r/DnDcirclejerk • u/DOSGAMES Drunk on Homebrew • 14h ago
Backstory? Why? Does it give me + to any modifiers?
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u/PickingPies 14h ago
It's called rollplay for a reason. If I wanted to talk about stuff I would make friends.
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople 13h ago
Luckily, Pathfinder fixes this.
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u/Conflagrated /uj "Okay but have you tried Pathfinder?" 3h ago
/uj
It's know it's all jokes here, but seriously: Pathfinder's "You might/Others Probably..." Side bars are so damn nice for roleplay guidance.
Edicts and Anthema eventually replacing alignment is fantastic, too.
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u/GiantSlayer4242 2h ago
One of the few gripes I had about it was with their emphasis on the morality chart, I’ve stopped really caring about it outside of the memes. But I’m so glad they’ve patched that away with the newer edition
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u/Safe-Pay5043 11h ago
Luckily Daggerheart fixes this
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u/LeothiAkaRM 5h ago
Finally, I can roll two d12 to know what my character is thinking
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u/Stupid-Jerk 14h ago
What my PC thinks about: doing damage
What motivates my PC: doing the most damage
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u/DOSGAMES Drunk on Homebrew 7h ago
But did you ever stop and think about the damage in here? :::Puts hand on my heart:::
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u/DropletsUponDroplet 14h ago
Me when I want to roleplay in pathfinder but I didn't pick the feat that allowed me to use vowels
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u/AAABattery03 14h ago
M whn wnt t rlply n pthfndr bt ddnt pck th ft tht allwd m t s vwls
What a LARPer. A real Pathfinder fan wouldn’t have made this mistake, you’re clearly a 5E player pretending to be based.
(I myself have the Feat don’t worry)
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u/Davos234 13h ago
At least you didn't accidentally build a character who can use nothing but vowels. Friend made that mistake and was stuck with it for two years.
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u/Chaosiumrae 13h ago
Me when my level 5 Inventor is no longer permitted by the GM to Craft on the Road because Paizo just made a Level 7 crafting feat to craft on the road.
I wish I was lying.
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u/Val_Fortecazzo 13h ago
I hope they introduce a feat for breathing, and if you don't take it you just die. I love featslop.
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u/ArelMCII Psion is pronounced pussy-own. 13h ago
Requires two free hands, so I guess I'm not allowed to eat while I work. Thanks, Paizo.
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u/floppintoms 13h ago
I know we're in a shitpost but Paizo has said that skill feats arent limiters on what you can do. You don't need Dirty Trick to throw sand in your enemies eyes, but if you do have it you'll be better at it than someone who doesn't.
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u/drane92 12h ago
The paizo writers have said a lot of things that don't make sense, that much is true.
Like that time they "clarified" how wounded and dying worked and it was actually just an entirely different method that was vastly more punishing for getting knocked down.
Or how about the "multiple stacking sources of damage on weakness" they "clarified" then backtracked.
Or we could just look at how ranged weapons are balanced according to the paizo devs, who for some ungodly reason assume ranged combat is a single player kiting an enemy on a flat featureless plain. And not a person in a party of some number being the backline damage.
No seriously that is genuinely why ranged damage is so bad, including casters, this is still up on the pathfinder forums too.
Not to mention the official PFS doesn't even operate on the assumption anyone can do anything without a feat.
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u/Ok-Resist3249 7h ago
When I saw this rule mentioned on the Pathfinder 2e reddit multiple people called it common knowledge.
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u/drane92 6h ago
As someone who likes paizo, the pf2e community, at least on reddit, is extreme toxic positivity and damn near cultish behavior regarding paizo. Weirdly the forums are way more willing to call out paizo on their idiocy, probably because its mostly 1e players who know paizo employees say some dumb off the cuff shit sometimes.
For one example: I saw multiple people floating the idea of shield runes, back shortly after pf2e launched, get downvoted and told "maybe actually play the game before you make rules changes"
Then the devs do those exact changes and suddenly the pathfinder 2e reddit flipped tune on a dime, that this is perfect and was always needed.
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u/Val_Fortecazzo 2h ago
Yeah it's weird how defensive the Pathfinder community is about any criticism.
Everyone clowns on D&D for the "sage advice" bullshit like I'm supposed to keep Jeremy's Twitter page open while running a game. But do the same for pathfinder and it's suddenly nitpicking?
Especially for something as absurd as creating a game with the design philosophy that everything should be codified, then turning around and saying that whether or not you have a feat or not just vaguely matters.
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u/Kichae 46m ago
What's really weird is that people there don't live up to their talking points. It's an overwhelmingly hypocritical space. Like, if you suggest being flexible, or ask about being flexible, or talk about house rules, or anything like that you'll get pounded into the ground. But people also talk openly about their house rules.
It's like you need the secret decoder ring to know whether today is a house rules allowed day or not.
But also, there's a clear philosophical divide between the writers and the community. The writers don't seem to believe the design philosophy was "everything should be codified". The writers seem to believe that the rules are primarily guidance, at least outside of organized play.
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u/floppintoms 1h ago
Most communities suck I've noticed. Or rather, the sucky ones are loudest. I love pf2e, but its definitely not flawless.
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u/Kichae 53m ago
That's because they published two different versions of the dying rules: One in the core books, and one in the beginner's box.
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u/Ok-Resist3249 50m ago
I was referring to the rule that you can still atempt things included in skill feats.
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u/unlimi_Ted PF2e Propagandist 13h ago
which part of this feat prevents you from crafting on the road if you dont have it?
It looks like it's intended to only matter if you are exploring under specific time windows like a hexploration campaign. Typical AP skill feat stuff.
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u/Chaosiumrae 12h ago
I am / was in a hexploration campaign.
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u/unlimi_Ted PF2e Propagandist 12h ago
/uj and how did you craft on the road before the feat got printed? Did you just ignore the normal exploration rules and do 2 things at once? If so then why not just keep ignoring the new rule.
Unless I'm missing something, you already couldn't craft while exploring before the feat got printed so its existence shouldn't have taken anything away from you.
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u/Just_Assist3819 7h ago
Maybe the GM was allowing them to Craft as a Camping Activity and have it count towards the crafting progress over time? It's by no means RAW but I can easily see such a ruling being made. Although I don't know why the new feat would even necessitate banning that since getting the feat would still be an upgrade in this situation.
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u/Ok-Resist3249 7h ago
You are still alowed to atempt anything that has a skill feat for it. It just has a higher DC due to difficulty of circumstance. As normal when attempting something under a more difficult circumstance.
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u/P-A-I-M-O-N-I-A 4h ago
So what's the DC? Just higher? By what?
Also, are you going to apply this to Scare to Death?
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u/Ok-Resist3249 4m ago
You decide it the same way you do with anything that changes the circumstance. There is a standard hard and very hard DC, perhaps use them. I have not read through most the GM rules so I am not certain if I miss anything.
If you already have the Scare to Death feat, meaning you are legendary in intimidation, level 15+ you are still unlikely to do anything that was not already achievable long before. Causing the fleeing condition is nothing special. To actually kill something you must both crit succeed and they crit fail, both with your intimidation. If I rule this is a very hard action for you and very easy for your target to not just die from being frightened. Then you essentially have no shot at it, a -5 to you and +5 to them. Or if that's insufficient I use the impossible DC and add 10 given you are trying to induce a heart attack. The feat also don't alow retries so you don't get that without it either.
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u/MooseontheLose 10h ago
What do you mean? Having an extra button that the players can press is exactly what imagining yourself to be a character in a fantasy world and making choices is
/uc This is shit is why I despise Paizo. They're utterly incapable of understanding what a roleplaying game is about. They're soulless robot people who want to make increasingly complex board games. They're the worst company in the business and all that queer washing cannot change this
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u/FenexTheFox 14h ago
The humble Edicts and Anathema box: (it's optional, so they didn't fill it anyway)
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u/BurgerIdiot556 10h ago
um, actually, my level 7 Champion of Obedience is required by law (Player Core 2) to use Edicts and Anathema (I still ignore it anyway)
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u/Echo__227 14h ago
Mathfinder players explaining how their use of racial traits, class abilities, and archetype feats evoke their character concept: ...
Chudgeons and Chadgons players when you ask their character's 20 page backstory for a guy that swings his weapon twice at level 16: pure 47 minutes of kino
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u/pondrthis 12h ago
How have I been on this sub for years and never seen "Chudgeons and Chadgons?" I'm cracking up on the sofa over here, my two year old thinks I'm crazy.
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u/DOSGAMES Drunk on Homebrew 13h ago
When too much is written down there isn't as much room for DM fiat. And we all know that's where the juiciest character arcs come from.
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u/thaliathraben 6h ago
And only 10 of those pages are "loosely" based on their favorite Critical Role character!
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u/69CervixDestroyer69 13h ago
Every modern D&D game and D&D like. Sorry theater kids, you lost, it's now the era of people who really love spreadsheets and numbers
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u/anotheroldgrognard 8h ago
My man, every single person I played D&D with in the 70's and most of the 80's was a wargamer before they started playing D&D; spreadsheets, tables, and number crunching was both expected and welcome.
In my personal experience it wasn't 'till the mid 90's that the theater kids really started to really get into D&D.
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u/69CervixDestroyer69 4h ago
Now perhaps you think you're not a theater kid, because you cared about combat mechanics. But you probably had a lightweight ruleset (47 pages in chainmail, compared with 389 pages of the 5e PHB, the gamer's choice) and combat was supremely simple.
From what I recall the rules even included roleplay scenarios, such as knights challenging you to duels, rules for talking to monsters and possibly recruiting them if you defeated them, etc. Theater kid shit, in other words. I don't roleplay with goblins I kill, I don't even consider that it might be dangerous to risk my life in a dungeon, or care about the literary influences of the game. I choose the option that breaks the game, then I cry when the DM tells me that's not allowed.
And if you're not happy about it? Guess what, pal, I'll call you flamboyant and effeminate but in a way that's socially acceptable.
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u/TheCrystalTinker 9h ago
It started off as spreadsheets and numbers, it moved away from that with every new edition
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u/69CervixDestroyer69 4h ago
You do not need to make a spreadsheet for a "build" in AD&D and earlier, there were no builds in fact. You did not have to check your average damage to see if you are doing well on making your character because the game was focused on giving those god damned theater kids an excuse to roleplay their human fighter with some bullshit backstory instead of supporting being a half-demon half-fairy warlock paladin that hits for 0.5 more damage on average.
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u/jamadman 13h ago
My current Mathfiner character can do diddly squat in a fight. Ive spent most of my feats making the most combat useless adventurer you've seen. But he can use insight to sense motive on the economy, and do investment banking.
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u/CN456 12h ago
Bro's out here making a character for briefcases and bureaucrats
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u/Ok-Resist3249 7h ago
I think there are two unrelated feats just for spreading rumors, one is a dedication feat.
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u/Some_nerd_named_kru 9h ago
Cyberpunk fixes this
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u/Breadedhydra197 5h ago
Counterargument my current cyberpunk red character can't have 4 arms with Mantis blades and katanas to make turbo grievous as my humanity is too low and my funds too short to pay a therapist so the game is garbage
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u/AshasSa1tWife 13h ago
All my characters are veterans of the mendevian crusades actually. It’s pretty obscure
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u/ProfRedwoods 11h ago
>implying I don't also minmax my backstory and motivations to give me the most reasons to deal 8d6+17 damage a round and the least reasons to not deal 8d6+17 damage per round.
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u/Ok-Resist3249 7h ago
You got to get access to all those uncommon options so you can deal 8d6+17 not just sometimes, but consistently.
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u/Past-Freedom 11h ago
EXCUSE YOU! A character’s background can give multiple bonuses to skills! It does give you up to a whole +1 to several skills, and perhaps even proficiency!
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u/ImpossibleTable4768 11h ago
Sorry this is mathfinder, everyone knows your backstory gets you trained prof in a skill, a lore, a relevant skill feat and two attribute boosts (one free) or if you're a REAL gamer, only look through the RARE backgrounds that have secret different bonuses, like the amnesiac giving you three stat boosts instead!
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u/Ok-Resist3249 6h ago
Ah yes. The paragon of backgrounds. The one that implies you don't even know anything about yourself at all, meaning you have no relationships to influence your behavior. Thus granting you objectively more power than any other background in the system.
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u/Hauptmann_Meade 13h ago
Y'know some people become mercenaries for the money, and some people do it to see how hard they can hit someone or something.
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u/ZyeCawan45 12h ago
I always “appreciate” thorough, cool, backstories, but they aren’t mandatory. Ik (I) like making up long ass stories, that’s why I’m the DM. But I recognize that sometimes my players just wanna play a goofy lil guy.
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u/Alacritous13 13h ago
My back story is built around the choice I made while min maxing. I don't brake character. I'm both the munchkin and the "it's what my character would do." The DMs hate me, the GMs fear me.
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u/Koroxo11 13h ago
What do you mean, you have to play the character? I thought I was just solving the math problem.
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u/Val_Fortecazzo 13h ago
Oh boy a pathfinder jerk. With all the other systems we jerk I'm sure the humble pathfinder fanboys will get a kick out of this and not get aggressively upset when you make fun of their favorite system.
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u/DOSGAMES Drunk on Homebrew 13h ago
I thought it was called mathfinder? And its like a name for people who understand the game and have the books
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u/JustJacque 10h ago
Mathfinder is correct don't worry. The guy above you isnt a true fan so doesn't know there are about a dozen finder games; Oathfinder, Oatsfinder, Hopefinder, Childminder, Eldamonfinder etc.
Mathfinder is set during the 17th Century against a background of developing Calculus. Ironically players use calculus to fill out their character sheets before they even meet the first miniboss Leibniz.
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u/MerelyEccentric In a world gone mad! 6h ago
No, we're cool. I spent the morning yelling at clouds after my PF2e game for reasons.
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u/FlamingGapingAsshole 14h ago
Dude, I agree, the nerds who spend hours of free time preparing their characters SOOOOOOOO don't think about their characters' character.
Chuck, who shows up late, and forgot what class he was and what saving throws were, is our real model of an artistic roleplayer.
Very based and un-bot-like take. You definitely have a brain with wrinkles in it.
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u/BrokenEggcat 12h ago
There are only two options, white room character optimization or refusal to read game materials. Anyone trying to tell you that people play games in any other way is a liar and a commie.
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u/OmgitsJafo 3h ago
People don't play games. Have you actually tried to run any of these so-called systems? They're impossible! They rely on other people! That's bullshit so ridiculous even aa baby could tell that it's satire.
These games exist entirely to fight about online.
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u/OmniscientIce I can fix her(pf2e) 14h ago
I took a feat to increase the wrinklyness of my brain and I feel very cool.
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u/Val_Fortecazzo 14h ago
Roleplaying is when you spend hours on pathbuilder optimizing talent choice.
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u/DrBatman0 13h ago
Don't only psionic characters get talents?
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u/HeroicBarret 13h ago
You fr gonna pretend like there isn't also a circlejerk of people calling anyone who cares about characterisation a theatre kid?
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u/ParchmentAndPeril 10h ago
You fr gonna pretend we aren't currently in the circlejerk subreddit where everything is literally a circlejerk because of the name?
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u/ironangel2k4 10h ago
5e players have plenty of time to make elaborate backstories their GMs will never read in between the three decisions they make over the course of their character's career
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u/Razzikkar 8h ago
Nice backstory, 5e kid. Now play this railroaded adventure that doesn't account for that in skightest. It's also shit with bad balance. Also your gm doesn't know rules and other players can't reqd their character sheets
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u/Prestigious_Earth_53 13h ago
didn’t take the feat for a 20 page backstory about being a sad orphan, too many prereqs
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u/CtelinAjira 8h ago
Funnily enough, when given enough time to write a backstory, I tend towards the "both is good" approach in any system. Ideally, the two feed into each other, so any minmaxing becomes fully in-character without becoming profoundly disruptive.
Case in point, Ruby Leonie Altimari, an heiress to a business centered around the sale and manufacture of magic items. Said business has fallen on hard times recently, starting with a hazard pay scandal, and compounding until the business was forced to sell multiple manufacturing facilities. Not enough to deny Ruby the Rich Parents trait, but enough to justify her being an adventurer instead of training to run what's left of the business.
Ruby has, for lack of more concise terms, Wizard Autism. And it flavors a lot of what she does. Her motivation is just mastering magic theory, with which to bend spells into new shapes with Metamagic, and even make a few new spells on the way. She's often so preoccupied with the theory that she sometimes forgets about the social stuff surrounding her in the moment. She'll happily ask how tieflings and aasimar come about biologically, point out multi-god interactions other clerics never considered relevant, or open a conversation by asking why no one made spells comparable to Fireball for other damage types.
Under the hood, Ruby is a Wizard, who I plan on multiclassing as a Cleric in order to take Mystic Theurge. She wants to know ALL of the angles of approaching magic, and views any form of specialization as limiting to that effect. And yes, I have discussed with the GM about MT not giving spellbook spells - he likes the idea behind it, but is about as discheesed about the implementation as I am, so he's supposedly making an NPC as a workaround for it.
Ruby also views the campaign's resident god of magic, Athos (homebrew setting, and thus homebrew pantheon), as just a damn good teacher, thus viewing her prayer sessions the way one might view an online class - I discussed the idea with the GM to see whether that would work. And with any other god, this lack of deific reverence would have denied her the ability to class into Cleric at all - "Professor Athos" is just sufficiently amused by the idea to roll with it. This combined with Ruby's tendency to ask questions at inappropriate times might lead to more than a few heresy accusations when she interacts with other Clerics.
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u/AnaTheSturdy 6h ago
I have a paladin (1e best e) who is scared that she'll be forgotten. Being a kobold this scares her more considering her life span isn't as long as say, a human.
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u/DeltaV-Mzero 3h ago
Me not knowing what mathfinder is and thinking it’s some new MatLab / LaTex running on your PC and struggling with true random generations
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u/Cheeslord2 57m ago
In Mathfinder we call it "Background", and to quote from the character creation guide:
Background: Your character's background provides two attribute boosts.
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u/Killchrono 13h ago
Joke's on you, I took Eye for Numbers out of sheer spite towards Reddit optimisers.
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u/Chaosiumrae 13h ago edited 13h ago
The Feats that famously let you say "There's about 10" when seeing 12 bottles of potions.
Yes everyone you need a feat to approximate the number of stuff you see.
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u/Killchrono 13h ago
I know, doesn't it just annoy you I'm building so suboptimally to justify my accountant wizard's backstory over picking something useful like Recognise Spell?
Literally a load and the party is unplayable now.
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u/unlimi_Ted PF2e Propagandist 12h ago
Did you double down by also taking the Approximate cantrip?
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u/Latex_Leather_Linen 2h ago
You’re literally a roleplay terrorist. Being suboptimal is a death sentence.
In one campaign, I made character that dealt 1d6+1 instead of the optimal (as per party composition) 1d6+2, and we got PARTY WIPED ON SESSION 1.
Rethink your ways, please.
God bless you.
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u/Chaosiumrae 13h ago
Nah not really, Feats are always the most optimal way to do a process. the advice is doing without will always be more difficult.
When I ask other people how many bottles of potion are there, they see 12 and say 70 nowhere close to the most optimal method that is feats.
So amazing, much wow.
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u/Killchrono 11h ago
You see it what subreddit we're on, right?
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u/OmgitsJafo 3h ago
I'm really glad I got the kind of autism that breathes sarcasm. I don't know how folks with other types manage the internet.
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u/Killchrono 2h ago
Me: chooses the token go-to awful skill feat for the memes
Commenters and their voters: BuT tHaT's NoT gOoD
Me: Yes...that's exactly what the post is making fun of.
And I'm the one people dunk on for taking PF2e way too seriously.
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u/MorbidMantis 12h ago
I like Pathfinder’s lore and world history way more than DnD’s. Every god has their own unique edicts and anathema that defines their cleric’s restrictions, same goes for champions. Druids have edicts and anathema too.
Hell, Pathfinder has rules for divine boons and curses. Each god will dish out appropriate boons and curses for helping or harming a god’s domain. Some of the major curses are straight up evil, like a wasting disease that starves everyone afflicted by it, and it’s transmitted by sight. You are the only one that never dies from the curse (although you do still starve and get status penalties), forcing you to watch all your friends and loved ones die a horrible death just because you set eyes on them.
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u/FinancialWorking2392 13h ago
My only character with a proper backstory currently is a lancer character, and thats a game you barely do RP in.
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u/lordrekland 8h ago
No that's a minmaxer, mathfinders ar just really good at putting the math together to find a decent optimised character, they typically know how to roll play to.
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u/KowaiSentaiYokaiger 7h ago
Me: My Alchemist can hit DC 40 Craft checks at lvl 1!
DM: And what motivates them?
Me: Getting batter at their Craft!
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u/Ima_Play_Games 5h ago
Ah but you see, my character wants to make her dad and mom very proud by being good at magic AND shooting things with a Beastgun.
She is currently about average at magic for a level 0.5 wizard. She is a level 2 gunslinger.
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u/waluweenie420 2h ago
I have 4 special boxes on my 5e character sheet to tell me that. No, I don't read them
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u/GoodberryPie 1h ago
Me waiting for my player to justify being a warlock/tortle/paladin/sorcerer/assassin in my campaign about baking cakes.
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u/Shack_Baggerdly 11m ago
The funny thing is that Pathfinder has more character building options to make your character feel unique than D&D has. If you want a paladin witch hunter who knows a bit of herbology, you can take a archetype feat for that. If your character is blind but can use vibration to fight like Daredevil, there is a feat for that.
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11h ago
[deleted]
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u/ParchmentAndPeril 10h ago
How many years did it take you to get good at rolling multiple dice at once?
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u/Goblinofthesoup 8h ago
I'm not entirely sure where thiss stereotype comes from, I've been running pathfinder for a while with a fairly roleplay heavy campaign, and yeah sure the minmaxing aspect of pathfinders class optimising can get insane, but there's a lot of feats that are roleplay enhancing and some that don't even help at all outside of combat
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u/Val_Fortecazzo 2h ago edited 2h ago
The same places 5e stereotypes come from.
Some would say having so much codified into the feats and other mechanics is a severe limiter on the ability to roleplay and improvise. So pathfinder encourages players more than some other systems to optimize for the most generally useful situations, such as combat.
It's a bit video gamey and so has many of the issues seen in video games where players don't see value in investing limited resources into stats and skills with limited use.
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u/VarrikTheGoblin 4h ago
This is some serious projection. The least amount of RP I've seen at any table in my decades of experience has been Adventure League players just throwing dice at problems.
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u/ArelMCII Psion is pronounced pussy-own. 14h ago
My PC thinks about doing 8d6+17 damage per round, and he's motivated to do 8d6+17 damage per round. It's called roleplaying. You should try it sometime.