Pathfinder General /pfg/

As long as a namefag or otherwise recognizable frequenter of /pfg/ who applies for the game people will say that it's ruined whether or not the person actually ruins it.

Do you want an apocalypse? Because that's how you get apocalypses.

How didn't he ruin it? Did you look at his character?

Stop abusing robots! They have digital souls too!

Her name is Kinu.

KINU!

How exactly is one autist enough to taint the entire game that hasn't even started? You're not apples in a barrel, you're barely out of the fucking garden and a good orchard farmer doesn't pick fruits that are rotten before they even fall to the ground.

>What is your character's family like? How happy a family are they? Is there any race mixing going on there?

If my character ever has any living family members, either the DM has them get kidnapped, or they turn out to be working with the BBEG. This has happened many, many times in the past. So these days I just make it clear that my character's family is always dead at the start of the game.

But even that isn't enough sometimes, like with my current character. Even though my Paladin saw his dad (who was also a Paladin) get killed by an evil orc warlord, and ended up personally burned his dad's body in a pyre and scattering the ashes, somehow the DM still had my dad come back as a spooky ghost villain.

If my character ever shows romantic interest in an NPC, she either gets kidnapped, dies, or turns out to be a hag in disguise.

So yeah, I just kind of give up on family in RPGs.

Oh hush, I'm still going to apply even if Monday takes out all the Funday!

We don't know if the corpse is a corpse, or simply sleeping. The DM has not responded to anything since Friday.

> implying he'll get in

The GM would have to be retarded. His modifiers are over twice what any reasonable character will come up with at that level.

>If my character ever has any living family members, either the DM has them get kidnapped, or they turn out to be working with the BBEG.
Punch your GM with a book on writing a story and the stupid might fall out of his ears.

One kid's adventuring with the dad, my character, other one is preparing to adventure in the future and mother is happy to have the money flow in and get some peace and quiet every so often.

I'll see what I can do, but I've already tread over that ground once.

Seth of Thassilon
LE male Human Wizard (Thassilonian Specialist)|Harbinger (Ravenlord)
Campaign Trait: Touched by Divinity (Lissala)
>Worked his ass off and graduated wizard school just in time for Earthfall
>Volunteered to be a guinea pig for a temporal stasis spell
>Rise of the Runelords happens, Seth gets woken up five years late after an accident fucks with the spell
>Has himself a picaresque adventure that teaches him the value of compassion
>Captured by Iomedaeans who think "oh shit a sin mage" and are still mulling over what to do with him when he volunteers to join the Crusades

There's a lot, and I mean A LOT of throat-clearing going on here. This is one of those backstories that could seriously benefit from being compressed, or at least from a pastebin link with a tl;dr version of about a couple paragraphs replacing it on the Roll20 page.

But that said, it's actually pretty good. It sets up Seth to start a character arc, provides a decent way for him to acclimate to the new Golarion, and presents a few conflicts that aren't clearly leading to just "Imma kill this guy". Having your character start with doubts like Seth has is a good idea (I kinda wish the Asmodean applicants had a bit more of that).

I like that the personality section makes no bones about him being a product of his time. He's still got a long way to go, but he's evil in a more interesting way than just being an asshole--he never knew a better way. All in all, he's a good character with plenty of room to grow...but I think he could do with a few more years. 15 is a little hard to buy for a Wizard, even a 1st-level one.

I mean DHB did say "my numbers are big right now and if I got in I'd adjust them to the party".

>implying it's not important to stress-test your robots to make sure they know how to deal with misfortune

Better that you simulate it for them than they have to deal with being knocked over by a bear or dropping a plane crash survivor only to find out they can't pick themselves or an object back up.

I have a player who is quite fond of tripping as a combat strategy. By and large its not been overly problematic in large melees where there's plenty of opponents to keep everyone busy, but I've got a big solo boss encounter coming up and I'd like to avoid him just running up and tripping the litch while he's in the middle of his big speech.

What options are available to me as a GM to help my monsters resist tripping without giving everyone flight or turning everyone into a centipede? I'd like to avoid invalidating my player's play-style choices entirely, but I'd also like to keep things fun, challenging and dramatic for my players. For reference, the party is level 9 and I don't like to use third party content.

Making them that big at the onset is not winning him any friends.

Casters aren't very hard-up for feats, so you could squeeze in Defensive Combat Training, for starters. Full-BAB CMD goes a long way.

Big solo boss encounters are dangerous, though, the odds you'll get action economy fucked to death are massive.

More legs or no legs.

As a wizard, at what point can I commit global genocide?

Assume I have access to everything 1pp, and only 1pp.

What are some ways I can go about this? What are some ways I can go about taking over Golarion? I assume I might be able to at least partially accimplish some of this, but I wanted to be sure.

Basically, what is the dumbest, most frowned upon thing I can do at levels you consider noteworthy? Not just in combat, but also sheer narrative power.

Put some obstacles in his way. Mirror Image. Difficult Terrain. Make him work to get close before he can trip.

Rolled 9 (1d11)

Okay, of those remaining who I haven't given a once-over, next up is...

It's a huge red flag. Being able to game the system is fine, because it's pathfinder and easily abused, but actually submitting it as an application is a headache waiting to happen.

Does the Locate City Nuke work in Pathfinder?

But it's silly to get angry about it. When he literally says he'll just adjust to the party what is the point of getting angry? He just described the role, classes, and back story he'll be. Why do you care what his bonus is if it is subject to change?

It's like if you posted a huge-breasted fuck-slut with ranks in Perform (Sexual Technique) for an otherwise normal game, and then saying you will "get rid of" all that stuff if it doesn't work for the group.

It's a goddamn lich, of course it should be flying. And that's assuming it doesn't just drop an Emergency Force Sphere and mock the fighter.

In general, it's perfectly fine to make an enemy occasionally immune to a PC's best strategy, especially if it's supposed to be a big boss or the like. Just don't make a habit out of it.

A wizard using Create Undead to create a shadow requires CL 15. The spell is 8th level so you'll need to be level 15 to cast it anyway.

Several shadows under you control released on a city will turn the entire population to shadows in a single night. You just spread from there like an infection.

Because this happens for nearly every game. Somebody makes something that somebody else doesn't like, so they complain about it every single thread at every opportunity. It literally doesn't matter what they make. They are the worst for making it.

Except it isn't? How is that remotely a good comparison? He posted a face/stealth character in a game about being a stealthy diplomat.

I have no fucking clue what you're on about here.

But why does it matter if he'll just adjust to what ever the party's numbers are? What do you suggest, submit the lowest numbers possible because it might offend someone if you have a high bonus? Adjusting once the party is formed doesn't matter?

He could make anything, literally anything, and people would still be mad.

Probably the easiest is to go with the old "zombie plague" standby. Turn people into undead who turn the people they kill into undead. Shadows are a great choice for pulling this off (Wraiths work alright, though not as well). Generally you want any kind of Incorporeal undead who can create spawn. It often takes too long for the people killed by corporeal undead (Vampires, ghouls, etc) to rise, whereas Shadows and Wraiths do so in just a few seconds.

Grab one with Control Undead and order it to start killing people and making more spawn. Tell it that it has to order its spawn to obey you (and order it's spawn to order their spawn to obey you, etc).

This can allow you to fairly quickly wipe out a small town or a village or even a whole city this way. At higher levels you could easily create your own Shadows, teleport them to various cities around the world, and then unleash them causing all sorts of chaos and problems.

Why don't /pfg/ games do something like set attack bonus caps, skill bonus caps, saving throw caps, etc. etc. based on level, to give optimization benchmarks?

Why isn't your lich flying?

That said, the idea of knocking a lich down and running off is pretty amusing.

Because you're either false flagging as 2hu, or an autist

Brihzwald/Buford
LN/NG male Ratfolk Vigilante (Teisatsu)|Alchemist (Grenadier)
Campaign Trait: Riftwarden Orphan
>Learned alchemy to make fireworks, became his clan's potion guy
>Conscripted in the last few years of the 4th Crusade
>Survived some close calls and botched ops
>Works helping a few shops in Kenabras [sic] with his other clan members

I feel like there's not much to say here, really. It's all so dry that I feel like I'm reading the Cliff's Notes of a longer application. There's no real character under here, just kind of an archetype wrapped around a stat-block.

I can see the glimmer of a personality in here, the mention of Brihzwald stuttering and looking nervous while Buford is more calm but more terse, but it all seems like it's just there for its own sake. There's little mention of what he does for himself rather than as part of his role in life.

Oh, and is it really any surprise that the campaign trait wasn't mentioned at all?

So how does the School Understanding Exploit work with Spheres of Power? Do you get the bonus sphere, the +1 caster level, and the ability? Just the sphere and ability? Caster level and ability? Ability?

Simple. If you need such things as a guideline and can't simple guess the general area of which to keep your optimization, then you're too autistic to game with anyway.

Only if it was for a game that /pfg/ at large had the opportunity to apply for. I think. We still love namefags that provide entertaining storytime every week from their home games, right?

What do you think the general area of optimization is for level 8 gestalt? How high should your good skills be? I remember asking this and no one being able to give a solid answer.

Let's say you have 0 class skills support and it's based on your good stat. You're looking at somewhere around +17-18 at a minimum. That's if you're relying on nothing but ranks, ability score, and it being a class skill.

Items, feats, class features, traits, racial abilities, etc. there are a fuck ton of things that could add.

Thanks guys. The litch was perhaps a bad example, as you are correct in that any litch that doesn't fly deserves all the tripping they get. I was worried more about the situation in general, as I'll probably have more solo bosses to send against them in the future. Looks like I'll just have to get creative with my encounter design. Thanks again.

No we hate those too. If someone posts a story as not an user they get raged at.

I mean, I shouldn't say namefags that do that get a free pass, you're right. But we like our storytime, and if an user gives us the update on a long-running campaign sometimes /pfg/ will get surprisingly invested in that person's character and the events around them.

Is this the solution to the Problem of Evil?

I am on /pfg/ quite a lot. Never seen people really give a shit for more than individual stories. Sometimes 2-3 weeks of updates, but never more.

When it comes to a creature, tripping is entirely binary. Either he trips the lich, or he doesn't, which means either his main shtick was useless during that fight or it was a major advantage. The solution is to not let it be binary. Put other things in the fight that he can trip, and find a way to encourage him to focus on those enemies, at least for some portion of the fight. They don't need to keep him busy the whole time, but just long enough that the lich has time to be unchecked and threatening.

Even if the extra enemies are much too weak to actually threaten the PCs and aren't strong enough to be worth EXP, their presence as speedbumps in the encounter will alter the way the fight plays out.

>What is your character's family like? How happy a family are they? Is there any race mixing going on there?

It's times like this where I realize I only have one character with living family members that he has good relations with. Also that I don't have many characters.
>Half-elf who is in contact with his elven mother, but hasn't seen his father since he was a wee lad, and also has a half-elven uncle that's out doing whateverthefuck
>Tiefling who outlived any immediate family and never bothered staying in contact with any relatives
>two Kitsune who outlived their non-yokai relatives, though one of them has been trying to make familiars out of regular foxes in order to get one of them to become like him

In our last game our group ended up in Limbo where we killed a powerful dragon. The GM decided that, in the spirit of the plane of chaos instead of just giving us a reward, he'd let us roll on some 3rd edition random magic item table. The caveats however was no rerolls, the item would not count towards our personal WBL, and we couldn't give or trade the item to someone else (if we tried it would instantly shatter into a million pieces).

Player 1, a Warlord rolled a Rod of Lordly Might. Player 2, a Mage rolled a Ring of Fire. Player 3, the Paladin rolled a Staff of Power(!) and he is retraining to max out his Use Magic Device skill. Finally, I (a Stalker) rolled a Horn of the fucking Tritons.

Everyone then proceeded to laugh at me and call me Aquaman for the rest of the evening.

The game has not taken place around or near any oceans or large bodies of water, and the GM said that he didn't forsee anything like that happening any time in the near future.

But I want to make everyone eat their words and use my item in some really cool or creative way. Does anyone have any suggestions on ways I could make this horn useful eve in an area without any water around? Or did I just end up with a bum magic item and am I doomed to have everyone call me Aquaman for the next six months?

I, too, tend to not make family. Dunno why. I don't think it's on purpose. I haven't made a single character that has kept in contact with their surviving family. My most recent was raised by the mercenaries who picked her up, and thinks of them as family, but no blood relations that she knows.

I'd give a shit. Actual games would be refreshing to talk about.

How can I play a really weeb and cute ofudamancer?

Razmiran Priest, load up on scrolls.

I try to have my characters with families.

One gal was raised by her dad after her mom died before she hatched, and he's still around. One of her longterm motivations is to gather enough money to get her mom resurrected so she can meet her.

One lad's dad was a lumberjack who successfully wooed the witch who lived in the forest he was lumberjacking.

One is a farmgirl whose parents are still alive and well on their farm. The dad is a retired hero.

And one other gal is from a ludicrously large family, but is more directly connected to her two sisters and her mom.

By joining a game.

>really weeb and cute ofudamancer

>Implying machines don't have families

The worst part about this is I TRY to make characters with families, but sometimes I just don't think about it.

One of those kitsune used to be a tiefling, back in the concept stage of the character. A workaholic shut-in that spent all his time doing glasswork and reading, while bumming it in his niece's attic.

Could ofuda be holy symbols too?

Golarion needs more shrine maidens.

I didn't even think about it until you mentioned it, honestly. I was in a Carrion Crown campaign with a high death rate, then in a game where family was never really mentioned, now I'm in a game where I could actually make a character with a family, and somebody has! But... I didn't? I made her a mercenary adopted by the group when she was found alongside the road. I could try to do a "kidnapped by bandits, then ended up with this band when they ran across the bandits" kinda thing. I dunno.

No, because an omnipotent entity would needs find it more convenient to eliminate those possibilities in the first place.

Roboticists are as mortal as any of us, and suffer the same limitations.

>make character with family
>GM ignores it
>Other players ignore it
>Even if you actually bring'em to the family because we needed a cheap place for the night
>This happens twice
>Months down the line the GM is chewing you out for not so much as writing any family or history for your character unlike the party face who was all "but my mother killed my wife and I am saaad"

Fucking painful. My condolences. At least they weren't killed for cheap drama?

#
I think she's looking for some artifact, but it seems like we need to grab it too, for pecuniary gain.

Indeed they weren't. It's annoying that they were in the character sheet notes *and* often referenced (as anyone in real life often does when making anecdotes) in-character, and somehow... only newest player from several weeks before I quit would actually respond in regards to that? Like, wow, how little fucking attention do the rest of them fucking pay attention to their own game? Was combat and "my lover is deaaad" really all they cared about? And I'm the one who doesn't roleplay? FUCK YOU!

What's the best class to represent a shrine maiden? Cleric? Oracle? Shaman? Druid?

Shamans for the whole spirits an sheeeiit.

I want to talk about the difference between Risk and Stakes, and why knowing the difference between the two is important for a game. To start out with it is important to take both terms and define what I mean by them in the context of a game. Risk represent the threat of personal bodily harm, harm to one's possessions, or harm to one's direct contact (family, friends, etc.). Stakes is threats to larger and more abstract concepts, the political and social health of a nation, the function of organizations, etc. Games can be both high and low in both of these. This gives us four different types of games. High Risk/High Stakes, High Risk/Low Stakes, Low Risk/High Stakes, Low Risk/Low Stakes. Let us talk about an example of each.

For the difference between High Risk/High Stakes and High Risk/Low Stakes I have a common example that I use. For those who are familiar with Jojo's Bizarre Adventure this will be easy to follow. In Part 3 of Jojo the protagonists are traveling across the world fighting the subordinates of Dio, an immortal vampire. This represents a High Risk/High Stakes campaign, if they fail not only will they likely die, but Dio will go on towards a plan of world domination. Most games seem to follow this formula of High Risk/High Stakes. In Part 4 of Jojo instead the main focus is on the hunt for a serial killer plaguing a rural town. This represents High Risk/Low Stakes. Failing means the character's or the character's families could die, but if they fail the serial killer has no larger ambitions than to commit murder once every 6 months. This is tragic but not world altering. Many mystery theme'd games follow this formula.

(1/2)

Low Risk/High Stakes is harder to define, but where I normally see it is in things like Political Intrigue. The thread of personal harm is very low, but the fate of nations can rest on the players. For Low Risk/Low Stakes not many games follow this formula because there is not much driving force behind them.

What I want to talk about is High Risk/Low Stakes and Low Risk/High Stakes. What campaigns have you had that follow these formulas? Do you think there is anything inherently wrong or less exciting about these? Out of these four types what do you believe is the best formula? Personally I adore High Risk/Low Stakes as it feels far more personal of a game style.

But shamans are in medium armor, and most mikos aren't.

Depends
I'd argue Spiritualist, and Summoner would work as well. Spiritualist even has a Onmyoji archetype. Don't know how good it is, but it's there.

Also Kami Medium is a thing.

Just because you have the proficiency doesnt mean you have to use it you goit.

Oracles cursed with perpetual poverty or virginity.

Each Oracle is keyed to a different thing, which is how the Miko of a Fox Shrine will have different powers than the Miko of a shrine to an ancestor.

He was adopted by an Andoran peddler, though he himself is a half-elf. His new family was all human bumpkins until his Pa married a dryad.
They're a happy family that spend time together when they can.
The only race-mixing would be the character's biological parents, an Ekujae woman and a woodsman (but he has no memory of his biological family as a foundling,) as well as the character himself when he gets around to having kids with his (Keleshite) Tiefling fiancée.

Yeah, that's pretty shitty. I've played with some folks that really weren't interested in anybody but themselves and their character. It can be frustrating. My condolences.

>everytime she's about to get laid, the guy dies
>she's the Samantha Carter of shrine maidens

Yeah. I'd have tolerated it but it's when I actually get accused of being the one not doing it, like holy fucking shit.

Excessively related comment: fuck voice games.

Is Mythweaver busted for anyone else right now?

>Excessively related comment: fuck voice games.

But I *like* voiced games!

hmm, from the looks of it, those who have good experiences with voice games have good experiences, but those who get bad experiences with voice games experience shit we'd normally wholescale screencaps of on here to watch a tide of rage descend upon it all.

Yes.

Can't bring up character sheets, yeah? Running into that problem too.

>Mythpocalypse 2.0
the absolute madlads

>people only interested in their own characters accuse others of not roleplaying
>tfw I'm always paranoid about seeming like I'm obsessing over my own characters to the point I end up not doing nearly enough of anything

Voice games are GOAT with friends, but are a total crapshoot with strangers who you've never met before the game.

t. person who tried to play a Paladin for his first pathfinder game

If they fuck my sheets again, I'm fuckin' done. I can't be doin' with this nonsense.

I don't know about anyone else here, but I personally thrive in voiced games.

Speaking of! I think I might be ready to open up apps for my Dragonborn session (preferably voiced through Discord and Roll20 simultaneously), for those of you who lurk here often enough to have seen me before. How does a Monday evening slot EST sound?

>t. person who tried to play a Paladin for his first pathfinder game

W-What happened?

>Voice games are GOAT with friends, but are a total crapshoot with strangers who you've never met before the game.

This is why you always endure the first session and see how natural the banter is with the other folk.

If you can't talk with them like friends within the first 15 minutes, you might as well leave.

So, it seems d20PFSRD's list of NPCs is fucked by website move, and it no longer lets me select to see the old sight. Which means I have 0 enemies for the one-shot I'm running in about an hour.

Does anyone else know of a good list of NPC sheets I can use in a jam?

Several sessions of not being able to do anything while everyone talks openly about trying to make me fall.

>If you can't talk with them like friends within the first 15 minutes, you might as well leave.
>mfw it takes me at least a week to get comfortable with people
so this is the power of being an autism

I don't know if you or they're still around, but Vialla's player updated their sheet and asked for a review last night. You might want to have a look at that.

What is the most "I AM THE LAW" build you can think of?

Do black blades get names?

That one Law archetype for Paladin that can smite Chaos, Prestiged into Hellknight