|
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.
Maybe the player wouldn't have tried, but the character still had reason to try.
I just don't see why people have a problem with this.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Disclaimer: I don't want to assign motivations, thought processes or feelings to people I don't know. I am not projecting anything onto the GM, just stating a possibility that has not been mentioned.
It seems to me that more than any possible metagaming, the GM was upset that the OP looked on the Internet and trivialized the encounter. In that situation, as the GM, I would probably be thinking something along the lines of this:
Hmm, that was a tough encounter. If the come back better prepared and with full resources, they could beat him. I can probably expect them to either leave and come back later, or try again and have another difficult encounter. With their fourth player, they will probably be able to beat this thing, and it should be a good fight.
But then, next session, the player comes along and says (paraphrased obviously) "Hey, I looked up a way to beat this thing on the Internet." Suddenly the difficult encounter is gone with little-to-no effort on the part of the PC's.
I could understand him being upset at this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the hard encounter is trivial. Some GM's are more about the conflict with players than others, and some are very much into having epic struggles for the players to overcome. If your GM fits into either of these categories, it might be enough to make them angry.
The other issue could be that you looked up the problem. It implies a number of things, most of which do not reflect well upon the GM.
- By searching out-of-game for a solution to the problem, you show a lack of faith in the GM's ability to help the PC's tell their stories.
- It shows that you don't trust that the GM knows what he's doing and feel the need to take matters into your own hands.
- It creates a sort of one-sided arms-race mentality, as the GM is now pitting monsters not only against the players, but the entire hivemind of the Internet. Even if you never look anything up in this manner again, you have shown your willingness to do so.
- It implies that you find the GM to be unfair, as you resort to doing something he considers unfair in return.
Now, it's possible that implications things are well-deserved, but by making a gesture that indicates these things instead of openly discussing it, the GM may feel betrayed and defensive, leading to his brusque reaction.
A possibility to consider.
|
So how many of you who have problems with this cleric trying to find a way past a roadblock by researching things in a metagaming - like fashion spend a bazillion (gross exageration) hours plotting out thier charectors advancement in levels and researching ways to optimize them to be more effective, just curious mind you.
I rarely have Gm's whom would act such a way, generally i would try not to let it bother me too much, but as a long time greyhawk, living city and now pathfinder scenarios player i have ran across on occasion the angry gm who like to be mean to pc's. It happens from time to time. Just remember next time to pray to your god for guidance a lot, cast whatever spell might be appropriate (gasp you might have to look up what ones would make sense. Oh noes more metagaming) so you can justify new found knowledge and go about your day. I for one applaud your solution, way to think outside the box
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe the player wouldn't have tried, but the character still had reason to try.
I just don't see why people have a problem with this.
No, the character would not have tried, because the OP would have known it wouldn't work. There is no separation in the OP's action choices to support your statement at all, my good sir.
|
|
I tend to think that characters when they acquire a new spell test it.
At least I think this is true for summonsAs a character , I would not wait until I am in real combat to test how my spells work. I would test them first in a controlled environment.
With some summoned creatures like animals ,I can not really communicate so could have problems giving them specific orders but since I can actually speak with lantern Archons, I would not have the problem with them
(Bearing in mind that the Chaotic god wouldn't allow the summoning of an archon, assume that the following applies to a cleric of a Neutral or Lawful deity.)
Doesn't the flavour of the Summon spells, imply that the caster has set up a prior treaty with these creatures, and made a prior arrangement that they will come to his aid when he calls?
The cleric has been able to summon lantern archons since he was level 5.
At some point in his downtime, it would be expected that he would bring one to him, and have a chat.
"Hello, I'm a lantern archon. I've been sent to help you against evil creatures. I am able to defeat creatures that are immune to normal weapons."
"Well, that's cool. I'll bear that in mind, if I ever need that in the future."
Or the same information could be relayed by the cleric's mentor. Who's training him, when he levels up? Wouldn't they give him the info he needs to use his new abilities?
What happens in most games, unfortunately, is that these training montages are handwaved. If they were played out, the players would have a much better idea what facts their characters already know, and they would far exceed what most GMs tend to allow on a Knowledge roll.
Figuring out a new strategy (whatever the source) = not cheating
Gaining knowledge out of game on how to beat a specific monster = cheating. Your character should have made a knowledge check or done some research in game to learn about the iron golems weakness. Although to be fair, it wouldn't be much of a logical leap to deduce that the golem couldn't fly.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This to me would be like learning that you supposed to negotiate with a Rakshsa for the release of hostages at level 1-3 and coming back the next session ready to bless a crossbow bolt and let the true strike casting wizard shoot it because you found out it was an instant kill ( or at least used to be ) during the down time.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, the character would not have tried, because the OP would have known it wouldn't work. There is no separation in the OP's action choices to support your statement at all, my good sir.
Maybe the player wouldn't have tried, but the character still had reason to try.
I just don't see why people have a problem with this.
Look, what Iv'e been trying to say throughout this entire thread is that separating character knowledge and player knowledge entirely is not very possible in Pathfinder. So if the player doesn't try something he *knows* isn't going to work, it's hard to blame him. However, if he does something he knows will work, and his character has a believable, in game reason to try that thing, that doing it is justified.
This is not symmetric, but it also shouldn't be.
|
|
Yes, its technically metagaming, but so what? While it would be nice for players to not use metagame knowledge, even the best of them do, and not just once in a while. Knowing how to beat a monster and rolling skill checks until you get the answer you already know, is that so much more reasonable? What about if he went to his FLGS and was chatting with some guys there and one of them suggested this solution, would that be okay? C'mon, players research crap, from how to build a better mousetrap to how to min/max their character. If your encounters cant handle a little metagaming and this frustrates you as a GM, then YOU should go out and google easy counters then put in things to block these known tactics.
The PC has a decent knowledge planar skill so he should know what the lantern archons can do. If he doesn't, he could just summon one and ask it. He might not know what the golem was immune to, but it wasn't that far-fetched a solution, especially for someone with a high wisdom and the ability to ask his god for help.
The GM was mad because I suspect he did not think they were going to beat it without a hardfought battle, and I bet he was unaware of the lantern archon thing as well. He should have applauded the player coming up with an innovative approach, whether it was his or not, and moved on. Then made sure his future encounters factored in Death by Lantern Archon. If the OP went into the Kingmaker forum on the Paizo boards and read up on how to kill this particular encounter, then Yes, that was uncool and not appropriate, since that was acquiring specific AP knowledge. Gaining outside tactical insight is not a crime.
Lots of great posts! Thanks all for contributing to the thread!
I would just like to point out that trying to roleplay a solution to every single obstacle in a session is next to impossible.
The first problem is the player vs character correlation. While the character might be supersmart/superwise, that doesnt help much if the player is a semiretarded 70 IQ drooler (lets use me as an example). Then there is a big issue not only in trying to find good strategies, but also in conversational roleplaying. I simply dont have the mental goods to solve problems that I should be able to in session. I always like to say that it is hard to know something that you dont know that you dont know.
The second problem is the game master and limited knowledge of rules and information. Now, there -are- some GM savants that seem to know EVERYTHING. And thats great! But there are also GMs that lack much game knowledge. So when a character tries to research a strategy or some information to help out a situation, the GM simply doesnt have knowledge to relay back to the player. You might use your divination spells to seek answers, but that doesnt mean the GM has any meaningful information to give you back.
So to combine these into a real situation, I would say researching information through the internet is definitely a good thing. BUT my error is to not engage the GM after I have come across the information. My judgement call was that the information that blew the lid on the encounter was the Lanter Archon as a summoned creature, was simply knowledge my character should already posess (but I as a player simply had no clue about).
For future situations I will research on the internet also. However, I will take the relevant information to the GM and ask for skill checks where relevant and how to infuse the knowledge into the game.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's best to put several ranks in to Sense DM/GM Motive as there is one particular facial expression that I have come to know well both as seeing it on my DMs' faces and feeling it fall upon my own visage as well.
In the early years of D&D 3.0 I entered all the entries in Monster Manual I and II, by hand, into TableSmith so that I could generate random encounters swiftly when I ran as DM.
By doing so, I had a high level of player knowledge of creatures, their abilities, etc. in addition to a decade or two of playing previous editions. Then one game, where I was a player and we were running rather low level characters out in the wilderness the DM describes several large hounds rushing towards us, their fur a burnt orange-brown in color and red, red, eyes. In my excitement and fear, I blurted out "Hellhounds!"
And there was my first memory of "that look" crossing over the DM's face. It combines elements of frustration, annoyance, surprise, and dissatisfaction. It says, "you're ruining my plan" whether the plan is one of surprising the players, killing the players, or destroying a preconceived narrative.
Now, some 8 years later with the same group, when we encounter a monster that I, the player, know things about I say to the DM, "hellhound." It has become a verbal reminder to the DM, but especially to me, that I need to be careful how my character interacts with the creature. I have to focus on not using my player knowledge versus character knowledge "just because" but instead role playing and justifying why I think my character would know...and if the DM agrees with me then I act on it.
Whether you've transcribed all the monsters by hand, spent 30 minutes Googling the Intertubes, or just read through the online Bestiaries for fun it's good to distinguish between the two frames; player versus character knowledge. Some DMs won't care. Others will.
One of the reasons I dislike playing spellcasters focused on summoning is that I know I would spend a great deal of character background/downtime expressing to my DM how the character is always researching, practicing, testing, interviewing sages/druids/etc. about all the abilities of all the creatures my character is capable of summoning...and that means I would need to take the time to memorize and learn the creatures on the spell lists (and keep those lists separate from the general quagmire of monsters in my head).
On the flip-side, as a DM, I wouldn't go out of my way to explicitly say, "Hey, Lantern Archons, use them" to my players. But after the first encounter, where they ran away, I may offer ideas of where to look to gain the information.
If a player were to tell me they Googled the solution..."that look" would definitely flash across my face. Not because I felt the player cheated, but that they didn't spend some effort to actually role play how their character figured that out...even something like, "As our characters make camp that night, licking our wounds, my character says, 'you know, I've read in the Holy Scrolls of Orlordan that the lesser celestials of the Archon are capable of divine flashes of power so great that even the most powerful of demons cannot resist even the briefest of exposures. I can prepare to call forth such agents of good tomorrow, it may give us the edge we need.'" Or in other words, I would have felt they cheated...they cheated me and the other players out of role playing derived from character interaction. If the DM is going to spend the extra time to read/plan adventures, set up a campaign, etc. then it would be nice for the players to put effort in at the table as well.
The people at the gaming table can spend hours talking/arguing about how their characters "could" have come up with the stuff their player did...or they could spend a few minutes describing it in-character, in-game, and save everyone the time and add to the fun as well.
As for everything else; the DM, as described, seeming to not deal with the situation well, that Chaotic clerics can't summon lantern archons, after fighting that particular golem the characters would be aware of its damage reduction and the nature as to why their spells failed, have all been made well by other posters.
As for Knowledge Skills to determine monsters' abilities and weaknesses; last entry on the Knowledge skills table; http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/knowledge.html#_knowledge
DC = 10+Monster's CR. So a 9th level Cleric could easily have a +7 to +15 to Planes checks...Lantern Archon DC 12...I'd be willing to just do a flat take-10 to know any creature on the summoning spell lists of the spellcaster if they have ranks in the appropriate knowledge skill. And if I'm aware of a creature on a player's summoning list that would give them an edge (doubtful that I'm going to remember during combat, but if I do) then I will probably remind the player that their character is aware of the edge. This monster knowledge check is rife for house ruling/annoyance (I had one DM keep track of every monster killed/encountered, for each player, so he could give modifiers to monster knowledge rolls).
The act of looking up a monster's weaknessess to beat an encounter is cheating, but that's not really what you did here. It would be one thing if you, say, looked at the Bestiary entry and saw that it's DR was negated by lemon juice, and then you character decided to bring a bunch of lemons with him in the next fight just cuz.
That's something the character would never have thought of in-game, and can't be justified by in-game knowledge. This is different. Not only do I feel your cleric could easily have thought of this strategy on his own and employed it, but he probably would have come up with it a lot more easily than you. He would have studied the outsiders he could summon for years and should know everything about them.
Plus I think it's bad form for your GM to see the party is struggling against a challenge and not throw them even a small bone. In that situation I would do something like
"Hey, make perception checks." and clue the highest roller onto the vast amount of room there is in the air above the golem, or
"You should make a Knowledge (whatever) check." Which he'll probably make, and I can give some vital information.
I always get disappointed (in myself and the game, not the players) when I present my players with a challenge that I know they could beat, but for whatever reason they don't come up with the strategy that would get them through it, so I give them a subtle hint that still feels like their character earned it through a check.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For future situations I will research on the internet also. However, I will take the relevant information to the GM and ask for skill checks where relevant and how to infuse the knowledge into the game.
Good on you mate!
I would say that it was meta gaming, yes. To some that could be considered cheating .. for myself, I'd say it was poor form at the very least.
Much like what several have said, Fizzygoo's comments especially come to mind as I just reread them, the player should have found an In Character way to 'know' this information. Many of us have years of experience and volumes of information in our heads; our characters do not have this sort of encyclopedic knowledge without some IC research, rolls, that sort of thing. Otherwise you are "cheating" by knowing things your character does not.
Some GMs are stricter on this than others. It is something to watch out for regardless of if you just know this from countless interactions with the monster or looked it up on the forums -- you have to do the IC research as well.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Knowledge checks are fine, as a way to cast a deciding vote, when GM and player just can't decide 'Should I know about this, or not?', but they shouldn't be a weapon to hamstring the PCs.
Forcing a PC to rely solely on their max potential Knowledge result is only justifiable, if the PC lives under a rock, in a solipcistic haze, and never speaks to another sentient being.
The DCs for many Knowledge checks are impossible to justify. They fall into the category of 'No S@#@, Sherlock.', which should be common knowledge to inhabitants of the world, or at least be far easier than the abstract, artificial DC formula allows for.
There's another thread going around, regarding whether a PC would be expected to know the DR/bludgeoning of a common skeleton, and it's full of posters declaring they wouldn't let any players get away with abusing knowledge that should only be available inside a temple.
But this, to me, is a good example of the kind of information that should be a no-brainer, for anyone who understands how martial weapons work.
An archer should see a skeleton approaching, a man-sized figure, with all the flesh stripped away, providing a drasticaly reduced silhouette, and realise it's 'more fresh air than bone'.
Loosing an arrow would be pointless, unless you enjoy the sound of it rattling through the ribcage like a morbid xylophone.
Neither would the swashbuckler rush up and poke at it with his rapier.
Both these PCs would realise that what's needed is a heavy blunt force, and it's unreasonable to force the player to spend round after round, feebly failing to achieve anything, because he lacked a rank in a specific skill.
A martially-trained character knows what tools fit which job, and they don't need to know the name of the first necromancer-priest to have raised a skeleton, the foul rites involved, the material components, the cost, what Pharasma's stance on the undead is, what is believed to happen to the soul of a person whose body is borrowed by the animate dead spell,....all information that is the province of the Knowledge (religion) skill.
They just need to know that jabbing pointy things at a walking sculpture made of curved oval rods is futile, and you'd be better served by walloping it with a club whose head is wider than the spaces in between, so you can't fail to hit something.
And that is why most Knowledge check DCs are silly.
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?
Yep. Because he consulted Google first and didn't even bother to frame how his character came to that knowledge.
Said it better than I could.
in fact, the tactic could have been used on a 10, let alone 7 or 8 wisdom.
Out of curiosity, what wisdom score would you say wouldn't be able to come up with this? Because I think you are SEVERELY overestimating low ability scores.
For future situations I will research on the internet also. However, I will take the relevant information to the GM and ask for skill checks where relevant and how to infuse the knowledge into the game.Good on you mate!
In deed, this is all I would have asked for as a DM.
every player metagames in one way or another, such as by determining party roles or choosing feats upon level up, or when they distribute treasure to whomever has the most use for it.
|
Knowing how your character works - including summoning spells, including the creatures attached to those summons, is fine to research, even in the bestiary. You don't need knowledge checks for that.
Knowing how the golem worked (including its vulnerabilities) requires knowledge checks, whether or not you found anything out about them out-of-character. If the knowledge check fails, you're expected to metagame guesswork.
As far as learning strategies like "he can't hit you if you're flying", well, it's up to you to determine if the game is still going to be fun for you if you look up the answers at the back of the textbook. Sometimes that's cheating, but you have to learn how to play somehow, and sometimes this is the only reasonable way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
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.
Agree with TOZ.
You should have justified your research with knowledge checks. The DM would have had nothing to complain about.
A Gather information check to a local story-teller or old warrior could have turned up some old stories on dropping it in a pit or the stone wall methodology.
That you compounded this error in judgment by Summoning Lawful outsiders as a Chaotic cleric only makes me wince more.
The fact remains, you could have defeated it, you didn't know how. You found out how and didnt' justify it in game, and then defeated it illegally.
Take your wet noodle lashings. Actually, ask your DM that you didn't actually defeat it, you're going to do things properly, and replay the fight.
Then drop the damn golem in a hole or circle him with a wall of stone, and watch his jaw drop.
After you make the appropriate checks. I assume your arcane caster has his Knowledge (arcane) high enough to know the weaknesses of golems, and you know your spell list.
==Aelryinth
i have no problem with chaotic clerics summoning Archons. chaotic druids, oracles, sorcerers, wizards, witches and summoners do it all the time. why is cleric the one exception to this?
i have no problem with chaotic clerics summoning Archons. chaotic druids, oracles, sorcerers, wizards, witches and summoners do it all the time. why is cleric the one exception to this?
If a particular group allows to ignore the casting spells limitation due to alignment, that's fine...but
Druids: "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells: A druid can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's (if she has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions." So druids are restricted. Clerics are one of the two exceptions to the rule.
Oracles: "Unlike a cleric, who draws her magic through devotion to a deity, oracles garner strength and power from many sources, namely those patron deities who support their ideals." And there is no listed restriction on alignment spells that they can cast. Coupled with their more limited choice of spells (from the Cleric Spell List), they're allowed greater leeway if they choose to know summoning spells. However, if an oracle had a set of ideals that were strongly alignment-based, then I would house rule a restriction on summoning creatures of the opposed alignment(s).
Sorcerers & Wizards: They're arcane, their magical power isn't from a source largely defined by alignment...like the gods.
Witches: "This patron is a vague and mysterious force, granting the witch power for reasons that she might not entirely understand." And no listed restriction on alignment spells that they can cast.
Summoners: Like sorcerers and wizards, the summoner is arcane...though linked with their eidolon.
As a DM, I follow the above rules, raw, as best as I can but I add in that if players make a habit of summoning an alignment-type then that attracts the interest of both sides of that alignment dichotomy. Such that, if a character regularly conjures lawful creatures then agents of law become interested in what the character is up to...seeking to help if the character is doing so for lawful purposes or seeking to hinder if using the summoned creatures to further chaos. Likewise, chaotic entities become interested as well for similar reasons.
then assume the Archons the Cleric summons to be Chaotic Archons, problem solved. there is no rule saying the individual Archon has to be lawful good. i'm sure chaotic good and chaotic neutral specimens exist among their kin, and that is what a cleric of Desna would summon. Chaotic Archons.
then assume the Archons the Cleric summons to be Chaotic Archons, problem solved. there is no rule saying the individual Archon has to be lawful good. i'm sure chaotic good and chaotic neutral specimens exist among their kin, and that is what a cleric of Desna would summon. Chaotic Archons.
I agree with you except the "there is no rule saying the individual Archon has to be lawful good." Because there is a rule. It specifically stated in the summon monster spell lists if a particular creature has alignment modifiers to the spell's subtypes coupled with the Cleric/Druid restrictions on casting alignment based spells.
But again I agree, house ruling that clerics and druids can summon any monsters in the summon spell lists and if they specifically summon creatures with alignments opposite to theirs, or their deity's, alignment then the creature (and the spell's) alignment is replaced with that of the cleric's works fine just so long as all the players and DM understand that is the house rule and that chaotic evil big bad guy clerics and druids can summon chaotic evil archons to fly above their heads and shoot the non-magical, damage-reduction-bypassing rays down upon them. ... or any other house rule that the group wants to use to bypass the RAW. It provides interesting role playing opportunities, like "what's the story on that lawful good Nalfeshnee the cleric keeps summoning?"
then assume the Archons the Cleric summons to be Chaotic Archons, problem solved. there is no rule saying the individual Archon has to be lawful good. i'm sure chaotic good and chaotic neutral specimens exist among their kin, and that is what a cleric of Desna would summon. Chaotic Archons.I agree with you except the "there is no rule saying the individual Archon has to be lawful good." Because there is a rule. It specifically stated in the summon monster spell lists if a particular creature has alignment modifiers to the spell's subtypes coupled with the Cleric/Druid restrictions on casting alignment based spells.
But again I agree, house ruling that clerics and druids can summon any monsters in the summon spell lists and if they specifically summon creatures with alignments opposite to theirs, or their deity's, alignment then the creature (and the spell's) alignment is replaced with that of the cleric's works fine just so long as all the players and DM understand that is the house rule and that chaotic evil big bad guy clerics and druids can summon chaotic evil archons to fly above their heads and shoot the non-magical, damage-reduction-bypassing rays down upon them. ... or any other house rule that the group wants to use to bypass the RAW. It provides interesting role playing opportunities, like "what's the story on that lawful good Nalfeshnee the cleric keeps summoning?"
that is my intent
i don't like the whole idea behind "he summoned 3 lantern archons, he must be lawful good!" or "he summoned a succubus, he must be chaotic evil?"
i allow people to not only ignore the alignment restrictions on their aligned summons by having the aligned summon match it's creator, i also allow the swapping of 1 creature for another of similar CR for completely custom summon lists, as long as you provide the summon list for proposal when you bring that specific tier of summon and provide a copy for the DM and each player. but if you do that, you must record the stats for each variant summon.
for example, a succubus could be swapped for an extraplanar nymph, or an extraplanar tiger depending on the nature of the summon, or you could trade a summon for a PC classed planetouched of a level based on the CR of the monster being swapped with prechosen gear for it's CR.
No, the character would not have tried, because the OP would have known it wouldn't work. There is no separation in the OP's action choices to support your statement at all, my good sir.
I don't think it's really relevant to this discussion what may or may not have happened in an alternative timeline.
I don't know the OP. I do know that "shoot the giant melee monster while hovering outside its' reach" is an awfully obvious thing to do, assuming you have the capabilities to do that (there's a reason City of Heroes decided to give all enemies a form of ranged attack during beta :p). That it also just happens to work is just an added bonus.
Of course, this is coming from a guy who's only contribution to a fight against a BBEG Marilith was to shoot her with lightning, so I may not be properly tuned in.
every player metagames in one way or another, such as by determining party roles or choosing feats upon level up, or when they distribute treasure to whomever has the most use for it.
This isn't metagaming. By definition metagaming is using knowledge your character wouldn't have. BUT your character does have knowledge of her own class features and abilities including those gained on level up. They probably wouldn't use game terms to describe them but they know them regardless.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
i allow people to not only ignore the alignment restrictions on their aligned summons by having the aligned summon match it's creator, i also allow the swapping of 1 creature for another of similar CR for completely custom summon lists, as long as you provide the summon list for proposal when you bring that specific tier of summon and provide a copy for the DM and each player. but if you do that, you must record the stats for each variant summon.
If you're doing that, then what you're effectively doing is adding new creatures to the game, and expanding the list of available summoned creatures, which is every GM's right, in their home setting.
Just be aware you're increasing the power of casters, by increasing the versatility this way.That's not quite the same as allowing the cleric to summon creatures of opposing morals or ethics, since the new creature you added to the game is, by definition, not 'a creature of opposing morals or ethics'.
Or to put it another way, if you would have allowed the OP to summon a Chaotic Lantern Archon, it wouldn't be a 'lantern archon', with all the flavour text of a lantern archon.
It would be "A Chaos Fragment, formed from the perpetually thrashing id of an unrepentant anarchist, who refuses to go quietly into the dying of the light".
Same stats, but now people can think "Hmmm, that's cool.", rather than, "That's not allowed."
Well... not really. The power level of the proposed summon lists is an issue for the GM to determine and approve or not, accordingly.
What this process would do is give each player a personalized summon list, something I would say is sorely needed, since the old ones contain VERY wonky stuff, mechanics-wise. Such as: Not every alignment having something for Sacred Summons at every appropriate level, not all the outsiders summoned are even roughly equal in power for a given summon monster/nature level, not having access to even vaguely the same SLAs for various alignments. Some of this is horrible stuff. A neutral cleric could summon ANY kind of creature on the lists, and the animals as fiendish or celestial... but they would have NO creatures for Sacred Summons, making all their summon spells 1 round casting time. A good cleric gets access to Summon Good Monster, which is a relief for many who would otherwise get nothing much useful, but evil clerics get no corresponding new list. I am fully expecting that this will be rectified with "Champions of Corruption" or whatever it will be called. Possibly, the neutrals will get Summon Neutral Monster in Champions of Balance, too. There are now no specific creature options for Lawful or Chaotic clerics that are not Good or Evil.
Honestly, if a GM is willing to go through the extra headache to let a player do this, more power to them. It is a pretty bad system already, and I think it would be awesome to let a LN cleric summon inevitables, LE for Kytons and so on and so forth. There is no real problem with summoning new critters, as long as you replace the existing ones instead of get new ones. If you want, you could simply make a series of new spells to deal with the problem. Summon rakshasa I-IX?
i allow people to not only ignore the alignment restrictions on their aligned summons by having the aligned summon match it's creator, i also allow the swapping of 1 creature for another of similar CR for completely custom summon lists, as long as you provide the summon list for proposal when you bring that specific tier of summon and provide a copy for the DM and each player. but if you do that, you must record the stats for each variant summon.If you're doing that, then what you're effectively doing is adding new creatures to the game, and expanding the list of available summoned creatures, which is every GM's right, in their home setting.
Just be aware you're increasing the power of casters, by increasing the versatility this way.That's not quite the same as allowing the cleric to summon creatures of opposing morals or ethics, since the new creature you added to the game is, by definition, not 'a creature of opposing morals or ethics'.
Or to put it another way, if you would have allowed the OP to summon a Chaotic Lantern Archon, it wouldn't be a 'lantern archon', with all the flavour text of a lantern archon.
It would be "A Chaos Fragment, formed from the perpetually thrashing id of an unrepentant anarchist, who refuses to go quietly into the dying of the light".
Same stats, but now people can think "Hmmm, that's cool.", rather than, "That's not allowed."
the trading merely allows personalization of the summon lists
the changed summon lists last for life.
An archer should see a skeleton approaching, a man-sized figure, with all the flesh stripped away, providing a drasticaly reduced silhouette, and realise it's 'more fresh air than bone'.
Loosing an arrow would be pointless, unless you enjoy the sound of it rattling through the ribcage like a morbid xylophone.
Neither would the swashbuckler rush up and poke at it with his rapier.
Both these PCs would realise that what's needed is a heavy blunt force, and it's unreasonable to force the player to spend round after round, feebly failing to achieve anything, because he lacked a rank in a specific skill.
That really is just a matter of common sense. I feel like a player would only ever fail to make that realization because they aren't ACTUALLY looking at an actual skeleton, they're just seeing an abstract concept of a monster in their heads and don't make the connection between lack of meat and lack of P/S effectiveness.
That really is just a matter of common sense. I feel like a player would only ever fail to make that realization because they aren't ACTUALLY looking at an actual skeleton, they're just seeing an abstract concept of a monster in their heads and don't make the connection between lack of meat and lack of P/S effectiveness.
An archer should see a skeleton approaching, a man-sized figure, with all the flesh stripped away, providing a drasticaly reduced silhouette, and realise it's 'more fresh air than bone'.
Loosing an arrow would be pointless, unless you enjoy the sound of it rattling through the ribcage like a morbid xylophone.
Neither would the swashbuckler rush up and poke at it with his rapier.
Both these PCs would realise that what's needed is a heavy blunt force, and it's unreasonable to force the player to spend round after round, feebly failing to achieve anything, because he lacked a rank in a specific skill.
i agree with this, though, there are many groups whom don't like PCs keeping a golf bag of different weapons for different foes because of the flawed assumption that the PC in question is going to use a single highly specific specialized signature weapon.
many newer groups come from MMO backgrounds where you had only 2 hand slots and couldn't change weapons in the middle of the fight. a flawed mechanic unique to video games that really serves no purpose besides making programming the game easier, imagine how complicated fights would be if you could swap weapons during combat in those works.
pathfinder, like any tabletop game, one of the advantages, tactically, is to swap weapons and combat styles on the fly. which is a deterrent to the single weapon wielder image of Console/Computer RPGs.
Personally I think the only mistake you made was telling your GM that you looked it all up on the internet.
Next time, just don't say that.. and pwn whatever it is you are facing the GM is getting smug about.
If you are directly questioned as to where you got that strategy, just say you thought bout it overnight.
|
|
Knowing how your character works - including summoning spells, including the creatures attached to those summons, is fine to research, even in the bestiary. You don't need knowledge checks for that.
How do you figure? Are you assuming that a player checking the various bestiaries constitutes your character poring through zoologies for information? That, at least, could be argued cogently.
Are you assuming, in addition, though, that knowledge of a spell gives a comprehensive understanding of every possible permutation and consequence it has? Again, a reasonable argument—if your DM chooses to allow it.
Because it's part of the spell - spellcasters know how their own spells work back to front. I'd be reaching if I was talking about customised effects that are houseruled in, but that's not what we're talking about. If there's a rule that says spellcasters need to make spellcraft or knowledge checks based on how parts of their own spells work in certain cases, I'm not aware of it.
If instead he or she says, "Your character knows only what he/she himself has learned/the gods have revealed to him/her," then you, as a player, need to keep your impertinent little nose out of the bestiaries.
This part here is how they know - they've "learned" the spell. Looking into the bestiaries is just so that Paizo don't have to put down the monster/animal stats into the core rulebook.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Geez, tough crowd. Am I allowed to look in the rulebooks before I pick my spells and feats for leveling up, or is that meta-gaming too? Do I have to demonstrate that I, the player, know how to build a campfire before my character is allowed to make camp? (Or pantomime a quick "role-playing" scene where I explain how my character came by such esoteric knowledge?)
OP: If you're taking votes, I agree with folks who say you did nothing wrong (except for the Lawful / Chaotic thing, which was obviously unintentional). Little incidents like this are how people gradually build system mastery.
GMs sometimes have pet encounters to which they get overly attached, and that sounds like the case here. It sounds like you have a pretty adversarial GM to start with.
Also: I think the reason you're under-leveled is maybe you aren't exploring and grinding random encounters as much as the AP expects. Or maybe you have an adversarial GM who is deliberately stiffing you XP that the AP expects you to have?
Reasons why I don't use EXP anymore.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here is where the problem came in.
It wasn't that he looked up a plan.
It was that he didn't validate coming by that knowledge in character.
If he had rolled a knowledge to find out what would work against the creature and come up with this solution, great.
On the other hand, what if he rolled a 1 on that knowledge check...
We had a running joke in one of our games because after rolling a 1 on a knowledge check to know what the immunities of an obvious skeleton were the player shouted "I think it's a trout."
And so, since we had never fought skeletons with those characters in that game, we didn't know to use bludgeoning. So we kept hacking away with swords and axes.
Why?
Because we, the people running, knew. The players in the game, didn't.
That is metagaming, that is where he was "cheating".
If before we went to fight undead, we went to learn about them, or we had fought skeletons before as these characters in this game, we would "know".
We didn't, so we didn't.
Knowing you can summon archons is not the same as knowing archons beat golems.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Knowing you can summon archons is not the same as knowing archons beat golems.
I agree with 90% of what you wrote. As a DM, I would just assume a take-10 on monster knowledge checks which means a 9th lvl Cleric with skill points in Arcana/Planes would have an Knowledge Arcana/Planes skill check of around +4 to +12 or above with ability modifiers.
Since Monster knowledge is 10 + CR, on seeing the Iron Golem shaking off, being immune to magic, I would, as a DM, inform the +2 or better KN Arcana characters that Lantern Archons' light rays 'might' bypass that magic immunity. Whether the spellcasters had the Summon Monster III or above spell memorized is a different matter. And I would specifically point out to the +13 and above KN Arcana characters that the Iron Golem would be specifically vulnerable to a Lantern Archon's light rays.
ciretose and I are in complete agreement it seems.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Its important to know that I can agree with ciretose on some things.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I suspect that if BloodyViking had been a more savvy player on his own, and had simply known to summon the archon to beat the golem in the first place, nobody would have blinked. As others have pointed out, summoning a flying ally to beat down a mindless land-bound foe from safety doesn't require any special insight into the archon's abilities. Just good strategy.
(Chaotic clerics illegally summoning lawful outsiders, aside.)
I further suspect that his DM's response was really a knee-jerk reaction to BloodyViking's mention of google, and his DM's disappointment that what he thought would be a tough encounter (for the second time) turned into a cakewalk. I've seen this kind of thing happen before, when a PC manages to trivialize an encounter; "Your ranger used animal empathy to avoid combat with my dire tiger! Too easy, half xp for you!"
On the other hand, what if he rolled a 1 on that knowledge check...
We had a running joke in one of our games because after rolling a 1 on a knowledge check to know what the immunities of an obvious skeleton were the player shouted "I think it's a trout."
And so, since we had never fought skeletons with those characters in that game, we didn't know to use bludgeoning. So we kept hacking away with swords and axes.
OP aside, I think knowledge skills can be taken too far. Or perhaps too seriously. I mean, didn't your DM at some point describe how your blows weren't having as much effect as you'd hope? I'd think that at least the party fighter would realize pretty quick that maybe a blunt instrument would do more damage to a brittle set of walking bones than a sword or axe.
I've never been in a fight in my life, I'm barely combat-trained at all, and even I know that blades tear flesh and muscle, while heavy hard objects break bones.