>decide to start a pathfinder campaign with my brother and best friend yesterday. >it was real last minute and it's their first time playing a tabletop game >up late making their characters. >now working on an easy story and set up that I can have done by tonight. >decide the setting is going to be a hellscape island used to dump prisoners and is filled with fierce wildlife. >realise I'm basically sending my players into Straya.
Anyone here ever do/play a straya-like setting? would it be overly annoying to have much of the wildlife they fight be poisonous?
David Perez
> decide to start a pathfinder campaign
Aiden Murphy
You calling my country a hellscape m8?
Alexander Harris
Look, as an Australian, the poison animal shit is overdone. Don't fall into stereotypes, dude. If you really want to ripoff Australia, though, look to Aboriginal mythology. The native population is disturbed by the arrival of a prison colony? Suddenly the invading forces are plagued with terrible nightmares leaving those who succumb to them in a catatonic state. There we go, dreamtime meets some weird cthulu bullshit. Have a set of native beasts (they can even be poisom) for the day sections, some weird nightmare beasts for when the players sleep, and some weird cult/tribals as the main enemies. Nightmare shit can fuck up rest cycles, like certain creatures eating spellslots or hit dice, maybe the nightmare possesses the character if they die in the dream. Plenty of stuff to work with.
Lucas Russell
I'm pretty new to tabletop so it's the only one i've played, I know it's generally disliked on Veeky Forums though. I wouldn't know what's bad about it compared to other systems though.
it's beautiful in postcards i'll concede that.
Thank you! I actually think i'll use quite a bit of this. Any creatures in particular you're fond of?
Isaiah Lee
Nothing that springs to mind, maybe some type of demon echidna that has spears for spines. Do a quick wiki of Aboriginal spirits and crib whatever interests you.
Brody Jones
I basically have that problem now...in Australia. Except I want the landscape to be south America.
Nah mate. Its barren. Fukken rabbits mate.
The platypus. Its fascinating in its own right.
Eli Perry
Strayanon, you forgetting about our yowies and bunyips m8?
like i said it's the only tabletop RPG I've ever played, what's bad about it?
Wyatt Cooper
>banshees Get em all over the world m8, Yowies Bunyips and the Muldjewangk belong to us
Jeremiah Anderson
Fair play. Same question.
Hudson Hall
Not that user, but I'll take a crack at this.
The fact is that Pathfinder indulges some of the same design choices as 3.5 D&D; choices which I for one think are poor choices, and which others seem to feel similar about. I won't address them all-- you are, by your own admission, new to tabletop RPG's and some of the complaints regarding Pathfinder simply won't be on your radar.
>Feat chains and "system mastery" There are bad choices in Pathfinder. These aren't "less helpful than the most optimal choice, but nonetheless useful" things which you can pick for flavor reasons-- these are "this doesn't do what it says it does and unless I have in-depth knowledge of the system I won't know until it is too late". The best example of this is the various feat chains which purport to give you something awesome at the end. In the case of stuff like grappling this is not only untrue but the act of investing in that chain has significantly dropped you behind in terms of pure mechanical utility. A savvy DM can work around this. A DM should not have to work around this, in my opinion.
>Caster supremacy This is the biggest offender that people tend to point to, as it was also one of the biggest offenders in 3.5 D&D. The point often made is not that martials are incapable of killing enemies as fast as casters, but rather that there is a plethora ways that to end an encounter that a caster is privy to and a martial will never be. A caster can choose to kill by damage (like a martial), or any of their alternate means-- while a martial has merely the one metric.
Those are my two big gripes. Many mechanics mislead you as to their actual mechanical efficacy, and there is no satisfactory parity between classes of the same level.
Hudson Bennett
>I wouldn't know what's bad about it compared to other systems though. Unless you're a spellcaster, your entire experience is going to come down to moving and attacking. It's pretty dull and if you're going with it anyway at least make sure they level up quickly so they get more options regularly.
Angel Martin
it's popular which triggers the anons here who don't like having their safe space violated in that way.
Cooper Sanders
>decide to start a pathfinder campaign
doomed from the start
Jordan Jones
I should add--since so few people likely will--that as much as I vehemently dislike the Pathfinder system, I'm glad to hear that someone new is joining the hobby.
I sincerely hope that you have fun with whatever system you're using, even if it is a system I think has glaring flaws and personally don't like. It would be a funny little world if we were all alike.
Noah Martinez
Thanks a million! I'll keep an eye out for those flaws you mentioned, as I can kinda see what you mean. In another game I play at school, our rogue is gonna take some levels in bard since it doesn't seem like he gets a whole lot as he levels up, we're level 6 in that campaign, and while the mage and sorcerer have been shooting, firing, distracting, to deal with enemies, the paladin' s been smiting grappling, drop kicking and shield bashing the whole adventure(and loving every second of it.) Our rogue' s go to strategy seems to only really be stealth>attack>kill with sneak attack bonus. And occasionally convince an enemy to do otherwise, but that's sorta something anyone could do otherwise.
Kayden Carter
It is probably good you're seeing that, honestly. If nothing else it will help you tailor your own DMing to accomodate.
Again, I'd leverage my opinion that Pathfinder makes life more difficult than playing make-believe should reasonably be and you should look for a different system. But godspeed to you and have fun regardless!
Austin Moore
Actually adding on to that, what systems would you recommend I check out? I know gurps is praised around here but I was never sure if that was just a meme or not.
Daniel Hill
If you want swords and sorcery, try classic D&D. Swords and Wizardry is a free clone thereof.
Luis Ross
The system does have "bad choices" this is completely true. I think a lot of the things you have listed are only problems if you're trying to play the game like some sort of video game or tactics game though. I'm not even coming from the standpoint of "so what if its unbalanced, thats not a big deal" (though it honestly isn't a big deal).
I'm more coming from the standpoint of there are a lot of things that martials are really good at that full casters aren't generally.
>Full Casters generally dump everything into a single stat >Full Casters have strict resources available each day >Full casters have much fewer viable multiclassing options >Full casters have bad saves, hp, skill points, skill diversity
Some of these are worked around through admittedly retarded feats that let you do shit like substitute (insert casting stat) for saves/skills that they really shouldn't be able to do, but casters have very restrictive feat pools compared to martial and half-martial classes.
Then you also have to consider that there are things martial classes can do that a wizard can't do that can end an encounter before it starts.
>Assassinate someone with a longbow >climb ropes and shiet >sneak around and shiet >talk to people and shiet >carry gear and shiet >ride horses and shiet >drink poison without dying and shiet >read/speak large pools of languages >transverse different terrains >not get lost in the woods >catch dinner >not get hunted by witch hunters >not get fucked/put in containment in areas where casters aren't welcome >actually have knowledge skills besides arcana which they rarely put points into anyways
Also for all the spells that are super awesome for plot development like teleport/dimension door/ resurrection/ wish/ invisibility/ fly. Full casters get turned into the parties spell bank and forced to blow their high level slots on that shit instead of shooting fireballs like you know they want to.
EVERYONE HOLD UP FAGGY MC WIZARD HAT NEEDS A LONG REST
