Pathfinder General /pfg/

>lorewipe.boards.net/
I have seen this getting posted constantly. What is this?

It's basically Pathfinder the MMO, without the video game part.

Take it from a guy that literally only uses Veeky Forums for the /pfg/ threads, if you just take that one page from that site, the usual negatives associated with going there are greatly minimized.

I see. So how is it run? A group of GMs approve forum posts or some such?

You mean a living world.

This is a PbP living world.

Nah, they just approve characters before they go into play.
Living worlds are a misnomer, they don't actually change much, and they're usually based around one location.

See all I know of living worlds is most of the time they are ruled by nepotism and favoritism.

The only time I saw it work was a long time ago on Veeky Forums where re played more by council and a group of 20 or so were trying to run a village. The guy who ran it was a cruel and uncaring god, he treated everyone equally shitty.

It's basically living campaign shit except there's only murderhobo'ing.

False. I bet you don't even play on it.

>Nah, they just approve characters before they go into play.
I do not understand what you mean. Are there sessions? Is it PbP? How does this work?

>Living campaign
Oh boy, I can't wait till a level 10 player with his expy character tries to challenge me to a duel!

There are sessions, but they're very small sessions that are run a few times a day at the most frequent.
I understand how dirty a word that is, and I understand how you feel. But I'd like you to at least try it before you write it off as garbage.

The problem with living worlds is that seniority is everything.

Why would you bother joining a living world as a level 1 schmuck when there are level 10 PCs running around being the actual world-saving heroes?

Those level 10 PCs are level 10 because their players had no lives and spent every one of their real-time days making a post like "I use downtime for XP," as if this was a phone game with daily login bonuses.

>There are sessions, but they're very small sessions that are run a few times a day at the most frequent.
Explain the structure. What does it use, roll20? skype? etc.?

All I can see is a game ruled by favoritism, even if it isn't in world it will come up with who gets sessions from an individual GM.

Also as said. Why would I join at level 1 when people so many levels above me are around and what I do can be swept away in a moment by them.

There are a dozen piece of shits living campaigns in roll20. I've seen how toxic that shit is, from corrupt GMs that grant favor to their cliques and bias against others to cheating PCs that magically change their stats and conveniently forget rulings.

Your mmo is going to be shit for the very same reasons why PFS is considered a laughing stock. Because GMs will never be consistent and the members of your party are never consistent.

>Living worlds are a misnomer, they don't actually change much, and they're usually based around one location.
Ain't that the truth. Preach it brother!

PbP "Living worlds" a shit: players in those games can't change -anything-

>Level 10 PCs have no lives
That and they insist on joining level 1 PCs on their quests and throw a tantrum when the GM refuses.

I have literally been to some living campaigns where people reached level 12 by piggybacking on level 1 PCs and stomping on the mobs by themselves.

A very valid complaint, I won't lie. Though I am giving you the opportunity to get in early, seeing as everyone is currently at starting level given how new it is. If it gets to be a problem, I'll see about a system of balances.
Adventuring sessions are played on Roll20 with discord voice. It's kinda hard to explain without actually linking how Daily actions work, so here: lorewipe.boards.net/thread/8/daily-actions

Except they are more like "static cities" than "living worlds". Nothing actually changes, nothing actually matters, like said.

A problem with playtests is that the really good or interesting stuff gets a lot of feedback, and the offensively or glaringly bad stuff gets feedback, but people just don't bother with the mediocre stuff because it's not good enough to invest in but not bad enough to hate.

Mediocre stuff never gets enough feedback to make it not mediocre and then it goes to print like that.

What playtests should do is keep a record of what things they get feedback on, and then at the end of their run take an extra hard look at what never got brought up.

Oh boy! I can't wait to play with the metagaming GM that makes everything in his encounter immune to my abilities!

Damn straight, but everything that's been posted about it has been murderhobo.

>Except they are more like "static cities" than "living worlds". Nothing actually changes, nothing actually matters, like said.

Èxcuse my curiosity: Why play it?

>Implying that's a living world problem and not a shitty GM problem.
Understandable. To be fair though, the murderhoboing was mainly due to an Orc PC ICly wanting the shinies.

So you can make user some ad revenue

>PbP
>but with Discord voice

How is this NOT the worst of both worlds?

>Play by post
>Discord voice

I'd really like it if you could stop advertising here.

Why play the dozen other "living worlds", you mean? That's a good question.
I do it for free, goy.
The combat isn't PbP, the combat is over Roll20.

>Someone reads your post in a mocking voice

But that would be a breach of Global Rule #11.

Why voice, man... I was about to give it a try... Fuck.

Also, why do you not allow 3pp? Balance reasons?

I know rite, I long for the day where the rules of these lands are actually enforced

Balance reasons, and to be honest, voice isn't required. If you're text-only you're just as welcome, though I do suggest at least trying to listen in on the voice.

Well, there's ONE way it could be worse.
You could not only *hear* the big fat neckbeards insisting they are were always born as pretty princesses (and I don't mean their characters)...

You could also *see* them from full video.

Imagine that, if you will (you shouldn't).

>"Its totally text only for encounters"
>user joins game
>"Hey user, join this discord room just for OOC ok?"
>Everyone roleplays via voice
>user 2shy to unmute his mic, tries to RP via text
>Everyone reads his post out loud
>Someone chuckles in the background
>user is sure that its not laughter aimed at him but still feels uncomfortable anyways
I would love to join this shit just to watch the spaghetti spill

There are already 2 Exploiter wizards, and you're worried about balance?

Run your game how you want, because yeah 3pp can be a lot of things to sort through for character approval.

But on your own time, you should look into how 3pp content can help players get around some pitfuls of Paizo. Not for the lorewipe thing, but for you to better understand the game. If you want. Up to you.

I refuse to take Companion to the Lonely. You can't make me.

Nah, he'd have to lock out CRB for that as well.

Oh jesus why did you give me that image.
A fair point. When I said "balance" I more meant "It's hard enough managing first party rules-lawyers, now you want to add third-party to that mess?!"

But I will look into it for non-Lorewipe games, for sure.

To tell the truth, with three wizards you are basically going to have no martials because they will never do anything.

I know that I would never join a game with that many wizards in play, no matter how big the playerbase was. It just destroys the point of the game... But that said, I can't stop you.

You really overestimate what the average schmuck can do with a wizard.

Are Half Orcs cowardly? I know they have the rage and emotion to get fucking pissed and fight like badgers. They're emotional though right? I'd think they might be prone to fight or flight.

I'm just asking to try and understand half orcs better.

Also an Arcanist as soon as I can figure out what kind if Arcanist is better than an Exploiter wizard.

No arcanist is better than a wizard. The spell progression is just too important and the preparation mechanic is just too inferior.

IMPROVED IRON WILL 10 TIMES A DAY!

Looks like my only choice is be the best optimized wizard then.

Damn... I'm not good at that. Time to learn.

Have you ever played a vampire, or had a player who's character was one?
How did it go?

It's so good it ought to be a Vigilante Talent. It's completely out of place amidst the Social Talent rubbish. It's so good, it's basically the talent that absolutely everybody should take. And that's why I can't take it.

That's bretty cool

full vampire or do dhampir and variants count

Undead immunities alone cause serious gameplay imbalance. Nevermind the heap of useful feats and ability score adjustments the template gives.

I wonder if Paizo really thought the condition on it would be hard to fulfill.

On a class that's designed for city adventures, and "keyed" to charisma, in a game that regularly acknowledges its pervert community.

Not to mention their complete disregard for the amount of gold an adventurer makes compared to how much the the simple amenity of a prostitute costs. Even more so if you trick her out before doing the deed.

>Put on the headband of Charisma, slut.

More like, more social talents though be that good.
Seriously, why are 80% of social talents so awful, considering it's the common space that almost all 1pp vigilante archetypes share.

Even most of the Jolly archetypes don't touch the social talents, I think he really should have added more new ones.

Full vampire, but nothing's stopping you from writing about dhampir and variants m8.
's a free board, at least partly.

Social talents are meant to be less powerful. A Vigilante gets a full suite of Vigilante Talents, AND THEN a full suite of social talents too.

And they're clearly aware of this fact seeing as they made an Extra Social Talent feat, but NOT an Extra Vigilante Talent feat.

Part of the reason I'm asking.

Huh, there's a Sacred Geometry app now. Neat.

Alright, so there's that and blood money. What else should I learn how to do in my quest to blatantly stroke my dick and ego at the same time?

Social talents shouldn't be as good as vigilante ones, but they should still be better than trash.

Jolly has a couple good ones. I like that one that gives you a skill specialty from Legendary Rogues, and that one that lets you do whatever the fuck you want for each alignment.

Better than trash yeah, but Companion to the Lonely is still way better than it should be.

Better than some but less good than that.

I still need to look into Legendary Rogues/Assassins to see what the fuck those talents can actually do.

Ditto. I completely glazed over those because I didn't want to have to dig up a whole different book to figure out what that option did.

The thing you have to remember is that immunities generally also carry penalties and vulnerabilities. Vampires are undead, and therefore vulnerable to shenanigans that specifically target undead. There's also the whole light weakness thing.

That's the big trick. If you can keep in mind the state of being the character has, the GM can produce compelling narratives that can involve a character getting a chance to shine because they're immune to something the party isn't, or give a chance for the rest of the party to shine by taking them out of commission briefly.

It's something I encountered when I played a Ghoran; they're immune to poison, stuns, and mind-affecting stuff, so when the GM gave us a situation where one of the team had to shut down something that was putting radiation into the area, my character was the only one that could get close to the artifact to shut it down while the rest of the party was working on keeping the area free of hostiles.

They're supposed to optional replacements for Trapfinding so they're fairly similar. They give a 1/2 level bonus to a give skill under particular circumstances.

Of course, everybody just picks the one that gives 1/2 level to initiative.

Is this true? >People talking about "the good ol' days", and how King Draconis III was the best king ever.
>Constantly shitting on King Draconis IV, even though he lowered taxes and reformed the army to be way more effective. He just wasn't very inspiring or charismatic, and he allowed in a lot of immigrants.

>Principality of Pathfinder claims they are followers of the "true" royal lineage, and has become xenophobic and stagnant.
>Its rulers are a group of wizards in a giant ivory tower, whose proclamations tend to be complex, contradictory, and show little to no understanding of the situation on the ground.
>The people still support them because the encyclopedia sized lawbooks scare away any foreigners who might try to "taint the purity of the nation". Meanwhile the native residents happily ignore, re-write, or massively reinterpret the laws however their particular town wants.

Very late, but I wanted to clarify that the fluff lines on the aether pulse descriptions are not open to refluffing BECAUSE they're not even meant to have concrete fluff at all. Your Aether Pulse looks however you WANT it to look - our intention when writing them was to give people ideas on what they COULD look like, not what they MUST look like. Your Nation Avowed's pulse can look like a whisper-silent arrow in the night. Or, perhaps, if you want to find a happy middle ground - maybe it takes the form of the national bird of your country, formed of pure shadow and streaking after the opponent.

Why aren't there Neutral vampires?

Because Pharasma is a bitch.

I made a neutral vampire for Sleeping Goddess.

Then the GM vanished without a trace.

Here's hoping Psychic Anthology fixes occult classes. (Looking at you, Medium and Kineticist)

Undead are inherently evil.

I know Heroes of the High Court and Psychic Anthology got dumped already but has Strange Aeons vol. 6 been dropped here yet?

That's a little discriminatory, don't you think?

well i played with one guy super dark edgelordy type
plays dhampir rogue cuz darkness
attempts to be super mysterious not disclose any backstory which wouldn't have been bad if he didn't only respond with amateur philosophy and broodingness when spoken to
takes a bad hit in the first dungeon hasn't IC told us the whole "healing magic hurts me" deal
says something about the fragility of mortality refuses healing
the resident big fucker at the end of the dungeon hits him
negatives
the group's cleric who was pretty chill to most of us is just about done with him when he goes into a little to much detail on his "agonizing" collapse
kill big guy
cleric goes to heal the blunted edge
he ooc protests but cleric insists we have no in game reason not to heal him
death by healing
tell him to get a a character concept not written by a 12 year old and that random deep sounding quotes isnt dialog
says we don't understand and he had a character arc in his head, leaves in a huff
played a couple games with other members of the group at later times but never saw dude again

Man, we don't even have Hell's Vengeance 6 yet.

>A very valid complaint, I won't lie. Though I am giving you the opportunity to get in early, seeing as everyone is currently at starting level given how new it is. If it gets to be a problem, I'll see about a system of balances.

So basically, if you don't early adopt, you might as well not bother joining later?

How is this a good idea?

>daily actions

So... you get a small bonus for logging and posting a downtime action.

This is literally a phone game's daily login bonus. It rewards people who, EVERY DAY for like a whole year, log in and make a post.

Why.

PHARASMAA!!!

How the fuck do you play elves well?

How the fuck does someone that's 120 years old suddenly take level 1 in a class and start adventureing? What the fuck were they doing during those 120 years that they're outskilled by a fucking 16 year old human rogue?

suckling their mothers' teats

Someone went over this before.

Basically between age 0 and 100, elves are fragile little autists who's minds can't yet handle real life.

When they hit 120, their brain works "normal"

So I'm a new GM, I should be relying mostly in theatre of the mind unless there's combat or a dungeon, right? The idea of physically drawing/detailing all the towns actually seems tedious and unrewarding.

Like this kind of makes sense... Like during the first 100 years elves are like the autists in /g/ desktop threads that rice their arch linux install and have anime wallpapers with little to no drive or real world skills. But even they still fuck around with programming and develop odd skills.

100 years is a long fucking time for the abilities that a level 1 character has to make sense. Every time I try and make an elf I just don't know how to answer what the fuck I did during that time.

Elves are turboslow learners.

Also, the fact that they have so much fucking time to do literally ANYTHING means they spend a lot of it doing absofuckinglutely NOTHING.

Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum? Kobolds? Goblins? fucking ORCS? These bastards hit middle-aged at TWENTY YEARS OLD. They can learn to be a level 1 wizard at 16 years old. Elves, the supposedly magical race? 120 fucking years.

You can have an entire fucking family line of kobold wizards before that elven fuckboy puts down his drow bodypillow and decides to learn how the fuck cantrips work.

And do you know why?

MOTIVATION.

Actually, my understanding is that it's less "Takes 120 years to become an adult" and more "takes 120 years to be considered an adult" and they more or less age at the same rate humans do until they hit their prime.

A cocky elf that's about 40 could go off adventuring; they'd basically just be a teenager. Most Elves wouldn't consider the learning of the elf in question done until THEY thing the character is old enough.

Where can you find lvl 17+ Clerics in the wild/not of the party?

only place to find people like that is in one of two places

>Retired super-adventurer. These are the sort of people that are world-renowned, and while they may have an obvious location, getting to them (either because they're hermits or because of politics) is a hell of a trip. This option works for basically any class.

>The capital of a theocratic nation. Could even roll with faithful divine casters of this nation's patron god being more powerful inside the walls of the city; the pope stand-in or high priest or whatever could even be a pretty mediocre cleric anywhere else, but be like level 20 inside the walls

>Pope

Man, I wanna come across a goddamn Pope.

And he has to be a cool pope like Frank.

Look for the bigger evil cults. You can find CR18 Cult leaders all the time.

I bet they don't spawn in view until the party are like 14th level though

>getting sheets for new campaign
>one character is a swashbuckler (picaroon) that carries like 8 handguns in his bandolier (early gun tech level), wasting lots of money for flavor, fine it's fun
>gunsmith (naturally) and a former pirate captain
>the revolver was inspired by capstan mechanisms
To me, this is basically begging for him to get access to or even "invent" the revolver some point well into the campaign. I'm not worried about it being crazy powerful, it's the same as having lots of ready pistols, it's just cooler. I'm just wondering how I'd work this suggestion in with him. Telling him his character can have X idea is not fun, it's playing the character for him, and I doubt he'll press it on his own because it's beyond the tech level I gave him. Having an NPC push him in that direction might work but I have no idea how that might play out without stealing the glory.

Thoughts?