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It's all mechanics.And the point you are missing is that he doesn't want that kind of game - at least one that places heavy emphasis on exploiting the skill system to negate penalties from optimized stat buys. Not everyone is into that.That has nothing to do with how cool the characters are.
What games do you play where the wizards wear heavy armor and doesn't prepare spells? Of course players play to their strengths and do not play to their penalties.
Thank you for proving my point of "not getting it".
Edit: I suspect that's "Fighter with a decent charisma because I picture him as likable", not "Fighter with a decent charisma because I want this bonus to diplomacy". It really is a different thought process. "I want this fighter to have a decent charisma so I can have a good Diplomacy" is still optimizing. You're right about that.
Cha doesn't actually decide how 'likable you are'
Cha has fixed mechanical consequences. If you have low strength, but a high to-hit you can still hit things.
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Thank you for proving my point of "not getting it".It's all mechanics.And the point you are missing is that he doesn't want that kind of game - at least one that places heavy emphasis on exploiting the skill system to negate penalties from optimized stat buys. Not everyone is into that.That has nothing to do with how cool the characters are.
What games do you play where the wizards wear heavy armor and doesn't prepare spells? Of course players play to their strengths and do not play to their penalties.
Oh my.
I've ran into someone who thinks the game parts gets in the way of the role playing.
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I've ran into someone who thinks the game parts gets in the way of the role playing.
At my table this is exactly what happens.
I dont put any credence in the claim that if you're optimising, you're not roleplaying (or are somehow roleplaying less). I see plenty of people posting on the boards who seem to do both and indeed whose roleplaying is enhanced by complicated mechanics. In my case though, I can't do both - the more complicated the game, the less effort I tend to naturally put into developing my character. My Pathfinder characters are generally just collections of numbers unless I really put effort into developing their personality - in which case they always seem to end up sucking at everything.
That's not a claim about how RPGs are but about how I use them.
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I've ran into someone who thinks the game parts gets in the way of the role playing.Thank you for proving my point of "not getting it".It's all mechanics.And the point you are missing is that he doesn't want that kind of game - at least one that places heavy emphasis on exploiting the skill system to negate penalties from optimized stat buys. Not everyone is into that.That has nothing to do with how cool the characters are.
What games do you play where the wizards wear heavy armor and doesn't prepare spells? Of course players play to their strengths and do not play to their penalties.
Play a Str 7 character as a strongman and let me see how that works out for you.
And yet again, I get more and more reasons with this mentality why this game should be avoided like the plague.
That's not a claim about how RPGs are but about how I use them.
Which is a fair thing to say.
I've only played a Master Summoner once. I haven't done it since because of how mentally taxing it is to run all that crunch quickly.
Play a Str 7 character as a strongman and let me see how that works out for you.
And yet again, I get more and more reasons with this mentality why this game should be avoided like the plague.
Alchemist that magic jars into high strength foes.
Telekinetic caster that uses magic to be strong.Dex focused Magi with Ant-haul.
Synthesist Summoner.
To name a few ways to make that work.
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Play a Str 7 character as a strongman and let me see how that works out for you.
And yet again, I get more and more reasons with this mentality why this game should be avoided like the plague.
Alchemist that magic jars into high strength foes.
Telekinetic caster that uses magic to be strong.
Dex focused Magi with Ant-haul.
Synthesist Summoner.To name a few ways to make that work.
Now try that with a non-caster class.
This is turning into a trap thread (similar to a trap feat or class).
Not worth it.
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Play a Str 7 character as a strongman and let me see how that works out for you.
And yet again, I get more and more reasons with this mentality why this game should be avoided like the plague.
To be honest, if your playing a character with crap strength in ANY game (not just 3.X) and your trying to flavour yourself as a strongman, then that's your fault not the games.
Now try that with a non-caster class.Play a Str 7 character as a strongman and let me see how that works out for you.
And yet again, I get more and more reasons with this mentality why this game should be avoided like the plague.
Alchemist that magic jars into high strength foes.
Telekinetic caster that uses magic to be strong.
Dex focused Magi with Ant-haul.
Synthesist Summoner.To name a few ways to make that work.
And goal-post shifted.
Regardless.
There is a fighter archetype that gets a familiar (and a familiar archetype that massively increases strength) and cavaliers get mounts. Both can act as the heavy to back up the strong-man rhetoric.
Rogues that stole a ring of telekinesis.
EDIT: There is also a feat chain to get an animal companion.
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I've ran into someone who thinks the game parts gets in the way of the role playing.
The gaming parts do get in the way of role playing.
If you are trying to run a horror game where the core system has PCs regularly curbstomping monsters which undermines the precepts of a horror game - then the game parts got in the way of role playing that type of game.
Needing to steal a ring of telekinesis - is still not getting it
Fighter Archetype with familiar (with familiar archetype) is convoluted pile of steaming &^%$ - and still not getting it.
Edit: I read some of your other posts, explained quite a bit.
To be honest, if your playing a character with crap strength in ANY game (not just 3.X) and your trying to flavour yourself as a strongman, then that's your fault not the games.
I wasn't the one saying that stats and mechanics don't matter, bring it up to the other guy.
Time to walk away from this one.
I've ran into someone who thinks the game parts gets in the way of the role playing.The gaming parts do get in the way of role playing.
If you are trying to run a horror game where the core system has PCs regularly curbstomping monsters which undermines the precepts of a horror game - then the game parts got in the way of role playing that type of game.
Needing to steal a ring of telekinesis - is still not getting it
Fighter Archetype with familiar (with familiar archetype) is convoluted pile of steaming &^%$ - and still not getting it.Truly f!~+ing pointless.
I would agree that one of us is not getting it.
Stats are not meaningless. They have fixed mechanical consequences. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You can play the "strongman" with low str. You can play the "social fop" with low cha.
You can play the "social outcast" with 20 cha.
Mechanics are mechanics. They don't define your concept. They are tools to actualize your concept in the GM's world.
Your concept is never "having lots of Cha". That is a mechanic. If your concept is "likable swordsman", a fighter with decent cha is a way to do that. It is not the only way.
Min-maxing != Optimization != Cool character concept
Speaking of support for 5e, apparently there's a new series called Unearthed Arcana. First up is Eberron. Dunno if this is what your group was looking for.
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Fun fact: Different members of the community have different opinions of what "optimization" means. For some, it is equivalent to min-maxing and/or munckining. This can be observed in many threads touching any one of these subjects.
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You can play the "strongman" with low str.
You could play someone who thinks they're a stongman. My character would then be quick to make fun of their 'strength' at every opportunity. (Giving them all of the gear to carry. Asking them to break open doors unsuccessfully etc. - all while making snide comments.)
Min-maxing != Optimization != Cool character conceptNo one has made that claim. You're beating a strawman.
The only claim on the table is that some players like to make cool characters without worrying about optimization. Or even disliking optimization*.
This idea is apparently horribly threatening to some people.
*Again, by "optimization" I mean what everybody actually understands by optimization, not the strawman of doing anything but dumping the stats you're actually using.
I think you are more talking about people who optimize to the "meta" to better "win" the game.
A fighter with 4 archetypes, an animal companion and a familiar who dumped strength to pump cha, to play a beast master did a ton of optimization to actualize that concept. But just by playing a fighter, they are already not optimizing to "win".
I do disagree with optimizing to "win", but I do think one should optimize to their concept and be effective with it.
This idea though that being mechanically less effective helps your character "be cool" is silly and non sequitur. It strikes me as a way for people who never bothered to develop system mastery to look down at people who did.
What if they can actually do that?
How would your character know their stats to begin with?
Would you metagame just to be a dick?
If they actually did that, then the game mechanics would reflect that they aren't good at what they claim to be good at. Doesn't matter if you don't know their stats, if someone can't do anything strong and they keep claiming their as strong as a giant, a giant amount of people would make fun of you, because your obviously claiming really ridiculous stuff.
No I mean you go like "open this door if you are so strong" and they actually opened it because they have a combination of feats and items and buffs and stuffs, despite not having high STR at all.
I'd have them carry all the gear personally. And note if they did so without magical assistance.
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Hello,
I hope you will enjoy Pathfinder more when "Pathfinder Unchained" is released. Below is the reasons I play / run Pathfinder, and the reasons why I still own other games -
Pros -
1. It is a popular system at the present time, and easy for me to find players. It is also easy for players to find Pathfinder material to buy (as compared to older, out of date and out of print material).
2. It is easy to convert 3.5 material to Pathfinder. They have a free guide on how to do this, and it is not as wide a gulf as say, trying to make Rifts material compatible with D&D. This is important as I have a library of 3.5 material.
3. Pathfinder is popular with players as it has many tools for empowering PCs (compared to 3.5).
Cons -
1. It is still a level based system. It has many of the advantages and disadvantages that such a system brings. I have played a wide variety of RPG systems, and (personal preference) I tend to find non-level based systems seem more plausible to me as heroes improve, yet not by vast leaps and bounds at a set XP rate. Slow and steady advancement appeals to me more than a stop and then sudden rush of new advancements every fourth session or so.
2. When using 3.5 material and Pathfinder material together, there can be some confusion as some terms are the same. Changelings in 3.5 are very different from Changelings in Pathfinder. Assassin prestige class in Pathfinder is a non-spellcaster while the Assassin from 3.5 has spells. This can lead a GM to invent new terms to use material, causing further confusion to new players. There are other fixes, yet best to set them into a new forum.
3. D&D 5th has more tools to empower GMs to make judgement call rulings.
Final thoughts -
As long as your group has fun, and can afford it, play what you want. Explore other systems every once in a while to keep games fresh and revisit old ones to revel in nostalgia. Sadly, the RPG trend is to make MMO-like games as that is what many people are becoming used to. I don't have an answer to that.
Wholeheartedly agrees with thejeff.
It is absolutely fine for people to enjoy the game who don't look at everything from a mechanical standpoint and eek out every ounce of optimization out of an RPG that they can. Rhedyn, I challenge you to go over to Dragonsfoot and view their mentality regarding making characters and playing RPGs.
It's completely ok if someone wants to take Spirit Totem instead of Beast Totem on their barbarian because there ancestor was a powerful shaman of the tribe and they have a latent connection to the spirit world, or for someone to take a bird companion instead of a wolf because part of their rangers character concept is to be the best at falconry in all the kingdom. There is nothing wrong with this playstyle.
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I am a fan of the epic high level story. My party has bonus feats (a lot) mythic levels and more gold than they could ever need in their lives. I love the world paizo has created, and am very comfortable with the rules. I'm fond of the fluff, and the crunch. I'm not really an optimizer, but to make a kickass PC in Pathfinder you don't need to be. If fact you have to work harder to make a completely useless PC.
I love that Paizo is so LGBT friendly, and that in all of the art I can remember off the top of my head they've never had an "Escher girl" (boobs and butt pose) Their female Iconics are just as badass as their male ones, and they've got enough mancandy to offset the rather insane outfits that the female spellcasters have.
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No I mean you go like "open this door if you are so strong" and they actually opened it because they have a combination of feats and items and buffs and stuffs, despite not having high STR at all.
Then your character Is using mechanics to represent the fluff, which isn't what you were discussing, so your moving the goal posts. You were talking about a character who says he can do X in flavour but cannot do X mechanically.
It's completely ok if someone wants to take Spirit Totem instead of Beast Totem on their barbarian because there ancestor was a powerful shaman of the tribe and they have a latent connection to the spirit world, or for someone to take a bird companion instead of a wolf because part of their rangers character concept is to be the best at falconry in all the kingdom. There is nothing wrong with this playstyle.
How is any of that not optimization?
1. I actually think pounce is rather worthless. Your game either devolves into rocket tag or the GM runs encounters to negate pounce/full-attacking. Currently playing with a Skald who is going to go Spirit totem over beast totem.2. This thread exist about the bird animal companion.
You don't have to sacrifice being effective to actualize a concept. Incoherently throwing mechanics onto your build for fluff reasons is great and all, but a little bit more effort and your fluff could be effective too. It is not mutually exclusive unless you role-play yourself into a corner.
Then your character Is using mechanics to represent the fluff, which isn't what you were discussing, so your moving the goal posts. You were talking about a character who says he can do X in flavour but cannot do X mechanically.No I mean you go like "open this door if you are so strong" and they actually opened it because they have a combination of feats and items and buffs and stuffs, despite not having high STR at all.
No we were talking about being a strong-man with 7 strength.
You are moving the goalpost.
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I don't understand why some DM fear giving out wealth or that players buy magic items.
I drag myself out of bed to go to work because I enjoy it. But also to get paid. Same thing as adventurer when I play rpgs. It's about the sense of wonder and roleplaying. I also need a reason to get into the armor, attach weapons, learn my spells and go out to face the hordes of creatures wanting to tear me limb from limb. And that's wealth of some sort. To put it another way why would I go to high school, college and possibly university. If all I'm going to earn is the same as the next guy making minimum wage. I'm not saying give my character unlimited wealth. To take that away or worse make me have to track every single damn expense. I play D&D. Not accounting and spread sheets.
The pros of PF:
Lots of material that can be converted from 3.5..
The rules free online on the SRD.
Some decent changes to 3.5.
Cons:
I know some here love the APs frankly I don't hate them. Just find them overrated. I spent more time rewriting them then using them as is.
High level play for a group that does not know what their characters can do slows the game down.
If you don't like 3.5. You probably won't enjoy Pathfinder.
Too much fluff not enough crunch when it comes to some options. A great description say for a feat. Rules wise not worth taking.
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Okay, that Str 7 "strongman" is too good to pass up:
That's deliberate self-sabotage or a failure in reading comprehension, not "the game's getting in the way of my concept!"
You'd have be playing a game that's so rules light that it doesn't even have stats and/or skills to actually get away with that.
If you deliberately set out to do something wrong, the game will not protect you from the consequences of deliberately setting out to do that thing wrong.
I'm completely fine with that.
Basic reading comprehension != optimization.
@MAJT69
In regards to 5E: From what I understand, there are going to be expanded class options and the like, just not in the usual format of a neverending splat book treadmill. They will be released as additional content inside their "adventure path" line. I did read somewhere that the non-adventure content might be available as a standalone, but I could also be imagining that. I've not given it much scrutiny in past couple months.
In regards to Pathfinder: I think I might be in the exact same boat as your group in terms of preference, especially where magic items and WBL are concerned. To be blunt, I don't think Pathfinder is the answer. You might be able to get it to do what you want it to with a lot of houserules and tweaking, but you will (likely) eventually get to a point where you're asking yourself why you decided to shift to a game you needed to alter so heavily to enjoy properly. It's still painfully 3.x no matter how you cut it though. If you want to play a much improved 3.x, Pathfinder is the answer. If you're trying to avoid playing 3.x, Pathfinder is not the answer.
Even having said the above, most of their non-rules/system content is still top notch work, and worth the investment. Simply having APs on hand to plug in a quick dungeon is invaluable to me.
If streamlined rulesets, fast combat, and no emphasis or assumptions on magic gear is up your alley, I would strongly recommend giving Savage Worlds a whirl.
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The great thing about Pathfinder to me is that it is entirely adaptable to your style of play. Use what you like and leave the rest out.
If your group wants to run a low magic item campaign then your GM should be able to manage that with little difficulty. He/She is the one in control of everything coming in or out of your campaign.
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I prefer characters motivated by reasons other than wealth. Personal connections to the plot of some kind. Not adventuring as a job.Wealth is one possible motivation. Building it into the mechanics at such a core level makes every character need to focus on it, whether that's in character or not.
Building wealth into the game has always been a problem with D&D. From 1E and later. Sometimes we want to adventure for glory, revenge and sometimes wealth. Personally I think wealth is easier to roleplay and write into the background. If Franco the Fighter used to be a farmer. Sees adventurers who began with nothing and then come back either covered in wealth. Or over time just look wealthy. Then why would he waste his time digging at the ground with a hoe. Seems it's easier to just easier to become a adventurer.
With 5E I do hope that were going to get some standalone material. Not limited to being released only in adventures. If that's their new way of selling new material. Then Wotc have truly lost me as a fan. I'm all for making money and moving new material. Bundling it in adventures seems kind of shady to me. I can always use new material. I don't need more adventures. I have enough APs and similar material to last me a lifetime.
As for the low Strength strongman. Unless one is playing a class that does not rely on Strength good luck. If you go into combat one does less damage. As well good luck moving quickly if at all. As a character becomes quickly encumbered. If their one stat next to Con you don't make too much of a dump stat it's str. I had a player who looked at the optimization boards to make a Gunslinger. The build str was so low. That unless he took a certain type of weapon and gun. He could not move. Forgot about helping carry any treasure. Their is also a visual element to roleplaying that some ignore. Your Str 7 strongman certainly won't look the part. Maybe if he has high very high ranks in Bluff. Otherwise in terms of looks he ain't fooling anyone.
It's the same thing with low cha imo. Gamers love to say that all it takes is a few skill points and roleplaying and your not penalized. Again ignoring that looks matter even in this day and age. Simply put a good looking handsome man with a full head of hair is going to be listened to more often than the fugly overweight balding man. The second man can have 10-20 years of public speaking experience. Yet unless they hear him speak chances are good that the first one gets listened to more imo. A sad state of affairs and not saying much about our society. There you have it imo.
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That's not really an issue, the issue is whether it's possible to play the game without every chaacter having a cloak or protection and amulet of natural armour.
Honestly, yes. The game isn't that hard, unless you're running it to be.
That being said, there'll be a substantial survivability difference between the people who invest in their defenses and the people who neglect them.
So if half your players care about their defenses and the other half doesn't, you can wind up in a situation where your enemies are trivial the high defense PCs and dangerous to the low defense PCs, or dangerous to the high defense PCs and utterly lethal to the low defense PCs.
You can still build good encounters with that going on, but you'll need to be able to recognize it for what it is.
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Usually though I run either a combat oriented game. Or a roleplaying oriented one. As it's easier to do one or the other. Harder to mix both imo. It also depends on the group as well. The problem arises when if I run the combat oriented game. Someone makes a character that is more suited for a roleplaying version. If they recognize that by doing so they may be at a disadvantage fine. More often than not it ends up with unhappy and unsatsified players. Which is not the fault of the other players or my skills as a DM. It's like wanting to make a Paladin in a group of evil characters. One can. Yet chances are good no one is going to be converted to the side of good. With even better chances of the group letting the character die. Or kill him off themselves.
Their seems to be a segment that wants to make whatever character they want. No matter the style of game. Or play style of both the DM and players. Then when it goes sour. to not take any blame or responsability.
That's not really an issue, the issue is whether it's possible to play the game without every chaacter having a cloak or protection and amulet of natural armour.
Well enough of the player side stuff.
One of the great lies we tell GMs is that things need to be balanced. You don't need cloaks of resistance. You don't need natural armor amulets or rings of deflection. You don't need the CR chart. You don't need to run the monsters as written.
You will either be applying house-rules to the PCs to prevent WBL or you will be writing up custom monsters. Whatever you do, you will have to veer farther away from letting the game run itself and will have to take more personal ownership of it.
Or just avoid combat all together and have most of the session be narrative driven.
The most RAW way to avoid WBL is to have everyone run full-casters who don't NEED items.
If you don't like 3.5. You probably won't enjoy Pathfinder.This.
Pathfinder is just 3.5 with a bunch of house rules.We have no issues with 3.5 beyond:
a) wealth by level
b) the perception that all 3.5 is stats grind with no role-playing.
We're fine with everything else.
I made this thread to see if it was possible to do 3.5 without the required laundry list of items. It's been years since we played it or looked at PF and I wondering if something inventive had been done in the meantime in this regard.
If Pathfinder Unchained is about unshackling the game from 3rd edition conventions, we may find that worth a look.
If you don't use WBL you might as well write-off the martial classes after level 9 at the latest. I mean I guess you could just E6. But then why not just E6?
I've never run or been in a campaign where we focused on or tried to hit the target of WBL. We just took the standard treasure the standard monsters left behind and we always did OK.
In 3.0, we did a very low resource campaign, but having no real treasure was kind of the point of that campaign. I played a ranger that specialized in handaxes/throwing axes and archery, and the only magic weapon the party of 5 ever got was a cursed dagger that kept trying to possess me, and I eventually struggled to get rid of, in character.
In another 3.5 campaign, the PCs had a giant pirate ship and did lots of trading, using a super Charismatic beguiler with Skill Focus Diplomacy making opposed checks to make trades, so they were pretty rich, but had 8 PCs, so they needed more wealth.
Another party built a casino and got ridiculously wealthy. But I then didn't have to worry about giving out treasure, and could focus on the maps and encounters and monster stats and stuff.
But in general, it always kind of worked out that the party wealth was sufficient to match the encounters.
At least Paizo focus on their RPG and everything else stems from this.
Actually Paizo's flagship is it's adventures.
It seems to me that 5E is the way it is for the sake of keeping the brand alive at all. I suspect it has to do with Hasbro and the nature of their business and needs. Regardless, that's another topic...
I strongly recommend that you give PF a chance, but look into the [+X] variants I posted previously. If, in the course of an adventure, a weapon, armor, shield, cloak, etc. is just a [+X] weapon, drop the "+" part (to a minimum of +1, if you care about holding as true to the rules as possible - in this particular instance, I do not, since I consider that kind of a waste), and go from there.
This will, incidentally, take care of the "vendor trash" magic items, and reasonably balance wealth-by-level, as you don't bother with the looting and selling of base <+X> goods (negating those as a source of wealth), but you don't need to for the purpose of keeping relevant (because you, the player, provide the <+X> by virtue of yourself).
I will say this for the d20 system (3.X and PF plus variants): it is a tool that is vastly able to be customized, and easily, too. This is it's greatest strength: the system can handle what you throw at it (for the most part) while still being interesting and internally consistent.
While I know you wanted to avoid house rules as much as possible, this is really a rather minimal one (in terms of game balance) and really easy to understand. Run everything else as normal.