He must look delicious instead of beautiful. Alas, the crunchy parts!
==Aelryinth
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Are you still talking about having a high initiative?I think the disparity in opinions expressed in the thread is rooted in different views on a basic principle:
If some thing is possible, does that make it ok?
It's an ethical dilemma that is very serious in the real world, but in PFS the stakes are less profound. Some players view the relatively laissez-faire approach PFS has with the rules as a golden opportunity to indulge in the greatest extent of munchkinishm/system mastery they can manage.
Their version of fun isn't any more or less valid than the players who like to be challenged by PFS encounters. But the problem is, these two divergent playstyles don't mix well.
The player who wants to ROFLSTOMP should be cognizant of the preferences of the rest of the group. If most of the group wants a challenge, then the player with a ROFLSTOMP PC should either tone it down during the game or select a not-twinked PC to play. The problem for the "wants to be challenged crowd" is that the "system master crowd" tends to so often fail to exercise self-restraint.
In that it's a single manifestation of a more fundamental issue, yes.
where one person may think it's a gas to have +23 initiative, another might think it's pointlessly meta. Acting first in of itself isn't as damaging as soloing entire encounters, but the friction both things can cause between players has the same root cause.
And that root cause is envelope-pushers not exercising self-restraint in those situations where they should be.
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...history...
I only started playing in the 3.5E era, so I suppose my reaction is mostly that in my experience, I've seen and heard of far more instances of people just trying to boil it down to only the combat side than the other way around - people whose entire introduction is "My name is Grog and I'm a human barbarian", and then just chill on their phone playing Angry Birds until a fight breaks out. I've not had any personal encounters with the other side of the coin.
Really, both sides of things are necessary for it to be Pathfinder. If there's no RP, you might as well just be at home playing a video game - it will provide you just as much tactics without the hassle of organizing a group play session. If there's no combat, there's plenty of other gaming systems that do freeform RP better than Pathfinder. System mastery/power gaming is not an essential part of things, but it provides a way to continue investing yourself in the game and in your characters outside of scheduled game times.
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This is kind of a weird debate. If someone wants to have high initiative and always go in surprise round, who cares? In many cases they probably made build choices to get those abilities that precluded them from other (sometimes stronger) options. If everybody has fun then why make a fuss?
If the problem is that the PC always goes first and then wrecks the encounter, then that's a different issue, and habitually high initiative is just a secondary effect. Realistically, it won't be much of a difference if they go first and wreck the encounter versus going last in the round and wrecking the encounter.
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...history...I only started playing in the 3.5E era, so I suppose my reaction is mostly that in my experience, I've seen and heard of far more instances of people just trying to boil it down to only the combat side than the other way around - people whose entire introduction is "My name is Grog and I'm a human barbarian", and then just chill on their phone playing Angry Birds until a fight breaks out. I've not had any personal encounters with the other side of the coin.
Admittedly, they are not as common as they use to be. The "You suck because your 1st level character can't ROFLSTOMP Orcus" -types are more common these days. Both I find objectionable.
Really, both sides of things are necessary for it to be Pathfinder. If there's no RP, you might as well just be at home playing a video game - it will provide you just as much tactics without the hassle of organizing a group play session. If there's no combat, there's plenty of other gaming systems that do freeform RP better than Pathfinder. System mastery/power gaming is not an essential part of things, but it provides a way to continue investing yourself in the game and in your characters outside of scheduled game times.
Agreed.
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This is kind of a weird debate. If someone wants to have high initiative and always go in surprise round, who cares? In many cases they probably made build choices to get those abilities that precluded them from other (sometimes stronger) options. If everybody has fun then why make a fuss?
It all boils down to challenge level. GMs feel it is their duty to create a challenge for their players and feel they have failed at their job if they haven't. Likewise, all players want some sort of challenge in their encounters. Where the problem arises is when the level of challenge the player(s) wants doesn't match the level of challenge the GM thinks (or believes they should) want. So when a player creates a character specifically to insure a very low level of challenge, it can cause a GM to feel that he is failing in some way. This may not be rational, but GMs are human beings to.
If the problem is that the PC always goes first and then wrecks the encounter, then that's a different issue, and habitually high initiative is just a secondary effect. Realistically, it won't be much of a difference if they go first and wreck the encounter versus going last in the round and wrecking the encounter.
Traditionally, RPG players like to show off cool things; be that a cool tactic, cool new power, or even cool RP concept. GMs are no different. GMs that never get to show off the BBEG's cool trick because the bad guys get one-shotted before they ever act aren't having any more fun than a player who spends an entire combat failing his save against Hold Person.
To me, how much fun the GM is having is just as important as how much fun the players are having. In some ways it is even more important. A player that leaves the game because he isn't having fun can decrease everyone else's fun. A GM that leaves the game because he isn't having fun can eliminate everyone else's fun.
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Sure, that's some really good insight that I have also observed and I share your take on it.
My main point is high initiative isn't actually a problem in and of itself, it's just another means that people can use to trivialize the scenario. The core of the issue of the GM or the players not having fun here is that someone is trivializing the scenario, and that's a separate cultural issue.
People can have high initiatives and use that advantage responsibly.
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People can have high initiatives and use that advantage responsibly.With great initiative comes great responsibility.
When the arcane caster announces "Hey guys, do you mind holding off long enough for me to get an AOE on the bad guys?" and then the initiative monkey rushes into combat it's a violation of the "Don't Be a Jerk" rule to invoke the "No PvP" rule.
As a GM, in situations like that I'm fine with telling the caster's player the initiative monkey's player has just given tacit approval to be within said AoE by moving right into the area.
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People can have high initiatives and use that advantage responsibly.With great initiative comes great responsibility.When the arcane caster announces "Hey guys, do you mind holding off long enough for me to get an AOE on the bad guys?" and then the initiative monkey rushes into combat it's a violation of the "Don't Be a Jerk" rule to invoke the "No PvP" rule.
As a GM, in situations like that I'm fine with telling the caster's player the initiative monkey's player has just given tacit approval to be within said AoE by moving right into the area.
Is that "high initiative" player still being a jerk if his init was a 7, the enemies go on 5, and the caster's initiative was a 2?
Meh. This whole conversation, in many ways, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I spent years in a gaming group that was always trying to "improve" my RP skills, or get me to RP more.
Where is "enough"? It is going to be a different amount for different people, and, honestly, trying to force too much RP on someone is also a jerk move.
To be honest, one of the problems my area has is that we don't have enough active GMs, so we wind up with a GM who is not a high-end, or even a medium range, RPer as one of the main GMs. That's me, by the way. I am not very much into RP. The RP I did the other day for my Core halfling Rogue was farther than I normally go with my RP. ::shrug:: YMMV.
I do what I can, but I am much more Brian than Sara....
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Yeah, RP is not everyone's forte. Weirdly, I am much better at RP when I'm GMing than when I'm playing.
That's not weird at all. It's the difference between playing a scene and doing improv.
As a GM you know enough about the situation and the players ahead of time that you already have an idea where the rp is going to go. As a player you're mostly winging it. And those are totally different skills.
It's like I finally learned that I should never try to play a character centered around "clever plans" or "witty repartee" in a F2F game. In PbP, sure. But I just don't think fast enough to make that work in real time.
All of which has more to do with the discussion about initiative than it might seem like at first glance. :)
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Having the *highest* is not necessary, based on my experience.
But having at least *half* of the party go before the opponent *is*.
If the opponent has initiative at the low levels, then they can mow through most folks on flatfooted AC. Seen a couple of scenarios with a near TPK in the first round because of player low-init opponent high-init.
As things progress, diversity is good, but unless one's flatfooted AC is really high (or has something like Imp. Uncanny) that's always going to be a mechanical issue.
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Yeah, RP is not everyone's forte. Weirdly, I am much better at RP when I'm GMing than when I'm playing.
I'm the same way, but I don't find it weird at all. I'm not good at fiction. So all of my PCs have very shallow back stories--that doesn't give me much to RP with. However, the NPCs presented to us usually have enough material provided that gives us a good idea of who they are and how they act.