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Dracula Factory posted:So I'm a new DM wanting to run a pathfinder game any advice/ preferred house rules you guys have? The people I would be playing with have played shadowrun and not much else so were not super hardcore about optimizing or anything. My advice would be to start out with one of Paizo's adventure paths since it's your first time running the game. It'll save you a lot of work, and you can always veer off from their plot if you decide you want to go with your own. I would also be flexible with your players and let them readjust or remake their characters between sessions at first, rather then be saddled with newbie mistakes.
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Dec 8, 2011 21:41
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grah posted:
teddust posted:I would also be flexible with your players and let them readjust or remake their characters between sessions at first, rather then be saddled with newbie mistakes. Both very good pieces of advice.
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Dec 8, 2011 22:04
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about communication and knowing the players.
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Did the online character sheet app ever come out? If not, if there is a site like Iplay4e out there for Pathfinder?
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Dec 8, 2011 22:45
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I'm gonna be playing PF for the first time (first pen and paper game ever in fact) in a couple days and I want to play a barbarian. After reading about you guys talking about super mounted pouncing barbarians I'm really interested in playing one but I have no idea what I'd have to do in order to become one. I did some reading and I figure I have to take the mounted fury archetype and the ability to rage with my mount but past that I'm a bit lost.
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Dec 10, 2011 08:33
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Does anyone know of a fix for fighters that mixes in some martial-like abilities (as in, the class from the 3.5 miniatures handbook)? My current DM and I were talking about it the other day and we both think that with a bit done to tune up their in-combat capabilities and some fashion of out-of-combat versatility the class could be a lot more appealing. The brainstorming we did resulted in a sort of blanket bonus to attack and damage with all weapons (perhaps in stages of some sort) and then martial auras based on wisdom. Does that sound workable or am I going off the deep end here? The idea we were going for is a sort of 'veteran sergeant' type of warrior for what it's worth.
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Dec 10, 2011 14:14
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They tried with the Tactician archtype for fighters, spoilers: it's maybe the worst loving archtype they've made for fighters.
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Dec 10, 2011 15:34
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SigmusAmadeus posted:I'm gonna be playing PF for the first time (first pen and paper game ever in fact) in a couple days and I want to play a barbarian. You'll need all three "beast totem" rage powers. To get those, you'll have to be the "totem warrior" archetype, All You Can Eat fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 16:58
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Lord Yod posted:Does anyone know of a fix for fighters that mixes in some martial-like abilities (as in, the class from the 3.5 miniatures handbook)? My current DM and I were talking about it the other day and we both think that with a bit done to tune up their in-combat capabilities and some fashion of out-of-combat versatility the class could be a lot more appealing. The brainstorming we did resulted in a sort of blanket bonus to attack and damage with all weapons (perhaps in stages of some sort) and then martial auras based on wisdom. Does that sound workable or am I going off the deep end here? Honestly, if you're going to house rule fighters, it'd be better to add things on top of their existing abilities instead of replacing anything. To imitate the Marshal and its teamwork-based abilities, lifting the aura mechanic right from that book seems like it could be fun. Lifting the mechanic directly would give incentive to put points into Charisma, in which case I'd also recommend feats like Cosmopolitan (Advanced Player's Handbook), Antagonize (Ultimate Magic), and Persuasive (core book) to expand his skills a bit -- unless you're going to house rule more skill points and more class skills to reflect a more social fighter, in which case go for it. The Marshal's Grant Move Action class feature also seems like fun.
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Dec 10, 2011 17:05
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Fudge Handsome posted:Honestly, if you're going to house rule fighters, it'd be better to add things on top of their existing abilities instead of replacing anything. To imitate the Marshal and its teamwork-based abilities, lifting the aura mechanic right from that book seems like it could be fun. Lifting the mechanic directly would give incentive to put points into Charisma, in which case I'd also recommend feats like Cosmopolitan (Advanced Player's Handbook), Antagonize (Ultimate Magic), and Persuasive (core book) to expand his skills a bit -- unless you're going to house rule more skill points and more class skills to reflect a more social fighter, in which case go for it. The Marshal's Grant Move Action class feature also seems like fun.
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Dec 11, 2011 09:40
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Dracula Factory posted:So I'm a new DM wanting to run a pathfinder game any advice/ preferred house rules you guys have? The people I would be playing with have played shadowrun and not much else so were not super hardcore about optimizing or anything. A little late to the advice train here, but I'll add my 2 cents as a Pathfinder GM. First, I don't really agree with the general concensus in this thread on classes that are brokenly powerful or ultra-weak. Just let your players play what they want to play and have fun with it. I do highly recommend starting with an Adventure Path as they are lots of fun and super easy to run. Do be aware that the first four paths are written for 3.5 so there could be some confusion there if you are new to the system. I'm running Carrion Crown for a group right now and it's a lot of fun so maybe give that one a whirl. As for house rules, I'm a big fan of the Critical Hit and Critical Miss deck that Paizo puts out and generally use those all the time. Aside from those I find most of the regular Pathfinder rules to work pretty well. Combat Maneuvers take a little getting used to, but they're not bad once you get them down. Also, I usually run with a 25-point point buy. So on an unrelated note, what's with all of the hatred for Monks? I've been GMing a Drunken Master Monk in a Rise of the Runelords campaign from levels 1 to 14 and he's been consistently one of the party's heaviest hitters. He suffered from a low hit rate at lower levels, but his damage capacity is pretty super-high now with Drunken Strength, Elemental Fist, and something like 7 attacks per round with Haste and an extra Ki Point spent. He's also gone with the Crane Style line of feats which are pretty awesome and keep him from taking very many hits.
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Dec 12, 2011 18:30
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smashthedean posted:A little late to the advice train here, but I'll add my 2 cents as a Pathfinder GM. First, I don't really agree with the general concensus in this thread on classes that are brokenly powerful or ultra-weak....So on an unrelated note, what's with all of the hatred for Monks? I've been GMing a Drunken Master Monk in a Rise of the Runelords campaign from levels 1 to 14 and he's been consistently one of the party's heaviest hitters. We just had this exact discussion so I'm going to boil it down for you: 1) LogicNinja or other Pathfinder expert comes in, demonstrates in an air-tight mechanical fashion why the "concensus" in this thread is the way it is - because it's reality, and you are ignorant of Pathfinder's mechanics and how they interact in certain ways/at certain levels. 2) You throw up a few "well it's not a problem in MY group!"s before finally giving up and going silent. Let's not go through this again, please? \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ See? It's already starting. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 12, 2011 |
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Dec 12, 2011 19:24
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smashthedean posted:A little late to the advice train here, but I'll add my 2 cents as a Pathfinder GM. First, I don't really agree with the general concensus in this thread on classes that are brokenly powerful or ultra-weak. Just let your players play what they want to play and have fun with it. quote:So on an unrelated note, what's with all of the hatred for Monks? I've been GMing a Drunken Master Monk in a Rise of the Runelords campaign from levels 1 to 14 and he's been consistently one of the party's heaviest hitters. He suffered from a low hit rate at lower levels, but his damage capacity is pretty super-high now with Drunken Strength, Elemental Fist, and something like 7 attacks per round with Haste and an extra Ki Point spent. He's also gone with the Crane Style line of feats which are pretty awesome and keep him from taking very many hits. You only get 1/2 level plus WIS mod ki points. At level 14, that's probably 7+7, *tops*. So 14 points. If you're spending 1 on an extra attack and 1 on Drunken Strength every round, that's... seven rounds where your damage is decent. Per day. *IF* you get to full attack.
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Dec 12, 2011 19:31
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:We just had this exact discussion so I'm going to boil it down for you: 3) Megaman's Jockstrap comes in and acts like a dick to you even though the actual experts are being civil and engaging in productive discussion. I do agree that even without people optimizing you will still eventually run into certain imbalances, but for a first time game I think it is alright to learn how things interact through first hand experience rather than trying to fix a bunch of things before you actually understand how they can break. It is not the end of the world if you have to respec the game, unless everyone has been having a horrible time but if you are in a group of friends who like to hang out and roleplay I doubt they will freak out and quit if someone's monk is sucking.
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Dec 12, 2011 19:41
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Seconding the use of the critical hit and miss decks. Plus, they’ve got an app for both now! While we’re on the subject of critical hits, does anybody have a good house rule to eliminate critical hit confirm rolls? It’s just that it’s always disappointing when somebody rolls a 20 and then fails to confirm. It’s like “Woo-hoo! Something cool just happened!  Oh, wait, no it didn’t. ” The most obvious solution would be to just take away the confirm roll, and just say it always confirms, but that makes weapons with a high crit range a no-brainer, and Keen suddenly becomes a bit too powerful. I suppose I could go in and reduce the crit range on those weapons, so people aren’t able to auto-crit on a 15, but I’d rather not have to do that much work.
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Dec 12, 2011 19:42
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Guy A. Person posted:3) Megaman's Jockstrap comes in and acts like a dick to you even though the actual experts are being civil and engaging in productive discussion. It's not a discussion when, like clockwork, one person who doesn't have a clue about what they are talking asserts that there "aren't any problems" despite literally pages of accurate rebuttal in this very thread. I'm sorry if it makes me a dick to demand that one side of the "discussion" actually know what they are talking about and have done a sliver of due diligence. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Dec 12, 2011 |
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Dec 12, 2011 19:56
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See, I don't think it's that cut and dry. First of all, Drunken Strength uses a separate pool of Drunken Ki that can be replenished after every battle if the monk carries enough booze. That said, I probably actually prefer the Monk of the Four Winds for the increased Elemental Fist damage. 14 Ki Points basically boils down to an extra attack 14 Rounds per day, which is pretty good in my experience (which is playing and running Pathfinder games since it's Alpha release.) Sure, Pounce is great and getting full attacks on the first round of combat is awesome (if you have a direct charge path), but it's pretty common for a Monk to get full attacks pretty often after that. I don't really see a lot of encounters with monsters dancing all over the battlefield to avoid full attacking monks as usually those same monsters are trying to get full attacks of their own (often moving up to the party if they get initiative) so the arguement there is kind of off. As for objective numbers, let's look at a 13th level optimized Monk since that's the level you used for your Barbarian earlier in the thread. Monk of the Four Winds Str 28, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 7, Wis 18, Cha 7 hp 126; AC 33 +1 holy flaming brass knuckles* +23/+23/+23/+23/+18/+18/+13 (2d8+10+2d6 holy+1d6 fire+3d6+4 acid elemental fist) Average Damage: 47.5 Now, that's going balls-out with everything which a Monk wouldn't be able to maintain, but which can be pulled out for BBEGs and the like. A smarter monk would probably only apply the Elemental Fist damage (which is 15/day after feats) to his full BAB attacks and even then only against tougher foes so the Average Damage would go down to 33, but when you're pumping that out through up to 7 attacks per round, that's still pretty impressive. Even saying the Boots of Speed have worn out and the lazy Wizard won't caste haste and you're out of Ki Points, we're still looking at +22/+22/+17/+17/+12 (2d8+10+2d6 holy+1d6 fire) which is nothing to sneeze at. Compare this to your example Barbarian's +20/+15/+10 (2d6+18+12+2d6 holy [44 avg]) against an AC 28 Blue Dragon (CR 13) and you're looking at: Monk: 90.75 average damage per round Barbarian: 52.8 average damage per round Now I'm not sure if your Barbarian is optimized or if that was just a random example thrown out, but already the Monk is outdamaging the Barbarian in non-burst regular old damage with no buffs applied. For the record, at max capacity with all attacks Elemental Fist the Monk would be doing 201.875 damage in a single round, killing the 184 hp dragon. Doing damage with a Monk is all about maxing the gently caress out of Strength to get your attack bonus up there and then throwing all kinds of +damage on your attacks to take advantage of how many of them you put out. Anyone who thinks that Monks suck at damage are playing them horribly wrong. *I know of the controversy surrounding this item, but if I don't really care if a dev posts something on a message board. If it's not published, it's not a rule. For reference the Monk's gear I used bought with the 140,000 gp a 13th level character gets is: +1 holy flaming brass knuckles, ring of protection +2, amulet of natural armor +2, bracers of armor +3, dusty rose prism ioun stone, belt of str +6, gloves of dexterity +2, vest of health +2, monk's robe, boots of speed, headband of wisdom +2, cloak of resistance +1 and feats are elemental fist (free), dodge, toughness, crane style, improved grapple, weapon focus (knucks), shaitan style, improved trip, crane wing, crane riposte, improved critical (knucks), efreeti style, greater grapple. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:It's not a discussion when, like clockwork, one person who doesn't have a clue about what they are talking asserts that there "aren't any problems" despite literally pages of accurate rebuttal in this very thread. I'm sorry if it makes me a dick to demand that one side of the "discussion" actually know what they are talking about and have done a sliver of due diligence. I've browsed the other pages, but I didn't really see a good case made for Monks, so I thought I should make one. I do kind of know what I'm talking about, but I can see where from my first "just have fun" post you might think I didn't so no worries. 
smashthedean fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 12, 2011 |
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Dec 12, 2011 20:34
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Ballpoint Penguin posted:Seconding the use of the critical hit and miss decks. Plus, they’ve got an app for both now! I've been using the following houserule: A natural 20 is always a critical, no confirmation roll required. If you threaten a critical on any other number, for example a roll of 19 on the die with a sword that has a 19-20 threat range, you will need to confirm it. As for fumbles, a roll of natural 1 is always a fumble, but only on your very first attack that round. If you roll a 1 on any of the following attacks you may have they are simply misses. This way characters with several attacks no longer have a higher chance to make catastrophic mistakes. Of course what goes for the PCs, goes for the opposition.
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Dec 12, 2011 21:02
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I've started running The Haunting of Harrowstone, the first adventure in the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, and it is incredible. My players have responded very well to the setting and the NPCs. I've never seen them get into a game so quickly before. I really hope the other modules in the series are nearly as good. It's a shame they don't just have the same author do all of them.
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Dec 12, 2011 21:03
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smashthedean posted:See, I don't think it's that cut and dry. First of all, Drunken Strength uses a separate pool of Drunken Ki that can be replenished after every battle if the monk carries enough booze. That said, I probably actually prefer the Monk of the Four Winds for the increased Elemental Fist damage. 14 Ki Points basically boils down to an extra attack 14 Rounds per day, which is pretty good in my experience (which is playing and running Pathfinder games since it's Alpha release.) The Barbarian wasn't optimized as I don't believe he even accounted for gear except the weapon, and I don't think he put any enhancement bonus on that. Being able to pounce is going to give the Barbarian a leg up on just about anyone, it's not that one monster is going to be running all over the field, it's that the Barbarian is damned near guaranteed to kill whatever they pounce and then do it all over again on the next round. And that's with PF somewhat successfully reigning it in from Shock Trooper levels of ridiculousness. And you should just have fun, if players like to go all drunken master, then let them go for it. But from a numbers standpoint monks don't have a whole lot going for them.
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Dec 12, 2011 21:05
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:The Barbarian wasn't optimized as I don't believe he even accounted for gear except the weapon, and I don't think he put any enhancement bonus on that. Being able to pounce is going to give the Barbarian a leg up on just about anyone, it's not that one monster is going to be running all over the field, it's that the Barbarian is damned near guaranteed to kill whatever they pounce and then do it all over again on the next round. And that's with PF somewhat successfully reigning it in from Shock Trooper levels of ridiculousness. Looks like you're right about the non-optimization. I went ahead and spent my lunch break building a better Barbarian. Human Invulnerable Rager Barbarian 13 Str 28 (34), Dex 16, Con 18 (24), Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 7 hp 168 (207); AC 30 (28) +27/+23/+18/+13 (2d6+31+2d6 holy+1d6 fire+1d6 elec/17-20x2) Average Damage 52 and Gore +19 (1d8+10/x2) Avg 15 more when Raging Without Rage or Haste: +1 holy flaming shock greatsword +23/+14/+9 (2d6+26+2d6 holy+1d6 fire+1d6 elec/17-20x2) Average Damage 47 Raging/Buffed: 169 average damage per round Raging/Non-Buffed: 130 average damage per round Non-Raging/Buffed: 51.7 average damage per round Now admittedly a 13th level Barbarian is going to be able to Rage 32 round per day so it'll be rare that the non-raging damage will apply. Basically what this boils down to then is that a fully optimized and equipped Raging Barbarian will do 40 more DPR than a non-buffed Monk using none of his special abilities, but that a buffed Monk and dish out 32 more DPR in bursts. The Barbarian would be pouncing all around town and doing a lot more criticals too. I'm not trying to say that Barbarians aren't incredible at combat and that pounce isn't a crazy-powerful ability, I'm just trying to make a case that Monks aren't a crap class to be avoided at all costs and can actually melee it up with the big boys if built correctly. Evil Sagan posted:I've started running The Haunting of Harrowstone, the first adventure in the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, and it is incredible. My players have responded very well to the setting and the NPCs. I've never seen them get into a game so quickly before. I really hope the other modules in the series are nearly as good. It's a shame they don't just have the same author do all of them. I just finished running this adventure for my group and they loved it as well, especially the part where Father Charlatan "kills" one of the party members. She was pretty super freaked out when I told everyone a skeleton just chopped off her head and told her to leave the room. I'm pretty super pumped to start up Trial of the Beast tomorrow as it looks like quite a bit of fun as well! smashthedean fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Dec 12, 2011 |
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Dec 12, 2011 22:02
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smashthedean posted:I just finished running this adventure for my group and they loved it as well, especially the part where Father Charlatan "kills" one of the party members. She was pretty super freaked out when I told everyone a skeleton just chopped off her head and told her to leave the room. I'm pretty super pumped to start up Trial of the Beast tomorrow as it looks like quite a bit of fun as well! That reminds me that I need to clean up one of my rooms before I run this part of the game. Such a great adventure. Will your group be moving on to the 2nd module? Any tips you can give a newbie Pathfinder DM running HoH? We're still really early in. The party just finished the reading of the will and scoping out the journal and, like the loot-hungry monsters they are, immediately ran for the False Crypt.
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Dec 12, 2011 22:58
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Evil Sagan posted:That reminds me that I need to clean up one of my rooms before I run this part of the game. Well, obviously having a Cleric in the party was pretty helpful. But even if they don't have a Cleric, they'll probably be fine with the Haunt Siphons and Holy Water. My group was able to talk the priest dude into liking them alright pretty easily so he was a good place to buy Holy Water. I also ran a few of the optional spooky scenarios in the back like the one where one of your party members finds themselves transported to a creepy prison cell in the middle of the night and their name starts getting spelled out in blood on the cieling and that had a pretty great creepiness effect. My party did a pretty good job researching which helped them out a lot once they got to the Prison so maybe have Kendra encourage them to make use of the Professor's library and have her drop hints about other places in town where they can research. Other than that things run themselves pretty nicely; the Prison is a fun dungeon with all of the haunts going off and its proximity to town made it easy for them to go back and rest a few times (though they picked up the pace when they realized Vesorianna's name being spelled out was giving them a bit of a time limit). Just have fun with it and don't be afraid to play up the spookiness and you should do fine. Also if you search Youtube for Haunting of Harrowstone or Carrion Crown, a lot of people have put together spooky music soundtracks to further enhance the atmosphere. We'll be starting up the second module at our session tomorrow and I'm pretty excited about it. I feel like I won't be able to resist pulling up the courtroom theme from Chrono Trigger a little bit and I'm looking forward to people shouting Objection! a lot. One thing that I'm thinking I'll do on that adventure is to keep close track of the time that passes as they're investigating since the trial has a pretty specific schedule and it'll keep the pressure on if they know they have to budget their time carefully and can't rest often.
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Dec 12, 2011 23:20
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I feel the need to point out that the reason we have all these discussions on what's broken or not or etc etc, it's not to help problematic players destroy the game. It's to help GMs know what to look out for and potentially how to handle it if and when those gross imbalances break out, or to help the good players know what to look out for and not to do on accident on their own.
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Dec 12, 2011 23:32
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ProfessorCirno posted:I feel the need to point out that the reason we have all these discussions on what's broken or not or etc etc, it's not to help problematic players destroy the game. It's to help GMs know what to look out for and potentially how to handle it if and when those gross imbalances break out, or to help the good players know what to look out for and not to do on accident on their own. Or, in the case of things like the monk, to give a heads-up to newer players that just because it says it'll make you a totally sweet kung fu badass doesn't necessarily mean that you'll feel like a badass when your kung fu doesn't end up working very well.
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Dec 12, 2011 23:44
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:It's not a discussion when, like clockwork, one person who doesn't have a clue about what they are talking asserts that there "aren't any problems" despite literally pages of accurate rebuttal in this very thread. I'm sorry if it makes me a dick to demand that one side of the "discussion" actually know what they are talking about and have done a sliver of due diligence. That's fair, people should read through the rest of the thread and educate themselves before posting anecdotal evidence or repeating the same arguments. However, his point wasn't that there aren't any problems, just that they (from his experience) aren't bad enough to warrant banning a bunch of classes in an introductory game where people are probably just looking to have fun. And this is going to be a matter of personal experience and opinion no matter how much accurate rebuttal is posted. And yeah, you have been coming off as kind of a dick in this thread. You haven't been posting anything actually substantial you have just been trying to police people like "smashthedean" by telling them what huge morons you think they are.
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Dec 13, 2011 00:23
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smashthedean posted:Well, obviously having a Cleric in the party was pretty helpful. But even if they don't have a Cleric, they'll probably be fine with the Haunt Siphons and Holy Water. My group was able to talk the priest dude into liking them alright pretty easily so he was a good place to buy Holy Water. I also ran a few of the optional spooky scenarios in the back like the one where one of your party members finds themselves transported to a creepy prison cell in the middle of the night and their name starts getting spelled out in blood on the cieling and that had a pretty great creepiness effect. My party did a pretty good job researching which helped them out a lot once they got to the Prison so maybe have Kendra encourage them to make use of the Professor's library and have her drop hints about other places in town where they can research. Other than that things run themselves pretty nicely; the Prison is a fun dungeon with all of the haunts going off and its proximity to town made it easy for them to go back and rest a few times (though they picked up the pace when they realized Vesorianna's name being spelled out was giving them a bit of a time limit). Just have fun with it and don't be afraid to play up the spookiness and you should do fine. Also if you search Youtube for Haunting of Harrowstone or Carrion Crown, a lot of people have put together spooky music soundtracks to further enhance the atmosphere. Sweet, dude. Thanks for the advice. I'm glad to hear your party enjoyed it so much. I hope the next module goes well. I'll be interested in hearing about it if you choose to share.
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Dec 13, 2011 01:02
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There seems to be two types of roleplayers, the ones that play a bit loose/not optimizing and have fun and the ones that enjoy building crazy amazing specs and have fun. Whenever the two meet there always seems to be trouble. In any case, I'm teaching a few friends the basics of a tabletop game, and the Pathfinder Beginner Box is kinda nice. They skimp over a few things (AoO) but it's an all inclusive introduction that helps ease players into things. It also comes with a giant foldable whiteboard map. It's going to be awesome to be able to use a whiteboard marker now and not have to have the dungeon areas printed out and cut out in modular shapes. Oh, and my advice? Have fun! If the monk player is not having fun, story an artifact that gives them a boost! (and tweak as needed to balance things out.)
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Dec 13, 2011 02:42
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SystemLogoff posted:There seems to be two types of roleplayers, the ones that play a bit loose/not optimizing and have fun and the ones that enjoy building crazy amazing specs and have fun. And then there are the optimizers who aren't dicks. You don't notice them because they don't ruin everyone else at the table's day, they just keep the party working.
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Dec 13, 2011 04:03
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One of the guys I play with seems to automatically optimize his characters, but he doesn't necessarily play aggressively in-game or monopolize combat, or imply that other people should be optimizing as well. It's just one of the things he enjoys doing.
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Dec 13, 2011 04:06
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Benly posted:And then there are the optimizers who aren't dicks. You don't notice them because they don't ruin everyone else at the table's day, they just keep the party working.
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Dec 13, 2011 04:48
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Kobold posted:It's not all one way or the other, of course. I may not pick the proper race/class combination or the best feats... but I will look over CharOp threads and the like to make sure the character I'm making can still do what's needed so we CAN goof off without getting smashed by the eventual combat. So here's the thing. That is what optimization is. The thing about optimization is that you choose a goal and make it work. A lot of people assume that means "highest damage per round" or "nigh-infinite power" but that is a subset of choosing a goal. If you decide that you want to play a dwarf bard and then make that as solidly built a dwarf bard as possible, that is just as much charop as the guy whose goal is to make a one-round dragon gibber: the target was "well-built dwarf bard", so the "correct" race/class combination is dwarf bard. If your target is "guy who uses Dirty Trick to kick guys in the nuts every round", then the Dirty Trick feat chain is the "correct" feat chain even if it's not the correct choice for Maximum Bestness, because it's the way to your optimization target. What you just described is what an optimizer does. Anyone who hears you say "I want to play a dwarf bard, how do I optimize that" and says "play a wizard" is missing the point. (That said: sometimes someone will say "I want to play a monk" when they mean "I want to play a kung fu badass". If you want to play a kung fu badass, the correct advice may well be to choose a different class than monk. If you want to play a monk and try to wrangle the class's quirks and problems into shape, more power to you, but it's a different thing.)
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Dec 13, 2011 04:54
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Benly posted:And then there are the optimizers who aren't dicks. You don't notice them because they don't ruin everyone else at the table's day, they just keep the party working. I don't think there's any implied judgment in SystemLogoff's post, nor is either party necessarily dickish. Rather, I would say that the underlying (unaddressed) cause of the "trouble" is conflicting goals and unwillingness to compromise (to paraphrase a grognard, "Compromise means only getting everything I want for my character instead of everything I want in the campaign."). Communication with and among the players is critical for identifying the problem; flexibility is needed to fix it. Compromise might mean reining in some characters (encouraging spellcasters expend a little more effort on party buffs relative to save-or-sucks, say, or even going with blasting instead) or it might mean pooling expertise to ensure a non-optimizer's character can accomplish the player's goals (how can I make my dwarf bard work?). Compromise might even mean finding a different game system.
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Dec 13, 2011 05:58
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We're playing the Cult of the Ebon Destroyer module, and have reached what I presume to be the final dungeon of the module. Due to accomplishing something cool in a prior (homebrew) module, one of the players had a use-any-time one-time casting of Prying Eyes at 30th Caster-Level. He summoned 34 floating eyeballs and sent them in to explore. It went spectacularly well, as in some of them actually returned and we gained knowledge of the temple layout, its occupants, and even a few of the gruesome ways the eyeballs died including a very powerful attack spell.  There are 5 of us and we're all level 6. I'm pretty sure this last fight's way above our abilities and we're all going to die.
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Dec 13, 2011 07:08
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:I don't think there's any implied judgment in SystemLogoff's post, nor is either party necessarily dickish. Rather, I would say that the underlying (unaddressed) cause of the "trouble" is conflicting goals and unwillingness to compromise (to paraphrase a grognard, "Compromise means only getting everything I want for my character instead of everything I want in the campaign."). What I take issue with in the post are two implications: first, that the only possibilities are "people who don't optimize" and "people who do balls-out max numbers builds all the time", and second, that optimizers and non-optimizers can't coexist. Which, granted, is sort of an extension of the assumption that people who only have fun when their numbers are the biggest possible in the system are the only category of optimizer.
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Dec 13, 2011 08:41
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:I don't think there's any implied judgment in SystemLogoff's post, nor is either party necessarily dickish. Rather, I would say that the underlying (unaddressed) cause of the "trouble" is conflicting goals and unwillingness to compromise (to paraphrase a grognard, "Compromise means only getting everything I want for my character instead of everything I want in the campaign."). You're great OpenlyEvilJello, that's the point I was trying to make. I really did not mean to imply anything else. Porkness posted:There are 5 of us and we're all level 6. I'm pretty sure this last fight's way above our abilities and we're all going to die. That sounds like a fun time! Let us (or me?) know how it turns out.
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Dec 13, 2011 10:24
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SystemLogoff posted:You're great OpenlyEvilJello, that's the point I was trying to make. I really did not mean to imply anything else. "Roleplay vs. rollplay" is one of those endless stupid internet debates that you always run into on RPG forums. It falsely polarizes the discussion into "roleplayers" and "optimizers" (or frequently something more pejorative), with proponents of each "side" arguing that theirs is the best way and offering examples of why the alternative is bad; secretly, though, everyone is really just railing against the category "players who are jerks." Ultimately, the dichotomy raised in the argument is false because good [role]players will pick a good concept and fit the game mechanics to it, which, as Benly points out, is the essence of practical optimization. Everything Benly said is basically true, and it's certainly possible to draw the inferences he did from the quoted passages. Personally, I think his reaction is just symptomatic of the poisonous effect of "roleplay vs. rollplay." I'm sure he's run into plenty of people who would use the same words to say that optimization ruins games and should be forever banned. I certainly have. (I figured the funhaving-based definition indicated good intentions, though, which is why I wanted to explain my reading.)
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Dec 13, 2011 11:43
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Yeah, basically that. SystemLogoff, I'm sure you didn't mean harm but you happened to accidentally stumble on some assumptions and implications that tend to lead to really toxic arguments. The "there are two kinds of roleplayers" bit is what really charged it up, since as OpenlyEvilJello points out it implies you're setting up a dichotomy, and that particular false dichotomy has a history of arguments and faulty assumptions going back before some of the posters in this thread were born.
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Dec 13, 2011 12:07
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Benly posted:What I take issue with in the post are two implications: first, that the only possibilities are "people who don't optimize" and "people who do balls-out max numbers builds all the time", and second, that optimizers and non-optimizers can't coexist. I made a not-Timelord Starsoul Sorcerer with feats to get features from the Abberant and Arcane bloodlines. The character has levels in Scholar, which already puts him waaaaay behind in spellcaster progression. There are much better Eldritch Heritage bloodlines to choose from, like Pestilence for immunity to Disease, but I don't bother with them because I want Arcane for a metamagic feat rod Sonic Screwdriver bonded item and Abberant because he's otherworldly. He has absolutely no attack or summoning magic, and his whole thing is dropping Enchantment and Illusion spells and counterspelling poo poo. His secondary stat is Wisdom. I made a Dragony Sorcerer, and Dragon Disciple is horrible if you value your caster progression, and it doesn't even mesh with Sorcerer casting because the bonus is +2 INT. He flies around breathing ice breath and throwing Fireballs and Enervations and poo poo even though a much better build for any caster is field control based in Summon Monster because that eliminates the need for Save Or Suck checks while still providing distraction that works as well as Confusion. It's not like I don't understand the underlying mechanics behind making powerful characters, it's just that what I want to play as really doesn't match that. But really it's less of a "this kind of character is better" and more of a "this kind of character is better per the group I'm playing with." Because sometimes you get really statistical groups and DMs who would never let you do poo poo like biting a goblin's ear off to make it flee in terror, and sometimes you get a group with a DM whose idea of a successful encounter involves a more creative and less dice-dependent playstyle. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Dec 14, 2011 |
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Dec 14, 2011 00:03
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The White Dragon posted:Well, on a certain level, this is true. Sometimes you get players (like me) who value the conceptual character over the statistical character, and concepts don't always mesh well with numbers. Basically if I respond to this it's going to be a repost of what I said three posts ago so just scroll up a little until you see me responding to Kobold and talking about dwarf bards.
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Dec 14, 2011 00:23
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| # ? May 21, 2024 07:48 |
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Hey guys, I haven't played a game of anything in almost a year, and when I did it was mostly 4th edition with a little Shadowrun here and there. I've been invited to a 3.5/Pathfinder Eberron game and wanted to play a hard-boiled, film-noir style Warforged Private Eye. I have no idea how to build this character. A friend suggested bard with my "performances" being dramatic monologues. Would this be viable? I have access to the Pathfinder book but I have no idea how to build a character with this system. Is there another class that would work better? I would prefer sticking to Pathfinder, but the DM has given us the full breadth of 3.5 as well (broken characters will be dealt with on a case by case basis).
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Dec 14, 2011 03:56
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