People are allowed to enjoy minmaxing, minmaxing in and of itself doesn't ensure nobody has fun. It's called the Stormwind Fallacy, and it's a real problem lately. Let people enjoy things.
Yeah problem with that? You balance encounters for them, and then they fail roll because of dice and the Rolls have bene balanced for their Uber build and so, sometimes you get grown men sulking like children complaining why they failed even with their mega build
@@PsicoPrimeI think the bigger issue is when not everyone is on the same page. If only one player is super-optimized and the GM has to beef up encounters to conpensate, then it can feel like punishing the other players.
On the first ruling: I tell my players "I am disappointed if I don't at least knock down 1 or 2 people if it is a party of 4" for a Final Boss fight. It isn't a struggle or satisfying ending without some damage. And I play my monsters based on their intelligence score pretty consistently. So, I've only played a group this way once so far: What I done in the past for players who are ok with really tough fights/rolled stats is a "Softcore" experience where almost every encounter would only knock out the PC and punish them for poor tactics over killing. But on certain fights I say "This is a Hardcore fight, you can die here." and that catches their attention. It also offers the opportunity to fight in a roleplaying manner over min-maxed. If it's rolled stats and softcore, a 100xp encounter can still be really scary at level 3. When its a truly dangerous fight, they will basically get that whole "Why is there a save file outside this one room?" equipment area sometimes. Scrolls that they have been seen before, potions of healing/random resistances (1d8 -1 for all 7 damage types) and they can determine themselves if the resistance-type is important for now, or later.
Making strong characters is fun, succeeding is fun. If you want to roleplay a great warrior or someone that aims for something very big, you might have a better time if your sheet actually supports that idea. I'm not on the side of "everything needs to be perfect and you need to be a god", but having a good character is important to have a good time. I've seen many times that having a weak character might be too frustrating because you can't succeed at your role or because you just took a hit-kill and died, while a character with better choices in the build would have survived. Pathfinder 2e is balanced, me and some friends have played other systems where you actually break the game if you min-max too much, since this doesn't happen in 2e, go for it, make strong characters.
I guess it's a personal preference. I played two campaigns with a "strong" build and I really didn't like playing them. On the other hand, when I make a character in DND with a 5 in a stat, that instantly makes me want to play it. One of my friends created a bard on the first campaign I ever DMed and she rolled a 3 (less than 1% chance) that she immediately put into strength. Playing that character meant that any Athletic rolls would be a challenge. My friend got scared her character would ever need to cross a river, jump over a pit, etc. She told me later on that this specific flaw made her fall in love with her character. She needed to be clever about how to play, and the other players too.
@@CamfreyFR I've played some Very letal games, so I guess I'm not a fan of such flaws If they can bê avoided. I'm playing as a "life cleric" currently, and a long time Ago I discovered my character was going to be a father, só I started doing everything I could to stay Alive for the kid. I'm still not picking any necromancy, even though necromancy spells are really strong, but I'm "playing Diablo" with the rest, and what motivated me to do this was the Child. Roleplay can incentivate min-max sometimes, but I still follow my vows and avoid necromancy, I think that's a good balance.
the problem with that, you make a very strong character? ok the gm balance, the resoult is the same they fail and succede the same percentual of rolls and then they sulk because their mega build should do better, also they make the warrior that should never fear nothing ecc they whine because an enemy succeded in intimidation
Not to worship Pathfinder 2e or anything, but that situation where you mentioned "Can't neutralize poison because it's too high level bruh" is literally the GM explaining how counteract works to a player. I love how we have counteract in PF2e and relative levels. In D&D 5e it always has to be something you spring on your players, who get disappointed that what they bring with them won't work.
My first pathfinder campaign was supposed to start with long combat. Bar room brawl. Non-lethal damage, the cook duel wielding large fish. Terrain interaction flip tables, drink effects. All the players but one called for city watch after first swing. But I think it would have worked for characters introducing themselves.
in 5e you do. a good character in 5e is not a wizard with fireball and invisibility and 18 int. a good character in 5e is a broken, ridiculously unbalanced multiclass or feat combo that makes playing with them at least not necessary for the encounters
wanting to make a character good, competent at something is great in any game, but making the mechanically best at that thing is usually an asshole move in many systems
@@velloso5475 What he's going at is that having let's say 5e's current top build (peacechron) with carefuly curated spell list, preplanned feats etc. Doesn't mean you can't be creative when it comes to actual "roleplay" like so many seem to believe. My wizard was optimised to hell and back, and yet people I played with liked him for how I played him instead, tbh I kinda miss that character myself and wish I played him in a bit more open-ended campaign that would give me more space to develop him further, since premades usually don't allow much of that without completely derailing.
If this is how you feel about minmaxing, maybe that DnD Deep Dive collab _shouldn't_ happen. Kind of hard to make it work when you disagree with the basic premise.
My brain starts screaming if the party comp isn't somewhat "balanced". It may be from the many years of me being indecisive about character creation, thus leaving me as the last person to make a character, and thus I see the "holes" in the party, but oh lawdy my anxiety would spike if it were an all melee party.
I just like playing the role that the party doesn’t have yet, helps keep my competitive side down when I’m not in direct comparison with other party members.
Yeah hard disagree on point 1. There's a wide range of games out there from "we ran combat once" to "minmax or die." The further you move towards the latter end of that scale, the more important it is to make a character that's strong in combat. You don't need to minmax all the way (and for most games you shouldn't, imo), but make good choices, even if they aren't always the _best_ choices. As a DM, I always expect my players to try to "win" the game by whatever goal they've set. It's my job to put obstacles in front of them, and their job to use every tool at their disposal to get past them. Plus, there are sooooo many character ideas out there, it's always possible for players to come up with a cool one that is also decent at combat. Just imagine the character with 18s in everything. Now make him an arrogant asshole - the party keeps him around because he's good at what he does but the dude is just really insufferable. Or what if he's lazy and combative despite his skill? Or what if he's an anxiety-ridden perfectionist who hides behind a facade? So many cool characters, all with intense flaws, all with perfect combat prowess. Or you can go full-on Captain America - boring on his own, but interesting in how other characters see and interact with him.
I feel sooooooo called out with Tip 4. I am that gremlin who tries to fit the party composition. The "good" thing is that I usually make characters that fit those positions while thinking about the campaign, and it lead into engaging characters for me, but man, it is often that I cold feet and change a character into another one because "oh man, we don't have a frontline!".
Since I randomly roll a lot of my character bits, building into a role from a weird direction is hilarious. "Why is the cleric being the spy?" "I dunno, he is the only reptile in the party to talk to the dragon cultists"
Some people really enjoy the min-maxing part of the game. As long as that doesn’t impinge upon the fun of the rest of the group (which it doesn’t have to), then have fun! But yeah, when it’s motivated out of “I just need to not die and be the very best” that’s generally not great. Also, for party composition, I much more take the “communicate the challenge, let the players solve the issue” approach. So I would never spring a “oh, you don’t have a thief? Sucks to suck” on them, but if they run into the situation where they need something they don’t have, there should be people they can hire to help out or other ways to solve the issue. Happy to see new content from you! Hope you heal soon 😊
The "fuck you" in regards to confusion about rules saying you can do something seems spiteful and rude. I left a campaign because nobody bothered setting expectations, and people jumped to rage and insults immediately any time I betrayed some convention I didn't even know existed. I was never there to bother anyone, I was just painfully new, and that experience is why I haven't touched TTRPGs since. Some of y'all get so passionate it becomes aggressive and that makes it so hard to want to try again.
First time playing Pathfinder, first time GM'ing (what are the odds) Have seen a ton of content, tips, etc, have actually made a vault of characters on roll 20 that I can use in other people games, so I know most feats/traits/rules etc Decide to make a campaign. Create a world from scratch for it. ( ho no ) Things actually do end up going smoothly because while I was hyped for it I pretty much created the entire skeleton of the world and plot, so the rest was just improv and filling with the players. End up having an amazing time every week because all my players are GM's thenselfs, so they can help me if I screw up, and are also amazing people. Also discover that I'm pretty good at improving things on the spot from nothing. :D
"The DM should accomodate for party composition." Yep learned this right away when I started doing 1 shots with friends in DnD 5e to get used to GMing and work on my homebrew world. Literally all martials until my cousin joined as a Warlock. So even then no spammable spell slots of a 9th level full caster. I made the combats and encounters around them. Swashbuckler Rogue with Persuasion Expertise gets to do his things. Beefy frontline boys eating big hits but gave healing pots to help. An npc healer after a nasty fight who was tied into the lore of the city before they went off to fight the boss. On the GM to work with the team and make it fun for everyone.
@7:25 Funny you should use a human fighter as an example, because Roy Greenhilt from The Order of the Stick was the counterexample that had come to mind- A character who in-universe has strong stats in everything except maybe dexterity (which is probably a 10 or so). And I think Roy is a good example of the sort of character a strong stat array lends itself well to; The "responsible one" or the straight man to your companion's comedic antics. (Granted, as a straight class 3.5 fighter, Roy is not what you'd call a min-maxed character)
Amusingly enough that's what me and my friend were doing in 5e. He enjoyed playing some whacky MAD stuff like bladesinger wizard+swashbuckler rogue combo that was so multiple ability dependent he had to stay at 10con as a d6/d8 character. Meanwhile I played the "reliable" one in the party with an optimised character (or well, as optimised as 5e pure martial can be).
I minmax purely for the role my character is planned to fulfill, if im the smart investigator who travelled halfway around the world just to track down this one evil cult, hes damn well gonna be the best guy for the job. Im 18 Int 16 Cha, my physical stats suffer but im built with the goal of supporting the party
In homebrew games I agree on all points, in Society games, from what I hear most APs, and i can personally attest if you dont have a fairly balanced team in Frozen Flame, ya gona die by level 6. we have a party of 5 "min maxed" characters, at least stat wise, my build is sub-optimal otherwise, as is everyone elses, and weve nearly died several times. Apparently Hot Take, having optimal stats isnt min maxing when you have so many ways to branch out via ancestries, and so many ways to fuck it up with feats that do nothing for you or builds that dont come online until later
Weirdly, the final point makes me want to try running a Tower Knight style fight. One BBEG that is manageable by the party but increasingly dangerous the fewer are against them and a bunch of archers that are completely accessible, but far enough away it'll require someone to break away from the BBEG to deal with them.
I really don`t like this hate for minmaxing. I got you point that this shouldnt be (normaly) your priority but to say a minmaxed character is boring is simply wrong. You can give them so many flaws that don`t show on your sheet. They can be sea sick or allergic to wheet as an example. I have much more a problem with intentionally bad chars. Don`t get me wrong in a Oneshot or a fun campaign like "Find the biggest D in the kingdom" ok but not in heroic adventure. If you use all of your turns to dance in a battle without doing anything and the party tpk because of it, nobody will like you. With the rest as a whole i mostly agree with, but you should have some kind of healing in a party. There is a reason why there are so many option to heal (Spells, feats, potion, tinctures)
Man, several pieces in here really hit home. Like talking about balanced encounters, my GM almost always balances them perfectly; one or two of us tend to go down and we'll all jokingly chant "TPK! TPK! TPK!" like manic cultists, but then we pull through and win and _DAMN_ does it feel good! Or when you were talking about how the first session won't be perfect and talking about the idealistic "everyone shares their backstories" thing. We're 39 sessions in and are only _just_ starting to explore my character's backstory (ironically, by having her forget it and learn to let go [she's an automaton obsessed with keeping her memory]).
We always have a session zero just to coordiante the party, especially mood and theme and to make sure it doesn't lean to one side too much. Than we have the first session which usually is a hilarious clusterF.
I tell all of my players to pick any background that they want because of the statistical bonus it gives them, and to come up with the actual background that they want to play with seperately. The entire reason I do this is because I find prewritten backgrounds restrictive, and that only gets worse when the background gives statistical bonuses.
Holy fuck, yes... There's iirc ONE fucking background with intimidating glare... Oh you want to be able to look at ppl funny and spook them? Oh guess you've been a soldier then.
I am so with NOnat about playing what you want to play. As a DM I constantly tell my player to feel no pressure about what they want to player even if they are the third mage in the group. Play what you want, and will cross the bridge when we get there. Some player need to feel like they do anyways one of my players is a bit like that preferring to play something no other player are doing it's fine as long as you are not choosing something because someone else forced you or you are feeling compelled to do something against your will. I've been in too many game where one or more player were putting pressure on me to play the missing class of their party composition.
The thing to constantly remind yourself of, when you're playing as GM: Your objective CAN'T be to win, because challenge is required for fun. And you will not be challenged; You have literally unlimited resources. You control the moods and actions of the DEITIES of the in-game universe. The only true limiter on your power is what your friends will put up with before quitting, and to that end you're better off just focusing on making a game experience where everyone (including you - you are also one of the players at the table!) has a good time. If you want to play a game where you're trying to win "as a GM," play Descent. It's actually really good at creating a structure where you can try your best to kill everyone and sometimes get a kill or two or even a TPK, and the game's designed to make that contest feel fair.
19:06 I wholeheartedly agree with this. The difference between playing a TTRPG and a videogame is that the GM can craft the challenges specific for a particular group. The group doesn't have to be balanced and prepared for everything, if everyone wants to play a rogue to form the secret society of the other people's property lovers or whateer, the GM should craft interesting challenges for them.
While it does sound good in practice it's way harder for the DM to do so, especially when a system is balanced around the "standard" (frotnline "tank", healer, 1 striker and 1 crowd control mage let's say). Now you have everyone play as strikers and the whole system's balance starts to break, lack of "tank" means that an enemy claps your rogues in 2 hits instead of 4 that a "tank" would take, no healer means that survivability drops even further etc. Which in turn means that DM has to either be more experienced, or they have to play a system that supports the "whacky" party, or it probably won't be fun for either the players when they get clapped by an encouter that's "standard" by the rules but turns out deadly for them, nor the DM who's gonna feel like they failed to account for something and it's their fault the encounter went south. Which is why in general "noone" wants to DM.
Some games and systems desire more or less focus on being good at combat. PF2E adventure paths require super strongly tuned combat characters for instance. While you can in homebrew design a campaign where a player can be weak, I'd rather run a system designed around vastly differently specced characters like Call of Cthulhu where you can have an old man who has solid biological sciences skills and car driving skills but nothing else, so when the ghouls from the sewers show up he needs to hide or figure out something small he can do while the professional boxer cracks skulls with twin brass knuckles.
@@claudiolentini5067 I mean a well kitted boxer can probably 1v1 a ghoul. It's up to the scientist and the petty thief to push bookcases and juke the other one until the boxer beats the first and can swap. Teamwork
@@smjsuperscott true, but are you saying that a combat focused game does not need teamwork? That's absolutely not true with PF2E, is a game where i would argue optimization is more about helping and supporting your allies than it is around being singularly good in combat. DPS and tanking damage by yourself can only get you so far. Try to win against a single level +3 creature without teamwork. Also, i think is a bit unfair to compare CoC and PF2E in that regard, they have a radically different approach to combat
To expand on that, there are archetypes in PF2 that are based on ways to contribute to the team without dealing the damage. So yes, its a combat heavy system, and combat is to be expected, but it gives the players different ways to have your character contribute to the combat . In your example, the scientist and the thief are helping the boxer in the fight in their own way, without directly damaging the enemies. That's something that many PF2 PCs can do, and something that they can specc in to
@@claudiolentini5067 bro I said "teamwork" as a joke. Like the boxer is doing literally everything and there's a totally non combat focused scientist who lucked into an environmental means of slowing one enemy down enough. My entire point was games like PF2e and DnD 5e are entirely based around combat and all characters are as such designed to perform combat to some degree, whether in a supportive or direct manner. In games not designed around that, however, you could have a player character who contributes nothing to a fight but can make a campaign saving roll discovering that the semi aquatic ghouls are weak to a particular chemical compound that he can make a squirt gun for and arm the party with. Coming from DnD 5e where every character is obscenely homogenized, having a system of such wild extremes is fun, and in skill based systems you could have a player character who is terrible at almost everything but then comes in clutch with that one skill, which is very different from class based systems where you need several things together to be able to properly function.
Really interesting to hear different perspectives on 'new campaign' issues, no matter the setting/system. While I can definitely agree these are generally true for most people, I was thinking about my own play groups while listening, and I think we actually would disagree with the last couple of points. No toxicity or anything in the way we play, but we tend to have more fun when the party is more balanced, and when they get a good grasp of the kind of combat they can expect from the get-go. 80% of session 1 being combat would definitely be too much, but about 50% would be fine with us. As for party composition, that probably says more about us as players than the actual system. Most of us don't tend to have things we're dead-set on playing, so we'll have a basic concept of the character we want to play and tweak things to fit the rest of the party as we go. If someone does have a class/role they were really keen to try, the rest of us would be perfectly happy to try out other things that will complement and support the party. That said, I've played in a campaign where we were all ranged characters before, and kiting enemies all over the place was fun as hell.
If everybody is okay with this, it's great. When I don't have an idea, I'm fine waiting for other people to announce and then making something complementary.
I normally uses my Monday to prep for Thursday game, do sometimes stuff get in the way and I try doing the best I can. Showing up to a game without prepping I would never do, as I feel bad for the players.
Addition to your last point: While it’s important to not have too much of the first session taken up with combat, it’s also important for the very beginning of the game to have a lot of focus and structure, which often involves a small encounter. I was in a game recently where everyone felt like they were spinning their wheels for too long, with no conflict or many skill checks for five sessions.
I broadly agree with these, but a few thoughts: - I don't think story and stats are mutually exclusive. Not that you actually said that, but I like making it explicit. I enjoy making a tuned character (with some intentional weaknesses usually), *then* inventing a convincing story for it. - The majority of my best ideas happen over the table and not actually during prep. Prep for me is the time where I give myself the material that I am going to draw from to come up with something really cool during the session. I think I have prepared less and less the more faith I develop in myself. Sometimes you have a bad day, but I don't think more prep would save you on those days, because it's your GMing that's having a bad day, not your campaign notes. I think the first 30 minutes or less of prep are by far the most important because it will give you a basic shape that you can manipulate moment to moment later I think an additional mistake I come across in myself (the other side of the coin that is my second point if you like), is giving yourself too much work and not knowing when to handwave or otherwise be lazy, to save your mental energy for the moments where it really counts. I mostly see this in other people over-prepping but it also applies to under-prepping and loading literally all the work on future you to run an engaging session with no help from present you. Players can do this when they leave things until the last minute, or when they try a new game and don't (or can't) put the work in to actually learn it.
At least he recognizes that PF2 encourages the 18 max stat. But yeah. If I’m coming into a campaign like Wrath of the Righteous, I’m not bringing my poppet illusionist who just wants to be a real boy, I’m bringing my champion Doom Slayer. There’s nothing wrong with leaning into the rails the GM is putting down
As a DM I've sometimes , many times waited until the last minute to work on my next session. I don't really have a good excuse. Sometimes life got in the way, other time I was just being lazy or felt unmotivated. As a player though, it never happened to me, I can't relate, 0. I find that to be so disrespectful. For the DM to take a lot of his time, preparing for the game, and the story and the lore, and the NPCs and all the logistic and the stress over making sure everyone is ready and making all that work with everyone busy schedule, the least you can do, and the only thing decent really is to do your part.
I disagree that a gunslinger in quest doesn't work, especially hunting mammoths as an example. Big game hunting is a thing. I would go human noble sniper.
I see a lot of people in the comments talking about Stormwind fallacy without really understanding the point that no Nats is making. No nats isn't saying you can't optimize your character. What he's saying is you shouldn't go out of your way to optimize your character for the purpose of winning and nothing else. Having an optimized character can be fun and can be an experience to play. But building a character with the sole goal of winning and nothing else is what he's talking about. He saying that winning isn't everything and often it's not. As known as said failing forward is a concept that can be greatly used at the table. I've had a character who failed so spectacularly he knocked himself into his attacker putting them both prone onto the ground and surrounding himself by other people. This allowed both for a tactical advantage and disadvantage to his roll.
So for those who are coming in hot about not min-maxing, I'm just going to say that it really is pointless. As someone who has GM'd a lot of games, having characters that are fun to roleplay as is WAY more important than being able to roll big numbers. I currently have Wild Card Rogue in a friends game and I have a negative in STR which when you try to do some breaking and entering with your friends can sometimes suck when you take negatives to your athletics check, and just because my Dex and Cha are high doesn't mean I don't occasionally struggle in my role or get outshined in combat quite frequently, but being able to dig deep into what is going on with NPCs and discover things my party never would because they are busy being focused on other things is great. As a GM, the most fun my players have had are with characters that have low stats in areas that come up occasionally, and the whole point of min-maxing defeats the purpose of TTRPGs which is to get together to have a fun time and play pretend in an acceptable manner as adults. Any player who min-maxes has either had bad experiences with prior DMs who didn't understand the true purpose of playing the game, or has this distorted view of 'beating the DM' and also fails to understand the point of the game...or you know, they could be me as a player who constantly rolls like hot garbage. XD
Yes thank you for point four. I play what I want. Don’t force me into a role because we don’t have it. Now as a player I’ll pick a class different from others to let them shine, but I’m not picking spells or class just because we are missing a rogue or healing person.
Hey, enjoyed the video. I get where you are coming from and I THINK it hinges on the concept that both DMs and Players actually hash out the structure of their play ahead of time, a collaborative storytelling rather that some in person competitive MMO. I would like more of that where I'm from but, a lot of people like to beat other people. I used to(I've since "retired" from playing) feel TREMENDOUS pressure to min-max my characters, stats and specs(The parties, not the DMs, enforced re-rolling till you had all max primary and secondary stats during character creation) and, your "backstory" would just have to be crushed around it soooo, everyone was a shounen protagonist. If you didn't play it like a squad based game, you got shit on relentlessly. You would have thought it was vanilla WoW and we were on a MC prog run. This lead to an arms race because the DMs just started ramping difficulty. Those people quit down the road but, who replaced them just use youtube videos and posts of meta character builds and top 10 lists to beat you into submission instead haha.
The reason why I as a GM tend to have a balanced group is not to make the PCs succeed, but to give every PC a place to shine. When there are 3 melee characters and one healer, some of the melee might feel redundant, because their place to shine is so small that it almost never occurs. That said, if the Players still choose to have 3 melees and one ranged, I of course will accommodate for that. But I might put in a DMPC to at least smooth out SOME of their shortcomings, like a rogue with Trick magic item / UMD maxed, so that he can shove the healing stick up their puny butts in case of emergency. Same goes for min-maxed characters, by the way. I will allow them (I am a notorious min-maxer myself, and married to one), but I will see that story beats numbers. Of course they may create that dwarven zen-archer monk, becoming a living tommy-gun along their way - if they can tell my why and how they got there, and if they have shortcomings in other respects. I will not tolerate the rogue-cleric-sorcerer-monk that can fill any spot and outshine everybody else. If you want to brush your ego, go play video games.
Yeah new people are starting, because of the fuckin pinkerton thing Wotc got itself into i'll probably will still not able to get my hands on a pf2 core rulebook, as more people will go to pathfinder
Minmaxing in Pathfinder is kinda just... done naturally. Stats aren't random, you select most of them. The only thing that shouldn't be minmax'd for Pathfinder is your background, honestly.
Your twitch streaming has given you a bit of a potty mouth lol. I love the new freedom you seem to have gained from your twitch streams. This video feels more like the live streams I've been in. It's nice
If the player is abusing of their berry. You could always as a DM explain to the player that unfortunately there weren't anything that would qualify as a ripe berry during their roll to subsit/forage the area. Maybe consider letting the player eat the berry and then roll behind the table at a later point. Telling the player they have been poison by the Ripe poisonous berry. Or they have some sort of condition a rash or something with a custom side effect or whatever. They also must rest for 10 minutes in completely tranquility. What if the nature around time is very busy with wildlife and all matter of creatures birds singing and other crawler are making just enough noise that it just won't do. I don't think that Good berry is overpowered. It only is, when the DM doesn't know when to say no. Also what about the player being reasonable. The character probably has only 1 or 2 focus point. So why does he not care about meditating just for that. Maybe the character doesn't particularly feel like going to meditate for the next hour just so their party can eat a good berry. Also maybe they are on a mission and time is of the essence and they just can't afford to camp for too long. Maybe they need to reach someplace before nightfall, because its too dangerous to camp outside. Maybe an Enemy force are hunting the player, them making camp for the Druid to Meditate for an hour isn't possible. Maybe there are some aggressive Owlbear or whatnot around the bushes where the wildberry are. You fear that you won't be able to pick any without a fight. And your team is already low on hp, can you afford it.
The most interesting thing to do with god stats is to make them a pacifist. Think escanor from 7ds. Literally only fights if the party depends on it and then just wipes the floor. Great stats for a cleric. Just buffing and healing until they run out of slots then, in the 3rd or 4th battle of the day, they pull out their mace and smash face.
I think this Idea would work really well with a Vash character. Vash has the power to kill everybody on sight, but his morals are sooo strong on the not killing anyone that the time he accidentally kills someone, he has a breakdown and simply retires to a simpler life. Trying to solve any situation without resorting to kill the enemies under any circumstances sounds interesting and enticing form a creative standpoint.
100% agree with you on the party composition and GM's responsibility. I've had a player who always wanted the party to have a dedicated healer, but of course never wanted to play the healer himself. He'd even complain if a new player joined and didn't play a healer (if the party was missing one). He'd say I should have made the player make one. I simply replied that it's no fun to be forced to play a certain type of character.
Totally agreed with all points! Having a character with flaws (even big flaws) brings up so much more interesting gameplay, and makes me get more attached to that guy. I played two campaigns with a strong build, and I really didn't like playing those characters.
I miss Nonat1s stand talking into the camera. I animated guy just does not do it for me. I been watching less and less of the channel since he is not in fort of the camera.
The fact that Nonat has grown big enough to have so many trolls in the comments where they are essentially not worth reading to him, while it sucks, makes me happy for that growth. I hope that his channel and his career keep growing because he fully deserves it!
People are allowed to enjoy minmaxing, minmaxing in and of itself doesn't ensure nobody has fun. It's called the Stormwind Fallacy, and it's a real problem lately. Let people enjoy things.
Yeah problem with that? You balance encounters for them, and then they fail roll because of dice and the Rolls have bene balanced for their Uber build and so, sometimes you get grown men sulking like children complaining why they failed even with their mega build
@@PsicoPrimeI think the bigger issue is when not everyone is on the same page. If only one player is super-optimized and the GM has to beef up encounters to conpensate, then it can feel like punishing the other players.
On the first ruling:
I tell my players "I am disappointed if I don't at least knock down 1 or 2 people if it is a party of 4" for a Final Boss fight.
It isn't a struggle or satisfying ending without some damage. And I play my monsters based on their intelligence score pretty consistently.
So, I've only played a group this way once so far:
What I done in the past for players who are ok with really tough fights/rolled stats is a "Softcore" experience where almost every encounter would only knock out the PC and punish them for poor tactics over killing.
But on certain fights I say "This is a Hardcore fight, you can die here." and that catches their attention.
It also offers the opportunity to fight in a roleplaying manner over min-maxed. If it's rolled stats and softcore, a 100xp encounter can still be really scary at level 3.
When its a truly dangerous fight, they will basically get that whole "Why is there a save file outside this one room?" equipment area sometimes. Scrolls that they have been seen before, potions of healing/random resistances (1d8 -1 for all 7 damage types) and they can determine themselves if the resistance-type is important for now, or later.
Making strong characters is fun, succeeding is fun. If you want to roleplay a great warrior or someone that aims for something very big, you might have a better time if your sheet actually supports that idea. I'm not on the side of "everything needs to be perfect and you need to be a god", but having a good character is important to have a good time. I've seen many times that having a weak character might be too frustrating because you can't succeed at your role or because you just took a hit-kill and died, while a character with better choices in the build would have survived. Pathfinder 2e is balanced, me and some friends have played other systems where you actually break the game if you min-max too much, since this doesn't happen in 2e, go for it, make strong characters.
I guess it's a personal preference. I played two campaigns with a "strong" build and I really didn't like playing them.
On the other hand, when I make a character in DND with a 5 in a stat, that instantly makes me want to play it. One of my friends created a bard on the first campaign I ever DMed and she rolled a 3 (less than 1% chance) that she immediately put into strength. Playing that character meant that any Athletic rolls would be a challenge. My friend got scared her character would ever need to cross a river, jump over a pit, etc. She told me later on that this specific flaw made her fall in love with her character. She needed to be clever about how to play, and the other players too.
see, regardless of system, your character looking cool is fun, but playing around their weaknesses in creative ways is more fun, and you can do both
@@CamfreyFR I've played some Very letal games, so I guess I'm not a fan of such flaws If they can bê avoided. I'm playing as a "life cleric" currently, and a long time Ago I discovered my character was going to be a father, só I started doing everything I could to stay Alive for the kid. I'm still not picking any necromancy, even though necromancy spells are really strong, but I'm "playing Diablo" with the rest, and what motivated me to do this was the Child. Roleplay can incentivate min-max sometimes, but I still follow my vows and avoid necromancy, I think that's a good balance.
the problem with that, you make a very strong character? ok the gm balance, the resoult is the same they fail and succede the same percentual of rolls and then they sulk because their mega build should do better, also they make the warrior that should never fear nothing ecc they whine because an enemy succeded in intimidation
@@PsicoPrime you're describing tô me a GM countering a player, the game will not be good with a strong or weak character since the GM is the problem.
Not to worship Pathfinder 2e or anything, but that situation where you mentioned "Can't neutralize poison because it's too high level bruh" is literally the GM explaining how counteract works to a player. I love how we have counteract in PF2e and relative levels. In D&D 5e it always has to be something you spring on your players, who get disappointed that what they bring with them won't work.
My first pathfinder campaign was supposed to start with long combat. Bar room brawl. Non-lethal damage, the cook duel wielding large fish. Terrain interaction flip tables, drink effects. All the players but one called for city watch after first swing. But I think it would have worked for characters introducing themselves.
You don't need an excuse to make a good character, suboptimal characters are not a shortcut for being creative or interesting.
in 5e you do. a good character in 5e is not a wizard with fireball and invisibility and 18 int. a good character in 5e is a broken, ridiculously unbalanced multiclass or feat combo that makes playing with them at least not necessary for the encounters
wanting to make a character good, competent at something is great in any game, but making the mechanically best at that thing is usually an asshole move in many systems
@@velloso5475 What he's going at is that having let's say 5e's current top build (peacechron) with carefuly curated spell list, preplanned feats etc. Doesn't mean you can't be creative when it comes to actual "roleplay" like so many seem to believe.
My wizard was optimised to hell and back, and yet people I played with liked him for how I played him instead, tbh I kinda miss that character myself and wish I played him in a bit more open-ended campaign that would give me more space to develop him further, since premades usually don't allow much of that without completely derailing.
If this is how you feel about minmaxing, maybe that DnD Deep Dive collab _shouldn't_ happen. Kind of hard to make it work when you disagree with the basic premise.
My brain starts screaming if the party comp isn't somewhat "balanced". It may be from the many years of me being indecisive about character creation, thus leaving me as the last person to make a character, and thus I see the "holes" in the party, but oh lawdy my anxiety would spike if it were an all melee party.
You can always try to hire a few archers to fill it out.
I just like playing the role that the party doesn’t have yet, helps keep my competitive side down when I’m not in direct comparison with other party members.
Welp the first point is a bit lackluster, if you want to play an expert in arcana, maxing int is a no-brainer.
Yeah hard disagree on point 1. There's a wide range of games out there from "we ran combat once" to "minmax or die." The further you move towards the latter end of that scale, the more important it is to make a character that's strong in combat. You don't need to minmax all the way (and for most games you shouldn't, imo), but make good choices, even if they aren't always the _best_ choices.
As a DM, I always expect my players to try to "win" the game by whatever goal they've set. It's my job to put obstacles in front of them, and their job to use every tool at their disposal to get past them.
Plus, there are sooooo many character ideas out there, it's always possible for players to come up with a cool one that is also decent at combat. Just imagine the character with 18s in everything. Now make him an arrogant asshole - the party keeps him around because he's good at what he does but the dude is just really insufferable. Or what if he's lazy and combative despite his skill? Or what if he's an anxiety-ridden perfectionist who hides behind a facade? So many cool characters, all with intense flaws, all with perfect combat prowess. Or you can go full-on Captain America - boring on his own, but interesting in how other characters see and interact with him.
I feel sooooooo called out with Tip 4. I am that gremlin who tries to fit the party composition. The "good" thing is that I usually make characters that fit those positions while thinking about the campaign, and it lead into engaging characters for me, but man, it is often that I cold feet and change a character into another one because "oh man, we don't have a frontline!".
But if you end up with a character that you enjoy, it's fine.
Since I randomly roll a lot of my character bits, building into a role from a weird direction is hilarious. "Why is the cleric being the spy?" "I dunno, he is the only reptile in the party to talk to the dragon cultists"
Glad you're ok and able to upload once in a while, Nonat. Thanks for doing it, and take care of yourself!
Some people really enjoy the min-maxing part of the game. As long as that doesn’t impinge upon the fun of the rest of the group (which it doesn’t have to), then have fun! But yeah, when it’s motivated out of “I just need to not die and be the very best” that’s generally not great.
Also, for party composition, I much more take the “communicate the challenge, let the players solve the issue” approach. So I would never spring a “oh, you don’t have a thief? Sucks to suck” on them, but if they run into the situation where they need something they don’t have, there should be people they can hire to help out or other ways to solve the issue.
Happy to see new content from you! Hope you heal soon 😊
The "fuck you" in regards to confusion about rules saying you can do something seems spiteful and rude. I left a campaign because nobody bothered setting expectations, and people jumped to rage and insults immediately any time I betrayed some convention I didn't even know existed. I was never there to bother anyone, I was just painfully new, and that experience is why I haven't touched TTRPGs since. Some of y'all get so passionate it becomes aggressive and that makes it so hard to want to try again.
First time playing Pathfinder, first time GM'ing (what are the odds)
Have seen a ton of content, tips, etc, have actually made a vault of characters on roll 20 that I can use in other people games, so I know most feats/traits/rules etc
Decide to make a campaign. Create a world from scratch for it. ( ho no )
Things actually do end up going smoothly because while I was hyped for it I pretty much created the entire skeleton of the world and plot, so the rest was just improv and filling with the players.
End up having an amazing time every week because all my players are GM's thenselfs, so they can help me if I screw up, and are also amazing people. Also discover that I'm pretty good at improving things on the spot from nothing. :D
"The DM should accomodate for party composition." Yep learned this right away when I started doing 1 shots with friends in DnD 5e to get used to GMing and work on my homebrew world. Literally all martials until my cousin joined as a Warlock. So even then no spammable spell slots of a 9th level full caster. I made the combats and encounters around them. Swashbuckler Rogue with Persuasion Expertise gets to do his things. Beefy frontline boys eating big hits but gave healing pots to help. An npc healer after a nasty fight who was tied into the lore of the city before they went off to fight the boss. On the GM to work with the team and make it fun for everyone.
@7:25 Funny you should use a human fighter as an example, because Roy Greenhilt from The Order of the Stick was the counterexample that had come to mind- A character who in-universe has strong stats in everything except maybe dexterity (which is probably a 10 or so). And I think Roy is a good example of the sort of character a strong stat array lends itself well to; The "responsible one" or the straight man to your companion's comedic antics.
(Granted, as a straight class 3.5 fighter, Roy is not what you'd call a min-maxed character)
Amusingly enough that's what me and my friend were doing in 5e. He enjoyed playing some whacky MAD stuff like bladesinger wizard+swashbuckler rogue combo that was so multiple ability dependent he had to stay at 10con as a d6/d8 character. Meanwhile I played the "reliable" one in the party with an optimised character (or well, as optimised as 5e pure martial can be).
I minmax purely for the role my character is planned to fulfill, if im the smart investigator who travelled halfway around the world just to track down this one evil cult, hes damn well gonna be the best guy for the job. Im 18 Int 16 Cha, my physical stats suffer but im built with the goal of supporting the party
In homebrew games I agree on all points, in Society games, from what I hear most APs, and i can personally attest if you dont have a fairly balanced team in Frozen Flame, ya gona die by level 6. we have a party of 5 "min maxed" characters, at least stat wise, my build is sub-optimal otherwise, as is everyone elses, and weve nearly died several times.
Apparently Hot Take, having optimal stats isnt min maxing when you have so many ways to branch out via ancestries, and so many ways to fuck it up with feats that do nothing for you or builds that dont come online until later
Nonat1s
You might need to look up stormwind fallacy
Weirdly, the final point makes me want to try running a Tower Knight style fight. One BBEG that is manageable by the party but increasingly dangerous the fewer are against them and a bunch of archers that are completely accessible, but far enough away it'll require someone to break away from the BBEG to deal with them.
I really don`t like this hate for minmaxing. I got you point that this shouldnt be (normaly) your priority but to say a minmaxed character is boring is simply wrong. You can give them so many flaws that don`t show on your sheet. They can be sea sick or allergic to wheet as an example. I have much more a problem with intentionally bad chars. Don`t get me wrong in a Oneshot or a fun campaign like "Find the biggest D in the kingdom" ok but not in heroic adventure. If you use all of your turns to dance in a battle without doing anything and the party tpk because of it, nobody will like you.
With the rest as a whole i mostly agree with, but you should have some kind of healing in a party. There is a reason why there are so many option to heal (Spells, feats, potion, tinctures)
That first tip really got some of the commenters bristling in their breeches. You would think you’d kicked their dogs.
Man, several pieces in here really hit home. Like talking about balanced encounters, my GM almost always balances them perfectly; one or two of us tend to go down and we'll all jokingly chant "TPK! TPK! TPK!" like manic cultists, but then we pull through and win and _DAMN_ does it feel good!
Or when you were talking about how the first session won't be perfect and talking about the idealistic "everyone shares their backstories" thing. We're 39 sessions in and are only _just_ starting to explore my character's backstory (ironically, by having her forget it and learn to let go [she's an automaton obsessed with keeping her memory]).
We always have a session zero just to coordiante the party, especially mood and theme and to make sure it doesn't lean to one side too much. Than we have the first session which usually is a hilarious clusterF.
Take care of your back bud, we love your content and attitude!
I tell all of my players to pick any background that they want because of the statistical bonus it gives them, and to come up with the actual background that they want to play with seperately. The entire reason I do this is because I find prewritten backgrounds restrictive, and that only gets worse when the background gives statistical bonuses.
Holy fuck, yes... There's iirc ONE fucking background with intimidating glare...
Oh you want to be able to look at ppl funny and spook them? Oh guess you've been a soldier then.
If you're not trying to win, than you just don't realize victory was really just the friends you made along the way.
My one group right now is a bard, wizard, sorcerer and rogue. We've been making do with what we have, despite critically low healing.
I am so with NOnat about playing what you want to play. As a DM I constantly tell my player to feel no pressure about what they want to player even if they are the third mage in the group. Play what you want, and will cross the bridge when we get there. Some player need to feel like they do anyways one of my players is a bit like that preferring to play something no other player are doing it's fine as long as you are not choosing something because someone else forced you or you are feeling compelled to do something against your will. I've been in too many game where one or more player were putting pressure on me to play the missing class of their party composition.
The thing to constantly remind yourself of, when you're playing as GM: Your objective CAN'T be to win, because challenge is required for fun. And you will not be challenged; You have literally unlimited resources. You control the moods and actions of the DEITIES of the in-game universe. The only true limiter on your power is what your friends will put up with before quitting, and to that end you're better off just focusing on making a game experience where everyone (including you - you are also one of the players at the table!) has a good time.
If you want to play a game where you're trying to win "as a GM," play Descent. It's actually really good at creating a structure where you can try your best to kill everyone and sometimes get a kill or two or even a TPK, and the game's designed to make that contest feel fair.
19:06 I wholeheartedly agree with this. The difference between playing a TTRPG and a videogame is that the GM can craft the challenges specific for a particular group. The group doesn't have to be balanced and prepared for everything, if everyone wants to play a rogue to form the secret society of the other people's property lovers or whateer, the GM should craft interesting challenges for them.
While it does sound good in practice it's way harder for the DM to do so, especially when a system is balanced around the "standard" (frotnline "tank", healer, 1 striker and 1 crowd control mage let's say). Now you have everyone play as strikers and the whole system's balance starts to break, lack of "tank" means that an enemy claps your rogues in 2 hits instead of 4 that a "tank" would take, no healer means that survivability drops even further etc.
Which in turn means that DM has to either be more experienced, or they have to play a system that supports the "whacky" party, or it probably won't be fun for either the players when they get clapped by an encouter that's "standard" by the rules but turns out deadly for them, nor the DM who's gonna feel like they failed to account for something and it's their fault the encounter went south.
Which is why in general "noone" wants to DM.
As soon as you can and with your physical therapist's permission: PLANKS. They help. A lot.
Thx NoNat, this reminded me of previous horrible starts and lucky legendary stories.
Some games and systems desire more or less focus on being good at combat. PF2E adventure paths require super strongly tuned combat characters for instance. While you can in homebrew design a campaign where a player can be weak, I'd rather run a system designed around vastly differently specced characters like Call of Cthulhu where you can have an old man who has solid biological sciences skills and car driving skills but nothing else, so when the ghouls from the sewers show up he needs to hide or figure out something small he can do while the professional boxer cracks skulls with twin brass knuckles.
I mean, if its CoC, the boxer is probably dying as well
@@claudiolentini5067 I mean a well kitted boxer can probably 1v1 a ghoul. It's up to the scientist and the petty thief to push bookcases and juke the other one until the boxer beats the first and can swap. Teamwork
@@smjsuperscott true, but are you saying that a combat focused game does not need teamwork? That's absolutely not true with PF2E, is a game where i would argue optimization is more about helping and supporting your allies than it is around being singularly good in combat. DPS and tanking damage by yourself can only get you so far. Try to win against a single level +3 creature without teamwork.
Also, i think is a bit unfair to compare CoC and PF2E in that regard, they have a radically different approach to combat
To expand on that, there are archetypes in PF2 that are based on ways to contribute to the team without dealing the damage. So yes, its a combat heavy system, and combat is to be expected, but it gives the players different ways to have your character contribute to the combat .
In your example, the scientist and the thief are helping the boxer in the fight in their own way, without directly damaging the enemies. That's something that many PF2 PCs can do, and something that they can specc in to
@@claudiolentini5067 bro I said "teamwork" as a joke. Like the boxer is doing literally everything and there's a totally non combat focused scientist who lucked into an environmental means of slowing one enemy down enough. My entire point was games like PF2e and DnD 5e are entirely based around combat and all characters are as such designed to perform combat to some degree, whether in a supportive or direct manner. In games not designed around that, however, you could have a player character who contributes nothing to a fight but can make a campaign saving roll discovering that the semi aquatic ghouls are weak to a particular chemical compound that he can make a squirt gun for and arm the party with. Coming from DnD 5e where every character is obscenely homogenized, having a system of such wild extremes is fun, and in skill based systems you could have a player character who is terrible at almost everything but then comes in clutch with that one skill, which is very different from class based systems where you need several things together to be able to properly function.
Really interesting to hear different perspectives on 'new campaign' issues, no matter the setting/system. While I can definitely agree these are generally true for most people, I was thinking about my own play groups while listening, and I think we actually would disagree with the last couple of points. No toxicity or anything in the way we play, but we tend to have more fun when the party is more balanced, and when they get a good grasp of the kind of combat they can expect from the get-go. 80% of session 1 being combat would definitely be too much, but about 50% would be fine with us. As for party composition, that probably says more about us as players than the actual system. Most of us don't tend to have things we're dead-set on playing, so we'll have a basic concept of the character we want to play and tweak things to fit the rest of the party as we go. If someone does have a class/role they were really keen to try, the rest of us would be perfectly happy to try out other things that will complement and support the party.
That said, I've played in a campaign where we were all ranged characters before, and kiting enemies all over the place was fun as hell.
If everybody is okay with this, it's great. When I don't have an idea, I'm fine waiting for other people to announce and then making something complementary.
I normally uses my Monday to prep for Thursday game, do sometimes stuff get in the way and I try doing the best I can.
Showing up to a game without prepping I would never do, as I feel bad for the players.
Addition to your last point: While it’s important to not have too much of the first session taken up with combat, it’s also important for the very beginning of the game to have a lot of focus and structure, which often involves a small encounter. I was in a game recently where everyone felt like they were spinning their wheels for too long, with no conflict or many skill checks for five sessions.
Big ol' props to the MHG music, love that village BGM
I broadly agree with these, but a few thoughts:
- I don't think story and stats are mutually exclusive. Not that you actually said that, but I like making it explicit. I enjoy making a tuned character (with some intentional weaknesses usually), *then* inventing a convincing story for it.
- The majority of my best ideas happen over the table and not actually during prep. Prep for me is the time where I give myself the material that I am going to draw from to come up with something really cool during the session. I think I have prepared less and less the more faith I develop in myself. Sometimes you have a bad day, but I don't think more prep would save you on those days, because it's your GMing that's having a bad day, not your campaign notes. I think the first 30 minutes or less of prep are by far the most important because it will give you a basic shape that you can manipulate moment to moment later
I think an additional mistake I come across in myself (the other side of the coin that is my second point if you like), is giving yourself too much work and not knowing when to handwave or otherwise be lazy, to save your mental energy for the moments where it really counts. I mostly see this in other people over-prepping but it also applies to under-prepping and loading literally all the work on future you to run an engaging session with no help from present you. Players can do this when they leave things until the last minute, or when they try a new game and don't (or can't) put the work in to actually learn it.
"Try to balance your encounters, if you're going to make them a lot harder. Don't make them F.A.T.A.L"
Stormwind Fallacy is strong with this video
At least he recognizes that PF2 encourages the 18 max stat. But yeah. If I’m coming into a campaign like Wrath of the Righteous, I’m not bringing my poppet illusionist who just wants to be a real boy, I’m bringing my champion Doom Slayer. There’s nothing wrong with leaning into the rails the GM is putting down
As a DM I've sometimes , many times waited until the last minute to work on my next session. I don't really have a good excuse. Sometimes life got in the way, other time I was just being lazy or felt unmotivated. As a player though, it never happened to me, I can't relate, 0. I find that to be so disrespectful. For the DM to take a lot of his time, preparing for the game, and the story and the lore, and the NPCs and all the logistic and the stress over making sure everyone is ready and making all that work with everyone busy schedule, the least you can do, and the only thing decent really is to do your part.
We don't mentions Cthulhu cause that get Hastur's attentions. Oh wait...
Totally agree. If you want min/max combat, play a game designed for it. Fun games usually have interesting PC's
I disagree that a gunslinger in quest doesn't work, especially hunting mammoths as an example. Big game hunting is a thing.
I would go human noble sniper.
I see a lot of people in the comments talking about Stormwind fallacy without really understanding the point that no Nats is making. No nats isn't saying you can't optimize your character. What he's saying is you shouldn't go out of your way to optimize your character for the purpose of winning and nothing else. Having an optimized character can be fun and can be an experience to play. But building a character with the sole goal of winning and nothing else is what he's talking about. He saying that winning isn't everything and often it's not. As known as said failing forward is a concept that can be greatly used at the table. I've had a character who failed so spectacularly he knocked himself into his attacker putting them both prone onto the ground and surrounding himself by other people. This allowed both for a tactical advantage and disadvantage to his roll.
what do you mean "your character is a living breathing person"?
What if I play a skeleton?!
So for those who are coming in hot about not min-maxing, I'm just going to say that it really is pointless. As someone who has GM'd a lot of games, having characters that are fun to roleplay as is WAY more important than being able to roll big numbers. I currently have Wild Card Rogue in a friends game and I have a negative in STR which when you try to do some breaking and entering with your friends can sometimes suck when you take negatives to your athletics check, and just because my Dex and Cha are high doesn't mean I don't occasionally struggle in my role or get outshined in combat quite frequently, but being able to dig deep into what is going on with NPCs and discover things my party never would because they are busy being focused on other things is great.
As a GM, the most fun my players have had are with characters that have low stats in areas that come up occasionally, and the whole point of min-maxing defeats the purpose of TTRPGs which is to get together to have a fun time and play pretend in an acceptable manner as adults. Any player who min-maxes has either had bad experiences with prior DMs who didn't understand the true purpose of playing the game, or has this distorted view of 'beating the DM' and also fails to understand the point of the game...or you know, they could be me as a player who constantly rolls like hot garbage. XD
I FEEL SO CALLED OUT. Literally playing a sword and shield human fighter man named John.....
Yes thank you for point four. I play what I want. Don’t force me into a role because we don’t have it. Now as a player I’ll pick a class different from others to let them shine, but I’m not picking spells or class just because we are missing a rogue or healing person.
Hey buddy. Hoping you're feeling better everyday. We're about to start Kingmaker. So I'm gonna send this to our GM.
Shouldn't character creation be done at session zero?
My current favorite PC has no stat higher then a 14, and she is the most fun I have had playing.
Hey, enjoyed the video. I get where you are coming from and I THINK it hinges on the concept that both DMs and Players actually hash out the structure of their play ahead of time, a collaborative storytelling rather that some in person competitive MMO. I would like more of that where I'm from but, a lot of people like to beat other people. I used to(I've since "retired" from playing) feel TREMENDOUS pressure to min-max my characters, stats and specs(The parties, not the DMs, enforced re-rolling till you had all max primary and secondary stats during character creation) and, your "backstory" would just have to be crushed around it soooo, everyone was a shounen protagonist. If you didn't play it like a squad based game, you got shit on relentlessly. You would have thought it was vanilla WoW and we were on a MC prog run. This lead to an arms race because the DMs just started ramping difficulty. Those people quit down the road but, who replaced them just use youtube videos and posts of meta character builds and top 10 lists to beat you into submission instead haha.
Start: 3:18
So... not reading the comments anymore because of a few bad apples uh?
What happened to "Engaging with the Community?"
yeah, i think its an excuse because he doesnt have the time? idk
Might as well just turn off comments at this point.
Hope you are feeling better ❤❤❤ keep on keeping on
The reason why I as a GM tend to have a balanced group is not to make the PCs succeed, but to give every PC a place to shine. When there are 3 melee characters and one healer, some of the melee might feel redundant, because their place to shine is so small that it almost never occurs. That said, if the Players still choose to have 3 melees and one ranged, I of course will accommodate for that. But I might put in a DMPC to at least smooth out SOME of their shortcomings, like a rogue with Trick magic item / UMD maxed, so that he can shove the healing stick up their puny butts in case of emergency.
Same goes for min-maxed characters, by the way. I will allow them (I am a notorious min-maxer myself, and married to one), but I will see that story beats numbers. Of course they may create that dwarven zen-archer monk, becoming a living tommy-gun along their way - if they can tell my why and how they got there, and if they have shortcomings in other respects. I will not tolerate the rogue-cleric-sorcerer-monk that can fill any spot and outshine everybody else. If you want to brush your ego, go play video games.
Yeah new people are starting, because of the fuckin pinkerton thing Wotc got itself into i'll probably will still not able to get my hands on a pf2 core rulebook, as more people will go to pathfinder
Very good tips man. Thanks for the help 😃
followed rule 2, got tpk in session 1, instrunctions unclear :(
Minmaxing in Pathfinder is kinda just... done naturally.
Stats aren't random, you select most of them.
The only thing that shouldn't be minmax'd for Pathfinder is your background, honestly.
Communication between everyone is key
Your twitch streaming has given you a bit of a potty mouth lol. I love the new freedom you seem to have gained from your twitch streams. This video feels more like the live streams I've been in. It's nice
The monster hunter music in the back :3
If the player is abusing of their berry. You could always as a DM explain to the player that unfortunately there weren't anything that would qualify as a ripe berry during their roll to subsit/forage the area. Maybe consider letting the player eat the berry and then roll behind the table at a later point. Telling the player they have been poison by the Ripe poisonous berry. Or they have some sort of condition a rash or something with a custom side effect or whatever. They also must rest for 10 minutes in completely tranquility. What if the nature around time is very busy with wildlife and all matter of creatures birds singing and other crawler are making just enough noise that it just won't do. I don't think that Good berry is overpowered. It only is, when the DM doesn't know when to say no. Also what about the player being reasonable. The character probably has only 1 or 2 focus point. So why does he not care about meditating just for that. Maybe the character doesn't particularly feel like going to meditate for the next hour just so their party can eat a good berry. Also maybe they are on a mission and time is of the essence and they just can't afford to camp for too long. Maybe they need to reach someplace before nightfall, because its too dangerous to camp outside. Maybe an Enemy force are hunting the player, them making camp for the Druid to Meditate for an hour isn't possible. Maybe there are some aggressive Owlbear or whatnot around the bushes where the wildberry are. You fear that you won't be able to pick any without a fight. And your team is already low on hp, can you afford it.
Rolling the dice is already so toxic, that I literally see no issue in players having good Stats.
Just make your DCs higher as a DM
*Shrug*
The absolute bravado of this guy to have an opinion!!!!!!
Pleeease make a video on Failing Forwards. Matt Colville has talked about it before and it's awesome.
Thanks NoNat!
The most interesting thing to do with god stats is to make them a pacifist. Think escanor from 7ds. Literally only fights if the party depends on it and then just wipes the floor. Great stats for a cleric. Just buffing and healing until they run out of slots then, in the 3rd or 4th battle of the day, they pull out their mace and smash face.
I think this Idea would work really well with a Vash character. Vash has the power to kill everybody on sight, but his morals are sooo strong on the not killing anyone that the time he accidentally kills someone, he has a breakdown and simply retires to a simpler life. Trying to solve any situation without resorting to kill the enemies under any circumstances sounds interesting and enticing form a creative standpoint.
There is one thing I can’t stand in TTRPGs and that is when people play a silly character.
Comments just to comment to help the algorithm ^_^
Stormwind falacy. Instant cringe
I really need to try Thirsty Sword Lesbians sometime...
Good thing I never make mistakes *cough*
100% agree with you on the party composition and GM's responsibility. I've had a player who always wanted the party to have a dedicated healer, but of course never wanted to play the healer himself. He'd even complain if a new player joined and didn't play a healer (if the party was missing one). He'd say I should have made the player make one. I simply replied that it's no fun to be forced to play a certain type of character.
Totally agreed with all points! Having a character with flaws (even big flaws) brings up so much more interesting gameplay, and makes me get more attached to that guy. I played two campaigns with a strong build, and I really didn't like playing those characters.
I miss Nonat1s stand talking into the camera. I animated guy just does not do it for me. I been watching less and less of the channel since he is not in fort of the camera.
The fact that Nonat has grown big enough to have so many trolls in the comments where they are essentially not worth reading to him, while it sucks, makes me happy for that growth. I hope that his channel and his career keep growing because he fully deserves it!
I rolled stats for a dnd faerie dragon character called Foxglove. She had 3 stats with a negative modifier, including a -3 strength.
Most. Fun. Ever.
Basically just a list of all the red flags in my group LOL jk
MONSTER HUNTER FAN DETECTED
Where is all that toxicity in Nonats comment section, i cant seem to find it?
found one of them, only one tho...
I make shitty characters that hold my party back, I'm doing it right!
👏👏👏