Tamarask -- or why I started worrying and stopped loving the

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:59 am

Maybe he'd be happy with 4th Edition, then.

It does all of the things he'd probably like. Casters getting their balls snipped off like naughty poodles, people being unable to do stuff besides run up to a monstah and hit it, no save-or-dies, and 'epic' multi-round combat.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:11 am

I've suspected he would, but he's used to 3rd edition and the monsters are too boring mechanically to draw him in.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:46 pm

Crap. We got ambushed while my character was away and watching a different entrance (cleric was resting until spell recovery time), so the two fighters got dominated, killed the cleric, chased off the rogue, and gave ALL of their gear & ALL of our gear to the BBEG. They, the fighters, then ran after us, where I removed the mind control with dispel magic.

Nonetheless, there remains me, a mediocre rogue, and two near naked fighters. There's a castle and an entire stone giant army outside. The leader is deep inside the castle's dungeon, and is a 14th level wizard stone giant that gathered the army for conquest.

I am capable of killing the army, by myself, which is technically the reason we're here (the original purpose was to kill the leader, who was unifying the army).

DM's bringing up facts like "rubbing it in their face that they exist solely to keep you alive" and party resentment, etc, if I go through with such a plan.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:42 pm

He should have thought of that before he effectively killed off all the other characters.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:20 pm

His opinions sounds like it leans towards it being better that I not solo-kill the army, and instead we all die and make new characters to pick up where we left off (if slightly damaged lands because the leader actually got started on conquest rather than nipping it in the bud).

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:38 pm

I'd catch him alone and ask if your character can kill the army by going nova and having an appropriately heroic death. The PCs win, Team Evil loses, you roll up a new character.

And I'd call that roleplaying. Your character has evidently invested a lot of energy into stopping this army. If he knows a way to kill the entire army, is he going to let himself be killed without that happening?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:21 pm

virgileso wrote:His opinions sounds like it leans towards it being better that I not solo-kill the army, and instead we all die and make new characters to pick up where we left off (if slightly damaged lands because the leader actually got started on conquest rather than nipping it in the bud).

So he hit all the other team members with kryptonite and now he is asking that you not try to salvage things yourself? What the fuck man?

Seriously, Fighters need their damn artifact swords. If the DM is nerfing them down to nothing he has got to expect the people who don't need equipment to step up.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:10 pm

aka, if he hits the noncasters with kryptonite, then the rest of party pretty much needs to pony up and play nicedead; because everyone will feel butthurt at the reminder that casters win D&D.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:22 pm

And as it turns out, he's got a houserule on Leadership. All cohorts have to take NPC classes (adept, expert, aristocrat, etc).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:19 pm

Is this where you rub your cock on people by taking a Warrior Cohort while you're a preparation caster and then buff up your orcish animal companion so that he outshines the fighters?

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:22 pm

Nah, then it would turn out that the cohort was really a traitor who was just waiting for a chance to kill his 'friend'.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:36 pm

That would be impressive, seeing as how he's put in a limit that no character can benefit from more than 4 round/lvl buffs at a time. Still doable, mind you.

Also, I think he plans on having it work so that the recipient can choose to have later buffs override older ones, depending on whether Paizo said anything specific on the matter.

I suspect there would be grumbling if I chose to buff my cohort rather than the fighters of the party, out of the party especially.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:41 am

Dude, just convince the DM to play 4th Edition.

It seems tailor-made for people like him and your party would be playing on more even playing ground.

I'm not saying that 4E is a superior edition by any means but if you're going to insist on torturing yourself for our amusement you may as well do it with a system that won't cause your balls to explode, you know?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:49 am

If I try to convince that DM to play 4th edition, then I'd be out of a DM who'd run a game I'd even be willing to play in. There's also the general likelihood of me being able to convince him to play 4th edition; as I'm terrible at convincing him at essentially everything related to roleplaying.

Well, in other news. My warlock died in the game due to a recurring villain, a 10th level sorcerer ghoul-like serpent woman, unbuffed with a ~30 AC and ~+25 to-hit, 3 natural attacks that do crappy damage and 2d4 Wisdom drain. This was actually the same creature that came in under greater invisibility and did that pseudo-TPK from earlier (DC 26 dominate does that when used on mediocre fighters). Fortunately, my warlock was around and thus able to see it invisible and dispel its numerous buffs. However, I was figuring it was time to 'retire' the warlock, so I did some tactically unsound things (for me, average for most of the others), which resulted in me being within a 5' step of it.

Thus, I was hit twice into a coma (11 Wisdom drain to a 10 Wis character), and no other character was close enough for it to not just 5' step the next round out of reach and cast teleport with my body (it was nearly dead due to our combined blasting).

And now, I bring in my replacement character, a noncaster to appease the gang. I went simple, and made an archer with one non-core feat (Ranged Weapon Mastery) and a bunch of non-core magic items; such as the exalted armor (continuous protection from evil), demolition crystal (penetrates adamantine DR & +1d6 vs constructs), fiendslaying crystal (penetrates good DR & +1d6 vs evil outsiders), arrow deflection crystal (+5 AC vs ranged), screening crystal (+5 AC vs incorporeal), & a +10 Perception item.

Our first fight was against a stone golem, which I proceeded to kill before anyone could even act. Our next fight was a huge size category dire bear, which I brought down to 25% in one round while the rest of the party did the rest over the remaining round and a half. I finally slowed down my killing rate when we encountered some 20+ HD zombies.

The party had jaw-dropping expressions at my character, one player muttering that my warlock was less broken.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:39 pm

A bunch of words to share with the other players:

Mwuahahahahaha!

I should record myself doing that some day so I can hyperlink it whenever the fuck it's appropriate. I've got an okay evil villan laugh. Just okay.

Looks like I need to dig up my mic tonight.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:40 pm

Crap. We got ambushed while my character was away and watching a different entrance (cleric was resting until spell recovery time), so the two fighters got dominated, killed the cleric, chased off the rogue, and gave ALL of their gear & ALL of our gear to the BBEG. They, the fighters, then ran after us, where I removed the mind control with dispel magic.

Does your DM hate your group?

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:22 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
Crap. We got ambushed while my character was away and watching a different entrance (cleric was resting until spell recovery time), so the two fighters got dominated, killed the cleric, chased off the rogue, and gave ALL of their gear & ALL of our gear to the BBEG. They, the fighters, then ran after us, where I removed the mind control with dispel magic.
Does your DM hate your group?

If I remember right, the dm's rationalization used to be that he had to have "fun" as well. One of the reasons, why I left the group after the initial campaign that the original post of this thread was based on.
never realize that when they play as a dm they don't have to treat the player as an outright enemy at all points.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:47 am

virgileso wrote:Crap. We got ambushed while my character was away and watching a different entrance (cleric was resting until spell recovery time), so the two fighters got dominated, killed the cleric, chased off the rogue, and gave ALL of their gear & ALL of our gear to the BBEG. They, the fighters, then ran after us, where I removed the mind control with dispel magic.

Ah, Save or Suck spells. The bane of non-spellcasters and the primary guardian of the D20 Tier system. Good times. I was kind of hoping that Paizo would fix SoS spells in Pathfinder, but they seem content to simply re-package 3.5 without really addressing the main issues that cause the game to break down past level 10. It's quite unfortunate - I was really hoping for a viable alternative to 4th Edition.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:49 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote: Ah, Save or Suck spells. The bane of non-spellcasters and the primary guardian of the D20 Tier system. Good times. I was kind of hoping that Paizo would fix SoS spells in Pathfinder, but they seem content to simply re-package 3.5 without really addressing the main issues that cause the game to break down past level 10. It's quite unfortunate - I was really hoping for a viable alternative to 4th Edition.

Have mercy, don't start that again.

In summary: When Paizo announced open playtests and all that, Frank and K--and several other people here--got their hopes up and tried to contribute to the design and development process, as done over on the forums.

It did not go well.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:08 am

Maxus wrote:Have mercy, don't start that again.

In summary: When Paizo announced open playtests and all that, Frank and K--and several other people here--got their hopes up and tried to contribute to the design and development process, as done over on the forums.

It did not go well.

I was there when it happened. In fact, it was because of their posts that I ended up here.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:57 pm

Ganbare Gincun wrote:
Maxus wrote:Have mercy, don't start that again.

In summary: When Paizo announced open playtests and all that, Frank and K--and several other people here--got their hopes up and tried to contribute to the design and development process, as done over on the forums.

It did not go well.
I was there when it happened. In fact, it was because of their posts that I ended up here.

Then does that mean I am also saved the trouble of mentioning Squirreloid, LogicNinja (before his Epic Fail), me, and others from here who also tried, and failed to save it as the strength check to pull their head out of their ass is DC over 9,000?

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:00 am

Roy wrote:Then does that mean I am also saved the trouble of mentioning Squirreloid, LogicNinja (before his Epic Fail), me, and others from here who also tried, and failed to save it as the strength check to pull their head out of their ass is DC over 9,000?

Yes. I originally thought that they were discounting Frank's ideas because of his "unique brand of diplomacy", but after you guys all left, I realized that they just weren't really interested in fixing 3.5, which is a damned shame.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:15 am

Instead they're just changing shit for the sake of changing it. Getting a monkey drunk and having it throw darts around would be superior in every way (more effective, entertaining, cheaper...) than whatever the fuck they're doing now.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:20 am

The thing is that you don't actually have to say anything mean to be treated as if you are if your message is "this is broken, please fix it." For some reason that message is treated as if it was a threat to rape someone's dog regardless of how it is actually phrased. Simply showing a broken rule is enough to offend certain people to the point that they will stalk you around the insult insulting you. I know. I've been doing it for a long time.

Watch what happens on the 4e discussion boards when Titanium Dragon talks:
Click Here.

Note the linked post and then scroll up to read the thread. You don't really have to understand 4e to get a handle on the situation. Apparently in 4e they created an attack that attacks many times for slightly less damage. But since most of your damage gets triggered in that system by any hit rather than by the specific damage of that attack, the storm of strikes is many times larger in total damage than any other turn's worth of actions.

Now, here's what Titanium Dragon actually said about this:

TD wrote:Sigh. Apparently they don't listen to people who send them emails about their playtests.

Honestly, guys. If you want to show us previews to make us excited for future products, that's fine. But don't claim they're playtests if you aren't going to listen to feedback.

And watch how people respond to him:

Could you please stop complaining in every single thread you post to? You tend to post a lot and you always overreact and make a huge show about the tiniest things. It is seriously annoying and makes my forum browsing experience a lot less fun, having to stand someone oozing with negativity.

You are bitter - we get that - but don't try to lemonize the rest of us, please.

I would recommend just blocking him. I don't think TD will change, he seems to have a serious lack of social skills. He doesn't seem to understand that being right is not everything.

See that? People suggest that he has alack of social skills and banning him and shit, not because of way he delivered his declaration, but for the content of the declaration. If your message is "Power A is broken" it doesn't matter - at all - to these people how you phrase that.

-Username17

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:43 pm

Frank, you forgot the best one:

TD, obviously you're entirely within your rights to complain all over the CharOp forum, and it isn't your job to contribute to the enjoyment-of-the-game atmosphere if you don't want to. I don't have any "rights" to a whine-free forum. You're even on-topic, most of the time. It's just... step back, dude, and look at what kind of energy you're putting out. Do you enjoy telling all of us how unbalanced things are? Do you think we enjoy hearing it? What's the point? Can you see what effect you have on this forum's atmosphere?

LALALALA, I can't hear you!