sirveaux
2011-08-27, 11:11 AM
Playground,
I'm about a week or so away from starting my very first Pathfinder campaign as a player or GM. I'm a player (playing a Sorcerer), and between the four other players and the GM, only one of the players (not me) has any significant experience with anything other than 4e. My only 3.5/PF experience (outside CRPGs) was a one-time session at a local gaming shop.
In the preliminary discussions with my GM (who's never GM'd anything, and to my knowledge never played anything but 4e Encounters), a number of concerns came up, which I'll get to in a moment. Before the avalanche of "don't let him GM" starts, let me go ahead and say that I have nothing but the utmost confidence he WILL be a good GM, once we all get the hang of what we're doing. I just want to make sure the group stays intact to get to that point. Another point to be considered is that our GM is one of my best friends, personally and professionally. And since I haven't got a wealth of experience from which to draw, I can't just say "Well this is how we usually do it." Therefore, I want to see if what we've discussed is par for the course.
First, I'm afraid he might be a tad too... adherent to RAW when it comes to things like encumbrance. Now, I totally understand not allowing our Fighter to carry ten different sets of full plate without some kind of magic container, and would wholeheartedly support a ruling against that. However, our talks have led me to believe that we may face a real problem when looting various encounters in the midst of a dungeon crawl. Since we're starting at first level, we'd lack any truly viable means to go back and forth to and from town to unload everything after each encounter, not to mention the tedium such an endeavor would create. My questions on this point are: Is this ruling par for the course, or do most groups handwave these things in the absence of blatant abuse? How do y'all deal with this?
Another key point in our discussions deals with the implementation of magic. A minor point of debate has been with Prestidigitation. Can it do (very minor and innocuous) things not listed in the spell description? Our example was lighting a campfire. In 4e, Presto specifically says it can do this, but not in 3.5 or PF. I'm not looking to cover someone in pitch and set them alight, as I agree with the GM that this would outside the purview of the spell. I just wanted to have a more reliable means of lighting a torch or campfire than flint and steel, while not having to waste a precious spell slot. Also dealing with Presto, we discussed our differing opinions on how long clothing colored by Presto would stay colored. I wanted my character to have the freedom to wear a red vest one day, and a blue one the next, as I would find wearing the exact same thing tedious RP-wise (I mean, we're NOT cartoon characters). I said that it would act as if I had "soiled" the clothes with dye. He said I would have to cast it every hour to keep the color change. These are minor points, but I was just curious as to how our gaming sistren and brethren applied this spell.
Of far more critical concern to me was his attitude on casting spells outside of combat. This issue came up as we were discussing Charm Person, and whether the target would know it was being cast upon them, but the discussion would apply to any non-combat spellcasting. I had planned to make considerable use of this spell outside of combat, as the role of party face (one I greatly enjoy, and had been looking forward to) had basically defaulted to me. However, our GM told me to be ready to be attacked ANY time I cast a spell outside combat, as most people don't care to have spells cast near them. A somewhat reasonable rationale, but my point is that by ruling so, he has rendered the spell all but useless until Still Spell and perhaps Silent Spell come into play. Because either A) the target would have to be unaware of my presence, which doesn't make a lot of sense given the spell's purpose; or B) it's now a combat-only spell because we'd either be in combat already, or I'd be attacked immediately upon attempting to cast.
Basically, the contention came down to whether non-magic adept NPCs would realize a spell was being cast in the first place, and whether or not they knew it was intended for them. So basically the question is how do your groups tend to rule non-combat casting?
I'm really looking forward to trying my hand at PF (and have been for some time now), from both sides of the GM screen. So keeping the whole group interested and not discouraged is the paramount goal. I have a few other concerns, but I've already taken too much of y'all's time, and the less said about our discussions of UMD, the better. So thanks for any insight, and thanks for your time.
TL;DR - New PF Players, New GM. How to best get around strict RAWism and different interpretations. Or is this done at all? What is the procedure/etiquette? Thanks.
I'm about a week or so away from starting my very first Pathfinder campaign as a player or GM. I'm a player (playing a Sorcerer), and between the four other players and the GM, only one of the players (not me) has any significant experience with anything other than 4e. My only 3.5/PF experience (outside CRPGs) was a one-time session at a local gaming shop.
In the preliminary discussions with my GM (who's never GM'd anything, and to my knowledge never played anything but 4e Encounters), a number of concerns came up, which I'll get to in a moment. Before the avalanche of "don't let him GM" starts, let me go ahead and say that I have nothing but the utmost confidence he WILL be a good GM, once we all get the hang of what we're doing. I just want to make sure the group stays intact to get to that point. Another point to be considered is that our GM is one of my best friends, personally and professionally. And since I haven't got a wealth of experience from which to draw, I can't just say "Well this is how we usually do it." Therefore, I want to see if what we've discussed is par for the course.
First, I'm afraid he might be a tad too... adherent to RAW when it comes to things like encumbrance. Now, I totally understand not allowing our Fighter to carry ten different sets of full plate without some kind of magic container, and would wholeheartedly support a ruling against that. However, our talks have led me to believe that we may face a real problem when looting various encounters in the midst of a dungeon crawl. Since we're starting at first level, we'd lack any truly viable means to go back and forth to and from town to unload everything after each encounter, not to mention the tedium such an endeavor would create. My questions on this point are: Is this ruling par for the course, or do most groups handwave these things in the absence of blatant abuse? How do y'all deal with this?
Another key point in our discussions deals with the implementation of magic. A minor point of debate has been with Prestidigitation. Can it do (very minor and innocuous) things not listed in the spell description? Our example was lighting a campfire. In 4e, Presto specifically says it can do this, but not in 3.5 or PF. I'm not looking to cover someone in pitch and set them alight, as I agree with the GM that this would outside the purview of the spell. I just wanted to have a more reliable means of lighting a torch or campfire than flint and steel, while not having to waste a precious spell slot. Also dealing with Presto, we discussed our differing opinions on how long clothing colored by Presto would stay colored. I wanted my character to have the freedom to wear a red vest one day, and a blue one the next, as I would find wearing the exact same thing tedious RP-wise (I mean, we're NOT cartoon characters). I said that it would act as if I had "soiled" the clothes with dye. He said I would have to cast it every hour to keep the color change. These are minor points, but I was just curious as to how our gaming sistren and brethren applied this spell.
Of far more critical concern to me was his attitude on casting spells outside of combat. This issue came up as we were discussing Charm Person, and whether the target would know it was being cast upon them, but the discussion would apply to any non-combat spellcasting. I had planned to make considerable use of this spell outside of combat, as the role of party face (one I greatly enjoy, and had been looking forward to) had basically defaulted to me. However, our GM told me to be ready to be attacked ANY time I cast a spell outside combat, as most people don't care to have spells cast near them. A somewhat reasonable rationale, but my point is that by ruling so, he has rendered the spell all but useless until Still Spell and perhaps Silent Spell come into play. Because either A) the target would have to be unaware of my presence, which doesn't make a lot of sense given the spell's purpose; or B) it's now a combat-only spell because we'd either be in combat already, or I'd be attacked immediately upon attempting to cast.
Basically, the contention came down to whether non-magic adept NPCs would realize a spell was being cast in the first place, and whether or not they knew it was intended for them. So basically the question is how do your groups tend to rule non-combat casting?
I'm really looking forward to trying my hand at PF (and have been for some time now), from both sides of the GM screen. So keeping the whole group interested and not discouraged is the paramount goal. I have a few other concerns, but I've already taken too much of y'all's time, and the less said about our discussions of UMD, the better. So thanks for any insight, and thanks for your time.
TL;DR - New PF Players, New GM. How to best get around strict RAWism and different interpretations. Or is this done at all? What is the procedure/etiquette? Thanks.