Author Topic: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice  (Read 27641 times)

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Shadeseraph

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #20 on: February 03, 2011, 09:31:42 AM »
Quote
You aren't locking a caster. Most of the time, you are pitched against a powerful melee monster who happens to have AMF available.
And he can lockdown a dragon thanks to those magic items. Try locking a dragon when you are unable to fly, and your threat range is the standard 10 feet.
Exactly, any standard PC race caster using AMF is likely using shenanigans to get around getting his own spells shut off(usually by excluding himself from the effect somehow), monstrous spellcasters are the issue, with the worst offender being dragons.
A dragon who raised an AMF is the biggest baddest bruiser around.
He also made itself unable to use celerity shenigans, so hey, actually easier to lockdown! Dragons have excellent natural stats... But if the casters are using and abusing celerity, then the dragon just commited suicide by droping all his magic options.

This is, how precisely does the AMF dragon catches up with the celerity/abrupt jaunt wizard that just laughs and teleports away whenever the dragon aproaches?  The fighter just made the dragon to drop his only chance of victory!

And good luck resisting the grapple.
Close combat quarters.


Frankly, I don't think much of AMF. I have to agree with oslecamo that a dragon is a far more dangerous enemy with his breath and his spells than with an AMF and his bulk. AMF is kind of like turtling, but with magic. You sacrifice options for a theoric defense against a large range of spells. The only thing I see this usefull for is to avoid being killed by a wizard's shivering touch, and there are better options for that.

What I'm saying is that nobody has that much to gain by using an AMF. The only reason I can find to use one is if you have things like chosen of Mystra, or Extraordinary Spell Aim, and even then I find AMF more useful to casters than to fighters.

Anyway, and going back to the standstiller... to be effective in your lockdown strategy, you need some way to avoid being killed, in addition to a way to stop the creature. In my experience, this is usually a mix of maintaining your distance (by having a greater reach than your opponent) and being able to shut down ranged threats, such as sp abilities and the like. You don't have problems with the later, because of the AMF, but the same AMF makes you lose your increased range, which, in most cases, depends on magic abilities.
And most dragons by that level have at least a range of 15 due to being huge.

Again, Enlarge + spiked chain + aberrant reach = range 20', which is at least 5' more than you need to keep yourself outside of the AMF.
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veekie

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #21 on: February 03, 2011, 04:20:12 PM »
IIRC large creatures could make it so the AMF emanates from a body part(seeing as said dragon is significantly larger than the area anyway), but, it still remains that the AMF SPELL would screw a tank worse than a caster. Other sources of AMF may vary in their effectiveness, but generally don't help make the game more fun.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #22 on: February 03, 2011, 05:54:02 PM »
Thanks, Sunic!  But explain what you mean by "IP Proofing."

IP stands for Iterative Probability. While it is common knowledge in optimizer circles that luck is the enemy, IP Proofing codifies both the term used to describe it, and the measures used to obtain it.

The principle of IP proofing is simple. Campaigns are long. They will contain combat. PCs must win every combat to win. Team Monster must win a single combat to win. For this reason even small chances to fail in any given fight quickly approach one over the course of a campaign, and if you have a large chance to fail in any given fight, you will die all the fucking time. And because of the skewed victory conditions, a "large chance" can be as low as 10%. In other words, 90% chance to win a fight = your character is more likely than not dead on the seventh fight. Since there are 13 and a third fights a level, and therefore that's only about half of a single level, clearly this is unworkable.

The act of IP proofing a character is the means by which you get that failure rate as low as you possibly can, preferably to the fractional percentage levels. This requires high enough saves to pass level appropriate effects on a 2 or better, immunities to common effects to further protect you, and block the no save, you die effects, means of avoiding full attacks, real defenses (Blink, Mirror Image, miss chances), anti ray defenses (Ring of Entropic Deflection, Ray Deflection, etc) among other things. Rerolls for example, to further mitigate the 1s.

It is not possible to IP proof low level characters. You cannot get your saves high enough to do so, don't really have immunities and abilities, etc. Mid level characters can be IP proofed. High level characters are relatively easy to IP proof.

It is also not possible to IP proof Pathfailure characters. They left saves the same or lower, depending on class, things that boost saves other than the basic, and not good enough by itself cloak are not available, and they had a big thing about whining about immunities, mostly because they could not accept that the game changes fundamentally every few levels. The best you can do is go all casters, spam save or loses, and never let the enemy get a turn. Rocket Tag at its most extreme, because you have no forcefields (read: IP proofing techniques) to block it.

If it were not for this though, it'd work the same way in Pathfailure as the Fast progression is exactly the same as 3.5 leveling. If the DM is an idiot, and let's face it, we're talking Pathfailure, so they likely are he will instead use Medium or Slow. This of course completely fucks over everyone, as you now need even more IP proofing measures to get anywhere. But you can't get them. So feel free to treat it as a bad video game. Not to mention making everything more grindy, slow, and unrewarding. Also something the Pathfailures like way too much.

But back to 3.5. IP proofing is necessary for campaign survival. Even normal power campaigns will quickly rack up a death toll. By IP proofing your character, you both preserve your character so you can continue playing and enjoying them and preserve campaign continuity. Both are obviously desirable. The only other alternatives is that the DM undermines the entire campaign by cheating, or that the entire campaign is undermined by a revolving door of characters. Not the same characters leaving and coming back. Different characters.

For you see, Raise Dead, which I know people are probably wanting to mention by now makes you lose levels and lose money. If it just happens once, this is ignorable. Thing is, once you die once, you're down a level. So it's easier to die again. And now you're a cohort, with substantially nerfed treasure. Which means the whole party, including you is better off if you just make a new character, and you certainly are not going to be able to contribute after that second death.
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Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #23 on: February 03, 2011, 06:34:24 PM »
. PCs must win every combat to win.

Wrong.

You see, as a tabletop game, DnD isn't like, say, an MMO or a first person shooter
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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #24 on: February 03, 2011, 06:56:34 PM »
. PCs must win every combat to win.

Wrong.

You see, as a tabletop game, DnD isn't like, say, an MMO or a first person shooter
I would also see Revivify as the solution to this, as well as similar effects.

Unless we mean by "lose" that every PC dies in a given encounter.  That makes the iterative probability a lot harder to calculate, though. 

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #25 on: February 03, 2011, 07:07:35 PM »
. PCs must win every combat to win.

Wrong.

You see, as a tabletop game, DnD isn't like, say, an MMO or a first person shooter

I chose to leave out the things that are worse than death that also occur on a loss. Including them makes me more right, not less. By all means, destroy your own argument by trying to include them.

If D&D was like an MMO or an FPS, you'd just respawn, and your side losing doesn't matter so much.

Now Revivify is actually a legitimate point, as it is an IP proofing measure that does not make you lose levels. It does however still have a fair number of limitations, starting with the fact it takes two people's actions, both of which have to be close to get you back in the right. Otherwise they just hit you once, and well that was a waste of 1k now wasn't it? And if the second action was a weak Heal (read: anything not named Heal) see OHKO anyways. Craft Contingent Revivify + Heal gets around the action and time problems, but is fucking expensive as hell. It is funny to have literal auto life though.
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Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

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Endarire

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #26 on: February 03, 2011, 08:16:52 PM »
Revenance (Spell Compendium) helps use revivify, but requires another spell prep.
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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #27 on: February 03, 2011, 08:38:04 PM »
Revenance (Spell Compendium) helps use revivify, but requires another spell prep.

Well then that's three, though one can come after the fight. And Revenance revives at half, so you still need a strong heal in there (which is one of the three, by the way). Still a nice IP proofing measure, and one I've used before, but it isn't like dying stops mattering.
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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

ninjarabbit

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #28 on: February 03, 2011, 08:54:05 PM »
PCs don't need to 'win' every encounter, they just merely need to survive.

Running away to live to fight another day is a perfectly viable tactic, hell George Washington became a legendary general primarily by finding creative ways of escaping the British.

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #29 on: February 03, 2011, 11:48:48 PM »
There is also an assumption being made that every opponent the party faces wants to kill them instead of perhaps knocking them out for later use (which opens up a different sub-plot).

veekie

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #30 on: February 04, 2011, 03:02:42 AM »
There is also an assumption being made that every opponent the party faces wants to kill them instead of perhaps knocking them out for later use (which opens up a different sub-plot).
Thats what he mean by 'worse than dead' though no DM I've ever played under actually had capture not wind up interesting and significantly better than death.
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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #31 on: February 04, 2011, 11:19:32 AM »
There is also an assumption being made that every opponent the party faces wants to kill them instead of perhaps knocking them out for later use (which opens up a different sub-plot).
Thats what he mean by 'worse than dead' though no DM I've ever played under actually had capture not wind up interesting and significantly better than death.

It's one example. Condemned to rot in jail and be a DM bitch forever, or lose magic items, or become an undead or something. All are far worse than simply dying, and none leave openings for things like dying well. It's the same result regardless - delete, reroll. Just forced retirement is considerably more offensive than death.
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There is no greater contribution than Hi Welcome.

Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.

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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

veekie

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #32 on: February 04, 2011, 03:17:00 PM »
I'm guessing you didn't have any fun escapes in your formative experiences while the BBEG is busy monologuing. Or actually going to trial(and the resulting fun).

Leveled characters are too uncommon to waste rotting in a cell. And the captors don't tend to have read the Evil Overlord's List.
The mind transcends the body.
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"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
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Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
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[/spoiler]

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Shiki

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #33 on: February 04, 2011, 04:34:06 PM »
Recuring vilain which is supposedly Epic which you can't harm in anyway because you are too weak and always let you live in the end because it is always funnier that way.

I'm locked in jail, me: "I Teleport out." DM: "Doesn't work." Me: "I Plane Shift out." DM: "Doesn't work." Me: "I blast the fuck out of the cell..." DM: "After your futile attempt at escaping, you see that your spell hasn't even scratched the walls."

Etc.

I Fail to see how these can be fun for you if every attempt just get Rule 0'd out (some just don't want to be caught in those situations because it freaking sucks tbh) because it destroys The Plot. DM needs to adapt himself to what his PCs are doing in his world, not the other way around.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #34 on: February 04, 2011, 04:38:32 PM »
I'm guessing you didn't have any fun escapes in your formative experiences while the BBEG is busy monologuing. Or actually going to trial(and the resulting fun).

Leveled characters are too uncommon to waste rotting in a cell. And the captors don't tend to have read the Evil Overlord's List.

So in other words:

The DM must be coddling (speaking is a free action, even when it is not your turn).
The DM must be coddling (enemies not reading the Evil Overlord's handbook, even if they are neither Evil nor an Overlord).
The DM must be coddling (for you to be able to defeat the enemies you could not defeat with all your gear and spells without either of those things).

If the DM is not coddling, you are irrevocably fucked. Also, if the DM is coddling, he's pretty much just fucking with you for the lulz.
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There is no greater contribution than Hi Welcome.

Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.

IP proofing and avoiding being CAPed OR - how to make characters relevant in the long term.

Friends don't let friends be Short Bus Hobos.

[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #35 on: February 04, 2011, 04:58:32 PM »
(speaking is a free action, even when it is not your turn).
Quote
Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.


And besides, given that there are monsters with spellcasting>CR, everyone is subject to the same so-called "DM coddling", since otherwise your party gets killed to death by a party of supposedly CR-appropriate sharns and cloaker lords who can outcast you.
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #36 on: February 04, 2011, 06:39:36 PM »
If you play it that way, then the BBEG wastes his turn, and you fucking kill him, because wasting your turn is suicide in D&D. But that just means you don't get a monologue at all.
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If you hear this music, run.

And don't forget:


There is no greater contribution than Hi Welcome.

Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.

IP proofing and avoiding being CAPed OR - how to make characters relevant in the long term.

Friends don't let friends be Short Bus Hobos.

[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]

dark_samuari

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #37 on: February 04, 2011, 07:11:56 PM »
There is also an assumption being made that every opponent the party faces wants to kill them instead of perhaps knocking them out for later use (which opens up a different sub-plot).
Thats what he mean by 'worse than dead' though no DM I've ever played under actually had capture not wind up interesting and significantly better than death.

It's one example. Condemned to rot in jail and be a DM bitch forever, or lose magic items, or become an undead or something. All are far worse than simply dying, and none leave openings for things like dying well. It's the same result regardless - delete, reroll. Just forced retirement is considerably more offensive than death.

No one is saying that once defeated in combat the players are bound in chains forever. And while I enjoy your praise towards a truly Norse-like death scene, death is not the finale for every combat scene. Hell there are some encounters that the party will lose to open up parts of the story.

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #38 on: February 04, 2011, 07:22:20 PM »
 Interesting stuff overall despite the sudden "Lets dispute Sunic even when he's right" turn at the end.
In the end the RHOD came out it kinda showed somethings like yeah you CAN get captured but getting captured should have some consequence. Nominally, a combat loss = death/or worse than death. Even if you DON'T get death. You're LOSING the story because while you're in prison fighting to protect your sweet virginity you're not out stopping
the Urophions army from winning. . . In the end yeah the pc's need to lose BUT once: Unless the dm is "Not gonna let that happen" thats one of the many reasons that TPK's are so shitty.

Something that really jumped out at me righ from the begining.

Quote
I've never had a p.c. in one of my games run or anything of the sort.. . . from anything. I've never as a pc "Flee" or anything of the sort. from anything.
 Maybe its the moxy-crimefighter mentality or just Hardcore hero's, and maybe because heroic adventure means everybody know's thier supposed to win.
  I rember once were were something like Level 5 and we walk in on one of the inevitables doing something (can't rember what) this almost immediately led to combat. We died. This kinda led to a scenario where everybody was like... "Why the fuck did you OUT Cr us like that"/"You weren't supposed to fight it : in unison fuck you!
  So you know, throwing around great red dragons or Pit Fiends at level 3 to give emphasis to the game or whyever people do that is... not unique or scary but mostly annoying because if its a story prop it needs to be kept on the "you're not in range to do anything about it" or lots of pc's totally will, if nothing else because that thing is likley as not to be a damned illusion.
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dark_samuari

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #39 on: February 04, 2011, 07:31:55 PM »
Interesting stuff overall despite the sudden "Lets dispute Sunic even when he's right" turn at the end.
In the end the RHOD came out it kinda showed somethings like yeah you CAN get captured but getting captured should have some consequence. Nominally, a combat loss = death/or worse than death. Even if you DON'T get death. You're LOSING the story because while you're in prison fighting to protect your sweet virginity you're not out stopping
the Urophions army from winning. . . In the end yeah the pc's need to lose BUT once: Unless the dm is "Not gonna let that happen" thats one of the many reasons that TPK's are so shitty.

There are some adventures where you want/need to get captured or put into prison.