Pathfinder Thread

I don't really want it to succeed. DarkPathfinderFallTopia Online is not something that will be good for the brand.

I have a stack of Pathfinder AP's about two feet high that I haven't read. They keep coming. I got overwhelmed. I just gave up even trying to read them.

I should cancel.

The main thing I've noticed getting back into the hobby is how tantalizing so many things are, but how little you realistically need. Something like Rise of the Runelords would last a casual group a year at least. I bought Frandor's Keep for Hackmaster, and it also has enough adventure hooks to last a year. Yet every time I look at pretty much anything Pokemon Fever sets in.

I'm sure this is a big revelation for those of you who stuck with the hobby throughout the mountain range of stuff released in the AD&D and 3.5 years, but I was shocked by how much highly-rated material is available. And the fact that you can get most of it in PDF form just makes things worse. It isn't taking up any room on my shelf, so why not nab as much as possible?

Stupid hobbies.

I just canceled my Pathfinder Battles sub yesterday. The minis are much higher quality than the pile of D&D minis I have, but I'm just not using them. I have too many, and without fail I just grab a handful of the cheap WotC ones and say, "This hobgoblin is a succubus, this blob is the wizard, and this umber hulk is the giant crab because it's first huge mini I saw"

Let me know if you have any interest in selling them.

So, that happened.

I really hope Paizo's financial support of Goblinworks is not enough to take them down when it crashes and burns.

That sucks. They are so good at what they do. Why are they so keen on doing something nobody is good at anymore?

I get the strategy, traditional RPGs have to go digital. The writing's on the wall. This is not the correct path for them, however (in my opinion). I think Ryan Dancey pulled the wool over their eyes.

Really, if you're not a special kind of recluse, how can you find time to play an EVE style game? It's an alternate reality. Why bother spending any time creating something like a home or businiess if you can lose it as soon as you log off to go to work?

Focusing on a great digital tabletop is the right direction. I know a lot of people who are really interested in playing RPGs but just don't have the time to slog through all the books or meet regularly, and finding someone to GM is nearly impossible. A slick digital tabletop could streamline things to the point where something like Pathfinder is approachable for the average middle-age schmo. Instead we play one-shot stuff like Fiasco or heavily abstracted and narrative-driven stuff like Dungeon World.

Their MMO is an alternative to Pathfinder, not a continuation of it. I don't get it.

I think they literally don't realize the audience they're making the game for. The audience they think they are making the game for is not the one that is going to show up to play it and I think that is going to be a very rude surprise for them.

I think this is a pretty brilliant description of most MMOs in general.

I usually use different candies for enemies. For whatever reason it makes players more likely to want to kill things so they can eat delicious chocolate.

I did that in 4e with minions. That's the one thing I liked about 4e.

This time only one person died (our oracle!), and everything I cast a spell against made their save. I continue to be immortal, though.

We were supposed to have a game tonight but our last player didn't show D:

Aw, that's a bummer, I hate when that happens.

We snuck in a bonus session last night and Ffarthlane, the lvl 2 half elf fighter (that's me), managed to get through an entire adventure without getting stunned, nauseated, poisoned, knocked out, or blinded. I finally did my job, which was stand in front of the party with combat expertise and defensive fighting and soak attacks.

The DM said he's going to go post on Paizo's forums about how it's not fun to DM a high AC fighter. (apparently this is a thing people complain about?) I can't wait til I get the full whip mastery tree because not only will I be able to sit there with my shield planted, I'll be tripping and disarming all dudes within 15' too! Those drow, that we don't know exist in character yet, won't know what hit them!

FYI: Drow, pronounced properly, rhymes with "bow".

That's not a very good hint, considering "bow" can be pronounced both the ways people pronounce "Drow." :)

That's the joke! ;-p

Yeah, I'm having a rather daft day. Don't mind me...

Everything is a thing (some) DMs complain about.

EDIT: In particular, AC at low level is a silly thing to be concerned about. AC doesn't scale nearly as easily as attack bonus does so it is a problem that tends to solve itself over time, and it can be bypassed in about a billion different ways.

Playing as a sword saint samurai is awesome. Iajutsu striking something and then stunning everything around me is awesome, especially when it's a trashy group of goblins. Decapitated their hobgoblin overseer and shocked the 10 goblins around him, allowing my teammates to squash through them all.

Not as effective against big enemies, but it still rolls for a metric fuck-ton of damage.

Taking 20 on any knowledge skill I have ranks in once per day: evidently overpowered. Not overpowered enough the DM will do anything about it, but he has whined about it several times now.

Also, my bard? STILL IMMORTAL.

We had two absences again this session, which is starting to suck because everyone who shows up then plays two characters, only one of them well. Instead of a play session where things go more quickly because there are fewer people, they actually go more slowly because everyone's playing an unfamiliar character.

So this time one of the one of the character fainted and the other had to carry him the rest of the session. Bing, two characters out of action and no silly teleportation or other nutso stuff. The gentleman's agreement I had was that as long as the conscious character did nothing to assist any encounter, no monster would target him.

It worked out fine. One player was still playing his own character and an NPC, but he's been playing that NPC for months now and knows the character. I'm also let him level him, and he doesn't feel any of the pressures to make a "good" character, so he's been putting skill points in Profession: Barrister just because. Eventually this rogue is going to make quite a lawyer.

I guess it's a running joke now, because in the last campaign another player (who doesn't play with us anymore... he had kids) put skill points into Forgery, bought a hat of disguise, and assumed an alter ego of Roger Taxwell, municipal tax collector. He then proceeded to skim money off of everything he collected and built up quite a little nest egg, including a town house and servants.

In this Second Darkness campaign, the DM is making us roll our hitpoints. He's an old school guy, about 10 years older than me. So far it's been about what you'd expect, people are rolling average hitpoints. Except my fighter. I'm level 4 and I have 29 hit points. I have rolled a 2, a 2, and a 3 on my hit dice. In fact, upon hitting level 4 I rolled my hit die and it was a 2. Our DM laughed and said go ahead and roll again, and I rolled a 3.

The only reason I have 29 hit points is that I take the hit point every level, and my Constitution is 14. I felt ok with my HP total though, because my armor class is 24, and 28 when I fight defensively with combat expertise. No one could hit me. First encounter of the night, I walked into an ambush with a pair of drow who got surprise attacks on me, and won initiative, and they all missed. Fuck you pansy elves and your pansy hand crossbows and poisoned rapiers, I'm a Goddamn Half-elf Fighter. You can't hurt me.

I walk around the corner after the party dispatches the drow (and loot them) and we get surprised by a Shadow Demon. DM says, "What's your touch AC? Flat footed." Me: ".... 10."

Shadow demon hits for 8. Shadow demon wins initiative, full attacks, hits for another 20. If you've been following along, that leaves me with exactly 1 hit point.

Fortunately the ranger's favored enemy is Evil Outsiders, and he spent his entire starting gold on a cold iron weapon, and the party wizard has Magic Weapon memorized. Dwarf takes on the Shadow Demon while my fighter stands there, completely ineffective, guarding the other passage. At least if some drow try to jump us from behind they will have to contend with AC 28! *And* my hit point!

Our dwarf goes down fighting the shadow demon, but it will not leave the darkness so we drag him out, heal him, and he goes back in to finish the job. At this point the party wants to rest. I have 1 hit point, the ranger has 9 (out of 50, he rolled well on his hit dice), the wizard has 1 spell left, the oracle has 1 spell left, and the inquisitor has no spells or judgements left. They blew almost everything on the shadow demon trying to to figure out how to hurt it. I argue if we leave and rest, whoever is in this dungeon is going to bug out or fortify, so we need to at least press on and figure out what is going on here. Party agrees, we press on.

Next room, there is a drow dissecting a space monster (that's another story), and he has a pet lizard. My fighter, who is carrying the weapons and chain shirts from the drow we just killed, wins initiative, but the enemy is to far away to close and attack this round. So, I walk into the room, I look at the drow, hold out the pile of drow gear from the dead ones we just looted, and I drop it without saying a word. Then I roll... INTIMIDATE! Which I put 1 point into at level 4! And I roll a 20! The drow is shaken! That's right asshole, Ffarthlane and his hit point are here, and you're going to die when my friends who all have better movement speeds than me (except the dwarf) get to act and trash you.

The drow goes next, and castes Produce Flame. Fuck. I guess he's a druid. DM says "What's your touch AC?" My hit point and I respond, "12." (I'm not flat footed now). Attack roll.. he missed. Because he's fucking shaken from my intimidate! Hahahaahahahaa!!! Fighter! BEST CLASS IN D&D