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Sadly, this is really true. I have received complaints in person, on the messageboards, and through product reviews that it is (to only lightly paraphrase) "cheating for NPCs to use the same tricks that PCs do." As a developer, I have to look at some encounters and say, "yes, this would be very effective, but it would also KO 1-2 characters per round. Is that going to be fun for the typical group?"
As a long-time GM, I feel that the opposition in AP's seems mostly to fight with nerf bats against the very real weapons the player characters wield.
Also, Pathfinder fights at high level last only 2-3 rounds, but the fight can take hours in real life. If during those fights the opposition cannot credibly challenge the player characters, I personally feel that everybodies time was wasted.
Hence, bring on the more effective opposition tactics. I think players would rise to the challenge.
Also, if a tactics block of an opponent at high levels reads more or less "Opponent X first casts buff X then spends the next round summoning Y", then you're doing it wrong. He'll be dead (or near dead) at the end of round two. This still happens far too often in AP's.
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A better title would be "How To Be That Guy that no one will play with."
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Well if you add the weakness: Pride (Ultimate Campaign)[in this case the penalties would likely go into effect if anyone else beats your initiative] you can also take the social trait in the same book, Friend in Every Town, making Diplomacy a class skill and gain a +1 Bonus to it as well.
Still not very broken as others have said first few combats are fine, but once your out of spells at level 1, you have to rely on your Str to do damage with your melee weapons and hope the monsters don't hit your AC which if you don't have Mage armor at level one (which would only last an hour) Still leaves you hoping the other characters get higher than the monsters Initiative since if they die, your wizard is the only one there, and Diplomacy cannot be used if the other party isn't willing to listen. :-)
and let's face it any GM worth there salt is going to roll for Random Encounters while resting, and if you don't get them eight hours do to a bad watch? Well as the bard said "It Happens" but it would cause the Wizard to lose out on gaining spells for the night. worst times is when it happens at the last hour.
Nothing wrong with going first, but make sure you have the ability to defend yourself when out of spells otherwise you quickly become the dreaded one trick pony and that one trick won't help against Golems with spell Immunity
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Pathfinder is a Game where many people get hurt feelings over nothing.
Things like:
-Choice of Vocabulary
-Following the Rules
-Building functional characters
-Breath wrong
-coughing too much
-Insert literally any reason you want
Will get you lots of hate from many of people.
Pathfinder and DnD is a Highly Social game played by the most unsocial group of people.
I have been the target of complaints many times for things as simple as:
I brought a Falchion user with power attack. OMG!! you critical sooo much...your taking all the fun out of the game for everyone. Cause everything dies so quickly to you.
Honestly just build what you want in the rule set and if a person has issue with your character and tries to claim you built too powerful within the rules. Go ahead point them to the Stormborn Fallacy.
If your built within the rules laid down at character creation....NO ONE has the right to Complain about your character. They could have built theirs better if they feel out spotlighted. They had the same creation rules you used. They are getting mad at you for their short comings as a player.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I wonder how people would react if these types of characters started showing up as NPCs in future scenarios? :)
The absolute best 6 he session I ever had was while playing a 14th level Cleric with 5 levels of Master of Radiance and 4 levels Radiant Servant of Pelor/Srenrae using the beta Pathfinder rules playing a drow / vampire heavy high level module where the GM hyper optimized the NPC and monsters stats.
We ran into a 16th level Ultimate Magus sorcerer/wizard with a 13th blackguard 2hand vampiric weapon melee with two other 12th vampires. At 30 minutes into the night by the end of the first combat round my cleric was the only PC alive. The rest of the night was me with some suggestions from the dead PC's players, on how to solo the whole fight to the point that the UM boss ran out of spells to throw at me and got killed. Healing with free action channels while Sun Burst the vampires each round.
A single failed save on my Cleric would have been a TPK.
A single failed save on the UM would have been I stand death for the boss.
Epic.
Everyone still remembers that fight 8 years ago.
We still talk about how awesome.
If the GM hadn't hyper optimized the module, I'd have slaughtered them, they wouldn't have killed the PC's, and we wouldn't remember in 2 months.
I found 2 ways to make the other players hate me...
2) This is for PFS: get Scent, Blind Fighting, and carry an Eversmoking Bottle. You will make everybody Blind, including you, but you'll be mostly okay due to Scent and Blind Fighting...
I don't know that scent would work around an eversmoking bottle. Anyone who's ever sat by a campfire for more than ten minutes isn't going to be smelling much of anything other than the smoke.
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I don't know that scent would work around an eversmoking bottle. Anyone who's ever sat by a campfire for more than ten minutes isn't going to be smelling much of anything other than the smoke.I found 2 ways to make the other players hate me...
2) This is for PFS: get Scent, Blind Fighting, and carry an Eversmoking Bottle. You will make everybody Blind, including you, but you'll be mostly okay due to Scent and Blind Fighting...
I much prefer playing the Bloodrager who is immune to Nauseated condition that gets a permanency Stink Cloud on an small item like wayfinder. THen takes Blind-fight and buys Fog Cutting Lenses.
As you move about you make things Nauseated and you have like a 25ft reach anyways to poke things from inside the safety of your cloud.
Have your friendly cleric cast Life bubble on your party and they can not worry about your cloud.
When not using the cloud store it in your haversack.
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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I wonder how people would react if these types of characters started showing up as NPCs in future scenarios? :)[[Snipped story of an epic fight]]
If the GM hadn't hyper optimized the module, I'd have slaughtered them, they wouldn't have killed the PC's, and we wouldn't remember in 2 months.
From a developer's point of view, I have to consider how that might have gone for a group with no cleric or no other powerful anti-undead characters. It could easily result in the TPK you narrowly avoided, and rather than remember an epic battle for eight years, the players would carry with them the bitter taste of having faced an impossible challenge and failed.
That said, it sounds like a fun fight. I think it worked out especially well because you had a character nicely suited to battling the undead. Hitting that perfect balance of edge-of-the-seat challenge without denying the players their victory is a tough balance to strike. It sounds like it worked really well for your home game, where the GM was very familiar with the PCs' abilities. I'm skeptical about how well that same personalization could translate into the organized play format.
There is an interest; however, I also recognize a scenario that challenges one group can absolutely crush another—often many others. The Hard Mode concept can take up some of that slack. Bonekeep also attempted to provide very challenging material to the player base with mixed results. Fact of the matter's that highly challenging material only appeals to a limited number of players, and pitching adventures that don't have broad appeal is tricky.Sadly, this is really true. I have received complaints in person, on the messageboards, and through product reviews that it is (to only lightly paraphrase) "cheating for NPCs to use the same tricks that PCs do." As a developer, I have to look at some encounters and say, "yes, this would be very effective, but it would also KO 1-2 characters per round. Is that going to be fun for the typical group?"Is there interest at all from Paizo's end for challenging material to be published? Sometimes I have ideas for high level quests (so the encounter wouldn't be in the standard scenario line) but I always end up scrapping it when I think to myself "they wouldn't want this". I know upfront that many people wouldn't enjoy such content but then there are others who would love the challenge.
When I am the DM my aim is NOT to crush the players but to give them a challange. As the DM I can always wipe the party away by building encounters exploiting the PCs weaknesses/usual strategies but that's simply not my role.
That to say you should trust the DM to adjust things around the power level/abilities of the party. Sure, in PFS that could be hard but an experienced DM can always kill players if he wants to, even in PFS. Give the NPCs interesting tools and let the DMs decide how to use them, so an experienced party can have a challange and an inexperienced one can survive and get better at the game because the DM internally adjusts difficulty level.
I'm skeptical about how well that same personalization could translate into the organized play format.
In my experience, players rarely complain when they win. When they lose, regardless of how fair the situation was or how obvious something was that they missed, they often complain.
Seems smarter to build to the more casual group to allow them to win without a high level of rules mastery needed.
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I'm skeptical about how well that same personalization could translate into the organized play format.In my experience, players rarely complain when they win. When they lose, regardless of how fair the situation was or how obvious something was that they missed, they often complain.
Seems smarter to build to the more casual group to allow them to win without a high level of rules mastery needed.
My heart....
Nothing says the smoke from eversmoking bottles is the same as the smoke from fire. You can try to say it is, but that is a houserule. Not all smoke is the same.
So if you try to add that to an eversmoking bottle whose purpose is not to be weaponized then you are houseruling. The magic items only do what they say they do.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Is there anything in the rules that says that Eversmoking Bottles create any kind of sickening or nauseating effects?
Eversmoking bottle creates smoke.
Smoke creates a choking effect that requires a fortitude save.
So if you try to add that to an eversmoking bottle whose purpose is not to be weaponized then you are houseruling.
We both think the other is house ruling. So call it table variance until a FAQ answers the question, neither of us has the right to say the other is wrong.
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From a developer's point of view, I have to consider how that might have gone for a group with no cleric or no other powerful anti-undead characters. It could easily result in the TPK you narrowly avoided, and rather than remember an epic battle for eight years, the players would carry with them the bitter taste of having faced an impossible challenge and failed.
That said, it sounds like a fun fight. I think it worked out especially well because you had a character nicely suited to battling the undead. Hitting that perfect balance of edge-of-the-seat challenge without denying the players their victory is a tough balance to strike. It sounds like it worked really well for your home game, where the GM was very familiar with the PCs' abilities. I'm skeptical about how well that same personalization could translate into the organized play format.
I don't think anyone could ever write an encounter that challenges every group. I think the GM has to constantly tweak modules for the group involved. The group I am gming now has a paladin and a cleric in a Frog God Game campaign were almost everything is evil and undead are pretty common. Recognizing this they have steered their characters toward dealing with undead and have become especially adept at mowing through them. Occasionally I alter an encounter replacing the evil undead with some kind of neutral but very hungry substitute to create a challenge for the group as it exists. I don't ever participate in PFS so tweaking on the fly is just part of running the game.
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They still have spells/slots from the previous day, if any.Night interruptions only add an hour to the rest period needed to regain spells. You just sleep in and prep spells as normal.yup. But it does prevent one from having there spells during that random encounter
Plus any consumables they have crafted, such as scrolls.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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James, if you make that ruling, the next time I encounter a Spectre at your table, I will cast Mage Armor on myself and Grapple it!
I'd let you, but you'd take the -4 for no hands free since you are literally grappling them by moving your armor around with you inside.