Just reading class abilities does not give you mastery of them. Plenty of people think sneak attack is overpowered on first read. Then they get play experience and realize otherwise.Except I wasn't discussing mastery, just learning your abilities.
By "learning" you seem to mean "what happens after I read through things once or twice."
By "learning" some other people seem to mean "what happens after I read through things once or twice and then play the character for a while."
An example of the former would be: "I'm playing a rogue. In certain circumstances, I can do 1d6 extra damage from sneak attack."
An example of the latter would be: "I'm playing a rogue. In certain circumstances, I can do 1d6 extra damage from sneak attack. This often requires some tactical forethought. It doesn't always work on all kinds of creatures. If there isn't anyone else in the party who will do melee, it's a class ability that won't come up often."
If you think you've "learned" sneak attack from reading it through, great. But other people don't think that way--they wouldn't say they've "learned" what sneak attack can really do until they've played a character with that ability for a while, in a party, having encounters.
And this isn't even a question of mastery. Someone coming to the rogue for the first time might very well not anticipate that they would need tactical forethought to use sneak attack. A session or two of play might make that more apparent. Would I say they "learned" the class ability by reading it? If they thought that, they might well be disappointed.
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Just reading class abilities does not give you mastery of them. Plenty of people think sneak attack is overpowered on first read. Then they get play experience and realize otherwise.Except I wasn't discussing mastery, just learning your abilities.
Man, I need a sheet of ability notes to remember what a character can do, I even design my hand made sheets to have enough space for just that purpose... if my character has numerous and/or unusual capabilities, I actually need the notes to remember them, and I speak irrespective of game system.
Man, I need a sheet of ability notes to remember what a character can do, I even design my hand made sheets to have enough space for just that purpose... if my character has numerous and/or unusual capabilities, I actually need the notes to remember them, and I speak irrespective of game system.
Heck yeah!
If I had a pie chart of "cause of character death" the largest wedge would undoubtedly be "murderhobo arrogance." But a close second would be "forgot about the dang class ability that would have saved my life."
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A better example, the spell Bloodrage. My friend read it, thought it was great. +2 Str per 5 points of damage dealt to the target, and he knew my barbarian took a LOT of damage because Invulnerable Rager. So he took it as a spell known at level up for his Life Oracle.
Unfortunately, there were some complications. We played in Assault on Absalom, and he proceeded to cast it on Bolt. The first hit was weak, and actually did less than 5 points of damage thanks to DR. The second hit was enough to beat the threshold, so I turned it on in Herolab. My Str score didn't budge. On investigation, I realized that it's a morale bonus to Str, the same as Rage. So it could only ever increase his Str score by +6 once 25 points of damage had been dealt. The only time we got that to work, the fight ended immediately afterwards.
Reading a class ability or other rules text does not mean you know it.
I start at first, although I don't especially care for it - for story reasons.
When I gm - I give double (or more) XP, so the early levels are there for understanding things, and story, but get to level 3 pretty quickly. That seems the point at which the classes really feel like themselves; and the fun options come online.
Agreed.
Probably a legacy of starting with AD&D where the bulk of the population was 0 level.
Started with AD&D myself. I just ran with what life experience the rules were telling me about the setting. Mainly, people learn and get better at things, which can't be replicated by a work of level 1 characters. It's also why I strongly encourage the use of the re-training rules, because people get worse at things they don't practice and better at thing they do.
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All what I'm talking about requires is reading our own characters abilities...Just reading class abilities does not give you mastery of them. Plenty of people think sneak attack is overpowered on first read. Then they get play experience and realize otherwise.
One of our local players knew what his Kinetic blast could do, but did not know it would not work against a construct.
And the only way to find that out is to read the section of rules on SP and SU abilities, not just "your class".| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm surprised by the number of people talking about learning their characters abilities. I think I must be misunderstanding their intention with that statement.... Don't people learn their abilities once they've read thorough their class once or twice?
If you read through the descriptions of Occultist, Kineticist, and Vigilante twice and could immediately see how all of those available choices would interact with each other, hundreds of feats, traits, racial options, and magic items then my hat is off to you and the programmers that designed your AI.
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Man, I need a sheet of ability notes to remember what a character can do, I even design my hand made sheets to have enough space for just that purpose... if my character has numerous and/or unusual capabilities, I actually need the notes to remember them, and I speak irrespective of game system.Just reading class abilities does not give you mastery of them. Plenty of people think sneak attack is overpowered on first read. Then they get play experience and realize otherwise.Except I wasn't discussing mastery, just learning your abilities.
I know a number of Barbarian players that use a spreadsheet for all the different modifiers that can be applied to their attacks.
I haven't used that kind of memory heolping tool, but yeah, I see how that could come in useful... basic, basic rage, and variants with various rage powers...
It appears everyone aside from me considers "learning" and "mastery" to be synonymous, this answers my question about what people meant when they said learning previously. This is rather odd to me (just because I've learnt how to play an instrument doesn't mean I'd be good enough to perform in an orchestra), but fair enough.
If you read through the descriptions of Occultist, Kineticist, and Vigilante twice and could immediately see how all of those available choices would interact with each other, hundreds of feats, traits, racial options, and magic items then my hat is off to you and the programmers that designed your AI.
Could you not strawman me? It's rather annoying (especially since I already showed that claiming I said such a thing is false in this thread only a few posts up)?
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I know a number of Barbarian players that use a spreadsheet for all the different modifiers that can be applied to their attacks.
Before I discovered the sweetness that is Hero Lab, my most complicated character had a 24-page binder of spreadsheet print-outs with every conceivable permutation of class abilities and spells.
It was glorious.
My god. I think I might be... a nerd.
My big problem with assuming that most people are ~5th level is that, while it might appropriately reflect their job skills, it also makes them too tough. Your average farmer can take on wolves and bears with his hatchet.
It's a different reaction to what life experience was telling me: That getting better at some things isn't always tied to getting tougher and better at fighting.
Well I didn't say most people are level 5, I said they can expect to reach it in their life time. In the real world that would generally be people at the peak of their career and approaching retirement.
As for people and being able to fight and getting tougher, I'm not so sure you give people enough credit, people are tough, and people fight poorly because they panic.
I also said people don't have optimal builds, as far as I'm concerned your typical level 5 common NPC probably has a level 5 different classes to cover the broad range of skills and experiences a person develops in a lifetime. Which leaves then with maybe +1 BaB. People that dedicate their life to a single focus are rare.
That said, no matter how you look at it there is a very high level of abstraction involved and any level based and HP based system does a poor job of simulating reality.
Man, I need a sheet of ability notes to remember what a character can do, I even design my hand made sheets to have enough space for just that purpose... if my character has numerous and/or unusual capabilities, I actually need the notes to remember them, and I speak irrespective of game system.Just reading class abilities does not give you mastery of them. Plenty of people think sneak attack is overpowered on first read. Then they get play experience and realize otherwise.Except I wasn't discussing mastery, just learning your abilities.
I not only memorize my own characters, but the characters and abilities of every other character in every campaign I play in (currently 4 campaigns in 3 different game systems).
I used to be a ranked player for 40k and several other tabletop strategy games.
I still don't claim complete mastery of a character, even after playing that character for months or even years. I always review my gameplay after every game, striving to understand everything I did, did not do, or could have done. There is always something else to learn, some new insight to be gained, some room for strategic, tactical or even roleplay improvement.
I know a number of Barbarian players that use a spreadsheet for all the different modifiers that can be applied to their attacks.Before I discovered the sweetness that is Hero Lab, my most complicated character had a 24-page binder of spreadsheet print-outs with every conceivable permutation of class abilities and spells.
It was glorious.
My god. I think I might be... a nerd.
I used to DM a Rolemaster campaign.
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Some people even ask to play at level 0 wtf?Yep. You don't know gritty until you are a commoner with 3 hp, a +1 to hit, 1d3+1 damage, and have an AC of 11.
Having played 1E & 2E wizards with a single hitpoint at max and only the ability to throw darts after they used their only spell for the day, I'd say the commoner who can do d3+1 damage would have had a distinct advantage.
I used to DM a Rolemaster campaign.
Heh. I've been known to offer to GM mash-ups of Rolemaster & Traveler to those who complain about the complexity of PF. "It would be like a Rolemaster system, but with the Tech Levels of Traveler to make everything fit better...".
This has been a heavy topic of discussion and thought lately among my group for many reasons. Mostly these 2:
1. We have recently been dabbling in a "new" system called DCCRPG, (which you can find here on the paizo site), by Goodman Games. This system has a very unique O level dungeon style. At 0 level, your players play 3-6 characters, for a total of 20-30 characters, and they are all randomly generated. As a DM, you are EXPECTED to kill 75-80% of their characters. Their characters are completely randomly generated, and have 0 talents. They are poor peasant people.
After a few rounds of level 0 DCC characters, level 1 pathfinder characters feel like gods.
2. As we all hit a turning point in our professional and social lives recently, finding time to play with a constant group has become increasingly difficult. Character creation time has become a factor, because if we add or subtract players throughout a campaign, or begin new campaigns at higher levels, there becomes this "dead time" at the beginning of sessions where players are leveling or creating new PC, and that becomes a bit of a hassle or bore. (personally I don't like having everyone come with a premade character entirely completed, so that the party can form as a PARTY, not as 4 barbarians with insanely different backstories and experience.)
By playing at level 1, we can usually all crank out characters in 20 minutes or less, rather than slogging through magic items looking for ways to spend 10,000 gold, while our fighter sits out because he just bought good armor and a big stick.
TLDR Level 1 characters are fast and easy, and are heroes with the right perspective.
Yes I have found this as well. I find creating a character and filling out a level 5 character sheet to not start at level 1 to be a bit hard. I personally don't like group character creation.
I am wierd in that when brainstorming what to build I am laying on my back in bed at night to get an idea an then put it on paper later. Of course since I dislike tablets this means I need pyhsical books.
I do not think I could quite do this for level 5 or definetly not for level 10.
It's tough building high level characters in PF. I find I have to do it pretty often with my group now, as they're all levels 17-18. It takes me days to finish one sometimes as I want to get it just right.
I don't, but it sometimes times 2 to 3 days to build the perfect foil for my characters to encounter, particularly if he or they are the BBEGs.
I'm surprised by the number of people talking about learning their characters abilities. I think I must be misunderstanding their intention with that statement.... Don't people learn their abilities once they've read thorough their class once or twice?
I think it's mostly a matter of getting used to managing limitations on class abilities. That is, if you have x rounds or rage or y points of panache or can throw z bombs, it might take some trial and error to find the sweet spot for "what situations are best for using this limited resource." After all, if a level 1 Alchemist can throw 5 bombs a day, then you'll run out fast if you do this every round, but you might have 3 bombs left at the end of the day if you're too stingy with them. Particularly if you're new with a class, it's best to do this sort of feeling out when the stakes are low.
It can be difficult for some people to remember everything about a class no matter how often they read it. I have 2 players like that. One is 48 and the other is 13. The 13 y/o I can't fault but the other guy may have a learning disability where that's concerned, I dunno. But he can never remember everything any of his characters do and he's been playing RPGs for over 30 years. I still have to remind him every game how to calculate saving throws for his spells. But starting at 1st level helped him a lot more than starting at a higher level like we've sometimes done in the past. He was a real mess in a campaign where we started at 7th level.
Starting at level 1 is actually pretty fun... PCs have to be more careful when engaging enemies and battles and strategy becomes that much more important!
However... the extra-swingy nature of the game gets old fast. So it very rarely lasts more than 1 or 2 game sessions.
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i do a weeks worth of research b4 i make any character no matter the level so taking a single day to build one high level character is nothingYou take weeks to build the encounters for your group?
I've been known to (especially the "board game" encounter where I modified the chase rules and put in some pre-determined "random" encounters from CRs 8 - 16) on the board that both the PCs and NPCs they were chasing might encounter over a multi-hour chase with multiple groups all attempting to either catch a fleeing NPC, the chasing group, or a red herring decoy that was sent out).
Ambitious encounters don't always pay off the same return, but sometimes they're still awesome.
I can have fun when starting with level 1 characters for most of the characters I have played.
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I prefer to start at level 1. Where the difference between victory and defeat is a well thrown tanglefoot bag.
The game is best in the sweet spot between 6-10th level, but I really savour those early levels where you start to get to know your character, the world they inhabit and their relationship to it.
What I prefer isn't what everyone prefers. But I really don't like jumping into a character that isn't level 1. Relegates too many important moments to backstory.
I prefer to start at level 1. Where the difference between victory and defeat is a well thrown tanglefoot bag.
The game is best in the sweet spot between 6-10th level, but I really savour those early levels where you start to get to know your character, the world they inhabit and their relationship to it.
What I prefer isn't what everyone prefers. But I really don't like jumping into a character that isn't level 1. Relegates too many important moments to backstory.
Ramen..ahem..Amen to that.