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You're doing a 13-15 module with 3 wizards, a sorceress, and a barbarian.
we rocked it
Make that you're doing a 14-16 with 2 rogues, a ninja, an inquisitor, a wizard, and a court bard.
Yeah, we rocked it to (my rogue had one round he did 45d6+72 to a target). We never had to worry about not having a flank buddy!

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When I'm playing Kess, the Brawler pregen, with her +1 Diplomacy modifier, and no one is willing to roleplay in a social scenario.
Every time the GM asked for a response, I took a deep breath... counted to 5... made eye contact with the four players whose modifiers quadrupled my own... and started roleplaying.
In Irrisen, surrounded by trolls and witches:
"Hey! You, the chick on the throne. Get down here and talk, we got stuff to do and we're s'posed to get your say-so."
Plot Twist: Never rolled below a 15, we skipped two entire encounters because of diplomacy and because I was occasionally allowed to intimidate instead of sweet-talk.

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Your primary melee character in a first level adventure is a first level sorcerer. Who dumped dex and con. And does not have Mage Armor as a spell. Happened in a game I was running. Think he was using the Draconic Bloodline and was going for some type of melee build. He was dropped in one round by the swarming zombies. Because they had to roll a 10 to hit him. Nobody died but he came close.

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When I'm playing Kess, the Brawler pregen, with her +1 Diplomacy modifier, and no one is willing to roleplay in a social scenario.
Every time the GM asked for a response, I took a deep breath... counted to 5... made eye contact with the four players whose modifiers quadrupled my own... and started roleplaying.
Totally agree! If folks don't want me RPing with my crappy social skill modifiers, they're gonna have to improvise/RP more instead of waiting around to ask who has the highest modifier amongst themselves.

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Your primary melee character in a first level adventure is a first level sorcerer. Who dumped dex and con. And does not have Mage Armor as a spell. Happened in a game I was running. Think he was using the Draconic Bloodline and was going for some type of melee build. He was dropped in one round by the swarming zombies. Because they had to roll a 10 to hit him. Nobody died but he came close.
I can beat that. My spouse Valory ran a group which included this guy who was front-lining as a monk. His first combat went something like this.
Note that prior to this the player's monk was at full hit points
Valory: Okay you're hit once for X amount of damage.
Player checks his sheet and gasps. "I'm dead!"
Valory: Don't you mean unconscious and bleeding out? You weren't hit for that much.
Player: I'm at minus 7, that means I'm dead.
Valory: You can't be dead dead unless .....
Player: I dumped my Con down to 7.

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You get the game running, and a few minutes after the briefing, a few players say "Wait a sec, I've already played this one".
Followed up by the entire table having a lot of trouble finding something that at least 2 of them have not already played that fits the group's Tier.
Which also is followed by the game being run cold, and possibly from a phone at that.
A player sits down and starts talking about his animal companion, then his improved familiar, then his decked out summoning build, then his purchased pets and outright ignores the 1 combat pet guideline. Or rather says it's a guideline and not a rule.
A player talking about their tripping build right after the entire rest of the party mentions they are playing ranged.
The party, partially doing the right thing by providing their own healing, hands over their wands of Infernal Healing to the healer, who just mentioned that they (character) wasn't comfortable with that corrupting spell.
That player that says "it's not really PvP if I do _______", fully expecting no one else to be able to react, counter, or prevent it without it being PvP on their part.
There is more than one good Cleric and/or Paladin at You only Die Twice. Bonus points if their Patron is Sarenrae, Iomedae, or Pharasma.
Similar with the start of Refuge of Time. Basically mandatory Fall from Graces/Atonements, <or sweep it all under the rug>, and forced PvP risk.
A GMT scenario where half the party is talking OOC about attacking him on sight and the other half, suspecting their other team is up to something, and is on the look out for other PFS agents attempts to undermine or attack their friend. Seems to be happening more often, too.
You sit down and start going around the table. "So what character are you going to play?" Players answer "Hm, let me see what everyone else brings and I'll pick something that fits in." Ok, so you move down the line. After about the 3rd time of, "lets see what everyone else brings". . .

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B_A_Felton73 wrote:Your primary melee character in a first level adventure is a first level sorcerer. Who dumped dex and con. And does not have Mage Armor as a spell. Happened in a game I was running. Think he was using the Draconic Bloodline and was going for some type of melee build. He was dropped in one round by the swarming zombies. Because they had to roll a 10 to hit him. Nobody died but he came close.I can beat that. My spouse Valory ran a group which included this guy who was front-lining as a monk. His first combat went something like this.
Note that prior to this the player's monk was at full hit points
Valory: Okay you're hit once for X amount of damage.
Player checks his sheet and gasps. "I'm dead!"
Valory: Don't you mean unconscious and bleeding out? You weren't hit for that much.
Player: I'm at minus 7, that means I'm dead.
Valory: You can't be dead dead unless .....
Player: I dumped my Con down to 7.
This is not a smart player...Wizards/Sorcerers with 7 Con are super iffy at low levels. Any other class needs a Con score, especially the melee types. I build my monks as dex based damage dealers generally, where DEX>WIS>CON>STR(only for carrying capacity)>INT=CHA. Unless it's core, which Dex monks dont work well.

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There is more than one good Cleric and/or Paladin at You only Die Twice. Bonus points if their Patron is Sarenrae, Iomedae, or Pharasma.
I played this one with an Aasimar Celestial Sorcerer whose only weapon was an Everflowing Aspergillium.

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Whenever someone decides that their character will make a "will save against himself" because they can't figure out how to roleplay their character, then do something that pisses off the entire table when they "fail" the roll.
I had someone like that right when I first started tabletop RPGs, while I was playing the party face. I ended up leaving the group on very bad terms because the DM never did anything about it.
The experience still influences how I feel about "wild and unpredictable" characters.

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captnchuck67 wrote:You look around the table and realize everyone else is a rouge and you are a 2nd level Ranger , and the adventure is a diplo one.Wait, did the ranger not invest in social skills?
I'm more surprised about the Rogues. Social Rogues are a very common build (and I personally have never made a Rogue with a CHA below 14).

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Protoman wrote:I'm more surprised about the Rogues. Social Rogues are a very common build (and I personally have never made a Rogue with a CHA below 14).captnchuck67 wrote:You look around the table and realize everyone else is a rouge and you are a 2nd level Ranger , and the adventure is a diplo one.Wait, did the ranger not invest in social skills?
Even without a charisma mod, ranks and the class skill bonus will get you an ok score.

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Protoman wrote:Does handle animal count?captnchuck67 wrote:You look around the table and realize everyone else is a rouge and you are a 2nd level Ranger , and the adventure is a diplo one.Wait, did the ranger not invest in social skills?
For a diplomacy mission? Probably not hah.
I'm more in the "if one doesn't put invest ranks to at least contribute to social encounters, no one to blame but themselves" camp of thinking. Between traits and vanities and ranger's skill points per level, few ranks in Diplomacy isn't too hard.

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Walter Sheppard wrote:You're doing a 13-15 module with 3 wizards, a sorceress, and a barbarian.
we rocked it
Make that you're doing a 14-16 with 2 rogues, a ninja, an inquisitor, a wizard, and a court bard.
Yeah, we rocked it to (my rogue had one round he did 45d6+72 to a target). We never had to worry about not having a flank buddy!
Try doing both of these with a bard, 2 non-blasty wizards, a non-blasty sorc, and a paladin that can't dish out damage. Everything was blind by round 2 because of all the glitterdusts, that was something :P.

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You about to play a low tier with 3 friends, with no front line when two higher levels get added to the table bumping you up. The two new players are a bard with no weapons and a rogue who won't flank with our rogue but fires a short bow with no STR mod 19 times for 20 points of damage against the first encounter... 2 polar bears. ( actually happened)

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You travel three states and keep pulling a GM who changes things so he can kill PCs, including vs our lvl 1-2 table...
1) having the troll fast heal infinite
2) bumping an encounter from the 12 zombies at our tier to the high tier 6 wraiths encounter
3) have the encounter vs a summoning wizard have all his summons pre-cast and not be tracking the rounds til the spells expire (including the thing we couldn't affect and he knew we where fighting defensively just waiting for it to expire) and it be the high tier version of the wizard.
(Also actually happened)

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...when during the mission briefing, it sounds like it's going to be a social mission, and during the first encounter, you realize that your warpriest with Charisma of 7 is the face.
Could've gone worse.
GC my 5 CHA dwarf did all the talking because the bard and 3 paladin's wouldn't say anything. I feel ya.

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I forget whether I've posted this one before, but...
When you sit down for your first PFS adventure ever, with 3 other first-timers and a first-time GM... and he runs the low tier and the high tier simultaneously and throws both at once at your all-level-1, four-person, no-healing party.
ACTUALLY HAPPENED on my first ever experience with PFS. I'm lucky I decided to come back for a second session.

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I forget whether I've posted this one before, but...
When you sit down for your first PFS adventure ever, with 3 other first-timers and a first-time GM... and he runs the low tier and the high tier simultaneously and throws both at once at your all-level-1, four-person, no-healing party.
ACTUALLY HAPPENED on my first ever experience with PFS. I'm lucky I decided to come back for a second session.
I've heard worse. A guy was telling me that the first time he played the confirmation, the GM used every encounter off of the encounter table instead of rolling for (or picking) a single one.
I recently sat at a table that had a third level unchained rogue (so he had weapon finesse and dex to damage) with 18 dex and 14 str with weapon focus longsword. And using a short bow for the majority of the module (yeah, module, it took 8 hours).
And their other half sitting at the table had a half-elf unchained barb that never raged, used a non-composite short bow (though she at least usually engaged in melee), and had skill focus UMD--with a 7 cha and no ranks in UMD.

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When you start a Bonekeep special and someone is playing a ninja (period?) who, over the course of the game, lands only a single blow and otherwise just fumbles around on the edge of combat/encounters "trying to get into position" while invisible.
I had a ninja in my group for Bonekeep 2.

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... when you're GMing, the party has 3 characters who can cast high DC enchantments, and no enemy has a will save higher than +6. One enemy made one will save the entire night, with a nat 20.
An aside, how does it work if a creature is simultaneously inflicted by Hideous Laughter, Oppressive Boredom, Confusion, *and* just for the hell of it, Murderous Command? This is not a theoretical question :)

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An aside, how does it work if a creature is simultaneously inflicted by Hideous Laughter, Oppressive Boredom, Confusion, *and* just for the hell of it, Murderous Command? This is not a theoretical question :)
Sounds like the Joker to me...

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claudekennilol wrote:This makes me want to find a group willing to try this as a Confirmation "hard mode".
I've heard worse. A guy was telling me that the first time he played the confirmation, the GM used every encounter off of the encounter table instead of rolling for (or picking) a single one.
I may or may not be running this just for laughs in a couple of weeks.

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My first time playing the Dalsine Affair, the GM prepped high tier...and a table of level 3s and level 4s got seated. It was still legal to play up back then. The GM didn't know how lethal that last encounter was...and none of us had read the Advanced Players Guide.
I/we won, and only because I was lucky-dumb and ran up the staircase in the final encounter. I wasn't the poor wizard who ended up a 5' step away from a level 6 Magus hiding in Invisibiliy when initiative was rolled. That was the Level 4 Wizard.
Only thing that saved our ass was the Bard spamming Hideous Laughter...which bought me time to run down the stairs and be the flanking buddy attack on said Hideously Laughing Magus for the Rogue, but everyone in that group was at Pucker Factor 13.