RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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So in rereading my last post I come across as pretty crass at everyone involved in this thread, so my apologies for that. I only wanted to be sort of crass, it is Friday after all. We've still got to have a good weekend.
I just see a trend where emotions run high in threads like this and, traditionally, it doesn't end well. Hopefully by talking about that particular elephant up front and making it clear we aren't looking to single anyone out for their opinions, we can keep ourselves out of the dregs.
My top three:
-That 7 player tables are allowed at all. 4-5 is the sweet spot. I am not keen on 6.
-Guns.
-Tech.
+1. Where I play they houserule it down to 6, which is also too much, IMO.
I like three (in general), so it irks me that three usually get their butts kicked on a mod.
The key word there is 'invalidate.' There are some/many times when the players actions make the scripted tactics sub-optimal, silly, or even stupid. But that doesn't make them invalidto weaken or destroy the effect of (something)
to deprive of legal force or efficacy; nullify.
1. to render weak or ineffective, as an argument
2. (Law) to take away the legal force or effectiveness of; annul, as a contractI do not see anything there that implies that making the action completely impossible is required. Signifigantly weakening it or screwing it over is all it takes. ...
But that is not how a whole lot of people seem to read it. It is physically possible. Therefore it is valid. Therefore I have to run as written. I've heard at least 5 or 6 PFS GM's say it.
Personally it has never come up as a possibility for the few times I've GM'd for PFS. {shrug}|
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But that is not how a whole lot of people seem to read it. It is physically possible. Therefore it is valid. Therefore I have to run as written. I've heard at least 5 or 6 PFS GM's say it.The key word there is 'invalidate.' There are some/many times when the players actions make the scripted tactics sub-optimal, silly, or even stupid. But that doesn't make them invalidto weaken or destroy the effect of (something)
to deprive of legal force or efficacy; nullify.
1. to render weak or ineffective, as an argument
2. (Law) to take away the legal force or effectiveness of; annul, as a contractI do not see anything there that implies that making the action completely impossible is required. Signifigantly weakening it or screwing it over is all it takes. ...
Are you dming it?
Then its how you read it.
If they want mindless automotons they can run it.
Personally it has never come up as a possibility for the few times I've GM'd for PFS. {shrug}
Bah, if the players don't throw me a curve ball or 8 i get bored.
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To the OP:
Personally, the PFS rule I find most obnoxious is the Additional Resources page. Not because these resources are allowed, I like the sheer number of choices. The part that is difficult for me is that every character has must utilize every random or obscure resource. I mean "every" in the hyperbolic sense. The AR list has options folks, not requirements.
There are mechanical or logistical reasons for this too though. The larger the spread of options grows every year the more likely I am to not know how a particular choice works. And the larger the options grow the greater the likelyhood two things from random sources mesh poorly. Combining my knowledge limits, with potential unintended mixes the problem grows. Not to mention the third time I ask a player 'what does that do?' a) undermines my 'authority' as an expert (ie a good GM), and b) makes it look like I am picking on the player. I fear this will be especially true when I ask to see the source time and time again.
I am fully admit I do not know what X or Y is, but think both could be defined with a good discussion.
TL;DR: You can't play tennis without a net, I wish their was a bigger net in regards to Additional Resources per character. :)
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The party spending 10 minutes real time while in combat to 'choreograph' what everyone is doing for next six-second round.
Don't tell me not to cast 'that' spell unless your character makes a spellcraft to know what I am casting in the first place, and then unless you make me fail a concentration check it's too late - it's already been cast.
The meta-gaming sometimes gets too much. Contributes to the easiness of some of the scenarios.
The six or seven players in a mod wouldn't be so bad if they increased the difficulty of the opponents accordingly. (I have mostly been playing years 0-3 so maybe that is not the case with the newer scenarios)
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The party spending 10 minutes real time while in combat to 'choreograph' what everyone is doing for next six-second round.
Don't tell me not to cast 'that' spell unless your character makes a spellcraft to know what I am casting in the first place, and then unless you make me fail a concentration check it's too late - it's already been cast.
The meta-gaming sometimes gets too much. Contributes to the easiness of some of the scenarios.
The six or seven players in a mod wouldn't be so bad if they increased the difficulty of the opponents accordingly. (I have mostly been playing years 0-3 so maybe that is not the case with the newer scenarios)
Years 0-3 are scaled for 4 players, which is what a home game/mod assumes. PFS took a look at the numbers, and turned out that cramming 6 players at a table was more usual, so they beefed up season 4 and later to compensate, with a sidebar about how to gear down if you DON"T have a swarm of pathfinders.
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I've said this before, but my favorite response to players arguing and bossing each other around is to have the NPCs react to the player's dialogue or have their own.
Sometimes it helps to just put up a mirror.
DUDE! Epic Idea. FYI, I totally plan on stealing this, not just for PFS but for my home game. I have one dude that tries to be the "leader" of every fight and its irritating me. I have talked to him and he's better but still does it. Maybe this will be a fun way to deal with it!
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I've said this before, but my favorite response to players arguing and bossing each other around is to have the NPCs react to the player's dialogue or have their own.
Sometimes it helps to just put up a mirror.
Doing this was my favorite part of mod with an evil party as a boss fight, where its specifically called out they do that sort of thing :)
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Obnoxious: Master of Many Styles dipping to circumvent level requirements on style feats. This is why we can't have nice things.While I agree I'm still doing it because much the way power attack exists it's just too good not to take. Sometimes I wish some options didn't exist because "Bypassing prerequistes" is like the definition of what gets people in trouble. Example Monk of many fists.
Power attack annoys me. It should be base line for all characters.
I agree with that. But it's basically the abuse of MoMS that got Crane Wing nerfed, and I'm waiting to see if the same will happen to Pummeling Style.
DUDE! Epic Idea. FYI, I totally plan on stealing this, not just for PFS but for my home game. I have one dude that tries to be the "leader" of every fight and its irritating me. I have talked to him and he's better but still does it. Maybe this will be a fun way to deal with it!I've said this before, but my favorite response to players arguing and bossing each other around is to have the NPCs react to the player's dialogue or have their own.
Sometimes it helps to just put up a mirror.
Oh I certainly do this (well not to noobs).
Player, "Ok, when the balloon goes up, fireball the ones at the back. Then I will ..."
Enemy thug man, "They're going to fry us! Kill the wizard and the boss giving orders!"
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But that is not how a whole lot of people seem to read it. It is physically possible. Therefore it is valid. Therefore I have to run as written. I've heard at least 5 or 6 PFS GM's say it.Are you dming it?
Then its how you read it.
If they want mindless automotons they can run it. ...
I'm not sure what you meant by that. As an example from earlier this summer.
I have since learned the GM read the tactics incorrectly (I haven't read it myself). But that wasn't my point.
What he read was written in stone. I can't remember his exact words but it was very close to, "I know it was stupid but as long as it could do what was written I don't have any choice. That's what I have to have it do. Would have been a really tough fight if it had been flying around using it's breath weapon and magic."
...
Personally it has never come up as a possibility for the few times I've GM'd for PFS. {shrug}Bah, if the players don't throw me a curve ball or 8 i get bored.
Mostly I have GM'd for overflow new players. They sometimes come up with some oddball stuff occasionally, but so far nothing weird enough that I felt a major change of tactics was in order. OR it was so far out in the hinterlands that the written tactics were obviously not possible at all. (Springs to mind the image of releasing summoned dire rats in the building covered in flaming oil.)
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As an example from earlier this summer.
** spoiler omitted **
Before Combat Before burrowing up to the landing, Xiangnuer suppresses her frightful presence and casts detect magic and displacement.
During Combat Should the PCs engage Xiangnuer, she no longer suppresses her frightful presence and immediately uses wall of stone to separate the party. She follows up with her breath weapon, and in later rounds she wades into melee using Power Attack liberally.
Morale Xiangnuer's primary goal is to add new treasures to her hoard. If reduced below 60 hit points, she realizes the PCs are no easy score and attempts to flee by flying away at full speed, finding a spot in the shadows, and burrowing deep within Round Mountain.
Hardly suicidal.
RAW
That this why I love GMing APs and modules in my homegames and refuse to be a Gm for PFS. Playing is is fun though.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I'm picturing Walter as Ezren throwing his walking stick at people now. "Get off my front lawn!"So in rereading my last post I come across as pretty crass at everyone involved in this thread, so my apologies for that. I only wanted to be sort of crass, it is Friday after all. We've still got to have a good weekend.
I just see a trend where emotions run high in threads like this and, traditionally, it doesn't end well. Hopefully by talking about that particular elephant up front and making it clear we aren't looking to single anyone out for their opinions, we can keep ourselves out of the dregs.
This is exactly how I spend my lawn time.
Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Pullman
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This is exactly how I spend my lawn time.I'm picturing Walter as Ezren throwing his walking stick at people now. "Get off my front lawn!"So in rereading my last post I come across as pretty crass at everyone involved in this thread, so my apologies for that. I only wanted to be sort of crass, it is Friday after all. We've still got to have a good weekend.
I just see a trend where emotions run high in threads like this and, traditionally, it doesn't end well. Hopefully by talking about that particular elephant up front and making it clear we aren't looking to single anyone out for their opinions, we can keep ourselves out of the dregs.
He actually tasks me with throwing the cane.
** spoiler omitted **
As I said, I have been told he read it incorrectly. But his belief was that nothing could be changed if it was still possible. So (even though he had read it wrong) he did not seriously consider changing it.
..
I'm not sure what you meant by that.What i mean is that your argument that the action has to be impossible to be invalidated is not supported by either the guide or the English language. Its something your players are making up whole cloth.
Most people don't go looking up the definitions of words they think they know. This is a word that doesn't fit together the way you might first assume unless you look it up.
Valid, Many people will give you a definition of possible rather than the dictionary effective for this word.
In-, This is usually used to mean complete negation not somewhat less than. Incomprehensible means can not be comprehended. It does not mean less easily comprehended.
There may be other cases where in- means somewhat less than rather than complete negation, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
So at least some significant percentage of people look at that word, used that way, in that sentence, and assume they know what it means. I think it is pretty certain that none of them said, "Well I know the dictionary says this, but I'm going to use that non-standard definition."
I used the term 'significant percentage' but I admit I have done no statistical analysis (however there are people that do that for a living). That is going by the rule of thumb you-hear-it-all-the-time reasoning.
Just at a rough guess I would say approx 1/4 to 1/3 of the GM's I've spoken with think nothing can be changed if it is still possible.
You also see it pretty often on these boards. There was a very lengthy thread what a year ago with nearly every one jumping all over some PFS GM for changing things when they were less-than-totally-effective. Almost every post disagreeing with him said something close to 'you can't change the written tactics if they are still possible.' I don't think anyone disagreeing with him said anything about "Well the effectiveness was not decreased enough to properly apply the term invalidate and allow new tactics."
One of my GM's at GenCon. Got kinda excited when we did something so wierd we made the written tactics impossible and he had to improvise. He said he was required to run it as written even when it was a bad idea as long as that was possible.
You see it on threads where someone says he won't GM/play PFS because he has to run as written even if it is a stupid idea. I have never seen anyone reply "Well the 'invalidate clause' lets you change things when they are no longer effective, so you might give it another chance." Every response has been along the lines of "Yep, it is world wide so it has to be rigid so everyone has the same experience."
So no, I don't know what the percentage is. But I feel fairly safe in saying it is significant since I constantly hear statements that it can NOT be change if still possible and I rarely hear statements that it might be changed if ineffective.
Yes, it is easy to say that they aren't using the dictionary definition. But they do think they are using the word correctly. And since definitions are defined by usage, at some point if enough people think that the definition is 'this' the dictionary definition becomes 'this.'
I think that is something a publicly published author might want to be aware of. I read part of an article about an author (I forget the name) who absolutely hates the way the word 'literally' is now being used in our society. Be has to be aware of it and use a different word or use it the same way or readers get confused and possible chased away by his 'poor writing' skills.
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The books list X amount of gold per level in magic equipment, scrolls, wands, potions, etc. to survive an encounter of appropriate level. With the extremely limited list of level appropriate magic equipment available to the PCs they need to spend nearly every bit of gold just to survive the next scenario. Anyone who hasn't is a liability in that game and likely to be spending their hoarded gold on their own rez.
I have seen characters with 40k worth of gold unspent reach Seeker tier. I don't find your assessment to be the norm.
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The player you mentioned still spent 68k of his 108k in gold on equpiment and gear. Well over half his allotment of gold for 12th level. Provided the game's sheets he received for playing had JUST what he was looking for on it for his character, he could spend under his level and be viable. But that is a matter of luck.
Now we've gone from "every bit of your gold" to "well over half".
Also, what is on your sheets means little when you get enough fame to buy what you need anyway.
Paizo is as equally capable of being wrong as you are. And your statements do not hold up in actual play according to my experience.
My two character deaths were on the same character. Said character is now a 14th level Seeker.
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The player you mentioned still spent 68k of his 108k in gold on equpiment and gear. Well over half his allotment of gold for 12th level. Provided the game's sheets he received for playing had JUST what he was looking for on it for his character, he could spend under his level and be viable. But that is a matter of luck.Now we've gone from "every bit of your gold" to "well over half".
Also, what is on your sheets means little when you get enough fame to buy what you need anyway.
Paizo is as equally capable of being wrong as you are. And your statements do not hold up in actual play according to my experience.
My two character deaths were on the same character. Said character is now a 14th level Seeker.
I actually have the same experience. My -1 has died multiple times, including 1 resurrection worthy battle, and is still my highest level character at 14, and has had plenty of wealth for other things.
Pretty much all of my characters are over WBL in terms of gear, it's not an uncommon occurrence in PFS. At level 8 my Wizard had 20k sitting around for a rez. Of course it was my first character so I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing at that point, but he still had what he needed to function while having all that money sitting in his pockets. Of course it is a bit different for casters, particularly arcane ones, than it is for melee types. I now think I should have had substantially more on consumables, but really excess wealth is not terribly hard to come by in PFS.
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You need to elaborate as I am unsure what you mean by both your statements and as such am unable to reply.
There are four methods of making something available to buy for a pfs character
1) Its on a chronicle sheet. You found it, you're allowed to buy one.
2) Its an always available item. The lodge has these lying around and will hand them to anyone for cash.
3) Prestige point buys, where your faction owes you a favor and will hand you the item for prestige points.
4) And most importantly, fame. When you have enough fame you can get just about any legal item you want from the society as long as you plunk down the gold for it.
Your fame score almost always outpaces your cash on hand, especially after the first few levels. It usually outpaces it by a LOT.
The forum will play hell with the formating, but...
Lev Fame Limit WBL % of wbl for purchase limit
1 0
2 4
3 8 500 3,000 16.7
4 12 1500 6,000 25.0
5 16 3000 10,500 28.6
6 20 5250 16,000 32.8
7 24 8000 23,500 34.0
8 28 11750 33,000 35.6
9 32 16500 46,000 35.9
10 36 23000 62,000 37.1
11 40 31000 82,000 37.8
and thats at the 1.5 PP they expeced. most characters are signifigantly above that.
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The books list X amount of gold per level in magic equipment, scrolls, wands, potions, etc. to survive an encounter of appropriate level. With the extremely limited list of level appropriate magic equipment available to the PCs they need to spend nearly every bit of gold just to survive the next scenario. Anyone who hasn't is a liability in that game and likely to be spending their hoarded gold on their own rez.I have seen characters with 40k worth of gold unspent reach Seeker tier. I don't find your assessment to be the norm.
I concur with TOZ.
Our core group is routinely more than half of our wealth unspent until around 9th or 10th level. This is largely because we play a lot of Qadira, and after buying the bare essential +1's, we hoard money until our fame allows us to buy the big item we want with the Master of Trade discount.
We have found that being behind on wealth at the mid levels, even significantly behind, has had very little bearing on difficulty in general (they has been the occasional exception).
Death.
For a 4th level party that's 12 games. If your home group plays every week (like mine does), when is anyone going to have time with work, school, and just life to play 12 games at about 8 hours apiece to get enough levels to be viable in Society Play with his friends?
Not to mention this can be impossible if you live in a small town with only one or two games shops or if the game at the other game shop is well above your 1st level character anyway.
A couple of things here.
You only need 9 games to go from 1st to 4th, not 12.
The games are usually 4 to 5 hours, not 8 hours.
You can play online games that give you chronicles - either Play by Post or using something else (Skype?) to play the game in real time. There are even online conventions where you can get convention boons. This should help with the small town issue.
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Years 0-3 are scaled for 4 players, which is what a home game/mod assumes. PFS took a look at the numbers, and turned out that cramming 6 players at a table was more usual, so they beefed up season 4 and later to compensate, with a sidebar about how to gear down if you DON"T have a swarm of pathfinders.
Is a large group of Pathfinders really a swarm? I thought words like flock, herd, or gaggle might be more appropriate. After all, it's not like they take extra damage from splash weapons.
This is exactly how I spend my lawn time.
I'm picturing Walter as Ezren throwing his walking stick at people now. "Get off my front lawn!"
"lawn time"??? You make it sound like the half hour per day the nurses at the old folks home let you wander outside.
Death. And not in the 'oh s@@$ I'm dead, rez me quick' in-game death. More the 'f&!# I'm dead hand me the book I need a new character' after in-game kind of death.
Let me elaborate:
If you are playing at your local friendly game shop and have just started PFS play, meaning you have one character, and for whatever reason you die and can't get a rez you need to start a 1st level character.This is complete crap if the party is anything over level 3 or 4. Your 1st level character will be ineffective against nearly any encounter in a game. Another death of that player's PC is only one attack, or AoE spell away.
To play again with his friends the player would need to find several games of appropriate levels and do nothing but play until his new character is of a level comparable to the other people in his home game.
As others have said, by level 4 or more, the cost of getting raised from the dead doesn't set you back that much, especially if the group splits it.
Also, I should point out that when I first started playing PFS, it was a home group that used PFS adventures and rules so that we could just play with whoever showed up that week, rather than committing to a real campaign where everyone had to be there every session. When we hit around level 3 or 4, we all started 2nd characters so that we could add some new players to the group, and we'd all be playing at level 1 together.
If you're playing with the same dedicated group every time, mixing and matching characters this way, so you all have characters every 2-3 levels and can always play with each other in any level adventure, just seems like the best move for maximum flexibility. Besides, I like having multiple characters just to try out different character ideas.