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pawsplay posted:I think in the second scenario, I would still prefer an above-board GM fiat. "Uh, your hit points are at -1, and your left hand is severed." I really believe honesty is the best policy. If I were to employ such a technique, I would want to makes a clear distinction between exerting GM discretion as a practical campaign issue (dead PCs aren't much fun) versus playing with bumper pads. Ideally, I'd want to run my campaign in such a way that random, casual deaths just don't happen often enough to disrupt campaign continuity, but I can understand that there are times when it would just be a pain in the rear to roll up a new PC or two because of carelessly placed, unimportant gnolls of unexpected might. Well, to clarify I play with a group who are well aware of my storytelling tastes. They know I will exercise my judgment to keep things from getting lovely and unfun, but they do not know when that umbrella is in place - I may know behind the "screen" that this encounter is not one where player death would lead to a more interesting game, but the players don't know that for sure, because that kind of thing can depend on context they haven't encountered yet. I'm aware that this is a style of GM-player contract that isn't feasible or necessarily desirable for every group, though. It depends on a high level of player-GM trust and a general consensus regarding storytelling style.
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Sep 19, 2011 05:03
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Benly posted:Well, to clarify I play with a group who are well aware of my storytelling tastes. They know I will exercise my judgment to keep things from getting lovely and unfun, but they do not know when that umbrella is in place - I may know behind the "screen" that this encounter is not one where player death would lead to a more interesting game, but the players don't know that for sure, because that kind of thing can depend on context they haven't encountered yet. I'm aware that this is a style of GM-player contract that isn't feasible or necessarily desirable for every group, though. It depends on a high level of player-GM trust and a general consensus regarding storytelling style. If they don't know for sure, it might as well be "always." Unless you feel like springing an ugly surprise on them.
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Sep 19, 2011 05:08
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pawsplay posted:If they don't know for sure, it might as well be "always." Unless you feel like springing an ugly surprise on them. If they don't know for sure, it equally might as well be "never".
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Sep 19, 2011 12:20
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Benly posted:If they don't know for sure, it equally might as well be "never". No, that's not true. The only way for it to be "never" is for them to be pretty sure you never do it.
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Sep 19, 2011 22:59
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pawsplay posted:No, that's not true. The only way for it to be "never" is for them to be pretty sure you never do it. In that case, equally well the only way for it to be "always" is for them to be pretty sure I always do it. Which they know not to be the case.
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Sep 20, 2011 00:32
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In games I've played, when I see a GM fudge things, I feel like my effort is pointless. When I see a GM fudge things sometimes and murderate other times, I feel like my effort is pointless and my success is held at the whim of a capricious deity. I wonder how close to completely neutral I could DM. I suppose if I played only pre-published material, I could go drat close, but just the act of building an adventure (which frankly is the fun part) means that my best judgement is required.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:19
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Benly posted:In that case, equally well the only way for it to be "always" is for them to be pretty sure I always do it. Which they know not to be the case. No, that's not true. All that is necessary to not have confidence in something is to have doubt. The two conditions are not equivalent. You are basically asking your players to prove a negative, which is a logical challenge.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:25
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Evil Sagan posted:In games I've played, when I see a GM fudge things, I feel like my effort is pointless. When I see a GM fudge things sometimes and murderate other times, I feel like my effort is pointless and my success is held at the whim of a capricious deity. By the time I've already selected or designed a scenario, I feel like my own preferences or agenda are already so powerful that fudging dice rolls risks turning the whole thing into a triviality instead of a shared experience.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:25
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pawsplay posted:No, that's not true. All that is necessary to not have confidence in something is to have doubt. The two conditions are not equivalent. You are basically asking your players to prove a negative, which is a logical challenge. So by your logic, they can't have confidence that I will kill them, because they doubt that I will kill them (in the form of knowing that I'll fudge a stupid death). But they can have confidence that I won't kill them, despite doubts that I won't kill them (in the form of knowing that factors which render a death non-stupid may be revealed after the death itself). Okay then.
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Sep 20, 2011 01:28
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btw we used the Paizo crit cards and stunned a Trumpet Archon for d6 rounds, killing it before it could attack back (Level 9ish party)
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Sep 20, 2011 02:05
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I'm not an advocate of fudging, unless something grossly unbalanced comes in on the DM side of things. I'm looking at you, 3.5 Drowned. But less obviously, I sent a +2 or so CR Storm Elemental against my players, and it opened the fight with it's Thunder and Lightning attack. One of the d6 HD players was at full HP, made both saves for half damage, and was still smacked to below -10 hp in a single action. That's not really fair, IMO, so I pulled the punch and sent him to -1 or something like that. And on the flip side, sometimes the paladin charges a BBEG, power attacks and smites with his dwarven waraxe and crits in the surprise round, sending him to -30 hp instantly. In that case, a little fudging is in order so the climactic fight actually has a round or two of combat at least.
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Sep 20, 2011 02:29
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I'd prefer the fight to be fudged by more monsters coming in. The death of your big bad guy revealing that multiple devils were owed his soul and they all teleport in with their contracts and try and seek recompense from the party by harvesting their souls or whatever. Maybe that's just cognitive dissonance but I'd rather that than just the dude has 100 extra hp. It lets your party still have their achievements and doesn't remove the impact they've had on the setting but it still lets you challenge them and make the scene more memorable.
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Sep 20, 2011 02:45
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I'd rather just keep going and say, "Hm, I guess that wasn't the big climax after all."
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Sep 20, 2011 02:47
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A lot of players are very happy to beat your climactic battle in one round with a string of criticals, the arrow of dragonslaying they scoured the infernal depths to get, or a perfectly anticipated artillery strike that hits through the command mech's right rear torso and cooks off a few hundred LRMs under his seat. When my players are about to get one-shot I'll roll out something that softens the punch, but when they one-shot me they get to keep it.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:06
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Yeah, an anticlimatic encounter in 3e is a sign that your players did something right when it came to planning and throwing the correct Save-or-lose source at the big bad.
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Sep 20, 2011 03:27
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LightWarden posted:Yeah, an anticlimatic encounter in 3e is a sign that your players did something right when it came to planning and throwing the correct Save-or-lose source at the big bad. Absolutely. I want to reward my players for smart play. If they have a larger-than-intended influence on the game world, I consider that a victory for everyone involved.
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Sep 20, 2011 05:08
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About 6 months into my first serious foray into DMing Pathfinder I've found that the only time I "fudge" anything is when on the first round of an encounter it is immediately obvious to me that I hosed up and made an encounter that is either trivial or impossible. In the former case I'll generally have more (and possibly more powerful) enemies enter the fight on a subsequent round to make a reasonable challenge. I even like to roll a d4 and then give the party round by round warnings of the impending second wave: "you start to hear a faint rumbling sound below your feet" "The rumbling grows into an awful, grinding, squealing noise, edging ever closer" "Suddenly three ghuls burst forth from under the ground!" In the latter case I tend to just lay off the most aggressive/efficient tactics for the enemies. So I don't have to fudge rolls or change the stats on those Goliath Stag Beetles, but at the same time maybe they don't all choose to hit multiple party memberss with trample attacks every round. If shifting tactics feels old or simply not viable or sufficient, it's also easy to sway the balance of a fight by changing the terrain. Having hallucinatory terrain up at the start of an encounter makes this extraordinarily easy and natural but there are other options too, like a fusilade of catapult fire creating difficult terrain preventing enemy charges or providing cover, or an avalanche providing a brief gap and respite for the party to buff or regroup, or alternately the same sort of thing to give the enemies the same chance. I find this sort of thing gives me enough flexibility in the first round or two of combat to adjust the occasional poorly planned encounter to provide an appropriate challenge without being unfair, and if I've made these adjustments and party members still die, then I feel like that's part of the game, and I don't see any problem with a player rolling up a new character and writing it into the story, or the party having to go find a means to Reincarnate/Resurrect/whatever that character, which can be a nice plot hook in and of itself. If they can't afford or use that scroll of Resurection, maybe the party is now indebted to the Church of Iomadae for saving their companion and is charged with such and such a quest to pay it back, or whatever seems natural in the story. I'm not sure this can work for everyone but my players seem to be enjoying this style, and I personally prefer creative solutions that keep the story organic and flowing without having to completely shield the party from the possibility of failure.
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Sep 20, 2011 07:46
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm not an advocate of fudging, unless something grossly unbalanced comes in on the DM side of things. I'm looking at you, 3.5 Drowned. Yeah, this bit is one of the best uses of fudging, you messed up, so you adjust to make it better. Maybe the bad guy was going for subdual damage, so your KO'ed PC is going to be captured instead of turned into chunky salsa. Its usually better not to do the adjustments where the PCs can see them, adjust invisible statistics or scenario components where possible. quote:And on the flip side, sometimes the paladin charges a BBEG, power attacks and smites with his dwarven waraxe and crits in the surprise round, sending him to -30 hp instantly. In that case, a little fudging is in order so the climactic fight actually has a round or two of combat at least.
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Sep 20, 2011 09:26
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grah posted:maybe the party is now indebted to the Church of Iomadae for saving their companion and is charged with such and such a quest to pay it back, or whatever seems natural in the story. Stuff like this is a good way to punish the players for losing without ending the game. Two weeks ago my players got nailed hard by enemies that were weaker than them. I had a friendly NPC suggest a parlay that ended in a deal made to stop fighting each other and gang up on a bigger and nastier faction...with both the party's helper-NPCs hauled off into captivity to assure the party's cooperation in the matter. This is hard to do when your PCs are fighting the carrion crawler or the death lord of death, but when it's high elves vs. wood elves and yes they hate each other but the world's newest lich is starting his career with a bang pretty close to all of them, it works. Hell, you can take similar measures to punish even a successful party for not winning well enough. My players know that when they're tussling with the necromancers, getting incapacitated is almost as bad as getting dead. They lost a friendly and important NPC last game to a Death Knell even though they wound up winning the fight.
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Sep 20, 2011 09:34
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A while ago I mentioned stumbling across the extra animal companions from the Pathfinder Bestiary that seemed... less than balanced to the old stuff. I am interested to get some outside thoughts on this. Essentially, one of my players wanted to take a single level in sorcerer, with the Sylvan archetype (grants an animal companion as the bloodline power & arcana). That's all well and good. The issue is the extended list of companions. Specifically the roc, pteranodon and dire bat. All of which are medium and all of which have fly speeds. By the rules, this means a first level halfling or gnome druid or sorcerer can have a flying mount. In fact, the roc entry specifically mentions using them as flying mounts (albeit once they become large at 7th level, so that a medium character can ride one). Now, other routes to flight are a) Weird races (Savage Species, although not Pathfinder, had a "winged" template that granted a fly speed for +2LA) b) a 5th level Summoner (Spending 3 of 8 of their evolution points of a flying mount for a small Summoner or 7 of 8 for a medium one) c) a 5th level Wizard or 6th level Sorcerer learning the fly spell d) A 15th level Sorceror with the Sylvan archetype can fly for 1min/level e) Winged boots, a 16,000gp magic item that let you fly for 15minutes a day. If we ignore a for the moment (Pathfinder itself doesn't seem to use LA, so trying to directly play a winged race doesn't seem possible), then we're left with 5th level as the lowest entry point into PC flight. The Wizard gets a few minutes a day in exchange for precious spell slots and could end up being the subject of countermagic. The Summoner can pretty much fly at will, although the mount is summoned so again there are counter magics and the pet is pretty much this class's only trick. These contrast incredibly badly with a small druid just taking a medium flying companion. They don't really have to give up anything (for example, the bird companion which they couldn't ride is weaker in all respects than the roc). And even then, the mount is not subject to the various issues that a summoned creature or spell would be. So, to me, this is a case of the bestiary authors not realising just what they were doing (possibly believing that animal companions had level limits or something). As a result, I just veto'd these options and said that anything from that book would have to be carefully examined prior to being included. Would anybody actually allow a level one party to include a PC capable of at-will non-magical flight? At what level does that become suitable? And why are the rules for mounts scattered all over the show?
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Sep 21, 2011 11:43
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Mojo Jojo posted:Would anybody actually allow a level one party to include a PC capable of at-will non-magical flight? At what level does that become suitable? And why are the rules for mounts scattered all over the show? I tend to think of 5th-6th level as being the lowest appropriate level for a character to have proper at-will flight. You could maybe argue it lower for a character who has it as her only gimmick, but if that's the case what are you actually going to do once you're up in the air? I seem to recall that a bunch of druid companions in PF (dinosaurs especially) get larger as the PC levels. This would seem to suggest that one solution for a PC who really wants a pteranodon companion would be to give him either a pteranodon that starts Small with comparable stats to other flying companions or (for a creature like a roc that's defined by its great size) give it a template at low levels that prevents it from being able to carry a rider, perhaps due to poor coordination or whatnot. The latter is kind of a kludge, but I could see it being disappointing to take a roc companion and find out it's only the size of an eagle.
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Sep 21, 2011 12:19
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The Dire Bat has always been available to low-level small Druids.
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Sep 21, 2011 15:33
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Danhenge posted:The Dire Bat has always been available to low-level small Druids. No, it's not on the list of original Animal Companions*. The monster stats were listed in the Bestiary, alongside them rules for use as an animal companion were included. *The list from the core rulebook is: Ape Badger (Wolverine) Bear Bird (Eagle/Hawk/Owl) Boar Camel Cat, Big (Lion, Tiger) Cat, Small (Cheetah, Leopard)1 Crocodile (Alligator) Deinonychus (Velociraptor) Dog Horse Pony Shark Snake, Constrictor Snake, Viper Wolf The only one that can fly there is the "bird", which is small.
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Sep 21, 2011 16:13
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Sorry, misunderstood. Regular Dire Bat is a standard 4th level companion. Fyi that bat has a light load of 30 lbs. A max load of 90. The Roc is a little better at strength 12, but that poo poo has an impact. edit: scratch that, flying creatures are quadrapeds so light loads of 45 and 64.5 respectively Danhenge fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Sep 21, 2011 |
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Sep 21, 2011 16:43
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Danhenge posted:Sorry, misunderstood. Regular Dire Bat is a standard 4th level companion. Wait, flying creatures are quadrupeds? Where does it say that?
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Sep 21, 2011 17:00
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Idran posted:Wait, flying creatures are quadrupeds? Where does it say that? It's implied. Some flying creatures have their carrying capacities listed under their original flight entry, and if you compare it to the table of strength and carrying capacity it's always listed as if they were a quadruped. Here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/eagleGiant.htm The Giant Eagle is a large creature with 18 strength and a light load of 300 lbs, listed at the bottom. A large bipedal creature with 18 strength would have a light load of 200 lbs. A large quadruped with 18 strength has 300 lbs. edit: although, i suppose you could argue that's a function fo the eagle specifically Danhenge fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 21, 2011 |
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Sep 21, 2011 18:39
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Mojo Jojo posted:First level flying stuff. I don't personally see a problem with this. A PC wants to do something interesting here - I'd let him. If he starts breaking the game, adapt to it. Longbows become standard equipment, mages start casting spells to make flight difficult in an area, maybe they start recruiting their own mounted creature corps. I had one game where a PC was cheesing Spirited Charge to make a joke of most boss fights - after the second or third time, mooks started carrying Pikes and I let them know that word was being spread that the BBEG was training his troops in counter-cavalry techniques. It helped equalize combat and made the PCs stand back and say, "whoa, ok - they're gunning for us now, we've gotta be careful."
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Sep 22, 2011 01:30
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I don't know if anyone has heard but there has been news! Paizo have just release an organised Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document containing everything from the Core, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Game Mastery Guide, Bestiary and Bestiary 2. Which is pretty loving awesome and free.
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Sep 22, 2011 03:58
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Don't forget that an Alchemist can also fly at lvl 6, by growing a pair of wings. Actually, looking at all the crazy poo poo that alchemists have available to them, I wonder if they're a ridiculously overpowered class for powergamers.
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Sep 22, 2011 06:46
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Porkness posted:Don't forget that an Alchemist can also fly at lvl 6, by growing a pair of wings. Not even close, they have some nice versatility and utility, but for power, either damage or flexibility wise they're somewhere in the middle. Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I don't personally see a problem with this. A PC wants to do something interesting here - I'd let him. If he starts breaking the game, adapt to it. Longbows become standard equipment, mages start casting spells to make flight difficult in an area, maybe they start recruiting their own mounted creature corps. I had one game where a PC was cheesing Spirited Charge to make a joke of most boss fights - after the second or third time, mooks started carrying Pikes and I let them know that word was being spread that the BBEG was training his troops in counter-cavalry techniques. It helped equalize combat and made the PCs stand back and say, "whoa, ok - they're gunning for us now, we've gotta be careful." Plus the tight carrying capacity doesn't help either, your character alone, even if Small, would be taking up two thirds of most low level fliers cargo capacities.
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Sep 22, 2011 10:30
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veekie posted:Not even close, they have some nice versatility and utility, but for power, either damage or flexibility wise they're somewhere in the middle. They also suffered significantly from the nerf/clarification that you can't make potions of spells you don't have access to anymore. Before that it was fun playing them like mini (very mini) versions of 3.5 do-anything artificers.
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Sep 22, 2011 11:14
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Benly posted:They also suffered significantly from the nerf/clarification that you can't make potions of spells you don't have access to anymore. Before that it was fun playing them like mini (very mini) versions of 3.5 do-anything artificers. That's a bummer, but they still are the second coming of flaskmonkey Rogues for as long as you have Bombs left over. 5d6+Int+1 damage done at least six times by L10 (Four arms and Multiweapon Fighting + 1 from Haste + 1 from Manyshot) is nothing to sneeze at, and at 12 each one is a Cloudkill. And the Alchemist isn't as hamstrung by checks and stuff to function like the Artificer is. They own, especially around the time full casters start running away with things. Between that and the Ninja being able to burn Ki Points for extra attacks, they make better Rogues than the Rogue.
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Sep 22, 2011 17:52
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veekie posted:your mount has crap AC, saves and hp relative to you Yeah, this is what I would bring to the player's attention. I'd say yeah dude you can blow your load on super familiar feats or whatever and be captain birdman but have you SEEN the rules for what happens when your mount gets shot out from under you, and how easy that's going to be for enemies to do? It's really going to be ugly if this happens 50 feet off the ground.
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Sep 22, 2011 18:17
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TheAttackSlug posted:Yeah, this is what I would bring to the player's attention. I'd say yeah dude you can blow your load on super familiar feats or whatever and be captain birdman but have you SEEN the rules for what happens when your mount gets shot out from under you, and how easy that's going to be for enemies to do? It's really going to be ugly if this happens 50 feet off the ground. That's always been the problem with basically any mounted combat build that doesn't have a ton of levels in Druid or Paladin. A 30 HP warhorse is going to bite it to one attack at higher levels, or even just a couple of errant fireballs dropped by some trash enemy spellcasters that don't even add to the EL who happen to roll higher than you on the initiative.
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Sep 22, 2011 18:38
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TheAttackSlug posted:Yeah, this is what I would bring to the player's attention. I'd say yeah dude you can blow your load on super familiar feats or whatever and be captain birdman but have you SEEN the rules for what happens when your mount gets shot out from under you, and how easy that's going to be for enemies to do? It's really going to be ugly if this happens 50 feet off the ground. One of my key complaints is that the character doesn't need to blow any feats. He's just taking this as his animal companion slot and it's better in every respect that some of the other choices (like the Bird). So he's getting a beefier animal and a flying mount for no extra cost (compared to how other classes would go about it)
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Sep 23, 2011 08:39
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Well thats more an issue with druid being still the strongest out of the box. They should just swap the ranger and druid companions honestly, if not for Tradition. Still, its just another beefstick. Actually using it as a flying mount has inherent flaws of losing your ride while 100ft in the air.
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Sep 23, 2011 09:04
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veekie posted:Well thats more an issue with druid being still the strongest out of the box. They should just swap the ranger and druid companions honestly, if not for Tradition. I've read that the rationale for this is roughly: rangers don't need good combat pets because they are good at combat. Druids need good combat pets to cover their weakness.  Ignoring that druids are serviceable melee combatants out of the box and can become excellent with wild shape, my response is that by this reasoning rangers should obviously get spellcasting companions.
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Sep 23, 2011 09:43
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veekie posted:Well thats more an issue with druid being still the strongest out of the box. They should just swap the ranger and druid companions honestly, if not for Tradition. Fun fact: Before 3e, it was rangers that had animal companions, not druids. The Tradition is that rangers have the animal companions.
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Sep 23, 2011 11:15
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Well, I am going to be joining a Pathfinder game starting in the near future, and we are starting at level 4. For the most part, people are familiar with the rules, and how things work, so not expecting any trouble there. In fact, a couple people are somewhat fond of the min-max, so my main issue is trying to keep up. For myself, I am looking at either a Summoner using the Synthesist archetype from Ultimate Magic, or a Witch. I'm pretty well unsure which would be more effective from a mechanical standpoint, as both seem like they would be effective. They both happen to interest me for roleplay reasons, and I could run either without regrets on that front. Thoughts? Am I missing a better choice? Anything that I should focus on or avoid? I tend towards your Monks or Barbarians or the like, and want to kinda break out of that. Feeling just the smallest bit indecisive here 
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Sep 23, 2011 12:56
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Synthesist Summoners are kind of vague in what they can do, but seem to work like 3.5e Polymorph with your Eidolon. They get some neat spells that go up to effective Spell Level 9 (suck it Magus) even though they're Bard casters. They're also the easiest way to get Pounce on a melee type (if you take Scout Rogue/Ninja for 4 and one-drop Synthesist, you can become a Cuisinart of Sneak Attacky death on a charge). Witches are theme Wizards who get a few spells that arcane casters share with Clerics/Oracles at the level that Clerics get them, instead of Wizards in exchange for some versatility. They also get a themed spell-list with a lot of clunkers and some gold, although nothing as great as Void Domain Clerics getting Lesser Planar Binding before everybody else. They also get some amazing Hexes, like constantly level-appropriate Sleep, Charm, at-will Fly, and action denial by making  voodoo dolls.Since you usually play "hit things" classes and want to break out of that, play a Witch, or possibly a normal Summoner (and have your Eidolon be your beatstick). If you want to hit things yourself, one-drop Synthesist and go Scout until at least level 5.
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Sep 23, 2011 17:28
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