Pathfinder Is Still Bad

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 5:57 am

It took me 4 years of playing before I had the chops to run a campaign past 10. It would't be until 4 years after that I could make a campaign that could go past that. 1-15 is my current record and that took about a year.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:05 pm

I think my longest lasting D&D game was a 3.x that hit the mid teens. I think it fizzled around 14. Straight up dungeon crawl ripoff of Diablo with a few twists put in (The dungeon itself was a separate realm, so what looked like a 5 foot thick section of wall was actually 100 miles thick and ended up making teleporting through walls a mess, non-euclidean geometry for the win) that focused on unusual combat environments.

I remember a jungle gym room with bars running every which way creating a latticework of space. Then I threw in those 4-armed ape dudes, who could move at full speed due to their brachiation. PCs moved at half their normal speed due to climbing/squeezing through small places. Athletics checks and escape artist checks bumped that up to normal and combat took place in 3 dimensions. The thief if memory served OWNED that combat. The mage and fighter took to destroying support beams to do area denial to the bad guys, and the cleric buffed.

I also remember a room early on with I think 25 kobold "zombies" (standard kobold stats that behaved like zombies, save for a single ranged attack that each one had) that assaulted the PCs, never spawning more than 5 at a time. The PCs were level 2 I think. Highlight of that encounter:

"No... seriously... out of character... are these kobolds *ever* going to stop coming? Should we just run? I'm getting nervous here. It's like round 12. We only get hit every two or three rounds, but it's really adding up."

"Whether you run or not is up to you."

"Fuck you dude. You're cruel."

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:18 pm

Our current game has been running since the days of 2E... now in 3.0. Weekly. We slowed down progression a lot though.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:35 pm

Fuchs wrote:Our current game has been running since the days of 2E... now in 3.0. Weekly. We slowed down progression a lot though.

Just keeping the experience progression from AD&D and carting it over to 3rd would do it.

2 million experience needed to advance a level in 3rd ed would slow things down considerably.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:58 pm

We do not use exp, we level when we feel like it.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:01 am

There any word on that retarded Advanced Race Guide?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:10 am

My longest was 3-15 and still counting. Yeah, Disgaeagame. Longest played was about 5-15, IIRC. And I will still have to say I prefer the level~10 mark as the best spot, and given the choice between "higher than 10" (say, 15th where the "Fuck with the settings you don't like" Planescape game started) and "lower than 10" (even something like 5th), I would pick the former.

For weird crap though, I've used things like "Two Shambling Fuck Yous. Each has swallowed, without hurting, a pair of Shocker Lizards. Every round you will get zapped by electricity. Twice. Every round the Shamblers gain more Con. Twice."

The PCs could throw down a good load of damage, so while it took them several rounds of hilarity, they still won. Once they realised the source of zapping was hidden inside the plants, they unleashed the breath weapons they all had to deal enough minor damage to splat the lizards with the area of effect.

Or the case where Lord Notanorc was threatening to destroy the support towers underneath the city (it was built on top of a subterranean city). They assumed that with a name like that, Lord Notanorc was in fact an orc. As you would. They ventured through, were attacked by an animated door (still on the hinges, so it could only slam into their faces if they stood in the doorway) and eventually reached his war room... he wasn't there. His desk still had maps and books on it, his chair had his dark cloak hung over the back, and his boots were there, but he wasn't.

So as they went about looting the place, the cloak attacked. Yes, Lord Notanorc was a Cloaker. After they beat him down to a slither of health, he submitted, offering to be a worn magic item of "casting illusions" if they would just let him live.

One day the weird crap will fail spectacularly. So far it has served me well. One day I will tell you all a tale of touhous that I ran.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:16 am

Lord Notanorc is awesome.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:20 am

talozin wrote: Even so -- I mean, I was about twelve when I figured out that AD&D sucked if you tried to play past "Queen of the Demonweb Pits", and not just because there were no adventures. I can't imagine slogging grimly on to level 21 before going "fuck this, I'm outta here."

I can't even imagine getting to level 21 in AD&D. It took forever to level back then.

You could likely level up 3 characters to 20 in 3E or 4E before you'd ever see 21st level in AD&D.

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 8:11 am

Koumei, may I have your permission to use Lord Notanorc in one or more of my future games?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:49 pm

Swordslinger wrote:I can't even imagine getting to level 21 in AD&D. It took forever to level back then.

The difference in speeds is probably not as great as you think, assuming that you're giving out treasure at the same rate as Gary Gygax did in his adventures (1 gp = 1 xp), although AD&D slows down around "name level".

See this ENworld thread for comparisons.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:53 pm

Archmage Joda wrote:Koumei, may I have your permission to use Lord Notanorc in one or more of my future games?

Go for it. I claim no ownership of my drug-fuelled ideas.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:22 pm

You should bring up that Lord Notanorc's thought process is alien to most races and only magic-users who have devoted their lives to studying it understand it, and only a little even then.

Because in earlier editions cloakers were apparently like that.

And then, of course, have him be really easy to understand, while having him claim that "you can't comprehend me fully."

Or something like that.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 12:21 am

Hahaha. "You don't understand me, Dad! No-one does!"

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 12:38 am

Koumei wrote:Hahaha. "You don't understand me, Dad! No-one does!"

Or go total Charlie Sheen "You cannot understand my power! I beat you earlier, it just looks to your ignorant brains that I lost!"

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:38 am

We're currently up to level 7 in our first 3e campaign, starting from level 1. Looks like it will go to about 14-15 by the end. This is the first time I've had any D&D campaign past about level 8, I'm looking forward to the craziness.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 7:15 am

The first real 3E campaign I ever ran went 2-12, and then everyone was bumped up to 16 for the final battle. By the end, at least one character was dying per battle, and things were really just getting messy. And this was with a bunch of players (myself included) who had no idea how to optimize. Ex: the party included a wiz/clr/mystic theurge who often cast fireball, and a fighter/dragon disciple. I shudder to think how nasty things would have gotten if we'd known what we were doing. Since then, the highest level we've gotten to has been 8-9ish, I think.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:51 pm

Maddigan wrote:
TOZ wrote: Here comes the C-MD argument again.
If we weren't having a C-MD argument, this wouldn't be a fantasy game.

Casters are supposed to be more powerful than martials in a fantasy game. It is a trope of fantasy. Probably 80 to 90% of fantasy books are built on the caster-martial disparity with a caster BBEG.

This is one of the reasons that games that don't have a C-MD won't be successful as those that do. Fantasy fans know that is how it is supposed to be including the game designers at Paizo, who base more of what they do on books than gamist ideas.

All you need to do is take some of the greatest fantasy books of all time and ask yourself who is the villain? Most of the time it is some powerful caster that a group of martials with their own powerful caster have to deal with.

The martials get to be the underdog heroes in general, while the casters get to be their sidekicks or their villains. The martials usually get the girl too. They should be happy with that.

It's a trade off.

I'm...not sure what to say to this.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:03 pm

I am equally speechless. And my facepalm dealt me 6d12 damage.

Edit: I have no idea what to say about Paizo or Pathfinder at the moment...

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:37 pm

And why are the martials getting the girl for being dragged along by the local wizard...

...oh right. Author retardation.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 9:16 pm

Especially since I'm sure the sorcerer has higher charisma.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:16 pm

TOZ wrote:
Maddigan wrote:
TOZ wrote: Here comes the C-MD argument again.
If we weren't having a C-MD argument, this wouldn't be a fantasy game.

Casters are supposed to be more powerful than martials in a fantasy game. It is a trope of fantasy. Probably 80 to 90% of fantasy books are built on the caster-martial disparity with a caster BBEG.

This is one of the reasons that games that don't have a C-MD won't be successful as those that do. Fantasy fans know that is how it is supposed to be including the game designers at Paizo, who base more of what they do on books than gamist ideas.

All you need to do is take some of the greatest fantasy books of all time and ask yourself who is the villain? Most of the time it is some powerful caster that a group of martials with their own powerful caster have to deal with.

The martials get to be the underdog heroes in general, while the casters get to be their sidekicks or their villains. The martials usually get the girl too. They should be happy with that.

It's a trade off.
I'm...not sure what to say to this.

Point out the fundamental misstep in his reasoning: PCs are the underdogs because they are less powerful and experienced than the BBEG, not because Bob is a Fighter and BBEG is a Wizard. Class shouldn't matter because that limits the stories you can tell and the games you can play.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:58 am

Thanks. I'm not sure it's worth the trouble, but hey, I'm bored.

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 12:17 pm

I also find it humorous how the Paizils speak proudly of how friendly they can be with differing opinions, and then I see the multitudes of trolling and flaming in both the topics that have odd alignment-related stuff and on ANY threads related to Pathfinder Online.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:25 pm

No, see, that's because OTHER people start the flaming. They certainly don't do any of that! Not at all. None.