Group of TPKilling bullies. How to defend?

[Scryangi]

Good day, everyone. My friend plays in a toxic group. Basically they make the strongest character they can, then give them personality and alignment to have them do whatever they want, and then boss everyone around, claim all the loot, etc. and oneshot-kill anyone questioning their authority.

The Dm says "work it out ingame. Just do what he wants then or try to get by by yourself". Last night they started a new game, Pathfinder this time, and the Monk killed his character because in character, my friend wished to leave. "Hey, I am just role playing my char and he is evil". The Dm allows my friend to ressurect but now, at level 1, he has 5000 gold in debt. The monk however, is part of an evil guild that ressurects members for free so he has passive immunity to consequences.

Preferably my friend wishes for a way that he can continue playing his alchemist. He has been writing stories and drawing beautiful fanart of said character, but if that is not possible, then he is willing to play whatever is able to not get killed by bullies, or even kill them back.

I shall be copy pasting what he texted me in response to my questions.

The group is 1 bard half elf. basically imitates bard from league of legends, and has a mask with built in musical instrument (means they can play music and act normally at the same time)
also can float around (houseruled) and uses exploding summons
1 Orc Barbarian, using a Large sized Greatsword, focuses entirely on strength and raging.
power attack for additional dmg of course
easily capable of causing about 20 dmg with a normal attack (at lvl 1)
1 Monk, focusing on combat reflexes and getting as many attacks of opportunities as possible, while also favoring strength
1 Ghoul Sorcerer, focusing on debuff and field control. i didnt really see much of him yet but the player isnt that "mean" as the combat characters
1 Antipaladin as the GM character. Focusing on minion control and being tanky as ****.
and lastly, 1 alchemist (me), focused on crafting gear and potions.
can get a whopping +17 on crafting bows and arrows at lvl 1. and easily get to like +12 on crafting anything else, but has 5000 gold debts which get subtracted from any income she might make.

Right now, also remember i have -4.999 gold, which means, since a quest gives like 5 gold at the moment, i wont have ANY money (the money straaight up disappears from my inventory as soon as i get it) until we got to higher level quests.


Allowance: Core book only, no wizard, no leadership.
20 point Buy, all core races plus alternate racial traits.

Alignment: 2 lawful evil, 1 neutral evil, 1 chaotic evil, and 1 chaotic neutral

House Rules: Bard can float and play music without needing hands cuz of league of legends. Players get 2 traits or 1 extra feat at lvl 1. Players always resurrect at dungeon checkpoints or the town cathedral, for 5.000 gold which can accumulate to negative gold values, but that houserule got removed aafter the alchemist became unplayable.

gold gain is massively reduced, enemies dont drop gold unless humanoid, also quests give "level appropriate" loot, so about 1d10 gold per character level.


like i said, my dalialchemist is heavily specialized in crafting, and has both a tentacle and accellerated drinker and that intelligence use magic device by your suggestion. (He means Pragmatic Activator)


Any suggested builds please? Don't let the bullies win! D: This has been going on for months, and my friend can't find another group yet is unwilling to lose the only real life "friends" he has.

[legomaster00156]

Your question was answered when you wrote "toxic group". He should leave. He's already discussed it, and the GM is unwilling to help settle the group down. He should walk out and play this Alchemist in a different party.

[chimaeraUndying]

This is not a problem that can be resolved in-character. It's an issue between your friend, the other player, and the GM, and no amount of optimizing his character is gonna solve it.

As much as it's understandable that he's averse to leaving because he doesn't have a replacement group lined up, I feel that the adage "no gaming is better than bad gaming" is pretty relevant here -- if he's not deriving fun from a recreational activity, why's he continuing to do it?

[zlefin]

I strongly agree that this has to be resolved out of game, and by leaving the group.
toxic groups are bad and should simply be shunned and avoided. it sounds like they're also bullying the player; and that should not be tolerated at all.

there are other things you can try; but they're all far worse than the option of leaving.

[exelsisxax]

Jumping on the 100% invariably correct answer train: tell him to leave.

Maybe invite him into your own group if you've got one? Nothing wrong with putting the same character idea into a different campaign.

It's really pointless to try and solve OOC problems IC if everything is above-board and follows the rules. You're describing a cesspit with arbitrary free stuff and major houserules, wildly varying optimization levels(no, 20 damage is by no means a lot), and a DMPC when the DM gives a free pass on all of the above. There's no point making even a token IC attempt at resolution here.

[Zanos]

Is this group perchance painted red and dressed entirely in red flags wrapped around their body? Just wow.

I would not play with these wackos.

[Vizzerdrix]

Nope. Group or not, that isnt how friends act, and he has everything stacked against him. Time to vote with his feet and either just not show, or walk out.

Staying with a group like that can have a negative impact on a player. Im speaking from experiance here.

[Calthropstu]

Ah player killers. "I am evil so I get to be a douchebag."
Unlike the others, I would be happy to discuss ways to playerkill back. But the scenario you described suggests the gm is not passive, but is complicit. Your friend isn't just up against a party killing jerkwad, he's up against the gm.
There is little defense against a gm who enables such jerkiness. The only way to fight "The gm gives me free resurrects just because and I am gonna keep killing your character unless I get my way" is to walk away. Beating a jerk player at his own game is fun, but it's impossible when he is getting gm support.

[The Glyphstone]

Nope. Group or not, that isnt how friends act, and he has everything stacked against him. Time to vote with his feet and either just not show, or walk out.

Staying with a group like that can have a negative impact on a player. Im speaking from experiance here.

Or just read any of Talakeal's threads, and look upon the Stockholme Syndrome developing thereof.

[Scryangi]

Thank you everyone; I shall certainly show him this thread and all your replies.

The Dm is less a jerk and more a naive pushover. "Everyone should be able to play their character the way they wish." You know, the kind of parent that tells her bullied child to just make friends with the 6 feet tall bullies that star in the Football team, or tell the teachers. However, unlike real life, in D&D he can just get 50 pounds of muscle on him and force them to play nice, while still being the cute, intellectual, kind artist that he is.

So what I am saying, is that I actually still want the Anti Bully Builds, preferably as an archer alchemist.

[Hackulator]

Here's my question: Is EVERYONE always killing each other, stealing **** from each other and generally causing conflict and he is the only one who has a problem with it while everyone else is entertained, laughing and enjoying themselves? Or is he the only one who is getting constantly screwed with? The latter is a toxic group, the former is just a WEIRD group. If it's the latter, everyone is right he should leave. If its the former, then helping him optimize and murder people who **** with him could turn this into a fun group for him.

Also, you kept switching pronouns to "I" during your post. If this post is about you, its cool to just go ahead and say so.

[zlefin]

Thank you everyone; I shall certainly show him this thread and all your replies.

The Dm is less a jerk and more a naive pushover. "Everyone should be able to play their character the way they wish." You know, the kind of parent that tells her bullied child to just make friends with the 6 feet tall bullies that star in the Football team, or tell the teachers. However, unlike real life, in D&D he can just get 50 pounds of muscle on him and force them to play nice, while still being the cute, intellectual, kind artist that he is.

So what I am saying, is that I actually still want the Anti Bully Builds, preferably as an archer alchemist.

and actions hav econsequences, and teamkillers should face them, things like murder charges.
and there's a dmpc in the mix, more red flags.

if you want to try anyways (still not recommended); I still recommend OOC fixes since it's more an OOC issue. The simplest is the pizza bribe. If you're bringing the pizza/snacks, you get to demand bonuses, like not being tk'ed at all, and free resurrects or something. not a healthy social dynamic still.

[Vizzerdrix]

Okay.. Start a new character and buy the cheapest med or large livestock you can find. Tweak all available skill points into handle animal, then stampead the party.

Since background silliness is in play, have him play a child with an iron golem nanny. Or even better, the antichrist. That should be worth free ressurections and minions from daddy.

[Scryangi]

Here's my question: Is EVERYONE always killing each other, stealing **** from each other and generally causing conflict and he is the only one who has a problem with it while everyone else is entertained, laughing and enjoying themselves? Or is he the only one who is getting constantly screwed with? The latter is a toxic group, the former is just a WEIRD group. If it's the latter, everyone is right he should leave. If its the former, then helping him optimize and murder people who **** with him could turn this into a fun group for him.

Also, you kept switching pronouns to "I" during your post. If this post is about you, its cool to just go ahead and say so.

Well the Dm and sorcerer would simply like to have fun and for everyone to get along. Group has Cheese Builds in it? Level up the encounters. Bards can have both hands free in LoL so yours should too? Well...okay.


And I am most certainly not said player. I am just on a mobile and mentioned that I would copy paste what he told me--in first person thus.

[Oathstone]

Stop playing with those douchebags.

[Buufreak]

Wow, this one really is a mess. I am seconding the idea of going all meta-backstory on these d-bags. Or, just go for as powerful of an OP build as imaginable (I suggest lvl1 pun pun) and roflstomp them into next week, and when they bitch and complain, tell them that is just how your character would act. If that sort of excuse works for them, let it work for you as well.

[phlidwsn]

I'm voting with No Gaming is Better Than Bad Gaming. But if your friend insists, suggest they go Full Henderson (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson) and embrace the Chaos.

[Zanos]

I'm voting with No Gaming is Better Than Bad Gaming.
Bad gaming is fine if you don't take it to heart. It gives you a great conversation piece.

[flappeercraft]

Make Pun Pun and spawnkill everyone

[Demidos]

At least in your opening post, you say they boss everyone around equally. So, as far as I see, they're not actively trying to be jerks, they just enjoy very adversarial playing. I see a couple options --

1. Make a character stronger than the rest, then don't abuse your authority, or force everyone to work together.
2. Leave the group.
3. Tell the DM out of character the problem, and ask if you can join the same guild as the monk and see if they can forgive your debt, since that infinite free rezzes seems unfairly strong.
4. Talk to the DM, and then to the other players, and say while you get they enjoy PvP and building the strongest character, you're more interested in just having a character that's playable and has part of the spotlight, and ask them what it would take for them to play in a cooperative game instead of a confrontational one. If they say they have to respect your character IC, then go with option 1.
5. Be a jerk right back at them, make a character that murders them all in their sleep and reveals it was your alchemist's half brother, then leave the group.

Personally, I would try them in order --
4,3,1,2,5 meaning I'd never actually do 5. It sounds like more of a poor communication issue between players, and I'm sure we were all there when we were 12 years old. Explain that being evil doesn't mean not having or murdering one's friends, or otherwise being okay with it being done to you, since just "murdering everyone BUT your 3 party mates" isn't really that much to ask. Even criminal cartels usually don't backstab each other right and left, or there wouldn't be anyone left.

If he still insists on being a jerk and says only option 1 will convince him, kill him repeatedly until he's good. Then burn his body so he can't return. Then try adding handcuffs and never let him out so he can't die and can't return, and hand him in to the city watch, since that's the problem with being randomly violent evil -- no one likes you. Tell him what you're going to do though and why, so he can't complain about it later.

[Gildedragon]

Ditch the group.
But before that, if you must, talk to them to cut it out. If they don't...
Well poison the monk. Sell the monk's gear

[Arbane]

Tell off PKer for being a jerk who's Just Playing Their Character(tm), then leave.

Oh, you've GOT to do this the hard way? Okay....

Is the rest of the group as sick of this guy as I already am? Gang up on him and feed the corpse to pigs. Let's see his guild bring him back from that.
No? Kill them all in their sleep. You're Just Playing Your Character(tm)! THEN LEAVE. NOTHING GOOD WILL COME FROM STAYING.

[Jay R]

Thank you everyone; I shall certainly show him this thread and all your replies.

The Dm is less a jerk and more a naive pushover. "Everyone should be able to play their character the way they wish."

The problem with this argument is that it's false. Everybody isn't able to play their character the way they wish. Your friend can't play his character the way he wishes, leading you to ask the internet to help find a way to let him play it as he wishes.

He needs to either walk away, or tell the DM, "I can't play my character the way I wish, because the monk player prevents it. Will you fix it, so I can play my character the way I wish, or will you continue to run the game so only one player can play his character the way he wishes?"

[This won't work, by the way. The monk player wants to defeat the other players. He will never be on the same side as your friend.]

Your friend needs a game of players who see a party as teammates. This isn't that game, and won't become that game.

[Goaty14]

Leave the group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome)

If he is determined to stay in the group, cheese is hard to pull out on 1st level. Either A.
-Pull out the evil PC "rules" to the DM outside of play (probably won't work)
-Diplomancer, start punching the DM on all of the skill checks you're making to make the other guys turn from "hostile" to "friendly"

[Hackulator]

Leave the group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome)

If he is determined to stay in the group, cheese is hard to pull out on 1st level. Either A.
-Pull out the evil PC "rules" to the DM outside of play (probably won't work)
-Diplomancer, start punching the DM on all of the skill checks you're making to make the other guys turn from "hostile" to "friendly"

Diplomacy only works on NPCs.

[Scryangi]

Thank you for all your kind replies. I laughed with the spawn camping. I shall also try to get the player to make an account here on this site.

Since this issue has been going on for a loooong time, talking it out won't work. I also think he uses either Skype or Roll20 so pizza is a great but not feasible solution.

Using PunPun, Chicken Commoner, or Bag Of Rats will probably get vetoed out by the DM.

The best solution, I think, is to look at the party balance: the 2 bullies don't bully each other, because obviously, they can't one-shot the other and thus risk actual consequences. What he needs, is a "normal" build that is strong enough to keep them in line. Some paladin that can kick their butts but is otherwise more focused on the mission than preaching to them. Like the Avenger / Judge Dredd / Batman archetype suggested by http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2k9xc?Thallins-Guide-To-Paladins

So, a regular cheesy build that is tough enough to not get killed by them, and can disable if not kill them when needed. Dual Wielding Shielder or so?

[Jay R]

... if, and only if, he likes the game of "Bully", and wants to start winning it.

[zlefin]

if he uses skype or roll20, then he's not playing in perosn; but on the internet. and on the internet it's far easier to find other groups of people to play with.
so he should even more strongly bail, as it's far easier to find decent enough people on the internet.

[Scryangi]

if he uses skype or roll20, then he's not playing in perosn; but on the internet. and on the internet it's far easier to find other groups of people to play with.
so he should even more strongly bail, as it's far easier to find decent enough people on the internet.

Well, he knows them in real life--barely--and they live in the same country, so he really doesn't want to lose them because they are the only actual physical friends he has. If I lived there, I would do one on one sessions with him, but alas. I even lack the technological capacity to play on Roll20.

[Ellrin]

Well, he knows them in real life--barely--and they live in the same country, so he really doesn't want to lose them because they are the only actual physical friends he has. If I lived there, I would do one on one sessions with him, but alas. I even lack the technological capacity to play on Roll20.

That's still simple enough--he just needs to have a serious, brief OOC chat with them--"Hey, guys, I gave it a shot, but I'm not really enjoying this that much. I think I should probably bail. Maybe we can try doing something else when you guys aren't doing D&D?"

If they're any kind of friends worth having, they're not going to start shunning him just because he doesn't want to play one game with them.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Scryangi
Well, he knows them in real life--barely--and they live in the same country, so he really doesn't want to lose them because they are the only actual physical friends he has.

This is a terrible situation, because they probably know they’re the only physical friends he has, and they’re abusing that to take advantage of him.

The sooner he leaves this group, the better.

.

[Arbane]

Well, he knows them in real life--barely--and they live in the same country, so he really doesn't want to lose them because they are the only actual physical friends he has. If I lived there, I would do one on one sessions with him, but alas. I even lack the technological capacity to play on Roll20.

If these are his friends, he needs to have a nice, friendly talk with them OUTSIDE THE GAME and try to convince them to stop being such massive jerks.

If they won't, they're not friends.

[Scryangi]

Or just read any of Talakeal's threads, and look upon the Stockholme Syndrome developing thereof.

Could you link me to the relevant threads, please?

[xXAmaroqXx]

Hi. So I'm the Alchemist in question.

The Problem I am having is the following:
My group consists mostly of comparatively young and inexperienced players and GM, we played Scion before, but for pathfinder this is a first timer.

I shall run down the group constellation and player personalities.

First and foremost is the GM. He's a creative guy but not 100% tight on the rules, and still a little unsure of how to approach the entire houserule thing. He sort of wants to run the game MMO-RPG style (sorta like World of Warcraft), so he is not as burdoned about coming up with an expansive plot or explanations why players respawn.
His philosophy is to let every player do as they want, he will do nothing to force us to perform a specific behaviour. In the past, that meant that players could do what they want, and would not get punished for bad behaviour: if you could do something, the only thing that could stop you was another PC or NPC. He has his rules, announces them, and then sticks to them no matter what happens.

Next up is the Monk you already heard about. The Monk player enjoys being the strongest, he uses internet guides and enjoys optimized builds. In the aforementioned Scion game, he had a character that turned even his weaknesses into strengths using very specific feats (knacks, in scion) and magic items (birthrights). He is the guy that walks around with a swollen chest, knowing he is the strongest character and while most people are annoyed at what he does (he regularly performs Player killing) he doesnt have to fear many consequences. As a group effort, we managed to kill his character once in scion, and the result was that his second character was basically the same, with a few utility skills replaced with even more combat skills. He does what he wants, because he knows nobody can stop him, and the GM is unwilling to "send in an army just to punish a player" thinking of that as bad GMing.

We also got that orc barbarian. He's usually playing erratic and chaotic. The player isnt necessarily mean or bad, he does what he finds funny at the moment, and is willing to endanger players by attacking them, though usually not with killing intend, just to annoy them or have them do what he wants. He's not exactly optimized, but put all eggs into one basket by getting a huge "giant greatsword" dealing 3d6 base damage and having 26 strength (without rage) to wield it. This causes him to be ridiculously strong, and if the GM played it correctly, he was able to singlehandedly kill a group of 4 CR2, and 1 CR3 opponents while raging, giving him a huge boost in gold and XP above everyone else.

Then there's the bard, who is the party face and group support. The bard is sort of neutral and doesn't do much other than having fun and staying out of trouble. It should be mentioned she's the GM's girlfriend, and least experienced with roleplaying, so she has a few boni and benefits people are willing to accept. (Aka nobody would bully her) but she plays normally and doesnt do bad stuff. Shes the only non evil character in the playing group.

Then there's the control sorcerer. He didnt play much yet, but he's usually a laid back guy who enjoys to troll other characters every now and then, and attacks people if they try to manipulate them in any way - usually having the burst damage to wound or kill them. He likes to play extreme character types, like super tanks or super glass cannons. Doesn't grief other people, but when provoked, doesnt hold back and tries to kill players.

Lastly, there's me. I play a half elf Alchemist, mostly as the AoE Bomb support and item provider and via potions, single target support. I like to take charge in the group and dictate the plan of actions (usually foiled by the monk player who turns every quest into a bloodbath, he LOVES to imitate "Leeroy Jenkins" and charges in where he can shine best. Forget about stealth or planning). However, just as the others I am pretty new to Pathfinder and have no idea how to protect myself from other people.


------------------------

The Situation was this:
Me and the Monk player travelled to some cave, finding a bear inside. I asked the monk if he thought we could take on the bear, and he disagreed, telling me he was low on HP and didn't want to take the risk. I asked him why he didnt heal up back in town as we just started the quest, and he said its too expensive, hed rather just tag along and snack the quest rewards. So i scolded him for being a wuss and sending the support in front, because he didnt want to spend a few silver for a local healer, and proceeded to walk back out the cave (since I couldnt take on a bear with a club, sling and padded +1 armor). So the Monk attacked me in the back as i walked past him without a previous warning (what do you roll to notice sneak attacks, and how do you defend against them?), got a hit, and hit me for 10 HP (i have 9), then left me to die. GM revived me at last checkpoint, and deducted the revival fee of 5k gold, telling me I now have negative gold and whenever i gain gold, i first have to repay the debts automatically until i have regular gold gain again (since he plays it like an MMO, having a negative gold value is possible in his interpretation). Since he finds the gold rewards for encounters way too high (almost 170 G for a lvl 1 enemy?) gold rewards are rather low, meaning i wont be able to get gold until about level 3. Alternatively he allows me to make a new character starting at 0 XP (I am at 600).

The Monk is in a guild that specializes in being evil, and encourages / rewards the members for killing other players. HOWEVER, since he is below a certain XP value, he will get revived for free, should he ever get killed until about lvl 2. So knowing this, the monk carelessly killed me, and revels in the fact that should I use my bombs to kill him, he doesnt have any disadvantage from it other than respawning at some checkpoint, while i expend valuable bomb slots for the day - AND give him reasons to just kill me again, since he totally can do that.

I told the GM that negative gold is stupid because this means I wont be able to even buy food or tavern beds unless i hunt it myself, and i wont be able to pay for gear and items for ages, and even if someone lends me money, the money first disappears to pay for my debts. Considering I am the crafter of the party, that debt just destroys my character concept.

-------------------------------------

So I would like to know how to handle players who openly threaten to kill my character, while the GM stays out of player interactions entirely. I play a support, and everyone else is more combat capable than me, and I dont know how to be around a group without having them kill me on a whim. What options does an alchemist have to stay alive?
How do I build a character that can stand its ground at least somewhat against builds the others found on the internet?

Mostly, id like to be an alchemist crafter with ranged combat, though I am open for other things as well.

My Build so far is:
10 Str, 14Dex, 10 Con, 20 Int, 8 Wis, 10 Cha.
Notable skills:
Acrobatics 2, Craft (around 8 on average), Knowledge (Arcana, Nature) at 9, Perception 5, Use Magic Device 9. Everything else is around or below 2.

Feats: Extra Discovery: Tentacle (Symbolizing a tail), Aaccellerated Drinker, and Pragmatic Activator, also all the standard alchemist stuff.

My current equipment is mostly crafting kits and utility gear, my weapons are a club and sling, as well as my bombs (6 bombs, 1d6+5dmg)

My Extracts are: Heightened Awareness, Crafter's Fortune, Cure Light Wounds, Reduce Person, Expeditious Retreat, Shield and lastly Targeted Bomb Admixture



Did I forget anything? <.<
I'm really not willing to ditch the group as those are the people I always hang out with and dont really have an alternative. So how do I make the best out of what I have?

[zyggythorn]

I'm gonna say something slightly different: I think that PF/DnD is the wrong game for this group.

What you really should be playing with this kind of setup is Murderhobo.

The way I see it, the group dynamic is not that good for anything long reaching and mechanically toothy- there's too much to be lost with a bunch of internal group kills, loot and XP wise.

As it is, you should definitely bring it up at the table, preferably right before game. Come to a gentlemen's agreement that killing each other is just a **** move, and that your killing power is multiplied when you work together.

Maybe ask the GM about giving every party member the benefits of the Monk's guild.

And if all of that doesn't work? It's not worth it. There are plenty of other groups out there who won't abuse your good faith.

[emeraldstreak]

Hi. So I'm the Alchemist in question.

The Problem I am having is the following:
My group consists mostly of comparatively young and inexperienced players and GM, we played Scion before, but for pathfinder this is a first timer.

I shall run down the group constellation and player personalities.

First and foremost is the GM. He's a creative guy but not 100% tight on the rules, and still a little unsure of how to approach the entire houserule thing. He sort of wants to run the game MMO-RPG style (sorta like World of Warcraft), so he is not as burdoned about coming up with an expansive plot or explanations why players respawn.
His philosophy is to let every player do as they want, he will do nothing to force us to perform a specific behaviour. In the past, that meant that players could do what they want, and would not get punished for bad behaviour: if you could do something, the only thing that could stop you was another PC or NPC. He has his rules, announces them, and then sticks to them no matter what happens.

Next up is the Monk you already heard about. The Monk player enjoys being the strongest, he uses internet guides and enjoys optimized builds. In the aforementioned Scion game, he had a character that turned even his weaknesses into strengths using very specific feats (knacks, in scion) and magic items (birthrights). He is the guy that walks around with a swollen chest, knowing he is the strongest character and while most people are annoyed at what he does (he regularly performs Player killing) he doesnt have to fear many consequences. As a group effort, we managed to kill his character once in scion, and the result was that his second character was basically the same, with a few utility skills replaced with even more combat skills. He does what he wants, because he knows nobody can stop him, and the GM is unwilling to "send in an army just to punish a player" thinking of that as bad GMing.

We also got that orc barbarian. He's usually playing erratic and chaotic. The player isnt necessarily mean or bad, he does what he finds funny at the moment, and is willing to endanger players by attacking them, though usually not with killing intend, just to annoy them or have them do what he wants. He's not exactly optimized, but put all eggs into one basket by getting a huge "giant greatsword" dealing 3d6 base damage and having 26 strength (without rage) to wield it. This causes him to be ridiculously strong, and if the GM played it correctly, he was able to singlehandedly kill a group of 4 CR2, and 1 CR3 opponents while raging, giving him a huge boost in gold and XP above everyone else.

Then there's the bard, who is the party face and group support. The bard is sort of neutral and doesn't do much other than having fun and staying out of trouble. It should be mentioned she's the GM's girlfriend, and least experienced with roleplaying, so she has a few boni and benefits people are willing to accept. (Aka nobody would bully her) but she plays normally and doesnt do bad stuff. Shes the only non evil character in the playing group.

Then there's the control sorcerer. He didnt play much yet, but he's usually a laid back guy who enjoys to troll other characters every now and then, and attacks people if they try to manipulate them in any way - usually having the burst damage to wound or kill them. He likes to play extreme character types, like super tanks or super glass cannons. Doesn't grief other people, but when provoked, doesnt hold back and tries to kill players.

Lastly, there's me. I play a half elf Alchemist, mostly as the AoE Bomb support and item provider and via potions, single target support. I like to take charge in the group and dictate the plan of actions (usually foiled by the monk player who turns every quest into a bloodbath, he LOVES to imitate "Leeroy Jenkins" and charges in where he can shine best. Forget about stealth or planning). However, just as the others I am pretty new to Pathfinder and have no idea how to protect myself from other people.


------------------------

The Situation was this:
Me and the Monk player travelled to some cave, finding a bear inside. I asked the monk if he thought we could take on the bear, and he disagreed, telling me he was low on HP and didn't want to take the risk. I asked him why he didnt heal up back in town as we just started the quest, and he said its too expensive, hed rather just tag along and snack the quest rewards. So i scolded him for being a wuss and sending the support in front, because he didnt want to spend a few silver for a local healer, and proceeded to walk back out the cave (since I couldnt take on a bear with a club, sling and padded +1 armor). So the Monk attacked me in the back as i walked past him without a previous warning (what do you roll to notice sneak attacks, and how do you defend against them?), got a hit, and hit me for 10 HP (i have 9), then left me to die. GM revived me at last checkpoint, and deducted the revival fee of 5k gold, telling me I now have negative gold and whenever i gain gold, i first have to repay the debts automatically until i have regular gold gain again (since he plays it like an MMO, having a negative gold value is possible in his interpretation). Since he finds the gold rewards for encounters way too high (almost 170 G for a lvl 1 enemy?) gold rewards are rather low, meaning i wont be able to get gold until about level 3. Alternatively he allows me to make a new character starting at 0 XP (I am at 600).

The Monk is in a guild that specializes in being evil, and encourages / rewards the members for killing other players. HOWEVER, since he is below a certain XP value, he will get revived for free, should he ever get killed until about lvl 2. So knowing this, the monk carelessly killed me, and revels in the fact that should I use my bombs to kill him, he doesnt have any disadvantage from it other than respawning at some checkpoint, while i expend valuable bomb slots for the day - AND give him reasons to just kill me again, since he totally can do that.

I told the GM that negative gold is stupid because this means I wont be able to even buy food or tavern beds unless i hunt it myself, and i wont be able to pay for gear and items for ages, and even if someone lends me money, the money first disappears to pay for my debts. Considering I am the crafter of the party, that debt just destroys my character concept.

-------------------------------------

So I would like to know how to handle players who openly threaten to kill my character, while the GM stays out of player interactions entirely. I play a support, and everyone else is more combat capable than me, and I dont know how to be around a group without having them kill me on a whim. What options does an alchemist have to stay alive?
How do I build a character that can stand its ground at least somewhat against builds the others found on the internet?

Mostly, id like to be an alchemist crafter with ranged combat, though I am open for other things as well.

My Build so far is:
10 Str, 14Dex, 10 Con, 20 Int, 8 Wis, 10 Cha.
Notable skills:
Acrobatics 2, Craft (around 8 on average), Knowledge (Arcana, Nature) at 9, Perception 5, Use Magic Device 9. Everything else is around or below 2.

Feats: Extra Discovery: Tentacle (Symbolizing a tail), Aaccellerated Drinker, and Pragmatic Activator, also all the standard alchemist stuff.

My current equipment is mostly crafting kits and utility gear, my weapons are a club and sling, as well as my bombs (6 bombs, 1d6+5dmg)

My Extracts are: Heightened Awareness, Crafter's Fortune, Cure Light Wounds, Reduce Person, Expeditious Retreat, Shield and lastly Targeted Bomb Admixture



Did I forget anything? <.<
I'm really not willing to ditch the group as those are the people I always hang out with and dont really have an alternative. So how do I make the best out of what I have?

Seems you are a glutton for...weirdness. As you wish.

5000 gold >>> 600 xp

Now that we have this out of the way, you have two options:

- go for a strong well-rounded character

- go for revenge with a PvP character

I suggest the former and chalk up the alchemist murder as a reaction to all the scolding.

[Tytalus]

The good advice has already been given: don't play with people who don't respect you.

If you want to play the monk's game, either create a new character just like your current one and start fresh, with no negative money. Bonus points for a new backstory that allows free revives. Or, you know, immunity from monk attacks.

[Ellrin]

<snip>

Yeah, I'm gonna agree with zyggy here and suggest this is not a good group to play Pathfinder with. It sounds like at least two of the players (the monk and the sorcerer) are at least as much in it for PvP as they are for PvE, and the barbarian's player seems to be perfectly fine with falling into that pacing. I don't have a ton of experience with anything outside of games that are built with the expectation that the party will mostly be working together, so I don't have any recommendations, but I think the group would have more fun with a game built around players trying to gank each other.

I mean, your only practical choice here if you want to keep playing with them, they don't want to try a different system, and they don't want to play in a non-antagonistic manner with each other is to abandon your character concept, find a cheesier build than the monk (which shouldn't be hard—no matter how optimized he is, he's still just a monk) that your DM will accept, and give better than you get. Steal and sell their loot after you kill them so there are still consequences, since apparently free resurrection is a thing. Eventually they'll get the message. Keep in mind that the best builds at very low levels aren't necessarily ones that involve combat—as an example, if you optimize your diplomacy and/or bluff enough, as well as your ability to escape combat (buy a mount that can outrun the monk, for instance), you can avoid combat yourself while sending hordes of NPCs after the other players.

Still, I'd consider that the absolute last option. If they don't want to play a game that's more in line with the PvP focus they're bringing to this one (or you don't), you should probably just leave the game and find something else you can do as a group.

[zlefin]

find a videogame to play; wherein the rules against teamkilling are enforced by the game engine (maybe one where it's simply impossible to hurt other players, or at least impossible to hurt allied players).
it sounds like they'd almost like that more anyways.

[Calthropstu]

Pun-Pun curb stomping does not work... It's Pathfinder, not 3.5.
So Alchemist eh? Let's take a look at your options.
Easy options:
Since we are talking low level, I recommend poison. As an alchemist, it's a perfectly viable background story. Get a bunch of poison, apply it to some arrows, get a scroll of improved invisibility and flat out poison murder the rest of the party.
Burn their bodies to ash and scatter their ashes.
Add points into diplomacy and convince the bully's organization that the guy was planning to betray their organiztion, and they won't fork out money for true ressurection.
Diplomancer: A diplomancer build will be able to convince powerful groups that the bully's group is a threat... have the bully's group taken out. No more free res. Alternatively, get the group to really really like you, bluff that he is planning betrayal and have his group murder him.
Sleep murder: coup de grace him in his sleep and destroy his body completely. Argue that no group will pay for a true res for a lvl 1 nobody.
Trap the soul: Purchase spell casting services for a trap the soul, using the trigger variety. Sell his soul to a crafter demon. Soul gets used in crafting, no more ressurections possible.

[eldskald]

Well, let's take it to the start. First, about rules: Players should not be able to wield large two handed weapons. Rules says that to wield a weapon one size category larger, they get a -4 attack penalty and the weapon itself gets one weapon size category bigger, meaning a large dagger becomes a one handed, a large longsword becomes two handed and a large greatsword is, well, unwieldable. What do you roll to notice a stab in the back? First, Perception. Then, Initiative. Also, how did the Orc got 26 strength without rage at this level? Rules say you can't start with more than 18 in an ability score before race adjustments, and for a reason. So either he is very very rich and has a +4 Belt of Giant Strength (that's 16k gold) or it's a houserule. Knowing that came from first timers to PF, there are probably more mistakes.

Secondly, to the alchemist. As they said, 5k gold is a lot more valuable than 600 xp. Start again. Don't let your character join them at first level, do some grinding before joining them. Talk to the GM to do sessions with you alone, like, with only you online on the MMO grinding before joining your other friends. Let's say that, well, talking about fighting, alchemists are waaaaaaay better than monks and maybe even better than barbarians in some compositions. If you want to become a player killing machine, you can do it at lv 2. You can do a ragebred skinwalker (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/more-races/standard-races-1-10-rp/skinwalkers-10-rp#Wereboar-Kin_Ragebred) and take extra feature (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/extra-feature) for your first feat. Shapechange to get hooves and gore attacks, never shapechange back. Grind to level 2 and get feral mutagen (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/feral-mutagen/), allowing you to do 4 attacks at full BAB and 2 at -5 BAB right at level 2. Six attacks at that level is enough to shred even the raging orc to pieces, knowing he loses AC and mutagen is better than rage at this point. If you go for this build, favor Str>Con=Int>Dex>Wis>Cha. Dump Cha to the ground. Now, if you want to stick to the bomber, you can start a grenadier (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/archetypes/paizo-alchemist-archetypes/grenadier) and grind to level 2 too. At level 2, you will be able to stick tanglefoot bags (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/alchemical-weapons/#TOC-Tanglefoot-Bag) to your arrows, cutting their speed in half or gluing them to the ground, which allows you to outspeed and keep shooting them to death. Don't forget you can also throw them against their touch AC if you're afraid to miss the first shot. After that, their AC drops significantly and you're good to go. For the discovery, you can get explosive bomb for damage or ice bomb for safety. I think ice bomb is better for PKing. Heck, you can even get tanglefoot bomb for more glue! There are more things to stick to your arrows, such as alchemist's fire (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/alchemical-weapons/#TOC-Alchemist-s-Fire) for lots of damage, thunderstone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/alchemical-weapons/#TOC-Thunderstone) to screw casters. To this build, go for like 20 Int and 16 Dex, screw the rest. Just try to keep around 12 Con and be able to carry your ammo around (handy haversack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/bag-handy-haversack/) is a godsend). This build also allows you to be king of crafting if you take tumor familiar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/tumor-familiar-ex/) with the valet (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar/familiar-archetypes/valet-familiar-archetype/) archetype, allowing you to craft tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fire in a few hours. For extracts, keep an eye on shield (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/shield), adhesive spittle (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/adhesive-spittle), and targeted bomb admixture (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/targeted-bomb-admixture) for levels 3 and higher. You should also join this guild that gives you immunity to consequences. The DM should realize it's broken and shall release a patch nerfing it. Good luck! You can become king of bully land!

Now, looks like playing in bully land is not really your style. Try to talk to them, really. You will either become a bully yourself or do it and have no fun.

[Mjr Lee Fat]

I'm actually really interested in this now. I want to know how the monk player is going to react if he's killed by another party member (specifically, your alchemist). I'm pretty sure that he's going to throw a massive fit like the child he is, but I could be surprised. PLEASE tell me that you'll keep us posted?...

[Ellrin]

I'm actually really interested in this now. I want to know how the monk player is going to react if he's killed by another party member (specifically, your alchemist). I'm pretty sure that he's going to throw a massive fit like the child he is, but I could be surprised. PLEASE tell me that you'll keep us posted?...

From the information we've gotten, it sounds like permanently killing the monk is going to be obnoxiously difficult, he doesn't care if he's killed temporarily since he gets free resurrection services (seriously wtf), and if he is permanently killed he'll probably find a stronger build online and keep playing in exactly the same manner.

Basically it sounds like killing him isn't going to be something he cares about. If this is the game we have to play, I strongly suggest ignoring violence as comeuppance and instead focusing on making yourself as annoying and difficult to kill as possible--stealing loot and keeping out of reach of any retribution would be effective, since a mundane without items, even a monk, is a failed mundane.

Once he's leveled up sufficiently that resurrection is no longer compensated, doing this will effectively neuter his character--the higher level he is, the more he relies on WBL to keep him alive, and the less loot he has, the less he has to pay off the cost of being resurrected--so he actually has to play cautiously.

A diplomancy, stealth, and sleight of hand focused empiricist investigator with the student of philosophy trait could probably wreck his day several times over without ever letting him actually die.

[Calthropstu]

Bad gm, toxic group... walk away. The story that the player told confirms it... this gm is BAD. Is he a teenager?
Pathfinder is not WOW. Nor should it be played as such.
WALK AWAY.

[xXAmaroqXx]

Hi. Thanks for the many responses. I'll try to cover all of them, but if I miss something, please forgive and/or remind me.

About ditching the group:
The problem here is that that's my friends cycle. There's no real alternative in finding other players because we play in our own language via teamspeak and roll 20, and I simply don't know any other german speaking roleplayers. Also, usually we get along well, it simply turned out that we have very varying interpretations of what roleplaying should be, with most of the others favouring "do what you want 'cuz a pirate is free" and the whole anarchy is great thing over the classic "lets group up and kill dragons!" which I would love to do. However, I do feel abused by some players and the GM backing them up by simply not doing anything about it and instead making sure to clean up the mess we leave behind (mostly referring to scion here, as we didnt do much pathfinder). Which leads to mass murders and "I kill that civilian because they looked at me the wrong way" scenarios which stay completely without issues, because the GM always has a high and mighty NPC nearby that will just do their thing and nobody minds anymore. Or in the case of this MMORPG style game: "they're NPC, they're not programmed to react to what you do."
So GM claims neutrality and not favouring any style of play, but his lack of action in my eyes heavily favors anarchic behaviour. However, I fail to convince him to really include consequences into the game. Because according to his logic, that way id try to force the others to act my way.

About the players actively looking for PvP:
Yes, there is some competition between who has the larger p....erks. Particularly between the combat focused players. They are a lot more dominant than the rest and make use of their ingame strength compared to less combat heavy participants.

About the players / gm being immature:
Some of the players are still late teens, and the GM as well as me are relatively inexperienced.

About taking Punpun and screwing my other players:
Thats sadly not possible. Our GM is very aware of what Punpun is, and frequents the internet to look for too broken builds to either counter them or forbide them. Which is something I am alright with. Also, the next thing is, that if i started to play something clearly too broken with the intention to screw up the game, what would stop the GM from just kicking me out?

About the Barbarian having 26 str. and a huge two handed sword and other rule illegal things:
Yes, most of them were probably non intended oversights. We all more or less made our characters together, and nobody noticed anything wrong with them. Like I said, this is our first game of pathfinder, and we are all pretty new to this. I'd go as far as to say I am the most rule versed person in our group, and I didn't notice it being illegal either. However, seeing how the game is going for a few sessions already now though, I doubt anyone will waant to take those free things away from the player now, especially since they werent taken with evil intend (pun intended though).

About permanently killing off characters:
The rule is this: If you die, you get resurrected at the closest checkpoint, be that a church, or a save statue (like in front of a dungeon). You automatically loose 5k gold, instead of the usual limitations of reviving people. If you cannot afford the fee, you get negative gold, which is subtracted from any future gold you gain until the debts are paid. Permanent death is as far as I understand, impossible. Though i can see a few ways that would technically cause permadeath, like negative levels and ability drain and stuff like that, but i think the GM just never thought about that yet.

The free resurrection depends on the players XP and is basically a noob-protection provided in that town thats ruled by the PKer guild. If XP dont exceed a certain amount, i think 500 or 1000 or 1500... Something level 1-ish... you wont get that fee.
So as soon as the monk gets out of that free death protection, he is just as susceptible to dieing as anyone else. buuuuut then he would just come back for revenge and while i as alchemist have daily limited ressources, there's no real limit on melee attacks.


About the feral mutagen path:
I dont really understand how that works. I gain claws and a maw attack, but why are they all in addition to regular attacks and why at full BaB? Don't I just have 1 attack, at level 1, (or 2, 3?)

About the Bombing part:
I can't really take grenadier because I already took Metallurgist. However, if I choose to remake my character, of course i could choose that over it. Any ideas for Metallurgist, or is that just a worse alchemist whatsoever? (he does loose all poison stuff, and two discoveries)

About Poison:
Same as above. As Metallurgist, poisons are unavailable to me, i think. Also, I keep hearing poison sucks due to low DC's and is overexpensive. And I somewhat agree with the pricings being weird, seeing how some fire arrows can easily cost over 700 gold - per piece. Why would anyone pay for that?

About using Diplomacy to get NPCs on my side:
Is there any trick to it, other than just dumping 1 skill rank into it at every level interval?

About Monk relying on WBL to survive:
What does WBL stand for?

About Investigator:
Id have to look that up.

About How does the guy react to being killed:
We killed his character in Scion a few times. He doesnt really care as long as he can just recreate the same character with slight changes. He isn't going for roleplaying rather than personal entertainment. The problem is, that he isnt as attached to his character as I am. I take a character loss much more personal when it happens through some dumb action of another player because i dump a ton of hours into making and even drawing them. To him, a character is expendable, as he can just remake them within a couple of hours. And with the resurrection in this setting, dieing really is just a monetary issue.

About how to notice surprise attacks:
thanks. :3

About tanglefoot bags:
they sound good. Ill get them.

About Tumor familiar:
Banned, as there's some cheese build with it the GM didnt like where the tumor apparently works as a second character.

Sleep murder:
Sounds good, but how do I prevent another player from roleplaying "i randomly wake up cuz i gotta pee" or something along those lines, and then have them notice me as i try to kill them?

About abandoning my alchemist for aa cheese build:
I thought about that, considered stuff like lance or archer paladin, or reach cleric, but i feel bad for trading in what I want to play against something that doesnt get molested by other players. I really want to play that particular character i made, and feel bad for not being able to. it sorta kills my joy in RPing. I am ready and accepting to change my character if theres really no hope ill ever get happy with her though. But doing so just for fighting cheese with cheese makes me feel like I am the bad guy and not them, because they play what they want, I'd only play to win and ruin their game. Would make me an even worse person than them.

-------------------------------------

Mostly, I'd really like to hear "survival" strategies to not die when your party consists of, lets say lunatics that kill you upon the slightest provocation. And I mean strategies under the assumption that something will inevitably lead to them to attack me even if I didnt do a thing. How can I best prepare against random player attacks?

[Jay R]

So I would like to know how to handle players who openly threaten to kill my character, while the GM stays out of player interactions entirely. I play a support, and everyone else is more combat capable than me, and I dont know how to be around a group without having them kill me on a whim. What options does an alchemist have to stay alive?

None, whatsoever. The others are having more fun killing your character than from anything else the game offers. You can't change that.

As long as you play with these people, they will keep killing your character. You know that. Stop trying to hide from the basic fact you want to deal with.

They are more combat capable than you, and they want to use that to kill your character.

Therefore, if you play with them, they will kill your character. Because they can, and that's what they want to do.

[Red Fel]

Mostly, I'd really like to hear "survival" strategies to not die when your party consists of, lets say lunatics that kill you upon the slightest provocation. And I mean strategies under the assumption that something will inevitably lead to them to attack me even if I didnt do a thing. How can I best prepare against random player attacks?

The problem is, you're asking, "How do I survive a nuclear blast?" And the only answer is, "Don't be anywhere in the vicinity when it happens." You can't hide in a fridge. You can't dodge an explosion. No suit of armor will protect you. Your only solution is to run away, far away, or hide deep underground, or something like that. And I get that you say, "But that's not a helpful solution." But it's the only solution - don't be there when the bomb hits.

Because that's what's happening here. You have other players who go out of their way to PK. You have a DM who not only permits it, but has actively enabled it by favoring PKing players. I guarantee you there is nothing you can come up with that will stop them; at most, they'll see a new challenge and overcome it. Barring that, the DM will actually give them the tools to bypass your defenses.

The only way to win that game is not to play.

[Zanos]

The problem is, you're asking, "How do I survive a nuclear blast?" And the only answer is, "Don't be anywhere in the vicinity when it happens." You can't hide in a fridge. You can't dodge an explosion. No suit of armor will protect you. Your only solution is to run away, far away, or hide deep underground, or something like that. And I get that you say, "But that's not a helpful solution." But it's the only solution - don't be there when the bomb hits.
That's a bad example in this forum, since you can make a reflex save for half-damage. :P


Because that's what's happening here. You have other players who go out of their way to PK. You have a DM who not only permits it, but has actively enabled it by favoring PKing players. I guarantee you there is nothing you can come up with that will stop them; at most, they'll see a new challenge and overcome it. Barring that, the DM will actually give them the tools to bypass your defenses.

The only way to win that game is not to play.
Well, you could always mold yourself into an insanely competitive PvPer also.

[Jay R]

The game is Player vs. Player. The only way to avoid being killed is to kill them first.

Not once.

Not fairly often.

Every. Single. Session.

The game is Player vs. Player.

[Zanos]

Yes, kill the players, not the characters. That way, you win IRL.

[Deophaun]

Question: While this player has optimized his character, has he actually taken the time to optimize his character sheet?

Like, fireproof it?

[zyggythorn]

So with a bit of further thought, I believe your best solution is your hardest solution: leave the group, and create a gaming scene in your area.

I would suggest using your local library, game store, or University campus to create a group whole cloth. This will unfortunately take way more time and effort, but once it gets going, the scene (such as it is) is self sustaining.

More than that, however, it empowers you as a player and a GM to look people in they eye and tell them to not do the bad thing. Too many games and potential friendships have been lost to bad, or in this case, lackluster GMing.

In short: No Gaming is better than Bad Gaming, but Good Gaming is better than either.

[eldskald]

That keeps looking worse and worse. Your GM looks up for cheesy builds to disallow but allows an orc barbarian with 26 Strength wielding a large Greatsword? Also, as Calthropstu said, PF is not WoW. It could be played as WoW, like your group is doing, but there are like sooooo many ways to break an MMO with PF rules! As people already said, a Diplomancer (a character built to have a very high Diplomacy skill) could convince any npc to do whatever he wants. Since your DM says "they're just NPC with no reaction programmed", convincing the whole town to wage war agains whatever you want should have no consequences whatsoever in your world. Also, there's magic. As soon as a wizard gets 5th level spells, he is king of the world. Spells in PF are really broken if you have the knowledge of the rules and creativity to use them. You people have to face it, PF was not built to be played like an MMO, where characters are NPCs with no personality or reactions whatsoever. It's built to have drama and consequences. Think of PF as writing a story. Both the players and DM are trying to write a story, where no one knows the next page and everyone is as much important into what's the next page gonna be. You are all trying to write a story together. That's the spirit of D&D and variants.

About your questions...


About the feral mutagen path:
I dont really understand how that works. I gain claws and a maw attack, but why are they all in addition to regular attacks and why at full BaB? Don't I just have 1 attack, at level 1, (or 2, 3?)


Look for natural attacks in this (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules/) page. In a full attack action, you can attack with bite and claws. By being the wereboar, you get to attack with bite, claws and gore with full BAB and hooves at -5 BAB because they're secondary.


About the Bombing part:
I can't really take grenadier because I already took Metallurgist. However, if I choose to remake my character, of course i could choose that over it. Any ideas for Metallurgist, or is that just a worse alchemist whatsoever? (he does loose all poison stuff, and two discoveries)

Metallurgist is 3rd party material, meaning it was not produced by Paizo (the oficial Pathfinder producer). Now if it's good, not really. By saying that, all I mean is it's not cheesy, but it's flavorful and cool. You can't put alchemical weapons in your arrows without the grenadier's 2nd level feature.


About using Diplomacy to get NPCs on my side:
Is there any trick to it, other than just dumping 1 skill rank into it at every level interval?

No. It's also good to invest in bluff, intimidate and sense motive for that. You can also cast charm person (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/charm-person/) and other enchantment spells. Being a bard is probably the best way to do this.


About Monk relying on WBL to survive:
What does WBL stand for?

Wealth by level (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/#Table-Character-Wealth-by-Level), something your GM is also ignoring. It's like, veeery important.


About Tumor familiar:
Banned, as there's some cheese build with it the GM didnt like where the tumor apparently works as a second character.

To be honest, banning broken stuff does not work. It's not a matter of banning what's cheesy, it's about finding what's most cheesy in what's allowed. Every familiar, animal companion, eidolon (and even summoning spell) is almost a second character. Pathfinder is very unbalanced, but balance is not really it's point, and that's another reason why you shouldn't play it like an MMO. The idea is to make the game/story believable, so the world shouldn't be MMO-like where people murder each other and there's no police. They try to have rules to cover every possible situation, while also have to allow players to do impressive and epic stories, which will last in their memories forever. It's impossible to do that, so it's imperative that OOC everyone has do some kind of "gentleman's agreement" to reasonably rule what's gonna happen when things get out of the rules. Also, very importantly, they should all agree not to be jerks. Deep inside, it all comes to this. And that's what your group fails to do.

[Gildedragon]

Talk to the DM
"I'm not having fun; you're blatantly playing favorites. I'm out"

[Ellrin]

Even if you want to play his game, which to echo everyone else's comments is a terrible idea, the problem is that at level 1 a monk is at the top of his game, and most of the more support-based builds that can put a monk in the dirt easily by level 2 will not be very effective until level 2.

If you're going to play this game the way you want to play it, your only option really is stay out of reach—whether that means stealthing, running, or convincing armies of commoners to swarm between you and the other players. You can do these things while being a **** right back to the other players—and maybe that's the kind of game they want to play—but you're not going to be able to play the character you want to play and be in the same room with the other PCs until you've leveled up enough that they've fallen behind the power curve (and since the most problematic PCs are playing pure mundanes, they will eventually fall behind that curve no matter how much they optimize).

That said, I cannot stress this enough: If you want to play a game with a group of people, and the game that you've chosen isn't fun for you, your best option is to find a different kind of game that will be fun for the whole group. It's not like the only options are "play this specific game with them even if you have to be their *****" or "tell them all to go **** themselves". If you enjoy each others' company, it's highly likely that there are other things you can do together that you would all enjoy. If they want to continue running their weird version of Pathfinder without you, that's fine. Just... don't do that specific group activity with them if it isn't fun. Only seriously deranged people would resent you for not joining in a group activity with them that you've told them you don't enjoy.

[eldskald]

Even if you want to play his game, which to echo everyone else's comments is a terrible idea, the problem is that at level 1 a monk is at the top of his game, and most of the more support-based builds that can put a monk in the dirt easily by level 2 will not be very effective until level 2.

If you're going to play this game the way you want to play it, your only option really is stay out of reach—whether that means stealthing, running, or convincing armies of commoners to swarm between you and the other players. You can do these things while being a **** right back to the other players—and maybe that's the kind of game they want to play—but you're not going to be able to play the character you want to play and be in the same room with the other PCs until you've leveled up enough that they've fallen behind the power curve (and since the most problematic PCs are playing pure mundanes, they will eventually fall behind that curve no matter how much they optimize).

That said, I cannot stress this enough: If you want to play a game with a group of people, and the game that you've chosen isn't fun for you, your best option is to find a different kind of game that will be fun for the whole group. It's not like the only options are "play this specific game with them even if you have to be their *****" or "tell them all to go **** themselves". If you enjoy each others' company, it's highly likely that there are other things you can do together that you would all enjoy. If they want to continue running their weird version of Pathfinder without you, that's fine. Just... don't do that specific group activity with them if it isn't fun. Only seriously deranged people would resent you for not joining in a group activity with them that you've told them you don't enjoy.

Can't agree more with that. Even though I've been helping with the "let's beat up the bullies" plan, I don't really think this is a good idea anymore. I'm a chaotic neutral person with tendencies to chaotic good, so that story and that plan really touched me, but yeah, this is not a good idea. I came here to post what I really think you should do, and that's probably my best piece of advice. It's mostly what Ellrin said, though.

If you really are not ditching them, you should talk to them. Tell them you are not having fun and you should play cooperatively instead of playing against each other. The DM said everyone should play up to their characters but you aren't even playing, let alone playing up to your character. Tell them that because of how the rules of the game are, lv 1 characters are completely ruled by murder hobos. No one is able to play a support character or a non-combat oriented character because the murder hobos will completely overpower them (unless they are the GM's girlfriend :smallannoyed:). Tell them you don't want to play such a character (or be the GM's girlfriend). Most importantly, tell them you are not having fun.

For cooperative games, the DM doesn't really need to make a plot, there are many plots ready for that already. Grab Rise of the Runelords for a good first Pathfinder experience. If you want to keep that sandboxy theme, grab Kingmaker instead. Or just any adventure path, really. I'm sure they will like to play an adventure path.

Now, I should really stress that you should stop playing Pathfinder like that. It's really not built to do it. Just because you can kill everyone and ruin their experience doesn't mean you should do it. I'm sure most folks here in this forum know how to ruin people's games but I'm also sure that they don't do it. You don't even need to cheese a build to break the game, most of PF's power is in realizing that you are powerful. For example, in my first DM attempt, the party consisted of a barbarian dwarf, an elf wizard, a halfling unchained rogue and a human oracle. I had played PF before and had DMed other systems before, but they never played RPG before. I told them martial classes dominate the game for the first levels while casters dominate the later levels, but they didn't knew how it would be. The barbarian just did the obvious, grabbed a greatsword and power attack, no cheese in that. That alone alowed him to do 10+2d6 damage with one swing, and that was enough damage to one shot everyone at the party, him included. The oracle had 14 Str, a staff, decent armor and lots of hit points. He could hold the frontline good, but he was no match for the barbarian. The rogue and the wizard could barely tickle. He knew he could kill everyone, probably even most folks in town, but he didn't attempted to do it. Later, the party noticed that the oracle's diplomacy was a pretty powerful skill. They got the help of some local noble and did other great stuff. He knew he could do potentially game breaking stuff with it, but he didn't do it. The wizard did realized how some spells were broken when he ended encounters with the likes of color spray and summon monster, casting only one spell. But never felt the true power of the wizard. The wizard is especially powerful. It takes zero building of character (no need to spend limited resources like feats, rogue talents, rage power, discoveries and such) to know spells. With knowledge of the spells, rules and creativity, one can easily ruin the whole setting or do some crazy stuff. Sadly, the rogue never took to the point of stealing, sneaking and spying with mastery as the table ended at around lvl 4 or 3. PF is not really balanced, that's just how the game is. Balance is important only to the point of having everyone being able to contribute in solving the challenge at hand. If one character gets eclipsed by the others, that's bad. It's not supposed to be balanced because players will try to ruin other players' experience, that's bull****. That's not for tabletop RPGs.

[arkangel111]

well... I am prepping a build suggestion for you since when it really comes down to it you DID ask for a pvp build regardless of my personal thoughts on why you are asking for it but... core only AND core races? the other players have a ghoul and an orc, not half-orc. AND alchemist is not core either. what do you consider core? do you mean 1st party? cause that is a whole different beast and drastically affects a build suggestion.

I am going to assume you actually mean 1st party since that is what it sounds like to me. If you are getting shafted on the character creation on top of everything else, your group MAY actually be telling you to go away, and nothing you build will change that.

[TheFamilarRaven]

I've got three options for you. I fully endorse the the first two. The third well...

1) Direct your DM here. Hopefully, if they're any kind of decent person they'll realize they're DMing style is absolutely absurd and they'll make changes. Unless he only speaks German, which might be a problem on an English speaking forum if we hope to get our point across.

2) Walk away. Like, the way things are going now, you will never play the kind of game you want to.



Take it to 11.

First, Play this game like the crappy video game your DM wants it to be. The Monk "is part of a guild that specializes in being evil, and gives him free resurrections"? (Which is the the stupidest ****ing thing. I don't swear too often on this forum, but literally "specializing in being evil" is about the dumbest god damn thing I've heard. What? Do they all sit around twirling their mustaches while they kick puppies? Jesus! :smallsigh:)

But whatever. That's fine. You just join a guild that specializes in being good (or whatever), that also gives you free resurrections. And why not? Whatever the monk is able to do you should do as well. If the DM says no, you counter by saying the monk can do it, followed by calling him out on his philosophy by "letting players play how they want", and you want to play with free resurrections. The important thing is not to learn the rules of Pathfinder per se, but to learn the rules of this messed up mockery of Pathfinder, where NPC aren't even NPC's (The C in NPC stands for CHARACTER!!!! :smallfurious: Characters REACT TO THINGS!!!!!!).

Next, learn all of the limitations a monk of his level. (he's must be like what? Level 1? 2? Going off of your level.) Monk is literally one of the weaker classes in PF. A level 1 wizard could kill one with Color Spray plus Coup De Grace. Easy. The moment he does some bull**** that is not even remotely possible, you fling the exact rule text, and page number right at him which blatantly shuts him down. For all other "rule of cool" crap your DM might allow, you come up with your own "rule of cool" nonsense. Such as... "Yeah my bombs also create large holes in the ground, so even if I miss you still fall into a pit".

You're playing on roll20 right? Does your DM require that the sheets be posted on the Roll20 campaign page (or whatever it's called)? If yes then that's one thing your DM did right. You should be able to access his sheet to look at all of his abilities. Post his abilities here and we'll be easily able to tell you how to counter him.

If the character sheets are not visible, then wtf? How does the DM know the other players are not just cheating? But if that's the case, go ahead and fudge things on your own sheet. I mean, the barbarian has 26 strength for Iomadae's sake! Even if it's an honest mistake it sets the precedent that there's no reason you shouldn't have a Intelligence of 26. And as an aside, if the barbarian has a super high stat, I suspect the Monk has super high stats in multiple ability scores. The Monk needs good strength, dexterity, constitution and wisdom to really function well, and there's no way in Hell all of those scores are high unless some serious tomfoolery is afoot. Just judging by the ability scores you posted for your character.

After that. Remake your character. Having that 5,000gp debt is impossible to recover from if you're constantly getting killed. (Another reason to join that guild!). If you're married to the Alchemist class other people have given you great suggestions for monk killer builds.

This has an end goal. Eventually, things will escalate out of hand. Which will either means everyone in this weird ass group is having fun, or everyone will get super tired of the blood feud going on and the group will either break down, or change the methods by which they play the game.

[xXAmaroqXx]

Thanks for the further advice. Ill try and take most of the points into discussion with the GM today.
I'm sorry my situation or description thereof made some people angry, you're all very helpful for me.

About Core book vs. Orcs, Alchemist, etc:
The GM allows stuff other than core, but asks players to try and use core only if possible. So I sorta asked for core rules if possible, since that way i dont look to him as if I try to pull the weirdest and most OP rules out from the darkest corner of the internet (or from the strangest pathfinder supplements)
I also think he slightly punishes me (and possibly other players) for picking non core stuff, because he was uncomfortable with me picking an alchemist to begin with as the class seemed too complicated to him at first. He reluctantly agreed to let me have the alchemist, but seeing how i got a huge negative gold fee, to me it sounded like an incentive to, well, make a new character.

About the MMO setup being stupid:
Well the thing is the group overall wanted this kinda thing. I already mentioned the GM's motivation of having an easily managable RPG without having to worry about much preparation and most of the players enjoy Anime such as Sword Art Online and particularly Overlord. So they are completely happy with making fun of MMO cliches. If anything, my expectation of heroic adventure is completely out of the norm here. But I really wanted to play along, cuz I never really got to play much of pathfinder before other than a few sessions. So please don't be too angry at the setting and GM for picking it because thats what most people wanted. I just think that they didn't exactly think things through, because when i was about to die once, i simply said "i log off" before the enemy could attack, and then proceeded to say "i look up a guide on the internet to beat that foe" and my GM was like "Why would you do that?" And I responded "that's what people do on MMO's all the time, in fact its expected of you to know a dungeon when going in there with a random group or else you get insulted and kicked out of the group." and my GM was at a loss and had to spontaneous develop houserules for that. (no logout during an attack, and having previous adventurers explain dungeons if the players ask)

About some characters being rule illegal and broken due to that and that free resurrection thing:
Like i said, they were unintended rule oversights. Since I am the rule guru of the group, i am mostly to blame for that. However, my most problematic player, the monk, as far as I know is entirely legal (he used a guide on the internet after all), only the barbarian really is overstatted and wielding an impossible blade. And whiiiiiiile he already killed another player as well (no consequences due to free respawn while low on XP though) he usually doesnt do so just to dominate other players. Eh.
Like I said, the free respawns really are not going to be an issue after about 1 more combat encounter. They only work when low on XP, however, that ruling did cause that one terrible moment where i was totally able to kill the monk using bomb area of effect damage, and it wouldnt do a thing because he was still in that protected XP range. And it simply felt VERY frustrating to realize he could stack up my penalties and i couldnt do the same to him. It felt incredibly unfair, which led to me starting that huge complaint in the first place.

About directing the GM here:
Im not sure that's a good idea after having read many of the comments here. I'm not to say you've been mean, but he might either get preeeetty pissed at me for even complaining here and only presenting my view of the story, or feel demotivated / hurt and scrap GMing alltogether after reading peoples comments on his style / capabilities as a GM. After all, he does try to GM and usually the sessions are enjoyable enough to not quit in the middle of it and do something else. He doesn't do a perfect job, but nobody else volunteers to pick up the job and i'm afraid everyone else from our group would make a worse GM than him. (Me, I overthink and overplan everything, and when presented with something unexpected, end up with zero confidence to deal with those things. I'm terrible at improvising)
So the GM quitting is nothing I really want to risk. particularly because we are a friend cycle and id rather keep my friendships and I already feel bad for talking bad about them behind their back. ^^' Well, i did mention my problems in front of everyone too, so its not really behind the back, but i guess you get what I mean. I'll carefully bring in any advice you might have for me and him, but i dont have a good feeling calling them here. I have few friends as it is and rather not loose more of them. ^^'

About going really douche bag mode:
Sorta the same "id like to keep my friends and group" argument. I want to be able to survive and stand my own at least long enough i get a chance at escaping or even fighting back, but ruining other peoples day just cuz they do the same with me wasn't quiiiite what i had in mind. That just begs for getting me kicked out of the group. After all, the others would be playing for fun, while id be ruining others fun with the sole purpose of ruining their fun. I dont feel comfortable being that kinda guy. I more want to be able to have fun with my character, but have options at hand that dont make me a whining victim, if you get what i mean. Like carrying a dose of pepperspray to disable attackers.

About the imbalance of Pathfinder:
I didn't know balance was as poor as you describe. We actually went from Scion to Pathfinder because of the immense balancing issues in the aforementioned game, thinking pathfinder is well balanced. Sure, the wizard class being a god was known to everyone, but nobody picked a wizard. And when I threatened to make a wizard when i felt forced to make a new character my GM made clear hed rather have me keep the alchemist than wizard since he doesnt waant to deal with the headace of managing a wizard. Which i can relate to. Not blaming him.

About my future plans:
So I will talk to the GM about the things mentioned here. I'll most likely also restart at 0 XP, without the gold fine, and instead of metallurgist, either check out that grenadier that was recommended, or the whole feral mutagen route. Do they exclude each other? Like I said, my objective is to hold my own against player killers and be ABLE to pose a threat to them, not to become a mean killer myself. Though i have a feeling i need to be stronger than them if I want to be a threat instead of a victim. MOSTLY i really just want to avoid crap like random attacks as i walk past someone and was hoping there was a definite feat / ability / potion to help me with that. I got heightened awareness, which would be perfect for that, but it really has a low duration, sadly.
By the way, can I perform attacks of opportunities with bombs? not really, can I? As far as I know, only Melee.

[TheYell]

Have at it, but recognize that this isn't like politics where you take a position based on what sounds good. These people are telling you to leave because they have personally experienced being with a bad group.

In my own opinion, the longer you stay trying to fight PvP without using the outlier stuff on the internet and excusing your GM from having to read too much of the books, the longer you delay finding new friends who roleplay in a friendly manner with a GM who enjoys being thrown something new.

Have you tried using the internet to find local playing groups in your area? When you find a friendlier group that's more normal in playing style, I think you'll enjoy yourself.

If your friends object, you can tell them you need more experience to play their style. And if you play with other groups you might learn some tricks. Or you might find you prefer not being killed by your own party.

[exelsisxax]

Dude, the DM is not only allowing them to cheat, he is expressly giving them free reign to cheat. You can't fight cheating playerkillers.

You should leave. If they hate you for that, they weren't your friends. If they are, the game probably collapses like it should have and you can go do something not awful instead of this travesty.

[Calthropstu]

There actually IS an ability in Pathfinder that specifically allows you to react to surprise attacks... unfortunately it's a wizard ability.
Stupid seers.

Lvl 1 raise dead ummmm... isn't free unless you are getting both restoration AND raise dead. You lose 2 points of con each time.
You can make raise dead impossible by casting animate dead on their corpse or destroying their body... forcing them to require true ressurection. Eat that 20k gold pieces.
They think wizards are gods? Not at this level. It isn't until 5th lvl that wizards really come into their own. But if alchemist doesn't work out, go Druid. Druid is good at every level, and let's see how mr. Monk likes dealing with a lion who has your back 24/7.

The monk doing 10 damage with a single attack sounds suspcious. Does he have an 18 strength? Because that is the only way that works unless he is wielding weapons.

Core only classes: I would recommend the Sorcerer or druid for this. The druid for reasons mentioned above, the sorcerer because of its native reliance on Charisma and powerful abilities.

Alchemist: I recommend the bombardier over mutagen builds because mutagens need to spend a round prepping... a round you can't spare in a surprise "**** you" attack from your "friends."
There are things you can do to mitigate the surprise attack. High initiative, high flat footed ac, high hp is a good base. He only gets 1 attack in the surprise round, so survive that and you can retaliate as long as you win initiative.

Other advice: take a rank in handle animal and spend some gold on trained war dogs. They are relatively cheap and can be set on the monk.
Get a powerful ally. Works best if done with a diplomancer. Someone who will cast trap the soul on the monk if he kills you again. Trap the soul prevents all forms of ressurection. It's a 6th lvl spell in the core rulebook.
Deal with the player. Tell him flat out to stop, and let him know if he wants war, he'll get it. You will bomb him the moment you see him and guess what: players are worth xp. You can kill him over and over with bombs and dogs, get the xp, and hide once your resources are expended. The sessions will become nonstop 1v1 killing both you leveling eachother rendering the other pcs irrelevant. The player killing stops or you will ruin the game. It should end at that point.

[Vizzerdrix]

What about inviting in another player? Get a ringer to come in and have them do the dirty work for you. Act shocked and even be the one to toss them after a few sessions so you look innocent.

At least take a moment to go look in the play by post section of these boards. You may see something you like and end up with a reason to change groups.

[druid91]

Don't kill them. That only means they come back basically the same.

Nerf them. Poisons and other such means of permanent ability damage. Murder anything that tries to fix it. Sovereign Glue a radiation stone to him so he's constantly sickened. But never enough to kill him.

Alternatively pay someone to hit him with a mark of Justice.

[Segev]

If you don't want to leave the game, take the DM at his word that he wants to let players play their characters.

Then build a glass cannon with high initiative and perception and massive damage output. Rogues are good for this at low level. Give him a backstory that makes him a member of a guild or group that has reason to hate the monk. So much that they'll sacrifice themselves to HURT, let alone kill him.

Then attack him at every opportunity. He kills your PC, you bring out another member of the group here to kill him for revenge. Heck, make the first one just a member of the group with nothing against the monk, and have the rest be there for explicit revenge.

When you get high enough level to cast explosive runes, every character you bring in has that and dispel magic, and is willing to kill himself and everyone around to kill the monk. Cast it dozens of times on your gear, and then walk up to him and area-dispel - deliberately failing the CL check against your own CL - to detonate them all. Killing both of you.

Repeat every time.



But seriously, OOC, tell them that you're not having fun having your character killed over and over for not agreeing to be the footstool to this other PC, and are not going to play anymore. Let them try to talk you back into it if they agree he's not allowed to do that anymore. If they don't agree to that, or he reneges, leave. Maybe the other players will also refuse to play with him, and you can start a new game without him.

[Zanos]

If you don't want to leave the game, take the DM at his word that he wants to let players play their characters.

Then build a glass cannon with high initiative and perception and massive damage output. Rogues are good for this at low level. Give him a backstory that makes him a member of a guild or group that has reason to hate the monk. So much that they'll sacrifice themselves to HURT, let alone kill him.

Then attack him at every opportunity. He kills your PC, you bring out another member of the group here to kill him for revenge. Heck, make the first one just a member of the group with nothing against the monk, and have the rest be there for explicit revenge.

When you get high enough level to cast explosive runes, every character you bring in has that and dispel magic, and is willing to kill himself and everyone around to kill the monk. Cast it dozens of times on your gear, and then walk up to him and area-dispel - deliberately failing the CL check against your own CL - to detonate them all. Killing both of you.

Repeat every time.
For extra spice, your glass cannon character is actually from a very prolific family, whose sons and daughters were all brought up in the same school of [INSERT CLASS] and shared notes, so their character sheets look suspiciously similar.

Also the parents aren't very bright, so they have names like Mark, Fark, Tark, Gark, Bark, Lark, Park....

[Blu]

First of all, are they really your friends? I'm on doubt since it seems you already made clear to them you don't like this behaviour.

Second, i'm concerned of what is this player really enjoying, is he enjoying killing characters or your reaction on it? Seeing clearly don't like it and even take it a little personally. Also from what i gather you think it's unfair, bullying and even abusive to some extent.

I'm also worried that when you consider doing this yourself, you consider it gamebreaking, and friendship destroying, but you think you need to protect from this behaviour. There is a little contradiction there and it is starting to look like stockholm syndrome...

[Fouredged Sword]

Have you tried using the internet to find local playing groups in your area? When you find a friendlier group that's more normal in playing style, I think you'll enjoy yourself.


Is there a good place to do this sort of thing. Inquiring minds want to know. I would LOVE to find a group in my area, but never can.

[mistermysterio]

meetup.com
or
nearbygamers.com
or
rpggamefind.com
or
reddit.com/r/lfg/
?

[eldskald]

About Core book vs. Orcs, Alchemist, etc:
The GM allows stuff other than core, but asks players to try and use core only if possible. So I sorta asked for core rules if possible, since that way i dont look to him as if I try to pull the weirdest and most OP rules out from the darkest corner of the internet (or from the strangest pathfinder supplements)
I also think he slightly punishes me (and possibly other players) for picking non core stuff, because he was uncomfortable with me picking an alchemist to begin with as the class seemed too complicated to him at first. He reluctantly agreed to let me have the alchemist, but seeing how i got a huge negative gold fee, to me it sounded like an incentive to, well, make a new character.




About the imbalance of Pathfinder:
I didn't know balance was as poor as you describe. We actually went from Scion to Pathfinder because of the immense balancing issues in the aforementioned game, thinking pathfinder is well balanced. Sure, the wizard class being a god was known to everyone, but nobody picked a wizard. And when I threatened to make a wizard when i felt forced to make a new character my GM made clear hed rather have me keep the alchemist than wizard since he doesnt waant to deal with the headace of managing a wizard. Which i can relate to. Not blaming him.


That's bull****. When we say wizard, in truth, we mean every full caster in the game, especially the prepared ones (arcane ones tend to be godlier too). The sorcerer can be as much of a problem as wizard. You can make a witch, a cleric, a druid or a shaman and do a whole lotta crap too. Reading that makes me feel like you guys literally read "wizard is op" on the forums around and just took what you read for granted, and didn't investigated or learned why wizard is op. In the deepest darkest corner of ourselves, we know it's not that op. At level one, he can barely make pretty lights, taking a lot of effort and doing it 4 or 5 times a day. And even if you look on the internet, most of the op things the wizard does is buffing, debuffing and battlefield controling. Guess what? All of that needs a TEAM to work! That means the wizard isn't a god himself, he needs people to help him be that god! That was even also part of the joke, as gods themselves don't go into the land and do the dirty work themselves, it's their that followers do it. Also, wizard isn't more complex than the alchemist. I think it's the other way around, alchemist is more complex. The bans are more stupid than the setting itself.





About some characters being rule illegal and broken due to that and that free resurrection thing:
Like i said, they were unintended rule oversights. Since I am the rule guru of the group, i am mostly to blame for that. However, my most problematic player, the monk, as far as I know is entirely legal (he used a guide on the internet after all), only the barbarian really is overstatted and wielding an impossible blade. And whiiiiiiile he already killed another player as well (no consequences due to free respawn while low on XP though) he usually doesnt do so just to dominate other players. Eh.
Like I said, the free respawns really are not going to be an issue after about 1 more combat encounter. They only work when low on XP, however, that ruling did cause that one terrible moment where i was totally able to kill the monk using bomb area of effect damage, and it wouldnt do a thing because he was still in that protected XP range. And it simply felt VERY frustrating to realize he could stack up my penalties and i couldnt do the same to him. It felt incredibly unfair, which led to me starting that huge complaint in the first place.


To be honest, I am having a hard time imagining how can a monk be powerful at this level. Actually, how can a monk be powerful at any level? They're literally the worst class, overshadowed by pretty much anyone. The only reason I can imagine one being viable is if they rolled very high stats, and even then they shouldn't be a problem for an alchemist. Unless he has 18 Str, Dex, Con and Wis, he shouldn't be a problem. You should all try to learn more about the game and do a remake, everyone back to no loot or experience, with decent sheets this time. No need to ban casters, no caster has a chance to survive in this enviroment and do something anyways.





About going really douche bag mode:
Sorta the same "id like to keep my friends and group" argument. I want to be able to survive and stand my own at least long enough i get a chance at escaping or even fighting back, but ruining other peoples day just cuz they do the same with me wasn't quiiiite what i had in mind. That just begs for getting me kicked out of the group. After all, the others would be playing for fun, while id be ruining others fun with the sole purpose of ruining their fun. I dont feel comfortable being that kinda guy. I more want to be able to have fun with my character, but have options at hand that dont make me a whining victim, if you get what i mean. Like carrying a dose of pepperspray to disable attackers.


You seem to be too nice to deserve that which you are getting. The thing is, they are going full douchebag mode and the only fighting stand you have is to also go full douchebag mode. The whole MMO setting thing being stupid might be true, but that doesn't stop anyone from adressing it correctly and playing it. I can see my self playing somewhere like that for science, like, testing builds and having PVP fun with friends. We wouldn't build characters seriously, would barely make a name, let alone a backstory and drawings. If we are there to see how we can tear each character apart, we would definetely take nothing personally. They seem to play it just for the pvp competition fun, but you seem not to be in the intention to do so. Your game is another one, so either you play their game (take your character less seriously and go full douchbag mode) or convince them to play another game that you can enjoy.

[TheYell]

I found a heavy presence in the Phoenix area through meetup.com

I got there by googling my city and roleplaying groups

[TheFamilarRaven]

The monk doing 10 damage with a single attack sounds suspcious. Does he have an 18 strength? Because that is the only way that works unless he is wielding weapons.


Judging by the alchemist scores, it looks like he's using 20 point buy. Now, if they were using 20 point buy then how the orc got 26 strength w/ no buffs is beyond me. But if they are using 20 point buy, and given that it has been said the monk players used an online guide, (which I after google-ing I only found 2 for pathfinder, one is by treantmonk the other is by some dude who seems to have stolen most of his Monk advice from Treantmonk, and then gets the rules for other things completely wrong that I have to question their actual authority on the subject), it is possible for the Monk to have Str 17, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 7, placing the floating +2 from human into strength (actual race is unknown I think). So yeah it's possible the Monk hit for 10 damage with an unarmed strike at level 1.


That's bull****. When we say wizard, in truth, we mean every full caster in the game, especially the prepared ones (arcane ones tend to be godlier too). The sorcerer can be as much of a problem as wizard. You can make a witch, a cleric, a druid or a shaman and do a whole lotta crap too. Reading that makes me feel like you guys literally read "wizard is op" on the forums around and just took what you read for granted, and didn't investigated or learned why wizard is op. In the deepest darkest corner of ourselves, we know it's not that op. At level one, he can barely make pretty lights, taking a lot of effort and doing it 4 or 5 times a day. And even if you look on the internet, most of the op things the wizard does is buffing, debuffing and battlefield controling. Guess what? All of that needs a TEAM to work! That means the wizard isn't a god himself, he needs people to help him be that god! That was even also part of the joke, as gods themselves don't go into the land and do the dirty work themselves, it's their that followers do it. Also, wizard isn't more complex than the alchemist. I think it's the other way around, alchemist is more complex. The bans are more stupid than the setting itself.

I was gonna say this exact same thing. It seems like all of the knowledge the DM has of the game comes from what he read on the internet, without any game experience. Ask him how managing a wizard is gonna be harder than managing a barbarian who can apparently solo CR 4 encounters at level 1? That seems more of a headache to me.

And it's also a very dangerous precedent. Like, the moment anyone finds something remotely effective it will be deemed as "OP" and thus banned.




You seem to be too nice to deserve that which you are getting. The thing is, they are going full douchebag mode and the only fighting stand you have is to also go full douchebag mode. The whole MMO setting thing being stupid might be true, but that doesn't stop anyone from adressing it correctly and playing it. I can see my self playing somewhere like that for science, like, testing builds and having PVP fun with friends. We wouldn't build characters seriously, would barely make a name, let alone a backstory and drawings. If we are there to see how we can tear each character apart, we would definetely take nothing personally. They seem to play it just for the pvp competition fun, but you seem not to be in the intention to do so. Your game is another one, so either you play their game (take your character less seriously and go full douchbag mode) or convince them to play another game that you can enjoy.

I agree. You seem like a nice enough person, Amaroq. But in this case, it's really, REALLY okay to not be so nice. This player attacked you for no good reason and the only way to curb that activity is to make it too risky to attack you. And by risky I don't mean simply difficult, I mean that the consequence for attacking you should be total annihilation of the attacker.

[xXAmaroqXx]

Hello again.

I had a serious talk to the GM and made clear I'd quit the game unless some things change. Had a little support from the barbarian player as well, who found some rules dumb but didnt speak up cuz they werent really bothering him personally.

Long story short, the GM agreed to a few rule changes.
Revival:
Revival is now a common revive spell, aka costing 1.000 gold and giving a negative level or in our case 2 constitution drain. The free revival still stands (<.< ) but one doesn't have negative gold anymore, but instead a more logical debt towards the local church. Which means one may or may not pay the debts within a certain timeframe rather than it despawning from ones hands.

Player interaction:
The GM introduced a common enemy in the form of a lich, who is powerful enough to wipe everyone individually. That may not solve all issues immediately, and the monk still attempted an attaack against another player again, but at least the GM is moving in the right direction.

The barbarians statistics:
Got cut to 22 strength. We screwed up at character creation, and his stats are now fixed. Yes, there was a 20 point buy and it would have been unfair had one player so much more strength than everyone else. He gets to keep the insanely large sword though, as a compromise so he doesnt feel like we just decapitate his character. And also, the sword still bears a ton of issues, as he cant really store it away, and it dramatically reduces his carrying capacity, now that his strength got cut down.

---------------------------------------------

What he didn't change was the wealth by character level. By now, several players died and got revived with the gold fee. Some already reached level 2, but earned less than 400 gold throughout the campaign, on top of the 1000 gold debts they gotta repay sometime. Game manual claims 1.000 gold for lvl 2 players though, however. How might I argue that we need money to proceed? the GM is still inexperienced as heck, and keeps throwing higher level encounters at us because the combat characters breeze through them, while other characters get killed just by being looked at. At least by now we use the bleed out state, aka people can get stabilized.

Balancing:
How can a GM make sure we dont end up either underchallenged or overpowered by single enemies? GM doesnt know, and I dont really know either. They could playtest creatures against every player character, but that takes up a lot of time and assumes "normal" dice results. Are there any tips and tricks for building decent encounters? because the GM openly admit he did not expect the outcome of almost ANY encounter we met so far.

About wizards and monks balance:
You are correct. Mostly, we all just pick up stuff on the internet, such as "youre reading a sorcerer guide. First ask yourself, why dont you pick a wizard?" and "xxx's guide to wizard: Becoming a GOD". Having little to no experience and rudimentary pathfinder knowledge, what could we do other than believe whats said on the net, if we read it everywhere?
I dont know if monk is the worst class. in fact, all he does so far is bully other players though, and he deliberately foregoes XP, to stay in the noob protection of free revives. Sooner or later this will bite him in the ass, I realize that by now, but he's mostly trolling everyone, and I dont think he cares or is even aware that when behind, he wont be as powerful anymore.

Which leads me to: Inbalanced XP gain among party members:
The GM insists on everyone tracking their XP individually. Since only people who are present during a session gain XP and contributed to a challenge, only those guys gain XP, thus can fight the harder stuff, gaining more XP, eventually snowballing. The GM offered to give non-present players a few XP to not fall too far behind, but i have doubts this will work in the long run. Any idea how i can convince the GM to make levelling a little more balanced within the party? Or do people here actually play with the same idea: only present people get XP? Problem here is just that all sessions happen spontaneously, and often happen when I am at work during late shifts. I'm not the only victim of that "rule", but i dont really feel comfortable with it.

So, I'd like to know, since balancing in the game isnt that good, how important is a level REALLY, and how far behind should a character be at MOST, until it gets plain unfair?



So, all in all, the game mostly really suffers from a trolling player, and everyone being inexperienced at pathfinder. The good thing is that they did not try to get rid of me, and the GM even altered the rules after we had a talk today in which i could use the advice given up until now. Thank you for the aid so far. :-) ^_^

[Ellrin]

Hello again.
So, I'd like to know, since balancing in the game isnt that good, how important is a level REALLY, and how far behind should a character be at MOST, until it gets plain unfair?

The thing you have to understand about Pathfinder (and its predecessor, D&D 3e) is that it's a game of specialization. Jacks of all trades do not do well against encounters of a level-appropriate CR. This is part of the reason why balance doesn't matter so much—as long as everyone is specialized in different areas (and the party members aren't trying to kill each other), people will generally get their time to shine.

Unfortunately it sounds like your group is pretty nearly exclusively focusing on combat, which kills off many potential specializations; and since party cohesiveness sounds tenuous at best, it further dampens certain specializations even within the gradient of combat specializing—being a support caster or battlefield controller isn't going to matter much if the people you're supporting are just going to turn around and try to turn your skull into paste.

You're right about not keeping the party XP even turning into a problem, at least in this group, since you've got characters that are openly antagonistic to other characters. If they get more experience than anyone else, they're going to consistently pound the other characters into the dirt, at least at low levels where the differences in in-combat class balance are mostly determined by how much HP you have and how much damage you can do per round—and if your PK player is savvy to that, he could easily take advantage of the other players by killing their characters before a combat starts so the characters don't gain XP for it (as they're still trying to catch back up), assuming your GM is okay with that.

Fortunately, for your party, this will become less of an issue as you progress in levels. By the time your alchemist is level 10, he could probably put the monk in the dirt seven or eight times out of ten, even if the monk is level 16. The currently most combat effective characters in the party will fall severely in comparative power by early-mid levels—with the possible exception of the barbarian if his player builds well and the DM only throws straightforward battles of HP attrition at the party. Of course, the sorcerer is playing by far the most powerful class in the party, so if he's built relatively effectively, he could outshine the rest of the party in most situations—expect party balance to shift over time.

As for encounter balance, a typical solution to differing levels of combat-effectiveness within the party is to throw multiple types of enemies in a single encounter—e.g., one or two tanks or maulers and a bunch of low HP goons. This is especially effective at low level where characters usually only have one or two attacks per round, because the obvious solution is for the party's heavy hitters to face the enemies' instead of trying to slog through the goons, leaving the more crowd-control focused characters (for instance, a bomb-focused alchemist) to help thin out the lower CR enemies. Getting creative with the types of enemies can help, too. For instance, in your party, a low-CR swarm could prove pretty threatening to the melee types, but with your easy access to splash weapons, you can take swarms out more handily; or flying enemies with ranged weapons, for instance, could put the melee strikers at a severe disadvantage even if the enemies don't do that much DPR (meaning your less tanky characters aren't going to get ripped to shreds).

[eldskald]

What he didn't change was the wealth by character level. By now, several players died and got revived with the gold fee. Some already reached level 2, but earned less than 400 gold throughout the campaign, on top of the 1000 gold debts they gotta repay sometime. Game manual claims 1.000 gold for lvl 2 players though, however. How might I argue that we need money to proceed? the GM is still inexperienced as heck, and keeps throwing higher level encounters at us because the combat characters breeze through them, while other characters get killed just by being looked at. At least by now we use the bleed out state, aka people can get stabilized.




Balancing:
How can a GM make sure we dont end up either underchallenged or overpowered by single enemies? GM doesnt know, and I dont really know either. They could playtest creatures against every player character, but that takes up a lot of time and assumes "normal" dice results. Are there any tips and tricks for building decent encounters? because the GM openly admit he did not expect the outcome of almost ANY encounter we met so far.

Which leads me to: Inbalanced XP gain among party members:
The GM insists on everyone tracking their XP individually. Since only people who are present during a session gain XP and contributed to a challenge, only those guys gain XP, thus can fight the harder stuff, gaining more XP, eventually snowballing. The GM offered to give non-present players a few XP to not fall too far behind, but i have doubts this will work in the long run. Any idea how i can convince the GM to make levelling a little more balanced within the party? Or do people here actually play with the same idea: only present people get XP? Problem here is just that all sessions happen spontaneously, and often happen when I am at work during late shifts. I'm not the only victim of that "rule", but i dont really feel comfortable with it.

So, I'd like to know, since balancing in the game isnt that good, how important is a level REALLY, and how far behind should a character be at MOST, until it gets plain unfair?


So, this is how it goes: A character's power is measured by what they can do. Power, basically. That is their class features, feats and gear to use. Experience and gold measures that. To have everyone "balanced", everyone would need to have the same experience and gold. That makes them "balanced", because there is the issue of how they spend their gold and which class features and feats they take. That wealth by level table is basically another table with class features by level, measuring how much power you get with every level. Of course your GM can screw that table and make his own, but it's imperative that every player gets the same amount of gold. That's another reason why PvPing and punishing death with gold loss is bad. Gold is equivalent to experience to some extent, so having characters with more gold/experience than others will unbalance the group. Have one player, the sorcerer for example, be two levels above the rest and he will probably solve every encounter with one spell because the encounter is designed with the rest of the party in mind, or the encounters will be harder to challenge him that the other players will end up insignificant and unable to contribute to solving it. The same happens if one character has proportionally more gold than the others. The gold issue is harder to balance because there are more ways for characters to lose or gain gold and break the WBL chart. Some tables outright ban crafting because of that.

How important a level really is is completely dependant on the classes being compared. For instance, if the sorcerer is 2 levels above the rest, that means he has access to higher levels spells than the party was supposed to have. For a class like his, it's outrageous. He will utterly dominate a party of levels 3~4 with 3rd level spells, for instance. With 6th level spells, I doupt any 9th-10th level character in your party wont worship him and prey for his mercy, and not even ganging up might solve it at this point.

About the encouters, that is a challenge to every GM. There is no trick to it other than experience and knowledge. You will find CR 2 monsters that are far stronger than CR 4+ ones. The same for traps and hazards. Sometimes, some rock-paper-scissor effect happens where a not well built party face an encounter that end up hard countering everyone. Like having flying shooting enemies against a melee only party. No CR will fix that. As soons as you GM adjust to the power level of your group, he will get the hang of it.

[Coidzor]

Tell them that if they want to hit people, they should just take up MMA and throw them a page torn out of a phone book having to do with the subject.

Then don't play with them because they're tossers.

That or invest in popcorn and a knife-resistant vest for when someone inevitably stabs someone else in real life.

[TheFamilarRaven]

Balancing:
How can a GM make sure we dont end up either underchallenged or overpowered by single enemies? GM doesnt know, and I dont really know either. They could playtest creatures against every player character, but that takes up a lot of time and assumes "normal" dice results. Are there any tips and tricks for building decent encounters? because the GM openly admit he did not expect the outcome of almost ANY encounter we met so far.

The key here is single enemy. The most valuable resource in combat is action economy, or rather, how much your team can do in one round. By definition, a single opponent versus multiple foes is at a severe disadvantage based solely on the fact that the single creature cannot take as many actions as all of their foes combined. This leads to the problem that single enemies are usually unable to compete against the onslaught of PC abilities. To compensate for this, an inexperienced DM might just make the creature stronger. But usually this just results in the monster's numbers being so high it overpowers the PCs. As in, it does enough damage to one-hit K.O party members, its AC is so high that no one can hit it, etc. Long story short, there is no easy way to fix this.

Pathfinder is not a good game to mimic 4v1 PVE combat, like those you might encounter in an MMO. Instead "boss battles" or, (more appropriately called) "climatic encounters" usually involve one decently powered enemy, backed up by a slew of lower level minions to get in the way of heroes.

The good news is that there is a general formula to craft these kinds of encounters. See this link (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/#Step-1-Determine-APL), for general guidelines for designing encounters.




So, I'd like to know, since balancing in the game isn't that good, how important is a level REALLY, and how far behind should a character be at MOST, until it gets plain unfair?


The balancing in the game is fine. Sure people whine about it, but there are really no terrible classes in Pathfinder. Some might be better than others, sure. Some might even be obviously better. But no class is designed in such a way as for it to be 100% worthless in game. At most I wouldn't let a player fall more than 1 level behind. IF i was even using that system. What I generally do for my group is adjust the encounters depending on how many showed up that session, and everyone (even absent players) gain experience for the encounters.



So, all in all, the game mostly really suffers from a trolling player, and everyone being inexperienced at pathfinder. The good thing is that they did not try to get rid of me, and the GM even altered the rules after we had a talk today in which i could use the advice given up until now. Thank you for the aid so far. :-) ^_^

Glad we could be of assistance. Happy gaming.