I do not see the rhyme or reason behind 2e's rarity system.


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necromental wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Aren't character "builds" just "I select this combination of feats, class features, etc? With no dependence on stuff you find/buy than "I will want the weapon I took weapon focus on" or "I will need to be able to cast this spell"?

It's usually crunching out your character to 20th-level, often with cherrypicking class levels (PrCs), feats and such, with no regard for actual character, nothing organic, at all, just a maths exercise.

Which can be fun, it can be fun, but it's not a character... *said like Eugene Levy in America Pie*

What is it if not a character?

Operating a build; which, like I said, can be fun.

Silver Crusade

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MerlinCross wrote:
I didn't get around to this sooner. Sorry Rysky.
No worries.
MerlinCross wrote:
Cool. Just what need to be restricted and more to the point, do you HAVE to tell your players what is restricted? Or will they get the idea of the setting and probably what's expected. If you're doing homebrew, I'm not expecting a player's guide, but I would like to think I get an idea of what would be allowed or not based on just description of the setting/world.

A bit of both, I'll blacklist certain things from the get go (advanced firearms immediately come to mind), and also do a sorta "show, don't tell" in set dressing like when describing the character's surroundings like all the types of weapons in the marketplace or how a Rougarou is in charge of the local Courier's Guild and it's not out of place.

I do need to to get better at making a "player's guide" though >_>

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Rarity system or not; spells listed in AP/Campaign books should have a "This is Campaign specific" tag next to it.
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I wouldn't mind a Regional/Abundance addendum added to the Rarity system.
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Which begs the question of how the online resources are going to tag them. But for PF1 as the example, I find that to be a failure of the online resources more than Paizo.
Yep. Hopefully they're tagged in a useful manner in the books and AoN follows suit. I don't have much faith for d20 though.
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Well for one if some of these spells are so game breaking, why not just nerf them instead? Everyone and their brother complains about Teleport, just nerf it. Or remove it from Players outright, no shadow ban needed.

Because Teleporting is fun but it can mess up certain adventures, that doesn't mean I don't want anyone to be able to use it. It depends on the game.

It's not shadow banned. If your GM looks at the Rarity system as "you are never getting this ever" then that's a GM issue.

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No they just kept the problematic spells and tagged it with a "Ask you GM" to solve all the problems.
Yep.
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And depending on who you ask, some problematic spells made it through anyway. What spells? Again it's GM to GM.
Yep.
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And now they have a Paizo supported way of banning them.
Yep.
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Do you want Uncommon or Rare spell or item? WELL I hope your GM planned a session around that!
... do you not talk with your GM about the campaign you're playing in?
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And I hope your fellow players are more than willing to help you go do your personal quest just for your gain.

... do you not talk with your fellow players?

This is a cooperative storytelling game, you work with the GM and other players to build the game. If you're really keen on a certain item or spell or event showing up, ask. Talk about it.

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PFS stuff
As thejeff pointed out that's not how PFS pointed out that's not how acquiring items in Organized Play works, thankfully.
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I don't mind the idea, it's an attempt but I don't think it needs to be Codified. I've seen people say "Well at least now we have a baseline to work from so we don't have to relearn at every table". Yeah no, you're still going to have to relearn at every table. Because with how easy it is to instantly flip something to Rare and thus not give it to you, I can't WAIT to see the weird ban lists from table to table.
That's only a concern if you're constantly shifting between tables/GMs, which you also had to learn their interpretation of rules and house rules and ban lists before this anyway.
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Seriously, what does Rarity SOLVE?
Gives power to GMs and also removing "well this common item over here is foreign to the normal assumed playing area so you need a feat to use it even if your character is from that area".
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I still see no reason to ever use it at my table,
then at your table tell your players that can just ignore the Rarity designations. Simple as that.
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and it functions as a codified ban list which every GM is going to probably have their own personal one anyway.
It in no way does this. If a GM blanket bans everything above Common Rarity just because it's not Common than frankly that's a failing on their part.
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If we are going with Rarity, Paizo please, look at what you've done before. Take cues from Firearm access. 5 different yet clearly defined rarity levels and you can also maybe give advice per level as to how much to charge or how much work to do for it.

I believe they are doing just that, and I'm pretty sure we will get a whole set of rules/explanation on Rarity in the final book rather than a single blurb on each tier.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
Tezmick wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
Tezmick wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
ShadeRaven wrote:
I can only speak for myself: I prefer to seeing restrictions and then finding ways to be the benevolent GM who gives players an avenue to achieving what they want that isn't normally readily available, than having to restrict access to what the player believes the rules say is unconstrained.
Okay, self-congratulatory, benevolent DMing aside, when something is Common, as decided, semi-arbitrarily, by someone else, and you think it should be Rare, Unique, or not available, at all, and the player demands access, as it is officially listed as Common, what then?
House-rule? probably give the reasoning behind it to the payer.
I strongly disagree with this if there’s going to be a rarity sytem it needs set rules having to pray your GM will ok your character is honestly terrible and will just increase the likelihood of favouritism at tables, then you get players screaming why one player can have what they want and they can’t.

It would not be a problem at all for my group. My reasoning would be reasonable...

Also screaming at each other for not being able to have what they want? do you play with 8 year olds?

I run games at a store often with people I am unfamiliar with of varying ages, I make a point to set my standards early and while in YOUR experience it’s not an issue it can be especially when you’re dealing with different kinds of people from different walks of life not everyone you meet is as happy and I’ve met more than a few players who believe that unless a book states you can’t have a spell or particular class feature or archetype then it’s good to go, items are a lot easier to argue you can just say they don’t have what they’re looking for.

In short I like rules because most players read them and accept them, the minute it becomes GM fiat I open myself up to potential problems, i also believe that a set rarity sytem

...

If it’s a home game I may alter things to my preference but at a store game I will always default to rules as written so unless there’s a reason not to such as a AP specifically stating otherwise then anything listed as common would be that it prevents arguments and rules lawyering, but if I was to alter rarity it would be at the beginning of the campaign and only if the players know, openness tends to reduce problems.


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That's no different then what I was saying.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
That's no different then what I was saying.

Sorry I must have misread you I thought you said you’d rather change rarity as you see fit, but I must have gotten confused


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
ShadeRaven wrote:
@Vic: PF1 seems to have set a must-optimize standard for Pathfinder campaigns, at least in the minds of many of its players - and, for all I know, that's justified because without it, characters can't be successful. We haven't played through enough material to know if the math insists on optimization as a lot of what I run is homebrewed conversions of classic AD&D modules or, like we are currently doing, the Rise of the Runelord AP that is a bit older so maybe not as deadly(?).

PF1 APs don't require optimization, really, though a lot of people do seem to play that way. Most of the published material expects a medium level of experience, so they don't expect the PCs to be extremely optimized. My group has played probably about half of them so far with characters that are reasonably effective at what they do, but not what you'd consider optimized (we take a lot of options for flavor or non-combat-based things) and we haven't gotten steamrollered yet.

The playtest does seem to expect PCs to be optimized, currently--at least to a greater degree than PF1--but I'm hoping that the fixes to the monster math they've mentioned will alleviate the issue. (Also hoping similar fixes will be made to skill DCs, without requiring items to be successful.)


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Meraki wrote:
ShadeRaven wrote:
@Vic: PF1 seems to have set a must-optimize standard for Pathfinder campaigns, at least in the minds of many of its players - and, for all I know, that's justified because without it, characters can't be successful. We haven't played through enough material to know if the math insists on optimization as a lot of what I run is homebrewed conversions of classic AD&D modules or, like we are currently doing, the Rise of the Runelord AP that is a bit older so maybe not as deadly(?).

PF1 APs don't require optimization, really, though a lot of people do seem to play that way. Most of the published material expects a medium level of experience, so they don't expect the PCs to be extremely optimized. My group has played probably about half of them so far with characters that are reasonably effective at what they do, but not what you'd consider optimized (we take a lot of options for flavor or non-combat-based things) and we haven't gotten steamrollered yet.

The playtest does seem to expect PCs to be optimized, currently--at least to a greater degree than PF1--but I'm hoping that the fixes to the monster math they've mentioned will alleviate the issue. (Also hoping similar fixes will be made to skill DCs, without requiring items to be successful.)

I agree, the APs do not expect the level of crunching that some embrace in a game like this. That would be disastrous, as some play more casually.

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