Paizo Games General /pgg/

I'm sorry.

>Who is the most feared member of your party and why do your foes tremble at the sight of him?

1
>The Warrior of Light, because her strength and skill are prodigious and her righteous power cannot be checked without truly overwhelming force.
2
>The Black Knight, because his bellowing roar strikes fear into even the hardened hearts of killers and beasts, and his blade rings against bone as it cleaves foes asunder
3
>The People's Champion, because her blades are swift and she shows no mercy to the wicked and no fear of death.

I want to start running Pathfinder, but there are so many books and my players don't own any. Should I just make them stick to CRB options, or is that too restrictive? I don't suppose if I ran PFS I'd be allowed to limit it to CRB options? I can't keep up with all the books, and only 1 of my players is the type willing to min-max, and given the chance he definitely will.

Use the PFSRD and Archive of Nethys websites, user. If you're worried about one player, either A) talk to them about it, or B) kick them out.

Just as it was with 3.5, additional books contains more balanced options. Core actually more unbalanced (monk and wizard in the same book, ffs). So, yes it's too restrictive. Use sites with all content included, as was advised.

Basically, what you're thinking about doing is punishing the entire group (by playing the worst balanced version, core only) because of one guy (your suspected min-maxer.)
Don't do it. Allow as many fun options as you can, and just lock that bitch the fuck down if he tries to get out of line with your game.

Is there a general restriction I can place in order to ensure they can't min-max, like how D&D have the PHB+1 rule? Is it fair to restrict players that way in Pathfinder Society play?

How are they more balanced? Is it possible to only draw from a few books and still offer better balance, or is it not worth doing and best to just let them pick anything?

PHB is the most broken book you dummy.

Just let them pick anythin

I'm thinking of running an early AP like RotRL. Not all these countless options existed when it released, so isn't it more like playing PF Classic than it is punishing?

Trust me. You'll be better off allowing all the books. Your players will be much happier, and potential difference in class power and versatility could be less stark.
The more books you allow, the more likely it is for things to turn out okay, so allowing more books increases your odds of being okay.
People can always min-max unless you go in and change their builds after the fact to intentionally fuck them up so they can't, so your best option is to empower the weaker ideas by giving them maximum options to try and close the gap with the high-end shitters.

Classic PF is worse than later PF.

Like, arguably you could erase the effects of subsequent errata on later content to enhance fun, but allow all the content and you'll be allowing all the potential fun.

You can't say you're pro-fun and then try to limit fun. The best plan is to allow all the books but without any post-book errata because THAT is some dumb shit.

Anyone have Fantasy Grounds modules for Pathfinder or Starfinder?

It takes way more work to try and preemptively stop min-maxing. Just let all the players do what they want and have them make sure to have you look at what they have and you can make a decision then on whether it's too min-max.

I guarantee you if someone is actively trying to min-max they will out-autism any possible restriction you could give them beforehand.

There a guide to spotting and reducing a min-maxer? I wouldn't even know what to look for.

I bring it up because one or two of the player characters in my D&D campaign are super optimized. It's partly a player issue, as one came in with "rolled" stats that were far higher than he could have reasonably rolled. I knew then and there, no rolled stats in my campaigns.

>There a guide to spotting and reducing a min-maxer?
As, "by in game numbers"? Doubt it, since it's mostly relative - something like "how much stronger A in comparison to other characters in the group?". But I suppose you already know what to expect from your players and know who'd pull some shit like pre-rolled stats (why would you allow some rolls, that you haven't see in a first place?)

Or have them roll in front of you where you can see the results with no fudging. Or if it's online then YOU roll their numbers for them. Or if it's on roll20 have them make their rolls publicly.

As far as guides go, idk if there's something elaborate written down somewhere. Red flags for me are people who ask specifically if they can use something extremely obscure and niche but won't explain what for, or if they start trying to rules-lawyer at you on a regular basis over the mechanical minutia of their Character. It's extremely easy to catch a min-maxer if you're seeing them in person or hear their voice. They all kind of come off as the same.

The general fixes are first to try compromising, say 'No' if they don't want to compromise, and then if they try to argue I flex my role as the GM. If they get fed up or angry with you then they can leave. It's their loss, not yours. If they stick around but are vengeful then tell them to get outta here with that playground shit.

None of this applies if they're just generally good at playing TRPG's; they aren't min-maxing the way we talk about it with the negative connotation but are just somewhat aware of what is 'good' and build that. All of the above is taking into account malicious min-maxing.

What's the best class to feel like a badass demigod that punches people in the face?

He just came in with his sheet and had wrongly assumed I allow rolls. I do not allow rolled stats for anyone.

Some of it's definitely a player issue, and I think I've not had to deal with it too much because official 5e is rather limiting on what you can do.

One of my players has stated they are against playing Pathfinder because it is too complicated. I thought using less books might simplify things, but apparently that just makes the system worse.

It might be that Pathfinder isn't right for our group. I will try out We Be Goblins scenario with them first to see how they like it, and then move on from there to some PFS before deciding if we should start a campaign.

Is there a better adventure than We Be Goblins to start with?

So, despite having played for a while, I'm still somewhat of a novice when it comes to planning encounters and making them fun. The feedback I get is that I tend to either just have one big enemy, or a mob of mooks, occasionally a big enemy with a mob entourage. The problem I myself have, is I often wind up overestimating or underestimating the party, and either risk one shotting them, or being one-shotted myself. In fact, both seem likely in every encounter. I sent a dragon at them recently, and it's breath reduced one PC to negative health in one go, and then the party dished out over 500hp damage over two turns and crumped it. Are there any resources out there to help me work out how to run a more interesting combat?

Additionally, I have a combat next session that I intend to run with one big HP sink damage dealing boss, with three more elite combatants in tow. These elites have not been worked out yet, but should hopefully force the party to strategise about who to take out first (this combat is based on some suggestions made by a player). Is there anything in particular I should do to make this more interesting?

Traps and environmental pieces really bring combat to life.

As for balance, I find increasing enemy HP to be very helpful. My groups always dump huge damage out, and having a big buffer there helps to keep that in check. I also find having a good mix of big, medium, and smalls is best, rather than a solo or loads of mooks. Mooks never do anything, and one solo gets taken down in 1-2 turns. Having multiple enemies at the medium and small range gives you lots of options during combat, and leaves them with plenty of targets to burn turns.

Also don't be afraid to make shit up, simple things that force the players to kill off mooks before dealing with a big bad duder that is the main enemy can be a decent dynamic

Only half technically, the science group didn't go through any of that shit.

If your players feel like combat is boring, then use the mighty powers vested unto you by the system and your players to make shit up like it's going out of style.

For example: Room 1 has 6 goblins--4 with swords and 2 with slings--in a room with an entrance and an exit. Your players might breeze through this, but what if one of the goblins shouted for help from the other room after 1 of the sword goblins died? Now your players are thinking whether to blow resources and go fast, or conserve and take the risk of (what they will soon see to be two big, buff orcs) reinforcements?

Or say you have your HP sponge boss and three combatants. I don't know the setting but imagine something cultish. The big bad is occupied channeling some spell over a potential sacrifice, and the three guards have amulets on. Any damage over X amount dealt to the guards gets transferred to the big-bad who's busy channeling and has a massive health pool. Now the players have to triage a situation where maybe the Fighter can't just nuke whatever comes near him because it won't actually stop the enemy at his face. What spells might someone have to keep a guard trapped while they party focuses on whittling down the other two? Or the wizard could try to figure out more about the amulet and try to dispel one of them, or maybe they decide to kill one of the guards and then take their amulet and wear it so that the other two guards can't hurt them with their strongest attacks? At what point would the Big Boss stop channeling the spell on the sacrifice and join the fray?

All these are things you can add to an encounter beyond just what's in a monster manual and a Combat Rating calculator. All of these are shit you just made up (you don't even need to specify what spell the amulet uses) and your players will probably eat that shit up. Make sure to plan for a wide range of possible player reactions though. Make a DC to figure out what the amulets do, etc.

>What's the best class to feel like a badass demigod
The only correct answer is wizard.

What's a good wizard build for punching people in the face?

Let's ask some more, /pfg/.

How would YOUR PCs feel about being raised as evil undead monsters? Self-aware of their evil, that is.

Would you play in a campaign where you died in the first fight, became undead, and tried to return to life? But it won't be Dark Souls.

Thanks guys, this is some really good advice, I appreciate it!

The combat I'm planning for next session involves the party fighting a huge and massively augmented bear, which has shit tons of HP and some nasty, if basic attacks. They are in a single, large room, and three gargoyles with class levels will come out of the walls and fight. I might pinch the latter posts suggestion of health being channelled around. They are in a room with a treasure horde, and there may be a trap so that the health of the guardians is supplemented by some arcane thing underground, and when enough damage has been sent to that instead of the guardians, the whole room plummets down below, the treasure crashing into an underground river and being scattered. That's a bit different from being forced to target one specific creature first though, so I'm not sure how well it would work.

So I gotta ask, are there any classes/archetypes you guys have banned in your group?

In mine we’ve come to a consensus that Kineticist is no-longer open for players due the sheer amount of math and rules fuckery it brings with it.
That and the maximize/empower combo on their rays

I would think you would ban Kineticist for an entirely different reason.

anyone know some fun stuff to pull off as druids? im kinda overwhelmed by all the options available to me atm

Being a con based caster with the ability to wear full-plate without any casting penalties and the ability to fly for free?

Being shit, namely

Kineticist is garbage, though. A literal expert (an NPC class) with a longbow has higher damage output than kineticist.

Shit how?

This player is able to do over a hundred points of damage on a touch attack that ignores spell resistance and can wear full-plate.

I threw a dragon at him alone and the only reason he lost was due to his dice giving up on him.

One good hit and he could’ve mulched it.
I’ve quite literally had to start throwing out a shit-ton of fire resistance to counter for it

If the fucking trashcan that is Kineticist of all classes is outshining other party members, there's only two real options:
1. He's doing something wrong - either not counting burn correctly, or using illegal combinations of options, or something like that. Basically, not playing by the rules.
2. He's the only one who bothered to at all optimise his character while the other players did no optimisation whatsoever, resulting in an optimisation disparity.

Rest of the party is a Gunslinger, a Paladin, a bard, a sorcerer, a Druid who is playing the wrong class, and the kineticist.

He and the sorcerer are the heavy hitters

>I threw a dragon at him alone and the only reason he lost was due to his dice giving up on him.
>The gunslinger didn't do anything during this
A gunslinger, hell a bow-fighter even, can one round a dragon and they're still shit classes.

Gunslinger, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Druid all have higher damage potential than Kineticist.
Maybe even Bard with some archetypes, but that's unusual builds.

If he's beating a gunslinger you have two problems.

Locally, there's a PFS kineticist who is absolutely mulching things... But it's because he's doing his math wrong, firstly, and cheating on his dice rolls. He targets AC for the higher damage but, despite mathematically hitting an average monster on a roll of 11+ has missed twice in three sessions.

And gunslinger kill things stupid dead. If your gunslinger isn't doing that then they don't understand the rules. It's a class that builds itself and just does damage.

If a sorcerer is outdamaging and Paladin and a Gunslinge then your martails are FUBAR, and the issue lies with them most likely. Also what level are you guys at?

Probably my character, the party ranger. He's not the most powerful but he makes a point of being the scariest in the room. Comes from probably the biggest hellscape on the planet and his people have a drop of giant blood so he's big and hits hard. Has a reputation of fucking people up badly in combat with his greatsword. Also has a roc companion and giant eagles scare the shit out of people.

Probably the big half-orc with a butcher's axe because he's visually intimidating.
The enemies usually don't know the actually scariest party member is the cute halfling fucked in the head to the point of not having any remorse or empathy.

Fun fact for your next Gestalt game: by RAW a scholar's companion can choose to use either your BAB or it's own, as a familiar could.

>Fun fact for your next Gestalt bamboozle
FTFY

Gunslinger is using a pistol, Druid player cannot into spellcasters, paladin is simply not all that impressive although he has his moments.

Granted, we tend not to break the classes as hard as we could so when this player does it’s noticeable.

I also wouldn’t discount them being unable to properly do math.

Levels are 11/12

tl;dr: the problem isn't the class, the problem is the player, either by simply optimising more than the average for the group, or by doing something rules-illegal without you catching it

Entirely possible, I had to work out the math on one of his abilities earlier as he was doing it wrong.

The class has too many damn little modifiers

thanks

The Kineticist is a giant pile of fiddly bullshit that requires ten times the effort for half the effectiveness of a slapped together... Anything, really.

Yeah, I went back to do the math and he’s doing 145 damage on maximized, empowered composite blasts

>Who is the most feared member of your party and why do your foes tremble at the sight of him?
the vilderavn

145 per round to a single target is tame at 11-12.
Most classes can exceed 200 by then.
Moreover, I imagine those blasts apply a lot of burn to him, meaning he can make like 3 of those a day before being incapable of continuing adventuring.

He’s got a con of 20 and has three in the buffer, meaning he can do it around 6-ish.

I’d need to doublecheck

Doing 145 damage 6 times a day isn't exactly impressive when the average Gunslinger of that level can do that much at-will.
Also, is he using physical or energy blasts for that damage? If it's physical, it targets AC, not touch.

That one is physical.

Now, part of this may simply be due to this being the first time we’ve had a campaign reach these levels and I’ve simply got to adjust.

We’ve always had to quit campaigns at 8 or so due to life rearing it’s ugly head.

Gunslingers issue is he uses a pepperbox and always hugs the edge of his range so he’s rarely able to full attack and the party only really has two melee fighters.

Endboss of the book is gonna be fun as guck though, I retooled the fight for multiple targets and a big boy

should have spent some of that wealth by level on a ring of freedom of movement duh

>Gunslingers issue is bad decision-making

gestalt wizard/vigilante stalker

yeah, this is starting to remind me of a group I played with briefly who considered max skill ranks power gaming.

Your players are bad. The kineticist class has a pretty high floor (because there's nothing you can do to make it good) so what you're seeing is that what the rest of the world considers minimal competence is what your party considers phenomenal cosmic power.

Tell your players to git gud

So how would you rebalance animal companions in an SoM/P game with gestalt?

>Online game is bloated with players and feels like nobody shines through
>In person game is level 10 and I only have about 5000gp of gear

I wouldn't bother with them. I wouldnt pick classes/archytpes with one or find an archtype that trades them away

no game > bad game

But I really want a pet dog.

buy a war-hound for gp and never use it in combat.

Then learn to not be a faggot.

>buy war-hound
>never use it in combat

really activates my almonds

you said you wanted a dog. you're not going to set your squishy 1-hd dog into combat with gestalt pcs now are you user?

What if I have the Bolster Beast talent from SoM and train my dog to know kung-fu?

will still suck-ass compared to the PCs. Get a 'pet' dog and leave it as a pet.

Oh boy here we go.

A few years ago we had a mythic samsaran ninja named jardim shadow blade who one-shot an entire army of boggards.

In a more recent campaign we have an Id rager names stanley who could one-shot bosses at low levels and can still murder almost anything in his way. He once escaped a prison by killing all the guards with his bedpan and then jumping off of the roof to safety.

Azerath The deadhand stylist monk who could inflict enough negative energy levels to become a vampiric one punch man

Sharg the half orc fighter rogue who 3 on 1’d a group of fire giant generals.

That’s his issue, I know.

He hits hard when he gets the opportunity but poor placement prevents much of that

Could be.

The Druid I know we’ve had issues in the past with her not know a majority of what spells she should use.

>Who is the most feared member of your party and why do your foes tremble at the sight of him?

Any of them, really.

>A: Stealthy motherfucker who will put half a dozen bullets into your eye from long range with a smile on his face. Probably has the most killability of the whole party. Also really hates dwarves.

>B: Is the fucking iron wall of samurai honor who has no-sold dragonfire and puts in work with her nodachi. Also an actual princess.

>C: Fucks about with strange magical bullshit and probably has the most raw Intimidate of the party. Also most likely to dismantle your life by a series of unconnected accidents that in no way implicate her.

>Check some things out for the hell of it
>Player was using features he didn't have access to
>Only thing i hadn't double-checked before the session
>All my plans went to shit and neither of us had fun because he had to be a little bitch
My rage knows no bounds

>Just did chargen last friday because we really want to play it

Suggestions (Implement the ones you think sound good, not necessarily all of them)
>Give it the SoM martial companion archetype for free without trading out other things.
>Consider letting players redo the initial ability scores to be 20~25PB (PC tier stats, but they're still not gestalt)
>Give them full HD = Master's druid level progression past level 2, so they get feats sooner.

Sounds like you shouldn't run Pathfinder.

Let your players use d20pfsrd, don't let them use any material from 3pp because if you're just starting out you don't want to unleash the tidal wave of fucking rules and content you'll have to learn.

Not to mention your min-maxer is going to have a field day if he gets access to EVERYTHING.

So Veeky Forums a player has come to me with the following combination.
Alchemist with the Inspired Chemist archetype. Take the Infusion discovery and Inspired Alchemiy feat.
Now you can recreate extracts with inspiration from your inspiring cognatogen, make them infusions and set them down. Inspired Alchemy explicitly states they don't count against your amount of prepared extracts.

Am I retarded or does this actually work?
Relevant links:
d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/
d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/Alchemist/archetypes/paizo-alchemist-archetypes/inspired-chemist
d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/Alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/inspiring-cognatogen-su
d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/infusion/

So, I just used forgeworks for a DMPC, and I have to say, it really makes the game more about the stuff you have rather than the character you are playing. I mean, the players all have legendary items that scale with them, but I feel like forgeworks is such a convoluted, numbers heavy system, why use it?

I forgot to add that the point of this is to create effectively unlimited amounts of infusions to bring with on an adventure.

What is the best witch patron for a witch? Which one would be best for a pact wizard?

I'd say PFSRD, only use Paizo or Dreamscarred Press Books. If you are concerned with having to learn more systems or your players having to learn more systems then cut out DSP. I love their take on martial maneuvers and psionics, but if you're just starting out its not necessary.

Make sure to mention to check the source at the bottom of the page on PFSRD because there are some 3rd party things, but they will explicitly say.

>hitting touch
>and wearing fullplate
Christ, just make the enemies you use more dexterous. If he's wearing fullplate his DEX is most likely shit, and with 3/4ths BAB even touch-targeting (and remember, elements that target touch deal less damage too) is likely to end up missing. Also, armor isn't that great and damage is the worst thing you could be doing to take out an enemy.

Why in the world is sh playing a druid if she can't into spells? Show her the Feral Hunter archetype for Hunter, or just the Shapeshifter archetype for Ranger; much easier to understand, still lets you turn into a bear to mulch people. Hell, there's two Barbarian archetypes that let you Beast Shape/Wildshape, consider showing her those.

Believe you me, I’ve compensated.
The books enemies weren’t cutting it so I’ve changed it up.

She’s doing fighter and barbarian now in other campaigns, she very much needs her hand held on builds and will be sticking to martials in the future

>fighter
you mean one of the worst classes for a newbie? I'd change that to a slayer. Barbarian is fine for a newbie however

She did barbarian and loves it but this fighter one she enjoys as well, even if she forgets power attack every now and again.
Give sword and hit big guy is remarkably easy to remember

GMing question here, although I might be premature in asking this before I know what my players are going to roll for their classes.

Does anyone have any advice for making tournaments fun for players? I wanna have a mini-arc in my next campaign where the players can compete in a big knightly tourney for prestige and cash, but I'm at a bit of a loss for what to put together rules-wise for one.

In particular I thought the concept of a sword duel where you have to hold off 5-10 attacks and then try to land more than your opponent did on your turn would be neat but I'm floundering when I realize that would probably just be 10-20 opposed attack rolls and probably not that engrossing.

Maybe use performance combat? Throw in some stuff about how the combat needs to actually get the crowd on their side in order to win, maybe add a few moves where they have a difficult check and possibility of self-harm but can potentially gain more of the attention.