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There are only three 1-5 scenarios my wife and I can play together, because I have specifically reserved Faithless and Forgotten from our schedules. If I look at what I can run for her and our one friend's raptors, I add...a single table. Trust me, I know how to schedule tables, but Table Tetris still conspires against teamwork builds.
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So clinging to a side of a cliff for weeks doesn't cause for realistic fatigue or chance of needing a more comfortable hanging position and losing grip, nor is the weather unchanging and thus hanging can be done forever. But you don't need a check to hang there, only a check to move. Are you saying the danger of the task doesn't stop the task from taking 10? Or do you say that they moment they want to move and would need to make a check they are now in danger and cannot take 10?
Plus eventually the mountain could be eroded, be a volcano and erupt, a group of harpy's might think it'd make a nice home. So even on a cliff there "potential future danger if you do nothing forever."
But the NPC's, do they follow suit to the cliff clinger? No, they need to use the bathroom, get a drink, move around. And because they maybe might need to do that in the future you are prevented from taking 10 now.
If the guards are playing cards and unaware of you, you're in no current danger. Only danger if you move and make them aware of you. Nothing outside of your stealth can get you into danger, and you're not worried because they don't expect you. If you kill someone and then a guard later finds the body and sounds an alert then I'd maybe say no take 10 now that it's stressful because they are intentionally looking for you.
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So clinging to a side of a cliff for weeks doesn't cause for realistic fatigue or chance of needing a more comfortable hanging position and losing grip, nor is the weather unchanging and thus hanging can be done forever. But you don't need a check to hang there, only a check to move. Are you saying the danger of the task doesn't stop the task from taking 10? Or do you say that they moment they want to move and would need to make a check they are now in danger and cannot take 10?
Plus eventually the mountain could be eroded, be a volcano and erupt, a group of harpy's might think it'd make a nice home. So even on a cliff there "potential future danger if you do nothing forever."
But the NPC's, do they follow suit to the cliff clinger? No, they need to use the bathroom, get a drink, move around. And because they maybe might need to do that in the future you are prevented from taking 10 now.
If the guards are playing cards and unaware of you, you're in no current danger. Only danger if you move and make them aware of you. Nothing outside of your stealth can get you into danger, and you're not worried because they don't expect you. If you kill someone and then a guard later finds the body and sounds an alert then I'd maybe say no take 10 now that it's stressful because they are intentionally looking for you.
Anyone who watches American Ninja Warrior knows that you can't just hang onto the side of something indefinitely.
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My point. If you say it's a game and thus the character can hang there forever then you should say it's a game and let characters stealth because those guards playing cards aren't an immediate threat.
If you say it's realistic that the guards could look search for you you at any moment then you should apply that same logic to hanging on a cliff.
I've basically defined whether or not you could take 10 is by judging whether the immediate situation was a stress moment. If you have a moment to take a breath...i.e. aren't in combat rounds, I generally allow players to take 10 on almost any task.
Taking 20 is only allowed on tasks without an inherent element of danger... i.e. not on disarming traps. Either way though, it means you're eating a LOT of time.
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My point. If you say it's a game and thus the character can hang there forever then you should say it's a game and let characters stealth because those guards playing cards aren't an immediate threat.
I'm saying that the length of time someone can hang there is long enough to disqualify it from being "soon".
If you say it's realistic that the guards could look search for you you at any moment then you should apply that same logic to hanging on a cliff.
The mountain is not eroding any time soon. (even for an elf) The danger of that happening is not in any sense immediate.
The mountain starts spewing lava and rumbling THEN you have a problem.
At any second the guards MIGHT go to the bathroom. They might start moving, they might start going on rounds. That possibility creates real danger. "calling for checks when the chance of failure leads to tension or drama" is exactly what the point of a check is. That is an inherently subjective call and is going to vary greatly from dm to dm: don't count on being able to do it.
Taking 10 any time you want is an advanced rogue talent. Putting the game in zero time so that nothing is immediate and assuming success hands it out to everyone. Its a very powerful ability and it's high level for a reason: it greatly increases the chances of success for someone with an above average skill modifier
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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Natural weapons.How so?
IME natural weapon users start running into problem with DR that they can't penetrate starting in the 5-9 tier. Most notably DR/adamantine and DR/[alignment]. Weapon buffs that you might normally use (bless weapon, align weapon) won't work on natural weapons.
There are ways around it (e.g. furious amulet of mighty fists if you are a barbarian, World Serpent totem if you are a barbarian, I'm sure that there are others) but it can be a rude shock if you aren't prepared for it.
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at any second the guard might go to the bathroom, and if he beats your stealth then he's aware and you're in danger. But if no one is aware of you and remains unaware then you are safe. There is no immediate danger. A 1 might be high enough to never be spotted, thus guarantying no danger to be had when stealthing. But take 10 isn't only legal when a 1 would succeed and stop future potential danger from occurring. A take 10 is to specifically attempt the task and not worry about a very low roll failing. So if I'm not CURRENTLY IN DANGER before attempting my roll then I can take 10. When I'm making my stealth check they aren't aware of me, I'm not currently in danger. I COULD be in danger if my result is low enough and they become aware of me, that is when they'll start trying to take my life.
Taking 10 at any time, aka when you're actively being searched for or in combat, is a talent. Taking 10 when you're trying to perform a task and aren't in danger by anything if you perform the task successfully is when you can normally take 10.
Guards don't see me or know I'm coming. I take 10, the guards potential for finding me can't stop me from taking 10 on hiding from them.
Guards searching for me and know that I am somewhere here, I see this now as a pressured situation, thus stopping take 10. But I'd probably let them take 10 if they wanted. The DC is higher since they are searching for you, if you feel you're so good that a 10 beats the increased DC go for it.
I've basically defined whether or not you could take 10 is by judging whether the immediate situation was a stress moment. If you have a moment to take a breath...i.e. aren't in combat rounds, I generally allow players to take 10 on almost any task.
Taking 20 is only allowed on tasks without an inherent element of danger... i.e. not on disarming traps. Either way though, it means you're eating a LOT of time.
just checking -
you are aware that Take 10 takes no more time than a standard skill check, right?
** spoiler omitted **
Yeah, my thoughts in writing the last sentences were about Taking 20.
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and I've seen a lot of characters that are "skills no combat" and so they beat the diplomacy DC 20 with their 42.
or the other situation. If I take 10 and succeed or if my skill is 2 lower and I take 10 and succeed, but my combat increasing by +2 to hit and damage is a pretty big increase. cheapestly duplicated by a +1 weapon and +2 belt for 6000gp. But that cost quickly increases as you go to the next +1. Making a weapon a +3 instead of +2 is a lot of gp. getting that value, and earlier, by altering your stats to be able to do something useful in combat from the start vs that +2 to your skill is something I really suggest doing.
EDIT:
Also because skills don't always come up. If you're the dex skills guy and those skill never come up then you're at effectively not having skills and not having combat. Combat happens far more than most skills you bring for the party are used.
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. Nothing would bother me more than knowing that that 3rd level guy of yours, that you ran thru 8 scenarios (about 40 hours of table game time, maybe another 40 or 80 hours of hobby time at home tinkering - easily as much as a year of someones gameing) just got tossed in the trash, because I missed the trap that killed you
Do you keep the Welcome to pathfinder boon on top? That should help the new guy not die. Losing your -23 is bad, b ut losing your -1 really is that bad.
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It is not a either/or choice. Being a Skills PC does not mean we are unable to do anything in combat.
SO yes, I agree and have been saying it's not an either/or choice. You can do combat and still be good and useful out of combat. But you just put forth the view I've seen far to often of
I'll handle all the social skills, and I'm pretty useless in combat.
and think it's okay, because a person can handle all the social skills and still be useful in combat.
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Yeah, a lv12 bard has more going for it in combat than a non-combat rogue. And if you're mentioning lots of spells then you probably are throwing those out in fights to be useful.
And being useful in combat isn't set to damage. Doing buffs, being tanky and providing flanks and Aid another for a +4.
But like I've seen lv 8 characters whose main combat plan is to attack things struggle to hit with a full bab no penalty attack, TWF for 1d4+2 damage a hit. If they get their sneak attack off it jumps to 1d4+2d6+2. Doesn't bypass DR/magic
I've seen lv 8ish, can't remember the level he was exactly, character whose combat plan was to shoot one crossbow bolt. For 1dX+1 damage.
I've seen lv9 character, different from the other XBow user, pull full Xbow master and RS for not super likely to hit attacks that deal 1dX+2 damage.
I've seen lv7 character whose combat plan was to run around with a wand of cure.
All of these in the name of "I do X set of skills and not combat." Because these characters really are useless in combat.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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Trip builds do work as soon as they have Greater Trip. Up to that point, it's still great area denial. I don't mind trip builds that much, I'm playing one myself in a Rappan Athuk game. It gives penalties to the tripped and bonuses to the others, but you can still live with it. On the other hand, a friend has a very annoying build that disarms everything, which I find annoys me to no end. Most statted enemies have only one weapon, maybe a backup, so as soon as he's around, enemies can't do anything anymore because they have no weapons left. It removes all of the challenge.Rogues that try to get sneak attack via stealth - this is mainly an unseasoned player thing though
Poison Builds that don't naturally produce poison
Crit Builds for the most part - at high levels you run into enough immune things its not worth the feat investment
Trip/Disarm builds always seem to do nothing but extend combats, nearly always that person would have been better off just hitting for damage.
It's got a sweet spot between 3 and 7 where it pretty decent which means you have one level, level 7 (unless you're getting bonus feats) where Greater Trip can really be relied on to do work. And even still its only worth actually attempting if someone else is threatening which makes it an even more marginal strategy.
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Players usually build characters to be good at one or two or three things, and perhaps okay at a few more.
The list of things you can be good at is very long. Some of them are more important than others.
You can have a party that's bad at some things and that's okay! It can make a scenario interesting.
But if you have a party that's bad at too much, things can go horribly wrong, and that is not (usually) a fun time.
Also, some things can only really be done by one person at a time so it's not as much fun to have two people who are really good at that thing.
There's so much variation in tasks and PC abilities I'm pretty sure everyone loses if we start bickering about which specific roles are legitimate and which need to be filled and which are cultural constructs that no longer have any real relevance to a modern roleplayer. Or whatever.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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This is because many groups have no one who can do this role, and therefore scenarios are not made for you to lose them when you can't do this.. unless you fall in a pit and die. Which means you should max perception ranks and check for traps cautiously like a good pathfinder.
You have not played a lot of scenarios have you because honestly the biggest flaw in your argument is that yes there are TPK worthy traps in PFS that will shred your party apart before you even enter the dungeons and those have a check starting in the mid 30s.
Yes, you do not have every CHR skill. Most scenarios you will only need some diplomacy to get by. But INT casting types (Wizards, Magus, ect) get a boatload of Knowledges. The investment is minimal for most characters.
And outside of two or three instances none of the Int based casting types are ever going to be useful at more than a couple of them.
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Lawful alignments.
Rarely, I find myself in PFS scenarios I've been in where my lawful character was able to actually follow the local laws within the confines of the scenario. Usually it comes down to chaotic players/characters, but very often the scenario itself, just can't be completed "legally." And I'm not talking about murder. Breaking entry, conspiracy (that would be talking about commiting crimes), stealing, and so forth. Not to mention that pathfinders are, at best, regarded as vigillantes by local governments.
In general, I've found the lawful aspect of the alignment harder to role play with PFS groups than any other alignment option. Good and neutral alignments work very well in PFS. Chaotic often works well too. Lawful seems to always conflict with the PFS mentality.
Most of the time, Lawful players I witness are either unwilling to play their alignment, are not allowed by the GM or other players in an out of game capacity, or they just don't RP their alignment at all. The exception here, is paladins, which are the opposite, and actually expected to RP their alignment despite near constant conflict with the group's goals and plans.
Chaotic Good, or one step within that, seems to be the ideal alignment for PFS characters. It just works better with the way the scenarios are written and the way that the random groups of players play.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Murdock: I don't think that's true in general.. I haven't had many uncomfortable moments with either of my paladins, nor with my LG Erastil ZAM/Inquisitor, nor with my LN Asmodean Advocate. It might be more of a problem in your local meta than with PFS.
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Can't say I felt limited by my lawful alignment either, but then again my lawful characters tend to view their lodge as a way more important authority than local goverments and wouldn't think twice to bend a law or two to get their job done and improve their standing. If a member of the party acted against the societies tenets they would be the first to point that out of course.
In my experiences most important decisions (like if breaking the law is neccassary) are made by a short argument followed by a vote. Thats what my characters tends to suggest at least and they obviously feel bound by such a vote - even if they don't like the outcome. If there are good alternatives to breaking a law, it shouldn't be too hard to convince a party member or two to vote for that either way, as breaking laws holds an inherent risk.
Overall I feel the term lawful makes many people believe the aligment is all about following every law ever made. This obviously isn't the case as there are lawful monster races that couldn't care less about laws made by humans.
I've don a lot of math and am close to 100% sure that the highest melee DPR that can be achieved in PFS will come from natural attacks.Care to give some examples?
Sure. There's two different basic strategies:
Polymorph based builds which can get very many (I think you can go up to 8) natural attacks and get a high STR score via polymorphing. This works for Druids or Alchemists, or a lot of other casts but is usually more of a mid to late level strategy and honestly I'm no expert here. But from all I've seen these builds can do some insane DPR.
The other strategy revolves around class, race or item based natural attacks which are on more or less permanently. Usually Claw, Claw, Bite and additionally Gore which is easy to acquire via Helm of the Mamoth Lord or the Spirit Oni Master [Haunted Heroes Handbook]. Tengu gets claw, claw bite from level 1 a half orc adopted Tiefling could as well. A Half Orc Blood Rager, Barbarian or Ranger or even Sorceror could also have Claw Claw bite ready at level 1 or 2.
Then you need 1 feat: Power Attack and class abilities which grant static bonuses to hit and damage. Good choices include investigator, all raging classes, Archaelogosit, war priest and Champion Medium and of course Paladin or Cavalier.
If all you are interested in is DPR then go ahead and dip your toes into Bloodrager (Furious AoMF), Warpriest and Medium. I think by combining those three classes you can easily achieve 120 average DPR vs level appropriate AC at level 10. And at lower levels your DPR numbers are gonna be way ahead of the curve simply because you have more attacks with higher precision, but maybe slightly lower damage, than all other combat styles.
But the real beauty of Natural attacks is that they command so few resources (i.e. feats) for you to be a good damage dealer in the PFS level range that you can just do all kinds of other things with your build.
Also pro tip: always give your natural attacker a two handed reach weapon and make sure you enchant it. A big issue of natural attacks is that you suck if you can't full attack (if you do BBEG is usually history) and if you start combat with a large STR score a two handed weapon and Power Attack and possibly combat reflexes you can utilize this for thefirst one or two combat rounds to lay down the hurt, then once you have closed with the big bad drop that stick as a free action and go to town.
For an example build and play histories check out my Avatar Farg.
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To be honest, some scenarios/modules just aren't built to cope with such creatures. I love that you got it online, but isn't super optimal (but it isn't bad, either). :P
Not a lot of scenarios are optimal for large sized player creatures, let alone huge or gargantuan.
In fact I think mammothrider is a fairly suboptimal choice, because of the size of the companion, but to me there is just something deeply satisfying when I get to apply my mammoth to problems.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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This leads to at level 5 a perception of:
5 (ranks) + 3 (training) + 5 (eyes) + 2 (tool) + 1 (trait to bring it in class trait bonus if applicable) + X (trait) = +16 + X, which is usually enough to find the trap, unless it is a hard-to-find magic trap. But that's why you have 2 people searching...
Nope. The trap that has a large chance of TPKing the party can potentially get a +50. I mean there is the chance that the GM softballed some of those scenarios if you did play the harder ones but sweet jesus some of the traps are devious in PFS.
5 (ranks) + 3 (training) + 5 (eyes) + 2 (tool) + 1 (trait to bring it in class trait bonus if applicable) + X (trait) = +16 + X, which is usually enough to find the trap, unless it is a hard-to-find magic trap. But that's why you have 2 people searching doors and checking the halls. Druids, Clerics, ect will have perceptions in the 20s at level 5/
So you say that you don't need specialists but by the very nature of your math and logic you are actually arguing for a specialist. There is no way Clerics or Druids get perceptions in 20s at level 5 unless you specialize in it and honestly given the few skill points those classes get you aren't going to invest 5 ranks.
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I'm not sure I've seen a wis based character without max ranks in perception in my life playing PFS.
So all the Druid/clerics I've seen have max ranks.
My cleric I'm working on can't afford perception because of the negative int and trying to get the skill requirements for diabolist. Mine probably isn't the norm but I'm sure there are some people who run into issues with cleric's low skill points.
Druids for sure always do max it.
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I'm not sure I've seen a wis based character without max ranks in perception in my life playing PFS.
So all the Druid/clerics I've seen have max ranks.
I would guess this is another regional thing.
My cleric hasn't put any ranks into Perception. He does have Knowledge: Religion maxed though. I've also recently invested money in improving his perception.
A wisdom based character has an advantage here, but the Cleric is so short on skill ranks that I don't believe they have said advantage. Monk, Inquisitor, Druid all have uses for Wisdom and have more skill ranks per level.
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I've seen just about every ranger and druid max perception.
Clerics and monks I've seen go either way, with some maxing perception and some only putting a few points into it. Int penalties are a problem and wanting ranks in too many other skills is pretty common. At least around here.
That cleric is usually also expected to have Knowledge (religion) and Sense Motive, and sometimes they like Heal or Spellcraft or some other knowledge skill. The monks of course have acrobatics, sense motive, climb, swim, and a few other things competing for the all-too-rare skill points.