The Gaming Den

Raise dead only gives permanent negative levels, so you need a restoration spell in pathfinder. No longer lowers your actual level IIRC.

I like it that method, personally. "Avoiding getting killed" is something that should be incentivized. Passive aggression probably isn't the way to roll, in any case.

Eh, these guys are turning out to be alright, so I'll pass on the passive-aggressive behavior. Although a couple of them are very vocal that they do NOT want me using a longspear for some reason (I don't see how using another type of polearm would make a huge difference. I don't intend on using combat maneuvers and +1 average damage doesn't seem like it's a gamechanger when I have 20 strength and rage...)

Have you asked them what the problem is?

They seem to think that longspears "suck" and would prefer me to use another polearm. I admit the other ones allow maneuvers and deal slightly more damage on average, but my school of thought is that what die you roll matters less than your bonuses, and I don't intend on using maneuvers.j

One die-step (i.e. from d8 to d10) up is mathematically identical to a +1 bonus. Although the bonus is more reliable and therefore probably superior assuming it's a choice between a single die-step and a +1 bonus.

Long spears do have their special double damage vs charging enemies. I think I made good use of that ability once.

Mostly the reason I liked long spears was because they were cheap and I perpetually played DnD as a gold piece resource management game.

They might be jumping down your throat about this one on a sort of preemptive basis, because there's the occasional "roleplaying not ROLLplaying" douchebag that will smugly play a fighter that dual-wields sickles or punching daggers or even some pointless low damage Exotic weapon because it's "cool".

There's nothing wrong with picking up a longspear at first level because they're cheap and you want to be able to afford something else. It's a peasants weapon, though. If you're a pikeman and that's your thing, get an actual pike.

One of my classes is disappointing me. They are giving incorrect formulas to calculate certain things and expecting me to figure out where the less is wrong. Note that this isn't the assignment, they just have sloppy errors in the formulas.

I have a bad feeling in general about this...

Ted the Flayer wrote:One of my classes is disappointing me. They are giving incorrect formulas to calculate certain things and expecting me to figure out where the less is wrong. Note that this isn't the assignment, they just have sloppy errors in the formulas.

I have a bad feeling in general about this...

Are any former D&D designers the head of your math department?

So, I don't know if this happens to anyone, but I figured I'd check. When my coughing gets bad, as it tends to do, I often end up with a sharp stabbing pain in my left temple (but sometimes the right, IIRC) like an ice pick. Should I be concerned? It really fucking hurts and it can happen several times a day, so knowing one way or the other would be nice.

Meikle641 wrote:So, I don't know if this happens to anyone, but I figured I'd check. When my coughing gets bad, as it tends to do, I often end up with a sharp stabbing pain in my left temple (but sometimes the right, IIRC) like an ice pick. Should I be concerned? It really fucking hurts and it can happen several times a day, so knowing one way or the other would be nice.

Am on iPod so can't link easily. Google : coughing hurts my head.

Basically it is not that unusual. Pressure from coughing can hurt your head. I have had it before. Treat the cough and you should be ok.

PS I empathize as it really fucking hurt when I had it too. Ugh... Am reading more of the google hits and some/most of the ask.come are shitty answers. The top yahoo one seemed best for what I believe you and I both had. A coughing fit that lasted long enough (not individually but recurring over days) that the muscles tensing in the head started to feel like they were pounding on the temple during coughing fits.

Hah Managed to grab a link via iPod.

http://www.uptodate.com/contents/primar ... chor=H5#H5

Sounds to me like a primary cough headache but not knowing the rest of your situation couldn't say for sure. But that is my prime suspect.

Well, just making sure I wasn't giving myself a stroke or something. Good to know. Thanks.

Urg, they added a "new" player (he's someone that plays off and on), and he's a fucking Fishmalk. He plays Chaotic Neutral, and rolls a die to determine whether he does something sensible, or something that puts the entire party at risk (he tried to murder the party's patron while she was turned to stone, and then later he restored a petrified NPC that we had good reason to believe is our enemy, and he's taken away the MacGuffin we need and is refusing to help the party.

His argument? He's "roleplaying". I don't want to game with this guy, the rest of the guys I've grown to really like. Also, he constantly brags about the expensive shit he's bought, and seems oblivious that I roll my eyes making no effort to hide it.

EDIT: This is actually upsetting me a great deal. I have heard stories about people who do shit like this, but this is the first time I've ever SEEN it happen (The CN players I DM'd for were more like Jack Sparrow or Pinky Pie; even the rare chaos cultist would know that randomly committing suicidal actions would not further the cause of chaos in the world.)

He's Two Face.

OgreBattle wrote:He's Two Face.

2nd Edition basically made him the iconic CN character.

See if you can talk to people outside the game. Agree that he's roleplaying, but explain that his character is making the game unpleasant for you, and you'd appreciate it if he would tone it down or switch to a character that's less unpleasant.

If you can find a way for him to play a character that gets lots of attention, that's probably the way to go. Try to work with the DM to reward the guy with attention only when he plays reasonably, see what happens.

The DM at least partially agrees with me.

There are... other issues. Some of which I admit are my fault. Mostly that his tjeese is small and weak and I won't act impressed with his character builds when he's bragging.

Ted the Flayer wrote:Urg, they added a "new" player (he's someone that plays off and on), and he's a fucking Fishmalk. He plays Chaotic Neutral, and rolls a die to determine whether he does something sensible, or something that puts the entire party at risk (he tried to murder the party's patron while she was turned to stone, and then later he restored a petrified NPC that we had good reason to believe is our enemy, and he's taken away the MacGuffin we need and is refusing to help the party.

His argument? He's "roleplaying".

Honestly, I don't often suggest this, but...murder his character.

If a person is actively aiding your enemies and hindering you and your allies, he is your enemy, and you should kill him. Or at least neutralize him (jail, petrification, etc).

If he gets butthurt, tell him you are 'roleplaying'...taking the role of a sensible person who realizes when someone is acting in an aggressive, antagonistic fashion, and deals with that appropriately.

Please don't do that. If someone is causing out of game problems, deal with it out of game. Rolling a die to see if you sabotage everyone else is a cop out, because he wants to be disruptive without it being his fault. But he's still the one rolling the die! Sit down and talk this out, explain that what he's doing is not okay, and try to figure out a solution that gets everyone what they want.

Trying to resolve this in game is just going to lead to escalation and hurt feelings. It's stupid. Don't do it.

1) Ignore the bragging. Yes, it's annoying. Yes, it gets your goat. But he enjoys doing it because your reaction satisfies some need this assclown has. Give him none - get up and go to the bathroom, start coughing and take a drink, read your character sheet, say something to someone else in or out of game, swat a fly...

2) It's totally cool to roll a die for your character's behavior. The problem is that the assclown is including actions that are disruptive to the game among the outcomes. There should not be an option for "kill the good guy" or "revive the bad guy" on the die. That's Chaotic Stupid, not Chaotic Neutral. The DM needs to lay down some limits.

I tried to tell him that out of game, he was ruining the fun of everyone at the table by sabotaging our efforts, and he wouldn't stop yapping that his alignment required him to act in such a way.

If I recall correctly, one player was saying he was roleplaying "stupid", I said "suicidal", and the DM was saying "Chaotic Evil, and if you don't stop I take your character".

I told him that I think he's trying to commit suicide by PC. He's all jazzed about some half-giant Aegis that he created. I think I offended him when he was bragging about how many HP the character had, and I pointed out it was only 3 more than my rogue. Also, his Oracle/Sorcerer who uses the words of power spellcasting system has a feat that lets him use his level instead of his BaB to combat manuever defense, and the fact that he still possesses the second lowest score (and is one below my CMD to boot). Somehow that is supposed to impress me. I don't think I've seen him do anything but cast Acid Splash and occasionally heal worse than I can heal myself.

Granted, my character has a low AC and gets tore to pieces every encounter (still saving up for miss chance items), but I at least provide for my own healing with my own wands and respectable UMD and Charisma bonus.

Although the two players who wanted me to get a different polearm did talk me into a hooked lance (like a spear, but x4 crit instead of x3). I considered a naginata, but saying one positive thing about japanese culture makes you a weaboo.

I recall my group having some sort of similar problem where most of us were good and one guy was being blatantly evil and psycho. Basically he wanted to emulate Belkar with the evil-dumb dialed up to 11. He was wearing kobold skulls as hats, sleeping inside a horse tauntaun-style overnight for no reason and being covered in blood and guts the next day. That kinda stuff.

We had a sit down and explained that his psycho behavior wasn't gelling with the group and it didn't make sense for the good characters to not be taking him out like any other villain, let alone associating with him. He was understanding and toned it down- or at least toned down the evil, not so much the dumb... but dumb wasn't a problem.

Just killing his character, no matter how justified, would have been a rather douchey move. We really try not to kill each other's characters intentionally unless they are mutually acceptable fights. I prefer to keep my drama in-game only.

Maj wrote: 2) It's totally cool to roll a die for your character's behavior. The problem is that the assclown is including actions that are disruptive to the game among the outcomes. There should not be an option for "kill the good guy" or "revive the bad guy" on the die. That's Chaotic Stupid, not Chaotic Neutral. The DM needs to lay down some limits.

Don't get me wrong, I've done that too. Usually, it's when the rest of the party is voting, the score is tied, and I don't care either way. Basically, if in a real-life situation I wouldn't be satisfied with flippin a coin to decide, I don't do it in game. There's a difference between "go left or right" in a dungeon and, well what this guy is doing.

Maj wrote:2) It's totally cool to roll a die for your character's behavior. The problem is that the assclown is including actions that are disruptive to the game among the outcomes. There should not be an option for "kill the good guy" or "revive the bad guy" on the die. That's Chaotic Stupid, not Chaotic Neutral. The DM needs to lay down some limits.

Exactly. He wants to have his character do disruptive things, or else he wouldn't roll for them. But he doesn't want to just show up and be disruptive all the time, because he understands that actively, intentionally disrupting everyone's game isn't cool. He rolls the die so that he can pretend that it's not his fault when his character "has to" do stupid, disruptive things (that's the same reason why he picked Chaotic Stupid as his alignment). But it's still all totally his fault, and it needs to change.