Pathfailure Adventures!

[Koumei]

So, on alternate Sundays I play in a Pathfailure game. Why? Because I was sort of roped into it when I had nothing better to do. I quickly discovered:

1. It's level 3 (see: I may feel free to treat my character as a throwaway comedy device)
2. It's not even going to hit level 10 (see: I need never give a shit about my character or the game - I let the DM know I'll blow the game off if anything better comes up)
3. It's PF-Core only, plus Magic Item Compendium. I reacted to that lameness in the most spiteful way I could: Amber Amulets of Vermin. There you go, Frank, there IS now a case you know of where someone used one of them. So as a level 3 character I'm summoning something better than the whole party.
4. There is a problem with feats, where all the feats suck balls except Leadership. So the solution he took was to ban Leadership. Out of all the options (Improve the rest, improve the rest and ban Leadership as well, allow feats from random splat books and shit) he took the worst.
5. It's not even a very original or entertaining game.

Still, here is how things went so far:

Session 1:
My character (Human Devil-Pact Sorceress, Charm specialist) and my sister's character (Half Elf Cleric of the Death god) are introduced, I am introduced as team leader to replace the Paladin who is now on medical leave after being almost-killed a few times.

Yes, it's a basic mercenary company thing. We're hired by short, bearded fuckheads.

Anyway, we gear up and head off, needing to report to the encampment for the next mission. There is a... Ranger/Wizard? Or something to that effect, and a Sorcerer (Fear-based necromancy, wanting to get undead minions at a later date) and possibly something else I can't remember. The necromancer has a huge undead-cart-abomination thing that he rides, and everyone else stays away from. The team is also pretty stealthy, except for us newcomers.

We end up getting into a fight with bandits, and so I cast Sleep from a wand, only to discover that apparently you don't use your casting stat for it, so it's DC 11 and thus may as well be used as the stick that Paladins shove up their arses. Still, 2 bandits instantly fall asleep. So whatever. The rest come and attack me and I get knocked into negatives.

Just as I'm hoping I'll already be free from the game, the rest of the party then close in, there's a Hold Person by the Cleric, enemies generally surrender and then I'm healed. And we continue on.

That was a whole session, just getting us to the frigging encampment.

---

Session two!

We all get paid, and I go buy a Scythe for Coup de Grace purposes, handing over the solid lump of gold for it and pointing out the weight of this shit. The DM doesn't appreciate this for some reason. But he also doesn't think that Celestial sounds like Strom, which means he is incorrect.

I go and get someone to buy me a drink, and I don't even need to Charm them into it. But the Elven not-Sorcerer leader of another strike force wanders up and tries to insult me, because he's an elf and has a small penis. But not only does my character have a better Charisma (the official smack-talk stat) but I'm better and insulting people than the DM, so the elf walks away the loser of that encounter.

The necromancer then gets a sort of cannon-powered ballista thing attached to his wagon, and we get the next mission: we're one of three strike-forces going ahead to take out Orc watch-towers so as to make a clear path for the main army to reach the mines unnoticed. So that's four watch towers (that sounds like a four-encounter workday!) and we head out...

First one has four orcs. Two of them get et by a giant spider, and the DM wept, declaring "Even if you find anyone who will sell you any more, I'm deciding you can't take one off and put another on and use that, you have to wear it for a whole day. So no cheap summon cycles." I'm assuming he also has a small penis, just like the elf.

And via spells and archery we kill the other orcs. One of them got Enlarged, then chopped up, there was a Colour Spray, etc. etc. Four dead orcs. The spider now officially has a pipe, top hat and series of monocles (for the eyes on its left side). My art book says so.

Incidentally, he decided that, seeing as new half orcs are better than real orcs, orcs needed boosting as enemies, so now they all:

Prioritise Con (plus a racial boost to it, as (mostly) Barbarians)
Die at negative HP == Con (so what, -19 HP in a Rage?)
Can still fight normally at negative HP

So basically, they all have twice as many HP, so using SoD effects is really handy.

Second fight, there are orcs and worgs, and suddenly the DM realises that technically the orcs can't ride the worgs, but they do anyway because it's not his fault the book thing said they do and he just took their word for it rather than looking at things in advance.

This next fight lasts eleven years, and involves the Phoenix Down shuffle, where Cleric gets knocked out, healing is applied so she stands up, then she gets knocked out again... there's an Enlarged angry orc who eventually gets stabbed in the cock until death resumes, I'm just about the only character who is NOT knocked to negatives at any point, one of the little fuckers turns out to be a Sorc4 or some bullshit (higher level than us) and thus spams Scorching Ray like a whore... but eventually we kill them all.

I have yet to use Charm Person, being a "One person" spell that takes a penalty in combat. I should have found something that instead gave a bullshit bonus to Colour Spray. Anyway, we're left with few spell slots between the casters, general damage (wand of CLW will take care of that, I was the only one to think of doing that - meaning my sister also has one, because she relies on my knowledge of numbers and rules and shit), and two more to go.

It seriously took ages. Hence my sister now has a dim view of D&D combat, and is delighted by my game where for some reason fights are so quick you could miss the whole battle by taking a trip to the lavatory.

Long story short: not a great DM, and I have been trying to "improve" him, but also Pathfailure sucks its own sweaty balls.

[Username17]

If you want to use charm monster, use it on creatures who are already unconscious. Unconscious enemies are considered "willing" targets and don't get saves, not at +5 and not at any other bonus.

Once they are charmed they are considered Friendly, which has very specific and exciting meaning for Pathfailure Diplomancy.

While for the duration of the Charm you can make Charisma tests to make them do things they "would not normally do" this is actually a waste of time. The real money is that it is a DC 13 Diplomancy test to upgrade a Charmed Orc Warrior to be your follower in a permanent and non-magical fashion.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Wait, so with my +13 to Diplomancy (I know, it's not 80, but it's level 3 Core Only and I'm not trying, give me a break), I can go:

1: FUCKING RAINBOWS
2: Je'taime!* Charmed, motherfucker
3: once he wakes up, automatically succeed at making him Helpful (DC 8, +13 modifier)
4: "Hey, helpful friend oh-buddy, could you be my combat assistant for the rest of your life, in the face of the fact that the Big Nob may want to kill you for this, which he probably does anyway?" and auto-succeed (DC 13, +13 modifier)
5: Orc Minion
6: ???
7: PROFIT!

Wow, it's so nice of them to actually go and state what you can do with Diplomancy... and confirm that it really is as broken as all that. WHAT A GOOD CHANGE TO THE GAME, PAIZO!

*Probably wrong. I should mention I don't speak French.

[virgil]

Are you sure that the minion's permanent? There's a good chance the DM will use this from the skill if you attempt to:

Any attitude shift caused through Diplomacy generally lasts for 1d4 hours but can last much longer or shorter depending upon the situation (GM discretion).

[Koumei]

You use the attitude shift simply to make it auto-success to make the request of "Fight alongside us forever, comrade!" and then, even after they stop being Helpful - even once both Diplomancy and Charm wear off and they go back to Hostile, they are still following the request.

Or you can just make sure they get killed ASAP.

[Roy]

Any more awesome fail stories here?

[Koumei]

This approaching weekend there probably will be. We're basically out of juice and have two long, boring-ass ork-filled fights to go, and then we hit level fucking four, whoop-de-doo.

I seriously told the DM that the existence of cheap-ass items that summon monsters better than the whole party exists as an encouragement to give us more levels quicker so that the item loses relevance.

But yeah, we skipped out last session, because my sister (one of the players, also my method of getting there) was unwell and needed rest. All the other players were totally okay with this.

[Koumei]

Apparently the DM has been really sulky and shitty about the whole "skipping out on game thing". Also he is aware that the combat marathon is fucking boring and the team is out of juice with two fights to go. He hasn't really made the connection that his game sucks, yet.

Apparently he's thinking of pulling some deus ex machina thing so we don't have to go through two more long-ass fights. Which I would normally say is fucking stupid, but at this point I seriously won't mind if Elminster himself rocks up in a purple limousine, moonwalks over to us, teleports us away and then leaps into the sky and drops a literal nuclear warhead on the orcs. Anything to cut the crap.

[erik]

3. It's PF-Core only, plus Magic Item Compendium. I reacted to that lameness in the most spiteful way I could: Amber Amulets of Vermin. There you go, Frank, there IS now a case you know of where someone used one of them. So as a level 3 character I'm summoning something better than the whole party.

I knew some people in Living Greyhawk who used em. Some idiot mod writer put them in as treasure for some adventure. I think they were abused widely enough that they got errata'd by LG into being smaller sized vermin summonings.

[Koumei]

So there was in fact no deus ex. Today, here is everything we did:

[*]Raid the third tower

Seriously, a whole fucking session just for that. We wandered up, the Cleric was spotted, they started pinging arrows off her while the Necro and I snuck up (she moved up in sight) and the Rangizard fired arrows using the Snipe rule: the range penalty to Notice is so crazy that the -20 Snipe penalty was more than negated, they couldn't spot her.

So I ended up under the little thing and let off my second to last spell, a Colour Spray. The shaman got Stunned and Blinded for 1 round and an archer was knocked out cold for 8 rounds. The Cleric Held another archer as she got closer, the Necro started using his heavy crossbow.

Then a barbarian leapt down and hit me down to 2 HP. I was hoping this was my chance to leave the fucking game, but no luck. Clerical Scythecharge ensued, distracting him, so I Charmed the KOed guy and we got to have a ten minute debate about whether it works like that.

Eventually the player of the Rangizard found the "If you're knocked out, you're considered Willing" section, and then "It is possible to willingly forego a save" part, and argued with the DM about whether that counts or "Willing" is actually a special status effect. He declared Rule 0, I reminded him that "What you say goes. If you piss me off, I go too. I'm not the one who has to put up with you being pissed off if I flounce out of your game, do the math."

So I was out of spells but we had a Charmed orc. I then started Acid Splashing as a buffed Cleric fought the barbarian... and got knocked out. A crossbow bolt then turned the orc into a corpse. I then healed the Cleric... and got hit in the head with an arrow. They then finished archerying the other conscious orcs, and then remembered to heal me (damn!)

So we healed up, looted them (nothing good), and woke the orc up, ready to Diplomatise him. Because the DM is a raging studded cock, he decided the orc "likes you but is terrified of your friends. It runs away". So my spell was a waste.

And the session ends there. Due to scheduling-juggling, the next session is ??? (and there's even the possibility - oh I hope! - of the game folding). If there ends up being a next session though, then as party leader I am going to say that, with our spells at a low, and the constant KO-ing we've received, we should wander back and tell the army to go fuck themselves, before writing up contracts that from now on we work on the 5-minute workday.

Because fuck the DM's plot, it's not interesting enough for me to sit through another grind (especially one where I have ACID SPLASH, DC 11 SLEEP wand and a touch of Shaken (1 round)).

[Roy]

So to borrow a term from the Paizo boards, would you say that the game is "mindless flash and slash"?

[Username17]

So to borrow a term from the Paizo boards, would you say that the game is "mindless flash and slash"?

What does that mean?

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Sounds like a modification of hack and slash to account for the fact that Wizards are the effective combatants in 3rd Ed.

So my guess goes to "a campaign focussed around the presentation of a series of combat encounters without providing alternative methods of plot resolution."

[Roy]

Sounds like a modification of hack and slash to account for the fact that Wizards are the effective combatants in 3rd Ed.

So my guess goes to "a campaign focussed around the presentation of a series of combat encounters without providing alternative methods of plot resolution."

Not quite, but close. I'm reading it as "A campaign in which combats are decided very quickly by a quick incantation or two, without much thought given into what the spells actually are. While normally a degree of care is needed in the selection of save or ______ spells to pick the right ones for the job, in mindless flash and slash you can do things like cast Hold Person on an Elf Wizard and have that succeed with some degree of reliability. This is either due to reduced enemy saves and/or buffed save DCs on you, reduced ability to get save boosting effects on the enemy, or any other reason that makes the opposition have bad saves in relation to the party."

It could also say something of the lack of non combat based alternatives. But every time the term is used, it seems to refer to players going around and picking a random, usually low level save or suck at random and spamming them until one works and having that work for them.

Pathfinder strongly supports a mindless style of play for this and other reasons. Another good one is that traps suck a barrel of cocks. An example level 15 trap does 4d6 or 5d6 damage. I wish I were joking. A 3.5 party might have to be careful for level 9 spell traps, but a PF party? You can just run right through the traps and not even care. If your DM gives XP for traps you'll level insanely fast off of them.

[Koumei]

If Red Rob's definition is what you mean, then yes, that is correct. It is fight-fight-fight, no alternate ways about it, Fox only, Final Destination.

So there's some fucking Real Play Experience for them. Taking bets that, if I was to go to their forums and relate it, they'd say "Well it could go differently for a different group*, so there isn't actually anything wrong with Pathfinder!"

Oh, some choice quotes from the game:

Me:that's a stupid house rule that makes these fucking orcs take too long to beat, what with doubling their effective HP.
DM: it's not a house rule, it's core for Pathfinder
Me: hence it's some dude's house rule. I don't care that someone in your house paid for it. It's still a shitty house rule, just not yours.

Later, re the whole Willing target thing:
DM: I dunno, it just sounds too much like a bad house rule - I mean, Death Knell requires a Will save, and that's for Unconscious targets...
Me: no, do you want to see a bad house rule? *points at the PF book*
Rik: (guy who owns the book) No, be fair! That's not a house rule, it's a book full of them. There's a difference.

Note: Rik does run a PF game. He said if there's room he'll invite me at a higher level (where I'll actually care). It's "PF Core Only Unless You Can Show Me That You've Made It PF Compatible Because It Isn't Actually Backwards Compatible, You Need To Tweak Everything" and a Gestalt game (with special plot reasons). So it's not that he regrets the purchase. He just has mixed feelings on various things there, and does not have mixed feelings about the DM, they're quite clear: "If I wasn't living here and thus had to put up with the whining I'd leave the game".

*Ignoring that, with that DM, no it wouldn't, but in general, the fact that different groups get different play experiences is exactly fucking why the only valid way of judging these things IS basically to do the SGT or another "Look at it without actually playing a whole campaign".

[Koumei]

Hmm, close Roy. Mostly it's "I'm a frigging Sorcerer, I only know like two spells and only ever WILL know two." That said, Orcs are Orcs, so everyone knows you target Will. And he basically said the game is about fighting orcs.

Presumably because it's low level, and clearly orcs are the only things low level parties ever fight. I am not expecting to battle a halfling-sized red parrot in this game.

And as for traps... I'd say he's sensible to have decided "I'm not using the regular XP rules, it's plot-based levelling" except it's too fucking slow. It feels like we've hacked our way through 20-30 level-appropriate encounters, never mind the caster that was higher level than us and IN a party (that was bigger than us) of level-appropriate enemies.

Seriously, fuck that cheap-ass militia, they can just pay the higher fee to hire a higher-level party to do it. And we shall sit back at the base drinking fancy cocktails (see: players can go do something interesting).

[Roy]

*Ignoring that, with that DM, no it wouldn't, but in general, the fact that different groups get different play experiences is exactly fucking why the only valid way of judging these things IS basically to do the SGT or another "Look at it without actually playing a whole campaign".

Well that and what you described is very common among Pathfailure DMs. Long grind fests where they tell you with a straight face that healing in an AoE at the same progression as Rogue SA except one per round, and it takes the Cleric's turn to do so (and also requires him to burn a feat to not also heal the enemy for piddly shit) and is limited use based on a dump stat is overpowered. Where most of them admit to regular bouts of "Screw the rules, I have HP grind." to deny successful save or loses from blowing away their sad jokes of BBEGs, or to stop their sad jokes of characters from getting slaughtered repeatedly by the same. Yup, most of them are rampant fudgers. They don't like what you're doing, they start fucking with it.

Seems you have a stock retard there. Have you considered investing in a Folding Chair of Salvation?

[Roy]

Hmm, close Roy. Mostly it's "I'm a frigging Sorcerer, I only know like two spells and only ever WILL know two." That said, Orcs are Orcs, so everyone knows you target Will. And he basically said the game is about fighting orcs.

Presumably because it's low level, and clearly orcs are the only things low level parties ever fight. I am not expecting to battle a halfling-sized red parrot in this game.

And as for traps... I'd say he's sensible to have decided "I'm not using the regular XP rules, it's plot-based levelling" except it's too fucking slow. It feels like we've hacked our way through 20-30 level-appropriate encounters, never mind the caster that was higher level than us and IN a party (that was bigger than us) of level-appropriate enemies.

Seriously, fuck that cheap-ass militia, they can just pay the higher fee to hire a higher-level party to do it. And we shall sit back at the base drinking fancy cocktails (see: players can go do something interesting).

Well I meant even at the levels where you actually have a choice. You can make bad choices because you just don't care and still win. It's not like 3.5 where casters still kick ass, but if you're a fuckup you die until you stop being a fuckup.

[Koumei]

Well it looks like I may be in luck (but for those who love to read some good fail, I guess you're out of luck). Basically, my sister has found that she needs to reschedule her nWoD horror game (which so far is a huge success from what I hear - I'm really glad). It was quickly worked out that the only feasible time to change to would be alternate Sundays, specifically the one where this game runs.

So I was hoping the game would just fold. I asked one of the other players, and he said "No news is good news! He'll never actually say the game is folding, it will just mysteriously die like all his other ones. But I haven't heard anything about rescheduling so we might be in luck."

My sister then said "Actually, he said he was thinking of just folding it. He mentioned it doesn't seem like anyone is enjoying it."

I would like to add that that part is in fact my doing. Because I am fucking rude when I don't *have* to be polite. The part where I flat-out told him to go suck a barrel of cocks probably helped. And yes, everyone in the car at the time agreed that it was my way with words that gave him that strange idea people weren't enjoying it.

Moral of the story: if you're not liking the game, be rude and insulting, also, point out that you have no qualms with flat-out walking.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Why not just quit the game?

[Koumei]

I was actually going to do that. It just seems now I don't need to. And considering that if I had actually quit, and not invented some reason like "I don't have time" but just said "I don't like your game", this might have led to other players going "Well, now that cat is out of the bag..." or him throwing a fit and folding because a player dared to not like the game, we're likely looking at the same result anyway.

But yeah, I was seriously going to just say "I won't be making it to your next session. Or any of the other ones. I have to have fun or arrange my toenail clippings or something. But don't worry, seeing as my main spell isn't allowed to work, here's a simple flowchart for all battles ever, which is all this game is, so you can NPC me:
if (enemy_in_range==False):
close in ("move action", 30)
else:
colour spray (DC whatever)

Also, seeing as my character is out of value at the moment with these BS encounters, she decides to go back to the dorfs and tell them to go fuck themselves. She then suggests if they actually need these orcs taken out, they fucking pay an actual level 5-6 party the proper amount to show up and take care of it. Meanwhile I'll go do something fun."

But the fact is, most players are too polite, so either sit and suffer in silence, or invent excuses why they have to drop out. Note that it doesn't have to be lies or "you suck", I have before explained "I'm not enjoying your game. Having given White Wolf many chances, I just don't think I can enjoy a WoD game, I feel my style is not suited for the kind of game it is meant to be. That okay?" and been told "Yeah, no probs. I figured this'd happen, knowing your feelings on their rules, settings, developers and drug habits".

But this is the Den, people pay to see me being rude.