Author Topic: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice  (Read 27630 times)

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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #60 on: February 06, 2011, 02:03:33 PM »
Scrying =/= Sending.

Also, it's 700 gold. Which is a lot less than you lose if you are railroaded into losing all equipment forever. Not to mention you actually succeed, instead of failing, and can then move on to an adventure that does not suck.
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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]

Midnight_v

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #61 on: February 06, 2011, 03:30:28 PM »
Scrying =/= Sending.

Also, it's 700 gold. Which is a lot less than you lose if you are railroaded into losing all equipment forever. Not to mention you actually succeed, instead of failing, and can then move on to an adventure that does not suck.
:banghead

Fair enough.
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dark_samuari

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #62 on: February 06, 2011, 04:35:42 PM »
Scrying =/= Sending.

Also, it's 700 gold. Which is a lot less than you lose if you are railroaded into losing all equipment forever. Not to mention you actually succeed, instead of failing, and can then move on to an adventure that does not suck.

Sending doesn't compel the convict to aid you.

In addition I am still getting confused on the absolutism towards any confinement as a player. The moment a player is confined in say a prison or sub-terrain cave system is the campaign awful? Some of the coolest adventures/campaigns involve prison heists.

I'm seriously surprised that none of you, in all your haste to prove how terrific magic is, didn't utilize a perfectly mundane manner to approach the problem. Produce a forgery indicating you are new prison guards.

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #63 on: February 06, 2011, 05:03:13 PM »
Scrying however allows you to see him. And if you only need a message on his back, you're actually already done. If you actually need to get the guy out, Teleport twice and it's done.

And yes, adventures instantly and automatically become utter fail the moment you try and force fates worse than death as a railroading measure.
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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]

Midnight_v

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #64 on: February 06, 2011, 05:05:46 PM »
Quote
Sending doesn't compel the convict to aid you.
Hmm... send him a diplomacy check.
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veekie

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #65 on: February 07, 2011, 05:19:52 AM »
Scrying =/= Sending.

Also, it's 700 gold. Which is a lot less than you lose if you are railroaded into losing all equipment forever. Not to mention you actually succeed, instead of failing, and can then move on to an adventure that does not suck.

Sending doesn't compel the convict to aid you.

In addition I am still getting confused on the absolutism towards any confinement as a player. The moment a player is confined in say a prison or sub-terrain cave system is the campaign awful? Some of the coolest adventures/campaigns involve prison heists.

I'm seriously surprised that none of you, in all your haste to prove how terrific magic is, didn't utilize a perfectly mundane manner to approach the problem. Produce a forgery indicating you are new prison guards.
Well...if the boss has read the Evil Overlords List....

Speaking of teleports, ever tried the fun option of getting captured on purpose(sans most of your gear), just so your buddies have a scrying target to teleport a strike team in?
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[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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[/spoiler]

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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #66 on: February 07, 2011, 08:42:26 AM »
And yes, adventures instantly and automatically become utter fail the moment you try and force fates worse than death as a railroading measure.
You've thrown around the term "fate worse than death" before.

I don't agree.

For me, a fate worse than the death of my character is the following:
Step 1: Characters and monsters roll initiative.  Characters win, due to OMGWTFBBQ hax of the init boosting and celerity sorts.
Step 2: The next caster up kills the monster with the highest initiative with a save or die.  Split up loot.
Step 3: Wash, rinse, and repeat via divination + teleport.

Which is the game style you seem to be advocating.  I'm far more interested in a game where interesting things happen.  I am profoundly bored by rocket tag.  As a player, I avoid characters who use it.  As a DM, I avoid monster who use it.  The only thing that is more tedious than rocket tag is rocket tag where your chance of losing is infinitesimal.  At that point there's no reason to bother with statting characters up.  Have a d100.  Whenever there's a combat, roll it.  You get a 1, you're dead.  Anything else, you win.  You're just playing a really overcomplicated game of magical tea party, since 90% of your character sheet never matter.

Headbutting a guard with your smite evil, stealing his keys and rescuing the imprisoned fellow party members is an interesting occurrence.  Grappling the guy who killed your clan into the ocean, knowing full well your adamantine armor will sink both of you into a watery grave is an interesting occurrence.  Both of those are things that you claim are somehow worse than playing a build where you always go first and nobody can save against your mass flesh to salt DCs.
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BrokeAndDrive

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #67 on: February 07, 2011, 09:31:43 AM »
Curious that everyone talking about antimagic field never accounts for Sculpt Spell.  It's cheesy, but no less cheesy than dipping Mindbender for Mindsight, yet everyone masturbates to that shit (never account for the fact that any DM with half a brain and one testicle will ban the likes of Mindsight and Lifesense, and the Polymorph line and Incantatrix and...).

So why doesn't anyone take into account Sculpt Spell?
« Last Edit: February 07, 2011, 09:33:16 AM by BrokeAndDrive »
Random quotes:[spoiler]I think Roy's coinages are shitty and dumb, but Failroy has to take the cake for the dumbest new compound word of the year
~

That was kind of the point. I was trying to be a Roy parody, but I guess it didn't come across overly well.

==

JaronK is of course most famous for his massive thought experiments into placing classes into tiers. While a kind of nifty idea, and a decent enough way to think about stuff, his particular tier assignments were basically insane. Apparently the criteria he used was to assign classes relative strength based on what bullshit he personally would let them get away with at 20th level.

So Factotums were rated very highly, because apparently he would let them use Rokugan-exclusive skills with Forgotten Realms-exclusive weapons from the back of MM2 templated warbeasts. But Rogues suck donkey dick, becuase he wouldn't let them use Use Magic Device to read scrolls of Planar Binding. It was a very surreal argument.
~

And to think the system was immortalized in OOTS. As a general rule, I try to avoid all tier discussion there because it's the De Facto system at BG, and I'm not going to change anyone's mind.

Besides, I think if most people are pressed, they will admit that it's just an estimate, anyway, and that results can vary from table to table.
~

My only real complaint with the tier system is that at one point I was tired (tiered?) of hearing about it.[/spoiler]

Solo

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #68 on: February 07, 2011, 09:33:04 AM »
That metamagic feat you keep using... I do not think it works the way you think it works.

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The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.

Bloody Initiate

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #69 on: February 07, 2011, 09:52:28 AM »
I don't employ memes. Mass-produced ammunition, even from reputable manufacturers, tends to malfunction on occasion.

veekie

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The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"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~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #71 on: February 07, 2011, 11:24:47 AM »
Scrying =/= Sending.

Also, it's 700 gold. Which is a lot less than you lose if you are railroaded into losing all equipment forever. Not to mention you actually succeed, instead of failing, and can then move on to an adventure that does not suck.

Sending doesn't compel the convict to aid you.

In addition I am still getting confused on the absolutism towards any confinement as a player. The moment a player is confined in say a prison or sub-terrain cave system is the campaign awful? Some of the coolest adventures/campaigns involve prison heists.

I'm seriously surprised that none of you, in all your haste to prove how terrific magic is, didn't utilize a perfectly mundane manner to approach the problem. Produce a forgery indicating you are new prison guards.
Well...if the boss has read the Evil Overlords List....

Speaking of teleports, ever tried the fun option of getting captured on purpose(sans most of your gear), just so your buddies have a scrying target to teleport a strike team in?

So in other words, willingly accept a fate worse than death?

If you are bored with Rocket Tag, you are bored with D&D. D&D is Rocket Tag. Putting down your own rocket launcher doesn't make the rockets go away. It just means you are dead weight to your party, and an open target for enemy rocket launchers.

We get it. You think it is Fun to Fail(tm), and would be better off playing a Paizil Gunslinger, which rewards self destructive behavior than a real game with real classes.

However, the rest of us would like to succeed. Accomplish character goals, advance plots of the non railroading variety, and get shit done. To do that you need rockets, to keep up, and you need IP proofing, so you don't get slaughtered a half dozen fights in. This is a CO board, that means most people are here to optimize success. You are the odd man out.
Smiting Imbeciles since 1985.

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]

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #72 on: February 07, 2011, 03:21:58 PM »

If you are bored with Rocket Tag, you are bored with D&D. D&D is Rocket Tag.
Only if you're getting in a pissing contest with the DM.  The game is perfectly functional without rocket tag provided people (including the DM) are familiar with the system.  Since we already have a social agreement in place to prevent everyone from Pun-punning, this should not be a new concept.

Since evidently you're the kind of person who defects in the prisoner's dilemma every time, I see no reason why I'd ever want to play a social game with you.

Or, to put it another, more cliche manner:It's not about whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2011, 03:32:32 PM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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Talore

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #73 on: February 07, 2011, 05:37:29 PM »
You know, I'm completely agreeing with TML. Optimization can be fun, but D&D is a roleplaying game. You know how wonderfully the game works when not everyone is vying to be a dragonwrought kobold, or an ubercharger? It's a pretty fucking awesome game. Because you aren't optimized out the ass doesn't mean you "Like to Suck." Honestly that kind of mentality turns D&D into WoW. D&D is not rocket tag. Competitive D&D is rocket tag, which is more akin to public ego masturbation than playing a game, IMO. You can have games with fighters and rogues, where the party needs to infiltrate/break a prison, and not have it railroaded/suck. You know how bloody fun solo games are?!?! You can play a frigging expert and have more fun than rocket tag.
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Bester

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #74 on: February 07, 2011, 07:04:16 PM »
However, the rest of us would like to succeed. Accomplish character goals, advance plots of the non railroading variety, and get shit done. To do that you need rockets, to keep up, and you need IP proofing, so you don't get slaughtered a half dozen fights in. This is a CO board, that means most people are here to optimize success. You are the odd man out.

how do you accomplish character goals without the dm and the group coddling your whim?
Ragnar is searching for his father's sacred sword of JuniorMintstm.  The DM would need to coddle Ragnar and include that in the plot.  The other players would need to put up with the DM taking away time from their characters for that.  Unless they were all looking for swords of various candy varieties.

I just thought I'd jump in here and say that I recently ran a game with the goal of capturing a pc because that was what the pc really wanted (he hinted at it out of game).  The player showed how easy it was for a sorcerer of mid level to escape from jail.  I wasn't shocked, but the other players were.  Since we all dm in rotation, they realized that holding magical pcs is hard to do...killing them on the other hand...

Just make sure you coddle the pcs by giving them their stuff back when they escape!(the sorcerer didn't think of that...)

BTW, my favorite campaign setting, Planescape, is all about coddling the pcs.  There are all manor of fiends and such on the streets of Sigil, yet level 1 characters can exist there too! I say fiat!

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #75 on: February 07, 2011, 07:11:44 PM »
D&D is Rocket Tag regardless of your lies, handwaving, and fail. Also, the world is not flat, it is round, yet slightly oval shaped.

Hi Welcome
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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]

RelentlessImp

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #76 on: February 07, 2011, 07:17:48 PM »
BTW, my favorite campaign setting, Planescape, is all about coddling the pcs.  There are all manor of fiends and such on the streets of Sigil, yet level 1 characters can exist there too! I say fiat!

Are you mentally handicapped? Level 1 characters can exist there because, presumably, they've grown up in Sigil, they know how it works. And as any fucking Cagehead can tell you, berk, you don't piss off the Powers that roam the Cage. Not if you want to walk away with all your limbs intact.

Coddling would be a group of level 1s pissing off a gelugon there on business and somehow NOT winding up in the Dead Book.
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Bester

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #77 on: February 07, 2011, 07:23:49 PM »

Are you mentally handicapped? Level 1 characters can exist there because, presumably, they've grown up in Sigil, they know how it works. And as any fucking Cagehead can tell you, berk, you don't piss off the Powers that roam the Cage. Not if you want to walk away with all your limbs intact.

Coddling would be a group of level 1s pissing off a gelugon there on business and somehow NOT winding up in the Dead Book.

Yay Planescape!  The only setting with it's own Cant.  My first character almost didn't happen because the dm insisted that Githzerai weren't psionic!(this was way before torment btw)  I had to whip out the old fiend folio from 1st edition and make some really good arguments to convince him that the race is the definition of psionic.

bearsarebrown

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #78 on: February 07, 2011, 07:34:47 PM »
@Endarire and Sunic, you both seem well versed in creating encounters. Would you mind posting some of them? I'm especially interested in Endarire with this specific campaign. Maybe a snapshot of a encounter for every level or so?

I'm not asking for numbers, just concepts.

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Challenging 3.5 and Pathfinder Parties in Practice
« Reply #79 on: February 07, 2011, 07:58:28 PM »
@Endarire and Sunic, you both seem well versed in creating encounters. Would you mind posting some of them? I'm especially interested in Endarire with this specific campaign. Maybe a snapshot of a encounter for every level or so?

I'm not asking for numbers, just concepts.

Not sure where he posted anything about encounters, but PM me so I don't forget.
Smiting Imbeciles since 1985.

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]