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RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy
To be honest I think it's every developer's dream when making a game world to make a fleshed out world like the Forgotten Realms. Most just don't want it that fleshed out though or that creepy for that matter.

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Mikan
Sep 5, 2007

by Radium

happyelf posted:

hey guys, it's all well and good to bitch about racist ethnic cariacatures, but everything in an rpg setting is a cariacature, and much of it has a racist subtext.

i mean, tribal elves who live in the forest, who have bows and feathers in their hair? good indians

surface goblins, wierd raiding creatures that come out of the wilds riding wolves to raid and burn? bad indians

i mean poo poo, the whole idea that there are evil swarthy barbaric races out there that you're allowed to kill. . . that's pretty bad

These don't even have the "defense" of using fantasy races or analogues; the description of the Tian is literally "sneaky Chinaman/honorable Japanese", the Varisians are all wacky con artist gypsies. I don't know if you've read the Pathfinder campaign setting or not; if I hadn't read it myself I wouldn't think much of it, but now that I have it's unsettling to see "real world racist stereotype" presented without any sense of self-awareness or exaggeration.

I'm not sure how to convey exactly why the descriptions bother me like they do; I've seen plenty of hamhanded racist analogues in fantasy/sci-fi settings, and there have been worse than Pathfinder, but the presentation in the campaign guide is unsettling in a way that a lot of others aren't.

quote:

i tink mikan has a point above but still, 'oh golly we get to go to egypt' is still a pretyt legit thing for somebody to enjoy in a game.

Yeah, it's legit and it's not something that would sell me off a setting, it's just not something that would necessarily sell me on a setting either.
My real issue with the Pathfinder real world stuff is that they don't make enough effort to alter it for a fantasy setting; there are sections that are straight up the same as the real world, and it's jarring to see that right next to "oh also check out this demon dimension". For all the parts of the setting that are cool and imaginative and go somewhere interesting, the exactly like the real world parts come off as lazy. Give me all of the cool iconic themes and imagery of Fantasy Egypt, give me neat cultural stuff that feels like it would come from Fantasy Egypt, give me interesting plots and NPCs remniscent of Egypt (plus fantasy), just don't give me straight up Egypt I guess.
(That kind of thing could totally work if you built the setting premise around it, what happens when you take the real world and place it in this kind of fantasy world, check out the juxtaposition and how we can use it to highlight certain things, but that's not what I'm getting from Pathfinder.)

Mikan fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Apr 26, 2010

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



NorgLyle posted:

Black people are so athletic and Asians are just so smart. It's not racist, guys. I'm saying good things about a broad group that stands in for real world people in my game world!

So, basically you can't use real-world analogues of any kind, good or bad, because hey, racist!

All fantasy cultures must be unique and unrelated to any real-world culture in any way!

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
Holy poo poo, happyelf to the rescue. I was about to write something very similar to what you said by pointing out how most settings get around the "racism" issue by just attaching the stereotypes to other non-human races and then patting themselves on the back.

Making humans front and center in Golarian is an intentional move by the designers, as they wanted the current age to be a time where humans had uncontested dominance of the world. Yes, I am aware that most settings claim this is the case, but most of those all become bogged down describing how awesome and wonderful all the non-human races are. In Golarian:

- the elves left long ago and only a few of them are still kicking about. Not every forest is full of them. Most of those that are there are sitting guarding the gate that the other elves used to leave.
- the gnomes are weird fey creatures that are only recent arrivals to the world and don't have any kind of formal society.
- the dwarves only have one nation situated at the spot where they broke through from underground, but for the most part they are spread all over the globe and don't have any kind of formal society.
- half-orcs/half-elves are the same as always...basically interspersed among humanity.
- halflings....I loving hate halflings and I don't think I ever read what their role in the world is.

Then you have the humans. Instead of just saying, "there are humans, they come in lots of shapes and sizes", they decided to split them into a variety of races depending on where they come from in the world. I agree that attributing behaviors to them is kind of retarded, but I do like the idea of how the designers have mapped out how these different human groups migrated through the world, met and bred and became new races. As touchy as the subject is, different human groups (especially in a setting without a modern global culture) DO have cultural things that are common amongst them that do remain for a couple generations even when they leave their homeland.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just think a part of this is that they've taken away the common masks of dwarf and orc and the all too human face makes some of the stuff a bit more touchy.

Mikan
Sep 5, 2007

by Radium

Tolan posted:

So, basically you can't use real-world analogues of any kind, good or bad, because hey, racist!

All fantasy cultures must be unique and unrelated to any real-world culture in any way!

If this is what you're getting from the conversation, you must not be actually reading any of it.
Real world analogues are fine; but when you have a fantasy group of people that are nothing but a collection of racist stereotypes there's an issue.
Using real world cultures as a starting point for a setting is cool and inevitable, you can't avoid it; but when you have a region or culture that is literally Fantasy China Filled With Super Smart People Who Do Asian Stereotypes there's an issue.
Using stereotypes to describe your fantasy culture is going to happen in any setting, and it's convenient shorthand for players to get immersed; but when I can't tell the difference between Fantasy Culture A and what the racist old lady across the street thinks about Real World Culture A, there's an issue

AnonymousZebra posted:

As touchy as the subject is, different human groups (especially in a setting without a modern global culture) DO have cultural things that are common amongst them that do remain for a couple generations even when they leave their homeland.

I don't have any issue with this, exploring culture in RPGs owns. Every group of humans is going to have its own culture. It's just that the groups they describe are in a lot of cases nothing but racist real world stereotypes.

Iron Kingdoms handles this better, I think; it still has its issues but there are a lot of different human cultures in that game, each one feels interesting and distinct. Even with Iron Kingdoms having all these fantasy races humans are still front and center, there's a huge difference between Llael and Khardov. There's a huge difference between the Menites and the Cygnarans.

Mikan fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Apr 26, 2010

happyelf
Nov 9, 2000

by mons al-madeen
honestly leaving everything else aside, if i were to do a kitchen sink setting with lots of dominant human races, the last thing i'd do is attach them all to existing concepts

sure if somebody wants to be a ninja or w/e you should cover them, and there is the issue of genre tropes- asian ones in particular are genre tropes a lot of people enjoy

that said, a superior option is clearly that if you're going to make a bunch of human and nonhuman cultures, you should build them from the ground up

now i'm guilty of doing otherwise myself imc. in my game, the duchies are all based vaguely on existing ethnic and cultural groups, and there are implications about the tribal popultion as well, although they're mised between a lot of backgrounds and also influenced by colonialism.

there's plenty that differentiates them as well, but handles liek these still allow people to grasp a concept and gain additional inspiration. on top of this, i'm a fan of history, and so i've put a lot of historical tropes into action in ym game- colonialsm, revolution, hegemony, and so on- and i've attached culture concepts to a degree, in order to help present that idea.

for isntance in my game, the military of the dominant empire is almost napoleonic in it's era of dress.

now as noted above, this can failat times, but it can also provide a lot of groundwork and evoke themes more easily than they otherwise could be.

FedkaTheConvict
Nov 4, 2009

Tolan posted:

So, basically you can't use real-world analogues of any kind, good or bad, because hey, racist!

All fantasy cultures must be unique and unrelated to any real-world culture in any way!

Here's the hook: the designers are drawing on cultural themes, tropes, and myths in order to build their fantasy world. It's legit to do that, but the objection is that when the reader goes through Golarian and they wind up in not-China or not-India, they're encountering a rendition of their preconceived stereotypes and beliefs rather than a meaningful allusion to the source culture.

Not only is it an embrace of cliche, it's orientalism.

The way to do it right is to be fluent in the culture whose themes, tropes, and myths you're appropriating.

For instance, Steven Brust's not-Hungarian protagonist in Taltos, Jhereg, etc. Also Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar, which is kiiinda like Not-Russia with some other stuff tossed in the blender and fermented for a while. Which, considering the premise for the setting, is just about right.

FedkaTheConvict fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 27, 2010

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



No, I agree. What I was objecting to was the idea that applying anything stereotypical about a group as a characterization was racist. Specifically, in the context of Varisians, that stuff that lends them the "gypsy" feel (scarves, traveling, entertainers) was inherently "racist".

I think that in the context of Golarion, there are reasonable, non-demeaning explanations for the traveling, the scarves, dancing, and entertainment focus. I can't and won't defend the addition of the "thieving" Varisians, because that's the distasteful and ugly part. The fortunetelling is iffy, as it was used as an excuse by the medieval church to persecute and terrorize the Romani population of Europe.

I think it's laziness on the part of Paizo to not further define and differentiate their pseudo-cultures from the real-world base culture. I think that the "expanded" articles that have shown up in the various Pathfinder issues have addressed some of the concerns raised in the descriptions in the Campaign Setting, which seems natural given the page counts involved. They did gently caress up by leaving the Sczarni in as part of the Varisian culture, instead of pulling them out and making them into a more catholic crime organization (ala the Red Mantis guys or the pirates).

I don't think I've seen much on the not-Japan and not-India to necessarily judge where they're going with them. That's why my question about superficial "feel" versus the (possibly) more nuanced view you get from a longer, more detailed take.. to which the answer was "doesn't matter."

I'm not sure how you're supposed to adequately describe a fantasy culture without resorting to broad strokes (of either stripe).. which are generally stereotypes that individuals (PCs and NPCs) frequently flout. I agree that avoiding tired or obviously biased/racist tropes is a good thing, but I also think that if you're trying to evoke the "feel" of a particular real-world culture you have to provide at least some touchstones.

In the end, it doesn't sound like Golarion is for you, Mikan.

Hypnobeard fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Apr 27, 2010

Cyrai
Sep 12, 2004
My take is that it doesn't really seem like it would enrich the setting to me. It doesn't sound like there's enough there to support an interesting adventure. If you can convey the culture pretty well in one sentence, what is the DM going to do with it? If it's a culture that's basically like a real culture, the DM has nothing to go by but stereotypes. Who is going to read about whoever the Gypsies are and have them be anything but stereotypical Gypsies?

Mikan
Sep 5, 2007

by Radium

Tolan posted:

No, I agree. What I was objecting to was the idea that applying anything stereotypical about a group as a characterization was racist. Specifically, in the context of Varisians, that stuff that lends them the "gypsy" feel (scarves, traveling, entertainers) was inherently "racist".

It's not the scarves and entertainers thing, well not just those things. When you have a description that contains literally every single stereotypical Gypsy trait (including the over the top racist ones) then :crossarms:

quote:

I think that in the context of Golarion, there are reasonable, non-demeaning explanations for the traveling, the scarves, dancing, and entertainment focus.

You're missing something here. Whether there are explanations for these things in the setting, they still had to come from a real life writer. You can't use this to defend all of these awful, questionable things.
"You see, there are legitimate explanations in the setting for why the Tian have issues with their L/R sounds and ride their horses badly. Here's the section that describes what their ancestors did to make them better at math."
They could have used real world cultures as a basis and presented things that evoke the themes and tropes of those cultures (as mentioned in the post directly before yours) without resorting to this kind of nonsense

quote:

I'm not sure how you're supposed to adequately describe a fantasy culture without resorting to broad strokes (of either stripe)

There's nothing wrong with using broad strokes to paint a particular culture. I've said this almost verbatim in other posts. You need those kind of broad strokes to give people a good foundation, to draw and immerse them into the setting.
But there are ways of writing these broad strokes without creating a one dimensional culture.
Even more importantly, you can paint a culture in broad strokes without using all of the stuff I've been complaining about. It doesn't matter what these cultures are like in the context of the setting, they're still based in some awfully racist thoughts and stereotypes that come from actual people (the writers). I can't say that the writers themselves are racist since I don't know any of them but the content they put out certainly is.

quote:

In the end, it doesn't sound like Golarion is for you, Mikan.

But I've said multiple times I like the other stuff in the setting??? I just don't like the racism and I'm genuinely surprised that anybody would put this kind of stuff in print in 2008. This is the kind of poo poo I expect to see in bad 80's cyberpunk games or old school D&D garbage.

happyelf
Nov 9, 2000

by mons al-madeen
honestly tho like

Consider thedas, the dragon age setting.

it's very much a standard setting but it's still better than loving gloarion.

the qunari are pretty cool, atho they draw a lot from muslim/turkic inspiration, and the dwarves have a cool hook, too. the eurolike nations are there, and that can get a bit thick, but still, there is a lot in there that works, and i'm saying this as not a big fan of bioware writing

i think gloarion could have been a lot better, and i think like a lot of pathfinder, it's a bit too perfunctory

ninjeff
Jan 19, 2004

happyelf posted:

Consider thedas, the dragon age setting.
:aaaaa:

hipster werewolf
Mar 4, 2006

happyelf posted:

honestly tho like

Consider thedas, the dragon age setting.

the Dalish elves are a much better way to do "nomadic peoples nobody trusts or wants around" than writing up a race as "filthy loving gypsies"

also city elves :roflolmao:

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



Mikan posted:

But I've said multiple times I like the other stuff in the setting??? I just don't like the racism and I'm genuinely surprised that anybody would put this kind of stuff in print in 2008. This is the kind of poo poo I expect to see in bad 80's cyberpunk games or old school D&D garbage.

Because the same writers doing about 80% of the stuff Paizo puts out for Pathfinder; the adventure path after this one is likely to reiterate all the stereotypes about the Tian you dislike, and there are other settings out there without all this stuff. Since I know you don't play PFRPG, doesn't seem like anything left; Golarion's pretty deliberately positioned as a "generic" fantasy world, and there are a multitude of those out there.

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
So moving past the stereotypes discussion for a minute, I actually have another conundrum that I'm trying to work through right now having to do with the Kingmaker Adventure Path.


Warning, wall of words ahead.
It basically has to do with the somewhat unorthodox way that I track party wealth. Basically, a long time ago I realized that there were certain unwritten assumptions of character progression in the 3.5 system that basically caused most players to deck their PCs out in very predictable sets of magic items. Any of us that have played enough 3.5 games into the higher levels can basically name these magic items. The wizard is always going to have a headband of intellect, the cleric some kind of wisdom boosting item, everyone will be wearing cloaks of resistance and rings of protection, etc. In the process of decking themselves out in these items, a lot of PCs will end up ignoring or selling other magical items that they deem "useless" or which they can't use because the slot is already being held by something else. (All of this is based on the assumption that magical items are available for PCs to either purchase or craft using an NPC or cohort).

I set out to find a way to make magical items rarer and more "magical" as well as giving PCs the chance to play with some of the less used magical items, all while not in any way weakening them relative to a party which has free access to all the stat and other enhancement items.

How I did this was, using the "suggested party wealth" as a guide, created a system where the PCs are awarded "heroic points" as they level which they can then spend to enhance themselves. Basically they can spend the points to give themselves +1 enhancements to their attacks (all of them!) or to up one of their stats by +2, or so on. The costs of these enhancements are in line with what items that do the same thing would cost in gold. There is a Paizo thread which I will put the link up for when I get home which talks about something similar to this. A system like that can also be found in the Trailblazer book (http://www.amazon.com/Trailblazer-New-Horizons-3-5-Roleplaying/dp/1449503608).

This system itself is not my problem, because it actually works beautifully for everything I wanted it to do. Wizards and clerics will still blow all their points on boosting that one stat of theirs, while the martial classes will usually buy up resistance enhancements or things that boost their AC/Attack bonus. The PCs will still be just as strong as normal (actually stronger since these effects can't be sundered or dispelled) and they won't be wearing a single magic item to do it. There are still magic items out in the world, but they are significantly rarer and I can craft entire histories and stories behind each one making it much more precious and real to the PCs. Plus I no longer need to throw mountains of gold at them (since they don't need to purchase expensive magic items) so they end up spending their gold on mundane things like art, jewelry, houses, land, bribing a king, etc.

In any case, I'd be happy to talk about all that in more detail later, but I want to actually get to my problem...

Kingmaker basically assumes the PCs will be of a certain wealth level in order to finance their kingdom. Basically all the purchase costs and such seem to be at magnitudes acceptable for a party that is gathering up and selling bundles of +1 swords every adventure and I'm basically completely unsure about how to convert this to a wealth level appropriate to a game like mine.

Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Apr 27, 2010

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



My impression was that costs for things are assuming your players are using the BPs generated by their kingdom with minimal influxes of cash from the party treasury rather than outright purchasing things with gold pieces. One of the rewards for expanding the kingdom is that you can build/maintain more stuff.

There is a conversion for players to put gold into the kingdom (4k gp->1 BP, if I recall correctly), so it should be pretty easy to figure out what one of your heroic points is worth in gp and convert that to BP. Then the players just have one more place to spend their heroic points.

You'll probably also want to significantly alter or drop the "random magic items available in your city!" part.

Or am I missing something?

Pieces of Peace
Jul 8, 2006
Hazardous in small doses.

happyelf posted:

the qunari are pretty cool

The funny thing about the qunari is that they are actually pretty developed in game (well... the whole one qunari in the game, anyway), and don't just have a one-note culture, but then the developers go and say something stupid like "they're basically militant islamic borg".
Which is kind of the opposite of Pathfinder where the supporters assure you all the human groups are totally diverse and interesting and then they are just what Mikan said, some 19th century grandpa's idea of other cultures.
It really feels like Greyhawk, which had almost the exact same drat cultural groups (okay here's your not-Gypsies and your not-Britons and your not-Arabs), which is a shame because the plots dealing with the interactions of said ethnicities are not too bad at all (Curse of the Crimson Throne, anyway, the only one I have in full). I think it's kind of just a casualty of the whole "RETRO IS THE ONLY GOOD GAMING" 'nardout that inspired Pathfinder RPG in the first place. Kind of embracing that whole "RPGs are for white male nerds, just cater to their lack of interest in other cultures except for fetishizing them"

Pieces of Peace fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Apr 27, 2010

Stuntman Mike
Apr 14, 2007
The saucer people are coming!
I hear all this gibber-gabber about unlimited per-day cantrips in Pathfinder, but I can't find it in the Core Rulebook anywhere - and the sorcer and wizard tables have a number for cantrips in the spells-per-day table. Was that rule removed and people are still talking about it, or what?

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 57 days!
Soiled Meat
Pretty sure that's the number of different cantrips they can prepare to use in a given day.

Danhenge
Dec 16, 2005
You memorize a specific number of cantrips, and then you cast them as many times as you want.

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



PFRPG Reference Doc posted:

Cantrips: Wizards can prepare a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, each day, as noted on Table: Wizard under “Spells per Day.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they are not expended when cast and may be used again. A wizard can prepare a cantrip from a prohibited school, but it uses up two of his available slots (see below).
(from http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/wizard.html#wizard)

PFRPG Reference Doc posted:

Cantrips: Sorcerers learn a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, as noted on Table: Sorcerer Spells Known under “Spells Known.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they do not consume any slots and may be used again.
(from http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/sorcerer.html#sorcerer)

mixitwithblop
Feb 4, 2009

by elpintogrande
Paizocon is less than a month away: http://paizo.com/paizocon

Event schedule and signup: http://paizo.com/paizocon/events

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



mixitwithblop posted:

Paizocon is less than a month away: http://paizo.com/paizocon

Event schedule and signup: http://paizo.com/paizocon/events

Anyone going to attend? I'm running some PFS sessions there.

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
Too freaking far on the other side of the country for me. I'll go to GenCon and visit the Paizo booth there when the time comes.

Ignoranus
Jun 3, 2006

HAPPY MORNING
I just have a quick rules question about Sneak Attack. I'm allowed to ask here, right? ...Right?

Does a rogue get the +xd6 to each and every attack made while an opponent is flat-footed/flanked/whatever? Like, say you attack as a full-round action with two weapons, with Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, so you've got 10/5 with one hand and 9/4 with the other (or whatever). If you hit with all four of those, do you get your sneak attack damage four times?

Hypnobeard
Sep 15, 2004

Obey the Beard



Sure, you can ask here.

It appears from a quick reading of the Sneak Attack section in the Rogue class description that yes, the rogue would get the +xd6 to each attack that hit.

Danhenge
Dec 16, 2005

Ignoranus posted:

I just have a quick rules question about Sneak Attack. I'm allowed to ask here, right? ...Right?

Does a rogue get the +xd6 to each and every attack made while an opponent is flat-footed/flanked/whatever? Like, say you attack as a full-round action with two weapons, with Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, so you've got 10/5 with one hand and 9/4 with the other (or whatever). If you hit with all four of those, do you get your sneak attack damage four times?

Yes, this is the advantage of sneak attack-type builds is the "blender" routine wherein you get a lot of attacks to stack that damage.

Tactical Bonnet
Nov 5, 2005

You'd be distressed too if some pile of bones just told you your favorite hat was stupid.
I'm actually in a Pathfinder game as we speak, it's a high magic, high money game. 25 point buy.

I'm currently a 4th level elf wizard

code:

STR 10
DEX 14
CON 10
INT 20
WIS 14
CHA 10

I'm thinking of branching into Fighter for a few levels, then taking the Eldritch Knight prestige class. I'm wondering if there's a decent Pathfinder Character buildier(other than the spreadsheet model one) to see how the numbers would look. I was thinking Wiz 5/Ftr 5/EK 10 as a master plan, With the right feats that puts me at roughly 20-something AC and 0% spell failure, it also at 20 would give me a BAB of +17/12/7/2. with a STR of 14. I could take weapon finesse to negate the lack of a bonus to hit from strength at the lower levels. The reason for going fighter 5 instead of Wiz9/Ftr1/EK10(to just meet the prereqs) is so I can use the levels of fighter to pick up bonus feats to make my melee actually useful.

Pretty much I want opinions from people more familiar with the system than I am on how good of a plan this is. I know I'd be crippling my spell casting for a few levels, but I think it would be worth it in the end. By level 20 I'd be casting as a 14th level wizard, which isn't spectacular, but is probably perfectly viable.

Or, alternately, if there's a better prestige class for a melee wizard, please fill me in!

Danhenge
Dec 16, 2005
Never be anything other than a full caster.

Seriously unless you have some build you've thought up that's quirky that you'll think you enjoy don't do it.

If you stay full caster you'll be a 14th level caster by level 14!! 3 levels later you can cast wish. Don't be dumb.

Tactical Bonnet
Nov 5, 2005

You'd be distressed too if some pile of bones just told you your favorite hat was stupid.
I just think it'd be sort of fun to play a melee wizard, I'm just trying to figure out if it would render me entirely useless in combat.

Danhenge
Dec 16, 2005

Tactical Bonnet posted:

I just think it'd be sort of fun to play a melee wizard, I'm just trying to figure out if it would render me entirely useless in combat.

It probably wouldn't render you entirely useless but it's difficult and irritating especially lacking the tools that the complete series of books offered gish types.

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
That's a lot of discussion on the Paizo boards about how to make a gish using Pathfinder rules. I really haven't delved too deep into them, but I see one pop up at least every other week. Might want to look there.

mixitwithblop
Feb 4, 2009

by elpintogrande

Tolan posted:

Anyone going to attend? I'm running some PFS sessions there.

I was all up and ready to go, but various events have prevented that. If anybody is near Seattle and wants to go, I can gift you the ticket. In others news, the Advanced Players Guide cover has been released:

Tactical Bonnet
Nov 5, 2005

You'd be distressed too if some pile of bones just told you your favorite hat was stupid.

Danhenge posted:

It probably wouldn't render you entirely useless but it's difficult and irritating especially lacking the tools that the complete series of books offered gish types.

Wasn't the whole idea behind pathfinder to allow you to use the 3.5 suppliments with a better basic ruleset? Foer example, taking Wiz7/Swashbuckler 3/Eldritch Knight 10? I think that would be a pretty potent combination, casting as a 16th level wizard and dealing damage based on your intellect modifier, which by that time would be 6 or 8 or more, if stupid crazy things happen.

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang

mixitwithblop posted:



Oh god, that poor fox.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

Wasn't the whole idea behind pathfinder to allow you to use the 3.5 suppliments with a better basic ruleset? Foer example, taking Wiz7/Swashbuckler 3/Eldritch Knight 10? I think that would be a pretty potent combination, casting as a 16th level wizard and dealing damage based on your intellect modifier, which by that time would be 6 or 8 or more, if stupid crazy things happen.

Then a wizard who can cast 9th level spells timestops and wins the fight. Or if for some dumb reason he wants to fight it out himself he just cast Form of the Dragon III.

NOTHING a gish can do can compare to what an equal level full caster can do, it's just not possible with 3.5/Pathfinder.

Tactical Bonnet
Nov 5, 2005

You'd be distressed too if some pile of bones just told you your favorite hat was stupid.
If I wanted to be the best wizard I wouldn't have specialized in conjuration. I just want to play something I think will be fun and want opinions on whether or not I will be crippled because of it, not whether or not I will be able to explode the planet.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

If I wanted to be the best wizard I wouldn't have specialized in conjuration. I just want to play something I think will be fun and want opinions on whether or not I will be crippled because of it, not whether or not I will be able to explode the planet.

What the hell? Conjuration is literally the best wizard school. Anyway, as a character with a decent number of caster levels, you are by definition better than a noncaster, so you're fine.

Tactical Bonnet
Nov 5, 2005

You'd be distressed too if some pile of bones just told you your favorite hat was stupid.

Piell posted:

What the hell? Conjuration is literally the best wizard school.

wait what? Seriously? I only picked it because I thought it would be awesome to summon celestial eagles all over everything all the time..

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Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Tactical Bonnet posted:

wait what? Seriously? I only picked it because I thought it would be awesome to summon celestial eagles all over everything all the time..

Don't summon things, it's not really worth it most of the time. Get all the save or suck spells like grease and glitterdust and stinking cloud and all that poo poo, it's what wins fights.

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