Restricted perception

So I was browsing the Pathfinder Reddit section and came across this post. In it, Delanish talks about a new game he joined. In it, he wanted to play a Wizard but was told no, he had to play a Fighter first and learn that class before he could tackle spells.

Well i've started with a new pathfinder group and they said roll up a character let's get started i'm new with it and made an elf wizard level 5 they said oh no your not playing a wizard and told me i must play a fighter. I like having a large arrange of options available to me. as a fighter i feel quite bored saying "Can i hit it?" Ok.. I roll 1d20+AB+STR ok roll damage 1d8+STR. which is super boring to me.
I discuss this with my GM and he told me you got to learn how to play a warrior before you can play anything with spells. i have fallen asleep a few times during our sessions due since i don't have to think. Since i have no knowledge skills, no social skills and only have one option in a fight.

Later he comments that he isn't even "allowed" to interact in social situations because his character is "meant to be a turtle and nothing else."

Well basically the character they gave me was a dwarf, 7 int, 5 cha, 9 wisdom 12 dex, 17 strength and 21 con at level five i have no skill points in anything. and i was told i'm not allowed to do social interaction since my character is meant to be a turtle and nothing else. my feats are toughness 6 times my character has high armour class at 23 and hp of 92

 
This is horrible GMing and a horrible role-playing group. While I would concede that playing a Fighter is probably the easiest class to pick up, playing a spellcaster is no giant leap in difficulty. The real big difference between a spellcaster and a Fighter is that spellcasters are generally less forgiving for crappy builds. If you build your caster with crappy feats, crappy spells then you are almost useless. A Fighter with crappy feats still has a decent hp and can hit stuff. Yes a crappy spellcaster can do the same, but on average a Fighter would be slightly more useful.

Fellow Redditors give good advice telling him to leave the group. This will only make him resent the Fighter class and even Pathfinder. Both Fighter and Wizard can be exceptionally good. Each has their own play style and it is up to the player to pick based on what they like.

And remember, groups don't always have to be "balanced". Some of the most fun I have had we were missing important roles, like healer or tank.

Little AFK

Been missing a little bit. Quite a bit of stuff going on. Work is extreamly busy and we have only had one gaming session since my last post. Hopefully things will ease up.

The work project is scheduled to take about six months. So hopefully  things will clear up.

Techno-mumbo-jumbo

So I thought I would post a picture I took a while ago of our gaming screen.

This is just the TV screen connected to the laptop, but it is pretty neat. One of our former players custom built the black table with built in grid. I will get a better picture of everything when I am over at the DMs house(not playing this weekend so next).

Yes, that is a Frostmourne on the table. :)

Let them eat Pi!

I was browsing Reddit and ran across this post. In it the OP is asking for suggestions to basically nerf the party crafter. It seems that the crafting and ingenuity of the player is causing problems for OP (the DM). This really struck home because I am playing a crafter for the Age of Worms campaign I am currently in.

I thought about it, and wondered if I am causing the same problems in the game I play. I must say I really enjoyed the overall positive and supportive replies from the community supporting the player. Being a crafter does make you sacrifice a lot of combat effectiveness in the form of feats and skillpoints. With the homebrew class I am playing, also some of my levels do not help much in terms of combat. Overall, I still enjoy the class and I hope I can add a lot to the story in terms of ingenuity and such as OP's player.

Here is an amazing response from Lord_Derp_The_2nd.

Well, remember, as the crafter he's sacrificing feat slots that would otherwise be used for combat power like metamagics, instead to make potions and items that grant effects they could otherwise just buy, or cast themselves.
Simply put: it's not as imbalanced as you think it is. Even with "unlimited" potions/oils - they still are limited to rounds of combat. (And remember, the spell slot gets consumed to craft the potion). So, really what difference is there between casting a spell in combat, or expending the slot at another time, then quaffing a potion? The combat-time investment doesn't change. It just basically gives him a way to "rollover" his spell/day in the form of potions.
Now, the simplest way to limit how muc stuff they craft, is to penalize the party for lax diligence. If they're on an adventure to slay do some specific thing, like clear a kobold den - and they take a week off to do it, well the Kobolds have spent that week catching some dire lizard 'pets' and digging pit traps, to prepare. Or a scouting party ambushes them at night (After he's wasted all his spell slots crafting potions!). Just keep the pressure on, and their ability to craft gets stifled, but not completely removed.
I disagree with everyone saying to basically tell him he doesn't have, or can't find the components. If he has an alchemy kit, and the potion doesn't call for any specific expensive component, there's no reason to punish the player for taking item creation feats - If you do, you'll quickly see him shift to taking combat feats and just buying a giant stockpile of potions instead. OR better still, he'll just take leadership, and for the price of one feat, make his cohort into a craft bot who stays in town perpetually crafting where he has access to the resources.
Anyway - again I think you're over-estimating the effect of the crafting feats. He's going to lose several feat slots, sacrificing a lot of potential passive combat power, for the ability to craft things that do what he could otherwise already do in combat. It really doesn't hatter if he has 10k Alchemist fire, he can only throw one a round. Given infinite potions, he'd be able to use just a handful each fight, of spells he would otherwise just cast.
Now, for the realm of Magic Items, the fact they can craft things at half price can lead to a bit of power over-inflation. That's easily restricted, though - just give them less treasure. If all their wealth is twice as effective, give them half as much, and the wealth-by-level is instantly fixed. They still get to specifically pick and choose ideal items, sure, but again - they otherwise have a dead feat slot that mechanically does nothing for them - and they could otherwise use a simple locate object spell, and go grab that specific item wherever it may be, or buy it for sale in the nearest metropolis. Hardly game-breaking. If you force them to hunt exotic materials, as some have suggested, that should be the exception to the rule, to add cool flavor to the item, and maybe make it a little exceptional. Remember, Pathfinder is all about the 'Rule of Cool,' not the 'Rule of hinder your players at every turn.'

Huzzah that is a hell-of-a good read.

Also, it's Pi day...

Critcal Hit/Fumble iPhone App

Some of the players I game with found a nice app for the iPhone. It allows you to randomly generate critical hits/fumbles based on your weapon.

It is called CritHit. If you have an iPhone you should go check it out.

Custom colored Absalom map.

While online I ran across a very nice map of Absalom which was colored in with the districts. This however was not 100% accurate with the map from the Pathfinder Chronicles map of Absalom, so I took it upon myself to re-create it with the map from the the Chronicles book. I don't have the fancy Pathfinder font so I just used one that I though looked good.

Edit: A fellow redditier noticed a typo. I corrected it and added a few other locations.

Attacks of Opportunity

If you ever had a problem with figuring out Attacks of Opportunity, watch the following highly educational video to expand your intellectual aptitude.. or something.

Feat Taxes in Pathfinder

I was browsing r/Pathfinder_RPG and I ran across this interesting article about Feat Taxes in Pathfinder.

It is something really interesting and I never really considered it. I did not know it was something that has gained enough attention to get the label "Feat Taxes". Anyway, I have always disliked taking feats I don't want to unlock feats I do want. I understand the need for balance purposes and such, but many games, like WoW, try to streamline the leveling/levels to make everything enjoyable and wanted. In WoW, they removed the filler talents and make them just part of the class. Now not everyone is happy with the WoW talent change, but the developers are trying to improve the process.

In the article the author, Radiostorm, lists house rules for revising or even eliminating/merging some feats. I really liked a lot of the suggestions. It can be a slippery slope though. It can unintentionally cause imbalance and over simplify if the players and GM are not careful.

Harold Ramis

As many of you probably know, Harold Ramis passed away Monday. A lot of people, especially in my generation, grew up with Ghostbusters as part of mainstream culture; we had two movies and a cartoon series as well as a wealth of toys and other marketing ploys. My brother and I had most of the toys, the station house, vehicles and so on. 

Anyway, I wanted to share this neat piece of art I found. 

Age of Worms

We are currently running the Age of Worms campaign set in the world of Pathfinder. In our last gaming session we just arrived in the city of Absalom. This is taking place in a steampunk style era, so things are crazy. Guns are a fairly common occurrence in the setting.

For our party, we have a human Gun-Tank that wants to play like Tony Stark (Iron Man). We have our Drunken Master dwarf Monk. The very odd and clumsy human Cleric of Iomedae (more on that below). The half-elf Rogue Scout. The mix class Dhampir Gunslinger/Inquisitor. Lastly, my character, a homebrew Artificer. The Artificier is a class our GM made and I am testing out for him. It works like an Alchemist except with engineering and crafting equipment/constructs rather than brew potion. They also do not have the mutagen feature.

On to the odd and clumsy Cleric of Iomedae. Note: This might be spoilers for Age of Worms, I don't know, so be careful before reading!

So during one gaming session we were all at Diamond Lake. Our Cleric was doing something and requested some garrison troops to bring a wagon to the cemetery. She ended up stumbling upon an Owl Bear in the graveyard (I think). She didn't want to hurt it because of her vows so she put it to sleep. Then she noticed the baby Owl Bear. She took it and after getting scratched a couple of times, decided it was best to temporarily incapacitate it... by dealing subdual damage it to until it was  unconscious. The players at the table were a little shocked, but ok.. sure. Then she proceeds to try to find the rest of the party. She is running around Diamond Lake, smacking the poor thing everytime it wakes up. She finally catches up with some of us and we all head to the cemetery.. only to find one dead guard, a severely injured guard and a dead mother Owl Bear. She had forgot about the guards with the wagon coming to meet her. It was a mess.

There are plenty of other examples but those will have to wait until another time.

Virtual Tabletops

So while I gather my goblins to get everything together for the blog, I wanted to talk about virtual tabletops.

Currently all of our players meet at the DM's house. That will probably not change. We do use a virtual tabletop program mainly to help with combat. We currently are using d20Pro to achieve this. It is a great program, however, the development seems very slow and there doesn't seem to be much feedback from the developers. It is meeting our needs, but I ran across Roll20 and I really like it. However there are some things I wish they both had. I really enjoy the online aspect of Roll20 and it not being a local install.

I am one of the only two techie type people in the group. So I bought d20Pro and I use it on my laptop which is connected to a TV. I run the DM side on the laptop and the player side on the TV. I edit and adjust the maps and NPCs for the campaign, which is difficult since I am not the DM and I see all the maps and NPCs before hand. With Roll20 the DM could log into the campaign and do all that himself. That being said, I have found d20Pro a little easier to use (maybe because I have used it longer) and I am not a fan of the subscription of Roll20. It isn't expensive at all, I just don't like the idea of having to sub to keep features.

I plan on bringing up Roll20 to my fellow dungeon spelunkers and get their input. Myself, I am leaning toward Roll20. They seem way more active in their development and I like most of what they offer. The d20Pro features I like are not deal breaking. I just have to redo all the campaign maps and NPCs in Roll20... Unless the DM wants to help.

This be a first post, ye land lubber!

Starting a blog that will hopefully highlight the experiences my friends and I have during our weekly gaming sessions. We normally play Pathfinder but we also play board games like Settlers of Catan and Zombiecide. On the list is also Magic: The Gathering and Cards Against Humanity.

I will be doing more over the next few days, so if you managed to stumble upon this site in the mean time be sure to check back.