Oddly, a friend of mine is making and testing a chainmaille shirt and wears it while biking under a t-shirt. Apparently it disperses heat to some degree if not in direct sunlight. He bikes hard over hilly paths so I am not sure how that is working? Id expect the metal to eventually at least get to body temprature.

His riding helmet though does overheat.

:idunno:
Chain mail shirt might be made of smaller links, lighter, new alloy, and not padded/able to wear under clothes than actual chain mail armor?

Never really a good idea to over think RPG things, especially compared with modern production techniques. I mean, I'm sure medieval couriers might have liked mountain bikes too, but I'm not basing exertion or Mv rates on it either.

It is an admittedly fiddly book. But with careful reading (the editing should have summarized mechanics with bullet points), and judicious activation, it has its uses on the whole. Particularly so if travel is a big component of your campaign. My players now routinely take the well worn path when they need to get somewhere. There's safety in civilization.

Quote from: Omega;704316Oddly, a friend of mine is making and testing a chainmaille shirt and wears it while biking under a t-shirt. Apparently it disperses heat to some degree if not in direct sunlight. He bikes hard over hilly paths so I am not sure how that is working? Id expect the metal to eventually at least get to body temprature.

I was wondering that myself, actually.  Chainmail has a lot of surface area, much like those pronged computer heat sinks, so I wonder how big an effect that is.  Plus the wind can blow through it very easily, unlike (say) full plate.  Once he gets sweaty, the insulating fabric/padding underneath might not be so insulating, conveying heat to the metal fairly well.

Quote from: therealjcm;703704IIRC the survival guides were the first instance of non-weapon proficiencies as skills. So we used those in my game, but that is about it.

I have used the book for the NWP. Thats about it for me too.

I thought it was a law of the Universe that unarmed combat must be a disaster in all versions of dnd.

I think it's more along the lines of "We must hate and revile any rules for unarmed combat included in D&D."

Quote from: Bill;704368I thought it was a law of the Universe that unarmed combat must be a disaster in all versions of dnd.

What OA did is it said 'why do we have an entirely different system for unarmed combat?'

The OA martial arts styles basically give you attacks, damage, ac bonuses and some special strikes that do unique things.

This is a far better model than "okay for unarmed combat roll totally random stuff and here is a really badly thought out table for grappling". This really doesn't work at all when you add the fact that the games primary unarmed fighter, The Monk, didn't have any of that shit she just had ac bonuses, damage and + attacks per round.

its another example of D&D creating too many subsystems that all tried to do the same thing in totally different ways.

That is why they had subsystems. Trying to do things some new way the designer thought was better, or just more interesting, or even just easier.

I forget whether it was a US Army history book or elsewhere that summarized the usefulness of unarmed martial combat as generally the reserve of highly organized and stratified societies where the authorities strictly reserved martial weapons and the general populace went for the most part safely without weaponry. Or they were dirt poor and mainly had to rely on anything on hand.

When everyday people have swords or daggers, then blade duels take precedence to defend honor.

When everyday people are allowed only household products or less, then improvised weapons and unarmed combat take precedence to defend honor.

I always thought the idea of deliberate unarmed fighters at the frontline of a military weaponry melee a rather stupid misunderstanding of Wu Xia literature tropes. They were the early superhero novels of China, not how men-at-arms chose to enter real battle historically. Otherwise the battles for the Silk Road would have gone even worse for the Chinese than it historically usually did.

This is my saved copy of a piece that I originally posted to The Banning Place:

RANT: Fantasy Fucking Iraq



http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?407357-What-system-for-quot-subterranean-fantasy-fucking-Vietnam-quot



Minor SPOILERS for the Pathfinder Kingmaker adventure pack

You may want to strap yourselves in for this one.

It has been suggested on the forums that it would be fun, or at least suspenseful, to play a fantasy campaign where characters had to face all the nerve-wracking detail and complications of actually being in a war like Vietnam.  I can tell ya: It AIN'T fun and it's not even very suspenseful, unless pondering exactly HOW the GM is going to screw you over every week seems entertaining.

On the weekends, my roommate (Don) and I play Star Fleet Battles with some other Star Trek fans, one of whom is an ex-military man and avid game collector who also runs Federation & Empire and has a lot of RPGs.  (For those who aren't aware, Star Fleet Battles is a tactical wargame for those who thought GURPS and HERO System don't use enough math, and Federation & Empire is a strategy game for those who thought Advanced Third Reich didn't use enough logistics.)

This guy had proposed running a Pathfinder game at the neighborhood comics/RPG store on Wednesdays, partly to promote business in the store.  This would include a few other friends and the GM's two sons, one about college age and the other around 10-12.  And since most of us were into "crunchy" RPGs and had heard that Pathfinder was much more like D&D 3.5 than D&D 4 (which our friend Gary was running on Saturdays) we were eager to see what it was like.

The GM is running the Kingmaker adventure pack, which starts with the Slavic-style realm of Brevoy, way up in the northeast of the Pathfinder setting map, which is trying to expand its territory to the south, and thus has contracted adventurers to pacify the land, not only to explore for future settlement but to clear out the wild animals and bandit gangs that prey on the frontier.  It isn't a single adventure module but a premise for a larger campaign in which characters can act and carve out a stake in things.  We were told in advance that there would be a LOT of wilderness exploration and to design character background and skills accordingly.

This is supposed to be what's called a "sandbox" setup.  It's been more like a litterbox so far.

First off, the GM really isn't running just Pathfinder.  He uses critical hit and fumble tables of origin unknown to me.  (Once I fumbled with a bow and got the result 'Archer's Elbow: -2 to ranged attacks for 1 minute.')  I recently told him that Ultimate Combat is out with its own critical/fumble/wound rules.  He says he likes what he has more.

Secondly, as part of the wilderness focus, he doesn't use the Pathfinder rules for wilderness survival, instead using the Wilderness Survival Guide.  If you don't recognize that title, it's from 2nd Edition.
That's right.  D&D with the A.  And of course out of print.  Compared to the rules in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, the WSG rules for survival are more detailed.  Much more detailed.  WAY too Goddamn detailed.  I will explain exactly how later.

Third, Pathfinder has a base experience table where all characters need 2000 XP to make 2nd level, but gives the GM the option to have either a Fast progression (about a third less XP required to level) or a Slow progression (50% more XP required, or 3000 to get to 2nd level).  This GM took the Slow option.  The problem is the game is already slow.  Don had joked that we're not gonna hit second level before spring.  

Basically in non-combat situations we have to spend a lot of time arguing (with a lot of that arguing being between the GM's older son and the little brother) because the GM needs us to go over the details of exactly where we keep our gear, what our encumbrance is, where the stuff we don't personally carry is (the horse, a wagon, whatever), assess the material value of treasure collected, and so on.  And in combat situations, the natural slowness I've noticed in D20 games is exacerbated by the GM doing everything he can to complicate things.

To review up to the point before our last game:  Our PC s all met up at Oleg's Trading Post on the frontier.  Oleg told us he can barely keep things going because the bandits have been shaking him down.  As a matter of fact they were supposed to be coming next morning for their monthly loot.  We agreed to set up an ambush inside the compound and the second session of the game we managed to take out a five-man bandit group, killing one and capturing most of them.  However the guy we interrogated said they were part of a larger cell which was in turn led by a "Stag Lord."  The Stag Lord's main lieutenant, the bandits' immediate superior, was a guy named "Hap."

After having the bandits sent off to Brevoy, we went on with the process of our charter exploration.  The GM told us we would get a set amount of XP for "trailblazing" directly across a game hex, "scouting" a hex for 2-3 days, or "pathfinding" and doing an in-depth exploration for a week or more.  This was intriguing but we haven't actually gotten to send back any reports yet and thus do not have those bonus XP.
As we explored the GM told us at various points what the heat, precipitation and humidity levels were, and that the climate would affect our ability to wear armor by making armor more uncomfortable and debilitating to wear.  Fortunately at this point we were only dealing with wild animals.  
One day we tracked drainage towards a pond and saw wild horses grazing.  The GM reminded us that horses can be rounded up and sold.  Since they all seem to be mares, that would make them valuable for husbandry.  We try to investigate but then the GM tells us there's a hissing sound from the grass.  The horses bolted.  Suddenly we're all getting shot with arrows and can't tell exactly where from, even after we make Perception rolls (after the fact of getting shot at).  We roll for initiative.  
Several of us got thrown off our horses after the GM ruled that they panicked.  (After the fact we looked up the Pathfinder rules for Ride skill and found that controlling a mount is a DC of 5 to stay in the saddle 'when your mount rears or bolts unexpectedly or when you take damage.'  The GM had us roll on DC 20 'control mount in battle', which the text says is used for deliberately move a non-combat trained mount into battle.)  
Eventually we managed to perceive that the bandits are firing at us through hunters' blinds concealed in the grass and moved towards them to take them out on foot, however by the point we secured one of the blinds, we'd all been wounded and the party Barbarian had gotten taken down to negative hit points even after we'd all taken to ground and bellycrawled under the grassline to avoid being exposed targets.  The Barbarian's player- the GM's older son- got up and walked all the way across the lot to get food at Wal-Mart.  Once we secured the blinds on the west side of the pond, the bandits to the east had fled, along with the mares.  The bandit we managed to capture confirmed not only that the mares were owned by the bandits but that the bandits were targeting us deliberately.

After healing the Barbarian, we convinced the captured bandit to help us find Hap's lair.  The GM said that the hot snap had turned into a cold snap so we had to switch gear and put on the armor and cold-weather clothes.  We went north and searched for a day or so with the Barbarian and Ranger tracking.  We got to a cave area that the bandit confirmed was the place.  The Ranger and Don's Rogue went in to scout- and the Ranger blew his Stealth roll.  They were set upon by an Elk (the bandit told us that Hap trained an Elk and other animals).  The Druid joined the fight with HIS trained horse (Animal Companion) and we defeated the Elk.  As we celebrated, a heavy arrow injured the Druid's horse, and we saw a figure in the chamber run down a passageway.  The Druid had to stabilize both the Ranger and the horse after the fight.  The rest of us pursued, but the party Wizard got shot down by a critical hit from an arrow shot from another direction.  The Rogue noticed that bandits were shooting at us from ledges above the cave passage.  So the Rogue moved up to deal with them while my Elf Fighter and the Barbarian pursued the other sniper (Hap), and the Druid stabilized the Wizard and set him in concealment behind the Ranger before following us.  
During pursuit, the bandit leader shot the Barbarian.  The Barbarian activated Rage and ran towards the bandit, only to see him duck through another turn in the passage.  The Barbarian followed and fell through a grate trap.  When I tried to hug the wall and follow, the GM shot my character and when I tried to check what happened to the Barbarian, the GM ruled that I triggered the trap and fell in with the Barbarian.  We were set upon by caterpillar-like monsters and took more damage, but after killing them discovered that the barbarians were using the pit room to preserve those creatures and some alchemically-sealed eggs which we were able to take as treasure.
The Barbarian clambered up the slide and jumped over some furniture that had been used to block the passage.  I followed eventually.  Moving up the tunnel the Barbarian got attacked by "a vicious badger" and took 4 HP – which after all this was enough to bring him down.  I followed up and got attacked and had to take the varmint out so I could stabilize the Barbarian.  Moving down the tunnel, I got hit by YET ANOTHER trained animal (apparently thylacines are not extinct in this universe) and was myself taken to negative HP.  By this point the Ranger had healed enough to start walking again, and after helping the Rogue take out the other bandits, he and the Druid caught up to us, killed the thylacine and stopped us from dying.  However in the midst of all this Hap got a horse and rode off, and all of us had taken damage, with three of us- the Barbarian, the Wizard and my Fighter- at negative.  And even after natural healing, use of the Heal skill, and cure light wounds spells,  my character and the Wizard were stabilized but STILL at negative HP and unable to act.

This is because our Cleric of Erastil and dedicated healer was played by our friend Gary, who has both a good deal less patience than most of us and more common sense, and therefore decided to quit going to the games after the CF at the pond, meaning the party Druid is now the main healer, and while he CAN use cure light wounds spells he doesn't have the additional options of Channel and Spontaneous (cure) Casting.  And with this game, BOY, did we need them.

So because the Wizard and I were so hurt, we agreed to stay behind – and it fell to the Barbarian, Ranger (GM's younger son), Druid (another friend from the Star Fleet games) and Rogue (Don) to pursue Hap.   Which meant that the other two of us didn't get a share in the XP for defeating Hap.
I was kinda surprised given what happened to me that the main group managed to capture Hap in a fairly straight up fight.  I was actually expecting the GM to say, "Before you can close in, Hap pulls a trained BADGER out of concealment and throws it in your face!!"

"Wait, we're in open air by his campground.  Where did he conceal that badger?"
"Don't ask."


This has all been less than two weeks of game time.  In the real world, our first game was April 6th.  It's now [at this writing] last week of September.  My PC has 1078 of 3000 XP needed for 2nd level.  So that's with almost 6 months.  At this rate it will be past next April before we get 3000 experience.  So when Don joked that we won't hit 2nd level before spring, he turned out to NOT be joking.

(By contrast, Gary's D&D 4E game ran about the same length of time, and by the time he decided to quit running because he didn't like 4E anymore, we'd just hit 4th level.)

Given that official Pathfinder doesn't seem "gritty" enough for this GM and given that D20 type games require experience level progression for campaign-length "adventure packs" to work, whereas he apparently wants us to start out small-fry and stay small-fry for as looooooooooooooooooooong as theoretically possible, I think the GM (and possibly even the players) might have been more satisfied with something like GURPS that is more technical, more "realistic" and still has plenty of options for character development other than getting "levels" to power-up your combat abilities.  As it is, Don told me, "When I heard we were playing Pathfinder, I thought it was going to be swashbuckling adventures.  This has been more like role-playing the Bass Fishing Channel."
Yeah.  Except this is more like fishing for piranha.  Barehanded.

I don't think that this is a killer GM per se, since he's given us the chance to get stabilized before death, although that may be a subconscious recognition that the people who don't have characters may take the opportunity to not make new ones.  In any event, the damage-to-healing ratio is now such that we have to limp along at under-max hit points most of the time.  So we're not dead, just bleeding more than a hemophiliac eating a cactus.  I think the main issue is that the GM is a big collector of Knights of the Dinner Table comics, but he hasn't figured out that the Black Hand is not supposed to be the kind of group you emulate.

I am in the game mainly as a courtesy to Don, who is in the game basically as a courtesy to the GM, and THAT's because the GM and his older son are friends and are in other game groups we belong to, and it would be too much of an overall diplomatic shit-fit to just say, "This game sucks and we're not playing it any more."  I know, because of the diplomatic shit-fit we got into the time we TRIED telling the GM and his older son that we were following Gary's lead.


But anyway:
Once we'd all gotten back to Oleg's (and healed most of the damage incurred from random encounters on the way) we had to decide what to do next, in particular what to do with Hap.  

But before we set out, the GM explained that there was a freak heat wave (in the second week of spring) and temperature combined with the effects of both relative humidity and wearing armor made the personal temperature over 100 degrees for anyone wearing armor.  He said that with the modifiers in the Wilderness Survival Guide, anyone who chose to wear armor would lose points off Strength, Dexterity and Constitution as well as suffer an attack penalty due to climate effects.

At home, I had to excavate my copy from storage to look up the full details for myself.  Basically, the book has separate definitions for actual temperature (as in, the air temperature on the thermometer), effective temperature (with factors like wind chill or humidity) and personal temperature (the cumulative effects of all this combined with chosen factors like wearing lighter or heavier clothing and armor).  Most of these rules were concentrated in the first chapter.  The rules for actually generating weather and humidity were way back in the Appendix.

But if effective temperature with weather and humidity was over 90 degrees, and most of us (due to the constraints of Strength and a 1st-level character budget) were wearing no heavier than leather armor, that's still an increase in personal temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit on the chart (WSG, p. 19).
The chart on page 21 indicates the effect of personal temperature on character stats.  It uses two figures each for Str, Dex and Con, but the figure before the first slash is "nonstrenuous activity", aka not combat, in other words, not worth a frak for purpose of this discussion.  But anyway, the figures given for "strenuous activity" are:

Personal Temp   Str   Dex   Con    Land Move   Attack Rolls
110 to 119      -3     -2     -4          ½      -3

This is of course IN ADDITION TO the later table for hit point damage due to extreme temperatures, which requires a Constitution check to avoid, which in AD&D is a roll-under-the-stat on d20 figure with bonus (read: penalty) based on temperature, and the Con number is, of course, further adjusted downward by the attribute penalty for personal temperature.
   

As it turns out, these are the actual Pathfinder rules for heat damage (from the Environment section, Chapter 13 of the corebook):

"Heat Dangers
Heat deals nonlethal damage that cannot be recovered from until the character gets cooled off (reaches shade, survives until nightfall, gets doused in water, is targeted by endure elements, and so forth). Once a character has taken an amount of nonlethal damage equal to her total hit points, any further damage from a hot environment is lethal damage.
A character in very hot conditions (above 90° F) must make a Fortitude saving throw each hour (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.
Characters wearing heavy clothing or armor of any sort take a –4 penalty on their saves. A character with the Survival skill may receive a bonus on this saving throw and might be able to apply this bonus to other characters as well (see the skill description). Characters reduced to unconsciousness begin taking lethal damage (1d4 points per hour).

In severe heat (above 110° F), a character must make a Fortitude save once every 10 minutes (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.  Characters wearing heavy clothing or armor of any sort take a –4 penalty on their saves. A character with the Survival skill may receive a bonus on this saving throw and might be able to apply this bonus to other characters
as well (see the Survival skill in Chapter 4). Characters reduced to unconsciousness begin taking lethal damage (1d4 points per each 10-minute period).
A character who takes any nonlethal damage from heat exposure now suffers from heatstroke and is fatigued.  These penalties end when the character recovers from the nonlethal damage she took from the heat."

Still fairly severe, but not immediately crippling.  This system also gives a slim chance to mitigate the damage if your character has Survival skill, which mine does.
The problems I see with the AD&D system on the other hand are twofold: First and foremost, by adding "effective temperature" wearing armor and such onto ambient temperature, you easily get above 110 F even in studded leather armor.  The Pathfinder system imposes a -4 save penalty for wearing armor of "any sort" but this is not cumulative with temperature; actual temperature above 110 simply reduces the time interval for the damage saves.
Secondly, the GM is trying to use a key that doesn't fit the lock.  Attributes in AD&D, like in Palladium, aren't really penalized until you get lower than 9 and don't provide much combat benefit until they get above 14.  Whereas in Pathfinder and other D20/D&D 3+ games, the stat increments are a lot tighter – every two points below 11 or above 10 will be a 1-point modifier to the stat.  Which means that the "fatigued" penalty (-2 to Strength and Dexterity, cannot run or charge) is severe enough by itself.  In other words, attribute modifiers that (arguably) work for AD&D will produce more severe effects when transplanted to D20/Pathfinder.  
In this case, I'd suffer not only the Str/Dex penalty (with Pathfinder's 'fatigue' condition) but up to -4 Con as well, along with halved movement and -3 to hit.  And with my Con only 11 (I'm an Elf), that would bring it down to 7, changing my Con mod to -2 and eating into more of my precious 1st-level-schmuck hit points even BEFORE rolling for environment damage.  So needless to say, I wasn't wearing armor, and neither were the rest of us.

So we're escorting the delivery wagon, Hap is unconscious in the back, and we're out in our light hot-weather clothes and no armor.  Around late morning, we see in the distance a wrecked wagon, bodies lying around and someone waving for help.  The Barbarian and the Rogue are immediately suspicious.  We approach within 50' and make it known to the GM that we have weapons ready and are searching.

And the NPC is yelling out as we face off, "Oh.  Please.  It was terrible!  They attacked us and took prisoners!  See that guy right in the middle of the road with all the arrows in him?  Please save him.  Help Me.  Spock!"

I can't remember exactly who decided to investigate, but Don and I both wanted to see if the bandits  had in fact taken prisoners or come from a certain direction.  So Don's Rogue started sneaking on foot off the road and I followed up looking on horseback.  The Druid walked up to the guy in the middle of the road with arrows in him.  The Barbarian, Ranger and Wizard stayed with the NPC teamster back near the cart.

Suddenly we're being shot at and the guys in back take damage.  As with the last ambush we're not told exactly where the arrows are coming from.  THEN, the guy the Druid came to heal rolls and does a covered shot on him, as does the "merchant" that the Rogue was moving toward.  And then two of the guys on the ground point swords at me.

Me: "Whaddya mean, they've got me covered?"
GM: "Because you moved close enough when you said you were moving towards the Rogue."
Don: "I'd rolled a modified 21 when I was searching the area.  How did this guy sneak up on me?"
GM: "Because you weren't looking in the direction he was approaching from."
Me: "And I didn't get a Perception roll?  Sense Motive?  Something?"
GM: "I rolled that for you in secret."
Me: "Your courtesy is appreciated."

Basically, if you don't explain in way more detail than it's worth exactly what you're doing with every single baby step you take, and do not display a level of observational awareness that would shame Sherlock Holmes – in other words if you cannot play Three Card Monte with the GM and read his mind – he will rule that you fell into the trap no matter how flipping obvious he makes it that it is a trap.  The other alternatives of course were to either ride around the trap (and likely get shot at) or to shoot first and ask questions later. ('Hey, that legless orphan looked like he was packing!')

Of course I didn't consider at the time that the reason the guy luring our Druid looked like he was shot up is that the GM explained after the fact that he'd faked his wounds by sticking arrows in his leather armor.
You know- the leather armor that the GM advised us to NOT WEAR BECAUSE THE WEATHER WAS TOO HOT???

The weird thing is, if the GM had wanted to set up some plot-device setup where we were expected to surrender, I might have accepted it on the plot device level.  However we'd already been warned these guys were intending to kill us.  Not only that the GM told us to roll initiative for next week's combat (as a cliffhanger) as though we can fight effectively in this position.

At the least, what I plan to do at the start of next week's game is say this before map setup:
"Look.  If these bandits are gonna get to wear leather armor, they BETTER be subject to the same heat and humidity modifiers that you told us that we'd have to put up with.  If they don't, and they get the drop on us EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER even WHEN we are suspicious and take precautions, and they get to PICK the time and place of their battles and set up accordingly while we do escort duty on the open road and have to choose between cooking to death in our armor or getting SHOT to death with our pants down, I'm gonna choose the former.  I am gonna be like the knights in Excalibur. I am gonna wear my damn armor when I go everywhere and I do everything.
AND I MEAN EVERYTHING.
"Because if the goal here, Mr. GM, is to simulate unit preparedness vs. ambush, let me tell ya something- our troops in Iraq are issued full-coverage desert camo uniforms with full Kevlar armor and are ordered to wear all that gear WITH standard kit and weapons whenever they go on patrol, in a country where it often exceeds 120 degrees.  And that's BECAUSE you have all these dickweed terrorists and insurgents who set up ambushes in the middle of the route so they can pick off anybody who tries to investigate.  And since this whole campaign is apparently Fantasy World Iraq, if the real troops can wear armor in hot weather without fainting or dying, then I CAN TOO."

JG

Ow... Yeah. I would have likely walked out on that. Or at least let the DM know I was getting really irked. Probably both. DM should allways lay down the rules of their gameplay before hand. Players should not have to guess how to play "right" for a particular DM. and if its effecting the players it sure as heck better be effecting the enemy too.

Even with a bad environ like Wilderness survivals system its still fair when everyone is suffering the penalties. (Barring environ defense spells/powers/items...)

:rotfl:
Trained battle elks, thylacines, and pop-up vicious badgers, FTW!
:cheerleader:

Seriously though, that guy is just a bad GM. Unless Brevoy is like Kazakhstan where batshit weather (calm spring day to cold snap, and from cold snap to freak humid heat wave) is possible it sounds like the guy is in love with crazy tables. That and questionable setting choices, always interfering against the players no less, shows that he's more in love with "fiddling than the state of Rome," as it were. The thylacine should have been a major hint.

However, he's also a douche for mixing d20/PF with AD&D (WSG is 1e, btw) and always giving you the short end of the stick. It was oddly impossible to not be ambushed, and rolling PF Perception like 3 Blind Mice didn't help matters. The old AD&D d10 system for surprise would have been far better.

WSG may have been the tipping point, but that's not where I think this GM went wrong. His implementation was all made of suck. However, I will say I do like his slow leveling, hex exploration, etc. But he threw it all in a crazy blender and constantly forced the players into losing positions regardless of prep. It's not even inconsistent application of rules, it's consistent application of rules against players. That's illusionism and I would have called him on it by then. He needs someone to give him constructive criticism.

And further he used 3.x/PF, which is just gauche.

Classic. "No XP for you! Because your character was knocked unconcious in battle!"

Agreed with the others. Bad rules combo. Terrible choices of game set up (leveling track etc). More than a few bad calls (from the weather patterns to the bad rules calls on riding to the party being surprised because you didn't pixelbitch with a 21 Search roll). . . I think you guys should try to talk it over with the GM and his son again, and if that doesn't work, you should leave. People can be adults about this and this sort of game experience is NOT something you should have to put up with: it'll keep the GM from at least realizing you hated the game, AND it'll cloud your own judgement and expectations for future games, which in the end makes everyone lose, including the people you'll game with later on.

Quote from: Opaopajr;704548Seriously though, that guy is just a bad GM. Unless Brevoy is like Kazakhstan where batshit weather (calm spring day to cold snap, and from cold snap to freak humid heat wave) is possible it sounds like the guy is in love with crazy tables.

Brevoy IS supposed to be like Russia, but he's really just in love with crazy tables.

QuoteWSG may have been the tipping point, but that's not where I think this GM went wrong. His implementation was all made of suck.

Yup.

Quote from: Benoist;704572Agreed with the others. Bad rules combo. Terrible choices of game set up (leveling track etc). More than a few bad calls (from the weather patterns to the bad rules calls on riding to the party being surprised because you didn't pixelbitch with a 21 Search roll). . . I think you guys should try to talk it over with the GM and his son again, and if that doesn't work, you should leave. People can be adults about this and this sort of game experience is NOT something you should have to put up with: it'll keep the GM from at least realizing you hated the game, AND it'll cloud your own judgement and expectations for future games, which in the end makes everyone lose, including the people you'll game with later on.

Well, it's understandable that you didn't read the RPG.net link, but after posting that part I responded to reader comments with another extensive post as update.  Eventually I did leave, because people have expressed their opinions, and the gist of things really didn't change.  My friend however, is still in that group, and I keep advising him to quit, precisely because it clouds his expectations of other games.  For instance, the PF game our friend Gary is running, that Don ran into a ditch for several minutes last session arguing with Gary.  In retrospect he admitted it's because his other Pathfinder game is one where "Profession: Rules Lawyer" is a necessary character survival skill.

JG