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I see it a different way. The player has selected their weapon, it's Diplomacy. They've selected their goal, to get help (as opposed to getting improving their attitude, so it's a basic attack rather than a trip). Asking how they attempt to get help is more like asking if they swing the weapon overhand or from the side. The character, with a high diplomacy check, should realize what the best approach is (or at least identify several of the best ones, which you could inform the player of).
If the player is being general in the type of help he wants, he's probably unsure of what the best way the NPC can aid them is.
Usually NPCs that do agree to help will volunteer the options themselves. They're not going to be cryptic about it (unless the check isn't good enough for their aid, or their best aid).
"I could tell my people you're on the way, they'll make sure no one bothers you." or "I want to see your mission succeed, I can spare these holy waters for you."
I can see your point, but I disagree. Diplomacy is too huge. It covers way to many possibilities.
Using a diplomacy check to cover everything is (to me) closer to saying. I'm going to get in a fight and I roll a single BaB check to decide the result.
Also, I would say things like knowledge nobility, knowledge local, or sense motive would be better for letting you know which type of approach to take. Diplomacy would let you do a good job of flirting with the countess. It is not going to tell you that she is a fundamentalist and absolutely committed to her spouse and will be highly offended.
People are usually cryptic about what is needed to get them to agree with what you want them to do.
But if the only skill the PC had was diplomacy, I would probably give it a chance to work. Especially if used as a separate gather information check about the intended target.
Also, it can easily have much longer term results.
Example: You use diplomacy to convince the merchant prince to stand up to the blackmailers.
1) If you convince him that you can make sure the secrets are kept, but then the whole kingdom knows about the affair... Well, you have probably made a powerful enemy.
2) If you convince him that it is his duty no matter the results. He won't be too surprised when the affair becomes public knowledge. He will probably just have to be stoic and ride out the scandal.
3) If you bribe him with enough money to leave and set himself up all over again in a new country. He may not care about the scandal and you might have a powerful ally in a new land.
Also, depending upon the NPC, one of those approaches might not work.
If the guy is a venal money grubber that has been having a rough time financially the last couple years, option 3) might be very easy to convince him to agree. But he wouldn't care about his duty to the city for option 2) to succeed no matter how eloquent your argument.
1) Bluff
2) Diplomacy
3) Paying for a service.
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For many people, diplomacy and dealing with NPCs as a player, rather than just making a roll, is a good bit of the fun of a game. I want to act out what I am doing and how I am interacting. The problem is, of course, that some players are better than others at this, and very often their characters abilities don't match the players abilities, as has been noted.
I don't have a good answer for the dilemma. I tend to want my players to play out the interaction, and then have a roll modified by what I judge to be the players 'effort' rather than skill, but i'll admit it is far from perfect.
I can't see a complex 'social combat' system working that doesn't get in the way of players interacting with NPCs. Perhaps I am wrong, but I've played quite a few systems in my time, and found that less is more when it comes to rules for social interaction.
Interestingly, everyone is pretty happy with completely controlling where their character moves in combat, who they attack, and what resources they expect even though some players are not tactical geniuses and many characters should be better at tactics then their players.
I can't see a complex 'social combat' system working that doesn't get in the way of players interacting with NPCs. Perhaps I am wrong, but I've played quite a few systems in my time, and found that less is more when it comes to rules for social interaction.
Mouse Guard/Torchbearer's is pretty good.
It manages to break things down into statements and you can see who is "winning" roll by roll. So sometimes you have to roleplay bouncing back from a faux pas or a mis-step. Generally, the dice decide the outcome but it gives you a lot to hang your RP off of. Much more than the single-roll outcome of Pathfinder Diplomacy.
1) Bluff
2) Diplomacy
3) Paying for a service.
It is not a bluff if the players thought they could keep it a secret and then proceed to fail to keep it a secret. Inept? Yes. But it wasn't a lie.
Bribery is not anywhere close to the same a paying for a service in most cultures that I have experienced, heard people tell me about, or read about.
There are a very few examples where it is acknowledged, with a known pricing sheet, and completely aboveboard. But not most.
For many people, diplomacy and dealing with NPCs as a player, rather than just making a roll, is a good bit of the fun of a game. I want to act out what I am doing and how I am interacting. The problem is, of course, that some players are better than others at this, and very often their characters abilities don't match the players abilities, as has been noted.
I don't have a good answer for the dilemma. I tend to want my players to play out the interaction, and then have a roll modified by what I judge to be the players 'effort' rather than skill, but I'll admit it is far from perfect.
I can't see a complex 'social combat' system working that doesn't get in the way of players interacting with NPCs. Perhaps I am wrong, but I've played quite a few systems in my time, and found that less is more when it comes to rules for social interaction.
Interestingly, everyone is pretty happy with completely controlling where their character moves in combat, who they attack, and what resources they expect even though some players are not tactical geniuses and many characters should be better at tactics then their players.
Interesting, too, that players are fine with resolving combat based on rolls, but not so much when it comes to social interactions.
I have come around to letting them RP the interaction, but base the result on the dice. I used to give bonuses for good RP, but have stopped because it was clear the same guy(s) were always getting the bonuses, even when it didn't make sense based on their character (stats, etc.). They (the player) were just really good at that kind of interaction whereas their toon probably wouldn't have been. Plus, that took ME out of the equation. I couldn't be accused of favoritism or bias because it was up to: their investment in the skill, their stats, and the roll of the dice.
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Interesting, too, that players are fine with resolving combat based on rolls, but not so much when it comes to social interactions.I have come around to letting them RP the interaction, but base the result on the dice. I used to give bonuses for good RP, but have stopped because it was clear the same guy(s) were always getting the bonuses, even when it didn't make sense based on their character (stats, etc.). They (the player) were just really good at that kind of interaction whereas their toon probably wouldn't have been. Plus, that took ME out of the equation. I couldn't be accused of favoritism or bias because it was up to: their investment in the skill, their stats, and the roll of the dice.
Except the combats aren't purely rolls of the dice either. There is manuvering your character, picking what spell to cast etc. And frankly - the same players are generally the best at them no matter what character they play.
It's just that doing those things are relatively objective, while how good you are at roleplaying is mostly subjective. It's the subjectivity which can lead to angst amongst the players.
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My group and I aren't heavy roleplayers (in the sense that we act out characters and do voices and all that stuff). When my players use Diplomacy of a similar roleplay skill, I ask them to tell me what they want to say to the NPC and the message their trying to convey. When they're ready to roll, I'll mentally assign bonuses or penalties depending on what (and how) the character was trying to accomplish vs. the goals/attitude/reception of the NPC. Once the check is resolved, I have the NPC respond accordingly.
-Skeld
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That said, DM has some styles which prevent enjoyment of certain class builds, or make certain skills wasteful.
Here's how you fix that DM: Roll up a character who banks on all those oversights and house rules. Dominate the game like a boss. You're never going to get someone to change their ways by asking politely; you've got to show them why things are so broken.
Except the combats aren't purely rolls of the dice either. There is manuvering your character, picking what spell to cast etc. And frankly - the same players are generally the best at them no matter what character they play.
It's just that doing those things are relatively objective, while how good you are at roleplaying is mostly subjective. It's the subjectivity which can lead to angst amongst the players.
Is that built in, or is that an indication that the combat system is robust and well-designed, and the non-combat system is terrible?
If most of the combat rules were removed, combat would be subjective again, and it would lead to the same hard feelings.
Just imagine, for a second, how the game would be if we had one more skill, called fighting. And the entire process of combat was to win an opposed fight check against the enemy.
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Just imagine, for a second, how the game would be if we had one more skill, called fighting. And the entire process of combat was to win an opposed fight check against the enemy.
There are rpgs like that. I don't like them.
But roleplaying is much harder to design a complex system for, and frankly, it'd likely feel clunky and remove any actual roleplaying.
Also - there are systems where you actually fight instead of having a system for it. It's called LARPing. :P
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That said, DM has some styles which prevent enjoyment of certain class builds, or make certain skills wasteful.Here's how you fix that DM: Roll up a character who banks on all those oversights and house rules. Dominate the game like a boss. You're never going to get someone to change their ways by asking politely; you've got to show them why things are so broken.
Or don't do this.
There are rpgs like that. I don't like them.
Neither do I. But I would like the developers to put more thought into the non-combat resolution system. It wouldn't be hard to make it better than it is.
Who cares if it's hard? They're professional game designers, who I support with my purchases.
Sounds like a lot of things that just streamline the game. Most DMs, myself included, have so much to keep track of already that making people roll Handle Animal checks that they will succeed, or tracking every individual creature's turn in initiative individually, or making them tally the bat guano and cracked mirrors on their person would be an absolute nightmare. The game would never get anywhere. Things already take long enough just doing the important things or giving my players time to do some role-playing. Tedious paperwork utilizing every square inch of more than 5 (core) books with 200+ pages each sounds like we're getting close to putting "Puna'chong, J.D., L.L.M., D.M." on my screen.
I usually DM, so I'm pretty darn biased, but I've played with other DMs who also handwaive a lot of the more tedious aspects of the game. Certain things, like Fly checks, are a big part of how certain aspects of the game are balanced. Other things, like tracking mundane ammo, are just constant ticks on an already pretty heavily marked paper. For most people it's the story, combat, and interactions with the world that matter, not tracking rations or shuriken.
And yeah, to address an above post, making a character designed to piss off your DM is only going to succeed in pissing off your DM and probably getting you kicked out of the group. As a guy who's been the DM for 90% of his tabletop time this is the kind of player that makes you not want to put any effort into the game; it isn't "players vs. DM," it's "players vs. DM's narrative." We already have to read modules/come up with adventures from scratch, and have at the very least passable knowledge of every rule in the game. That's hours, at least, every week, of prep work and effort so that the whole group can have fun. All a player needs to actually know to play the game is what his character can do and how and come prepared to work with the DM to make the game the most fun for the most people.
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And yeah, to address an above post, making a character designed to piss off your DM is only going to succeed in pissing off your DM and probably getting you kicked out of the group.
To be clear: My suggestion above was not intended to upset the DM, but rather to help the player show the DM why his alterations to the rules were having a larger effect than he realized.
If your DM doesn't track ammo at all, what's the harm in rolling up an archer who claims to have 100 of every single kind of special ammunition? If stealth is impossible, go right along with your DM in completely ignoring it; play archaeologist bards and urban rangers instead of rogues. If your DM discourages social skills, sink those points into acrobatics, perception, and use magic device instead!
Hopefully, the result of all this is the DM realizing that those rules are there for a reason, and it's not just to slow the game down. I agree that there are parts of the game best glossed over (ration tracking in non-survival based campaigns, for example), but it sounds like what this player is going through is worth exploring my suggestion.
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And yeah, to address an above post, making a character designed to piss off your DM is only going to succeed in pissing off your DM and probably getting you kicked out of the group.To be clear: My suggestion above was not intended to upset the DM, but rather to help the player show the DM why his alterations to the rules were having a larger effect than he realized.
If your DM doesn't track ammo at all, what's the harm in rolling up an archer who claims to have 100 of every single kind of special ammunition? If stealth is impossible, go right along with your DM in completely ignoring it; play archaeologist bards and urban rangers instead of rogues. If your DM discourages social skills, sink those points into acrobatics, perception, and use magic device instead!
Hopefully, the result of all this is the DM realizing that those rules are there for a reason, and it's not just to slow the game down. I agree that there are parts of the game best glossed over (ration tracking in non-survival based campaigns, for example), but it sounds like what this player is going through is worth exploring my suggestion.
The harm in actively baiting (or trolling) the GM with those kinds of actions is that it isn't conducive of a a "good" game, especially when it's one player who sets upon that course of action with the intent of "teaching the GM a lesson." It creates an unnecesarily contentious environment at the table.
If a player is so unhappy with the GM glossing over some of the rules that the player feels the need to take adverse actions against the GM/group to point out this unhappiness and talking to the GM and/or group hasn't had the desired outcome, graciously bow out. Being passive-aggressive about it in a social game shouldn't be considered a viable option.
Also keep in mind that, if you're playing with an experienced GM, he probably has a good reason for ignoring those rules.
-Skeld
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Okay, in a group. Love the group and the DM. Very fun.
That said, DM has some styles which prevent enjoyment of certain class builds, or make certain skills wasteful.
Examples:
-Does not require animal companions to ever make any checks via handle animal.
-Does not allow companion/familars to have their own intiative step.
-just gives us listed value for items, not allowed to even attempt appraise to increase value in trade.
-Impossible to use stealth skills as DM doesn't use terrain from the pre-generated adventures, just uses blank rooms...
-Effectively gives casters the eschew materials feat for free, also permits gold exchange for material costs.
-Considers role playing characters to be derailing the group sessions. This isn't just the DM, many of the players have this attitude.
-no random encounters, no attempt to increase CR (or loot) if number of players exceeds the recommended number for a pregenerated adventure.
I've never once run into a DM who has class companions get their own Initiative step.
As for the other ones, I'm guilty of at least one. The appraise one, mainly because our alch has something like a +30 (or more) to her appraise checks. Sooooo... no point in making her roll a whole bunch of times.
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The harm in actively baiting (or trolling) the GM with those kinds of actions is that it isn't conducive of a a "good" game
How is making a character who cashes in on all the DM's house rules trolling? You'd think a DM would be happy to see that kind of initiative out of a player. :)
The goal here is to express dissatisfaction with the DM's rules without arguing about them or quitting the game.
Here's how it worked in our home game, which had a revolving schedule of DMs:
Some of our DMs weren't very familiar with Pathfinder, so a lot of skills were glossed over, hand-waived, or outright ignored. A few sessions into the game, it became clear to me that the only skill they ever really called for was perception. Perception to notice NPC attitudes, perception to appraise goods, perception to determine monster weaknesses, etc. I tried to correct them whenever I could, but all this did was bog the game down as they looked up the skill in the book to make sure I was right.
So I rolled up a new character with a stupidly high perception check. I'm talking ridiculous. We had an E6 campaign and my bonus to perception was in the twenties. It didn't take long before the other DMs, in an effort to somehow nerf my character, actually took the time to learn what the other skills did. Now we have a much more balanced game where none of us feel like we're wasting skill points on anything but perception.
The best part is: There was never an argument. I never had to take a DM aside and lecture him on how skills work. Nobody's feelings were hurt. The game went on and got better.
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I've never once run into a DM who has class companions get their own Initiative step. ...
I have a couple of times.
Also, I kept if separate it for one guy because he actively made them wildly different. His PC had a -3 on initiative and his cheetah had a +14 I think it was with the magic items.
If your DM doesn't track ammo at all, what's the harm in rolling up an archer who claims to have 100 of every single kind of special ammunition?
When I GM, I don't track ammo at all. I leave it up to the player. There's no reason the GM should have to do that kind of bookkeeping. I expect them to be honest about it, but if they're not, I'm not going to call them on it. Because that would require me keeping track of their ammo, and I just don't have the cycles for that.
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The harm in actively baiting (or trolling) the GM with those kinds of actions is that it isn't conducive of a a "good" gameHow is making a character who cashes in on all the DM's house rules trolling? You'd think a DM would be happy to see that kind of initiative out of a player. :)
Perhaps I misunderstood your post that I initially responded to or took your comments (particularly the one about the GM not tracking mundane ammunition as license for the player to say they carry 100 of everything) out of context. To be clear, if a GM uses a houserule such as that, I don't see any problem with a player enjoying the benefits, even if they disagree with it.
However, if the player doesn't agree with a houserule and expresses that disagreement by creating a character that takes advantage of that houserule to some absurd conclusion, then uses the excuse of "haha, too bad, you said we were ignoring the [example] rules!", can cross the line into trollish behavior. In my mind, it's a matter of degree.
In your case, with your GMs and group, that tactic may have worked, but I wouldn't advise people to use that as a starting point.
-Skeld
We play a Dark Sun-converted Pathfinder. I run 2 PC's, a Druid (elemental water) and a Rogue. Because Athas is a brutal world, we started at 3rd level (same as old AD&D.)
This is the first time the DM has run this world ala-Pathfinder. The first few times he had us doing skill checks he was incredulous at some of the bonuses I had at that level, and arbitrarily adjusted the DC numbers up just to compensate for my bonuses.
I love to play, and his DMing style allows for the evolving storytelling and opportunities for ROLEplay that I like, so I was not going to rage quit or make a big deal over it, but wanted to discuss it after the game so he'd understand better and maybe see my side.
It took some time and a couple more game sessions for him to understand that my characters sacrificed my choices in optimizing traits/feats/ranks in some areas to get those bonuses I aimed for in others.
He got it after a bit (and seems to meta-game now into the areas I am weak... hmm.) So, yea, the DM's style changed the values of the choices I made.
This is the first time the DM has run this world ala-Pathfinder. The first few times he had us doing skill checks he was incredulous at some of the bonuses I had at that level, and arbitrarily adjusted the DC numbers up just to compensate for my bonuses.
I absolutely HATE when GMs do this. Why bother being good at anything?
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I absolutely HATE when GMs do this. Why bother being good at anything?
This is the first time the DM has run this world ala-Pathfinder. The first few times he had us doing skill checks he was incredulous at some of the bonuses I had at that level, and arbitrarily adjusted the DC numbers up just to compensate for my bonuses.
The issue is that GM's are also supposed to make things a challenge. How do I (as GM) challenge the guy who jacked up his diplomacy to the point where he breezes through all the social encounters? Even when he rolls a one and casually insults the king?
I will admit, I'm not always sure how to handle things like that. What I have tried to do is find a medium ground. Increase the DC's somewhat to the point where success is not a forgone conclusion but he will still be doing much better than average.
I also try to make sure I am following the rules. I don't just give Matteson a +20 to sense motive. I say well to myself, if Mattson is going to be the kings agent; he should have skill focus in diplomacy and sense motive, decent stats, maybe a couple of traits toward those skills, and the king might even find it worth while to give him a minor magic item that grants a +x to the ability.
That will still be worse total than a focused PC, but it will probably be in the same ballpark.
I absolutely HATE when GMs do this. Why bother being good at anything?
This is the first time the DM has run this world ala-Pathfinder. The first few times he had us doing skill checks he was incredulous at some of the bonuses I had at that level, and arbitrarily adjusted the DC numbers up just to compensate for my bonuses.The issue is that GM's are also supposed to make things a challenge. How do I (as GM) challenge the guy who jacked up his diplomacy to the point where he breezes through all the social encounters? Even when he rolls a one and casually insults the king?
I will admit, I'm not always sure how to handle things like that. What I have tried to do is find a medium ground. Increase the DC's somewhat to the point where success is not a forgone conclusion but he will still be doing much better than average.
I also try to make sure I am following the rules. I don't just give Matteson a +20 to sense motive. I say well to myself, if Mattson is going to be the kings agent; he should have skill focus in diplomacy and sense motive, decent stats, maybe a couple of traits toward those skills, and the king might even find it worth while to give him a minor magic item that grants a +x to the ability.
That will still be worse total than a focused PC, but it will probably be in the same ballpark.
You let him do it, as written. He's supposed to be a glorious bero. Some times, things are going to be super simple. If you increase DCs when players have high skill ratings and decrease them when the skills are low, why bother with skills in your game? Why bother with characters who are special and different?
Uhmm... I never said I wouldn't let him do it.
I said my job is to provide a challenge. So I try to find a logical, within the rules way to provide that challenge.
Do you really want to play in a game where a few optimized characters make everything a foregone conclusion?
When I'm a player I don't. None of the players in either of my groups do. We would quickly get bored.
It would be much less work for me to run a module as written with no modifications. I don't think anyone wants that because it would be too easy.
While I agree, it's an understandable impulse for the amateur (or even embattled veteran) GM to have.
They know their one job is to challenge the players, so it follows that they should raise the DC when they feel they are falling short of that goal.
What they did wrong was let you see behind the curtain, that is all.
If you can't get the GM to understand this, you have a simple recourse: when he raises the climb DC, actually picture the cliff getting taller and more sheer. Try to compare the numbers to an objective reality. After all, the GM always intended to make it a cliff worthy of being scaled by your PC... he just didn't look the DC up ahead of time. It's not ideal, but it's not criminal either.
I often adjust DCs based on the party CR. Generally it's just adjusting upwards in easy ten-point chunks. And not all the time: a devil is going to be harder to diplomance than a normal dude on the streets, but the rules usually don't reflect that at all outside of "DC 25 + Cha" which is usually nothing much. It's not to punish great skill checks, more so that the players know that there's a potential for failure and feel more awesome knowing that they need (and can succeed) at DC 35 checks as their norm now. They'll intimidate the buhjeezus out of commoners still, but they're also capable of intimidating the forces of pure evil and know that nobody else probably could.
A lot of people would probably be upset by this, but my players agree that it makes the game scale better for skills, which otherwise become auto-succeeds after level 10 or so. Which is cool, for mundane stuff, and those things I leave the same, but heroes need heroic challenges!
Still, have others had similar situations where the DM's approach to the game makes certain aspects of pathfinder impossible to enjoy/persue?
Not in pathfinder, but yes. I have a very different approach to playing the game than one of the other DMs in our group. I create characters with a certain theme (like acrobatic, knife-wielding, wade-into-the-middle-and-hit-the-biggest-guy, etcetera). My friend runs excel simulations of ten thousand rounds of combat to maximise damage output and selects race, class, weapon accordingly.
When he runs the game, I've noticed he really has no interest when I try swinging from chandeliers, kicking over tables, bluffing the enemy to sow confusion or anything similar, he generally asks me to roll a dice, looks at the number I roll and then decides an outcome which is always worse than it would have been if I'd just optimised for combat and full attacked at every opportunity.
(My most recent instance being a mobility/acrobatic fighter who wanted to leap down on top of a bugbear who was climbing out of a chasm and attack. He looked up that it was twenty feet deep, decided that was impossible/unrealistic and that I therefore couldn't do it - so I delayed, waited for the bugbear to climb out and then attacked him. He was probably right in the realism judgement but given it gave me zero mechanical advantage, I would have just gone with the rule of cool, personally).
My advice is to accept that you're going to be weaker than you "should" be (if the rules he adjusts penalise you), or better than you would be if the rules he adopts work in your favour. I find gaming to be about compromise. Depending on your friendship, you might mention it away from the table if you really want to play something that is invalidated or overly penalised by his house rules. Most of them probably don't affect your specific character, do they?
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Uhmm... I never said I wouldn't let him do it.
I said my job is to provide a challenge. So I try to find a logical, within the rules way to provide that challenge.
Do you really want to play in a game where a few optimized characters make everything a foregone conclusion?
When I'm a player I don't. None of the players in either of my groups do. We would quickly get bored.
It would be much less work for me to run a module as written with no modifications. I don't think anyone wants that because it would be too easy.
Increasing the DC does not increase the challenge.
The player is not challenged by that, his or her dice are.
The player builds their char to known DCs so that their character can reliably do things.
A challenge is when the player has to be creative in how they use their abilities. Randomly failing is not a challenge.
Chance is an important part of the game, but it is important not to conflate chance with challenge.
Uhmm... I never said I wouldn't let him do it.
I said my job is to provide a challenge. So I try to find a logical, within the rules way to provide that challenge.
Do you really want to play in a game where a few optimized characters make everything a foregone conclusion?
When I'm a player I don't. None of the players in either of my groups do. We would quickly get bored.
It would be much less work for me to run a module as written with no modifications. I don't think anyone wants that because it would be too easy.
So you up the DC (AC) of the monsters if the barbarian can hit on a 6? It is the exact same thing. Challenge does not mean making every roll a crap shoot, it means the overall encounter or series of encounters taken as a whole has a chance of failure.
So you up the DC (AC) of the monsters if the barbarian can hit on a 6? It is the exact same thing. Challenge does not mean making every roll a crap shoot, it means the overall encounter or series of encounters taken as a whole has a chance of failure.Uhmm... I never said I wouldn't let him do it.
I said my job is to provide a challenge. So I try to find a logical, within the rules way to provide that challenge.
Do you really want to play in a game where a few optimized characters make everything a foregone conclusion?
When I'm a player I don't. None of the players in either of my groups do. We would quickly get bored.
It would be much less work for me to run a module as written with no modifications. I don't think anyone wants that because it would be too easy.
I did not say I make every roll a crap shoot. If you look, I pretty specifically said I didn't do that. I built a specific encounter in a logical fashion. It makes perfect sense that a powerful person can hire someone good at the task he is being hired to perform. The PC is still clearly better. But the opposition is at least good enough that he can't just ignore it by rolling the die a few times and have guaranteed success.
He might have to work for it, find out what the guy wants, make a counter offer, present a plan that fits the guys desires, or whatever to get a circumstance bonus if he wants to be absolutely sure of success.But yeah. Pretty much everyone does. If the PC's waltz through the fight. The GM starts scaling up the encounters. Sometimes that is the advanced template. Sometimes it is more of them. Sometimes it is higher levels.
The group right now has a PC that has an AC in the high 40's. Almost nothing can hit him. The guys watching the fight can see this. The next fight the plan is to try and go around him and hit the others. (It still won't work, but it will probably give the casters a scare.) The fight after that the boss will be hiring someone with a bunch of ray spells to try and debilitate him.
Similarly the PC's have been observed while the archer pincusions tough hard to hit opponents. Some of them are casting a wind wall (or similar) that the archer needs to work his way around before he can shoot.
Similarly the PC's have been observed while the sorc blaster repeatedly used fireball and scorching ray. Seems pretty logical that the opposition would prepare or purchase protection from energy, fire.
Are you guys really telling me you would enjoy a campaign where you just have to roll the dice a few time and not roll very many 1's? I guess it is a valid choice of play style and it will make the GM's job easier. If you are having fun, that is what counts. I don't think I would enjoy it though.
Are you guys really telling me you would enjoy a campaign where you just have to roll the dice a few time and not roll very many 1's? I guess it is a valid choice of play style and it will make the GM's job easier. If you are having fun, that is what counts. I don't think I would enjoy it though.
Once you get to moderate to high levels, the dice rarely decide fights. It is the tactics and set up that matter far more.
Now I am not against just throwing higher CR fights at the party as long as that comes with more xp and loot. The issue is when you are running an AP and you buff everything with no trade off. At that point you are punishing the players for doing well.
Yeah, I don't think many people mind having intelligent enemies/tactics as a way of increasing the challenge. It's when you get things like GMs arbitrarily setting DCs so that there is always an X% chance of success/failure, regardless of stats, that people get annoyed. I recall one rather unpleasant game with a GM who pretty much completely ignored stats and just based everything on how the dice roll turned out.
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I wanted to address a few different things:
1) Per the OP
I think it's mostly just streamlining things, much like what many people have already said. Whats the point in rolling to handle your animal when a level 1 Druid who dumps Charisma can still succeed at it 95% of the time (1 Rank + Class Skill + Link + Training Harness) and 85% of the time if the animal is injured, it mostly leads to pointless dice rolling.
I have the opposite experience when it comes to animal initiatives though, every game I've played at the GM has the animals go on their own turn. I think this is partly because I play on Roll20 and initiative is slightly easier to track that way. Ironically all of these GM's have also been pretty free form in the way an animal behaves.
Pretty much everything else has already been hit on. Stealth is hard to use as is, CR Loot Increase can actually break AP's (or any game) if the GM does it but doesn't scale up the encounters. More total party XP being thrown against enemies already creates a challenge vacuum, boosting their wealth only adds to it.
As for the roleplaying side of things, I think it really just comes down to the DM and their players, some people are more "kick ass and take names" focused others really getting into their character and being in an interactive environment. A balance should be sought after here, I think. I personally enjoy something like 75-80% combat.
2) Social Situations: Rollplaying vs Roleplaying
Personally I fall in the "rollplaying" side of things. As a person I am not very gifted with speaking, nor am I very good at coming up with good ways to read situations. Part of the reason I play this game is to escape the reality of real life and become someone completely different, who is able to tackle challenges I normally would never be able to do. These challenges include things like taking Dragons down, casting powerful magic, and swaying/rallying a small town to take up arms against the evil orc-invaders. As a person you could put me in a situation where I need to rally a town and a majority of the time I would fail to sound very inspirational.
Being able to use a skill check here is basically a necessity to me. That being said, I understand the desire for roleplaying here, after all it is a game based as much on roleplaying as rollplaying. I think that it is nice for a player to at least attempt something and despite my suckage at doing so, I love to try. But they shouldn't be punished for their real life lack of skills.
Someone above mentioned how combat is more than dice rolling and involves tactics too. I guess the way I like to see is that these sorts of things being strongly dependent on dice while allowing individual character discretion to have some small impact. After all, it doesn't make much sense for the Half-Orc with 7 Cha and no ranks in diplomacy to be able to smooth talk someone over.
I play the game to be more/different than I am. I expect that if I'm playing a high charisma Paladin and I build him to be silver-tongued inspirational badass, that he be able to do so without my own weaknesses hurting him (at least not too much).
I understand that certain skills like Diplomacy are somewhat broken if you take them too literally. I don't think someone should be able to just walk into the lair of some Demon Lord and convince them into
being a friend by rolling super high. But I do think that person should have a chance to alter the perspective of said Demon Lord from not immediately just opening up a can or whoop-ass on the PC's. I know that common sense if subjective (mine is pretty bad) but one should try to apply it in such situations.
3) Scaling DC/AC's
I don't like it when a GM arbitrarily scales something. I can understand little boosts here and there to increase the difficulty. But the game is kind of based in the idea that foes will be equally challenging/difficult to the entire party. If you have someone who goes gonzo heavy into their AC and then you make the monsters have gonzo high attacks, it only hurts everyone else at the table.
There are other ways to deal with this sort of situation, like having them attack touch AC or saves. Though I think doing this too much is still bad, if someone really wants that stupid high AC they should be rewarded for it, not punished/ignored.
Those are just my thoughts ^_^
3) Scaling DC/AC's
I don't like it when a GM arbitrarily scales something. I can understand little boosts here and there to increase the difficulty. But the game is kind of based in the idea that foes will be equally challenging/difficult to the entire party. If you have someone who goes gonzo heavy into their AC and then you make the monsters have gonzo high attacks, it only hurts everyone else at the table.There are other ways to deal with this sort of situation, like having them attack touch AC or saves. Though I think doing this too much is still bad, if someone really wants that stupid high AC they should be rewarded for it, not punished/ignored.
Yeah, the key to keeping challenges challenging is to up the scale of them, not just arbitrarily boost the numbers. Epic skills require epic challenges, not mundane challenges that are arbitrarily made difficult. If I have +50 to climb, I should be going up a 700 foot wall that has no natural handholds or resting points, not trying to climb over a six foot chain link fence that, for some reason, requires a DC 65 skill check.
I find that when it comes to someone pumping up their defenses the best thing to do is just have a healthy variety of enemies with a lot of different attack types. It's pretty rare to see a character with good AC (Normal, Touch, and Flatfooted) plus all good saves plus good CMD. A reasonably diverse palatte of enemies will let the player appreciate their strong defenses while still taking hits on the weak ones.
Still, have others had similar situations where the DM's approach to the game makes certain aspects of pathfinder impossible to enjoy/persue?
I would be the GM responsible. A skilled trapfinder wouldn't be particularly useful, because I never use traps. Points in Linguistics would be useless, because I ignore who speaks what languages. Item crafting outside of alchemy is a no go, and I don't give out treasure at all (yes, I have addressed the issue of the mechanical necessity of magic items). My style also doesn't really accommodate scofflaw or morally questionable characters. Merisiel or Valeros would not fit in very well as character concepts. The issue is that I basically run Magic SWAT Team: Monster Hunter Edition, and that's not the most accepting style for chaotic characters.
Oh, and I too don't see the need to make people with ACs roll Handle Animal, track spell components, track ammunition, use random encounters, or put ACs on a separate initiative number. Do like some roleplay, though, and stealth has its uses.
... Once you get to moderate to high levels, the dice rarely decide fights. It is the tactics and set up that matter far more. ...
I had gotten the impression from how it was being discussed (and it is what I was talking about) that some PC's modifier had gotten so high that the tactics and setup no longer matter. They can't fail the diplomacy check, the other guy can't succeed on a save, ...
... Now I am not against just throwing higher CR fights at the party as long as that comes with more xp and loot. The issue is when you are running an AP and you buff everything with no trade off. At that point you are punishing the players for doing well.
If they fought something more powerful, they get more for it. If the bad guy was just more clever and they were stupid, not so much.
But I try to balance it with what comes later in the module. Occasionally the end of the module makes no sense if the PC's have gotten past a certain level.
Ex: I remember a low level module where the party was doing a bunch of tasks for this guy to try and convince him to give us a normal scroll or neutralize poison for some noble. But we advanced in level so fast that, before the module was complete, we just cast neutralize poison on the noble. All done. Very anticlimactic.
I try to avoid when I am GM.
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Yeah, I don't think many people mind having intelligent enemies/tactics as a way of increasing the challenge. It's when you get things like GMs arbitrarily setting DCs so that there is always an X% chance of success/failure, regardless of stats, that people get annoyed. I recall one rather unpleasant game with a GM who pretty much completely ignored stats and just based everything on how the dice roll turned out.
I can agree with that. I'm not going off a certain percentage. I'm looking at within the rules what is it reasonable for this opponent to do.
If the cloud giant has never seen the inquisitor before, it won't know it has almost no chance of hitting him. So it will try to whack him with the huge mace a few times. After several misses it will get fed up and grapple him to pick him up and throw him off the side of the mountain. Probably the party will have taken it out before that has a chance of succeeding.
The ninja who was watching the fight won't ever try to hit the inquisitor, he will try to poison mister inquisi-tank.