Spore
2015-08-23, 01:21 PM
"These shackles are immune to magic."
"The high security vault is a giant antimagic zone."
"This McGuffin is not affected by your Teleport spell."
These sentences and phrases I hear in my typical Pathfinder game. And this was quite aggravating in the last session we had. Before I start to rant, tho. I can accept a healthy dose of "you can't just waltz in there with 1st level magic". Where do you put the line between a good challenge and crippling the casters? Also I am by far not the primary caster in the group. This isn't to stroke my ego.
Our group setup:
Paladin/Mysterious Stranger (glass cannon, died twice already, ress by DM fiat and quest)
Vanilla Fighter (terribly built more likely T6 if that exists)
Bow Ranger (well built, solid T4)
Melee Investigator (me, I guess I am T3 now that I have a good list of extracts and am capable of surviving in melee)
Flame Oracle (she knows Fireball and doesnt bother to read up on any other of her spells)
Times Oracle (managing her spells well but has no attack option and is very busy keeping us alive because of our terrible builds as well as the fact that sometimes I have to tank encounters supposed for 6 players with a low AC d8 class)
So far, so dandy. I can accept the fact that you can't just go in using Disguise Self Extracts in a high security vault (in a high magic setting). I can accept that we have to plan how to get in and out. But the tendency to give our party quests that they wont solve themselves because they are too scared of the consequences. Also our DM is very scared of full casters and tries (in a very lazy attempt) to equalize a terribly built Fighter to a not even well built T2 casters.
Half of our missions so far:
- We had our questgiver buy a railroad company in order to protect a druid's hallowed grove because we didnt negotiate. -> Questgiver solved the discovered mystery
- We told the evil ruler of a country that there are vampires killing her townsfolk because a castle full of Vampires was too spooky for a band of 7th level adventurers who have enough Know Religion and the Arsenal of a Vampire Hunter to prepare. -> She proceeded to engage a band evil mercenaries that killed the vampires by nuking their castle with Fireballs (most likely allowing the head vampire to escape in the chaos).
- We engaged a known rogue to free the love interest of our Paladin because we were to scared to break into a high security vault.
Our DM's strength is improvisation. His weakness is therefore preparation. He likes moral choices and big monsters (that are simple to play). I simply cant think about a precise way to talk to him in order not to hurt his feelings while attempting to keep my complaints short and concised. I don't intend on insulting him or judge his style of DMing.
I ask you how you would deal with that? I like social play, and tricky missions that cannot be dungeon crawled. Yet I dispise the way he cripples some characters completely. The other players feel like the cannot contribute anything if it isnt skill based. The Fighter suffers greatly from it (I think her skills are Profession Cook and Climb while being too young for Breadth of Experience) while the Paladin, the Ranger and me are fine. I like the people, I like the DM and the campaign but the gameplay isn't up to snuff. The Fighter is skipping half of the sessions anyway.
The sessions are VERY much hit or miss. To compare: The same DM had no problems creating meaningful encounters with a Switch Hitter Ranger, a Con focussed Barbarian (AC 12), a debuffing witch and a support focussed oracle (supporting, healing or rerolling saves with dual cursed). All characters (except the Barbarian) were well built. I purposely built my oracle around keeping said Barbarian alive.
"The high security vault is a giant antimagic zone."
"This McGuffin is not affected by your Teleport spell."
These sentences and phrases I hear in my typical Pathfinder game. And this was quite aggravating in the last session we had. Before I start to rant, tho. I can accept a healthy dose of "you can't just waltz in there with 1st level magic". Where do you put the line between a good challenge and crippling the casters? Also I am by far not the primary caster in the group. This isn't to stroke my ego.
Our group setup:
Paladin/Mysterious Stranger (glass cannon, died twice already, ress by DM fiat and quest)
Vanilla Fighter (terribly built more likely T6 if that exists)
Bow Ranger (well built, solid T4)
Melee Investigator (me, I guess I am T3 now that I have a good list of extracts and am capable of surviving in melee)
Flame Oracle (she knows Fireball and doesnt bother to read up on any other of her spells)
Times Oracle (managing her spells well but has no attack option and is very busy keeping us alive because of our terrible builds as well as the fact that sometimes I have to tank encounters supposed for 6 players with a low AC d8 class)
So far, so dandy. I can accept the fact that you can't just go in using Disguise Self Extracts in a high security vault (in a high magic setting). I can accept that we have to plan how to get in and out. But the tendency to give our party quests that they wont solve themselves because they are too scared of the consequences. Also our DM is very scared of full casters and tries (in a very lazy attempt) to equalize a terribly built Fighter to a not even well built T2 casters.
Half of our missions so far:
- We had our questgiver buy a railroad company in order to protect a druid's hallowed grove because we didnt negotiate. -> Questgiver solved the discovered mystery
- We told the evil ruler of a country that there are vampires killing her townsfolk because a castle full of Vampires was too spooky for a band of 7th level adventurers who have enough Know Religion and the Arsenal of a Vampire Hunter to prepare. -> She proceeded to engage a band evil mercenaries that killed the vampires by nuking their castle with Fireballs (most likely allowing the head vampire to escape in the chaos).
- We engaged a known rogue to free the love interest of our Paladin because we were to scared to break into a high security vault.
Our DM's strength is improvisation. His weakness is therefore preparation. He likes moral choices and big monsters (that are simple to play). I simply cant think about a precise way to talk to him in order not to hurt his feelings while attempting to keep my complaints short and concised. I don't intend on insulting him or judge his style of DMing.
I ask you how you would deal with that? I like social play, and tricky missions that cannot be dungeon crawled. Yet I dispise the way he cripples some characters completely. The other players feel like the cannot contribute anything if it isnt skill based. The Fighter suffers greatly from it (I think her skills are Profession Cook and Climb while being too young for Breadth of Experience) while the Paladin, the Ranger and me are fine. I like the people, I like the DM and the campaign but the gameplay isn't up to snuff. The Fighter is skipping half of the sessions anyway.
The sessions are VERY much hit or miss. To compare: The same DM had no problems creating meaningful encounters with a Switch Hitter Ranger, a Con focussed Barbarian (AC 12), a debuffing witch and a support focussed oracle (supporting, healing or rerolling saves with dual cursed). All characters (except the Barbarian) were well built. I purposely built my oracle around keeping said Barbarian alive.