It is cheating... let me explain.
- Researching has to be done ahead of time in game and/or with skill rolls. It doesn't sound like you did. So no go on the "I could research" idea.
- OOC studying your spell and the monsters it can summon are fine and you should know that stuff in character anyway. So knowing about a Lantern Archon is fine.
- Finding out ANYTHING about an Iron Golem from a forum and then using that knowledge in game IS metagaming and a form of cheating. And you did just this to find an attack that could get past it's resistances.
- Your GM sounds like a bit of a tool. In the future don't tell him where you learned new tactics from and make sure to research stuff like an iron golem's weaknesses in character in game ahead of time so that he has nothing to hold against you.
|
Arnwyn,
While I get that this is a matter of opinion, I urge you to try and see that in this case, you are punishing clerics (or other classes with summoning capabilities) for what is a rather arbitrary reason.
Seriously, just as I wouldn't blame a wizard player for meta gaming if he uses squares on the combat grid to make sure that his fireball only hits enemies (a "real" wizard fighting a "real" battle will not be able to calculate the area of effect with anything near that precision, and might, depending on the inclinations of the character, hesitate to use that fireball for fear of maybe hitting a companion). Clearly the player is using knowledge his character doesn't have for getting an advantage in the game - but that's just part of how the game is played.
If you can summon a monster, you know what it does. Insisting otherwise is nothing except an arbitrary punishment against a certain class ability. It is extremely reasonable to assume, as a player, that your character is aware of all of her class abilities to their full extent. Does a rouge player need to make a knowledge check to see if he can sneak attack a golem?
I'm making the exact same point I did in my previous post, but only because it makes so much sense. Pathfinder has limits as a simulation of reality, and the term "class abilities" is certainly one of them. Accept that, and improve your game by not imposing random restrictions upon your players.
While I get that this is a matter of opinion
Good. A wise realization on your part.
How do you define a character's knowledge of his own abilities?
If a fighter's didn't know he could retrain some of his feats until someone pointed it out before a game, is he cheating next level when he drops exotic weapon proficiency [Mithral Waffle Iron]?
How do you define a character's knowledge of his own abilities?
If a fighter's didn't know he could retrain some of his feats until someone pointed it out before a game, is he cheating next level when he drops exotic weapon proficiency [Mithral Waffle Iron]?
I have a hard time imagining how he even knows he can forget what he can do...
I don't think a little bit of meta is a problem. Part of a game is knowing how to play it. I do think looking up how to beat an exact problem is a bit bleh though.
I guess it all boils down to "Is it cheating if someone tells you that you can do something you would be able to do if you (not your character) had knowledge of it?"
I say no. If I was playing a Barbarian and didn't know I got a bonus to Will saves while Raging, I don't think I'd be cheating if I applied that +2 bonus on Will saves from that point forwards where I didn't before.
so because you did research on alternatives to help your party out. the DM throws a tantrum because you didn't fight the golem head on? a smart party adapts. and chaotic is the alignment of change. it makes sense that a character with a chaotic bent would tailor their tactics to the opposition. i have no problem with using lantern archons to slay an iron golem. my problem is the powermad DM whom thought he was awesome because he let out a laugh at the party's lack of ability to tackle the situation.
i agree with Rynjin here
Well, to be fair he WAS actually cheating (since he can't summon Lantern Archons) but that's a side matter to the main course of "You're cheating because you looked up how to use your class options effectively".
Which I consider less cheating and more an honest mistake of "oh I forgot/didn't know Lantern Archons being Lawful made the spell [Lawful] too". Cheating tends to imply intent to break the rules.
True. Bit of a tomato/toMAHto sort of deal. Depends on whether you consider accidental cheating to still be technically cheating or not.
Well, to be fair he WAS actually cheating (since he can't summon Lantern Archons) but that's a side matter to the main course of "You're cheating because you looked up how to use your class options effectively".
in my experience, that is a commonly ignored part of the cleric class hidden behind a wall of text that nobody wants to bring up unless it is convenient for them to do so. he was a new (or at least inexperienced) cleric, did you expect him to seek that specific hole when he was so desperate to defeat the iron golem that nearly killed his party the first time?
This is pretty blatant metagaming. Your character doesn't have the internetand didn't even make a single knowledge check to determine this strategy. Don't do it again.You're being sarcastic, right? He shouldn't have to make a Knowledge check to determine what he can summon with his spell. That is not a requirement of the spell in the slightest.
There is no metagaming here. He is using out of game knowledge his character should already have known by the time the first fight rolled around. This is just his GM being a throbbing prick.
yes, it is. The character in question CANNOT summon creatures of the alignment the player read up on. Its meta as hell, and I wouldn't allow it in a game I was running. The internet does not exist in game and you cannot take Google as your god, nor does your character walk around with a copy of the bestiary. Sorry, but thems the breaks.
There is no metagaming here.Unless he has faced a golem and summoned lantern archons before, it's most certainly metagaming to know that lantern archons will mess up the golem without rolling Knowledge checks to find out.So he needs a Knowledge check to know that a big, heavy, landbound creature is likely to be wrecked by things firing ranged attacks from out of reach?
Who knew?
when it gets around specific immunities? Yes.
yes, it is. The character in question CANNOT summon creatures of the alignment the player read up on.
Acknowledged, but beside the point being discussed.
Its meta as hell, and I wouldn't allow it in a game I was running. The internet does not exist in game and you cannot take Google as your god, nor does your character walk around with a copy of the bestiary. Sorry, but thems the breaks.
Just so I can get a judge of your consistency, do you require classes to have experienced Feats first hand to use them? Or a Barbarian to only take Rage Powers he's seen in use?
After all, they're not walking around with copies of the rulebook, and don't have Google as their god either.
when it gets around specific immunities? Yes.
It's a solid tactic regardless of immunities (get a bunch of flying creatures, open fire). It's not at all a stretch to assume his Cleric is smart enough to think of it.
It's not at all a stretch to assume his Cleric is smart enough to think of it.
Pfft, they aren't smart enough, int is a dump for them! They might be wise enough though, they pump that wisdom!
It's not at all a stretch to assume his Cleric is smart enough to think of it.Pfft, they aren't smart enough, int is a dump for them! They might be wise enough though, they pump that wisdom!
it's common sense, clerics have plenty of that
a landbound foe whom only engages in melee combat, is screwed by any flying ranged foe that can stay out of their reach and pepper them with a ranged attack they are ill prepared to resist.
would you say the same if the fighter chose to drink his potion of fly, ready his composite longbow, fly above the golem's reach and unleash storm after storm of blanched mundane adamantine arrows at 201 Gold pieces per quiver? at worst. the golem would consume a whole quiver. not an issue for a 9th level fighter.
the fact he wasn't the right alignment to summon the creature is irrelevant, the cleric used a tactic that works really well against that type of foe. i wouldn't give him half XP, i'd give him full, maybe even double or triple for the innovative idea of exploiting the monster's weakness instead of facing it head on.
a DM shouldn't expect a character with a high wisdom to not use their high wisdom to assess the situation.
"hey, this guy is big, he is earthbound, and he only attacks in melee, i'm sure i could take him out if i find a way to stay out of his reach and make a ranged attack that bypasses his defenses. luckily, there is a celestial being designed explicitly for that purpose i learned about in church class. maybe using the help of that Celestial wouldn't hurt this time around."
there is not a single cleric whom doesn't know about lantern archons, and the whole thing on clerics being unable to cast spells of an aligment opposed to their own gets handwaved in a lot of groups anyway. mostly because oracles don't have that restriction nor do druids or other divine casters.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I find it amusing that from page 1 to 2 of this discussion, people changed their tune from "that's cheating because the character couldn't have known" to "it's cheating because the character couldn't have summoned the archons in the first place". The second part might be cheating, or might be an honest mistake, but either way it's kinda irrelevent to the question.
Freehold DM, TriOmegaZero - if the cleric had the right alignment, would you still call what the player did meta gaming? If so could you please explain why a cleric shouldn't be able to know what his summoned creatures do, while every other class gets to know everything about all of their class abilities? To reuse examples for my previous posts, is it O.K for a wizard's player to know exactly what the area of effect is for her spells, and then also use the squares on the battle grid to aim the spell for maximum effect? even though the wizard PC never rolled a knowledge check to know the spell's range and obviously doesn't have perfectly measured squares to aid in aiming the spell?
|
|
It's a solid tactic regardless of immunities (get a bunch of flying creatures, open fire). It's not at all a stretch to assume his Cleric is smart enough to think of it.But that's not what he did, by his own admission. Hell, he called it metagaming himself.
I... used ctrl+f to find the word meta gaming in his posts. He never called it meta gaming.
As a player, sure, he searched for knowledge. He only used knowledge that his character might naturally have, though. "hmm, maybe I can use my summoned creatures with long range and flying to try and take down that golem!"
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Really?
So what is everyones opinion on this? Personaly I dont feel like I did anything particularly bad. I merely found out how to use one of my spells effectively. Im not used to being called a cheater, but I must admittedly say I found it incredibly laughable of the GM to come off the way he did. Sure, there was metagaming in my aproach. But to me there is a general issue in people not knowing how to use spells/feats effectively. Isnt it in everyones interest that people learn the potential of their class?
|
|
when it gets around specific immunities? Yes.There is no metagaming here.Unless he has faced a golem and summoned lantern archons before, it's most certainly metagaming to know that lantern archons will mess up the golem without rolling Knowledge checks to find out.So he needs a Knowledge check to know that a big, heavy, landbound creature is likely to be wrecked by things firing ranged attacks from out of reach?
Who knew?
Again, knowing that the golem is immune to magis is *player* knowledge. Without rolling a knowledge check, all the *character* knows is that the golem shrugged off a *single spell*. So for the character, if he found a safe way (flying over the golem's reach) to try a new tactic against the golem, it's very reasonable to try it out. And if it doesn't work? then you fall back and start doing serious in-game research on that foe to find a weakness.
It's weird that you are arguing that a player used out of game knowledge to his advantage , when what you are trying to do is make their out of game knowledge into a disadvantage. To quote the OP:
...and my Searing Light spell did zip damage to him due to immunity to magic (I was told by the GM in a "Muahahahaha!" kind of fashion)...
So let me get it stright- the player should be barred from trying a strategy his character has good reasons to attempt, because the GM told the player *out of game* that the golem is immune to magic?
|
|
Really?
So what is everyones opinion on this? Personaly I dont feel like I did anything particularly bad. I merely found out how to use one of my spells effectively. Im not used to being called a cheater, but I must admittedly say I found it incredibly laughable of the GM to come off the way he did. Sure, there was metagaming in my aproach. But to me there is a general issue in people not knowing how to use spells/feats effectively. Isnt it in everyones interest that people learn the potential of their class?
Ah, well, I usef ctrl+f on "meta gaming", not "metagaming". That explains it, sorry about that mixup. However, it also means I disagree with the OPs understanding of the term "meta game".
Could you please also reply to my other question to you?
Freehold DM, TriOmegaZero - if the cleric had the right alignment, would you still call what the player did meta gaming? If so could you please explain why a cleric shouldn't be able to know what his summoned creatures do, while every other class gets to know everything about all of their class abilities? To reuse examples for my previous posts, is it O.K for a wizard's player to know exactly what the area of effect is for her spells, and then also use the squares on the battle grid to aim the spell for maximum effect? even though the wizard PC never rolled a knowledge check to know the spell's range and obviously doesn't have perfectly measured squares to aid in aiming the spell?
|
|
Could you please also reply to my other question to you?I don't really have an answer for you, since I have not said that clerics cannot know what their summoned creatures do.
so can you explain why you consider that player's actions to be meta gaming? he "had an idea" (that he found on the internet), and it's very reasonable for his character to also have that idea, given that it does not use any knowledge the character doesn't have.
If he would have come up with the idea by his lonesome, would you still call what he did metagaming?
...the cleric used a tactic that works really well against that type of foe. i wouldn't give him half XP, i'd give him full, maybe even double or triple for the innovative idea of exploiting the monster's weakness instead of facing it head on.
...
there is not a single cleric whom doesn't know about lantern archons...
You wouldn't really give him extra experience points for using such a well known strategy, would you? Was that just an overreaction to the thought of penalising him?
It's a solid tactic regardless of immunities (get a bunch of flying creatures, open fire). It's not at all a stretch to assume his Cleric is smart enough to think of it.But that's not what he did, by his own admission. Hell, he called it metagaming himself.I... used ctrl+f to find the word meta gaming in his posts. He never called it meta gaming.
As a player, sure, he searched for knowledge. He only used knowledge that his character might naturally have, though. "hmm, maybe I can use my summoned creatures with long range and flying to try and take down that golem!"
i agree with this
it started with google, but even then, if we think about in character reasons, it's called common sense.
what do you do against a large earthbound creature you know doesn't have a form of ranged attack? you stay out of it's reach and pepper it with ranged attacks till it falls. if you know it has a tough shell and a resistance to magic? what do you do? look for magic that bypasses the resistance?
it's called adapting
yes, the player did use google to research this particular tactic, but only because his group was defeated beforehand by rushing headlong the prior iteration of the encounter.
for in character purposes, drop the words "Google" and "Internet" from your minds and replace them with "Analysis" and "Assessment." the player clearly didn't have the wisdom his cleric did, so he used an aid to help him fake it and remain true to his character.
i think the DM merely got upset that the cleric didn't try to ineffectually swing his mace around when he used common sense to adapt to the situation and assess. yes, he had outside help with the assessment, but not every IRL person has an 18+ wisdom
in fact, the tactic could have been used on a 10, let alone 7 or 8 wisdom.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
If he would have come up with the idea by his lonesome, would you still call what he did metagaming?
Nope, that's the crux of the matter. If he had just cast fly and started plinking, or looked through his spells for things with ranged attacks to help, no problem. Had he rolled Knowledge checks and asked the GM if something like that had worked, fine.
The fact that he basically read the bestiary to find the mechanical solution without considering how his character would figure that out is the mark of metagaming.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
And I just noticed you did already answer that question... missed that post previously.
Anyway, that's just a matter of clashing opinions here, but... if for example I game my players a riddle, and the player who plays the 8 int barbarian came up with the solution in about 12 seconds (he is quite literally a genius in real life), I'm not going to disallow the party from using that knowledge.
I mean, telling the player, "look, it's fine that you came up with an idea to deal with the golem, but next time roleplay a quick scene where the cleric prays for guidance for a couple of hours and eventually comes back to the party, claiming to have found inspiration in the beauty of his god/goddess - and explain that tactic". Then what the player did is not really metagaming, it's just a slight problem of style. These are very different things.
Meta gaming: "come on guys, natural fire only does 1d6 fire per round, that means we easily have time to run through the fires for a couple of minutes without dying!"
not meta gaming: "ok guys, I have an idea - my character can summon flying creatures with powerful ranged attacks. Maybe this would work better against that horrible metal man we fought yesterday."
You wouldn't really give him extra experience points for using such a well known strategy, would you? Was that just an overreaction to the thought of penalising him?...the cleric used a tactic that works really well against that type of foe. i wouldn't give him half XP, i'd give him full, maybe even double or triple for the innovative idea of exploiting the monster's weakness instead of facing it head on.
...
there is not a single cleric whom doesn't know about lantern archons...
the reason it's well known is because it's common sense. i'd give the group the extra experience for the cleric's assessment of the situation, even if it used something well known and had assisted analysis.
yes, i would reward extra XP for using common sense and solutions beyond the scope of "Leeroy and Pray we live."
i'd give the same XP bonus if the fighter drank a potion of fly and peppered the golem with blanched mundane adamantine arrows from the sky till it died.
in my opinion, no matter how well known the strategy, i reward exploiting weaknesses based on assessment.
|
Anyway, that's just a matter of clashing opinions here, but... if for example I game my players a riddle, and the player who plays the 8 int barbarian came up with the solution in about 12 seconds (he is quite literally a genius in real life), I'm not going to disallow the party from using that knowledge.
Nor would I.
You wouldn't really give him extra experience points for using such a well known strategy, would you? Was that just an overreaction to the thought of penalising him?...the cleric used a tactic that works really well against that type of foe. i wouldn't give him half XP, i'd give him full, maybe even double or triple for the innovative idea of exploiting the monster's weakness instead of facing it head on.
...
there is not a single cleric whom doesn't know about lantern archons...the reason it's well known is because it's common sense. i'd give the group the extra experience for the cleric's assessment of the situation, even if it used something well known and had assisted analysis.
yes, i would reward extra XP for using common sense and solutions beyond the scope of "Leeroy and Pray we live."
i'd give the same XP bonus if the fighter drank a potion of fly and peppered the golem with blanched mundane adamantine arrows from the sky till it died.
in my opinion, no matter how well known the strategy, i reward exploiting weaknesses based on assessment.
Cheers. My instinct is that doing what everyone knows you should do is inherently less beneficial (in an experience progression sense) than doing something very few people have thought of/tried.
*twitch*
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It was indeed cheating . you applied player knowledge to your character
A good way to have done this would have been to
* research the information as a player
* Ask the DM which knowledge roll to make to know the weaknesses of an iron golem
* If the roll was successful, then the DM should have allowed you to use these tactics. If not, then your character would not have know this tactic .Well he did tell us on that prior session that
1. Damage reduction "Muahahaha" to quote him. The fighter and barbarian was doing their best.
2. Magical immunity "Muahahaha"
Yeah, but those are things your character would indeed have learned from the confrontation. Damage reduction's entry in the Bestiary actually states that the attacker understands that the damage is somehow being mitigated. And as to your spells, you could clearly see they were not working. So your character has that knowledge.
Where you messed up - you "metagamed" - was when you did research out of character, then applied that research to your character without finding some way to emulate the research in-game and in-character.
How did your character come upon this knowledge? Does he have access to the Internet? No, but you do. And you gave your character knowledge gleaned from it. You need to find a way to work that knowledge in with your GM. If nothing else, ask him if you would be able to find these tactics in books at your church's library. Or ask if you can use some divining spell to obtain some of the info.
On the other hand, you did discuss with your GM before the final battle. In his shoes, I would have changed things up with the encounter so you would not know exactly what to expect. Or, I would have worked out the matter of how your character got this knowledge, again, BEFORE the final encounter. That he waited until you made short work of the golem, then got angry about it, seems silly and a little ego-centric.
You know, Iv'e always been buffled by this - TOZ and TriOmegaZero -same person or not? 0_0
TriOmegaZero
TOZTri
Omega
Zero
TOZ
You Make The Call
Shadow Clone Technique!
As far as I can tell (though I am by no means secure in this theory) GM TOZ and Player TOZ are separate aliases.
Just not sure which is which...
Anyway, that's just a matter of clashing opinions here, but... if for example I game my players a riddle, and the player who plays the 8 int barbarian came up with the solution in about 12 seconds (he is quite literally a genius in real life), I'm not going to disallow the party from using that knowledge.
My group has always been very good with "group think." In the scenario you mention, my players would have no problem allowing the answer to be given, in-game, by a smarter character. The player of the barbarian would get all pats on the back, and even more thanks for allowing the group to play a little more "realistically" by allowing the wizard to speak the answer.
(This is not to say that sometimes we don't let the barbarian roleplay dumb luck and give the answer himself - that can be fun - and funny - too.)
We just play it by ear.
You don't need any special knowledge of iron golems to come up with this tactic. You only need to know what your summoned creature can do. Lantern archon beams are effective against pretty much anything. They are ranged touch attacks, not subject to DR or spell resistance.
Of course, there isn't actually a rule saying that you know what your summoned creatures can do. By RAW that might take a pretty high Knowledge: Planes roll. By RAW you probably shouldn't be allowed to look at the bestiary pages for your summoned creatures - you should just drop them on the map and let the GM control them.
You don't need any special knowledge of iron golems to come up with this tactic. You only need to know what your summoned creature can do. Lantern archon beams are effective against pretty much anything. They are ranged touch attacks, not subject to DR or spell resistance.
Of course, there isn't actually a rule saying that you know what your summoned creatures can do. By RAW that might take a pretty high Knowledge: Planes roll. By RAW you probably shouldn't be allowed to look at the bestiary pages for your summoned creatures - you should just drop them on the map and let the GM control them.
oh yay, more bookkeeping for the DM
there is a strong reason a lot of DMs typically let the players control their own pets, cohorts and summons as well as let them have all the relevant information.
it's because they have enough on their plate to deal with, and need to delegate as much work as possible. it's also why tagalong NPCs tend to be a rarity unless a player is allowed to control them and a strong reason for why absent players equals absent characters.
all the required bookkeeping gets pretty hard to manage.
allowing the loli otaku to control his loligoth bard cohort he is watching as a favor for a nobleman is nowhere near as bad as trying to control the loligoth bard and making a massive mistake that goes against the player's otherwise innocent agenda and costs him a dead cohort.
imagine the noble uncles that will stop letting the barbarian babysit their loligoth bard nieces for protection when they keep dying.
Yep. Because he consulted Google first and didn't even bother to frame how his character came to that knowledge.
It's only meta-gaming because it worked. Even if golems had been immune to Lantern Archon blasts, it would be a perfectly valid thing to try against a seemingly invulnerable but melee-bound enemy. The only "meta-gaming" was the player failing to roleplay his character thinking of trying this trick. And, to be honest, each group approaches roleplaying differently. "You are roleplaying wrong" is not a valid argument.
Assuming, of course, that you are capable of summoning Lantern Archons in the first place (which is an honest mistake that both the player and the GM are "guilty" of, in this case).
Wooo... sounds like RPGs are going the route of my favourite most hated scene in movies: A group is thinking about a solution to a problem, or even better, a genius trained in especially the relevant field and his/her assistant are thinking about a problem, and nobody gets it even though the audience figured it out ages ago... UNTIL the dimwit assistant/mother/whoever drops a line that is massively convoluted and breaks immersion so it can end on an out-of-place word... WHICH lets the trained genius figure out the solution to the problem by several obscure leaps of illogic. The WORST of these scenes is, to my thinking, in Independence Day, where someone says "cold", which then allows the computer genius to hack into an ALIEN computer from his laptop mac by giving it a virus... Uh, yeah. Because nobody can have an idea, or know more than the audience, in a movie.
And now, we're going to get things like:
"Dammit, this iron golem has us stumped... I wish we could have fought a giant FLY instead..."
"FLY!!! THAT'S IT!!! Bob the big dumb fighter, you're a genius!!!"
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wooo... sounds like RPGs are going the route of my favourite most hated scene in movies: A group is thinking about a solution to a problem, or even better, a genius trained in especially the relevant field and his/her assistant are thinking about a problem, and nobody gets it even though the audience figured it out ages ago... UNTIL the dimwit assistant/mother/whoever drops a line that is massively convoluted and breaks immersion so it can end on an out-of-place word... WHICH lets the trained genius figure out the solution to the problem by several obscure leaps of illogic. The WORST of these scenes is, to my thinking, in Independence Day, where someone says "cold", which then allows the computer genius to hack into an ALIEN computer from his laptop mac by giving it a virus... Uh, yeah. Because nobody can have an idea, or know more than the audience, in a movie.
And now, we're going to get things like:
"Dammit, this iron golem has us stumped... I wish we could have fought a giant FLY instead..."
"FLY!!! THAT'S IT!!! Bob the big dumb fighter, you're a genius!!!"
Roleplaying a scene when you already know the outcome before you even start is not all that uncommon.
"hey, bob, wanna do a conversation where my character confronts yours about what she did in that ruin we explored last session?"
"Sure, I could use some angry talk roleplaying".
I see that happen plenty and I don't think it's stupid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's only meta-gaming because it worked. Even if golems had been immune to Lantern Archon blasts, it would be a perfectly valid thing to try against a seemingly invulnerable but melee-bound enemy.
I feel compelled to point out that IF golems were immune to lantern archon blasts, the OP would never have used them and found out the hard way because they had already looked up the result in advance.
I don't consider it Cheating, by definition. I do consider it poor form and a bad call on the player's side action wise.
|
|
"You are roleplaying wrong" is not a valid argument.Who said he was doing it wrong?
Edit: At least someone understands what I've been saying.
The only "meta-gaming" was the player failing to roleplay his character thinking of trying this trick.
That's not meta gaming though, that is at worst negligence of roleplaying. Two seperate things that I dont understand why you group under the same name.