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 kronk wrote:

Chongara wrote:
The GM should be doing everything in their power to make sure that player expectations are in line with experiences that they can reasonable expect the game will produce,

He has. Willful ignorance on a player's part cannot be discounted.

Honestly, sometimes a person has to find out the hard way after being warned they'll have issues.

His character will still contribute and I'm sure will be fun to role play encounters. But there will be times that he'll struggle. I think he isn't going to like it, but it's his choice.

Saying "No Centaur Barbarian" is within the GMs power, if he's not doing that he isn't doing everything in his power.

If you're allowing Centaur Barbarians, or Living Muffins, or Sentient Wombats or whatever else then it's your responsibility as The GM to make sure playing a Centuar Barbarian, or Living Muffin or Sentient Wombat can reasonably be expected to be a positive experience.

Allowing something (even with a warning), is to some extent implicitly saying "Yeah, it stands a good enough chance of working out for you to give a go at it". Allowing players to shoot themselves in the foot, at least in ways that are reasonable to stop at character creation is really only marginally better than actively gunning for them to have a bad time.

Chongara wrote:

If you're allowing Centaur Barbarians, or Living Muffins, or Sentient Wombats or whatever else then it's your responsibility as The GM to make sure playing a Centuar Barbarian, or Living Muffin or Sentient Wombat can reasonably be expected to be a positive experience.

Not every gaming group and/or player is the same. Not every group and/or player has the same idea of what is fun, what is reasonable, and what should or shouldn't be allowed.

If you bend over backwards for your players so that they have a good time, great! Honestly, that's great for you and yours!

My group won't do that, nor will we tell someone NOT to play a certain race or build. If it's in a core book (Advanced Race Guide, or whatever it's called), then knock yourself out. Some people like a challenge. We say go for it.

But this particular player won't, I believe. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" is probably the best analogy for this circumstance.

Chongara wrote:
[
Allowing something (even with a warning), is to some extent implicitly saying "Yeah, it stands a good enough chance of working out for you to give a go at it". Allowing players to shoot themselves in the foot, at least in ways that are reasonable to stop at character creation is really only marginally better than actively gunning for them to have a bad time.

bs. He's an adult. He was told that it would be very difficult. "...it stands a good enough chance of working out for you to give a go at it" was never implied, nor received. He knows it will be tough but is adamant about playing a Centaur. This is 100% ON HIM.

 kronk wrote:

Chongara wrote:

If you're allowing Centaur Barbarians, or Living Muffins, or Sentient Wombats or whatever else then it's your responsibility as The GM to make sure playing a Centuar Barbarian, or Living Muffin or Sentient Wombat can reasonably be expected to be a positive experience.

Not every gaming group and/or player is the same. Not every group and/or player has the same idea of what is fun, what is reasonable, and what should or shouldn't be allowed.

If you bend over backwards for your players so that they have a good time, great! Honestly, that's great for you and yours!

My group won't do that, nor will we tell someone NOT to play a certain race or build. If it's in a core book (Advanced Race Guide, or whatever it's called), then knock yourself out. Some people like a challenge. We say go for it.

But this particular player won't, I believe. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" is probably the best analogy for this circumstance.

Chongara wrote:
[
Allowing something (even with a warning), is to some extent implicitly saying "Yeah, it stands a good enough chance of working out for you to give a go at it". Allowing players to shoot themselves in the foot, at least in ways that are reasonable to stop at character creation is really only marginally better than actively gunning for them to have a bad time.

bs. He's an adult. He was told that it would be very difficult. "...it stands a good enough chance of working out for you to give a go at it" was never implied, nor received. He knows it will be tough but is adamant about playing a Centaur. This is 100% ON HIM.

*Shrug*. I mean it comes down to the fact the group is reasonably assured somebody is going to be showing up and spending 2-6 hours and not liking it every week, for however long it takes this centaur to bite it. If that's somehow more desirable than taking the 5 seconds to go "Nope. Just not appropriate for this particular game, sorry you'll have to pick something else", eh whatever. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

I just can't grasp what value is being added by the approach at all.

Epic game last night. We completed Serpent's Skull adventure path. It's the first time we've ever "finished" a campaign, rather than it petering out. I won't give spoilers, but the final fight was a lesson in momentum swings, a reminder that the bad guy can always roll a 1 for his saving throw, and if you have nothing better to do "buff someone (even yourself)!" :-)

Fun times!

 kronk wrote:
Epic game last night. We completed Serpent's Skull adventure path. It's the first time we've ever "finished" a campaign, rather than it petering out. I won't give spoilers, but the final fight was a lesson in momentum swings, a reminder that the bad guy can always roll a 1 for his saving throw, and if you have nothing better to do "buff someone (even yourself)!" :-)

Fun times!

The "always fail on a 1" is actually a decent way to gun for things out of your weight class, so long as they don't have outright immunity. Even without any charop, it's not unreasonable to expect a party of 4 to tag something within a few rounds, especially once you've got 6th level slots and can put out 2 Save-or-Lose type effects each round.

Heaven the poor bastard who decides to become a Villian and has poor will save.

 kronk wrote:
Epic game last night. We completed Serpent's Skull adventure path. It's the first time we've ever "finished" a campaign, rather than it petering out. I won't give spoilers, but the final fight was a lesson in momentum swings, a reminder that the bad guy can always roll a 1 for his saving throw, and if you have nothing better to do "buff someone (even yourself)!" :-)

Fun times!

Grats!

I think it can be tough to balance letting players play what they want vs. having an unworkable/difficult character. Like any matter where opinions differ, you can let them know what the challenges will be, and possibly reach a compromise. I think my philosophy would be to err on the side of the player. Hopefully creative solutions can be found for issues that come up--that's part of role-playing.

-- Z

My RPG group has played some pathfinder recently, and I have to say that it's just as ridiculously stupid as all the other D&D rpgs. Too many rules. Too specific rules. Too rigid and inflexible rules. Poorly thought out skill system. And an extremely lame, PG-13 setting.

I thought I was the only one in our group who thought this, so I almost quit the group because I didn't want to waste four hours a week on such a stupid system. But when I delivered my "resignation speech", it became clear that all but one had the same feelings, so we just dropped the game mid-campaign and started Call of Cthulhu, and we're SO happy we did.

Cthulhu, Dark Heresy and WHFRP (which are the only RPGs I've tried aside from D&D3, 3.5, 4, PF) are all SOOOO much better than D&D (and Pathfinder).

 SgtSixkilla wrote:

Cthulhu, Dark Heresy and WHFRP (which are the only RPGs I've tried aside from D&D3, 3.5, 4, PF) are all SOOOO much better than D&D (and Pathfinder).

"...for your group."

For my group, Pathfinder is so much better than Cthulhu, Dark Heresy, and WHFRP. I have no idea what you mean by PG-13 rated. If your GM can't adjust the setting to the group, then you have a poor GM. (see, I can paint with a broad brush, too!)

To each their own, Sgt Sixkilla.

The question of appropriateness for the campaign setting often needs to be addressed. I often discuss what I want to run with my players and try to come up with a group dynamic before things start. for example in my current game my players are all dwarves and also all brothers whoose dad was a famous hero. the family dynamic is as or more important than any mechanic. this adds a lot to the game. however I do not always have such a strict focus and will usually try to qccomodate players. But, much like kronk's group, choices that make it difficult for you will...cause you difficulty. Some players enjoy pathos, and I'm not going to deny them the chance.

My kill count for our current campaign is getting far too high :-\

played yesterday, and I almost got a TPK... my party was entering the dungeon levels of Thistletop before the school year ended, so I was hoping to finish the adventure.

They were down 1 player because I didn't have an appropriate place to bring in his new character (the party couldn't recover his remains ). So they were down a man. Then they entered a room where they encountered , and they proceeded to have a massive fight throughout a few rooms (it was a really good fight), but I got a few crits with one of the enemies, and dropped the Magus (who was blind anyways from a crit a few sessions ago), and so I pulled out the critical hit deck, and since the Magus was on the other side of the table, he asked the ranger to draw a card for him. He drew one of the few triple damage cards in the deck, and it just obliterated the Magus :-\.

So the party survives this one, but I manage to drop the ranger and the gunslinger into high negatives... with some well placed spells and low saves on their part. The gunslinger gets a crit, and kills the caster. He manages to grab a health potion, saves the cleric, who saves the ranger. They heal up a little bit, and the ranger decides to press on, I suggested they might want to rethink that plan, and he says, "There's goblins about, these goblins are going to die." (favored enemy and what not...). So they press on, and manage to find themselves face to face with a pair of yeth hounds, who use their Bay in a surprise round, the ranger passes his save, the cleric and gunslinger fail miserably, and the cleric books it, the ranger follows suit, and the yeth hounds bite the gunslinger who fails his will save and has to cower for 1 round. The yeth hounds rip him a new one, and the rest of his party isn't any wiser...

I felt bad :-\

Failing to see how that's your fault? Your party knew they were hurt and should have rested. Goblins may be your Ranger's favored enemy and all, but he's only 1/3 (1/4? 1/5?) of the party. If anything, taking a trip out to a safe spot to rest might have given the other player whose character was already dead (and the mage who just died) a chance to introduce new characters and actually get to play.

So feel bad if you want, but your players screwed the pooch on that one, imo.

 streamdragon wrote:
Failing to see how that's your fault? Your party knew they were hurt and should have rested. Goblins may be your Ranger's favored enemy and all, but he's only 1/3 (1/4? 1/5?) of the party. If anything, taking a trip out to a safe spot to rest might have given the other player whose character was already dead (and the mage who just died) a chance to introduce new characters and actually get to play.

So feel bad if you want, but your players screwed the pooch on that one, imo.

I did point it out the players that all of the 'choices' that led to downfalls have been because of this ranger, with the exception of the first character kill of the game (the rogue asked to be lowered into a hole with a bunyip... Bunyip took to him like bait on a line). The ranger's death was due to suggesting everyone crosses a rickety looking bridge (he was our trap finder at the time, and he failed the perception check), so he, and our blind magus who was tied to him at the time, went into the sea, the ranger fell unconscious from falling damage, the magus lived, and managed to find shore through near perfect swim checks... I try not to kill my characters, but the dice fall where they fall...

I'm hoping these guys like their characters and will stick with them...

Anyone had much experience with the Pathfinder spell "Nap stack"? It seems kind of broken, I was thinking of introducing a kicker by making it cause fatigue for the next day after it is used.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/n/nap-stack

 Da Boss wrote:
Anyone had much experience with the Pathfinder spell "Nap stack"? It seems kind of broken, I was thinking of introducing a kicker by making it cause fatigue for the next day after it is used.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/n/nap-stack

I'm not seeing the problem with it, but I might be missing something. You get back hitpoints faster? It's a 3rd level spell, meaning the cleric with this can do 3d6 with one channel energy, which would do more healing.

If you're diseased, you'll be taking checks a hell of a lot faster, so if you roll well, you can get rid of a disease faster.

I guess the biggest benefit is removing ability damage from multiple people with one 3rd level spell instead of multiple 2nd level Lesser Restorations.

It's getting spells back in 2 hours I have an issue with. But not a huge issue, it just seems pretty strong to me and like it would be an auto take.

 Da Boss wrote:
It's getting spells back in 2 hours I have an issue with. But not a huge issue, it just seems pretty strong to me and like it would be an auto take.

I see. My group only lets you use your spells once per day, so it wouldn't affect us.

Also, we're used to Elves in Hackmaster only needing 4 hours sleep to get their spells back.

Yeah, I think we run elves that way too, but my group generally has an irrational hatred of elves so I can't remember the last time someone played one as a PC

I don't want to completely remove the spell because my cleric is excited about it, but I am running a slightly "gritty" game and I feel like it could remove a lot of that and make it a bit gamey. I like the fantasy trope that you can only "buy" that kind of increased vitality with future exhaustion.

It won't help clerics, since their required to spend an hour of prayer at a point of time in the day.

So basically it'll only help wizards/sorc's in regards to spell recovery.

Aha, good point. I hadn't thought of that. I'll discuss it with my group tonight.

I'm allowing Napstack without any penalties after thinking about it. It's no worse than many other spells.

Now, something I am considering banning from an open table game I want to run next year is Summoner and Ninja.

Anyone got any experience with these classes? They seem either overly complex and OP (summoner) or just OP compared to other options (Ninja vs. Rogue).
What's your take?

Ninja didn't seem all that special to me. I'd just ban it because I'm not a fan of east meets west with these games.

Summoner can be nasty, but he's gotta have the right party make up to be that way I'd think.

About to start the closing session for book 1 of the Rise of the Runelords adventure.

I'm with djones on the east meets west... I don't allow monks for the most part, though I shouldn't have issue with doing so, I just don't like the meshing of east meets west, and even though we're running Rise of the Runelords, I showed them a map of where most of the Asian influences are from, and then where we were playing, and said, it's not very common this far north... And then all of them wanted to be alternate races from the Advanced Race Guide, so I was like, that has an even less chance of happening!

*shrugs* also sadly no experience with the summoner,

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the "expanded races" either.

Dragon-kin... worst things ever, IMO.

Just starting my first campaign. this is our party makeup
1 Armored Hulk Orc barbarian
2: wolf Shaman(ME)
3: Ranged inquisitor
4: Rogue(Its a PC that is extra)
I have a feeling i might be the sick puppy.

Shadow's = bull gak.

Strength Damage? I hates it. Love using them as a GM, though when I ran the 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft my party's cleric nuked them with channels before they could do too much, every time!

We reaped a whirlwind through the dungeon, wreck the "bosses" with little difficulty. Then we run into 3 of these things and it almost wipes the party.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In regards to arcane casters and the spell that lets them be fully rested in 2 hours.

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions: If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.

So... they may be rested, they may have memorized some spells, but if they cast it within 6 hours prior to that 2 of rest, they still can't learn spells that they had used.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Just starting my first campaign. this is our party makeup
1 Armored Hulk Orc barbarian
2: wolf Shaman(ME)
3: Ranged inquisitor
4: Rogue(Its a PC that is extra)
I have a feeling i might be the sick puppy.

Pick up Blistering Invective as a 2nd Level Inquisitor spell... best move I ever made, it's fantastic... you make an Intimidation check against a DC of 10+Wis Modifier+1/2 HD. If they fail, they're Demoralized for 1 round + 1 Round for ever 5 you beat the DC by. It deals 1d10+caster level of fire damage, save for half I believe... It's an awesome spell... My Inq has it, and is rocking a +17 Intimidate bonus atm...

People liked the last ones I posted, so here's another one. My Fighter who specializes in archery. Currently lvl 4.

It's a WIP done by a freelance guy found through Deviant Art. It'll be colored in when it's done, and I'll post that as well. If people are interested in contacting him, I'll provide the info.

Got the fully colored drawing done. What do you guys think?