Dude, how am I the bad guy here?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Had an interesting encounter last night where our PCs entered a tomb full of undead, got our butts handed to us when two enemy encounters (melee undead in one group and ranged undead in another) merged into one, overwhelming us with a barrage of attacks and forcing us to fall back while the undead literally dragged off our unconscious fighter.

Fortunately, they appeared defensive in nature. When we retreated out of the tomb, they did not pursue us past a door and narrow hall.

Low on HP, out of healing spells, many suffering from the wounded condition, missing our primary frontline fighter, and with nothing left but a handful of hero points, I opted to go back in. Never leave a friend behind!

As a monk, I'm fast. If I can have someone open the door for me, then I can dash in, snatch up the fighter, and dash out again before the enemy can react. The group seemed to be in agreement with the plan.

However, nobody opened the door for me. The GM also reminded me that, as an elf, I could not see in the dark. So I moved up to the door, pulled off my backpack, and got out a sunrod. All out of actions. Since I'm next to the door in a 5-foot wide hallway, with a closed door in front of me, and the GM ruled we never left initiative (he's secretly tracking how far away the undead have dragged our companion) nobody can get to the door to open it (as I'm occupying the space and per the rules, you can't normally stop in an allies space in encounter mode).

Everyone takes their turns (though there wasn't much they could do) and it circles back to me. Since I'm the only one who can do it, I light the sunrod, open the door, and dash out.

So, I'm left standing there totally exposed. The ranged undead, who were apparently camped right outside the door, unloaded with a lethal barrage. My monk goes down for the second time. The ranger and cleric behind me take a few hits (4 enemies using all three actions = 12 attacks, where one would likely drop any one of us), but luckily remain standing and are able to recover me and close the door.

They get me up on my feet again with Battle Medicine.

The party ranger and I thought that we still had a chance. Even with our low hit points, if we could time it right, we could run out with the rest of the party and and with a little luck, kill all of the weak undead before they could get their turn and retaliate with another ranged salvo and kill us. It was truly going to be them or us. We weren't leaving our friend behind.

The ranger's turn came up, he moved to the door, opened it, and ran out. I interjected and said, "don't do that." You're literally repeating the same mistake I just made. It's going to get you killed, and likely the rest of us too.

Though the ranger agreed, the GM hates "take backs" and declared that the ranger's turn, as declared, was "locked in."

I straight up told him that "felt wrong." That we were all basically going to die not because we had chosen to take a big risk for a friend, not because we didn't play intelligently, but because he wouldn't LET US play intelligently.

Suddenly, the fighter's player broke in and said "You're doing it again! Every time we get our asses handed to us you always insist on moving forward towards an impossible victory, and we all always die!"

Somehow, now I'm the bad guy, even though its the GM's ruling that is blocking us from doing anything successful, playing intelligently or learning from our past mistakes.

We took a break. Came back to the table, opted to fall back to use Continual Recovery to heal the party to full hit points. The ranger ran to town (only a few hours away) to get more supplies while the cleric rested to regain spells.

The GM said that, despite our having been repelled no less than two times, we had faced the encounter, had earned our XP, and had level up to 3rd-level. The cleric and the fighter both opted to take Continual Recovery. I took Fleet to bump my speed from 35 to 50 feet (I need to be fast if I'm to rescue anybody).

The fighter was ultimately entombed alive. While so buried (in a pit with a heavy sarcophagus like lid) he manged to come to (hours later) and used his own Continual Recovery feat to treat his own wounds. (Mundane healing is SO good in this edition!) He then broke out, ran past the undead (taking lots of damage as he did so), and managed to get out of the tomb with minimal hit points remaining and the whole hoard right on his heels.

He met up with us at our camp just outside several hours after we thought we had lost him. Much rejoicing ensued. So the fighter rescued himself and we ended the game on that happy note.

Since the undead are defensive in nature (there to stop tomb robbers I guess), the plan for the next game is to bypass that section of the dungeon entirely, explore the other areas, and only tackle the undead again if we absolutely have to.

We all leveled up, but man, that was easily the most frustrating game yet in this edition. In part because of the combined encounters, dumb decisions, the GM not wanting to give up any amount of apparent control, and my being attacked by another player.

Sorry. I meant for this to be a "How am I wrong" thread, and to get the thoughts and opinions of outsiders to make sure it really wasn't just me. Frankly though, after writing it out, it's easy to see that there was a lot of wrong to go around. So...I hope you enjoyed my little vent/rant about the foibles of 2nd Edition and our dysfunctional play group. :P


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook Subscriber

Sounds like an issue with a general pattern of behavior than a specific instance. Too many characters that have a habit of trying to push the very edges of probability rather than more pragmatic actions, perhaps?


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

On the "no take backsies" approach I agree with the GM. Take backs and change of plans based on other peoples suggestions leads to two things

A) Slow games where you can hesitate on every action

B) Dominant players controlling the actions of others.

Little opinion on all the rest, sounds like a tense session and a butting of styles (which you seem to report in a lot of your actions so that might need one of your weekly sessions put aside for just drinks and talk.)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Generally I agree, Malk_Content. People absolutely should not be telling others how to play their characters--except for when it's going to lead to a TPK. If someone else is dong something stupid that is going to effect my character and others in a very negative way, I'm going to speak up.

In any case, we talked it over as a group and our GM has said that once a full turn has been declared, it's done. (In this particular case, the ranger had completed their turn, but the next player had not gone yet when I spoke up.)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Man, that's a rough situation. Not sure, without being there, how I would have handled it.... potential party deaths are always tense.

Smart of everyone to walk away and come back later.


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The events sound like a mistmatch between player expectations and GM expectations.

Running back into the room to rescue the fighter was a crazy plan. Running in, grabbing a body, and running out still leaves the undead fighting the runner, so it is not a lot easier than trying to defeat the undead. Four PCs could not defeat the undead; therefore, one PC cannot defeat the undead.

However, the crazy plan was both dramatic (rescuing a friend) and exciting (a death-defying race). As a GM, I often shift the setting a little so that exciting plans are more likely to work. The game is about being exciting or clever.

Ravingdork's GM was aiming for clever. Leveling up the party was part of giving them more resources for a clever solution. He made sure the lost fighter was not in immediate danger, "The fighter was ultimately entombed alive." Therefore, the party had time to invent a clever solution. Unfortunately, the GM did not tell the players, and even if he told the players the characters would still not know without metagaming. He missed the key step of somehow informing the PCs that they did not need to rush into danger. That message was hard to communicate under the circumstances, since undead tend to not leave people alive.

I once used a gloating will'o'wisp to deliver such a message and it would have worked here. "Ha ha ha, the zombies are going to entomb your buddy until he rises as one of them! Days of screaming inside a sarcophagus for you useless fools to rescue him and you never show up. Bye, I am off to feed from that anguish."

Instead, the GM merely did not aid the crazy plan. He saw it as an unnecessary risk. He cut lengthly second-guessing short with a no-take-backs rule, to force the party to move on to the clever solution. Eventually, the party got the message that a crazy plan would not work.

Yet he failed at inspiring the party to try for a clever plan. The fighter had to rescue himself because he was the only character who knew that he could be rescued.

The fighter's player's statement, "You're doing it again! Every time we get our asses handed to us you always insist on moving forward towards an impossible victory, and we all always die!" means that Ravingdork has invented plans that the GM did not support. Going off the rails has a realistic high risk of failure, and crazy plans go off the rails.

As a GM, I lack that problem because one of my players is my wife. She can read me like an open book. Two other players have played D&D and Pathfinder with me for over a decade and we have an understand that I will give useful information, such as with the will'o'wisp. And I like improvisation, so if a crazy plan would make a good story, I find ways to adjust the details so that the plan is more likely to work.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mathmuse wrote:
Unfortunately, the GM did not tell the players, and even if he told the players the characters would still not know without metagaming. He missed the key step of somehow informing the PCs that they did not need to rush into danger. That message was hard to communicate under the circumstances, since undead tend to not leave people alive.

I'm hard of hearing and so often miss critical clues (which is sometimes the cause of our occasional group spats as I don't realize how dangerous the situation really is). In this case, I think I recall hearing the GM say that we could see the fighter's light source (an everburning torch tied to his helmet) growing dimmer and dimmer from underneath the closed door. We could also hear scraping on the floor growing fainter and fainter.

The undead wore metal armor, so we didn't know if the fighter was being dragged away, or if it was just their shuffling feat as they shambled away.

We weren't certain of anything, but we weren't entirely clueless either. Though I think the GM could have handled things a little bit better (in hindsight, he did alright overall), I don't think this is one of those things.


These situations are always rough, and they typically fray nerves.

Here's my advice, and it begins with having an out-of-game conversation (I think somebody farther up-thread mentioned a session of drinks and talking - excellent advice): Sit back and ask the table "How do we want this to play out?"

Sometimes both player and GM get mentally "locked in" on a particular course of action/intended outcome. This "locking in" typically happens when a stressful situation impairs their ability to think broadly. That's just human biology at work, fight or flight stuff.

So, perhaps try to create a habit at the table to help compensate for that instinct. Talk about it ahead of time and consider when these moments happen, having GM and/or players sit back and ask the table "How do we want this to play out?"

The downside here is that it can be immersion-breaking, and it drifts (or veers sharply..) towards metagaming.

The upside is that it takes everybody back a step, and with a little brainstorming a course of action that is satisfactory to the story, might be arrived at.


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Ravingdork wrote:
the GM hates "take backs" and declared that the ranger's turn, as declared, was "locked in."

Loathe that. Situations like that are why I object to the Ask Your GM focus in this edition. GMs always had the ability to be arbitrary.

Malk_Content wrote:

On the "no take backsies" approach I agree with the GM. Take backs and change of plans based on other peoples suggestions leads to two things

A) Slow games where you can hesitate on every action

B) Dominant players controlling the actions of others.

It also leads to teamwork - both IC and OOC - and a better simulation of characters who understand their world far, far better than any player can. To me, denying a player the chance to change their mind when reminded of things they've forgotten, or when given a perspective they didn't arrive at on their own... is punitive.

This isn't chess, where it's competitive. It's certainly not speed-chess. But that's my opinion.


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Leeroy Jenkins did nothing wrong!


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Anguish wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
the GM hates "take backs" and declared that the ranger's turn, as declared, was "locked in."

Loathe that. Situations like that are why I object to the Ask Your GM focus in this edition. GMs always had the ability to be arbitrary.

Malk_Content wrote:

On the "no take backsies" approach I agree with the GM. Take backs and change of plans based on other peoples suggestions leads to two things

A) Slow games where you can hesitate on every action

B) Dominant players controlling the actions of others.

It also leads to teamwork - both IC and OOC - and a better simulation of characters who understand their world far, far better than any player can. To me, denying a player the chance to change their mind when reminded of things they've forgotten, or when given a perspective they didn't arrive at on their own... is punitive.

This isn't chess, where it's competitive. It's certainly not speed-chess. But that's my opinion.

In the moment I really loathed it too, for exactly the same reasons.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

It could have been way worst since by the rules you need 2 hands to drag that fighter and can only drag him about 50 feet per minute. That's like 5 feet per round. Core rule book page 272. If the gm follows those rules. Would have been bad off if you didn't find that out till you had hands on the fighter.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I personally try an foster an environment where players stand by their decisions. Discussing options is fine, but wanting to change AFTER performing an action, particularly if consequences not obvious to the actor have occurred, is a no-no to me. Yes, this has caused my characters to die more frequently than others.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
YogoZuno wrote:
I personally try an foster an environment where players stand by their decisions. Discussing options is fine, but wanting to change AFTER performing an action, particularly if consequences not obvious to the actor have occurred, is a no-no to me. Yes, this has caused my characters to die more frequently than others.

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. All he had done was declare his intent for the round. He hadn't even moved his mini when I interjected. None of his actions even required rolls or checks or anything which, in my mind, would have locked it in more firmly.

By the way, according to the new Gamemastery Guide, I'm a "problematic player" because I did this.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Ravingdork wrote:
YogoZuno wrote:
I personally try an foster an environment where players stand by their decisions. Discussing options is fine, but wanting to change AFTER performing an action, particularly if consequences not obvious to the actor have occurred, is a no-no to me. Yes, this has caused my characters to die more frequently than others.

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. All he had done was declare his intent for the round. He hadn't even moved his mini when I interjected. None of his actions even required rolls or checks or anything which, in my mind, would have locked it in more firmly.

By the way, according to the new Gamemastery Guide, I'm a "problematic player" because I did this.

I'm of two minds on this. I see where you are coming from, because I am often the same way. I like doing the teamwork thing and helping my fellow players figure out the best way to use their turn.

However, I definitely have been a "problematic player" because of doing this. It's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees and get so caught up in planning and strategizing that you forget to just play the game and let the dice fall where they may.

And as a GM, I am equally of two minds - I like seeing my players employ teamwork, but I also have a vested interest in keeping combat running. I definitely have used the "you declared it, it's happening" ruling as a way to head off "let's spend another twenty minutes talking about this action that really isn't going to matter since this is a level-1 encounter".


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

When I'm GMing, things don't really get "locked in" until rolls are made and your hand has moved and released the mini. Even then, I might let it slide sometimes if there is a good reason to (like someone still learning the rules making an innocent mistake).

Liberty's Edge

RD, your GM style is vastly different from the one of your GM. It would likely help to talk with them about this so that they can understand you better.

And yes, GMs often forget that the PCs and the players do not know what the GM knows. I try to take it into account when I GM.

Not to mention miscommunication which happens to the best of us.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I find my GM style actually promotes teamwork and emergent roleplay. Instead of the most tactically minded player being able to inform everyone of the best use of their character, the characters discuss before and after encounters about what tactics they want to employ and then they try (and to be fair often fail) try to keep to the plan. It also means fights take around a 1/3rd of the time.

Player characters absolutely can communicate, but it is couched in PC language.

Now as a note this works for my group because they can (and enjoy) taking 30 minutes to discuss what worked and what needs changing over the campfire. PFS or groups who meet infrequently may find this costs more gametime than it saves.


In my current PF1 campaign I'm playing in a group of three.
Since I'm playing a smart and charming Witch, I try to control the flow of combat and I often give my allies actual orders. I usually know the big picture better then them, both in game and out of game since I may be planning to cast some spell and I need to clear my line of sight or to make the enemies gather in some area to blast them.
My character considers them her meatshields after all (she really needs them because a single bulky enemy getting her alone means that she is done for).

I must say that besides telling them what to do in-character, sometimes I give suggestions out-of-character too (not only when it's them asking for ideas). What I hold back from doing is trying to change their decisions once they are taken - but I do blame them in game after combat. A few sessions ago the group fell into an obvious ambush despite my warnings, we were surrounded, my Witch took a beating and had to save us all with a Dimension Door. She was so close to turning them into frogs... :D


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I feel I take a simpler approach when GM'ing and try to be as player-centric as possible. A "locked in" rule can resolve issues with hesitant or dominant players, but there are usually better ways to do so, like being encouraging/reassuring to the hesitant player and having an honest conversation with the dominant player about the nature of cooperative storytelling. I think it works for a group of players who are there to experience a challenge (for them, the challenge is the fun). I've had groups like that, sure.

Most of my groups are there for fun more than challenge and we've talked about rules like that making the game less fun.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Ravingdork wrote:

When I'm GMing, things don't really get "locked in" until rolls are made and your hand has moved and released the mini. Even then, I might let it slide sometimes if there is a good reason to (like someone still learning the rules making an innocent mistake).

To be clear, I'm usually pretty lax about this, like you are.

I become more strict when I feel like my players are wasting time rather than productively planning. :)


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Eighteen years ago, my wife, our preteen children, and I would travel to Long Island on three-day weekends for a Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 campaign at the home of two friends, run by a friend of theirs. During the two solid days of roleplaying, sometimes we spent hours discussing and debating plans, often to proceed without a definite plan. It frustrated the DM. We could see on his face that he thought the challenge in front of us did not require a plan.

My wife and I retired with those two Long Island friends to a house in the Finger Lakes region of New York. I run the Pathfinder campaigns for those three, recruiting a fourth player from local friends. The party does not spend time debating plans. Due to the decades of roleplaying experience of my wife and housemates, they plan in just a few sentences and follow through on those plans. I am glad that the fourth player acts as a wild card to inspire new strategies; otherwise, they might be content to rely on old proven strategies. They have also mastered adjusting their tactics to that wild card.

My excessive planning and hesitation as a player had been due to trying to prepare for the unknown. I could never tell when I had prepared enough. Nowadays, as a GM, I let the players have narrative control. If the unknown is too scary, then they can avoid it and find another path. As Ravingdork said in the first post, "the plan for the next game is to bypass that section of the dungeon entirely, explore the other areas, and only tackle the undead again if we absolutely have to." No long plan required, no delays due to second guessing.


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Ravingdork wrote:

By the way, according to the new Gamemastery Guide, I'm a "problematic player" because I did this.

Boy I can't wait to see what it says about me


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Talonhawke wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:

By the way, according to the new Gamemastery Guide, I'm a "problematic player" because I did this.

Boy I can't wait to see what it says about me

Actually you're named specifically in the "how not to" column.

;)


I mean.....look it just that one time........It's not like I meant to fireball the church.....And how was I to know that it was the princess disguised as a barmaid when I pinched her butt......and those bandits totally deserved to be polymorphed into pigs and made into bacon.


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Talonhawke wrote:
I mean.....look it just that one time........It's not like I meant to fireball the church.....And how was I to know that it was the1 princess disguised as a barmaid when I pinched her butt......and those bandits totally deserved to be polymorphed into pigs and made into bacon.

It seems you qualify for:

Deliberately derailing the adventure’s plot.

And

Making their character the center of attention, without allowing space for other players.

;D


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Oh man, that reminds me of the time I had a PC literally decide to fireball a crowd of random civilians "for the lulz", right at the start of an adventure... completely derailed game, ended the session right there, and I've never let that person back as a player in my games...


If a player takes an action forgetting an important fact that their character would have remembered, that's... Metagaming? Or some kind of strange reverse metagaming. In these kinds of situations, I would allow the player do redo their action - they only play once a week and keeping all the vital information their character would remember in their head can be hard.


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MaxAstro wrote:
Oh man, that reminds me of the time I had a PC literally decide to fireball a crowd of random civilians "for the lulz", right at the start of an adventure... completely derailed game, ended the session right there, and I've never let that person back as a player in my games...

We had a guy who murdered the skyship's only pilot (despite stern meta warnings of the potential ingame ramifications), causing it to crash and kill everyone on board (including the rest of the party). All because the pilot accused him of being a stowaway (which he was).

We reset the skyship scene in the following game and unanimously forgot to invite the guy back.

It was the only time in over 20 years of roleplaying we've ever TPK'd and hit the metaphorical Undo button.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quote:
And yes, GMs often forget that the PCs and the players do not know what the GM knows. I try to take it into account when I GM.

Players also often forget there might well be things they don't know that might impact their decisions. As a GM, I try to be clear about confirming if a player has committed to an action before revealing things like traps they've just sprung, or AoOs they've provoked, or attacks from hidden or invisible foes. If players are able to just 'undo' an action, it gives the capacity to back out of decisions that might trigger some of these things, and that isn't in the spirit of the game, to me. Sure, debate away with the rest of the team as much as you want, but once you decide, you have committed.

And I get cranky when players try to change things after they have new information, or once they realise there was something they didn't consider. Tough.

As to TPKs, as a GM, I have overseen few, but there have been a couple in important situations. My group recently got to the final encounters of Strange Aeons, after over 2 years of IRL time. Without going into details, they did some things that seemed clever to them, but which the author had anticipated. They managed to trigger 3 overlevel encounters plus a debuff at once, and funnily enough, they TPK'd. Unfortunate, but they made the decisions, and had to live with the consequences. Due to circumstances of the AP, the group were reset to before the final encounters, and strangely, the second time around, they only faced one encounter at a time, and were able to triumph. This is what happens when all of the secrets of a situation are revealed.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I generally don't allow take-backsies based on someone piping in and saying, "No, don't do that! Do this instead."
I will allow a player to "leave his hand on the piece" (like some people do in chess).
And if a player is announcing something based off of incomplete information that his character would have, but the player didn't fully understand, then yes.

I have this one player. He is constantly piping up and backwards suggesting things.

Player 1: I cast fireball
Player 2: No. Don't cast fireball. Cast wind wall.
Player 1 (to me): Okay, I don't cast fireball. I cast windwall.

I straight up don't allow it.

But, again, like a few have said, I wasn't there.
I have had so many characters of mine killed over the years. I tend to take it with a grain of salt.


First I seem to remember this situation as it was the very fight that would have netted us our first PF2 TPK if my cleric would not have pulled off a lucky maximum strength 3-action heal, which healed us for 50 points of damage (4 players and one animal companion) and also dealt a little more than that to the opposing undead.

Second if I remember correctly flying costs an action each turn, so 12 attacks by 4 enemies are not quite possible if they want to remain airborne, so you may want to talk with your GM about that.

Third, been there done that. As our RPG group is consisting of many players that I usually do wargames or competitive games with we regulary "hive-mind" our tactical situation in battle and act accordingly. I mean, even if RPG's are not meant to be competitive, at least in battle they are. And if one mind is controlling all the opponents we consider it only fair that "one" mind is also controlling all the players. Else you may "end up" playing chess with one player on one side controlling all 16 pieces and 4 players controlling 4 pieces each on the other, which is an inherent disadvantage.

Note that we do not do this all the time, but if for any reason we are under the impression that the situation / opposition is difficult to overcome we likely might end up playing as a borg collective.

Liberty's Edge

TBH I heavily dislike PC deaths in my groups unless they are meaningful. I think it is because I remember the good old days in the 90s when my own characters died so often that I just didn't even bother to give them names.


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The Raven Black wrote:
TBH I heavily dislike PC deaths in my groups unless they are meaningful.

The party cleric, fighter, and monk were all dropped in one round. If not for the NPC fighter and the party ranger using the extra actions from his badger to get people out, it all would have been over right there.


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Ubertron_X wrote:
...if I remember correctly flying costs an action each turn, so 12 attacks by 4 enemies are not quite possible if they want to remain airborne, so you may want to talk with your GM about that.

I've texted the GM about it. He wanted to know if incorporeal creatures needed to still spend that action, since "gravity has no effect on them." He says he's going to ignore that rule for incorporeal creatures (sticking with how he ran it before) unless we can find a rule saying otherwise.

I looked up the incorporeal trait, but didn't see anything impacting movement (aside from moving through objects and creatures).

He's going to look at the creature stats again, to see if he can "discern any information."

Not sure I like the way he's going about it. Feels like he set it up to get his way (by trying to prove a negative). Though I'm sure it's unintentional, he could use the same faulty logic to get his way with almost anything in the future, despite what the rules say. I'm probably just overthinking it, and will give him the benefit of a doubt.

EDIT: Further discussion has ensued. I warned against using faulty logic to try and prove a negative (and also made it known that I wasn't being argumentative; just that I wanted to know how the rules worked, and wanted to get there with sound logic).

He's now wondering how come the flying rules seem to apply to incorporeal beings, but climbing rules don't apply to those who burrow.

Dark Archive

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Quote:
TBH I heavily dislike PC deaths in my groups unless they are meaningful.

Personally, both as player and GM, I despise the GM going to obvious great lengths, or making bad guys do illogical things, to prevent a death. Without death being a possibility, players don't need to consider their tactics as much. If circumstances say a character should die, they should die, no matter how much sympathy the table feels for the victim. And if that is the whole table, then so be it.


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I agree that a "too-soft" GM can really ruin the fun.


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GM has made a few rulings:

- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.

He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).

I don't believe the rules support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.

Liberty's Edge

Ravingdork wrote:

GM has made a few rulings:

- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.

He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).

I don't believe the rules support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.

With the tight math in PF2, unsupported rulings such as these are a great way to make such enemies way more dangerous than they are supposed to be.

Liberty's Edge

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YogoZuno wrote:
Quote:
TBH I heavily dislike PC deaths in my groups unless they are meaningful.
Personally, both as player and GM, I despise the GM going to obvious great lengths, or making bad guys do illogical things, to prevent a death. Without death being a possibility, players don't need to consider their tactics as much. If circumstances say a character should die, they should die, no matter how much sympathy the table feels for the victim. And if that is the whole table, then so be it.

I feel that the best solution is what makes the game more fun for those involved.

If my players wish for the hard truth of the die roll, so be it. After all, it is not my PCs that are at stake.

That said, in my party, we have a player that puts a lot of thought in the story and goals of their PC and having her PC at real risk of dying is obviously traumatic to her. I feel that it is better for all in such a case to avoid a random meaningless death that would just ruin her day.

After all, there are far more ways than PC death at my fingertips to punish a player for their PC's stupid behavior :-D


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
The Raven Black wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:

GM has made a few rulings:

- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.

He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).

I don't believe the rules support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.

With the tight math in PF2, unsupported rulings such as these are a great way to make such enemies way more dangerous than they are supposed to be.

The GM does raise some good questions, though. Like, "what happens if an incorporeal creature falls?"

Liberty's Edge

MaxAstro wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:

GM has made a few rulings:

- Short of a developer saying otherwise, incorporeal creatures and those relying on magical flight need not spend an action to hover.
- Such creatures cannot freefall, and must use the fly action to move.
- Such creatures can ascend at full speed, since it is magic and not muscle propelling them.

He thinks these make more sense and lead to less headaches (like banshees being unable to wail without landing, incorporeals being unable to land due to their inability to interact with physical matter, and thus always being slowed from being in the ground).

I don't believe the rules support it, but it probably will be easier to manage.

With the tight math in PF2, unsupported rulings such as these are a great way to make such enemies way more dangerous than they are supposed to be.
The GM does raise some good questions, though. Like, "what happens if an incorporeal creature falls?"

They are stopped by any solid obstacle unless they decide to pass through it.

So, they behave like any other creature but for what comes with being incorporeal, which is being able to decide to pass through a solid obstacle.

Liberty's Edge

Too bad for RD that I am not a dev though. Asking Mark Seifter on his thread might be more fruitful I think.


At my table there are sometimes cases of redo actions, usually are right on the spot and always before any rolls were made of course.
I have no problem with those.
I sometimes made some redo (for instance on the last fight i passed a initiave of a monster, as it would had no impact on what the party would do i did his actions and insered him in his place the initiative path (i have a kind of initiative collum on top of my GM screen).
Of course that is always talked with the party.

And yes sometimes it is frustrating from thi side of the GM screen when your players take what it seems to you like a huge ammount of time with something that you know it's something basic and without any real challenge, but being a GM also is being pacient.


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As a DM, I sometimes help my players with tactics if there is a need (when there's a character life at stake, I consider there's a need). The thing is: Not all players are interested in tactics. I find that hard to penalize a player (or the party) because the tactical part of the game is not important enough for him or because he doesn't grab it well. So, for very tough situations, I accept to put everything to a halt, and help my players as much as I can with the tactical part.

But, on the other hand, I don't hesitate to tell them I won't be nice if they try crazy things. Sometimes, it's just better to run away with one death than to live a TPK. In this situation I would have killed more than one Fighter as from your description, Ravingdork, it's a situation where running away looks like the proper thing to do.


Normally, I don't like it when people ask other players to take back actions, but this is actually a perfectly reasonable time to do it. Telling someone "Dont open the door" when they see their friends reaching for the handle is way different than, say, the cleric saying "I use battle medicine roll medicine to treat wounds on the fallen bandit so I can ask him some questions" and the bloodthirsty fighter saying "no you dont, I slap the med kit out of your hands and behead the bandit"


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

For my games once a player has completed their turn that's it, they can't undo what was done unless it is something extreme that involves potential character death. If it's something like they forget to add two fire damage to their strike that's fine, I'll take it off the foe's HP.

They know that this can go the other way too, if I forget something with a foe, but that doesn't happen too often, or rather when it does I usually don't mention it to them and just make a note to remember for the next time.

In our session 0 I explicitly told them that each of them has one character and they are expected not to try to play other player's characters. They're all seasoned players so this isn't a big deal, and often when they drift towards this they self-correct and apologize to the other player without me having to say anything.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Fumarole wrote:
For my games once a player has completed their turn that's it, they can't undo what was done unless it is something extreme that involves potential character death.

At what point do you consider a character's turn completed? When they finish declaring their 3 actions? When they take their hand off the mini? When they say they're done? Where that line is drawn can really matter.


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Ravingdork wrote:
Fumarole wrote:
For my games once a player has completed their turn that's it, they can't undo what was done unless it is something extreme that involves potential character death.
At what point do you consider a character's turn completed? When they finish declaring their 3 actions? When they take their hand off the mini? When they say they're done? Where that line is drawn can really matter.

What I do... is... Ask My Player.

Seriously. Every turn ends with me (as GM), asking "is that everything?" or "is that it" or "done?" I either get the usual "yup, that's all my actions" or an occasional "I'm just checking something". (As a player, I end my turns telling the DM I'm done.) My groups have evolved an efficient shorthand and standard-operating-procedure for all this kind of micromanagement.

I do keep things reasonable in terms of six-second rounds and lengthy free-action conversations, but if a player is mostly done declaring their actions and someone else says "hey, aren't you carrying that magic item we got..." or "hey, don't you have that spell that lets you..." I'll let the group have a few moments to hash things out. See, at my table, interaction between players is socializing, and as long as it's on-topic, I'm 100% supportive.

But again, I run AMP tables not AYG tables.


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One of my favorite lines as a GM is, "Your character would know/remember that ..."

It lets me remind the players about technical details of their own character that they may not have thought about. Not everyone who plays is so obsessive as I am about knowing or remembering such things.

As for the take-back of player actions:

Generally I don't allow take-back of actions that have been decided on, though if there is some potential negative consequences, I may do a 'your character would know ...' warning about it first.

For other players influencing things, I try to follow the same idea. One player can say something to another player that would be similar to that 'your character would know ...' idea. Like what Ravingdork has in the initial post. 'Wait, your character would know that the ranged undead are going to do the exact same thing to you that they just did to me.' And as long as no additional information or results of the actions have been announced, the player can accept/reject the advice of the other player and present new/original plans for their turn's actions accordingly.

Now, if the active player wants to do an action that another player thinks is a bad idea, I might have them resolve that in-game with their characters. Opposed initiative check to see if the Ranger gets the door open before the Monk stops him or something like that.

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