Looking for a Small based party. [Pathfinder Group]

[OyabunKobold]

Lol its fine im just here playing fallout 4

[Chanticleer]

I mean, you could build a barbarian using a small character as two handed improvised weapon with the right traits. problem is said small character would need innate damage reduction or take the damage from hitting others as well, so you'd need a small gargoyle mesmerist.

That's why you invest heavily in analgesics and healing potions. :)

Ooh I see a muse so that puts the current count to 7 possible players and a possible GM too :D Sounds like we got a budding mini army.

Muse was on page 1. :) Still only 6 players, plus possible GM if we haven't scared off Conundrum.

One thing I'd love to do, but it requires cooperation, is to have a pair (or more) of kobolds in the party using some of the kobold team fighting abilities. I've never, ever seen those used, not even by NPC/monster kobolds.

They're obviously not the best thing ever, sort of like limited Mouse SB abilities, but it'd be neat and flavorful.

[Conundrum]

Interesting. So the aftermath of a 'world war' which is technically over, but a lot of places are still fighting to establish boundaries/who is in charge, lots of unaligned or unincorporated/lawless zones, and lots of areas which are 'fresh ruins' in the wake of some sort of magical semi-armageddon? Not quite fantasy post-apocalyptic, but fantasy 'a whole lot of the world is screwed, and if you leave the big kingdoms (which are still getting their shit together) the rule of law...doesn't' kind of thing?

I am also thinking like post- war now, I could see some localized armageddons as some new magic rituals were tried, though that seems pretty close.  The dragons were used to being able to handle problems pretty easily, fly over and burn stuff or march in your dragonborn legions.  It is very feudal so while there are pretty common civil wars or raids they were generally lower scale and you knew where to hit your enemy at.  The goblins could hit anywhere and broke the rule of law in some places so now you do have unaligned and independent areas.  The goblins got pushed back hard at times and have withdrawn from a lot of outlying areas and failed to secure any surface territories despite that being their goal.

Post-war now there is some movement between the goblin empire and the dragon empires but it is not officially endorsed and is dangerous.  I don't want goblins to be a faceless enemy for the setting.

Conundrum. Do you have any character creation rules you would like us to use like point buy or anything like that we can get a better idea of what we might want to play?

Probably something like standard point buy or 4d6 drop he lowest, player choice.  I usually start at like level 3ish, first party can be assumed to be allowed, 3rd party is case by case but as long as it is not too broken I usually allow it.  Base pathfinder has the summoner so it is hard to be too broken without being blatant though.

[Roleplay Frog]

Base pathfinder has the summoner so it is hard to be too broken without being blatant though.

Hear hear. I think the Kobold was against path of war stuff, but in my experience it just -seems- nasty, powerwise it's not that impressive in getting things deader faster, not compared to dedicated druids, wizards, summoners or alchemists.
Oh, how do you stand on psionics?

Perhaps a good chance to talk party strength.. I can build nasty, but I find average but dedicated characters moar fun than going wild, eh?

Actually, perhaps this is a good chance to ask what we are going for, challenge wise.. more erotica, more combat?

Also, want to make a campaign recruitment thread 'n stuff?

[OyabunKobold]

My issue with path of war stems that it makes non path of war martial classes obselete. Why eould you barbarian when you can warlord and control the battlefield. Why would you ranger when you can hit everything in a 60 ft radius with upwards of 30d8 damage each with 1 arrow used.

Just turns any class that isnt magic obselete because of what they can do if 1 person is PoW then everyone has to be for balance in the party.

As for the char gen rules ill get on my char after this livestream killing raiders atm.

[Roleplay Frog]

My issue with path of war stems that it makes non path of war martial classes obselete. Why eould you barbarian when you can warlord and control the battlefield. Why would you ranger when you can hit everything in a 60 ft radius with upwards of 30d8 damage each with 1 arrow used..

I contest that.
Path of war classes are flashy, have different options from other classes and sound impressive. They still cannot keep up with the pure damage output of a character just build for damage, or the the pure survivability of a character build to survive. What they do, is add flexibility, so that the fighter doesn't feel like all he can do is hit stuff and be hard to hit themselfs.

If they make a martial class obsolete, then because that martial class has not put much effort into playing to its strengths.

[OyabunKobold]

Different options like the warlord being able to have 30 ac and force a room to attack him as a form of crowd control. Or one that can at level 3 unarmed do 2d12 damage before any other buffs.

It makes it hard for a gm to balance a group where you have to be able to hit 30 ac while also be able to not just roflmao stomping the rest of the party to do so.

It causes issues within the group that dont need to be there. Same with synthesis summoners same with arcanists.

[Chanticleer]

I am also thinking like post- war now, I could see some localized armageddons as some new magic rituals were tried, though that seems pretty close.  The dragons were used to being able to handle problems pretty easily, fly over and burn stuff or march in your dragonborn legions.  It is very feudal so while there are pretty common civil wars or raids they were generally lower scale and you knew where to hit your enemy at.  The goblins could hit anywhere and broke the rule of law in some places so now you do have unaligned and independent areas.  The goblins got pushed back hard at times and have withdrawn from a lot of outlying areas and failed to secure any surface territories despite that being their goal.

Post-war now there is some movement between the goblin empire and the dragon empires but it is not officially endorsed and is dangerous.  I don't want goblins to be a faceless enemy for the setting.

Sounds quite interesting!

Probably something like standard point buy or 4d6 drop he lowest, player choice.  I usually start at like level 3ish, first party can be assumed to be allowed, 3rd party is case by case but as long as it is not too broken I usually allow it.  Base pathfinder has the summoner so it is hard to be too broken without being blatant though.

By standard point buy, do you mean just 15 points? I mention this because it's difficult to make small characters work with some classes. Kobolds are a specific nightmare due to that -4 strength and -2 con. Just trying to recover strength to '10' is murderously costly in a 15-point buy game, which makes it difficult to do non-dex-based melee classes with them. I'm completely okay with level 3. As mentioned in my earlier comment about kobold wingmen (wingbolds?) I'm not as concerned about being powerful as about being able to mess around with lots of the things you just don't usually get to do but which are fun and RP thematic.

I agree that PoW can make some classes feel useless.I'd be more interested in a game where it wasn't 100% about trying to minmax every tiny little erg of damage and efficiency and instead was about having fun, but I'm open to doing it either way (and I will try to make the weird-damned things I do at least 'capable of keeping up.' I had a critter in another game here that flopped which used tail-weapons, which is pretty much a dead-end, but at low level it isn't so bad).

We've got 6 interested...Do we even NEED a recruitment thread?

[Roleplay Frog]

Different options like the warlord being able to have 30 ac and force a room to attack him as a form of crowd control. Or one that can at level 3 unarmed do 2d12 damage before any other buffs.

It makes it hard for a gm to balance a group where you have to be able to hit 30 ac while also be able to not just roflmao stomping the rest of the party to do so.

It causes issues within the group that dont need to be there. Same with synthesis summoners same with arcanists.

You are arguing emotionally, not rationally. Compare the warlord and the fighter, the two closest classes, level by level. On lvl 1:
A very well build Fighter-tank will start out with 32 Ac and 13 hp and a bonus feat
A very well build Warlord tank will start out with 28 Ac and 12 hp a bonus feat and maneuvres.
(And as the above indicates, the problem is not the path of war, but players knowing to build well. :P)

In high end builds, AC is incredibly valuable. Can the Warlord meet or even exceed the fighters defenses with maneuvres? Yes.. for a brief time. He is more flexible. He is not stronger.

The difference becomes more extreme as the levels progress.

I'll not contest you on synthesist summoners though, those are the only things I disallow on a regular basis.

[OyabunKobold]

Rationally a subpar pow character will outperform most if not all non pow martial classes.  I never allow pow synthesist summoners or arcanists all for the same reason. Theyre all grossly unbalanced more than the normal run of the mill problem child minmax player

[Chanticleer]

Guys...

We can sidestep this whole conversation if we're all interested in being noncompetitive and just having fun with stuff, not making characters that will eclipse other characters, that sort of thing.

Just saying.

I'd love to play a game full of little folks, not sit and watch people argue over what is and isn't OP, you know? And I know that stuff matters to you, but I'm not sure if it'll be a big deal in this game if we just agree on it.

I mean, just as an example, unless someone REALLY WANTS to play a PoW class, there's no point to this discussion in any case, is there?

[OyabunKobold]

I can agree with that chant.

[Roleplay Frog]

Rationally a subpar pow character will outperform most if not all non pow martial classes.

No. I've seen them in games were this was objectively not the case.

We can sidestep this whole conversation if we're all interested in being noncompetitive and just having fun with stuff, not making characters that will eclipse other characters, that sort of thing.

True dat.

there's no point to this discussion in any case, is there?

I like to advocate for the truth, and the truth is that most people dislike Path of War because they misunderstand correlation and causation and it goes as such:

Path of war is a complicated read that isn't of interest to the average player.
Ergo, most people that read it already have a good grasp on the system.
Those people naturally already know a fair bit about how to build a character.
Ergo, they build characters that appear stronger, even without the source material being OP.

Furthermore, there is another psychological principle here, the same that made people say psions were OP when they came out.. no one understood how they worked, so everything they could do was scarier. I'd ask everyone that thinks Path of war to be op to play a character or two and judge for themselfs to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

I cannot speak for arcanists, haven't tried them and agree on synthesist summoners, those are cray cray.

But ultimately, also, the campaign shapes the characters needed. If there's no combat even the best martial oriented character will struggle. *chuckles*

[OyabunKobold]

Have played characters. Multiple builds and multiple ways from PoW. Every time anyone on the game who wasnt PoW was less useful and usually left the game not long into it. Either case the games didnt last much further than a few fights where it was blatantly obvious the group was grossly outbalanced and moreso than any caster outside the aformentioned arcanist and synthesis summoner.

I only speak from experience when it comes to PoW. Objectively rationally however you want to explain it. PoW is has been and continues to be out of balance for the martisl side of things.

[Chanticleer]

I will make a minor addendum that psionics has a historical negative flavor due to the way they were handled during AD&D (2.0), where they were ridiculously random in distribution and outrageously powerful. People who have any knowledge of that era tend to reflexively approach the topic with an inherent bias.

I'm just going to say one more thing:

1. Socially responsible players try to build characters in ways that make sure they don't become the center the party revolves around, and leave room for everybody to shine in their own time.
2. Socially responsible players and gamemasters work together to discuss interests and where they see their character going, and this shows up in group interaction and sometimes story events.
3. Socially responsible players focus a lot more on 'is everyone having fun?' than 'is everything balanced?' Someone playing an OP character who makes room for everyone else to swing and doesn't go killstealing and one-shotting everything the party encounters is not a problem, and the OPness of their character is not a problem.

The rules are a framework. What makes fun and wonderful games work out is how the players and gamemaster interact...Not whether the rules are perfect or imbalanced.

I haven't played with everybody who's expressed interest in this thread, but I have high hopes.

ADDENDUM: I would enjoy seeing a bunch of little folks kicking ass and taking names because they cooperate together and do things most people wouldn't expect they were capable of. I think that'd be more exciting than everybody playing classes so buff that their size isn't part of the equation anymore.

[Roleplay Frog]

I guess we can come to the agreement that it's important to have everyone on roughly the same power-level. No system is truly balanced, and pathfinder can be more insanely so, due to its abundance of options. It should be the responsibility of the more experienced players to build in a way that is sure, fun and strong, but not overbearing.

I personally like to accomplish that by self-imposing certain limitations, .. usually visual things, like having to use a certain race or weapon that look better even if they're far from optimized.

1. Socially responsible players try to build characters in ways that make sure they don't become the center the party revolves around, and leave room for everybody to shine in their own time.
2. Socially responsible players and gamemasters work together to discuss interests and where they see their character going, and this shows up in group interaction and sometimes story events.
3. Socially responsible players focus a lot more on 'is everyone having fun?' than 'is everything balanced?' Someone playing an OP character who makes room for everyone else to swing and doesn't go killstealing and one-shotting everything the party encounters is not a problem, and the OPness of their character is not a problem.

For 1. I want to add the caveat that a party may well use a leading character pushing the action in a certain direction, there is a large amount of players that prefer to passively go along when its not their time to shine.
As for number 2.. hooh, people do this far too rarely. I admit I don't do it either, at least not until I know the campaign is actually gonna survive past the first three week dropout issues.
3. To that end I found a suprising amount of enjoyment in playing a character in disguise, you have a genuine reason to adjust your performance and you don't need to feel bad about messing up at all.. just part of the disguise, after all, yet you still can (hopefully) act as an emergency saviour if the party really messed up, through the will of the dices or accidents.

[Chanticleer]

I guess we can come to the agreement that it's important to have everyone on roughly the same power-level. No system is truly balanced, and pathfinder can be more insanely so, due to its abundance of options. It should be the responsibility of the more experienced players to build in a way that is sure, fun and strong, but not overbearing.

See, I'm not as concerned about power level as power-gaming, if that makes sense? And that's nothing to do with the rules, that's the player...

For 1. I want to add the caveat that a party may well use a leading character pushing the action in a certain direction, there is a large amount of players that prefer to passively go along when its not their time to shine.
As for number 2.. hooh, people do this far too rarely. I admit I don't do it either, at least not until I know the campaign is actually gonna survive past the first three week dropout issues.
3. To that end I found a suprising amount of enjoyment in playing a character in disguise, you have a genuine reason to adjust your performance and you don't need to feel bad about messing up at all.. just part of the disguise, after all, yet you still can (hopefully) act as an emergency saviour if the party really messed up, through the will of the dices or accidents.his i

Please note that the important verb in #1 is BUILD. How the character leads or follows is about roleplay. It means don't build your character to be the shining sun that everyone else must follow in terms of how the character is set up, or the one who always brings victory on a +19 initiative so nobody else ever gets a swing in or a spell off.

I don't do it as much as I should, but I think most games would go better if there was a little effort. I guess on #2 you have to start from an attitude of benevolent, optimistic expectation about the other players and the game, too. If most of the people start out with an attitude of 'this is going to be worth it and we're going to make it sing' then it's more likely for that to happen than if everyone starts as a skeptic.

On #3, that's one way of handling it that's an IC-reason. But sometimes I've held an action for no real IC reason just because somebody else was feeling like they weren't contributing and I was pretty sure whoever hit the critter next was going to kill it. So I gave them their shot without making a big deal out of it or saying I was giving them their shot.

These are more about OOC things than the IC justifications?

[Roleplay Frog]

It means don't build your character to be the shining sun

Radiant Servant of Pelor disliked this post.

I guess on #2 you have to start from an attitude of benevolent, optimistic expectation about the other players and the game, too. If most of the people start out with an attitude of 'this is going to be worth it and we're going to make it sing' then it's more likely for that to happen than if everyone starts as a skeptic.

I've started with that attitude one too many times. I can still bring the energy as a player, but I can't be asked to make plans and create lewd love interests and whatnot for seven players if three of them leave, another posts every three weeks before disappearing too. I'm not calling out any campaign in specific, with minor number differences this could be.. well.. all group campaigns I tried running on E.

But sometimes I've held an action for no real IC reason just because somebody else was feeling like they weren't contributing and I was pretty sure whoever hit the critter next was going to kill it. So I gave them their shot without making a big deal out of it or saying I was giving them their shot.

Heh, I mean, if you can do that more cheers to you, trickier in a forum setup, much trickier if you want to make sure said critter doesn't have a last gasp in it that -could- end up downing someone after all.

[Conundrum]

I will think on what point buy to use.

Psionics will be allowed, they used to leave a bad taste in my mouth from their exceptionally poor balancing (think leadership feat balancing not tier balancing), but I have gotten over it.


If people really want to discuss balance I can point to the druid's animal companion being a better martial than some martial classes.  PoW classes have not tipped any balance scales unreasonably for me in the past compared to base classes available.  If things become problematic I can adjust.  Base martials are already dealing with  Synthesist, Bloodrager, Magus, Dragon Disciple, and Vivisectionist.

[Chanticleer]

If people really want to discuss balance I can point to the druid's animal companion being a better martial than some martial classes.  PoW classes have not tipped any balance scales unreasonably for me in the past compared to base classes available.  If things become problematic I can adjust.  Base martials are already dealing with  Synthesist, Bloodrager, Magus, Dragon Disciple, and Vivisectionist.

Primal Hunter's AC > Druid's AC. It's basically Druid's AC + Synthesist Eidolon Evolutions. Level 1 Hunter pet kitty with claw/claw/bite and the Rend evo, just as a quick example.

IN ANY CASE...

I'd like to float an idea for a two-player team of kobolds, both of whom have the Shoulder to Shoulder alternate racial trait, and who focus on working together. I'm less fussy about the classes, and they don't have to be the same class, but I think melee fighters would be exciting. They could be brothers, sisters, lovers, friends, or simply mercenaries used to working with each other as a team and trusting each other on a professional level to fight in a way that works to both their benefits. It'd require that one alternate racial trait, yeah, and a little bit of conversation about 'how do we best fuck things up' but I think it'd be rather neat. I've been in way too many game lately which felt like 'everyone for themselves so long as nobody's dying' rather than any sense of tactical or helpful cooperation. And I think that's something kobolds kind of have, in their social structures, which'd be really cool to roleplay.  We could discuss teamwork feats and the like as appropriate. I kind of think a pair of polearm-weilding opportunists would be cool.

Shoulder to Shoulder

Having lived and worked in close quarters with your tribe-mates, you’ve learned how to maneuver within their personal space without disturbing them. You can occupy the same space as one other Small ally without penalty. If you share a space with another kobold who has this trait, you each gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, as you help jostle one another out of the way of incoming attacks. You also gain a +1 racial bonus on aid another rolls. This racial trait replaces crafty.

[Roleplay Frog]

Primal Hunter's AC > Druid's AC. It's basically Druid's AC + Synthesist Eidolon Evolutions. Level 1 Hunter pet kitty with claw/claw/bite and the Rend evo, just as a quick example.

-> Be Grippli
-> Wolf companion
-> You mess with the froggo, you get the doggo.

[OyabunKobold]

I was thinking about shoulder to shoulder for my kobold actually already.

Shoulder to shoulder, Day Raider, Dragon scaled Magus Kobold. Silver scales are = to White scales so the 5 cold will make sense for a more surface dwelling kobold than a down in the dark one.

[Chanticleer]

I was thinking about shoulder to shoulder for my kobold actually already.

Shoulder to shoulder, Day Raider, Dragon scaled Magus Kobold. Silver scales are = to White scales so the 5 cold will make sense for a more surface dwelling kobold than a down in the dark one.

Okay, I'll PM you.

[Conundrum]

Teamwork feats are a really underutilized aspect of the game I feel.  Which is why I like them so much.  PCs can get quite baffled by a well formed phalanx or find themselves reenacting the wrong side of Verdun when some kobolds or goblins open up from an entrenched position with crossbows.

[Chanticleer]

Teamwork feats are a really underutilized aspect of the game I feel.  Which is why I like them so much.  PCs can get quite baffled by a well formed phalanx or find themselves reenacting the wrong side of Verdun when some kobolds or goblins open up from an entrenched position with crossbows.

I saw a hunter once who had Outflank and Tandem Trip on himself and his pet. DAMN. Talk about overpowered builds!

And here's another weird perception thing. One person with a powerful pet who can ping-pong a critter back and forth between them 2-3 times/round with AoOs is easily perceived as 'very (or over) powered'.

Two player characters who decide to work together to do this would never be accused of being overpowered. They both bought into a build which needs someone else to work with them.

It's the difference between being the solo badass and a (literal) team player in the party. It's not the power level, the two players are probably more powerful. It's the perception that 'Character X can do Y and my character can't keep up at all, so I feel left out.'