[QUOTE=An Armed Bear;47097297]The concept of character options not being "viable" in a game like DnD/Pathfinder really bugs me. I mean yeah there's always going to be "optimal" characters, but you should still be able to play whatever and be fine.[/QUOTE]
The only thing worse than telling someone they can't play a build is letting them play it and spend the next 20+ sessions getting consistently outshone by the other players in their area of expertise, or constantly fumbling against challenges they should be good against.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47097363]The only thing worse than telling someone they can't play a build is letting them play it and spend the next 20+ sessions getting consistently outshone by the other players in their area of expertise, or constantly fumbling against challenges they should be good against.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. I like 5e a lot more because unless you are INTENTIONALLY gimping yourself (wizard with 8 int, for example) you shouldn't have much trouble making a character the way you want to with any class.
Yeah everyone feels like they're contributing in the 5e campaign I'm in. Granted we're only at like level 4-5, and I don't have too much experience with tabletops so maybe I'm not super great at gauging these sorts of things.
My second time Dming and one of my players has decided from now on he will skin the body/outright take it to sell to the local necromancer for gold.
Also I had to do the voice of a female elf cleric that another player was flirting with. Never again.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;47097008]
I have heard this many times, but I've never played 3.5 or Pathfinder. In which ways is it better?
A comic bookstore near me runs 3.5 games and I was curious of trying it, but I'd rather take an interest in Pathfinder if it's a bit better.[/QUOTE]
[URL="http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1/differences-between-dd-3-5-and-pathfinder?answertab=votes#tab-top"]A very general idea[/URL].
Without 3.5 experience this may not mean much to you, but just take the advice and play Pathfinder; it made more things better than it made worse from the 3.5 structure. It's the most popular RPG today for a reason.
Exploding Guinea Pigs: Not as awesome as you'd think.
[QUOTE=Chronische;47097351]SHOULD be able to yeah but some builds are seriously just shat all over by how much better at EVERYTHING some other things are. You may want to specialize in knowing lots of shit and being a good talker as a rogue or something... Well too bad, the bard can cast magic and make you obsolete. Not even a very high level spell for that matter! The power disparity is just so huge that suboptimal builds mean worthless builds since you aren't even good at what you wanted to be good at compared to other kinds of characters.[/QUOTE]
I wish the alternate classes were better in DnD/Pathfinder since imo it can be really boring to just play as your regular mage or fighter all the time.
[QUOTE=cdr248;47099174]I wish the alternate classes were better in DnD/Pathfinder since imo it can be really boring to just play as your regular mage or fighter all the time.[/QUOTE]
Slayer and Arcanist are super good, and Brawler is like Monk+. Don't know a lot about like, Summoner, Witch, ect, but I assume they are OK as long as they aren't straight martials.
So in Mekton, after the party went about blowing half the limbs and armor off of a Russian bear-mecha that just would [I]not[/I] die, the pilot bailed out and ran away, leaving the battle in the party's victory. They then decided to haul the heavy-ass mecha back to camp as spoils of war.
It'll be quite costly to fix, but now they have a bear-mecha.
[QUOTE=Chronische;47099287]Slayer and Arcanist are super good, and Brawler is like Monk+. Don't know a lot about like, Summoner, Witch, ect, but I assume they are OK as long as they aren't straight martials.[/QUOTE]
Witch and Summoner both are mediocre compared to other caster classes- The Summoner is more or less useless compared to a conjuration wizard. The Witch at least has a hybrid spell list, so she's very versatile.
Ranger kind of got fucked now that Slayer and Hunter are released, which are better at combat and better with magic respectively, standard Ranger is just the middle ground that doesn't excel at anything in particular now.
[QUOTE=Rents;47099346]Ranger kind of got fucked now that Slayer and Hunter are released, which are better at combat and better with magic respectively, standard Ranger is just the middle ground that doesn't excel at anything in particular now.[/QUOTE]
Honestly the standard ranger has never been as good or useful as a ranged based fighter- I don't expect this is ever going to change, because a fighter simply has too many feats to compete with.
Slayer is OP strong- I'm not so sure about the hunter though.
[editline]8th February 2015[/editline]
Final call before I open the game to the public; Old Exalted players; Hit me up. We're going to make a skype group and discuss game times and shit.
Just played my first game of D&D yesterday (3.5e with some bits of homebrew and 4e). It was super fun. Have a few funny stories to tell though.
The story we have is that we are mercenaries hired by some corporation to go to this continent that had a city set up a few years ago that no one has had contact with since. We have the mission of helping out the city in whatever way we can and to retrieve this pyramid-shaped artifact. I was playing a dwarven ranger who focused mainly on ranged combat. We also had a spellsword, another ranger, a dragonborn barbarian, a shaman guy who had an obsession with spoons, and a shifter barbarian with metal retardation.
At the start we end up on this beach on the continent we were sent to. We end up being attacked by raiders. Later in the fight, the leader of the raiders, who is a wizard, ends up on top of a small cliff overlooking the beach, shooting fireballs and whatnot at us. Our shifter rolls twice; once to jump up the cliff and another to tackle the wizard off to the other side. He rolls a perfect fucking 20 for the jump and basically begins his majestic leap over to this wizard. He then rolls a 3 for the attack and ends up falling over to the other side.
His next turn he tries doing this again. This time he rolls a natural 1 for the jump and jumps 2 feet in the air before smacking his face into the rock.
The next time we fight is in a swamp with 2-3 feet of water. We're ambushing a small boat and I take the first shot, using split the tree to hit the two archers on the barge. Our retarded shifter decides he wants to climb up a tree, jump off it, and tackle the leader of the barge. He rolls a 3 for the climb and ends up falling on his ass back into the water. His next turn he throws a bottle where he stored the heart he ripped out of a bloated and rotting corpse at a guy and did 1 damage (it was the first and only time he did damage all game). After taking the barge for ourselves, we find a weird barrel of liquid. Our shifter goes to drink the entire barrel, but since our shaman was holding on to him by his chain, he used a saving throw to prevent him from doing so. Our ranger does a wisdom check to find out the barrel was full of a magical poison that would have killed him instantly.
Here's the funniest bit from it. Two of the guys in the party had to leave early and since we couldn't really do the main quest without them, the DM makes up a side quest for us to do. We start making our way to an outpost on this map we found from these lizard cultists. We go inside this cave and we spot two lizard cultists around a large pool of water (30 ft). What happens next I can only attribute to metal retardation on the side of the player, not the player character.
See, our shifter was sitting near our DM (since we were in a cramped room and there wasn't much space) and saw him looking at the book on the page with the hydra, trying to make up this quest on the spot. He even said he knew that the DM was going to put in a fucking hydra. So our spellsword fires a spell at the pair of cultists, wounding them. Our shifter wants blood, so he charges into battle. Instead of trying to run around the pool of water to reach the cultists, he tries to [B]jump the 30 ft pool of water.[/B]
A level 3 barbarian just basically swam into a pool of water was and woke up a fucking hydra. The DM was falling on the floor fucking laughing. After our shifter died after being instagibbed by 8 hydra heads eating his ass at once, everyone else left the cave. The DM told us he had this really cool and fun quest lined up where we find out the lizard cultists were feeding the hydra and trying to tame it to use it as a war beast and we later try to tame it ourselves and use it against them.
tl;dr, retarded barbarian deals 1 damage the entire game, barely escapes death OUT OF COMBAT 5 or 6 times, ends up dying after being instagibbed by aggroing a hydra.
[QUOTE=Oliolio;47099371][B]Honestly the standard ranger has never been as good or useful as a ranged based fighter- I don't expect this is ever going to change, because a fighter simply has too many feats to compete with.[/B]
[/QUOTE]
Ranger can cast spells and has an Animal Companion, those alone make it better than the Fighter.
Agreed that the Slayer is almost OP strong, it's absolutely one of the best non-caster martials out there and, quite frankly, a [I]very[/I] fun class to play.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;47100265]Ranger can cast spells and has an Animal Companion, those alone make it better than the Fighter.
Agreed that the Slayer is almost OP strong, it's absolutely one of the best non-caster martials out there and, quite frankly, a [I]very[/I] fun class to play.[/QUOTE]
lol no, rangers are shit casters
Playing in a game that makes it feasible to use tiers is your problem.
Most great games make all the classes equal, like in the case of 13th Age, or make all the classes specialized, so each role is equally viable, like 40krpg.
3.5/PF are fine as long as you're not playing with people who're bellends, you should help people out and give advice if they're not familiar with the system and might be fucking up their character, and experienced players shouldn't be power gaming to the point where they're depriving other people of a chance to contribute.
3.5/PF is bellend magnet
[QUOTE=cdr248;47102202]3.5/PF is bellend magnet[/QUOTE]
the world is a bellend magnet
Anybody here played Eclipse Phase before? I'm about to start a game as a Lunarian Enforcer with an Assault Rail Rifle.
[t]http://i.cubeupload.com/CwXvpV.png[/t]
My current campaign
[editline]9th February 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Alsojames;47102525]Anybody here played Eclipse Phase before? I'm about to start a game as a Lunarian Enforcer with an Assault Rail Rifle.[/QUOTE]
I have and I love the system - just don't get too attached to gear, Eclipse Phase is more about your character than their kit, especially if you're running a Firewall game.
I'll be sure to keep a good stock of credits stored in case [sp]when[/sp] I die.
Also, I heard there was a fan-made eclipse module that turns it into Mass Effect. I should look into that.
[QUOTE=Alsojames;47102808]I'll be sure to keep a good stock of credits stored in case [sp]when[/sp] I die.
Also, I heard there was a fan-made eclipse module that turns it into Mass Effect. I should look into that.[/QUOTE]
It's worth remembering that Rep is the most valuable currency in the system (although creds will still be useful for anywhere that isn't a complete Anarchist habitat) and everything except your ego can be replaced if need be. I can't find the exact quote but there's a passage that says something like 'The reason we recruited you isn't your muscles or your fancy sniper rifle, it's your expertise, your experience and your skills. Everything else can be bought'.
Well I put a lot of points into combat and investigation skills and made myself a bounty hunter. He's tough, he's fast, he's smart, and he's got a rail rifle.
Now as long as he doesn't immediately get shot in the face, thins should be good.
[QUOTE=elowin;47096634]So to sum up today's Shadowrun game.
It ended with Solid Snake, an ork wizard, an elven decker, a mutant with adhesive feet, and a rigger, each individually rappelling/flying/skating/running/riding on a drone that she glued herself onto down the Aztechnology Pyramid in Seattle.
This while being chased by massive fire elementals, which nearly killed them, causing the team to detonate a fuckton of bombs that were located around the base of the building in a desperate attempt to shake them off, causing part of the building to collapse, destroying not only part of one of the most well known structures in the world, but also a good part of the city around it, and nearly dying in the process.
just another day in the shadows omae[/QUOTE]
We had our session tonight.
Two sessions of planning how to kill a german official in west berlin and the street sammy just says "why dont we just blow up the building she's doing her speech at"
and thats how the entire Hilton International Hotel in west berlin blew up from a ice cream truck packed with C4 (rating 15!) barreling through the front doors, up the stairs in the central lobby and ramping off them, through a wall into the ball room of the hotel.
The entire structures' front caved in on itself and they had to outdrive the falling building and they narrowly escaped by burning edge.
All the while on the lead up to the ice cream van flying in, this is playing in meatspace (in real life)
[video=youtube;nSuZzCEZZkA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSuZzCEZZkA[/video]
Crescendo at 2:40 ended right as the bomb went off.
Explosives are overpowered and I have had the literal most fun DMing Shadowrun out of any tabletop I've played OR DMed.
[editline]9th February 2015[/editline]
I forgot to mention: This whole thing was being broadcast internationally as part of some trade agreement between West Germany and Seattle that Ares wanted to disrupt. So the entire world more or less saw this ice cream van fly through this wall and hit this lady, then explode as it skidded to a stop over several tables in the middle of this room.
Fuck yeah, that's rad as shit. High explosives are the best solution to any problem.
[editline]9th February 2015[/editline]
and ofcourse Nerts rates you winner
Nerts you're a terrorist
I'm not, terrorists have a political goal
[QUOTE=Rents;47102183]3.5/PF are fine as long as you're not playing with people who're bellends, you should help people out and give advice if they're not familiar with the system and might be fucking up their character, and experienced players shouldn't be power gaming to the point where they're depriving other people of a chance to contribute.[/QUOTE]
I've seen this with people I've played with (one of which we don't hang out with anymore). Last time we played he min/max'd a psion so that it could basically just drop a few hundred damage because "haha, fuck you".
Also, I have an issue with my players putting loot and gear over decent roleplaying, a problem so endemic I stopped GMing for a while because I wasn't having fun anymore trying to push them through a story.
[QUOTE=Dalndox;47105473]Also, I have an issue with my players putting loot and gear over decent roleplaying, a problem so endemic I stopped GMing for a while because I wasn't having fun anymore trying to push them through a story.[/QUOTE]
Have you tried creating items tied to the story? Like the goal of White Plume Mountain is to collect the three artifacts within it, obviously Lord of the Rings is a classic example of a story based on a magic item.
[QUOTE=Glent;47105524]Have you tried creating items tied to the story? Like the goal of White Plume Mountain is to collect the three artifacts within it, obviously Lord of the Rings is a classic example of a story based on a magic item.[/QUOTE]
I have, yes.
Ultimately any push towards roleplaying becomes "what are you going to give me for doing thing?" even when their characters should, by their design, be doing it solely to help them. And that's even assuming they make a character that isn't "chaotic neutral fuck everyone I just want stuff", which is fine on occasion but not when it's basically every character in every campaign.
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