trouble unless you beat her in the first round, before she even take his initiative (which is +6, not too shabby). Xanesha is a hard fight. Xanesha plus all her minions is an impossible fight.

The PC aren't the only ones who can be smart


Ah, not much of a problem. Kicked out the group without so much as a Bob's yer Uncle beforehand but to be fair, online gossiping probably didn't help matters. Wasn't gonna work, anyhow.

I was suggested to DM, probably as a way to get rid of me. The other group was more of the same, or even more rudimentary, with raw rookies.

I am a little douchey and combative but still.
Just messes for character sheets.

Is that really how people play? "Eh, I'm creative. Free form.
I don't let books and charts get in the way."

Then why are you playing a game with a 600 page Core Rulebook
and 300 page Bestiary and supplements?

???

It makes me wonder if d20 should be the break-in beginner game.
It probably shouldn't. It is far too crunchy and fiddly.

"Oh, you've never read a novel before? Here, have Ulysses.
And if you can't handle it, I've got Cliff Notes and Spark Notes
and Grade Saver and Ulysses written at a 5th grade level so you
never lose an encounter against a chapter."

:/


SPCDRI wrote:

Ah, not much of a problem. Kicked out the group without so much as a Bob's yer Uncle beforehand but to be fair, online gossiping probably didn't help matters. Wasn't gonna work, anyhow.

I was suggested to DM, probably as a way to get rid of me. The other group was more of the same, or even more rudimentary, with raw rookies.

I am a little douchey and combative but still.
Just messes for character sheets.

Is that really how people play? "Eh, I'm creative. Free form.
I don't let books and charts get in the way."

Then why are you playing a game with a 600 page Core Rulebook
and 300 page Bestiary and supplements?

???

It makes me wonder if d20 should be the break-in beginner game.
It probably shouldn't. It is far too crunchy and fiddly.

"Oh, you've never read a novel before? Here, have Ulysses.
And if you can't handle it, I've got Cliff Notes and Spark Notes
and Grade Saver and Ulysses written at a 5th grade level so you
never lose an encounter against a chapter."

:/

Commiserations. But hopefully it saved you lots of frustration.


Yes, there are people that play that way and have a blast doing it.

I'm not one of them, but they do exist.

Just try to find a group that fits you better.

Shadow Lodge

Ashiel wrote:

Sean K. Reynolds on the Paizo forums basically admitting to there intentionally being trap options because it's "admirable" to play a character that is going to die in an adventure.

I'm not sure what game Sean is talking about though. D&D/PF is freaking hard. 90% of the game from the bestiary through the environment section is dedicated to making the game harder for everyone involved. It is a game about conflicts and rising above those conflicts. I don't see any of the pregens in the APs running around as 12 Int wizards.

This post hurt me pretty bad and I lost a lot of faith in the design team after it. If I'm buying products from Paizo, I'd rather not have page count wasted on stuff that's only going to hurt my players if they try it, or give them ideas that I'm going to have to homebrew an option that works instead of just letting them take what's in the book.

Vow of Poverty for example drastically hurts the viability of a character (worst of all it hurts monks >:O) which not only means that character is probably going to die pretty easily to the dangers of adventures due to being severely under geared, but it also makes them a drag on the party. In Magic the Gathering, if your deck is loaded with sucky cards your system mastery affects no one else. If you're playing a gimp your decisions can cost someone else their character.

I initially trusted the designers to not feed my players options that are going to hurt them. Someone who takes Vow of Poverty is someone who lacks the system mastery to understand why it's a bad idea, and the idea of punishing people for "roleplaying" as an abominable one from a designer standpoint.

It was a dark day.

With all due respect, if you are just now figuring out that Pathfinder retains some of the system mastery / trap option / Monte Cook design brilliance (that's sarcasm, btw), then I have to wonder why it took you four years to obtain even a modicum of understanding of the core rulebook. These are not concepts that were introduced in a recent splat book. They've been there since August 2009.


Well, it seems you have one possible answer to the question 'How much do giant gulfs in system mastery affect a game?'.

Also hearing from your last post possible issues with "house rules" not being explained up front, which contributes to frustration from the person just joining the group. That I can certainly empathize with.

Shadow Lodge

DrDeth wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:

Another good example of the whole system mastery thing, SKR saying that having any other ranged weapon be as effective as the longow was as ridiculous as letting water balloons do so.. Granted, a lot of his stated reasoning seems to stem for a desire for some arbitrary form of "realism" rather than an outright desire to punish certain character concepts, but the end result is much the same. The game rewards picking longbows, and punishes anyone who dares to focus on a different weapon, unless part of your character concept is always being inferior to the guy with the longbow.

Well, yeah, because a longbow IS better than a sling or a crossbow. Thems the facts. It's not a "trap"- the the simple club is there on the list in case you want to use it and that it is way less optimal than almost any other weapon. Real life would punish him too, in fact at the battle of Crecy that was exactly what happened.

What you suggest is " all weapons do 1d6 and crit on a 20, just call them what you like, there's no difference between a greatsword and a club, it's all the same". I think those were the rules in one early FRP.

People LIKE choices. Sometimes they even want to play the sub-optimal choice. I had great fun as a dwarf Sorcerer. Sue me. It's a GAME, the object of a GAME is to have FUN.

It's not quite true that a longbow is superior to a crossbow in every possible way. The longbow takes years to master...that's a pretty damn significant advantage in favor of the crossbow.

The problem is that the average Joe required years of training with that longbow to even equal his friend, average Jeff, on the crossbow, which he got fully trained on in a few weeks. But the game doesn't model that. Both take exactly the same amount of training investment...a feat.


Kthulhu wrote:
With all due respect, if you are just now figuring out that Pathfinder retains some of the system mastery / trap option / Monte Cook design brilliance (that's sarcasm, btw), then I have to wonder why it took you four years to obtain even a modicum of understanding of the core rulebook. These are not concepts that were introduced in a recent splat book. They've been there since August 2009.

In far fewer quantities because Paizo promised a more balanced ruleset. Something that they actually did do. It's not perfectly balanced, but the fact is I played 3.x since it released and it's leaps and bounds more balanced than it ever was. You can actually play three of the four martial characters in a group with spellcasters and not be second fiddle to somebody's pet hamster.

Most of the core is pretty solid. Spells were nerfed hardcore, virtually all the "no save, just suck" spells got revised, and most of the spells that ended encounters have a much harder time doing so. Most of the trap feat options from 3.x got improved as well. The skill boosting feats are actually not terrible, toughness is actually a good feat now (equivalent to +2 Con for HP purposes), and most of the feats they added filled a need while being decent.

They did some back sliding (the splitting combat maneuver feats into two feats burns like the surface of the sun as it makes martials even more feat starved than they were before if they want to do these things with some measure of success after a certain level), but on the whole I think that Paizo was legitimately trying to improve the game and give the players a game that worked well.

Was.

EDIT: And not just in fewer quantities but also in less severity. There are options that are better or worse than others, but not nearly by the leaps and bounds that they were before.

Digital Products Assistant

Removed an unhelpful post and threw some spoiler tags on a few posts.


SPCDRI wrote:


Is that really how people play? "Eh, I'm creative. Free form.
I don't let books and charts get in the way."

Then why are you playing a game with a 600 page Core Rulebook
and 300 page Bestiary and supplements?

???

It makes me wonder if d20 should be the break-in beginner game.
It probably shouldn't. It is far too crunchy and fiddly.

Heh, reminds me of what happens when I talk to real free-form gamers who play without any rulebooks at all. They see my "we have a rulebook, but always remember it's just guidelines and the needs of the story come first" style as being far too rules-oriented. Then of course the tactical gamers find my style too open for them. :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Origional Post:

SPCDRI wrote:

I don't want to be arrogant and go "system mastery! system mastery!"

but I think I got a good handle on this game.

I was just a druid PC in a 7th level party. The DM gave us a bonus feat and totally ridiculous scores off of 4d6 7 times, best 6 total rolls, re-roll 1s and 2s. We should be CRUSHING dungeons.

A CR 7 or 8 encounter, some sort of beautiful female evil outsider (never quite got which one, Succus, Pairyaka, whatever) dropped something like a DC 17ish Will Save charm and half the freaking party biffed it.

I'm looking over at 3 out of 6 people going...

"What the hell? How did you roll a 5 on your Will save?

3 or 4 rounds later, I'm in dire tiger form with a big cat, having killed the 3 minions and almost single handedly killed the female demon as well, did at least HALF damage to it.

The rogue player was like..."Yeah, this stuff happens sometimes when you have a 3 for your Will save."

WE HAVE A BONUS FEAT, SOMETHING LIKE 45 TO 50 POINT BUY, 20,000 GP TO SPEND AND THE GUY IS LIKE...

"Yeah brother. 3 in the Will Save, things happen."

3 people in this party had Will saves lower than my !@#$ing animal companion.

I don't want to be mean to these guys and I'm trying to help them out, but 3 or 4 of these characters are just bafflingly bad mechanically.

And they know how to stealth, get surprise rounds, attack flat-footed people, ready actions, etc. So their play is fundamentally sound. It is just the sheets are a mess. I don't get it.

I don't even know if I'm compatible with a group like this.

Lets check the math:
Stats
4d6 with 1's & 2's rerolled.
--> Each die winds up 3,4,5, or 6 with equal probability
--> Average 3d6 roll: 13.5
--> Average 4d6 roll: 14.6+
--> Minimum possible roll: 9
--> Minimum roll occurs once in 256 times.
Choose 6 of 7 results for stats
--> Get a 9 only if 2 rolls come up with 9
--> Get a 9 once in 65,536 times
Pulling a 9 is a remote chance

Saves
Level 7 Good save: 5
Level 7 Bad save: 2
Stat Mod: -1 to 4, average 2

Gear
20,000 GP
At 25% for protection [per NPC WBL guidelines], that is 5000 for AC and Saves
--> Either +2 AC & +1 Saves, or +1/+2
--> Assume +1 on Saves

NPC Caster stat
Array: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 with floating +2
APL stat bonus for 7th: +1
NPC Equipment: +2 Stat item
Casting stat best: 13+2+1+2 = 18
Spell DC best spell: 10 (base) + 4 (4th level) + 4 (Stat mod) = 18

So. Given this setup, no relevant stat bonus used, you have an average of 5 or 8 to save vs. 18. That is you need 13 (35%) or 10 (50%) to save. You had 50% failure rate. Sounds reasonable until you look at the free feat, traits, and other gear available. Doesn't sound too bad though.

/Cevah


My turn. Tonight, we had a TP"KO". Party of six. Three dominated. Dominated Wizard's summoned elemental was re-pointed to the undominated oracle necromancer until really dead. The local undead went uncontrolled. Another player had to leave early, so actions went to coincide with the last player. The only one left chose to retreat, as earlier in the encounter her character was killed and reincarnated. What a wipe.

What makes this even better were the d20 rolls. The party rolled bad on the will saves vs. the monster, but great on later saves against the undominated party members. Likewise, damage rolls by the dominated were the kind we all dream of.

While only one has remained dead at this time, we allowed the monster to escape. This is going to come back to haunt us, I just know it.

/cevah

Liberty's Edge

Cevah wrote:
So. Given this setup, no relevant stat bonus used, you have an average of 5 or 8 to save vs. 18. That is you need 13 (35%) or 10 (50%) to save. You had 50% failure rate. Sounds reasonable until you look at the free feat, traits, and other gear available. Doesn't sound too bad though.

The problem is that i that group both the rogue and the ranger have a will ST of +3 at level 7.

That require either:
- a wisdom of 9 and a +2 item (1/65,536 to be forced to accept a 9 as a result and then choosing to place it in wisdom(;
- a wisdom of 10-11 and a +1 item;
- a wisdom of 12-13 (a very probable stat if you generate your characteristics with the generous method used by the group) and no magic items boosting your saves;
- multiclassing only in classes with bad will saves (rogue 2 ranger 5 as an example).

All possible situations, but all situations that where the player choices have heavily influenced how the character work.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
SPCDRI wrote:

I don't want to be arrogant and go "system mastery! system mastery!" but I think I got a good handle on this game.>Stuff<

I don't even know if I'm compatible with a group like this.

Alas, the disparity between player skill levels, interests and more are a part of the session. I try and assign mentors for newer players from the absolutely most dominant and aggressive players. I let the Bossy Britches know that THEIR exp will come from their apprentice's progression as a player. This does work...irregularly. The last game's most dominant player had never played anything prior, but was the head b***h queen for driving the plotline along by the end. Even her early mentor, a dyed in the wool rules lawyer was intimidated!

The other edge is when you as a player are too rules savvy for a weak, or worse, incompetent DM. My group includes a <self-censored> jerk that fears someone might get something over on him. He always rules against anyone he sees as threatening his imagined authority. His 'legendary' game was back under 3.0 and was renowned for rules on the fly that always changed in his favor. Currently, he's nearby creating a Fire Goblin Sorcerer that will have all the 'fire' spells. As opposed to his previous dozen or so Sorcerers of differing races. He likes them because they're 'easy to play'!

Sigh...


ParagonDireRaccoon wrote:
As always, Mordo has a point the thread is neglecting. One would almost suspect that Mordo is one (or more) Paizo staff members.

No. But are what eat. (Burp.) Paizo staff yummy.


Snorter wrote:

"What the Hell?"

"Those children beat my minions? Again?"

"Send out another wave of my weakest remaining minions!"

"No, not you, Shadow Demon. You might actually hurt them. You stay here, with me."

Ah yes.

Those were good ol' days, when the Big Six were half-dozen kids. Oversize adventuring party but still only two weapons among them!

Highlight of granddad's career was that cute thief stealing his key.

All episodes seven bucks!

201 to 248 of 248 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / How much do giant gulfs in system mastery affect a game? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion