Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Lemmy]

So I just found out there's going to be a new Marvel vs Capcom game in 2017.

Yeah... But it won't be very Marvel vs Capcom-like...

- Reduced to 2-character teams
- Removed assist
- Gems.

It's basically Street Fighter vs Tekken, but with Marvel characters


For the first time in my life, I'm not particularly hyped for a MvC game. It'll probably be a fun game, but I honestly can't muster the excitement...

[Ashiel]

Yeah... But it won't be very Marvel vs Capcom-like...

- Reduced to 2-character teams
- Removed assist
- Gems.

It's basically Street Fighter vs Tekken, but with Marvel characters


For the first time in my life, I'm not particularly hyped for a MvC game. It'll probably be a fun game, but I honestly can't muster the excitement...

I hadn't heard about all that. Just that a new one was coming and I really loved UMvC3.

[Tels]

You get invited to play a Pathfinder game with a line up of a Samurai, a Swashbuckler, and a 3rd party class that lets the player level up as a Werewolf; what class do you play and how long will this party survive?

[Zilrax]

Personally? I'd probably do Collegiate Initiate Arcanist. Get's druid spells as free exploits and is an Arcanist. Druid spells to help the werething up, arcane for the rest.

And who knows how long they'd survive, but I'm Dimensional sliding outta there if I don't like where this is going :p

I love Dimensional Slide

[Ashiel]

You get invited to play a Pathfinder game with a line up of a Samurai, a Swashbuckler, and a 3rd party class that lets the player level up as a Werewolf; what class do you play and how long will this party survive?

Depends on the options, but very likely I might do a mystic theurge build, going 5 cleric before diving wizard, so I could get access to animate dead as fast as possible to animate bloody skeleton minions, so as to have expendable minions that can help reduce deaths on our side (since making your enemies waste time and effort on your minions that heal to full between fights or regenerate after 1 hour if killed is pretty solid harm-mitigation), then focus very heavily on party buffs and protections, using wands, scrolls, and pearls to round out the efficiency of the group as much as possible. My wizard bond would be a valet familiar to help me churn out magic items.

I'd order several of my undead to take orders from each party member (effectively giving them a safety-buddy), which also has the benefit of allowing them to continue directing the horde should I get CC'd or taken out for a bit, which means that even if you hit me with something like hold person, the samurai is just going to run you down while leading a charge of undead trolls or something.

While I'd go Cleric 5 and then shift to wizard, eventually I'd let wizard overtake the dominant side (which means eventually retraining a few cleric levels into wizard levels) so as to have access to stuff like mage's disjunction), ending the game at 9th/7th casting, and about 30 CLs worth of animated HD. As far as ability scores are concerned, I'd probably go Con/Dex/Int as primary stats (in that order) while keeping at least a 13 in Wisdom, which would ensure that I'd have a slight tempo boost on HP/saves/skill points, and my build won't rely on having high casting stats anyway (too much buffing, summoning, animating, not enough save-or-sucking) so I'd focus on being as tanky as I could to avoid getting easily removed from a situation.

I'd need the party to be on board with helping me though since this train would cost some gold to running at maximum efficiency, but the cost we'd save in raise dead fees would be more than worth it I'd say. Point is, it's a very martial heavy party and if I could play something that would be able to solve a lot of our magical concerns either directly or through item usage, and make it exceedingly hard to stop them. Also since the party is very martial heavy, I'd planar bind a lillend at some point to use inspire courage for the group, and keep a few scrolls of summon monster handy.

Because I've got arcane/divine roots, I've got a lot of methods for keeping my CL relevant at higher levels. Death knell, orange ioun stone, prayer bead of karma, and the CLs apply to both sides. So prior to casting major spells that I don't want dispelled or something (say I was going to follow them up with permanency or something) I'd sacrifice a bug, pop the karma bead, and enjoy a net +6 CL boost.

I'm pretty sure we'd survive through the whole game if we played our cards right. If we were going through a typical AP or modules, we would probably excel, since at low levels you'd have a very sturdy party of martials (samurai/cleric/swashbuckler/werewolf), and at higher levels the martials can eliminate enemies while you grease the gears. Truth be told, you can probably make most APs your bitch.

[Tels]

I have a buddy who was invited to play his first ever Pathfinder game with the exact scenario above. He eventually opted to not join because he didn't want to step into that mess for his first game. While he's never played any table top RPG before, he's heard me and another buddy talk about it enough, and he watches Critical Role, so he's got some idea of what would happen to a group with no arcane caster, and what happens if no one checks for traps.

On another note; are there any games you lasses and lads are looking for to? I'm personally excited for Mass Effect Andromeda, and I recently saw a video showcasing some ARG elements that 2k is sneaking into Battleborn to tease Borderlands 3.

[Zilrax]

I'm waiting for Endless Space 2 and Divnity Original Sin 2 to come out of early access. I'm waiting for the new southpark game... And I'd like to see if Dawn of War 3 will be any good.

[Ashiel]

Yeah, Divinity Original Sin 2 is of interest, but for the most part I'm pretty content. Thanks to Steam and their sick sales, I've got too many games I still need to play because I scooped them up when they were 75%+ off, or part of mega-bundles that were also 75%+ off. I don't have enough time to play all the games I've got, plus writing, and trying to keep up my tiny social life.

[Tels]

Yeah, Divinity Original Sin 2 is of interest, but for the most part I'm pretty content. Thanks to Steam and their sick sales, I've got too many games I still need to play because I scooped them up when they were 75%+ off, or part of mega-bundles that were also 75%+ off. I don't have enough time to play all the games I've got, plus writing, and trying to keep up my tiny social life.

The answer to this, of course, is simulacrums of yourself, and then create away to reabsorb them to gain their experiences as your own.

[Zilrax]

Man I feel like Ashiel. I just had a looooooong argument over who's better at stealth, the base rogue or the base ranger. By my breakdown, it;s the ranger. Though there's a few times the rogue has advantage on it. Mostly level 2-7. Course it takes the rogue waaaay more investment to do it.

Also arguing about Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow and whether it let's you stick a Solar with Antimagic Field or not. I say no.

Course as it keeps happening, I get dismissed with well you;re just comparing two classes that do wildly diffrent things, and well my numbers are bigger with no how they got there. Or the archetype inquisitor dip that gives them wis to stealth as well will make up the +9 diffrence. And the rogues fine cus the dm can fix it and let's the rogue invent solutions. And using spells is unimaginative and you don't need rules to protect form a gm cus the gm can jsut kill you in the rules. And so on.

[Ashiel]

Man I feel like Ashiel. I just had a looooooong argument over who's better at stealth, the base rogue or the base ranger. By my breakdown, it;s the ranger. Though there's a few times the rogue has advantage on it. Mostly level 2-7. Course it takes the rogue waaaay more investment to do it.

Also arguing about Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow and whether it let's you stick a Solar with Antimagic Field or not. I say no.

Course as it keeps happening, I get dismissed with well you;re just comparing two classes that do wildly diffrent things, and well my numbers are bigger with no how they got there. Or the archetype inquisitor dip that gives them wis to stealth as well will make up the +9 diffrence. And the rogues fine cus the dm can fix it and let's the rogue invent solutions. And using spells is unimaginative and you don't need rules to protect form a gm cus the gm can jsut kill you in the rules. And so on.

It's so cringy isn't it? Last I checked, I don't think there's anything that can boost a rogue's Stealth that can't also boost a Ranger's stealth (IIRC, they can get stuff that can reduce penalties when moving at normal speed), and Rangers have rogues beat on actually being able to use Stealth in the first place due to having in-house access to item creation, camoflauge/hide in plain sight, nondetection, etc. Likewise, Camouflage is pretty baller when combined with boots of friendly terrain which are pretty cheap. I'd like to note that with item creation and repeatedly applying the effect to the same set of boots at a 50% markup, the ranger could treat every environment as their favored terrain.

Incidentally, the ranger is more likely to be able to do something with that Stealth check in the first place. A ranger can appear from Stealth and just insta-gib someone with instant enemy (link relevant). They're more likely to survive contact with the enemy as well, having better AC and saves. Having access to freedom of movement in-house makes the movement requirement to Stealth a lot easier as well, since even if your foes drop movement hampering spells or effects or something you can still move->Stealth.

Likewise, incidentally, there's nothing that a rogue can come up with that a ranger can't either. Having ideas isn't a class feature.

The answer to this, of course, is simulacrums of yourself, and then create away to reabsorb them to gain their experiences as your own.

Oh if only.

[Klara Meison]

Man I feel like Ashiel. I just had a looooooong argument over who's better at stealth, the base rogue or the base ranger.

Vow of Poverty Monk, obviously. When was the last time you've seen or heard one of them in a game?

Exactly.

[Ashiel]

Vow of Poverty Monk, obviously. When was the last time you've seen or heard one of them in a game?

Exactly.

3.x, though ironically their Stealth modifiers were higher then.

[Zilrax]

More condescending dismissals about they've more experience, and made all the comparisons hundreds of times, yet I have to tell them I don't need craft in order to make a spell. Then he's all Well it's spellCRAFT, and facepalms like this. And then says I'm too full of myself and just looking for gotcha moments. Really.

Still no evidence to back anything up, and all the times he's shown stuff he's like "Well if I multiclass with inquisitor and take a dip in shadowdancer I do better than the ranger." And I'm like, "Okay. I dip them too. Now what."

It's just assertion, evasion, assertion again. And appeal to authority and well I'm just biased against rogues and so forth.

I'm fine arguing with it but he get's snippy and insulting about how he's "bored" of this and wants to drop it and then keeps going and so forth. Oh and of course he admires gygax's game style and prefers things that challenge the players, not the characters and makes me wonder, well why the hell do you need sheets then? Never answered when I brought it up though. Always dodge and weave and answer nothing.

[Klara Meison]

3.x, though ironically their Stealth modifiers were higher then.

It is, in fact, in Pathfinder.

[Ashiel]

More condescending dismissals about they've more experience, and made all the comparisons hundreds of times, yet I have to tell them I don't need craft in order to make a spell. Then he's all Well it's spellCRAFT, and facepalms like this. And then says I'm too full of myself and just looking for gotcha moments. Really.

Still no evidence to back anything up, and all the times he's shown stuff he's like "Well if I multiclass with inquisitor and take a dip in shadowdancer I do better than the ranger." And I'm like, "Okay. I dip them too. Now what."

It's just assertion, evasion, assertion again. And appeal to authority and well I'm just biased against rogues and so forth.

I'm fine arguing with it but he get's snippy and insulting about how he's "bored" of this and wants to drop it and then keeps going and so forth. Oh and of course he admires gygax's game style and prefers things that challenge the players, not the characters and makes me wonder, well why the hell do you need sheets then? Never answered when I brought it up though. Always dodge and weave and answer nothing.

Yeah, some people can be like that. Absolute nightmare to talk to. At this point I really have no idea what is truly a Gygaxian style. For a long time I thought it was stuff like Tomb of Horrors, but I later found out that wasn't how Gygax ran games, those were just set up that way due for events. Meanwhile I've heard some pretty bizarre things like Gygax would sit behind furniture so you couldn't see him and spoke to you like a disembodied voice. Honestly, I'll likely never know what Gygax was actually like as a GM.

What I do know is I definitely ascribe to "Gygaxian naturalism", which as far as I understand it, involves game mechanics that interact with the world in a more structured fashion, and looks at things like monsters, dungeons, and other things in the game as being more than a place to fight stuff and acquire loot (some examples include blogposts from here and here). I find it usually helps immersion a ton if things are doing things because it feels logical, at least in context. Such as the orcs in the keep with a trapdoor with an ooze monster in it. In some games, the trapdoor + ooze monster just exists to be a nasty trap, but for me it's a convenient garbage disposal for the orcs who dump their waste and scraps into it to be disposed of and doubles as a hazard should someone fall into it.

I like having stats for as much stuff as I can, even if some of the statblocks are shared between multiple similar creatures with a note as to the differences between certain variations. For this reason, I was disappointed with the PF Bestiary having been used to the 3.x Monster Manuals which I still end up toting around with me if I'm going to run a PF game because of things like the monstrous vermin and animal sections.

I often find myself sitting in a position as a gamer in much the same position I find myself sitting on many topics, with one foot on the sand and another in the water. To describe my games to some people makes me sound like a super adversarial GM, some think I'm all about giving the players everything they want, some think I give players nothing that they want, etc.

Gygaxian gaming aside, I would advise not bothering if he (the GM) isn't going to converse with your with an honest spirit. As long as he keeps trying to play games around actually having a conversation, then there's not much point in it. You're probably a better person than I, since I'd probably take a moment to occasionally inject a dose of sarcasm and ridicule if and when he decided to talk down to me.

[Ashiel]

It is, in fact, in Pathfinder.

Yeah and they made it beyond horrible. And then had the gall to claim that it didn't need to be not-crippling because you take it for "role playing".

[Zilrax]

Yeah I try to avoid doing so. But in my experience once you turn to sarcasm you've hit the point where you now see them as lesser and less worthy of being talked to as an equal. I try to avoid it these days. In this case I sorta failed though since I got fed up with the statement that I obviously don't know what I;m talking about with no evidence to back it up. Sooooo...

"And yeah, I'm done too. There's nothing to be said, it was put up or shut up and I'm not seeing any evidence, just assertions. But I guess I'm just not worthy of seeing the majesty of the actual work by the master. That or the emperor is wearing no clothes."

But yeah, so it goes. We both dropped it after that. Which is for the best really.

Incidently, prestige classes in pathfinder, well... caster ones, are a lot better now due to the two new feats.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/genera...restige-class/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/genera...s-spellcaster/

Suddenly Draconic disciple can be pretty good. So, who wants to bet how long before they;re nerfed to uselessness?

[Ashiel]

Yeah I try to avoid doing so. But in my experience once you turn to sarcasm you've hit the point where you now see them as lesser and less worthy of being talked to as an equal. I try to avoid it these days. In this case I sorta failed though since I got fed up with the statement that I obviously don't know what I;m talking about with no evidence to back it up. Sooooo...

"And yeah, I'm done too. There's nothing to be said, it was put up or shut up and I'm not seeing any evidence, just assertions. But I guess I'm just not worthy of seeing the majesty of the actual work by the master. That or the emperor is wearing no clothes."

But yeah, so it goes. We both dropped it after that. Which is for the best really.

Yeah, well I know I'd be awfully tempted to inject some sarcasm anytime he started arguing in a dishonest fashion. Like when he insisted that it was spellCRAFT, I'd ask him what sort of Frankenstienian abomination results from witchCRAFTing.

I generally find arguing on internet forums a bit more productive (oh the irony) because it's harder to weasel around things without looking like an idiot, since you can copy/paste and respond to individual points directly, and present counter arguments in an essay-like manner. I kind of cooled off on that sort of thing on the Paizo forums 'cause after a while I could just re-link to previous threads if needed, and I didn't like that I was sometimes treated like a bully for asking people to account for the things they declared (a certain monk thread springs to mind, where someone claimed a thing about monks, I created a challenge that was slanted in the monk's favor in extreme ways, and the monk still couldn't do what was claimed, and the person who asserted the claim as fact said I was being mean).

After a while, I pretty much just stuck to my AMA thread since I figured I was less likely to bother anyone there. Go figure.

Incidently, prestige classes in pathfinder, well... caster ones, are a lot better now due to the two new feats.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/genera...restige-class/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/genera...s-spellcaster/

Suddenly Draconic disciple can be pretty good. So, who wants to bet how long before they;re nerfed to uselessness?

Well, the first feat doesn't strike me as particularly great but the second feat is super amazing. I bet I could do some truly silly things with this, especially combining it with my "Eldritch Archer" build.

Spoiler: Eldritch Archer Summary

Show

The Eldritch Archer is a build I threw together one day when I noticed that Arcane Archer provides martial weapon proficiency, and thus allows you to qualify for Eldritch Knight. So you use (some would say abuse) the retraining rules to end the game with 100% prestige classes (EK 10/AA 10), because after a certain point the prestige classes have advanced far enough that you can retrain out of wizard without losing the prerequisites for either prestige class. The result is a full-BAB battle mage that's pretty solid in melee, good with ranged weapons, and casts high level arcane spells. With 5 feats, you could achieve critical perfection of 20d10 HD, BAB +20, and CL 20th wizard casting.

[Zilrax]

It was a forum argument actually.

And yeah, arcane archer was another one, but really it makes almost all the spellcasting prestiges great. The book the feat came in comes with plenty decent prestiges. They're not all gold but the ones that are... I'm rather fond of this one.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...-b/brewkeeper/

Though this ones good too. Just Humility and Generosity alone can be pretty derp. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...n-r/runeguard/

This one is weird. I wouldn't call it good but it stands out as... weird. It's built for fighters but... I mean it makes you look mostly like Iomedae, if you're a humanoid. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...eritor-knight/ Something kinda weird about that.

[Ashiel]

It was a forum argument actually.

And yeah, arcane archer was another one, but really it makes almost all the spellcasting prestiges great. The book the feat came in comes with plenty decent prestiges. They're not all gold but the ones that are... I'm rather fond of this one.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...-b/brewkeeper/

Though this ones good too. Just Humility and Generosity alone can be pretty derp. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...n-r/runeguard/

This one is weird. I wouldn't call it good but it stands out as... weird. It's built for fighters but... I mean it makes you look mostly like Iomedae, if you're a humanoid. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/pres...eritor-knight/ Something kinda weird about that.

Oh yeah! My buddies on Discord (such as Aratrok) were talking about the brewkeeper a while back. That class is amazing.

[Zilrax]

There's a new Path of War class on the way too, the Medic, based around nonmagical healing. Seems alright to me. Though it makes me giggle in a few ways. For one, one of the archetype gives you an ambulance siren for your horse as you run over anyone between you and who you're trying to heal. Which immediately makes me think of "Beep Beep I'm a Jeep".

And for two, when you combine it with a few of the stuff in the Healer's Handbook it's an okay combat healer. It's no vitalist, but it's pretty mobile as they pingpong around the battlefield like a maniacal healing squirrel. But combine it with a Vitalist and oh baby the healings. But that goes for anything with aoe heals. Channel energy is derp with a vitalist around.

So their basic move is a certain amount of times per encounter, as a swift action they can move their speed (Or twice with one of their options) and heal you for three times the Medic's level. Later it heals for 4 then 5 times. They can burn two uses to instead move twice (or three times) thier speed and heal every ally they pass by. so at level 20 they can as a swift action heal someone for 100 hp and possibly various status effects, or as a fullround, everyone. It's not incredible numbers, but it's also nonmagical so there's a few times that can be advantageous.

It's broken blade, iron tortois, golden lion, steel serpent and tempest gale for maneuvers so a heavy focus on either poisoning, countering (which it's other class features favor too) Or trick shots which I don't think it's best suited for.

Archetype wise, the Ambu'lancer is pretty solid since pingpong with a mount and run over anyone in your way with a -30 stealth because wailing siren. Angel of Mercy is eh, get a few Aasimer esque things and Silver Crane. The Sannguinest is unarmed based so thats not for it. In theory they can heal way more than base triage because they have no cap. the down side is they have a hp pool lasting 34 hours they get from dealing damage. and not full hits, no jsut from the extra damage their wisdom let's them deal. Sooooo it fills slowly. sure, it can do 50% more drain... at level 20. bleh. Witchdoctor is... Unusual. Basically instead of triage they start the game with a wand of cure light wounds, scribe scroll and later craft wand and count as being a spellcaster for the creation and use of healing spells, and a variety of other spells. So they can't cast anything but they can make and use scrolls of all sorts of spells and use them as a swift action on allies while getting to move for free too. It's interesting.

Overall not sure how to feel about it but I like the idea.

[Zilrax]

Bleh, up late due to brain running in "combat" mode and it's unlikely to stop anytime soon. Tummy blech from the aggro.

So I build a character with a lot in profession cook, likes to cook, is good at it etc. Has +13. Plans to cook for this noble to be on good side and show am friendly and such. Get called to make a Craft: Cook check. Ask if I could just use Profession: Cook. Get told yes but take a -2 cus mismatched skill and not knowing elven wedding traditions and such. Have knowledge so ask if I can try to make a knowledge check to negate the penalty by evidently do knowing the wedding stuff. Get told fine but the dcs 25 and the penalty is now -4 for making a "big deal" out of it. Make the dc but point out it kinda is a big deal since I don't have Craft: Cook so it's the difference of 7 points.

Evidently, Craft: Cook is more "specific" than profession cook and is thus more suitable for nobility and such which profession cook is more... General? Evidently? This of course was neeeever brought up before. Course I can't argue about it because that's rules lawyering.

Weighing whether it's worth arguing about it. I love having house rules sprung on me, don't you? It's like knowing psionics are in the game, but surprise we're using the non psionic transparency rule and the psions have UMD and scrolls of antimagic field so they can cast and you can't. But I've gathered this is the sort of dm who just demands everyone adapt to the rules spontaneously changing and arguing is verboten.

So, been a bit, how goes your life and such? You seem to like my stories of woe so that's what I'm doing right now. Working off the mood since I can't bring it up anywhere else. Not allowed to disagree.

[Klara Meison]

...there is craft:cook? Is there an end to the list of the crafting skills?

[Tels]

To be fair, Craft Cook would be your ability to actually cook something, whereas Profession Cook would be more like your knowledge of running a cooking business. Like what ingredients to order, materials and tools needed, how to serve food, how to manage a kitchen etc.

You can have an amazing chef who has no knowledge of how to run a business, just as you can have an amazing teacher/manwger who can't do the thing they teach/manage.

So in your specific example, Profession Cook could net you the knowledge of Elven wedding traditions, but you wouldn't have the skill to do the actual cooking. You are a business manager, not the chef itself.

On a completely separate note...

The new Sword Art Online: Abridged episode came out on April 1st, but was almost immediately taken down by Sony copyright claims (despite Sony having absolutely no rights to the material), but this is the normal course of events for SAO: A. It's still up on Something's Witty's Facebook page and it's so good. Wraps up the Aincrad Arc in an unexpected half-hour episode.

Also, Mass Effect: Andromeda is currently taking up all my free time. I'm really enjoying single player at the moment, and partially enjoying multiplayer (lot of bugs in multiplayer and poor balance decisions). Despite all the criticisms over the animation, most of which is deserved, I think it's a pretty fun game. If it weren't being constantly compared to the original trilogy, Andromeda would likely be receiving tons of praise, animation aside.

[Ashiel]

Bleh, up late due to brain running in "combat" mode and it's unlikely to stop anytime soon. Tummy blech from the aggro.

So I build a character with a lot in profession cook, likes to cook, is good at it etc. Has +13. Plans to cook for this noble to be on good side and show am friendly and such. Get called to make a Craft: Cook check. Ask if I could just use Profession: Cook. Get told yes but take a -2 cus mismatched skill and not knowing elven wedding traditions and such. Have knowledge so ask if I can try to make a knowledge check to negate the penalty by evidently do knowing the wedding stuff. Get told fine but the dcs 25 and the penalty is now -4 for making a "big deal" out of it. Make the dc but point out it kinda is a big deal since I don't have Craft: Cook so it's the difference of 7 points.

Facepalm. You have got to have some of the worst luck with GMs ever.
There are several things I see that's already wrong with this scenario.

1. Aggroing vs the player for wanting to use a skill they invested in to interact with the world (the fact the skill is mostly useless in the traditional sense makes it even worse).
2. Making the player take a penalty in a situation where they would actually get to use their skill because no real reasons.
3. Actively making the whole thing take longer than the one check it needed to be resolved, then blaming the player for the delay.
4. Setting the DC at 25 (a professional cook has around a +5) and inflicting a -4 penalty (apparently you're cooking out of a garbage can with broken tools and a lukewarm fire) out of spite.

Gah...

Evidently, Craft: Cook is more "specific" than profession cook and is thus more suitable for nobility and such which profession cook is more... General? Evidently? This of course was neeeever brought up before. Course I can't argue about it because that's rules lawyering.

I'm with Tels on this one. The Craft skill is more or less about how well you actually create food, and can be used to make money, while the Profession skill would reflect the management side of things more. For example, you might have a noodle stand where you make the best noodles around and so you make good money as a result when you craft noodles. Meanwhile, across the street is a McDoodles where the food isn't great but it's highly profitable because the person over there is good at their profession. At least, that's probably how I'd wrap my head around it. Long story short, if you're creating a dish as a gift for someone, the Craft skill would likely be the best since it would directly influence the quality of produced good. Similar to the difference between Craft (Weaponsmithing) and Craft (Arms Dealer), as the weaponsmith could craft a masterwork or decorative blade suitable as a fine gift, while the dealer is just good at trading.

Weighing whether it's worth arguing about it. I love having house rules sprung on me, don't you? It's like knowing psionics are in the game, but surprise we're using the non psionic transparency rule and the psions have UMD and scrolls of antimagic field so they can cast and you can't. But I've gathered this is the sort of dm who just demands everyone adapt to the rules spontaneously changing and arguing is verboten.

Yeah it's a nightmare. It's one of my red flags as to whether or not I'll remain in a game.

So, been a bit, how goes your life and such? You seem to like my stories of woe so that's what I'm doing right now. Working off the mood since I can't bring it up anywhere else. Not allowed to disagree.

My life has been pretty great. I had a bit of a scare with something resembling a heart attack about a week and a half ago, but I've been going to a cardiologist and they're gonna help me figure out what's wrong. Other than that, loving life and everyone in it. I've mostly taken a short break from playing Pathfinder (sans a game I'm going to vent about a bit in my next post so you don't feel lonely ) to spend some time running a modified Kings of War game on MapTools. Kings of War is kind of like Warhammer Fantasy-lite. If you enjoy tabletop play, mantic games has miniatures that are ultra cheap compared to their competitors like Games Workshop, but it can be played via something like MapTools as well.

I've been slowly throwing together a sort of grand-campaign for the players, which is more or less and excuse to engage in lots of fantasy battles, build forts and kingdoms, etc. The current version of the mod-book can be found here. It's far from complete and armies are getting tweaked from time to time. I'm still largely trying to decide what to do for some of the armies to make the feel more unique.

The new Sword Art Online: Abridged episode came out on April 1st, but was almost immediately taken down by Sony copyright claims (despite Sony having absolutely no rights to the material), but this is the normal course of events for SAO: A. It's still up on Something's Witty's Facebook page and it's so good. Wraps up the Aincrad Arc in an unexpected half-hour episode.

Nice, I'll have to check it out. I honestly wasn't very impressed with vanilla SAO, but actually really enjoy the abridged series for tons of reasons (the humor in it being an obvious one).

Also, Mass Effect: Andromeda is currently taking up all my free time. I'm really enjoying single player at the moment, and partially enjoying multiplayer (lot of bugs in multiplayer and poor balance decisions). Despite all the criticisms over the animation, most of which is deserved, I think it's a pretty fun game. If it weren't being constantly compared to the original trilogy, Andromeda would likely be receiving tons of praise, animation aside.

I haven't played it yet, mostly because I haven't played through the original. I bought ME 1 & 2 during a steam sale and haven't played very far through the first yet, mostly due to trying to juggle a lot of stuff. Definitely felt like a bioware RPG even from the get-go though (which is good for me as I've greatly enjoyed games like Neverwinter Nights, KotoR I&II, and Dragon Age: Origins).

[Ashiel]

So, been a bit, how goes your life and such? You seem to like my stories of woe so that's what I'm doing right now. Working off the mood since I can't bring it up anywhere else. Not allowed to disagree.

(sans a game I'm going to vent about a bit in my next post so you don't feel lonely )

So last night I continued playing in my friend Aratrok's Rise of the Runelords campaign. The party is freshly 11th level (though I didn't have time to update to 11th so I continued the game at 10th with a +1 CL for brevity and picked new stuff at the end of the session) and the encounters we've been in have in truth been pretty challenging. The game contains some house rules so I'll include them at the end of the post for reference.

Currently our group consists of...
1. A dhampir arcanist with a summon monster familiar.
2. A snake-tailed lamia initiator (Path of War) who has a big emphasis on out-reaching everything and punishing them for it.
3. A human (I think) initiator (Path of War) who teleports around a lot and hits people with blasts of force damage or melee attacks.
4. A bladebound magus that has a sort of "lesser worm that walks" race that can disperse into a swarm of biting maggots.
5. A kitsune (I think) sorceress (I think) who's heavily specced into illusions and enchantment effects with an outsider paladin cohort.
6. A lichling* psion (egoist-shaper dual disciple) themed as a necromancer of sorts (this is me). What she does varies, and I'll explain why.

A Brief History
My PC, Nel, is heavily necromancy themed. She is on a quest (the details about that quest can be found in the spoiler at the end of the post) and that has led her into the company of the party, whom of which the arcanist is of great concern to her due to having connections with ancient Thassilon. She was initially built to animate a bunch of undead (Aratrok put together an awesome psionic version of animate dead) to serve as meat shields and helper buddies to the party's martials, with the intent of making minions that were expendable to reduce party deaths (particularly since we don't have any healers or dedicated supports).

However, after the first session she was in with the group, she animated an aquatic troll. Upon which, the kitsune said she was going to leave the party because animating soulless vessels with mind-power was against her moral values (mind rape is okay of course). Having spent a huge portion of my starting WBL on gems to maintain the animated HD (I was excited since I was going to have them glow softly when in use and make her look like a necromancer christmas tree), I was disappointed but simply dismissed the power and went several sessions without doing anything I was built for, and just eating the WBL loss.

So Aratrok and I came up with a solution, and I decided to have my necromancy fun using astral construct to give form to 'spirits' that would come to aid her. In addition to updating the astral constructs to conform to the campaign's house rules, we also engineered a feat that would allow me to have a single astral construct cohort that shared some of my psicrystal's qualities (so I can buff it and it uses the psicrystal's mental stats, making it like a cohort, similar to the arcanist's super familiar).

Thus Elaine the Dragonheart was born. Her sheet includes long lasting buffs from Nel. Elaine was a crusader who ended up in a ferocious duel with Nel a long time ago, and when Nel killed her, she invoked her spirit to aid her. The two have a sort of grudging friendship now, as Elaine discovered that Nel's motivations aren't bad ones and sees her quest as being worthy of her martial spirit.

Back to the Action
So last night I got to play again and called up Elaine. The game was pretty challenging. We encountered a mixture of demons, advanced lamias (who were incredibly strong due to buffs), a trio of young red dragons, and a delightful mixture of auras of madness, and some pretty serious AoE spells (both from a crowd-control and damaging perspective, since damage dealing AoEs are pretty rad when stacked on each other).

During the game, Elaine killed one stone giant, and helped the arcanist kill a troll berserker. The way Elaine works is she has a lot of slam attacks that have a very high to-hit for our level, and very good CMB modifiers, the trip special quality, and feats that let her substitute a combat maneuver in place of an attack, and make people provoke attacks on combat maneuvers, etc. So her mode of operations is:
1. Move up and make a slam attack, which hopefully leads into a trip and grapple, to make them vulnerable to the rest of the party's martials (who now have a great chance to clobber them since the creature is probably tripped and grappled).
2. Full attack to damage and perform a combat maneuver or two while doing so, to keep the foe tilted.

And...well, that's it. That's all Elaine can do, and that's all she managed do during the course of the game. She killed one enemy, and helped the arcanist kill another (she punched, tripped, and grappled a critter, and then nearest open space was on the opposite side of them (there was the paladin cohort between them due to reach stuff, so she pulls the troll to the other side of her where the dire tiger pounced it on her turn).

She's built to draw aggro and set up the ball so everyone else can kick it. Meanwhile, Nel just tosses out cheap stuff since she spends most of her PP making sure she doesn't die (she's kind of squishy without a bunch of buffs up), and occasionally acts as a spotter with stuff like true seeing and touchsight, or might throw up a wall of ectoplasm to shield allies or split enemies, and stuff like that.

Frustrated Again
Despite doing nothing noteworthy, at the end of the game the kitsune player was bothered because she didn't get to do much this session (she got hit with a CC that prevented her from casting offensive spells or attacking) and her un-buffed cohort wasn't able to "keep up with" the party's familiars in a situation where she was not in her element (her cohort minion a lance charging paladin with a good strength score that won't two-hand her weapon and is inside tight winding tunnels).

The reach-attacking snake also acted a bit annoyed.

The worm magus joked that he is outshone because he is bad, but seemed less bothered, perhaps because I'm around to resurrect him when he dies (I've taken psionic revivify and used it recently when he got nuked to dead, and I used telekinetic force to bring him to me and revive him in the same battle (which I had to attempt to rez him twice and eat 3d8 HP damage from Overchannel because to rez him you have to make a CL check or fail).

The other players had no problems with it. But it did result in conversations about the character being too optimized and some discussion that I should change the character again. What they apparently want me to do is to forget bothering to support them and go full "power, absolute power!". Y'know, because being a pocket buffer to a brute who isn't even designed to kill everything quickly but to bully them around with combat maneuvers while the rest of the party clobbers them is somehow a lot worse than if I wasn't trying to play with the party and have a good time being a cool necromancy support with a ghost character. Because, I mean, it would be totally easy to spawn summons with energy resistance and immunity to mind-affecting effects, before dropping dazing energy walls through the tunnels.

[Interrupted!]
Don't have a chance to finish the post so the fluff/backstory and house rules will be posted in the next one.

[Klara Meison]

I'm with Tels on this one. The Craft skill is more or less about how well you actually create food, and can be used to make money, while the Profession skill would reflect the management side of things more. For example, you might have a noodle stand where you make the best noodles around and so you make good money as a result when you craft noodles. Meanwhile, across the street is a McDoodles where the food isn't great but it's highly profitable because the person over there is good at their profession. At least, that's probably how I'd wrap my head around it. Long story short, if you're creating a dish as a gift for someone, the Craft skill would likely be the best since it would directly influence the quality of produced good. Similar to the difference between Craft (Weaponsmithing) and Craft (Arms Dealer), as the weaponsmith could craft a masterwork or decorative blade suitable as a fine gift, while the dealer is just good at trading.

That seems like hairsplitting for no reason other than a desire to hairsplit to me. Both skills are very nieche, so there is hardly any reason to separate them mechanically. I mean, craft:armor allows you to craft all sorts of armor, from light cloth ones to super heavy stone ones, even though "logically" you'd probably see those as separate skills (leather armor crafting has very little in common with chiseling stone for a dwarven stone plate, after all). IMO such limitations are best enforced through roleplay, rather than hard mechanics.

The other players had no problems with it. But it did result in conversations about the character being too optimized and some discussion that I should change the character again. What they apparently want me to do is to forget bothering to support them and go full "power, absolute power!". Y'know, because being a pocket buffer to a brute who isn't even designed to kill everything quickly but to bully them around with combat maneuvers while the rest of the party clobbers them is somehow a lot worse than if I wasn't trying to play with the party and have a good time being a cool necromancy support with a ghost character. Because, I mean, it would be totally easy to spawn summons with energy resistance and immunity to mind-affecting effects, before dropping dazing energy walls through the tunnels.

At least it's the other player characters that are annoyed at you, and not the GM claiming that your slightly buffed through houserules Rogue is OP and overly optimised

[Ashiel]

[Interrupted!]
Don't have a chance to finish the post so the fluff/backstory and house rules will be posted in the next one.

Some of this contains cannon Golarion material, though most of it is conjecture based on evidence found from various PF sources.

Spoiler: Backstory/Quest

Show

Nel's concept began when rummaging through a bunch of material from the PF wiki, Archives of Nethys, etc. The gist of it is that the story surrounding Tar Baphon is far more complicated than most would be led to believe, and she is his daughter (who due to being undead is old as dirt and currently around with the protagonists). He penultimate quest is essentially to rescue Tar Baphon.

But Tar Baphon is a great and terrible evil dude, yeah? Why would he need to be rescued from Gallowspire where he is sealed away?

Well, what we know about Tar Baphon is that he was just a necromancer who didn't like Aroden a whole lot but wasn't anyone special. However, he then unearthed the tomb of the Runelord of Gluttony (the necromancy one), suddenly and immediately gained incredible power, grabbed some orcs and went to pick a fight with Aroden in a convoluted ritual to become a lich. He then wakes back up a long time later and names himself the Whispering Tyrant, and then becomes the the dreaded "conqueror" of central Avistan. There's a few issues with this though...

For the necromancer who has no limits on undead control and bent on taking over the world as the 'official story' goes, his actions don't actually reflect that at all. He grabs a section of central Avistan which is located very close around the ruins of Thassilon and shuts off all contact from the outside world for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. That's crazy. Especially most of the surrounding lands are filled with targets easily conquered by such a super necromancer (including slightly northwest which is basically a land filled with giant megafauna that become siege weapons/tanks when you kill them). Something is clearly amiss.

So why is it that the supreme conquer doesn't actually conquer anything past this small slice of central Avistan? Well, the theory we have concerning it is that he's not interested in conquering the world (yet at least). What inside the runelord of gluttony's tomb could have given the necromancer, even a talented one, so much power and drive instantly upon it's discovery? Well, being possessed by the Runelord of Necromancy themselves of course. Which would explain the sudden change in disposition and the sudden desire to establish control over an area in Avistan, but protected from any other rival Runelords (who were still at large). In essence, Tar Baphon, much like Queen Illosea from CotCT stepped into a place and got body-jacked by the Runelord who acts through his new vessel. And, incidentally, the Runelord of Gluttony was known for being a particularly sadistic bastard and that would explain some of mannerisms of Tar Baphon post-tomb event.

So how'd the BBEG who didn't conquer very much aside from unclaimed land, Ustalav, a former dwarf hold filled with orcs, and sat on them for five centuries get pegged as a conqueror of everything? Well, money, pride, revenge, and politics of course. See, during this period, Taldor had these things known as the armies of exploration that it used to expanded its empire, and also controlled the banking systems of the world. They had actively been taking lots of Avistan but Tar Baphon's domain was in their way. So what better way to oust a near unstoppable evil dictator than to set yourself up as the good guys and liberators of the people. Of course joining them was an order of knights led by the herald of Aroden (an old enemy), and the dwarfs who were enemies of the orcs who took Belkzen long ago. Essentially, the great liberators were composed of a group of actual conquerors and the natural enemies of them.

When they defeated Tar Baphon, Taldor didn't take the lands (which would damage the public opinion after they claimed to be doing it for the people), but of course the Taldan banking system and commerce spread throughout the lands, and since Taldan is the common tongue across the world (explicitly because of their conquering) it was very easy to paint any picture they wanted in terms of the official record for the events that transpired.

So now we enter Nel Baphon's story, which views it from a different light. The necromancer daughter of Tar Baphon pre-Tyrant years, she watched as her father and mentor underwent a terrible change after discovering some secret stemming from the runelords of ancient Thassilon, but didn't understand what had happened and why he had taken this turn. So her primary goal is to unearth all she can about the ancient secrets of Thasilon in hopes of undoing whatever happened to her father. Upon which, she will have to rescue him from Gallowspire and defeat the Runelord of Gluttony in a battle for her father's very soul and their homeland.

Elaine was the spirit of a crusader champion who ended up fighting with Nel during the crusades against the Whispering Tyrant. At the time, Nel had neither the power nor the will to stand up to her father in his apparent madness, but was still swept up into the war when people began invading their homeland and putting everything that was alive without a pulse to the sword. This ended with Nel having to do battle with a number of the invaders, and this critical moment was were the two dueled in a desperate battle in the heart of Ustalav. The battle ended with Nel as the victor, and she used her necromantic magics to invoke the soul of the champion into a special soul gem (her psicrystal) out of a mixture of pragmatism (the champion was powerful and would make a powerful 'ally') but also out of a sense of charity (as the palace they did battle in had a variety of terrible devices within reminiscent of the ancient Thassilon soul-sucking machines, and knew there was a chance that her opponent's soul would be sucked up by one of the nearby machines if left to its natural fate).

After the invocation and Nel fleeing Ustalav with the defeat of her father, Elaine, now being able to experience things through Nel's eyes, has accepted the 'quest' to help Nel undo whatever evil was driving the Whispering Tyrant, and now serves as the lost heir's loyal retainer.

Nel found the party after a number of divination attempts to find a good lead on her study of Thassilonian magic, having led her to the party's arcanist who spontaneously manifested sin magic runes on her flesh as a child. Her family kept her as secret and safe as the one ring until her Paladin mother was slain by members of the whispering way and her father abruptly took her far from their home and then got her lost somewhere where she wouldn't be found. She seems naturally drawn to the runewells around Avistan for some reason, and Nel believes she may lead her to the answers that she seeks. So currently Nel and Elaine have been trying to help her find the Runewells and uncover the secrets of the even more ancient virtue magic that Nel believes may be the key to saving her father.

House Rules
A few things that are worth noting are...
1. The campaign uses revised creature types. Constructs and Undead are not innately immune to mind affecting effects and have Constitution scores. The Mindless subtype is possessed by creatures without an Intelligence score.
2. Many of the core combat feats were merged and some new feats added as per this house rules page.
3. Revised the astral constructs to conform to the new mechanics. Their stats and altered rules can be found here.

[Ashiel]

That seems like hairsplitting for no reason other than a desire to hairsplit to me. Both skills are very nieche, so there is hardly any reason to separate them mechanically. I mean, craft:armor allows you to craft all sorts of armor, from light cloth ones to super heavy stone ones, even though "logically" you'd probably see those as separate skills (leather armor crafting has very little in common with chiseling stone for a dwarven stone plate, after all). IMO such limitations are best enforced through roleplay, rather than hard mechanics.

Yeah, which is why honestly I wouldn't have really cared. The Craft/Profession skills should probably just be rolled into the same skill with a note that you use the higher modifier between Wisdom and Intelligence for them. If someone told me they wanted to use their Profession (Cook) skill to make someone dinner, I'd totally accept it. Arguing over whether it's Craft or Profession in that sort of situation seems pointless, and is only of academic novelty at best.

At least it's the other player characters that are annoyed at you, and not the GM claiming that your slightly buffed through houserules Rogue is OP and overly optimised

Yeah, true that. Aratrok is a great GM and we weren't in the least bit unchallenged, but also weren't challenged because he was scaling up the encounters to compensate for anything. We just had to deal with junk like space limitations, AoE effects, mooks, and all the good stuff. We even lost a PC but he got better (yay!). Really only had one player complain and one grumbled a bit, while the other 4 seemed fine.

I also talked with most of the players today and we decided my character isn't getting nerfed. At least not anytime soon. We're ready to let it play out further, and I offered to try to use my item creation feats to make the other PCs anything they wanted to shore up any issues they felt they had.