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This is exactly the kind of person I'd want to play with
Have you asked for references for those items? That is, ask for him to produce a copy (electronic, physical or printed page from watermarked PDF) of any item or feat from non CORE books?
Where is he getting his squirrels from (that is source)? Does he have them listed as a purchase on his ITS? Does he have their tricks listed? How have they been surviving in area effect spells?
Has he provided a source that states that he can use a unicycle with monk speed (provided he has a source for the unicycle)?
Undead are automatically destroyed at the end of the scenario - they cannot be used again. And check his source for the magic item that is allowing him to create them - and is it on his ITS?
For the sodium / fizzy drink - if there is no mechanical effect/gain in game, then I wouldn't worry about it too much - treat it like a PC using prestigiditation to flavor their food and drink.
Have you talked to him out of game about it? This may be the best way to deal with the situation.
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Alright, addressing your complaints in order:
1. The "free action" part of the description refers to unclasping the shield. Throwing the shield at an enemy counts as making a ranged attack, which is a standard action.
2. If it's not on this list, the animal can't do it. Simple as that.
3. If it's not in the rule books, he can't have it. Period.
Whenever this guy is in the game, the GM needs to start enforcing the rules. Tell him no, if he complains tell him that your ruling is final and he's free to take it up with a venture officer.
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Well, it sounds like he's committing two "sins."
1) Breaking (or skirting) the rules.
2) Hogging the limelight.
From your description it sounds like the biggest problem you are having is the second one - his constant antics which are annoying the other players. If everyone is having fun with his clowning around and it isn't making scenarios run long, let it go. However it sounds like you need to take him aside before the next game and say "look, it's mildly amusing when you do this stuff occasionally, but the constant need for the focus to be on your character is detracting from the enjoyment of everyone else."
As far as the specific rules issues.
The throwing shield is a gaping loophole in action economy. Remember that a GM can limit the number of free actions a player can take in a turn. An earlier FAQ post (since deleted because people didn't want a hard limit) suggested that the rules team thought that 5 free actions a turn - or 3 if performing the same action multiple times - was a good value. Pick something that works for you.
Animals: This used to be in the Guide to Organized Play (v 3.0.3) but was removed during the transition to Guide 4.0:
How many animals can I have at any given time? During the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal and as many noncombat animals as you like. You make this choice at the beginning of the scenario. This means if you’re a Ranger 5/Druid 5, you need to pick which animal companion is your combat animal. Noncombat animals (ponies, horses, pet dogs, and so on) cannot participate in combat at all. This clarification is meant to reinforce the same line of logic that prohibits the Leadership feat in Pathfinder Society Organized Play—you only have 4 or 5 hours to play and allowing multiple additional combatants only slows down play. Finally, if you have so many noncombat animals that their presence is slowing a session down, the GM has the right to ask you to select one noncombat animal and leave the rest behind. Our advice for the campaign: you can have a mount, a pet, and your class-granted animals with you during the scenario, but try to avoid going any further than that. It can be disruptive, and disruptions are fun for no one.
I allow a maximum of one animal companion and one mount. Players can have a menagerie but in combat they are nothing more than scenery.
If you do allow squirrels, snakes, etc. remember the following two facts:
Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows.
“Push” an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn't know but is physically capable of performing.
Action: Varies. Handling an animal is a move action, while “pushing” an animal is a full-round action.
How can I create new tricks to train to my animal companion?
New tricks require mechanics. Because it requires a GM to basically create the rules for something that doesn’t already exist, you can’t create it in PFS. If the trick is listed somewhere (for example: the air walk spell), then you may take it.
Bones for undead have an entire thread in the PFS forum.
There's only two more things to say. First is the rule against reskinning (written for animals but applies to items as well):
Can I re-skin or re-flavor an animal companion or item?
You may choose a specific type of animal companion from any of the base forms listed on pages 53–54 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook or a legal Additional Resource but may not use stats for one base form with the flavor of another type of animal. Thus, a small cat could be a cheetah or leopard, as suggested, as well as a lynx, bobcat, puma, or other similar animal; it could not, however, be "re-skinned" to be a giant hairless swamp rat or a differently-statted wolf. If a GM feels that a re-skinning is inappropriate or could have mechanical implications in the specific adventure being played, he may require that the creature simply be considered its generic base form for the duration of the adventure. A player may not re-skin items to be something for which there are no specific rules, and any item a character uses for which there are no stats is considered an improvised weapon (see page 144 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook).
Finally, rule zero. Sometimes you have to use the blunt object. If there is no rule, the GM is always right. Use your best judgement and come up with a ruling that doesn't allow him to gain a mechanical advantage. If there's no mechanical advantage, go with whatever feels right for the group. If he makes a fuss about it (most won't), ask him to take it up with a Venture-Officer. They (and campaign leadership) will always support GMs making judgement calls.
Here's some off-the-cuff rulings:
*Unicycle - Move at half speed, all terrain is difficult, and apply the minuses to attacks given in the levitation spell.
*Flying Hearse - Normal weight limits apply. Works great dragging something along the ground but has a nasty tendency to flip over when you are in the air due to poor weight distribution.
*Fizzy Drinks - Are an instant hit! Your name is hailed far and wide as the inventor of this marvelous concoction. The poorer parts of the city are soon holding contests to see who can belch the most elegant poem to your genius.
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I have a player who is using throwing shields as a means to gain extra attacks. I feel this is against RAI, where it should be a free action to throw it as part of a ranged attack. Not as an additional attack.
Even in PFS, ESPECIALLY in pfs, its part of the DMs job to reasonably interpret the rules, especially the ones that rise to munster levels of rules lawyering cheese.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I like a lot of his more innovative ideas. I think they're fun, and they don't seem to be hurting the game.
"... his "colorful" characters that seem to always break established lore and the occasional law of thermodynamics without aid of magic." The ones that break physics without the assistance of magic don't work. Established canon, how?
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The RAW for throwing shields is that it's a free action to loose and throw, but it makes no mention of actually making an attack.
I have a player who is using throwing shields as a means to gain extra attacks. I feel this is against RAI, where it should be a free action to throw it as part of a ranged attack. Not as an additional attack.
The item is poorly worded, but it means that you can go all the way from "stapped on" to "ready to throw" as a single free action. That is, if it only said "unclasping is a free action", we'd have GMs who didn't like it trying to say "Sure, but just because it's unclasped doesn't mean it's ready to throw, so you need to spend more actions once it's unclasped." The text is just preempting that.
Second he is using trained squirrels to automatically open healing potions and feed them to fallen allies. Based on the animal tricks, I do not feel this is at all possible and goes against the multiple minion rules as well but he insists they are not counted as tools.
If a squirrel is in a book he can show you and is listed as legal in Additional Resources, he can have it.
Doing the potion thing requires a Handle Animal check (or possibly more than one check), involving either some tricks he needs to show you he's taught it or else a "push", per the Handle Animal rules.The "one combat animal" thing still applies.
Finally he purchases items and gear that are not at all covered in any rule books, taking extremely elaborate artistic liberties in repurposing them. Such as a:
Unicycle which he insists does not hamper his monk's move speed at all and insists it being his only means of locomotion.
If he can't point to the unicycle in a legal Additional Resource, he doesn't have it. Period.
Bones of undead which I can not find a purchase price he uses to raise undead minions, recycling them from mission to mission.
If he can't point to it in a legal Additional Resource, he doesn't have it. Period.
A flying carriage he made by stapling a magic carpet to the floor of a push cart modeled into a hearse.
He can have any of these component parts if he can point to them in a legal Additional Resource. He cannot create custom items from them.
Sodium bicarbonate to make fizzy drinks
See above.
Multiple trained snakes, if you can even train a snake
See my earlier comment about the squirrels.
And several other extravagant characters with rules questionable items.
Take them one at a time, case by case. This is part of why we have rules: so you can work your way through the issues instead of being overwhelmed by the pile.
This is a player who's means of enjoyment of the game is to be the class clown. I do not have an issue with this as a player of GM, but it's becoming a nuisance to other players who are being off put by his "colorful" characters that seem to always break established lore and the occasional law of thermodynamics without aid of magic.
If he's hurting the fun of the table, talk to him about it. If he won't make accommodations to the social nature of the game, boot him. Simple as that.
My question is vague but how do I deal with these points? He has done nothing to warrant being thrown out of society play but I often need to seek out rulings for PFS that have not even been made.
Which rulings have not been made?
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I'd say this might be an interesting person... maybe one who needs to tone it down somewhat, but could be fun to have at a table.
Jiggy did a great job of iterating through all of the pertinent rulings (even if most of them are "is it in additional resources?")
Multiple trained snakes, if you can even train a snake
The interesting thing on this one is that in a recent scenario, the players learn of an NPC's frustration on this very point!
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If he can't point to the unicycle in a legal Additional Resource, he doesn't have it. Period.
I 95% agree with you but I feel the need to point out that there are a LOT of things that are in the world, aren't in additional resources, and almost any sane GM would allow. Examples include children's toys, earthworms, ribbons, tomatoes, turnips.
Some things (like unicycles) are borderline. Assuming that the player wants NO mechanical advantage from them I'd be inclined to allow them.
Other things (animals breaking the action economy for free) are NOT borderline
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Second he is using trained squirrels to automatically open healing potions and feed them to fallen allies. Based on the animal tricks, I do not feel this is at all possible and goes against the multiple minion rules as well but he insists they are not counted as tools.
So lets see how this works via the rules.
He gets one squirrel, per the FAQ. It is an animal, so it counts against his limit.
It has a light load of 2.4 lbs. So it can carry two potion bottles unencumbered. On the other hand it probably can't wear any sort of armor.
It doesn't have the link feature, so getting it to take the bottle to a companion and feed it is:
Move action: Deliver: it moves it's speed, 40 ft per round (double move) and takes attacks of opportunity from everything it passes.
Full Round: Push: Open Flask
Full Round: Push: Pour Flask
Move action: Come (assuming he wants it out of there)
So, three rounds later, the squirrel will have fed one potion. Two of it's actions at least will have provoked, in addition to any movement provokes. And it has 3 hit points.
Sure. Go ahead. I'll be over here laughing while your teammates lose.
Oh, and he has to train the Come and Deliver tricks, as well as Heel unless he wants to spend another move action getting it out of a cage.
Finally he purchases items and gear that are not at all covered in any rule books, taking extremely elaborate artistic liberties in repurposing them. Such as a:
Then he can't have them.
Period.
End of sentence. There is no crafting or customizing in PFS.
Multiple trained snakes, if you can even train a snake
Well, he only gets one. He can have it. It has Int 1. So It can learn 3 tricks. What is he using them to do?
My question is vague but how do I deal with these points? He has done nothing to warrant being thrown out of society play but I often need to seek out rulings for PFS that have not even been made.
Take him aside and tell him he is edging up on the "Don't be a jerk" rule, and that if he can't tone it down, he will not be invited back to your table. (But be nice about it.)
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Somewhere there is a rules forum (?) thread about Mithral Unicycles.
I believe someone was trying to justify them as an acrobatics masterwork tool. (Under the "Individual GMs may want to allow masterwork tools for other skills at the listed cost. The circumstance bonus for such a tool should never be more than +2. The tool should either have a limited number of uses (such as the disguise and healer's kits) or only apply to certain aspects of the skill (such as the balancing pole's bonus on Acrobatics checks to traverse a narrow surface or the magnifying glass's bonus on Appraise checks for detailed items")
I believe they were using it for bobbing and weaving to avoid attacks of opportunity. (+2 to acrobatics check to avoid AoO when moving through threatened squares.)
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Given that there are spinning saw polearms, I would have a hard time arguing against a unicycle. (But I might require you to be a gnome.)
Hmm... Gnome fighter riding a unicycle, wielding a battle ladder, with profession (clown)...
I think I may have discovered the ultimate GM trolling character.
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I have had a player like this at my table a few times and it may very well be the same player. What a lot of people are suggesting is walking the line of what is breaking the rules and rewarding creative solutions. Compromise is a big part of that and the player should be more responsive to toning it down compared to being told no. As Jiggy pointed out any mechanical benefits need the rules to be presented by the player. If they cannot do so then they cannot do it. Just remember in the end you want all the players to have fun.
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Unless the OOO SQUIRREL! is a familiar or animal companion its a standard action to command it. So instead of a move action to retrieve the bottle and the standard action to drink it, he uses the standard action to give the the fetch command and then a full round action to push the squirrel into opening the bottle.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Nope. Handle animal is move for a trick, full for pushing.
Also he is trying to feed the potion to a downed ally.
That would normally be:
Move (to retrieve)
(possibly) Move to get to them
Full (to carefully pour it down their throat.)
(Note that while pouring the bottle out is well within push, it occurs to me that "carefully drizzle the potion down your allies throat without choking them" may be beyond even the ability of the push handle animal command. It certainly violates the PFS prohibition on animals activating magical items.)
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Umm.. were unicycles even invented in this time period? Are they a part of this world's culture?
I have yet seen, and I'be been playing/Gming since season 0, a unicycle in a scenario.
A bear on a unicycle is in the harrow deck.
I'm planning on building an Eiodolon around that at some point in a home campaign
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Spinning saw polearms have a place in the culture.. where to unicycles fit in? lol
I don't see it
There's a module that has bears riding unicycles in it.
** spoiler omitted **
Beat me to it. Not only is there a unicycle in a PFS legal module, but it's ridden by a bear with a hat. That bear is even a possible avatar picture here on the forums, but it mostly just shows the head, so you can't see the unicycle.
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I've stated before, the player derives his fun from bizarre characters. This is not really an issue with me, except when I have to constantly search for rules.
The sodium bicarbonate, the unicycle and trained animals are not reason to ask him to leave PFS. But his loose interpretation of the rules occasionally becomes a problem. If trained snake is in a PFS module then I cannot fault him for having a trained mammal that can actually learn tricks in real life. But he will be limited to only one pet per day. And I will go over the handle animal rules with him.
The throwing shields have got to stop though. It's not the first time players have tried to abuse them. There needs to be an official correction for them. I think they are a good idea in concept and essential for Captain America builds or fighter who need a quick means of going two handed as I do not agree at all about the rules for equipping shields requiring straps except for maybe tower shields. But a lindybeige style dissertation of shield use and construction is not appropriate in this forum.
Unless he either
a) has a class that grants him an animal companion, mount, or familiar, and the squirrel is an option, he cannot have a trained squirrel unless...
b) there is a squirrel available for sale somewhere in the available resources.
If you can't have it as a class feature and it isn't available to actually purchase, then he can't have a squirrel, no matter how much he wants one or how many times he's seen an NPC with one.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Um... Guys. Not only is there a squirrel available for purchase, there is also a flying squirrel. It's in Ultimate Equipment. It's one gold piece. (20 if you want the flying version.) Being able to buy a squirrel is not one of the many problems with this character.
There is also a poisonous snake and a constrictor snake.
Peyote: Re masterwork tools.
There is a generic "masterwork tool - 50GP, 1 lb." For any skill that does not have a masterwork tool, if you can define an item that gives a bonus to one subset of that skill, that costs no more than 50 gp and weighs no more than 1 lb, you can have that masterwork tool.
Examples included in the item description are a acrobats balancing pole (only to balance on narrow beams) expensive perfume (limited uses, and only applies where the perfume is popular) a fake beard woven from the hair of famous dwarves (+2 to activate magic device to emulate being a dwarf), A magnifying glass to appraise items with fine details.
Expect massive table variation.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Ah. Find the post I was looking for.
Mike Brock on Masterwork tools.
Boils down to "you can have masterwork tools for anything, just so long as people don't make me regret that decision."
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I gotta reward this guys creativity, reminds me of the beastmaster movie.
If he wants to be a clown let him, just talk to him and ask him to tone it down a notch or two. Give him the reasons why. Many people allow a players antics because no one wants to be seen as confrontational.
I agree with everyone on the shield issue, it's a ranged attack.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16
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This guy has two issues, as noted above: (a) Some unwarranted advantages, and (b) he's an attention hog.
Ways to deal with the undue advantages are described above. Ideas like his trained squirrels are hardly game-breaking and can be allowed (while enforcing enough restrictions to keep them in check). There are reasons that such tactics aren't commonplace.
"Prima Donna" players are also fairly commonplace. He sounds very outgoing and enthusiastic. When you discuss your concerns with him, suggest that he encourage the less flamboyant players to participate.
The impression I picked up from the original post was that his constant zaniness was making your brain hurt. Try to resist your negative reaction: This guy's creativity is a GOOD thing, once he tones it down a bit.
You should also shanghai him to GM. That way he gets to be the center of attention and everyone can benefit from his creativity.
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Cazin, also to your main points:
Please stand up for your GM. Especially given that you stated you like playing with this guy.
Tell him, before the game, privately if possible, "Hey, man, we all really like you and we like playing with you. We all enjoy when you come up with creative ways to play the game, it is a lot of fun. What we don't like is when you try to push the GM into ruling things your way all the time in areas where the rules are less well-defined. Please, tell the GM what you want to try and let the GM figure out what the ruling is. Then accept it. I'm not asking you to stop trying fun and zany antics—we all enjoy that—just that you accept it gracefully when they don't work. Thanks."
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Here are some more details on squirrel abuse:
He made up his own complex trick way beyond a squirrel's ability: "I order you to follow this fellow about, and should he become unconscious, pour this potion down his throat."
Since he's apparently keen on official rulings, it might be worthwhile referring him to the FAQ, which confirms that this isn't PFS-legal:
How can I create new tricks to train to my animal companion?
New tricks require mechanics. Because it requires a GM to basically create the rules for something that doesn’t already exist, you can’t create it in PFS. If the trick is listed somewhere (for example: the air walk spell), then you may take it.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I think the player is referring to the general principle that equipment is only damaged by attacks that target it. So, burning hands doesn't destroy your wood holy symbol, getting hit doesn't degrade your armor, etc. But gear can still get lost, and pets aren't gear, they are pets, and have separate rules. (unless they are in a familiar pouch at the time, in which case they usually get treated as gear.)