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Put some spiritual focus on the items. The amulet is from your master, the robed and beads of your temple etc. Don't consider it gold in the bank just consider it your spiritual connection to the items increasing their power.
And your DM was mistaken. You're not a paladin, they have an oath to obey legitimate authority.
Maybe switching to a Winding Path Renegade Brawler would give you what you want with out the alignment or mental gear grinding.
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Put some spiritual focus on the items. The amulet is from your master, the robed and beads of your temple etc. Don't consider it gold in the bank just consider it your spiritual connection to the items increasing their power.
And your DM was mistaken. You're not a paladin, they have an oath to obey legitimate authority.
100% agree on both points. Just marking it as a favorite wasn't emphatic enough. :-)
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Also, normally lawful means a strict code of discipline, or something. Well a gm told me that in golarion lawful literally means you always go around blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot. Uh... if that's true I don't want to ever again play a lawful character ever... please tell me he was mistaken...
Without knowing the circumstances, I don't know if the GM really said (and meant) "blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot."
That statement is not correct but I have seen many players choose options (like alignments) strictly for their mechanical benefits without considering the impacts that would have on their character. Just last month I had a discussion with one player whose character was lawful (and got benefits from a lawful deity).
Player: "Let's sneak in and free the slaves!"
Me: "You're lawful, right? You get the feeling that doing so would probably make you more chaotic and (checks deity) in your case sever your ties to your deity." (The free "alignment change warning" clause.)
P: "Yeah, but it's not right for people to be chained up."
M: "You're in Cheliax, where slavery is perfectly legal and regulated by the state."
P: "But they are being worked really hard. I want to free them."
M: "They are digging, which is what they were bought to do. You are welcome to go try to buy them from their current owners, in which case you could free them as their owner, but breaking a widespread law of Cheliax is a pretty chaotic act."
On the flip side if the slaves' owner had attacked the party and been killed or subdued then freeing the slaves is a perfectly fine option that wouldn't be an alignment change.
Intent governs alignment.
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Player: "Let's sneak in and free the slaves!"
Me: "You're lawful, right? You get the feeling that doing so would probably make you more chaotic and (checks deity) in your case sever your ties to your deity." (The free "alignment change warning" clause.)
I think that, for PFS, you are far too strictly interpreting Lawful. In a home game the group can come to some form of consensus on what kinds of acts are alignment infractions but in PFS that consensus cannot occur. Which means that I think that an alignment infraction has to be very clearly very egregious to warrant being changed. And this doesn't even come CLOSE to meeting that standard.
Lawful/Chaotic is even worse than Good/Evil in terms of reasonable people disagreeing on what it means in general and in particular cases.
I don't want to start an alignment thread. But my vague metric is something like
"If I started an alignment thread on this I'd expect well over 90% consensus that this act is clearly an alignment infraction" before I'd ding a player for an alignment infraction.
Note, I often pose a question "So, why does your lawful character think freeing legally owned slaves is acceptable?" but if the player has an even vaguely reasonable answer I'd accept it
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My brain: monks are highly trained ascetic warriors who rely exclusively on their martial arts skills to win their battles.
Well there is your problem. Pathfinder doesn't even begin to try to make monks what you think they should be. A monk without any armor, weapons or magic items. Is better at fighting that a non-monk with a similar lack of equipment. You can move faster, jump farther, hit harder, and evade attacks better than a normal person.
But you're in a fantasy world where magic is real, enchanted weapons and armor exist and even firearms to a limited degree. Wizards can bend the laws of the universe to their will in ways far beyond what you are capable of, even as you push the bounds of potential with the human body.
While Pathfinder drew some inspiration from cinematic martial arts films, it never tried to be a system where you could easily defeat 20 men, unless you happen to be much higher level then them, but at that point, so can the other classes.
That's not to say your point isn't completely without merit. It's been shown that, mechanically speaking, there are other classes that outshine the monk in the areas that the monk is supposed to be good at.
But does not mean that you can't be good enough to function and contribute, even as an unchained monk without archetypes.
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Also, normally lawful means a strict code of discipline, or something. Well a gm told me that in golarion lawful literally means you always go around blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot. Uh... if that's true I don't want to ever again play a lawful character ever... please tell me he was mistaken...Without knowing the circumstances, I don't know if the GM really said (and meant) "blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot."
That statement is not correct but I have seen many players choose options (like alignments) strictly for their mechanical benefits without considering the impacts that would have on their character. Just last month I had a discussion with one player whose character was lawful (and got benefits from a lawful deity).
Player: "Let's sneak in and free the slaves!"
Me: "You're lawful, right? You get the feeling that doing so would probably make you more chaotic and (checks deity) in your case sever your ties to your deity." (The free "alignment change warning" clause.)
P: "Yeah, but it's not right for people to be chained up."
M: "You're in Cheliax, where slavery is perfectly legal and regulated by the state."
P: "But they are being worked really hard. I want to free them."
M: "They are digging, which is what they were bought to do. You are welcome to go try to buy them from their current owners, in which case you could free them as their owner, but breaking a widespread law of Cheliax is a pretty chaotic act."** spoiler omitted **
On the flip side if the slaves' owner had attacked the party and been killed or subdued then freeing the...
Not seeing the Chaos here. Lawful alignment has NOTHING to do with following the laws of whatever country you happen to be in. A Lawful Neutral Phrasmin will not shift alignment if they suddenly go on an undead re-killing spree in Geb, for instance. It would be a stupid thing to do, but it is internally consistent with the character's Lawful code.
By your logic there would be no such thing as a Lawful Evil murderer or thief or some such. Murder and theft are against the law, after all.
A Lawful character can simultaneously respect Cheliax's authority to make whatever laws they please...and recognize that that doesn't mean they have to follow them.
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I don't want to start an alignment thread (once again) so I'll just defend myself with a bit of clarification and say that in this particular case it was "let's free the slaves because freedom" which is not a very orderly way of doing things.
The point is that you can't claim to be of a lawful alignment (because you get some mechanical benefits) and then go around doing whatever you want. Breaking one law doesn't necessarily make you non-lawful (you saw the first sentence where I said that was wrong, yes?) but deliberately choosing to willfully ignore the laws without provocation does. The very last sentence of my post was "Intent governs alignment."
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What about "free the slaves because my code says slavery is wrong?"
Is tricky.
If you have a god, temple, or organization that mandates that you should be good. "MY GOD HAS COMMANDED THIS BE DONE!". saranrae follower could probably pull that off rather easily. (edit oops milani's CG not NG...)
If you just made it up yourself thats a lot more iffy.
You would have to make up a list and stick to your own made up list despite possibly disagreeing with the rule.. that you made up. Otherwise it's just you doing what you want. Even Calden Cayden, the god of freedom and drunken debauchery, has lists of inspirational wisdom and advice (and fart jokes) often hung on placards behind the bar.
This situation is something, to me, where Lawful and Good are directly at opposed odds. It's not just the actual law of "don't free the slaves" it's the entire society and structure built on it that you're trying to unpend. They're going to be in a pell mel dash across the countryside stirring up a search, unpending daily activities, scheduels, and most likely stealing their way to freedom.
I would let a lawful good paladin or monk pick good over law in this situation. To me it wouldn't even be a problem for a paladin as long as they don't make a habit of it and in PFS it's very hard to track someone making a habit of something. To a monk something along the lines of "They cannot attain spiritual enlightenment without chosing to, and they cannot choose while they are here" would be a pretty good justication.
But again, all of this is VERY subjective.
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So I have unchained which is good and all. I made a monk, but it didn't occur to me how playing a monk in magic item Christmas tree land is kind of dumb.
So I wanted to know how exactly you resolve the character conflict of "hi I'm a monk, an ascetic martial artist who relies on his training and skill to win fights" and "lawl I gots to buy a big pila magic items that make me hit harder and more protected!"
It didn't really occur to me until a few levels in. But the issue is basically:
My brain: monks are highly trained ascetic warriors who rely exclusively on their martial arts skills to win their battles.
The rules: ya need an amulet of mighty fists and a monks robe and bracers of armor and a bunch a other magicky stuff to be a monk.
My brain: DOES NOT COMPUTE!
I mean I guess there's vow of poverty but it sucks and is horrible for similar reasons. Plus I don't even know if you can take vows in pfs.
So I need another way of looking at a monk... but I feel like if they lose the whole ascetic thing then what really sets them apart from a brawler?
Also, normally lawful means a strict code of discipline, or something. Well a gm told me that in golarion lawful literally means you always go around blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot. Uh... if that's true I don't want to ever again play a lawful character ever... please tell me he was mistaken...
First and Foremost. If you have a Wizard in the party or someone with a good UMD a Wand of Mage armor or a Pearl of Power Level 1 is a much better buy than Bracers of Armor +4. Most the time the Bracers are a waste of Money.
Now when it comes to Items you will need will depend on the type of monk you are. Not all monks are the same. The unarmed damage types want a Amulet of Mighty Fists while a weapon wielder may go with a Temple sword, 9 ring Broadsword or similar Monk style weapon.
There will be Items the Game Assumes your Character has at Certain stages. It is a reason I like Automatic Bonus Progression rules as you never have to worry about the big 6 items and your remander gold goes to cool toys.
(Game Assumes the monk will buy)
Cloak of Resistance
Headband of Wisdom
Belt of Preferred Physical stat
Weapon- AoMF or Real weapon
Ring of Protection
(the Luxury Items)
Monk's Robes
Boots of Haste or Teleport or Feather-step Slippers
Gloves, Deliquescent
Clear Spindle Ioun Stone + Wayfinder
Luckily most Items do not fight for slots. With the Ki Power of Barkskin you do not need the Amulet of Natural armor.
I would avoid all the Vows in Pathfinder unless you are playing on ABP. And even then the Vows are terrible.
Featherstep slippers were nerfed to a non item.
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Featherstep slippers were nerfed to a non item.
I could still get some use out of them and it is not nearly as horrible as the QUickrunner's and the Jingasa. It is just a steep cost for 10 minutes a day but for No access to Dragon style or A UMD/Caster to cast things for you.
Most the time I load up on 1st level wands for the UMD or Casters to use on me.
Feather Step (When not Dragon style)
Mage Armor
Protection from Evil
Infernal Healing/Cure Light Wounds
Enlarge Person
Then some Scrolls to cover the 2nd-3rd level spells like:
Blur/Displacement
Silence (This is HILARIOUS)
Fly
Protection from Arrows
Heroism
The feathstep boots cost more than twice as much as a wand for the same benefit (because without saying anything else, they're a standard action to activate) the inability to use a wand is more than offset but 1) being able to share the wand and b) , more importantly, they take up your VERY valiable boot slot. Its not like the shirt where there's the boots of haste to go there.
Quickrunners is still awesome. You attack badguy 1 kill him run to badguy 2. or if you're a swasbuckler, attack baduy 1 wound him dash to bad guy 2 draw the aoo parry stab him and arrive at badguy 2 ready to full attack next round. For a grand. And its not like there's a shirt competing for the slot.
@Corwin Icewolf
To be honest, the need for magical gear has been a big issue for a while. You are right, monks definitely have this problem - the system presumes they have certain items, theme be damned. You have to fluff it somehow.
One thing that can help in this case are the automated bonus progression rules from unchained, essentially your characters gets bonus X (and sometimes Y) at level Z, an instead they only get half the normal gold for other magic items as they automatically get the big bonuses. This can definitely work for monks, imo, but the question is how well it gels with other characters. If you do not want that, then yes, the esoteric magus and the meditant psychic warrior are great. I am particularly partial to the PsyWar.
As for alignment, in my games I remove it for anyone who is not tied to a divine or similar power source. As I see it, neutral or chaotic alignment does not preclude enlightenment or even self-discipline.
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Aren't there still legendary relics and so forth, even in martial arts history?
'This is the headband of the famed master Lee. His dedication to the art was so strong, a fraction of it was bound in this, and it imparts a little of his insight into all those who wear it.'
'What, like the one Mother Macemasher bought herself from the Asmodeans?'
'Master Lee also valued cleanliness. He went through a LOT of headbands!'
The ABP is actually perfect for a monk. See if your GM will allow you to use this even if the other characters are not. If he does you may want to think about taking a vow of poverty for the extra ki.
The way I see a lawful character is they live their lives by a set of rules based on an external source. This can be something like the paladins code, or often the laws of your own land. Generally you do obey the local laws unless it conflicts with the laws that govern you. This is particularly true when you are playing a divine caster. A paladin is going to obey the laws of his deity before any mortal law. The person who lives by his own personal code is not really lawful, but more than likely is neutral at best, and possibly even chaotic.
No ABP in PFS.
Gotta chip in on the alignment argument.
Paladins follow the laws of the land they are currently in to the best of their abilities unless those laws directly violate the Paladin's personal mission. For instance, let us say there is a country that bans paladins. A paladin is on a holy mission and must go to this country to complete their mission. The paladin has no choice but to violate the law, but provided they leave the country as soon as their business is taken care of there is no harm and no foul.
If "free the slaves" was the paladin's current mission, then I would not have a problem with the Paladin violating the state's laws to free to slaves. If the Paladin is just passing by some slaves working the fields and wanted to free them? Then they are out of luck.
Now if those slaves were being abused physically, sexually, emotionally, or whatever then I'd give the ok to the Paladin since he would be defending the weak from abusive authority. I'd be more happy if the Paladin decided to go for a social check to try and disperse the situation without going right for the smite. Intimidate the slave owners, diplomacy/bribe the local guard to interfere, but depending on the situation and the character I can see the smiting happening.
Of course there would be consequences from the situation regardless of how smoothly the Paladin solved the issue. If it came to smiting, the Paladin wouldn't fall but would be subject to criminal charges for his actions. That brings in a whole new morale argument about whether the paladin would fall for resisting arrest, how the PCs should deal with the local legal system, and etc.
Bribing the guards might result in something else, and intimdation might lead to PCs being ambushed later by a group of angry slavers.
You gotta think beyond the current situation when it comes to paladins because the action they take is much more complex than simply good or bad. If you don't evaluate the circumstances around the action, then you are being unfair to your paladins.
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For monk codes in general, I recommend looking at the wuxia source material. Many of the stories have a code known as jianghu, which commonly had the following elements:
1 No using of dirty tricks such as eye-gouging during fights unless one has a personal feud with the opponent.
2 Personal feuds do not extend to family members.
3 Always show respect for seniors and elders according to their status or age.
4 Complete obedience to one's shifu (martial arts teacher).
5 No learning of martial arts from another person without prior permission from one's shifu.
6 No using of martial arts against those who are not trained in martial arts.
7 No violating of women.
8 No sexual relationships with the wives of friends.
9 One's word is one's bond.
Fairly lawful if you ask me, I'd even argue you could be lawful good and keep that code.
Another big theme of jianghu is non-cooperation with the authorities. Fugitives were expected to be sheltered, unless they violated jianghu, government officials were to be kept a at distance, members kept the community in order according to their rules, etc.
Take a look at Jet Li's Fearless for a recent example, Huo Yianjia's disciple violates rule 8 by having an affair, and Qin Lei's godson violates rule 2 by killing Yianjia's family. At no time are the legal authorities mentioned, it is purely a jianghu matter and does not involve them. Later Yianjia is concerned about Chinese pride, and so takes it upon himself to help out in his fashion. He doesn't bother the government, for one they're useless at this point, but also it isn't in his code to do so.
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Oh yeah, an older example of the code that was a bit of a hindrance shows up in 36th Chamber of Shaolin. The main character, San Te, wants to help a rebellion against the Manchu government, but the temple forbids it as it isn't their problem. It takes a bit of rules-lawyering to get the temple leaders to sign on… Jianghu isn't explicitly cited, but you can read it into their reluctance to get involved.
Sorry for rambling, monks are my favorite class and old kung-fu movies and stories are a hobby of mine.
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I did specify pfs... I was pretty sure till now that I posted this in the pfs forum but as sundaKen pointed out pfs doesn't allow abp.
Edit: Oh it got moved. Fair enough but I do think it made people not realize it was pathfinder society.
Usually it is good Form to put PFS in the Title of the thread. Gives us an idea you are looking for PFS advice.
Not much you can do about your feeling then as PFS hardly works with the individual player. Sorry m8.
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I did specify pfs... I was pretty sure till now that I posted this in the pfs forum but as sundaKen pointed out pfs doesn't allow abp.
Edit: Oh it got moved. Fair enough but I do think it made people not realize it was pathfinder society.
Usually it is good Form to put PFS in the Title of the thread. Gives us an idea you are looking for PFS advice.
Not much you can do about your feeling then as PFS hardly works with the individual player. Sorry m8.
This thread was originally posted in the PFS forum. It's entirely superfluous to put "PFS" in the title of a thread in the "PFS" forums. It would be like having every thread title hear prefaced with "ADVICE". Obviously it's not needed and would just clutter up the title.
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This thread was originally posted in the PFS forum. It's entirely superfluous to put "PFS" in the title of a thread in the "PFS" forums. It would be like having every thread title hear prefaced with "ADVICE". Obviously it's not needed and would just clutter up the title.I did specify pfs... I was pretty sure till now that I posted this in the pfs forum but as sundaKen pointed out pfs doesn't allow abp.
Edit: Oh it got moved. Fair enough but I do think it made people not realize it was pathfinder society.
Usually it is good Form to put PFS in the Title of the thread. Gives us an idea you are looking for PFS advice.
Not much you can do about your feeling then as PFS hardly works with the individual player. Sorry m8.
Because 3 letters is Clutter.
Why was it moved from PFS to Advice then? Seems to me that it was in the right place the first time.
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Because 3 letters is Clutter.
Why was it moved from PFS to Advice then? Seems to me that it was in the right place the first time.
It would be if it's prepended to every. single. title. in a section that's already clearly labeled as such.
I'm guessing it was removed from there because this thread is more about "I have my own understanding of what a monk is and Paizo's monk doesn't seem to fit it." "What gear should I take?" just kinda seems tacked on (which is also advice and not necessarily PFS-specfic). Since we all know that any "build advice" threads in the PFS section get moved over here.
Loved it when my 5th level monk is able to bypass all DR and hardness, even DR/-, to do full damage.I am curious to know what I must do to achieve this.
I believe he is referring to the martial artist archetype's 5th level ability.
Edit: Actually it's 4th level.
Others have already dealt with the lawful part pretty well. Alignment infractions should be rare and only given in rather severe cases. You might want to focus on the idea of lawful is for the good of the community vs. chaotic is for the good of each individual.
If you are lawful good, it would be reasonable to argue that making some people second class citizens harms the community.
Having a written code can help you apply the principles consistently. It isn't required, but any lawful character should be consistent in how they react to a situation.
So I need another way of looking at a monk... but I feel like if they lose the whole ascetic thing then what really sets them apart from a brawler?
As others have said, fluff them as sacred relics.
You can not change the mechanics, so a wizard with detect magic will still be able to identify them. On the other hand, provided the correct money is deducted for the items the exact details of the acquisition can be fluffed a few different ways. Just as someone can purchase an item and claim they made it, you could donate money and be gifted with a reward for your generosity. Provided you don't try to get mechanical benefits from it, the exact details of the transaction shouldn't matter.
So why was it moved? It's a PFS problem and being in the PFS forum is necessary context to the question.
It's not really a PFS specific problem (martials require magic gear) but PFS does limit the solutions that have come up over the years.
The OP is having the problem in PFS and any solution that doesn't work in PFS is utterly useless to him. That makes it a PFS problem.
That would make EVERY problem a PFS problem since "homebrew it" works for everything...
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And your DM was mistaken. You're not a paladin, they have an oath to obey legitimate authority.
Not entirely true. They have to respect legitimate authority, that's not the same as follow or obey.
For instance, Her Infernal Majestrix, Queen Abrogail II of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune is the legitimate authority of Cheliax. But a paladin is under no obligation to obey her.
In any event, lawful can mean has a personal code they adhere to and will place the code above their personal desires. It could also mean that they adhere to the law very strictly. It could also mean both. But adherence to law of the land is not required to be lawful.
What about "free the slaves because my code says slavery is wrong?"Boy that sound a lot more Chaotic than Lawful to me.
A lawful good character who is more concerned with good than law can easily justify setting free such prisoners, specifically if they are being mistreated or taken advantage of. If it's more of an "indentured servant" situation the paladin would probably need to leave the situation alone, assuming the servant wasn't being taken advantage of in some way by the master (manipulating circumstance to increase the duration of servitude).
Now a lawful neutral person who encounters the slave situation is probably going to ignore it. I can't imagine them wanting to free the slaves, and I would consider it a chaotic act for them to do so (and I seriously can't imagine why they would).
Every problem that is had with PFS is a PFS problem. I'm not sure why you're having a hard time grasping that tautologies are tautological.
Belittling, rules lawyery, insults towards the people who actually do play pfs explaining the very blurry distinction between a PFS problem and something that goes on another forum are neither warranted, necessary, helpful, or accurate.
This does not interact with any PFS specific rules. It doesn't deal with the scenarios, guide, additional resources, local pfs culture conventions or a dozen other things that would make it a more PFS oriented question than it is. PFS uses the rules, but that does not make every rules question a PFS question. Those go on the rules forum. This is mostly flavor interacting with a core mechanic, not a PFS mechanic, it goes in the advice forum.
The persnickity den of skum and villiany in the pfs forum are separate from the den of skum and villiany in the rules forum. This is deliberate. One forum can only hold so much persnicket before it explodes.
I don't particularly care, but people do try to keep the clutter down to a dull roar.