Need some GM diplomacy advice (Pathfinder)

[Bedwyr]

So me and the roommate are getting a group together to play through a campaign and learn the rules as we go. The roommate's a smart guy. He's a medievalist working on his masters thesis and handed me about 3 pages of detailed background material describing the equipment, appearance, and story of a River Gnome (described, I think in D&D as a sub-race?). The character would be a barbarian armorer; a turtle in his shell with strong defensive capability but low-ish strength. He wanted mithral scaled-armor to start along with "adamantine-steel" helmet and an Iberian style scutum. I've tenatively allowed mithral armor and a large darkwood shield (both downsized to small). I don't know enough of the mechanics yet to judge; is this unbalanced? How unbalanced is it?

It's really good to see his imagination charged up about this, but it's sending up a lot of red flags for group interaction and fair play. How can I accommodate his wants and still put a good L.1 team together?

[Aokarasu]

What level are the characters starting at? What level of magic do you see the campaign being- low, medium, high? If you allow him (and by extension, the rest of the party) to have that sort of gear, understand any combat encounters you put them in will have to be scaled up a notch or two, to include better than average equipment for the baddies.

Alternatively, you could have a situation where they need to swim to survive - he'll need to ditch that gear or drown. If he attempts to doff it and haul it with while swimming, then he will risk drowning and greatly reduce his speed, making it all but guaranteed he'll get caught by what or who ever is chasing them.

Alternatively, part two, the gear could actually be stolen/looted and he was given a false history to cover it. Alternatively, part three, the gear could be part of a long-standing feud between his family/clan and another, and killing the current owner to claim it could earn someone a lot of prestige. Cue lots of nights of less-than-ideal sleep, ambushes with pitfall traps, etc.

[Bedwyr]

Its L1 for everyone. I'd hoped to run through a published campaign (Runelords or something similar) to help get my feet wet and develop a feel for the system. Here's the character. What I need to know is how unbalanced the equipment makes things at the outset. He's agreed that heirloom equipment can't be sold so there's no monetary value. It's just the stats that concern me. You can kind of see what he's getting at as a tactical goal: low strength but a hard shell. The character and the party should still find challenge and risk near the beginning.

Code: [Select]

Name:       Otrix
Race:       Gnome
Player:     Chris
Classes:    Barbarian1
Hit Points: 13
Experience: 0 / 2000
Alignment:  Neutral Good
Vision:     Low-light
Speed:      Walk 20 ft.
Languages:  Common, Gnome, Sylvan
Stat    Score   Mod
STR      9       (-1)
DEX      12      (+1)
CON      12      (+1)
INT      10      (+0)
WIS      16      (+3)
CHA      14      (+2)
-------------------------- Skills --------------------------
Skill                   Total   Rnk     Stat    Msc
Acrobatics               -2       0.0      1        -3
Acrobatics (Jump)        -6       0.0      1        -7
Appraise                 1        1.0      0        0
Bluff                    2        0.0      2        0
Climb                    0        1.0      -1       0
Craft (Armor)            6        1.0      0        5
Craft (Untrained)        0        0.0      0        0
Diplomacy                2        0.0      2        0
Disguise                 2        0.0      2        0
Escape Artist            -2       0.0      1        -3
Fly                      0        0.0      1        -1
Heal                     3        0.0      3        0
Intimidate               2        0.0      2        0
Knowledge (Nature)       4        1.0      0        3
Perception               5        0.0      3        2
Perform (Untrained)      2        0.0      2        0
Ride                     -2       0.0      1        -3
Sense Motive             3        0.0      3        0
Stealth                  2        0.0      1        1
Survival                 3        0.0      3        0
Swim                     0        1.0      -1       0
                                                   
-------------------------- Feats ---------------------------
Agile Maneuvers
CMB Output
-------------------- Special Abilities ---------------------

------------------------ Templates -------------------------

-------------------------- Combat --------------------------
    Total / Touch / Flat Footed
AC: 19    / 15    / 18
Initiative:   +1
BAB:          +1
Melee tohit:  +1
Ranged tohit: +3
Fortitude:    +3
Reflex:       +1
Will:         +3
Unarmed attack:
to hit:       +1
damage:       1d2-1
critical:     20/x2
Longsword (Small):
to hit:       +1
damage:       1d6-1
critical:     19-20/x2
Blowgun (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d1
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
Dart (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d3
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
Hammer (Light/Small):
to hit:       +1
damage:       1d3-1
critical:     20/x2
Hammer (Light/Small/Thrown):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d3
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
--------------------- Special Abilities --------------------
 
------------------------- Equipment ------------------------
Name                                            QTY LBS
Longsword (Small)                                1 2lbs
Outfit (Peasant's) (Small)                       1 0lbs
Mithral Shirt +1 (Small)                         1 5lbs Special: 30 hp/inch, hardness 15
Old Traveling Cloak                              1 0lbs Special: (Cloak (Add TypeClothing))
Darkwood Shield (Small)                          1 2lbs Special: 10 hp/inch, hardness 5
Backpack (Small) (20.25 lbs.)
   Artisan's Tools (Armor)                       1 5lbs
   Sauce Pan (Iron)                              1 2lbs Special: (Pot (Iron))
   Shovel or Spade                               1 8lbs
   Tindertwig                                    10 0lbs
   Whetstone                                     1 1lbs
   Blowgun (Small)                               1 0lbs
   Dart (Small)                                  2 0lbs
   Darts (Blowgun/10) (Small)                    1 0lbs
   Drinking Shell                                1 0lbs Special: (Mug or Tankard (Clay))
   Fishhook                                      10 0lbs
   Flint and Steel                               1 0lbs
   Hammer (Light/Small)                          1 1lbs
   Rations (Trail/Per Day) (Small)               5 1lbs
Blowgun (Small) (0.5 lbs.)
Drinking Shell (0.5 lbs.)
Sauce Pan (Iron) (2 lbs.)
Pouch (Belt) (Small) (0.96500003 lbs.)
   Coin (Copper Piece)                           6 0lbs
   Coin (Gold Piece)                             31 0lbs
   Coin (Silver Piece)                           5 0lbs
Total weight carried:
Current load:         Medium
Encumbrance
Light:  22   
Medium: 45   
Heavy:  67
--------------------------- Magic --------------------------

Innate Spells
I have further concerns about the gameplay, but I think I'd like to treat that by pm.

[God and Davion]

A Barbarian Gnome with Strength 9?  :o :o :o :o

[Bedwyr]

A Barbarian Gnome with Strength 9?  :o :o :o :o

Yeah, the stat goal was essentially a turtle with rabies. How would you rebalance that to achieve the goal and still maintain a strong "I am an armorer descended from armorers and we swim with the otters and worship fish" sensibility?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Does he realize that with those stats on a melee oriented class, his character is a liability to the team?

[Bedwyr]

Does he realize that with those stats on a melee oriented class, his character is a liability to the team?

No. Because we're both completely new to the system. I strongly suspect there's a large imbalance but I can't marshall a deep knowledge of the system in defense of my suspicions. Also I think his instincts impose the RP over and above game balance and then he expect me to manage that effectively as a GM. Here. I'll go ahead and post a chunk of the character background. It'll help give context to the issue:

As a gnomish armorer, Otrix has taken care to equip himself well. His helmet (based partially on a Viking style [the eye guards], partially on the Sutton Hoo helmet but with a splayed neck-guard more like a Roman imperial-type legionary helmet, itself, like the scutum, of La Tène typological origin / kinship) was forged by and for himself out and steel, complete with a nasal and pieces surrounding the eyes but with slits on the sides of the brow-pieces to allow his long, fiery-orange gnomish eyebrows to extend un-impeded. Ornamental fins on the side also serve to protect his protruding ears, with adamantine-iron alloy reinforcement at the point where they join the main part of the helmet. The metal has been blued – and, as it were, “greened” and “pinked” – and accented with silver and a little gold. The ornamentation, including the perch-fin crest, is thoroughly piscine and is matched by the other pieces of armor. He tends to let it go unpolished for long periods, obsessive as he may be about other things.

      The knee-length, sleeveless hauberk is formed of a simple tunic of an elvish fabric both durable and light-weight to which he has re-sewn ancient mithril scale mail in a fish-scale pattern. Over this he wears an heirloom iridescent deep-blue dragonhide pixane for added protection about the shoulders since the head and shoulders are most expected to receive blows from above, dealt at close range by inimical big people. His right arm, that is, his swordarm is protected by two pieces of dragonhide armor: a brassart on the forearm and a spaulder on the upper arm, from the same animal as the pixane. His legs and feet are usually left completely bare, though in cooler weather he wears broughs and blue-and-brown tartan trews.

      Otrix’ hauberk, pixane and arm-pieces have been in the family since time nearly out of mind. It is all that is known to remain of one of five or six full suits of armor made fashioned by and for a band of heroic gnomish paladins who themselves belonged to one of the early generations after the primeval exodus from the Feywild, prior to the sundering of the dwarf race and well prior to the rise of the halfling race. In fact, like as not some of the other suits or their constituent parts are or were in the possession of the dwarves, legitimately or not. As narcissistic as gnomes can be when it comes to their personal nomenclature and genealogies, Otrix’ mother’s mother’s father never had a clear idea exactly how the family had come into possession of the artifacts, much less if and how they were related to the first wearer, but it is certainly a prized heirloom and it has been an ideal reference for smiths in the family for thousands of years, no doubt. To part with it in any way would be unthinkable, even for someone as erratic and whimsical as he.

      The dragonhide once belonged to a primarily aquatic wyrm of wet elemental force, slain by the gnomish paladins once upon a time. To this was added their mithril scale-mail, forged when gnomes were the primary miners and smiths of such metal, and when any gnome child of twelve years had the metallurgical and often alchemical skill of at least a journeyman craftsman today. The shirt to which the scales are sewn is not original. In fact, even the one which Otrix received was probably a replacement. With the aid of his elders, Otrix obtained the fabric, the thread and the needle and little blade of adamant alloy in a secret negotiation with the elves and then proceeded to painstakingly cut loose the scales, polish them and sew them on the new shirt in a fish-scale pattern, more or less in their old order, dings and all (no doubt these were obtained in legendary feats, although no one remembers which ones precisely). The straps on the arm-pieces have also been mended or replaced by him, mostly using hemp, of which he is quite fond.

      Apart from his armor, Otrix usually wears nothing at all – apart from a shiny bit of jewelry or a festive crown of water-lilies and, often, his utility belt with a small apron flap to protect the “land down under” from a stray spark – relying on a combination of his natural fur and his general disregard for civilized sensibilities. After all, he is quite at home in the water with no more apparel than his totemic animal, the otter and, like the amphibious mammal, he gets antsy after a while should he stray over a day’s journey from a body of water of some kind. When mixing in social company with non-nudist folk of other races or other, more “civilized” sub-races of gnomes, he either wears his hauberk with or without pixane (preferred) or throws on a simple woad-blue sleeveless tunic which he keeps on hand for just such a purpose and perhaps also the ratty, brown, blue, grey and green poncho to which he is somewhat attached, although it tends to repel gnomes of the fresh and fetching feminine variety. He also has a red Phrygian-style cap. He may be a river gnome, and he may be a tad eccentric in any company, and, what is more, back in the Feywild ages ago, gnomes could run around stark naked (and stark raving mad as his grandmother often put it) with crazy hair and no one so much as dreamt of wearing headgear, but he doesn’t dispense entirely with long-standing tradition: gnomes wear pointy red hats. Moreover, he generally avoids wearing products of small, fur-bearing animals and all manner of deer and antelope as a matter of gnomish principle. Taken together, he has no suitable attire at all for a formal dinner, it is true – then again, he’s a barbarian and this isn’t Toastmasters.

      The last piece of his gear is perhaps the most characteristic: the large shield. Although for a normal-sized person, this shield would only amount to a sort of buckler, on him, it is nearly the size of a “tower shield”. It is lighter, however, and worn differently. (In fact, it is patterned on combination of the oblong shield favored by “Celtic” warriors of the La Tène archaeological culture or what the Romans knew as the scutum and the Thracian peltastos.) It is fashioned so as to appear like a fish with its tail swishing slightly outward; the frame, central spine, “fins”, “tail” and boss (see the La Tène shields recovered in bogs and in Al-Fayyum) are blackwood with a tough tapir hide (the ornery rascal had it coming) stretched over the frame, embossed with a scale pattern and brightly colored, with special detail given to the eye and teeth – after all, the more distracting the shield is, the better. Otrix’ typical attack is to brush upward with the shield while thrusting out and a little up with his shortsword, since he is normally pitted against a taller foe.

Attempts to change equipment or stats I fear will result in frustration at the abridgement of his well-though-out work on the character.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The problem is, he's thinking out a whole lot of unimportant details and not thinking out what his character is contributing to the party.  Pathfinder, being a derivative of D&D, is a very combat oriented RPG system and if you want your character to be something other than The Load the character needs to be built to be an efficient killing machine.  Because armor doesn't make you more resistant to damage, it just makes you harder to hit, being a heavily armored character doesn't by default make you a good tank.  The ability to hit hard is also quite necessary.

As is, he's effectively trying to create a character that combines the speed of an Urbanmech with the firepower of a Charger.

[Bedwyr]

I think his frame of reference for combat is wrong, not that he isn't thinking about the system. Like I said, we're both newbs. Do you have any suggestions that could fit the character paradigm (gnome, river, armorer) and still be a contributor to the party?

[cavingjan]

Does Pathfinder have any very short adventures and predesigned characters? Before embarking on a campaign, I would try something that is predesigned. Have everybody pick a character and run through the adventure. Have them pick a second character and then run through a second short one. Then start with their characters and your adventure. This will allow mistakes to be made and deaths to happen without people getting upset about them losing a characters. It also gives you as GM a chance to figure out the system. I wish we had done that when we jumped into D&D 3.5 from 2. It was a couple of sessions before we figured out we had been playing certain rules wrong and a character or two should have still been alive. It also explained why we walked over a larger party in about 3 turns too.

[Bedwyr]

Does Pathfinder have any very short adventures and predesigned characters? Before embarking on a campaign, I would try something that is predesigned. Have everybody pick a character and run through the adventure. Have them pick a second character and then run through a second short one. Then start with their characters and your adventure. This will allow mistakes to be made and deaths to happen without people getting upset about them losing a characters. It also gives you as GM a chance to figure out the system. I wish we had done that when we jumped into D&D 3.5 from 2. It was a couple of sessions before we figured out we had been playing certain rules wrong and a character or two should have still been alive. It also explained why we walked over a larger party in about 3 turns too.

That's probably for the best and what I was hoping for. Instead of designing my own stuff, I'd use a pre-gen campaign and improvise as confidence allowed. I wanted my buddy to roll up a character so we could both dig into the stats and, well, it struck a spark in him and he went to town. So it kind of got away from me. Note that I'm a sucker for good story and RP as much as I'm concerned about game and stat balance.

[Bedwyr]

What about a defensive tank? Can a character who just "takes it" but doesn't deal much damage back be very useful?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Not unless you, as GM, are planning to run most enemies as being tactically limited to attacking the first thing that gets in front of them instead of prioritizing what they attack based on threat (in other words, enemies never try to geek the mage).  Among other things, those stats lock him out of many of the best feat options for his class.

[Bedwyr]

Not unless you, as GM, are planning to run most enemies as being tactically limited to attacking the first thing that gets in front of them instead of prioritizing what they attack based on threat (in other words, enemies never try to geek the mage).  Among other things, those stats lock him out of many of the best feat options for his class.

If you were in my shoes and the player really really really wanted a river gnome berserker, what would you do to rehabilitate the guy?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Say something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but as is I don't think your character concept is going to work very well," and offer to help him make a better functioning character that still fits his ideas.  (FYI, with only a 12 Constitution, he's really not going to be able to take hits terribly well, either).  What he's doing right now is setting himself up as a character who's not going to be able to pull his own weight in a fight- the last time I ended up in a game with a player like that, he quickly acquired the nickname "Escort Mission."  If he really wants to play a low strength character who's got heavy armor, he'd probably be better off playing a Cleric (especially with Wisdom as his best stat).

[qc mech3]

I am playing a Pathfinder game right now with my friends. Pregenerated characters and Adventures/campaigns are a staples of this game and are very good for that.

I admit, a gnome with a Strength stat so low is a problem. I would suggest exchanging it with another stat. If non-magic, the armor and helmet should not be much of a problem, the bonus they give aren't that game shattering and won't stop most skill, spell or ability anyway.

You should get an adventure first (look on Paizo's site for those available) and meet your group to see what type of character is needed: More Warriors, cleric, rogues? present that to your friend and together, insert his background to the one in the campaign.

I started with a simple bard, decided to be a bagpiper and with the campaign setting I'm now a Scandinavian Scald en route to Sian.  ;D  :D  O0

     

[truetanker]

Not unless you, as GM, are planning to run most enemies as being tactically limited to attacking the first thing that gets in front of them instead of prioritizing what they attack based on threat (in other words, enemies never try to geek the mage).  Among other things, those stats lock him out of many of the best feat options for his class.

GM: Rolling encounter, Orc Warband x5
The enemy Orc Warband see you guys. You see them and...?

Players: We prepare for combat.

GM:You attack them, roll some stuff, all they see is a River Gnome in pretty armor.
Orc Warband: " Look! A river gnome. River gnome? Arrrr! RIVER GNOMES MUST DIE! KILL IT! "

Otrix: GULP....
Party: We'll help with... running away.

TT

[Bedwyr]

I talked to my buddy. We're going to try and rejigger things to see if we can't turn him into a competent berserker, but not lose too much in wisdom. Thanks for the confirmation re: the armor. I was worried given the monetary value that the AC boost was just too darn high.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

A 19 AC is on the high side for a starting character, but it's not unreasonable, and attack bonuses tend to rise much faster than AC does thanks to there being few options to boost AC aside from magic.  There are a few feats and class abilities that provide AC bonuses, but those typically don't add nearly as much as getting enchantments on your armor and AC boosting magic items like Rings of Deflection.  And if your character is focused on getting a lot of those items, it will probably cut down on their ability to get better magic weapons and other equipment.

[guardiandashi]

my 2 cents on D&D/pathfinder

when you look at armor values defenses tend to be HIGHLY stagnant and most armor is effectively hardcapped at ~9-10 not counting magic bonuses.

example I dig out the PHB armor table version 3.5  http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Armor

we look at the light armor and it all caps (except padded) at +8 total bonus, padded is capped @ 9
medium armor (except breast plate is effectively capped @ +7 bp is capped at 8

etc.  once you get your armor vs dex maxed out, other than adding things like shields, magical bonus's natural armor etc you are pretty much done. the only place you can really go is exotic material which tends to more or less modify/break the standard armor limit rules.

example mithril (sometimes nicknamed elven silver or elven steel) is twice as strong as regular steel for the same weight, (or a bit more, honestly but for all practical purposes) so if I get a suit of elven chain vs std chain the std chain is going to weight 40 lbs, the mithril equivalant will weigh closer to 20 lbs but it provides the same protection unless enchanted (magic) which it usually is.

so back to theory craftinga moment...  you make a human fighter with 12 dex (dex being the defense stat) you manage to get the gm to let you get banded mail armor at 1st level or so yay 250g worth of armor, and your defense is effectively a 17 (armor and dex bonus)

I make a elven fighter and manage to max out my starting dex for a whole whopping 20 giving me a +5 active defense I can't afford elven chain plus 5 armor bonus max dex of +4 nonmagical the stuff costs 4,150 gold pg 220 3.5 DMG
so I am stuck with chainmail with its max dex of +2 meaning that even though I could get a bonus of +5 in regular clothing or studded leather I am capped at +2 if I go with actual chain which then has an armor bonus of +5 from an economic stand point I would get MORE protection from studded leather (at 25gp) +3 armor +5 max dex, than I would with a full suit of chain mail +5 armor, +2 dex max which costs 150 gp

note this doesn't take into account issues like differeing protection based on attack type blunt vs slashing vs piercing but you get the idea

additionally a lvl 20 warrior can get the same protection out of a given set of armor as a lvl 1 char can.

its an issue I have seen for a while but I am not sure how to resolve it.

when you go with the D20 star wars they went the other way, giving all chars a defense adjustment that increases with level, but is reduced/nulified if you wear armor  so congradulations there is now basically NO reason to use armor...

the only thing I can really think of is to sort of combine the options but then you get situations where a high level fighter could walk through an army of low level shlubs (mobs) and they could NEVER touch him

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

note this doesn't take into account issues like differeing protection based on attack type blunt vs slashing vs piercing but you get the idea

That effect was taken out in the shift from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition, on account of it being annoying to keep track of.

the only thing I can really think of is to sort of combine the options but then you get situations where a high level fighter could walk through an army of low level shlubs (mobs) and they could NEVER touch him

Only true if you're using the variant rule where a natural 20 isn't an automatic hit.

[Bedwyr]

Ok, I gave the little guy a bunch of tweaks. How does the following look now? I'm not looking to make him optimal and he still has his racial strength deficit, but useful in both combat and non-combat roles (trying to maintain some wisdom).

Code: [Select]

Name:       Otrix
Race:       Gnome
Player:     Chris
Classes:    Barbarian1
Hit Points: 15
Experience: 0 / 2000
Alignment:  Neutral Good
Vision:     Low-light
Speed:      Walk 30 ft.
Languages:  Common, Gnome, Sylvan
Stat    Score   Mod
STR      12      (+1)
DEX      13      (+1)
CON      16      (+3)
INT      10      (+0)
WIS      12      (+1)
CHA      12      (+1)
-------------------------- Skills --------------------------
Skill                   Total   Rnk     Stat    Msc
Acrobatics               1        0.0      1        0
Appraise                 1        1.0      0        0
Bluff                    1        0.0      1        0
Climb                    5        1.0      1        3
Craft (Armor)            6        1.0      0        5
Craft (Untrained)        0        0.0      0        0
Diplomacy                1        0.0      1        0
Disguise                 1        0.0      1        0
Escape Artist            1        0.0      1        0
Fly                      3        0.0      1        2
Heal                     1        0.0      1        0
Intimidate               1        0.0      1        0
Knowledge (Nature)       5        1.0      0        4
Perception               3        0.0      1        2
Perform (Untrained)      1        0.0      1        0
Ride                     1        0.0      1        0
Sense Motive             1        0.0      1        0
Stealth                  5        0.0      1        4
Survival                 1        0.0      1        0
Swim                     5        1.0      1        3
                                                   
-------------------------- Feats ---------------------------
Agile Maneuvers
Armor Proficiency, Light
  When you wear a type of armor with which you are proficient, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Dexterity- and Strength-based skill checks.
 
Armor Proficiency, Medium
  When you wear a type of armor with which you are proficient, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Dexterity- and Strength-based skill checks.
 
Martial Weapon Proficiency
  You make attack rolls with all your martial weapons normally (without the non-proficient penalty).
 
Shield Proficiency
  When you use a shield (except a tower shield), the shield's armor check penalty only applies to Strength- and Dexterity-based skills.
 
Simple Weapon Proficiency
-------------------- Special Abilities ---------------------

------------------------ Templates -------------------------

-------------------------- Combat --------------------------
    Total / Touch / Flat Footed
AC: 18    / 14    / 17
Initiative:   +1
BAB:          +1
Melee tohit:  +3
Ranged tohit: +3
Fortitude:    +5
Reflex:       +2
Will:         +1
Unarmed attack:
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d2+1
critical:     20/x2
Longsword (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d6+1
critical:     19-20/x2
Blowgun (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d1
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
Dart (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d3
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
--------------------- Special Abilities --------------------
 
------------------------- Equipment ------------------------
Name                                            QTY LBS
Longsword (Small)                                1 2lbs
Mithral Shirt (Small)                            1 5lbs Special: 30 hp/inch, hardness 15
Traveling Cloak                                  1 1lbs Special: (Cloak (Add TypeClothing))
Darkwood Shield (Small)                          1 2lbs Special: 10 hp/inch, hardness 5
Outfit (Peasant's) (Small)                       1 0lbs
Backpack (Small) (19.75 lbs.)
   Artisan's Tools (Armor)                       1 5lbs
   Blowgun (Small)                               1 0lbs
   Dart (Small)                                  2 0lbs
   Darts (Blowgun/10) (Small)                    1 0lbs
   Drinking Shell                                1 1lbs Special: (Mug or Tankard (Clay))
   Fishhook                                      10 0lbs
   Flint and Steel                               1 0lbs
   Rations (Trail/Per Day) (Small)               5 1lbs
   Sauce Pan (iron)                              1 2lbs Special: (Pot (Iron))
   Shovel or Spade                               1 8lbs
   Whetstone                                     1 1lbs
   Tindertwig                                    10 0lbs
Blowgun (Small) (0.5 lbs.)
Drinking Shell (1 lbs.)
Sauce Pan (iron) (2 lbs.)
Pouch (Belt) (Small) (1.165 lbs.)
   Coin (Copper Piece)                           10 0lbs
   Coin (Gold Piece)                             33 0lbs
   Coin (Silver Piece)                           9 0lbs
Total weight carried:
Current load:         Light
Encumbrance
Light:  32   
Medium: 65   
Heavy:  97
--------------------------- Magic --------------------------

Innate Spells

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, that's better, though still not great.  The character's still darned weak in combat, though.

[Bedwyr]

Wait, really? Not just weak but darned weak?

edit: I was looking at some forum builds which give a little extra context. I think I'm satisfied with a couple more changes. He's a gnome, not the best fighter, but I'm not looking to run an optimized group. So I think I'm probably good.

[qc mech3]

not a great basher but that's ok if you have at least another warrior in the group (make he has max STR and CON stats).

The ideal will be for your friend role-playing his barbarian, not understanding anything about city life or civilization.  ^-^  ;D

[Bedwyr]

not a great basher but that's ok if you have at least another warrior in the group (make he has max STR and CON stats).

The ideal will be for your friend role-playing his barbarian, not understanding anything about city life or civilization.  ^-^  ;D

Eh. He has a different concept of what barbarian means. It's less "stupid Conan" and more Gallic warrior. This is what happens when someone has less pop culture knowledge and a lot more historical knowledge. It runs against the grain of a lot of our (poorly conceived) preconceptions, doing things like breaking role-playing games based on old stereotypes.


How does this work for a heavily roleplayed character then:

Code: [Select]

Name:       Otrix
Race:       Gnome
Player:     Chris
Classes:    Barbarian1
Hit Points: 14
Experience: 0 / 2000
Alignment:  Neutral Good
Vision:     Low-light
Speed:      Walk 30 ft.
Languages:  Common, Gnome, Sylvan
Stat    Score   Mod
STR      14      (+2)
DEX      12      (+1)
CON      14      (+2)
INT      10      (+0)
WIS      12      (+1)
CHA      11      (+0)
-------------------------- Skills --------------------------
Skill                   Total   Rnk     Stat    Msc
Acrobatics               1        0.0      1        0
Appraise                 1        1.0      0        0
Bluff                    0        0.0      0        0
Climb                    6        1.0      2        3
Craft (Armor)            6        1.0      0        5
Craft (Untrained)        0        0.0      0        0
Diplomacy                0        0.0      0        0
Disguise                 0        0.0      0        0
Escape Artist            1        0.0      1        0
Fly                      3        0.0      1        2
Heal                     1        0.0      1        0
Intimidate               0        0.0      0        0
Knowledge (Nature)       5        1.0      0        4
Perception               3        0.0      1        2
Perform (Untrained)      0        0.0      0        0
Ride                     1        0.0      1        0
Sense Motive             1        0.0      1        0
Stealth                  5        0.0      1        4
Survival                 1        0.0      1        0
Swim                     6        1.0      2        3
                                                   
-------------------------- Feats ---------------------------
Agile Maneuvers
Armor Proficiency, Light
  When you wear a type of armor with which you are proficient, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Dexterity- and Strength-based skill checks.
 
Armor Proficiency, Medium
  When you wear a type of armor with which you are proficient, the armor check penalty for that armor applies only to Dexterity- and Strength-based skill checks.
 
Martial Weapon Proficiency
  You make attack rolls with all your martial weapons normally (without the non-proficient penalty).
 
Shield Proficiency
  When you use a shield (except a tower shield), the shield's armor check penalty only applies to Strength- and Dexterity-based skills.
 
Simple Weapon Proficiency
-------------------- Special Abilities ---------------------

------------------------ Templates -------------------------

-------------------------- Combat --------------------------
    Total / Touch / Flat Footed
AC: 18    / 14    / 17
Initiative:   +1
BAB:          +1
Melee tohit:  +4
Ranged tohit: +3
Fortitude:    +4
Reflex:       +2
Will:         +1
Unarmed attack:
to hit:       +4
damage:       1d2+2
critical:     20/x2
Longsword (Small):
to hit:       +4
damage:       1d6+2
critical:     19-20/x2
Blowgun (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d1
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
Dart (Small):
to hit:       +3
damage:       1d3
critical:     20/x2
range:        20 ft.
--------------------- Special Abilities --------------------
 
------------------------- Equipment ------------------------
Name                                            QTY LBS
Longsword (Small)                                1 2lbs
Mithral Shirt (Small)                            1 5lbs Special: 30 hp/inch, hardness 15
Traveling Cloak                                  1 1lbs Special: (Cloak (Add TypeClothing))
Darkwood Shield (Small)                          1 2lbs Special: 10 hp/inch, hardness 5
Outfit (Peasant's) (Small)                       1 0lbs
Backpack (Small) (19.75 lbs.)
   Artisan's Tools (Armor)                       1 5lbs
   Sauce Pan (iron)                              1 2lbs Special: (Pot (Iron))
   Shovel or Spade                               1 8lbs
   Whetstone                                     1 1lbs
   Tindertwig                                    10 0lbs
   Blowgun (Small)                               1 0lbs
   Dart (Small)                                  2 0lbs
   Darts (Blowgun/10) (Small)                    1 0lbs
   Drinking Shell                                1 1lbs Special: (Mug or Tankard (Clay))
   Fishhook                                      10 0lbs
   Flint and Steel                               1 0lbs
   Rations (Trail/Per Day) (Small)               5 1lbs
Blowgun (Small) (0.5 lbs.)
Drinking Shell (1 lbs.)
Sauce Pan (iron) (2 lbs.)
Pouch (Belt) (Small) (1.165 lbs.)
   Coin (Copper Piece)                           10 0lbs
   Coin (Gold Piece)                             33 0lbs
   Coin (Silver Piece)                           9 0lbs
Total weight carried:
Current load:         Light
Encumbrance
Light:  43   
Medium: 87   
Heavy:  131
--------------------------- Magic --------------------------

Innate Spells


[StCptMara]

If you were in my shoes and the player really really really wanted a river gnome berserker, what would you do to rehabilitate the guy?

First: higher strength. As a melee class, he needs high strength, constitution, and dexterity.
Second: lighter armour. Remember, heavier armor puts lower maximum dex bonuses, and bigger penalties to things
like swimming(which is based on Strength).
Third: less exotic armour.What he wants? That would bankrupt a barbarian tribe to get...if they had access to that much
of those rare materials that he can make it, and know how to make it? Then that tribe is going to be targeted by civilized forces
for its mines and skilled craftsmen, and everyone else put to the sword.
Fourth: Frankly, tell him that this is not the real world. While some of his advanced schooling might be useful..it is not 100%
reliable. In fact, do something to SPECIFICALLY make it wrong. Like make them operating around a Roman Republic oriented
area...or, if you are doing High Magic, industrial revolution, but with magic, and no guns.

But, basicly, I would say your best bet is: make him, and everyone else, roll up their gold, and that is where their equipment comes from. They get one set of clothes and a back-pack free(and wizards get a spell book, priests get a holy symbol). Everything else must come from their randomly generated gold. Also, all character creation must be done as a group, in front of the GM, with everyone
discussing what they want their character to bring to the group. That way, if there are, say, two rogues, they are each bringing something different.

[monbvol]

Mithral as a special material isn't particularly game breaking but it is supposed to be exotic, rare, and expensive so I concur with earlier sentiments that it should be right out as starting gear.

A quick overview of what it does for:

Armor: Skill check penalties are reduced, maximum dexterity bonus is increased, weight of the armor is halved, and the armor is harder to break.  Also reduces Arcane Spell Failure.  Movement penalties and the type of armor for purposes of if functioning for class features or not is reduced by one step to a minimum of Light(but not the proficiency needed to wear said armor without penalty).

Shield: Primarily reduced weight and increased durability is why you'd want to use it in this capacity.

Weapon: No real benefit besides reduced weight and increased durability.

Adamantine is certainly more potent and again is supposed to be exotic, rare, and expensive and as such I'd say no.

What it does:

Armor: Provides Damage Reduction based on category of armor and is really durable.

Shield: Cannot be used to make shields.

Weapon: Really good for breaking things.

Stat wise the character is about what I'd consider the minimum of where they should be to be a Barbarian now.  The first stat set would be a fairly reasonable set for a Cleric.

With the current stat set I'd recommend the following:

Defensively a suit of Scale Mail would be their best bet making their AC 17 when fully able to defend themselves, 12 against a touch attack, 16 when Flat Footed, and 11 when Flat Footed and the target of a touch attack.  That's not bad for 1st Level but it isn't likely to go up for a while.  It would make the character only able to cover 20 feet and still make an attack though.  By default a Barbarian's starting gold would be taxed with a Chain Shirt, the next best alternative but a potentially worthwhile one since it'd allow for covering 30 feet and still being able to attack.

The potency of the Barbarian is their strength so forget the shield and go for a Great Axe of if they're lucky with their 3d6*10 starting wealth roll a Great Sword is a good alternative in it's own right.  A Great Axe is 1d10 + 3 damage with a critical chance on 20 and if confirmed that's 3d10 + 9 damage.  Great Sword is the same 1d10 + 3 but has a critical chance on a 19 or 20 but only does 2d10 + 6 damage if confirmed.

The rest of their gear can largely be up to them but I almost always have a pry bar, some soap, a bedroll, and if I can manage a tent in my character's gear.

[guardiandashi]

The rest of their gear can largely be up to them but I almost always have a pry bar, some soap, a bedroll, and if I can manage a tent in my character's gear.

barbarian? tent he doesn't need no stinking effeet thing like a tent he has a hunk of canvas, or a stretched hide (off something he killed himself) and is happy to have that...

sorry couldn't resist the classic barbarian steriotype joke

[monbvol]

What ever form it takes I'd still call it a tent if it keeps the weather and incidental creepy crawlies out.

[Bedwyr]

What ever form it takes I'd still call it a tent if it keeps the weather and incidental creepy crawlies out.

Dried, caked mud from rolling around in it. I mean he's almost a fish already, right? :)

Thanks for the inputs. I think I can accept exotic armor if the RP reason is sound enough. Mara's points, for example, could be addressed by the riverside clan being generally hidden from 'Big Folks' eyes. Recall that the original mithril armor whose value was "more than the worth of the shire" but never prompted rapacious attacks even though swarthy southerners were making their way north and dwarves and elves were making their way west. I could definitely make an exception if it doesn't break the game.

[monbvol]

I imagine they'll want something that won't wash away in the rain. :P

Mithral is a more subtle material than Adamantine.  The main use it has for armor is specifically for letting class features still work despite wearing heavier and "better" armor.

One of the things I find myself doing with various RPG is after I spend a considerable amount of time with them is to break them down to find out what does work and what doesn't.  Basically figuring out why I should take option a and if there are situations where option b is better and if they really come up enough to justify option b.

To give an example the Toughness feat is something useful enough that every class can be justified in having it with the combat heavy nature of Pathfinder/D&D and be very worthwhile.  On the other hand it does little good for a low Dexterity Barbarian to pick up Agile Maneuvers.

[StCptMara]

Recall that the original mithril armor whose value was "more than the worth of the shire" but never prompted rapacious attacks even though swarthy southerners were making their way north and dwarves and elves were making their way west. I could definitely make an exception if it doesn't break the game.

Um...Mithral in D&D has always been something of the Dwarves. The reason why no-one tried to slaughter the dwarves was,
after the first couple times being slaughtered by the dwarves as they tried to fight their way into the dwarven mountains,
most people got smart, and just traded...it was easier.

[truetanker]

Well that and the fact that most Mithral was mined from the delve where dragons sleep. And you know about them dragons right? Dwarf crunchyrolls galore!

TT

[Bedwyr]

Welp, further advice welcome.

We had a bit of a conflict Friday. The same fellow I've discussed before had spent something approaching a week researching and assembling a group of, I think, six NPCs. One of them already has a relationship with his character. The other five were a gypsy band that got involved in a one-off conflict he conducted to help introduce his sister to the group and the Pathfinder system in general. I think I would probably have welcomed some of the additions had he asked first, but he tossed the pre-made characters to me in the expectation that I would use them, preferably soon, like he had a pre-made version of how the story should proceed in his head and I ought to accede to that creativity. To me this was... really presumptuous. Yeah I'm working with a pre-made campaign (Runelords), but I'm slowly feeding in hooks so that we can take the plot further afield. Insisting that I incorporate these characters into the campaign without asking, let alone giving me a heads-up *really* rubbed me the wrong way.

I think he's got a very different view of what the RPG process is about than I do. I think he sees the players' role as co-creators alongside the GM but in a more active way than is traditional (or at least what I've seen and read as traditional), essentially more of a story-go-round. In that kind of model the players are mini-GMs who bring their stories, their characters, and their interactions to the table alongside the GM to somehow mesh and collectively tell a story; not so much "gaming" as almost collaborating as co-authors on a novel. I don't suppose that's an illegitimate approach, but it's incompatible with the way I'm approaching the campaign design here. My intention is to be a little bit freewheeling here, using the opportunity to a) gain confidence with the GM'ing process, b) slowly move further afield from the pre-gen material as confidence increases, c) use that freedom to paint NPCs with broad, bright brushstrokes and fill them in as the opportunity comes, and d) most especially construct situations and encounters that use interesting bits of game design and mechanics so that all the players can learn to work together and enjoy themselves.

So the question here is really not "who is right" but how should the conflict be bridged? And I need the experience of long-time GMs to help inform me and either change how I'm thinking about this, mount a good argument to persuade him, or both so that the gaming can happen in better harmony. I'm quoting a big part of his response to me in hopes you guys can help. Again, this not a whine or kvetching, it's kind of the PnP game version of conflict resolution. I want this to work out and it's been a surprisingly difficult challenge so far, especially for someone new to this. :) His response made me pretty frustrated and hot so I don't really trust my instinctive response.

quotation snipped

edit: I was going to cite what he said, but I reconsidered. It's still private conversation and as much as it might have helped to show it, I don't think it would be appropriate.

Thoughts?

[guardiandashi]

ouch Bedwyr thats a rough one.

note I am not the most experenced gm around I tend to prefer playing to running most of the time. 

with that said a strong confruntation is unlikely to have the preferred results, so ....

how about something along the lines of I will need to consider these npc's and the back story, a little to determine if there is an easy way to intregrate them right now, if not, I may have to add them in some other way, but it may take some doing as I didn't have any warning.  of course it may also help to ask the group to run any additional npc's expecially groups of npc's they would like to add in the future by you to give you a chance to work out how you intend to intregrate them into the campaign.

[Bedwyr]

ouch Bedwyr thats a rough one.

note I am not the most experenced gm around I tend to prefer playing to running most of the time. 

with that said a strong confruntation is unlikely to have the preferred results, so ....

how about something along the lines of I will need to consider these npc's and the back story, a little to determine if there is an easy way to intregrate them right now, if not, I may have to add them in some other way, but it may take some doing as I didn't have any warning.  of course it may also help to ask the group to run any additional npc's expecially groups of npc's they would like to add in the future by you to give you a chance to work out how you intend to intregrate them into the campaign.

I think that's a good general approach, but his frame of reference appears to be such that I've got to marshal some significant arguments to a potential "No Bedwyr. I know how this works and you are incorrect. I'll be kind to you and say that you can put the characters in later if that helps but those *are* my characters and they should be part of the story." Note that's a prediction based on what he said earlier and where I *think* his thinking is going not what he's already said. So besides banging my head against the wall, I'm sensing a need to work through some really strong assumptions.

One possibility might be to discuss this openly with the group? In the end I'm really supposed to be working towards the fun of the group. So if they want to do active module/adventure/NPC creation maybe I should agree to it. After all I'm supposed to be the facilitator of the fun and if me stopping that is getting in the way of fun I should bend.

[Terminax]

Talk about incompatible styles and goals.

If he was at my table, I'd flat out tell him my concerns and lay out my preferences in dealing with the situation. If it couldn't be resolved amicably, I wouldn't play with him. I tend to lay out my games in a framework style, and lay out a situation and theme that the players can plug their characters into and then go from there. If characters are too bizarre and don't fit into that dynamic I ask them to make a character that does.

[monbvol]

Hmmm...

I think Guardian's probably got the best possible approach for this.  You're the GM and it's your job to create the story.  Letting the PCs have some freedom is fine but having wholesale control of which NPCs and story bits are used and when is ultimately yours.

[idea weenie]

If you were in my shoes and the player really really really wanted a river gnome berserker, what would you do to rehabilitate the guy?

High strength and dexterity, damage dealing feats, plus skill points into swimming.  Turn him from a turtle into a wolverine.  If as a gnome he has a racial reduction in strength, equip him with weapons that don't use strength.  A wand of magic missiles would be a good weapon.  If he insists on playing the turtle, just have the enemy go around him to attack the others, tying him up with a similar tank that barely does any damage, but has lots of hit points.  When the rest of the party complains that he isn't capable of protecting them, that should get the message across.

It is better than one character that a friend played.  He was a str 8 halfling armed with daggers.  So half-sized daggers (d3 IIRC) with a 1 pt penalty to damage.


But as for randomly generated gold, sometimes you have to be flexible.  For example one friend of mine rolled up an elf who specialized in longbow and longsword, with feats for both.  Unfortunately, he rolled minimum for gold, so couldn't purchase even one of them.  He was stuck with a short sword and cloth armor.

[StCptMara]

Sheesh, Bedwyr..this guy sounds alot like a guy from my group. Do you have to watch his sheets like a hawk for him doing "tweaks"
and have people have to watch his rolls?

[William J. Pennington]

I think that's a good general approach, but his frame of reference appears to be such that I've got to marshal some significant arguments to a potential "No Bedwyr. I know how this works and you are incorrect. I'll be kind to you and say that you can put the characters in later if that helps but those *are* my characters and they should be part of the story." Note that's a prediction based on what he said earlier and where I *think* his thinking is going not what he's already said. So besides banging my head against the wall, I'm sensing a need to work through some really strong assumptions.

A player who would waste a week of time making a group of NPC's before checkin in with the GM raises all sorts of 'problem player' red flags. 

There should be no argument here. Do you really see that actual reponse coming from him?  A player does not dicate to the GM.  He does not get to determine the story outside of the action of his characters. Rule 1. If you wish to be less confrontational, you can bring it up in a group session. make it clear that you might consider players requests and input, the campaigns background and metaplot is something you have worked on and have a progress plan for, and there's only so much room for other material, and only so much time you have to spend managing any changes or additions beyond what you have already planned. But in the end,  your decision is final. If they are cool with it, then play on. If not, then tell someone else to GM. If he's the only one with a prpoblem, he can deal, or he can find something else to do. 

If he can't understand the basic Player/GM dynamic, he'll never last long in any group anyway, or you won't last long as a GM. Running the game can't become a pain to you; and if he won't yield to reasonable roles and compromises expected of players, he can choose not to play. Don't feel you have to accomodate him.  You've made a reasonable stand fully within the normal expectatiosn of a gaming group. 

I highly reccomend not giving in on this issue: this sounds like a 'give an inch and he'll take a mile' type player, and not look at any compromise on your part as a exchange, but for a license from him to try and dominate the game with mary sue-ism or simply loads of details focused on him that no others player frankly will care about.

If he persists, then its a flat "When you run a game, you can add characters as you wish. Sorry, but those characters/that plotline does not fit into my campaign, therefore it won't happen at this time."

They are not his characters. Players control one character in the universe, and the NPC's are yours. Having him create the NPC's completely, and try to dictate the story is not going to work: how will the other players fele about this? How will he not act off of his superior knowledge of the NPCs and situation? And will he start arguing that 'No, they wouldnt do that" once the game started and you used them?  I'm thinking he would. 

Even if you found a use for them (and I have taken player ideas in the past), they shoud not be introduced as he has written them. You'ld almost be obligated to rewrite them, change them, and alter the story to better fit your campaign, and also keep the story fresh for him as a player, and to take away his ability to rely on meta-knowledge. 

After all I'm supposed to be the facilitator of the fun and if me stopping that is getting in the way of fun I should bend.

They have to bend as well. You are the one who has taken on the often thankless job of being GM.  You do the liosn share of the real work, you make the major decisions.  Of course there is a give and take in a  basic decision on game system, genre, setting, power level and tone that usually happens before campaign,  but after that, you are the GM. Part of the compensation of being the GM is not being forced to run what you don't want, or constantly abandon or rework your plans because of another 'great idea' which most likely is incompatible with your original direction.  There's only room for one GM at the head of a table for a particular game.  Now sure, you can have a shared universe, with GM's rotating out or running differnt groups in the same world, but that involves negptiations and cooperation on a GM to GM basis, not GM to player.

[Bedwyr]

Points well made W.J.

I do need to be careful though. He is my roommate (so he doesn't go away at the end of the day) and starting on this was our idea. He's also going through a rough time and it'd be nice if I can find a way to enable this as an outlet for him.

[William J. Pennington]

Points well made W.J.

I do need to be careful though. He is my roommate (so he doesn't go away at the end of the day) and starting on this was our idea. He's also going through a rough time and it'd be nice if I can find a way to enable this as an outlet for him.

Ok, tactful but firm.  Hopefulyl he'll get involved enough in your campaign that he wont feel the need to write his own.

For the future, I'd encourage him to tal to you first before he invests so much work in projects.  He may be less insistant on inclusion if hadn't already put so much effort in it (but that is purely his fault in this case. To soothe his feelings about the current matter, tell him not to view the effort as lost.  Maybe you can use them in the future, or he can set them aside for a future campaign.

Then get to a game immediately, and get the group immersed in something; nothing smooths over these talks better than a good game, especially with some high adventure and just on the edge of death situations the players miraculously get out of (with some public recognition for good deeds as icing on the cake along with their other favorite be sparingly given rewards). So throw some major league bad stuff at them.  A good long session of roleplay and hanging on by the skin of their teeth should help.

[Nav_Alpha]

Hmm tough situation.

My current 4th edition D&D campaign has had similar issues a while back - one or two players hogging things. So we split into two separate groups. Two guys and I formed another group with three others.
Two of them were a bit younger and soon realised we slightly older guys were probably dominating the game a bit more. Lost one player, ended up mending our ways and becoming a very good group.

Communication is probably the key to resolving all of these issues

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Points well made W.J.

I do need to be careful though. He is my roommate (so he doesn't go away at the end of the day) and starting on this was our idea. He's also going through a rough time and it'd be nice if I can find a way to enable this as an outlet for him.

The problem is that he's not the only player in the group, and if he's polymorphing into the drama llama every week I can virtually guarantee that two things are going to happen because of it: One, you're going to lose most if not all of the other players because it; two, you personally are going to acquire a reputation as being a doormat of a GM.

An RPG group is a place where multiple people try to get together to have fun, which very rarely includes playing therapist for one of the other group members.  He's not the only person there so the spotlight can't fall on him the whole time.  He really needs to learn to play nice with the rest of the team and stop trying to dominate the story, and if he can't then honestly he needs to find something different to do.

[Nav_Alpha]

"Drama llama"... Chuckles. Love it

[truetanker]

May I suggest running each NPC charater as a bit, rather as a whole?

Bit parts are harder to control than in a " group mind ". Because each have their OWN personality and needs. While a group mind follows more than it leads.

Now a solution to this :

Have each NPC do something that puts them " out of bounds or unacessable " for a period of time. That way your roommate can work on HIS character, not theirs.

It would be nice to understand what NPCs were created so we can give ideas of who should be available " this time ".

TT

[Bedwyr]

Thanks for the advice so far guys. One idea I had was to take the character that is his friend (his name is "Bob", no kidding) and pull a Beautiful Mind on his character. The other group members will never be able to see Bob or Mr. Bob will only appear when they aren't around because Mr. Bob doesn't actually exist. This fits for a few reasons. One, I don't mind giving a character screen time. It has to be fair and the other characters need some TLC, but it can be there. Mr. "Bob" can potentially be an ongoing foil. Two, his character is already well-known for taking in the mushrooms and may (we're not sure yet) have trouble keeping the drow in him down. Three, I already have plans to slowly feed in misdirections and "that actually didn't happen" moments for the main plot.


There's room for the gypsies too, but on my own terms.

[Nav_Alpha]

Thanks for the advice so far guys. One idea I had was to take the character that is his friend (his name is "Bob", no kidding) and pull a Beautiful Mind on his character. The other group members will never be able to see Bob or Mr. Bob will only appear when they aren't around because Mr. Bob doesn't actually exist. This fits for a few reasons. One, I don't mind giving a character screen time. It has to be fair and the other characters need some TLC, but it can be there. Mr. "Bob" can potentially be an ongoing foil. Two, his character is already well-known for taking in the mushrooms and may (we're not sure yet) have trouble keeping the drow in him down. Three, I already have plans to slowly feed in misdirections and "that actually didn't happen" moments for the main plot.


There's room for the gypsies too, but on my own terms.

This is a pretty ambitious idea - i like it. Your only risk is that your player freaks out and hates the idea because he feels like he's being singled out and having all of his ideas knocked back by the DM, etc.
I could see your Beautiful Mind idea (which is great BTW!) working particularly well with some players - others, not so much.

Best of luck though

[William J. Pennington]

Thanks for the advice so far guys. One idea I had was to take the character that is his friend (his name is "Bob", no kidding) and pull a Beautiful Mind on his character.

That can work. Logisitically, it will be challenging, especially if the player embraces it and really gets involved in roleplaying it,  unless you do 'blue booking' or roleplay utside of full group sessions.  The amount of pure focus time you can spend on one character, where other PC's are not, and cannot be involved has to be, over the course of a campaign, portioned out, though it may vary wildly in specific games.  So these scenes will become the primary focus  time for your roomies character, so it has to work well for him, but it also has to be limited enough so the other players dont go 'oh God, another Bob scene, lets go in the living room and find something on TV to watch'.

Rule of thumb: take the length of your gaming session. Subtract from that the amount of time spent in encounter situations (actually fighting, or party preliminary actions, exploring, searching, etc). Subtract from that the time you are narrating.  Subtract administrative time (rules, purchases, levelling, food, bathroom breaks etc). Subtract time spent BS'ing. Subtract time for start up and closing the session.

What is left is roleplay time. Subtract time estimated for group roleplay scenes. Take the remaining amount of time (not much by this point usually)..and divide that by the number of players you have.  That number is the amount of time you have per player to focus on them.  What you go over on one, you have to take away from another. Decide how much of this focus time bob gets, based on the players reception.

[Bedwyr]

This is a pretty ambitious idea - i like it. Your only risk is that your player freaks out and hates the idea because he feels like he's being singled out and having all of his ideas knocked back by the DM, etc.
I could see your Beautiful Mind idea (which is great BTW!) working particularly well with some players - others, not so much.

He can deal with it. If he gets to the point that he's even directing how a character he tossed at me "shall' be used, I'll end the campaign. I don't think

Anyhow, thanks. I'm slowly working to twist the Runelords campaign on its head by introducing psychological elements mixed with some fun game mechanics. My style is shaping up to be fairly freewheeling so as long as I get specific balances and systems correct I can do NPCs in broad brush-strokes and paint in as we go. It also allows a large amount of group agency. So I'll come back to the main points of the published campaign, but let increasingly more "interesting" things happen.

We did a one-off session that turned a cave into a huge clockwork mechanism. The players were forced to scale pillars (one quarter turn up a pillar per turn, DC 10 climb each time or they fall) while a central slowly-rotating statue spouted green flame. The flame melted what turned out to be thick ice and exposed a deep chasm below. Once the players had committed to the pillar climb, they needed to not fall. One ultimately did (she was rolling single digits half the night) and summoned a large owl that, for some reason kept saying "Who who" "What what" and "Waaart" but carried her to safety atop the pillars.

I think I want to incorporate that into the plot. The clockwork and flames become a shared dream and slowly as time and the plot progress, the increasingly disturbing nature of this endless labyrinth creates frustration and uncontrollable anger (DC 8 to avoid when everyone wakes up... two already failed that check and were forced to attack their companions or some priests. No harm done... yet). This is in line with the campaign's theme of the deadly sin of anger and the adversary who controls it and uses it as a weapon. Eventually fire and incessant clockwork begin impinging on the waking world causing the players to doubt when they are awake and when they are asleep. I'm still trying to work out balanced success and failure conditions and further puzzles involved in this system.

I'm also taking a cue from Ultima Underworld I. At a certain point in the campaign, magic itself becomes disrupted and refuses to work properly. Small runestones the players have been slowly collecting suddenly glow in the hands of the non magic-users who can assemble them to cast spells using the words structure from the advanced magic book. Former magic-users suddenly see that they have remarkably increased skill with arms. Fighting roles effectively become reversed.

That can work. Logisitically, it will be challenging, especially if the player embraces it and really gets involved in roleplaying it,  unless you do 'blue booking' or roleplay outside of full group sessions.  The amount of pure focus time you can spend on one character, where other PC's are not, and cannot be involved has to be, over the course of a campaign, portioned out, though it may vary wildly in specific games.  So these scenes will become the primary focus  time for your roomies character, so it has to work well for him, but it also has to be limited enough so the other players dont go 'oh God, another Bob scene, lets go in the living room and find something on TV to watch'.

The plan would be to have him be occasionally recurring and only 'naturally' appear alone to the character in a kind of Clark Kent way, say meeting at night in the woods, so that no one suspects that he's more than someone who sometimes appears and helps the group. Of course he talks with that character. They know each other.

The other players I'll feed according to need.

One is a young man; a WoW gamer and kind of a clown. He's running a half-elf classic ranger and a natural power gamer who wants loot and stats out of the game more than role-playing. He shows willing, but it's not his biggest motivation. He asked on Friday whether I'd give him a spell to summon a toilet (junior high humor remember). I jokingly allowed it but it would have to be fairy sized along with commensurately sized toilet paper. If he wanted his character to cleanse himself using it, far be it from me to refuse. I also had a tarrasque rip him to shreds after the night's game was done just to see what it was like. He thought getting chewed in half and gulped down in one turn was pretty cool.

One is a young lady playing a gnome cleric. She's not too familiar with RPGs in computer or PnP settings and is mostly "playing the game" while feeling things out.

Third is a college aged fellow playing an elf/orc with daddy issues and a weird jovial resemblance to the incredible hulk... at least in speech. He's game to attempt some roleplay but mostly is having trouble with the first young man in figuring out what to do. Right now I'm throwing some hooks out there and seeing if they bite at all. Unfortunately neither seems to prefer being led by the nose out of discomfort and confusion a "What are we supposed to do next" syndrome. I'll lead if they really need it, but I'm trying to shut up more and leave more awkward silence to encourage them to take some initiative.

The last is our prima donna. He does a really good job in-game giving the other players space to do things but, as we've discussed, has assumptions about how this works. I'm not sure quite yet whether we need to have a full laying-down-the-law discussion, but we'll see.

[Nav_Alpha]

Following on from William J Pennington about screentime, etc

My group regularly uses Facebook and email to handle this - our current group is now 13th level so that means a lot of dreams and peripheries, direct link with the gods an romancing important NPCs, etc.
We handle a lot of this off screen - frequently at the end of a session I'll say something like "I really want to explore that idea, etc".
Following in for this te DM will email or Facebook message me with a dream of a scenario that happens off screen - and it's up to me if I share this with the party. The party's cleric frequently talks directly to our god, getting cryptic insight, etc. but it's all offscreen and takes the part of dream, prayer sessions etc that the player an DM work out via email.
Similarly, I'm involved in building a temple in our new home city, but my paladin had also married and is starting a family. The tedious stuff of building the temple often occurs as a series of Facebook messages or emails between me, another PC who's also working on it and the DM. While the occasional family situation, etc will just be a couple of ideas jotted down between my an te DM.

This could be a totally Gen-Y way of looking at it, but it really works and means everyone has enough FaceTime when we actually play.

[Bedwyr]

Okie doke. Three more questions.

1) How can I reign in Perception-itis? The players seem to want to use it every few steps or in every new situation. It's not bogging down length of play but it is becoming irritating and redundant. I'm having to tell them several times to look around first before doing P. checks.

2) The indecision *is* bogging down the game. My roommate is doing a yeoman's job holding back and allowing the others a chance to play, but they are so very passive and timid in the decisions they make. It could be due to my actions, but I'm doing my best to offer actual options and agency. I also gear up or down difficulty on the fly depending on what seems appropriate; I'm not inclined to be capricious about player threats.

3) The power-gamer is bored out of his skull. I think he needs a constant stream of combat and loot a'la Rogue or WoW. I can't help that, nor can I help the natural pace of Runelords, but I *can* change the structure of how we game, maybe even taking care of 2). Perhaps I could formalize a quest system. Instead of vague hints that some NPC needs help, it could be formally exposed. I could create a combination of roleplay and gameplay chits. The former puts the spotlight on the player allowing some big scene they can play. The latter could work like some daily power where a special boost happens.

[truetanker]

Bedwyr~

Try combining #s 1 and 3.

Preceptionists and Powergamers, hint something is coming, something big. Then drop the ball, that something is a small challange any 1st level can do. But make them work hard for it.

Such as you must retreive a chalice from a lake. Nothing special, just a ordinary stone chalice, in a lake... full of acid, protected by posion thornbushes and such, underground. Also the chalice is in a stone shipwreck underneathe the lake's surface, sealed in the cargohold by magic. Now have them roll... after awhile, they'll stop asking.

See my point?

Now for #2, give awards to them, but give more for harder options, if they choose the easier ones, hint at the possible award. Such as having 2 teams go out and hunt for the same mission. A NPC version, not really played, and the PC one. If they chose easy, let the NPC one get the greater glory and riches. And vise verse. Also let the them know that the NPC force is around, and if the PCs get into trouble, let the NPC save the day, literally. But don't tell them that.

TT

[StCptMara]

Extra XP for moving the story along should fix #2, Bedwyr. Regarding #1, my group has a policy: you only roll perception
when the GM tells you to, or if you are looking for something specific, and you must state that aloud, and the GM can just
tell the player if they see it or not without a roll, and a roll will not change that result.

For number 3? I got nothing...

[Nav_Alpha]

Extra XP for moving the story along should fix #2, Bedwyr. Regarding #1, my group has a policy: you only roll perception
when the GM tells you to, or if you are looking for something specific, and you must state that aloud, and the GM can just
tell the player if they see it or not without a roll, and a roll will not change that result.

For number 3? I got nothing...

This is how I use perception in my games. You roll if you're after something specific or told to.
ie: "I want to have a scout around to see if i can spot any infiltrators around the camp site" - DM then response to make a perception check.
It's more like a detailed, focused search that way.

For 3. I dunno - that's not how i game. I like giving my players 150 vague ideas, rumours and bits of gossip and then letting them decide to pursue a couple. This means more work for me (you need to have at least some details for all 150 and have to flesh out at least a few prior to the game) but I think ultimatly allows for the group to do whatever they want.

But I can see the worth of having these sorts of "achievement" check-points, as you've suggested.

[StCptMara]

Also, for the Combat Junkie, have you tried referring to dialog, diplomacy, etc as "Social Combat"?

[guardiandashi]

diplomacy war by another means....

[StCptMara]

diplomacy war by another means....

Actually, it is "War is politics by other means."

[Kitsune413]

Actually, it is "War is politics by other means."

The modern definition of strategy is all actions that are used to Obtain a end result. War and diplomacy are both means towards a nations goals.

Also #1. Perception is a skill you should roll to see if they notice something. They can all look and ak questions. But most ofthe things he is using perception for are probably from another skill. Like tracking. Anyways roll perception forrhem and dont tell them if they pass or fail. Just tell them things tthey may have missed based on the margin of failure or success. Dont let them meta game on you. Bad environment for a gm.

#2 some players are naturally passive. Try to engineer situations where they specifically have to make decisions.theywill either begin to like it or stay passive. Its your job to make sure they have fun and you have fun.

#3 its your job to make sure they had fun. But some players are going to want different things from a game. Occasionally you will have a player that doesnt like the pace the others do. Leadership is easy. Find out where they want to go and take them there.

But my advice for you specifically is this. You sound like a nice guy trying to avoid confrontations. Most gm suggestions you see are for the leadery in charge type. But you should step away from that.
After the game have a conversation with them about what they liked and didnt like. Dont be afraid to talk about the challenges of gming with them. Be open. Have fun at the end of the day an rpg is a collaborative story you tell with friends.

[Bedwyr]

But my advice for you specifically is this. You sound like a nice guy trying to avoid confrontations. Most gm suggestions you see are for the leadery in charge type. But you should step away from that.
After the game have a conversation with them about what they liked and didnt like. Dont be afraid to talk about the challenges of gming with them. Be open. Have fun at the end of the day an rpg is a collaborative story you tell with friends.

Thanks for the advice. I am inclined, as you say, to use a different conflict resolution method for this. Most of this is feeling out where I think my boundaries ought to be and how far to extend my authority in the name of having fun with the group.

[StCptMara]

Thanks for the advice. I am inclined, as you say, to use a different conflict resolution method for this. Most of this is feeling out where I think my boundaries ought to be and how far to extend my authority in the name of having fun with the group.

Frankly, being a GM is the hardest work you can do while having fun, even with the best groups of players. You have a group like
you have described, and it can be downright frustrating.  It really is something you should explain if none of your players have GMed
before.

Also, I am curious on something: You say they don't decide to do anything...what *ARE* they doing rather then taking decisive
action? Are they going exploring the city/world, are they looking for information about things, or are they just sitting around doing
lots of purely social RP that doesn't push your plot along? Or are they doing a lot of OOC kibitzing?

[Bedwyr]

It's a combination I think. There's some OOC stuff, but I don't think causes a huge amount of delay, except for the powergamer. We just tell him to focus every so often and not worry about the silly hypothetical Tarrasque fight.

Mostly I think it's in-character trepidation about doing the Wrong Thing. or Not Knowing What To Do, inching forward, no one taking the lead and suggesting something. I think I leave things too open-ended for this crew. They seem to need to be told very clearly what needs to happen and my guess is that both sides are using different analogs. The players are using either the "acting out a novel" model or "fight the bad guys like in Rogue" model where I'm using the Black Isle style "choose what you want to do, the world is your oyster" model. So I may be allowing so much room that they're just flailing.

[William J. Pennington]

Mostly I think it's in-character trepidation about doing the Wrong Thing. or Not Knowing What To Do, inching forward, no one taking the lead and suggesting something. I think I leave things too open-ended for this crew. They seem to need to be told very clearly what needs to happen and my guess is that both sides are using different analogs. The players are using either the "acting out a novel" model or "fight the bad guys like in Rogue" model where I'm using the Black Isle style "choose what you want to do, the world is your oyster" model. So I may be allowing so much room that they're just flailing.

Work them into it. Right now, it sounds like you need a Big Bad Guy, who wants to kill the Good Guys.

Part one of campaign. Players try to stay alive. This should not be a hard decision process.  Ease into choices.  After first conficts (preferably with low level minions of big bad guy You can slowly work in choices.  Spoonfeed them pretty clear choices, but still choices.

These choices can be choosing allies, all with procs and cons. (you can balance them out, but heck, let the players feel like they choose the right one if they simply do a good in character decision process)

Later on, allow some other choices--as the conflict escalate, give them a few, sluightly wider options, such as seeking out why the Big Bad Guy wants to kill them.

Finally, after time and group cohesion builds, you can see if they are ready to plan how to stop the Big Bad Guy. And if not..well, there is nothing wrong with creating a direct path to campaign resolution. You have to adjust to the groups style, then develop it slowly.  Sometimes a campaign just doesnt go where and how you planned.    And right now, a new group, with still passive players developing cohesion, this does not look to be the place for an open world choices.

Yu don't need to be fancy, or metaphysical, sometimes the good old reliable plot devices are the best.

If they dont react and get involved with a BBG trying to kill them, and try to find out why, and how to stop him, they just passively defend and keep going on flailing aimlessly,  its time to stop, and talk to folks, and ask them what are they wanting to really do.  Maybe even be honest and tell them that you think you arent giving them what they want.  Because if the BBG solution doest work, then what you just said here to us really probably needs to be said directly to them.

[BirdofPrey]

1) How can I reign in Perception-itis? The players seem to want to use it every few steps or in every new situation. It's not bogging down length of play but it is becoming irritating and redundant. I'm having to tell them several times to look around first before doing P. checks.

Well first you should make them be specific in what they are looking for.  If they just look around, they either shouldn't be rolling or should be rolling at a penalty to spot anything, if indeed something is amiss.  Rather they should have a goal, looking for footprints, listening for excessive rustling in the bushes, etc.

An alternative is to humor them rolling every 5 minutes by telling them they hear birds or see some rabbits running around, or what, not.  Then you can give clues that something is out there through a LACK of something happening.  You enter a town in the evening and don't smell anything (the thing to notice a lack of is the smell of dinner cooking), you're in the woods and don't hear anything but the wind (no birds chirping, no bugs, etc.)  If they missed the clue, that's their fault.

[Klingon]

Best thing I can think of to break him of the "must have a river gnome" bit is first, tell him what we've outlined above, then have a stock human barbarian in the party as well, and let him see how much the stock character makes him Mister Irrelevant, and have the barb make IC comments such as "Mister, you're sure hard to hit, but unless you've got another trick, you're not much of a team player. The whole idea of a team or party is each of us contributes something to the whole, and you really don't..."

[StCptMara]

Best thing I can think of to break him of the "must have a river gnome" bit is first, tell him what we've outlined above, then have a stock human barbarian in the party as well, and let him see how much the stock character makes him Mister Irrelevant, and have the barb make IC comments such as "Mister, you're sure hard to hit, but unless you've got another trick, you're not much of a team player. The whole idea of a team or party is each of us contributes something to the whole, and you really don't..."

Yeah..if he can't be hit, why have people target him? Can he hit them any better then they can hit them? If he can't hit..then he is a lower priority....except for the enemy mages dropping AoE spells and Magic Missile at him.

[idea weenie]

Yeah..if he can't be hit, why have people target him? Can he hit them any better then they can hit them? If he can't hit..then he is a lower priority....except for the enemy mages dropping AoE spells and Magic Missile at him.

That would be a nice stunt, the enemy just ignores him in combat.  When the other players notice it, explain that he has been noticed as someone that doesn't do enough damage to be worth their attention.  Best is if the GM keeps a record of damage delivered per character, and when he is shown to be doing barely any damage, ask him what his character brings to the rest of the group.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I actually had a standing house rule when I was GMing for that- an intelligent monster (needed to have Int of at least 6 and Wis of at least 10) could actively decide to ignore an opponent it was engaged in combat with if the opponent had demonstrated that it was unable to either hit or inflict damage if it did hit: at that point the declared target gets a +4 to hit against it but can't provide flanking with allies or attempt to use Bluff, Intimidate, or Diplomacy against whoever was ignoring it.  Players couldn't actively attempt to get monsters to think of them like this, they had to actually be putting out their best effort against the monster and still showing that they simply weren't actually capable of posing a threat.

[monbvol]

That can be problematic in it's own right.

If the player is just having bad rolls(there have been entire campaigns where I've had trouble rolling double digits on my attack rolls) or what the character is built for doesn't pan out the way the player thought it would I'm disinclined to punish them for it.

[William J. Pennington]

Don't put in characters to teach a lesson. Just go with direct communication player to player.  Now, if the character simply is not the maximum of combat effectiveness, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Its an RPG, not a wargame.  As long as the player feels his character is relevant, and not powerless, that is what is important. The GM can scale the challenge level.  Now if the character is so poorly made that the game cant be balanced (the character is so weak that challenges that bore the other players kill him, or he's so defensively tough that the only things that can vaguely threaten him slaughter the other players) then you have adjustments to make.

This case is a heavy tank armed with a popgun apparently. If he fits within the defensive parameters, then the lack of offense isn't as much of a problem balance wise, but eventually the player might feel a bit of frustration. If he doesn't feel the frustration, and is satisfied, then the opinions of others of his combat efficiency are not an issue.

As for  Perception-itis, simply say you roll all perception checks, or even better, have a large number of pre-rolled dice results you use for perception results (that way you don't even tip players off by dice rolling).  You can strictly enforce any action or time use rules as well, so if they want to keep wasting time doing detailed perception checks, find a way to make that have consequences. Otherwise, simply use the pre-rolled results (or fake it) and move on quickly.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

That can be problematic in it's own right.

If the player is just having bad rolls(there have been entire campaigns where I've had trouble rolling double digits on my attack rolls) or what the character is built for doesn't pan out the way the player thought it would I'm disinclined to punish them for it.

I've only actually used it on one character, and in that instance the character was poorly built in general and extremely underpowered in particular for the campaign, which I flat out told the player when he proposed the character to me.  It was a 3.5 game where the main villains were Tanar'ri demons (and therefore mostly had DR Good) while he was playing a Monk that lacked any way to overcome their DR or hit hard enough to damage them through it.  I gave him several options on how he could modify the character to rectify the problem, including alternate Monk builds from supplemental books, but even after a fight where despite landing easily a dozen hits he managed to inflict a mere 3 points of damage total he refused to take any rebuild options.  Considering that at that point I'd actually offered to let him completely rebuild his character at no penalty and he still refused, I said to hell with it.  I wasn't going to force him to build the character in a way he didn't want to, but I also wasn't going to rework my entire campaign just to accommodate a player who was so dead set on playing something that flat out wasn't working.

[monbvol]

I've only actually used it on one character, and in that instance the character was poorly built in general and extremely underpowered in particular for the campaign, which I flat out told the player when he proposed the character to me.  It was a 3.5 game where the main villains were Tanar'ri demons (and therefore mostly had DR Good) while he was playing a Monk that lacked any way to overcome their DR or hit hard enough to damage them through it.  I gave him several options on how he could modify the character to rectify the problem, including alternate Monk builds from supplemental books, but even after a fight where despite landing easily a dozen hits he managed to inflict a mere 3 points of damage total he refused to take any rebuild options.  Considering that at that point I'd actually offered to let him completely rebuild his character at no penalty and he still refused, I said to hell with it.  I wasn't going to force him to build the character in a way he didn't want to, but I also wasn't going to rework my entire campaign just to accommodate a player who was so dead set on playing something that flat out wasn't working.

Sounds like the Monk in question was just trying to be a deliberate problem then.

The River Gnome Barbarian isn't as hopeless from the sounds of it as the character was adjusted a few times.

[Bedwyr]

Yup. He's not a big problem no more. There's been enough new characters to balance the group out reasonably well.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Sounds like the Monk in question was just trying to be a deliberate problem then.

No, I think he was just overly fixated on playing a particular character and didn't get that it just wasn't going to work.  He was a friend of one of the other players, not part of the usual group, and I got the impression that he wasn't exactly the sharpest arrow in the quiver.

[monbvol]

I guess it is a difference of groups really.  I've managed to game with someone who in an edition of D&D where every class in the Player's Handbook required a minimum attribute score and rolled up a character who couldn't meet even Fighter.  His character was still a sufficient force to be reckoned with that we still tell his story now and again in our group.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

If he couldn't even meet the minimum ability score prerequisites for the fighter class, how in the world did he count as a force to be reckoned with?

[monbvol]

Good roleplaying.

The player understood how to take actions for desired results that did not require a single attribute linked roll unless absolutely neccessary and knew how to minimize the risk to himself.  Liam's Ghost probably remembers the particulars a lot better than I do these days but when you had the kind of DM we had for that campaign you learned how to squeze every last advantage you could without having to always rely on attribute linked rolls or supernatural powers.