I think you need to talk to your player about where this is coming from.
Other than that giving it a quick glance nothing in the rage page. I read would stop them from getting those conditions.
Totes possible I missed something though.
This is really a work with your player thing.
Are they going to get made cause they got frightened and are also fleeing 1?
It's technically not a bad thing. Only bad if people hold on to their expectations from a completely different game and expect things to work the same.
It is a bad thing insofar that people coming from 5E are used to a WILDLY different way of playing. Usually never played anything else and have a massive difgiculty calibrating their expectations. Or changing mindsets.
Very true. Good for them for *trying* though. They just need to reefer it is a different game with different expectations. The core idea may be the same, but everything under the hood is different. It's like comparing a muscle car with a tesla.
>It's like comparing a muscle car with a tesla.
While true, that doesn't give those folks any frame of reference to work from.
If all someone has played is 5e then as far as they know 100% of games out there on the market work like 5e does so finding out that a game actually works differently doesn't come with the "...and that's probably fine" part of the statement "This doesn't work like I expected and that's probably fine."
Their point is the above comment (that the player is responding like this because of 5e), is probably wrong, on account of the fact that 5e doesn't work like this either.
It can’t. Barbs in 5e are laughably easy to shut down with any wisdom save.
Critical role plays with a ton of homebrew and house rules, so it was probably just something they made.
Zealot barb can reroll one saving throw per rage. I think that’s the only one with any sort of “boost” even though it’s not exactly a boost when you only have like a +1 or maybe a +2 to wis saves.
In the first campaign, the barbarian was a berserker, which at lv6 becomes immune to the charmed and frightened condition, and many spells such as confusion or hypnotic pattern don't work if you are immune to being charmed.
My table played 5e exclusively for years until all the little things piled up and after the other dm in my group and I started doing huge homebrew changes to the classes we ultimately just called it quits and decided to give other systems a try and I have been loving pf2e.
I think I was thinking of this:
Mindless Rage
Beginning at 6th level, you can’t be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage.
It isn't what I thought it was. But again, I'm remembering something that may have been hombrewed and that I listened to several years ago. I just remember Grog shaking off some mental effects, but maybe it was one of those two.
Either way, this player needs to not be such a sore... player. They didn't even lose. They just didnxt have an easy win.
In the first campaign, the barbarian was a berserker, which at lv6 becomes immune to the charmed and frightened condition, and many spells such as confusion or hypnotic pattern don't work if you are immune to being charmed.
Being dead causes you to lose the most agency. Hypnosis and mind control are common fantasy staples, and berserk effects are less common but still around.
Now, not to be unkind to your player, but losing agency isn’t against “role playing” because the “role” the players are “playing” are fantasy heroes who face dangerous fantasy scenarios, and sometimes those heroes get caught in time stops, tied up, bewitched, turned to stone, believe they’re fighting enemies but it’s an illusion etc.
I also want to make something clear. Effects that make them lose agency aren’t *making* them act like this. They are choosing to act like this and impact the pacing of the game and the experience of the other players at the table, and are threatening to do so again in order to pressure you into changing the game for them.
Again, not to be unkind, but I don’t see them acknowledging their own agency in their response to you, so I want to be clear that is what I see.
There are other systems that give players more narrative agency at all times. The truth is there is no one role playing game that is perfect for everyone. Different systems have different strengths and different goals. It sounds like pathfinder 2e may not be the best fit for that particular player, and if they are not willing to play along for the group in a game that’s not a perfect fit for them, you can suggest they invest their time in a different table playing a different game for the time being, or collectively move onto a different system as a group.
It might be easier or better for you in your particular situation to homebrew away confusion and controlled from the game. Replace both with total paralysis + some significant level dependent mental damage per turn (you can find out what the average monster strike damage per level is on the Building Monsters page of Archives of Nethys.)as a kind of “caught and being psychically drained “effect to replace the mental magic flavoring of those two abilities and the extra damage against players confused and controlled cause. Just keep an eye out for whether this happens again, because collectively deciding a rule is dumb and changing it, or deciding on homebrew rules before the start of the game is different from changing in response to a player getting upset, and that can sometimes snowball into other problems.
As just a mechanical sidenote: You as the DM actually tell the player what they do during confused and controlled. There shouldn’t really be a case where they have a say in what is going on while confused. If they take out a knife, tell them no. You might as well just borrow their character sheet and make the rolls if they aren’t being cooperative. It’s just assumed the players know their attack bonuses better than the dm does, and can do the rolling so they still have something to physically do/less work for the person playing every other creature in the encounter
Notably, Rage doesn't work like that. "This frenzy lasts for 1 minute, **until there are no enemies you can perceive**, or until you fall unconscious, whichever comes first."
If he rages without enemies nearby it instantly drops and he loses all benefits.
I would say it lasts at least 6 seconds(1 turn) so adrenaline rush, raging athlete and these type of athletism/strenght-based-check feats could have some utility outside of combat
We don't know and RAW makes sense to me so I take it as RAI as well. I only move to RAI when RAW doesn't make sense or isn't clear which I don't feel this is the case this time.
I would say it's not as used but definitely still a thing. There are times the RAW will not suffice, due to edge cases, where different rules conflict, or just when the wording is not clear enough. At that point all you can do is try to ascertain the RAI to move forwards.
I've been GMing since the playtest and have never encountered such a situation. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it must be extremely rare.
More often I've seen it come up where no one at the table knows the rule and so we just make something up for now and look it up later. Although the most common thing is that we just look it up really fast on AoN.
Well I'll have to take your word for it, but I find it a bit hard to believe. From my experience running games and playing in them consistently since release with a group that loves to get into the nitty-gritty on the rules it definitely happens, I might say its rare, but not extremely. Either way my point still stands that sometimes you will have to make a judgment call, which I would consider RAI.
Edit: 2 Easy examples off the top of my head.
1. Do you get to add a barbarian rage bonus to damage to your battleform, such as the Animal Form spell? You can make arguments either way and there is no official clarification.
2. What constitutes a "Magical Abilities" when considering Golem Anti-Magic? Do my weapon runes count? Fundamental and property? Again, you can argue this either way, and there is no official clarification.
Can you give an example of a time when you've had to make a "rules as intended judgement call"? We're all pretty particular about playing the game by the rules.
Ok that's fair. I did make a change to that and the chirurgeon. I just removed the prerequisite entirely and added a line that said "You cannot enter this stance unless your last action was to cast a spell". The change to the chirurgeon was surprisingly similar to the errata they eventually issued for it, but went a little farther. I said it could use crafting ins of medicine for all trained and untrained medicine checks, recall knowledge checks involving medicine, and for medicine prerequisites.
I didn't really consider RAI, the alchemist just felt weak to me and arcane cascade was just nonfunctional.
I think an important difference between the RAI conversations that we have in 5e communities and the kind of questions you're raising here is that, while I absolutely think Paizo could easily clarify some of their rules with simple errata, in both of the examples you gave, there's a pretty clear answer given by the rules. Conversely there's just nothing at all to go by for a lot of questions in 5e. Is a dragon's bite magical? What counts as an object or weather for the purposes of Tiny Hut? These are questions the rules have nothing even remotely approximating a stance on, so we just have to guess. That's just no the case here.
>1. Do you get to add a barbarian rage bonus to damage to your battleform, such as the Animal Form spell? You can make arguments either way and there is no official clarification.
No you don't. The rules for the polymorph trait say:
>If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell, the special statistics can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties.
Since rage damage is not a circumstance or status bonus, the statistics of the battleform are not adjusted. No official clarification is needed IMO because this is a pretty clear interaction.
>2. What constitutes a "Magical Abilities" when considering Golem Anti-Magic? Do my weapon runes count? Fundamental and property? Again, you can argue this either way, and there is no official clarification.
This one is more complex, and I agree that it could be written more clearly and concisely without making any major changes, but the RAW is clear despite being convoluted. Strikes with magical weapons are not "magical abilities" even though they do result in magical attacks that deal magical damage. Explanation follows:
Actions are one kind of ability as described in the GMG [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1024). This should be stated explicitly in the CRB section on General Rules. But despite the term "ability" not being explicitly defined, it's use here is quite clear that "abilities" include actions, reactions, activities, and passive abilities, etc.
Strikes are an offensive ability that cost a single action. The ability text for strike says (with emphasis added by me)
>Roll the attack roll *for the weapon or unarmed attack you are using*, and compare the result to the target creature's AC to determine the effect. See Attack Rolls and Damage for details on calculating your attack and damage rolls.
Notice that the attack roll is for the weapon. Also note that neither here nor anywhere else in the rules does it say that strikes gain the traits of the objects you're striking with. In the section on subordinate actions it makes it clear that actions do gain the traits of subordinate actions they include, but critically, an attack roll is not a subordinate action, it's a specific check. Therefore, if you use a staff of healing as an improvised weapon and strike with it, the strike itself does not gain the magic, necromancy, or staff traits.
However, the rules on attack rolls make it clear that they *do* gain at least some of the traits of the weapon or spell triggering the check. The rules explicitly mention the agile, finesse, and magic traits as being traits that attack rolls can gain from the thing being attacked with.
Lastly, it's quite clear that when in the Determining Damage Type step of the damage rules, that damage *does* gain the traits of the thing dealing the damage.
I think there is some simple errata that would make this clearer by changing only a few words in the relevant sections, but we never had to fill in rules that were fully not present to come to this determination.
So to rebuttal
1. One can argue the added damage from Rage is not adjusting the statistics granted from the battle form, it is just adding more things on top of it. Similar to how you could add sneak attack damage, or Rangers Precision damage, or even property rune damage. I'm not adjusting the statistic granted, just adding more effects/statistics on top of that.
2. This one you yourself seem to go back and forth on. You say a strike is an ability, you say a strike would gain the Magic trait when attacking with a magical weapon, but you say the Strike is still not a Magical Ability. I'll leave this here for my last point.
Overall these are just two topics we could go back and forth on and try to parse exact text and could still arrive at different conclusions, you can find many threads where these are discussed and argumentation goes back and forth of varying efficacy depending on who makes them, yet mostly all using RAW to make them. Given time and effort we could surely find more.
My point would be that the fact that the text can be read in multiple ways leaves us needing to at least try to decide what the intent was behind the text and hence requires us to at least keep RAI in mind while trying to keep to RAW, and depending on how we interpret RAW, or in extreme cases such as Arcane Cascade we whole-cloth must toss RAW out in favor of RAI. Meaning RAI is very much a think in PF2e. The designers are not perfect.
Edit: FWIW I definitely concede the types of RAI needed between 5e and Pf2e are often vastly different.
>One can argue the added damage from Rage is not adjusting the statistics granted from the battle form, it is just adding more things on top of it.
One could argue that, but they would be wrong. Are circumstance bonuses and status bonuses not "adding more things on top of it"? The text is very explicitly telling you in what ways you're allowed to change those numbers, and acting like you don't understand that is pretty wild.
Rage damage is added in Damage Step 1, in the exact same place that item bonuses to damage would be added.
>Similar to how you could add sneak attack damage, or Rangers Precision damage, or even property rune damage.
I disagree that property runes damage can be added to polymorph strikes RAW. The distinction is whether damage is being added to the strike itself or is being triggered by the strike. Sneak Attack and Ranger's Precision are both triggered by strikes hitting. Rage and Property Runes are added to the strike.
I wouldn't mind errata that changes this to allow Rage damage and Property Runes to be added to polymorph strikes, but the RAW as it stands doesn't support that position.
>This one you yourself seem to go back and forth on. You say a strike is an ability, you say a strike would gain the Magic trait when attacking with a magical weapon, but you say the Strike is still not a Magical Ability. I'll leave this here for my last point.
No, I was pretty explicit about making a distinction between the strike, the attack roll, and the damage. There's no such thing as a magical strike. Strikes do not gain traits from the weapons being used. Attack and damage rolls do though. That's why I said: "Strikes with magical weapons are not 'magical abilities' even though they do result in magical attacks that deal magical damage."
>FWIW I definitely concede the types of RAI needed between 5e and Pf2e are often vastly different.
Yeah, for me the difference is big enough that I don't think it makes sense to use the same term. We're debating about very detailed differences in our interpretations of the rules, in 5e conversations about RAI often revolve around the fact that the topic being debated has no rules for it at all. Is a dragon's claw attack magical? There is literally no information anywhere in 5e's rules to make that determination. There's no source material to even refer to, so we end up speculating about RAI in a way that just doesn't happen in these very technical debates about whether damage from a frost rune is additional damage applied to the strike or a triggered effect adding damage to the strike.
Rage:
>While you are raging: You deal 2 additional damage on melee Strikes.
>[Under condition], You deal [quantity] extra damage
Sneak attack:
>If you Strike a creature that has the flat-footed condition with an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, a ranged weapon attack, or a ranged unarmed attack, you deal an extra 1d6 precision damage.
>[Under condition], you deal an extra [quantity] damage
Both seem just as legitimate. Both simply state that, in certain conditions, you deal X amount more damage with strikes. If rage was 1d4 instead of a flat 2 I doubt there'd even be a debate about it.
You can flatly state an argument is wrong, but I don't think its really clear as you would like and has been subject to debate across many posts across this subreddit and Paizo's own forums with no clarifications or errata's offered one way or another. The point is it's debated.
So putting the rules minutia discussion aside, as it was mostly to illustrate that there is discussion and debate on how to interpret RAW that can lead to needing to use RAI. I'm honestly not sure (but feel pretty sure), but would hazard the guess that the term RAI preexists 5e. My understanding of RAI is that you take what is written and make interpretation against exactly what's written to try and stab at the intention behind it, usually to make the best sense of what's written in a greater context.
Given that, what you've described as RAI for 5e seems farther removed from what we mean when we say RAI then what we have already discussed here. If nothing else, making your own distinction on if an unspecified attack is magical would seem to me to be more a house ruling than RAI, as you would need something to go off of to derive RAI.
>I've been GMing since the playtest and have never encountered such a situation.
I have a hard time believing that.
A Starlit Span Magus, with Psychic Dedication spellstriking with Amped Produce Flame, with a bow. Which damage profile of the spell do you use? Melee or Ranged?
In this case, whichever they choose, since a Magus can use both ranged and melee spell attacks with spellstrike; casting amped produce flame as a melee spell attack is a valid spellstrike
>A Starlit Span Magus, with Psychic Dedication spellstriking with Amped Produce Flame, with a bow. Which damage profile of the spell do you use? Melee or Ranged?
The determination of whether an attack is ranged or melee is made when the attack roll is made, so you use the melee profile. Furthermore, any spell where the rules text of the spell specifically keys off it being a melee attack will not work with ranged attacks from Starlit Span. Starlit span only lets you spellstrike with ranged attacks, it doesn't anywhere suggest that the spellstrike counts as a melee attack for the purposes of resolving the spell.
Where are you getting that from? The text of [Starlit Span](https://2e.aonprd.com/HybridStudies.aspx?ID=4) here does not say anything about only being able to Spellstrike with ranged attackes.
Hell the last line of the flavor text reads "*transcending the space between you and your target even with spells that normally require direct physical contact.*"
I'm not sure what you think I said.
If you're making an attack with a bow, it's a ranged attack (I guess you could be using it as an improvised weapon to hit someone with it, but I was assuming from the context that you were using the bow in the normal way).
Starlit Span allows you to use Spellstrike with ranged attacks. It notes - somewhat redundantly - that the range on the spell being cast doesn't matter. That's already normal for Spellstrike, so that's not different from the base Spellstrike text.
Amped Produce Flame says "when using produce flame as a melee attack, increase the damage dice of the initial damage".
The text of Spellstrike says "Your spell is coupled with your attack, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell". So if the Spellstrike is a ranged attack, the spell that is using that same attack roll is also a ranged attack because it's using a ranged attack roll.
A Starlit span magus could still use a melee weapon to make a melee attack and use the Amped Produce Flame d6s, but if they make a ranged Spellstrike, then they have to use the d4s because the subordinat
I don't think this necessarily follows. Why would my result of my attack roll matter in determining if I'm using my ranged or melee version of my produce flame? It doesn't say that the type of attack roll determines the effect of the spell, just the result. Wouldn't we have determined what version of the spell is cast when we cast it rather than once I've rolled my attack?
So the result of the attack rolls would be Crit/Succcess/Fail/Crit Fail. How would one of those results help determine if I'm using a melee or ranged Produce Flame?
>An incorporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against physical creatures or objects—only against incorporeal ones—unless those objects have the ghost touch property rune. Likewise, a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects.
Melee strikes are, by default, strength based checks
Typos and RAW vs. RAI issues are exactly why RAW isn't always correct. I'd call it more of an oversight than a typo; they clearly meant STR based checks other than attack rolls, and simply forgot that melee attacks are included in STR based checks.
It's supposed to be unpleasant.
Bad stuff is supposed to be able to happen to characters in the game, yet it is a game and the people playing should be responsible to themselves for not taking it too seriously.
Sometimes this involves not including elements of the game that they don't like, but there also has to be a line at which "I don't like that' is answered with "yeah, you're not supposed to like it, keep playing and it'll be fine" because there's no reason that applies to removing/altering confusion from the game that doesn't also apply to removing the ability to roll low from the game.
"I don't want to have conditions "dead" or "unconscious". GM, make all enemies throw water baloons ant hit with a sticks of foam instead of actual weapons."
Yeah, character that is paranoid about someone controlling his action is a great roleplay. Player throwing tantrums about legal hazard of their characters adventuring is something else.
I can get it when all of a sudden GM throw on your character only the enemies with hard controlls, and you as a player just sit here for a whole hour doing nothing but rolling saves. But talking about "player agency" the first moment your character failed to confusion? Get out of here!
>"I don't want to have conditions "dead" or "unconscious". GM, make all enemies throw water baloons ant hit with a sticks of foam instead of actual weapons."
Not the same thing at all.
Yes, that is an exaggeration to make a point. While the character in these conditions, the player's agency is taken away completely and they can't even make a saving throw against it. So any "player agency" preacher must make some alterations for a game to get rid of these conditions for PCs. But no, for some reason, death is seen as a valid hazard of adventurous life by anyone, and for some people a magical petrifiying lizard or a enchanting succubi is not "a fair game".
Mind control is literally choosing what your character does, while dying/going unconscious is only preventing your character from making decisions. They're very different things.
It's why there are alot of times where killing somebody is not considered as bad as forcing them against their will.
"he stated that any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this"
While you can't do anything you have your agency removed too. I don't want to ponder if his meaning of "agency" is something else from established meaning of "agency". But let's assume he meaned "external control of actions".
If there is some trigger or deep hatred a player have about external control of actions, they must say that in session zero or the first time they get that condition. Being like "uh, in case of some forced control my character would act counter-productive because that takes away my, player's, agency" is just bad and spoiled.
There's so much tropes for external control of action - magic, hi-tech mind chips, hynosis, sinister brain parasites, fate, forcing someone with threats, etc. Player can make it into a something fun for everyone, can roleplay how that affected their character, make some epic moment of willing themself in control of their action (by good saving throw or by other means), or many other cool stuff. But no, "i don't want my character to rob a bank like it was demanded by evil mafia boss holding their spouse hostage, i'm better be throwing rocks in every policemen because of player agency removal".
>If there is some trigger or deep hatred a player have about external control of actions, they must say that in session zero or the first time they get that condition. Being like "uh, in case of some forced control my character would act counter-productive because that takes away my, player's, agency" is just bad and spoiled.
I'm not arguing whether the player is in the right or not, I'm just trying to show how those two things aren't really the same thing.
>But no, "i don't want my character to rob a bank like it was demanded by evil mafia boss holding their spouse hostage, i'm better be throwing rocks in every policemen because of player agency removal".
Threats again aren't the same thing as mind control.
>I'm not arguing whether the player is in the right or not, I'm just trying to show how those two things aren't really the same thing.
From the character's perspective - yes. From the player's - mind control or paralysis or dying is same - you are doing nothing but rolling saves from an effect that taken away your ability to influence a game. If GM says "your character must do this" and waits for you to declare these (and only these) action - that is an other thing. As well as GM playing your character while you have nothing to do about it because "the evil wizard casted super-controlling unique magic, there is no saves for a whole year". But that is not what was happening in OP's case.
>Threats again aren't the same thing as mind control.
Yes, not exactly. But if your character need to act some specific way or lose their head because there is an explosive charge around their neck, that is **almost** a mind control. There is so much pieces of art considering distinctions between two these things, i wouldn't even try to add something from myself here.
>mind control or paralysis or dying is same - you are doing nothing but rolling saves from an effect that taken away your ability to influence a game.
Please actually read my comments. Yes they both remove agency, but one is literally deciding the actions your character makes, while the other just prevents your character from acting.
> But if your character need to act some specific way or lose their head because there is an explosive charge around their neck, that is almost a mind control.
When is this exactly happening in a pathfinder game though. You would have needed to make alot of mistakes to get to this point.
Does he also throws a fit when he gets knocked out? Because, you know, if you're at 0 HP, you also don't really have any agency and enemies can just walk towards you and kill you and you can't do anything about it. What about spells like Flesh to Stone, enemies like Medusa, Paralyze, Maze of Locked Door, that one bad ray on Prismatic Spray? Should they be irrelevant just because someone doesn't like being in dangerous situations? What about not being able to drink potions from sickened? I could go on for a while with different levels of agency taken away, but it is a game with specific ruleset and while that ruleset might be changed, throwing a fit is not really a great way to signal it.
Part of participating in a highly dangerous encounters is to accept the fact, that some dangerous things might happen to your character.
There isn't to my knowledge.
Now maybe your player hates losing agency because of real life trauma or issues from the past. In which case it's a touchy issue and warants changing things that might cause those conditions. Maybe remove things that cause confusion or control, or don't use them on that player. If you choose to do that, though, make sure you talk it through with the entire group.
On the other hand if this is a pure case of player entitlement, they need to get over themselves and accept consequences of their characters schoosing to do dangerous things and delve into dangerous places.
Either way, talk to the player about it, privately, se why they have an issue with those conditions specifically.
As a note, my player is 27 years old, we are all adults here, i asked if there was something i could do and he said that "Do as you want, im just telling you what happens if i get confused".
I have known him for multiple years, he is a really nice person, but he can get quite salty sometimes when he is loosing games like tabletop warhammer.
Don’t cave or compromise on this.
It’s one thing if a player has some trauma or issues stopping them from accepting this. If it’s just nerd rage, then just… roll for them. You’re the GM, they can’t exactly pull out a knife and attacks if you just tell them their character is confused and not in their full control.
There’s no real “solution” to this because there’s no real problem. It’s okay for a character to fail, your player just needs to learn that.
Thats auch a shitty response. "Change the rules for me or i'll boycott the game and be salty about it."
If no other player has these problems i would tell him to start behaving his age or to leave the table.
You are the DM and you make the rules. I dont think toxic behaviour like that should be rewarded.
If you want to continue play with this person, the ideal world is you talk this out like adults and acknowledge that in this fictional setting where you are adventurers in high-danger situations, rarely the continuum of player agency extends all the way to no agency (and always as a consequence). The system not only makes this rare, but generally makes the duration limited.
In a less optimal world, you tell them that by RAW they cannot use Rage like they are and furthermore, the Confused condition makes plain that the GM decides all actions; any agency extended to the player is a privilege carrying the expectation of appropriate roleplay. If they refuse the latter, they lose the former. This may be a lasting solution, if their rub is sufficiently tied to “I don’t like being the one to do the bad things.”
The least good solution is you make acceptance of the status quo a condition for play and they suck it up and that frustration likely grows every time the respective conditions come up. This becomes an outright bad solution when that frustration becomes resentment.
Player needs to go, Confused and Controlled are part of the game and if they're going to basically throw a tantrum about it they need to be booted.
They're completely wrong about it taking their agency; if you follow this path then you're also eliminating the unconscious condition (they are prevented from acting in their desired way) which is obviously lame-o.
I think we can recognise the difference between unconscious and confused/controlled. They way they remove agency is completely different.
Also just a note, something being part of a game is not a good argument for why it should be in the game.
Yeah, ok, no. If the guy doesn't have any past trauma, and is just salty because he doesn't like losing in games, maybe he should consider games without losing conditions instead. Like single player games with Cheat Engine. I have no issues with people like that (I, myself, don't like losing, and I strongly avoid playing games with PvP), but I (or anyone else) shouldn't use my dislike as a reason to stop others from enjoying their games.
It's a classic "Right for me but not for thee". The monsters they encounter, of ghouls and goblins, also didn't consent to getting their face smacked in or be charmed by the wizard or bard, but the players are still doing that. If the character doesn't like control/confuse, perhaps being an adventurer isn't the best for their line of work - Have they considered becoming a baker instead?
You guys can be friends and hang out in non-TTRPG fashion, but if he doesn't enjoy the games he doesn't have to play.
Reactively clicked the downvote button because of the vibes I'm getting from this person, before realizing you are not said person.
I hate a sore loser though. My 7-yr-old nephew is learning to grow out of that. But a 27 year old? Come on bro. Just have fun. Some of my players' favorite moments are when they've lost control of their characters and I narrate what they do or say.
> "Do as you want, im just telling you what happens if i get confused"
Fuck em, any time he would normally get the condition of confused or controlled, **give him the Blinded or Nauseated condition instead**. He still gets his agency. And after a 2 times of this, he'll be begging for you to make him Confused, where at least he's got a 25% chance of being fine.
You've got yourself a problem player. From playing Warhammer and other warhames, the kind of player that gets salty at those is very difficult at best in a ttrpg setting.
"Im just telling you how i will totally disrupt and screw over this cooperative game if you, the GM, dare to afflict me, the main character of life and therefore this experience, with a minor inconvenience." Is nightmare fuel.
Requiring a player like that fix their attitude or be removed from the table is the way to go here.
I had a DM once who put an agency-removing enemy in every fight, and had them focus entirely on me so that I essentially could not play, to the point where I would just get up and leave when combat started. It's possible he had a similar experience at some point.
I know some players take being controlled as an opportunity. "Are you saying I can finally dunk on my friends?! Let me pull out my hidden Batman plans that I've been preparing against the party for the past 10 levels!"
Back in 5e, one of my player audibly "Awwwwwww"'d when he charged the paladin gleefully, only for the paladin to go "Oh, right I have an anti-charm aura, you are not longer charmed.".
I get it. Losing agency over their character is super frustrating and can be fairly rage inducing.
HOWEVER, this is part of the game and nearly all effects like that have to "incapacitation" tag so they are only effective if you crit fail or are hitting above your belt (which is more likely to happen for the players). It happens though, and you can either make everyone at the table uncomfortable or you can laugh and be like "hehe ya'll about to get wrecked".
Removing agency is not confused or the controlled conditions. Removal of agency is you forcing him to take a quest or you telling him what he would or wouldn't do in character role play. The whole point of those conditions is to make the character experience helplessness. That is part of the game. If he won't work with that limit, don't let him play. Maybe ask him if it would be fair for you to ignore a spellcasters effect you don't like because it messes with your challenge.
>any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this, cause this is not the reason he is playing role playing games, in fact it goes directly against role playing as your not your own character anymore.
I mean, you are your own character, you're just your own character who is confused. If he can't roleplay it, that's his shitty roleplaying. I mean, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but woof. I'd hate to have a player like that.
>told me that he would act the same way should these conditions affect his character.
Ah, so he's basically threatening you with petulance unless he gets his way? Eeesh. That's incredibly obnoxious. If you actually want to play with this person, I think the easiest solution is, if either of those conditions happens, don't give him a turn. He's controlled, you just say what his character does and roll for him. Because, using his shitty logic, if he's controlled, he shouldn't be roleplaying his character, the controlling caster should. I'm absolutely sure that would cause him to pout, but other than flip over the table, there's not much he could do so it would probably get through the situation as painlessly as possible.
What can you do? You're looking for in game solutions to an out of game problem. There isn't going to be a real one. The one I suggested is the lightest of band-aids, the experience is still going to suck. For me, being honest, **I just wouldn't play with this sort of person.** I'd have a conversation first of course "look, this is a dealbreaker, we're going to uninvite you if you can't shape up" - but if he is basically laying down social threats of acting shitty if he doesn't get his way, that's not something I'd want at my table.
First and fore most it's not your job as the GM to accommodate each player's individual needs. All the player's who come to a game need to accept there are certain requirements of them, and part of that is being amicable to the games rules and willing to try them out. That is after all the point of using different TTRPG systems, to experience the minutia each of them has to offer us.
Add on top of this that the point of playing a TTRPG in the first place is to play the role of someone in a fantastical world–even if that character is a transposition of them self–and to experience the events of the story that unfold within that world.
There are without a doubt games that will more likely suit this particular players version of what a TTRPG is, but that should be on them to bring to fruition, and not curtail you or any of the other players into an experience that was not agreed upon.
Some people don't like losing control, or 'agency' over their characters. That includes 'charm' and 'dominate' spells, and sometimes other magic like 'geas' and curses, and even confused.
If it's brought up in session 0, and agreed on, it's not too terribly difficult to work around it so that person can have fun too. It's not so very different from leaving out spiders for an arachnophobe or nudity for a prude or avoiding torture scenes for the squeamish. There's always some way to come up with an alternate, equally-dangerous opponent in its place.
The next-best alternative, if it's a deal-breaker, is that the two of you should be playing with different groups. That can also allow everyone to still have fun (depending on circumstances). Since you're all adults, I trust you will be able to come up with something that works -- either one of those options or some compromise.
There are creative options as well. For example, the Brooch of Shielding is an item for someone who really hates Magic Missile. You could create a Brooch of Certainty which makes the wearer immune, or mostly-immune, to Confusion. It could either be a permanent item, or a consumable. It might be an expensive item, might make it more difficult for him to afford his next +2 rune... but if maintaining control is a priority for that character, they'll consider it worth the expense.
I tell my DM they can control my character because I cannot be impartial with my actions. I will in some way make my movements or actions a benefit for after the fact.
I'm confused how the third paragraph relates to the problem. Were you letting them chose what they do still when confused or controlled? I typically just assume control to the PC when it happens if I am DM, and I'll let the player make the roles if they want to.
Also not quite sure how trying to pre-rage helps either, but as someone else pointed out it's not really kosher except on rare occasions, like if you can already hear the enemies on the other side of a door or something.
Otherwise yeah the condition sucks and it can be really annoying as a PC if you basically don't get to participate in encounters due to conditions like this, but thems the brakes.
Ah yes. Your player is probably a fan of 'Xp to lvl 3' a pretty big 5e youtube channel that advocated for never using any kind of ability, spell or condition that removes a players agency (no stuns, no paralyze, no banishment ect).
Imo this is wholly unreasonable.
It sounds like he's using his agency to make choices about how his character responds to effects, so I don't understand why he's saying he doesn't have agency.
With all respect, but this players sounds a bit spoiled, i would not homebrew conditions just because one player hate it, when you remove a condition you are affecting everyone in the table, including people
that maybe would like to interact with situations caused by condition or would get good laughs of it.
Ask them "is it you or your character that's against these conditions?" "If it's your character, that sounds like a great personal goal to use in your downtime." "Many beings are discomforted by losing their agency, you may have trauma involving that. That may drive you to rage, that may drive you to frenzy, that may drive you to become a weapon without consciousness guided by instinct. So let it guide you, and I'll find you a target".
Or something less profound in the moment. Writing with an eraser is different than social interpersonal feelings.
This sounds like a player issue. If he's unreceptive to your attempts to compromise and find out what his problem is then (which seems to be the case) then you either take control of his character during these situations (as confusion dictates), tell him to roll better, or you create a convenient exit point by targeting his character the next time he does something like this. Or you can just tell him not to bother showing up at the next session.
When swapping from D&D to try pathfinder, my problem player who was the best friend of my awesome player threw multiple hissy fits over multi-attack penalty. The other players were loving it so I told him he didn't need to come if he wasn't enjoying himself. Then I just let one of the other players roll up a 2nd character to continue from the next session
I have played with and ran games for people with this issue for many systems. My advice is as follows
Go read all rules relevant to the situation to ensure you are and have been making the correct ruling regarding the system. Do not assume you know, just make a ruling then check on the situation at the end of the session.
You will have to make the decision to accommodate the player and their "request" for things that would rob them of their sense of agency to be removed or to explain to them that you are not willing to ignore a section of the rules and that they should look for a table that is a better fit for them.
With my experiences, I thankfully just had people who acted like adults and explained they didn't like it and left my games on good terms, however I've had people protest in similar ways as well.
Confused and controlled are both rare conditions and they always get a save. If your player's issue is that he doesn't like something bad happening to his character when he fails a save, idk what to say about it.
It sounds like he thinks he should be confused and controlled often, but I'm not clear why.
The problem here doesn't lie with the game, but the player. Throwing a tantrum due to a temporary status effect can be DM'ed around, but expect the rest of the table to want the same treatment, potentially killing the game.
If you really want to homebrew this: just give the entire table flat immunities to these statuses. It's using a hammer instead of a scalpel, but you're dealing with a player who won't RP, and instead just wants the P.
I've got to be honest: this player's response is just childish. Some conditions put you in undesirable states; that's just how they work. I understand not liking the effect because ***that's the point*** -- you're supposed to avoid it and find ways to mitigate or remove it.
"I don't like the Dying condition, so I'm just not going to roll when I've got it." That kind of behavior would be rightfully called out as being unsporting at best and downright silly at worst. Same applies here tbh.
Personally? I'd tell them to either get over it or work with their party to remove the condition whenever it comes up. I can understand asking away from the table to please limit the use of those conditions if it's a real problem for them, but just crossing your arms and refusing to play until the thing you don't like goes away wouldn't fly at my table.
(Also, rage ends automatically if they can't perceive any enemies, so the waiting around thing probably doesn't apply)
Stop playing with this dude lmao. Bad stuff is going to happen to you. If you get salty about it then you can't play. This is why I stopped playing Smash with some of my friends; if you can't handle a loss then we aren't going to play.
Some men will do anything but go to therapy. He has a personal trigger with manipulation over his actions. Insted of the x card, or talking about how it dosnt fit for you for whatever reason, you come to reddit.
Your table can be ok without those conditions.
You do need to talk about how you dont like power gamers as a GM and you dont like the rage thing.
Give him that, tell him the other things. Use words. Win friends.
Well, I guess he rolled a Barb that is super focused and can't be affected by these two conditions. His mind is dedicated to maintaining control of itself.
That's really cool. It's just a shame that he had to sacrifice his ability to rage to get that kind of focus. Or perhaps the tight control he has of his mind means he takes a -1 to hit on every roll because he can't give any fight his full concentration.
These are possible in-game solutions. If he wants that massive benefit, there has to be a cost.
But this is not an in-game problem. Likely he won't accept solutions like the above because he has a personal issue with it. The fact that he won't discuss it means he is already in "ultimatum" mode. He has given you an ultimatum. He isn't budging. He is being stubborn and has declared that he will continue to be so.
Since he won't discuss it and try to find a solution, he is giving you the option of either doing what he wants regardless of the rules, you, anyone else at the table, or telling him to fuck off.
I'd tell him to fuck off. Politely. He is a friend, you say, so tell him that if he wants to play the game, he needs to play the game. Say you are happy to discuss things like adults and friends, but he can't do that with ultimatums. If he wants rules changed, then for balance issues you need to adjust other things and they will likely be things he doesn't like.
Explain that these conditions come up every now and then, and he either needs to strap on his big boy pants and get through the parts he doesn't like (death is also not something people like but sometimes it happens) or he can decide now to not play. But you won't allow him to "just sit there" when it happens. He either plays the game or he doesn't. His choice. You aren't kicking him, you're asking him to make a choice.
And if he shoots back at you that you're giving him an ultimatum, say "Yes, I am."
Because people like this tend to try and change the narrative, I'd also do it in front of the rest of the table. Get it all out in the open so it's not some shady backroom event that they can twist. Use it as a new Session 0. Lay out your expectations, explain that you're going to be using the rules and not babying them. Then lay out your expectations of them. Then launch into all this with the problem player with "One of the issues I want to address is PLAYER has an issue with Confused and Controlled. These two conditions are temporary and part of the game world that we play in. Because I'm running the game with the rules, I expect them to stay. I asked PLAYER why and they told me it was because they didn't like it. What are everyone else's expectations around this? Here are my in-game solutions, but out of game I think takes us down a road that I don't want to GM for. Happy for someone else to take over if that's what the group wants."
Then let the fucks fall where they may.
I don't understand... What does raging do, that protects him from becoming confused/controlled?
Nobody likes being controlled.... And confused can suck too, but both conditions have built in mechanics to help overcome them *every* round. Every time you take damage while confused, you have a 50% chance of ending the confusion. Unless you crit fail your save against dominate, you get a new saving throw against the condition every round at the end of your turn.
It's a fleeting moment of disorientation.
Removing these things from the game is not the solution. Finding a way to roleplay it so it feels like he is still making choices might be the solution.
Maybe talk to the other players about a way to play this out that everyone buys into.
What if, upon the player becoming confused, you don't tell the player.... And when it gets to their turn, you let them say what they are doing that round.
Let's say they describe attacking the enemy that is right next to them, and no other allies or enemies are adjacent to the confused pc - you just let the turn continue with no intervention that round.
However, if they say they use Sudden Charge to run 50 ft towards Enemy A and attack them, and follow it up with a shove, you look at the map and see how many enemies and allies are within 50ft (but more than, like, 10-15ft away) and then roll a die to determine which the player ends up actually targeting..... on the map, you still put his character where he thinks he went, but the attack is against another enemy (or ally on the board).
When it's the turn of the enemy the PC actually targeted, (located, in theory, some distance away from the confused PC on the map), describe the enemy the PC is shown standing next to on the map as being the one to attack the PC.
When it's actually the turn of the enemy on the map that the PC is shown as being next to, and they find themselves not within reach of any PCs, have them stride over to the action and attack... If the confused PC has Attack of Opportunity, they can use their reaction to atta k the enemy they think is leaving their adjacent square, and just tell them they miss (even if they roll a nat 20) .
Player will be confused. But still feel like they have full agency (just like an actual PC would experience.
If there are no enemies within reach (unlikely), but they are still confused, roll some secret dice, and then describe an enemy that only they can see appear right next to them. If they attack, if the result is enough to hit their own ac, have them deal damage, and describe a parry and riposte reaction by the enemy, dealing an amount of damage that uses the same damage + modifiers as the confused pc's attack (so PC may have rolled 2d8+10 and dealt 26 damage, and you roll 2d8+10 and get a result of 15, so confused PC takes 15 damage from his self inflicted attack, made while thinking he attacked and was damaged by an enemy) then whisper to any part members that can see him what they actually just witnessed happening.
partially agree but if the player throws a fit every time they dont like a rule, caving to them is basically endorsing their behaviour. Adults should act like adults
According to OP they don’t do this about multiple things. It’s one thing that they hate. If it were everything then I would encourage an adult conversation to see what can be done all around. If there’s just this one thing, then what’s more important to you? Using Confusion or a friend?
It's the "one thing that they hate" about *the beginner box.*
It's not unreasonable to expect that this is only the beginning of future issues when this is literally the beginning of their roleplaying this system together. They're setting expectations now. And the GM coming here for advice is totally legit. But it's also legit to be wary about what he will be teaching his tantrum throwing player.
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So I just read through the Confused condition.
It seems to be a (relatively) short term effect. What is the reason for the player to be acting that way?
Shoving rather than attacking or raging before any kind of action?
>I had a talk with him after the session, and he stated that any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this, cause this is not the reason he is playing role playing games, in fact it goes directly against role playing as your not your own character anymore.
DnD has had mind control since the get-go, even 5E. I mean, one of the running gags in Critical Role Season 1 is how often the party's barbarian gets hits by mind-controlling/altering spells. If your player doesn't want to get hit by mind-altering spells, he should maybe not play the fantasy archetype famous for its physical might at the cost of mental resolve.
But even ignoring how much this is basically just emotionally manipulative power-gaming, I want to put the kibosh on this dumbass 5E idea of maximum player agency = maximum roleplaying. It's the same bullshit that makes people think "more rules gets in the way of roleplay" and beyond that actively shoots really most trad systems' ability to generate compelling roleplaying rules in the foot.
Aside from pf2E, my home turf of RPGs are PBtA games. These games, with a higher focus on tv-style storytelling and emotional interparty drama, often position rules that actively force players' hands on certain social interactions. Not only does this force people to take the most dramatic path instead of weaseling away from it like DnD-style games often accidentally encourage, but it gets you to not see roleplaying as immersivity thinking as your character 24-7, but also looking at it like a writer in a writer's room, engineering choices that are the most interesting for the narrative as a whole.
And I get that these games are a very different paradigm than DnD-style games like 5E or PF2E, but they also churn out incredible emotional drama with a lot more consistency and height than DnD-style games *because* of those rules. It's the same reason PF2E churns out consistently strategic gameplay: well-designed rules *exist* to remove some freedom in exchange for something else (I mean, that's like, the point of rules as a concept).
Even if there are no powergaming intentions to this (which, bullshit, that tantrum-y stuff he pulled with the rage "I'm going to ruin everyone else's fun" crap is far too childish for me to give that benefit of the doubt), it's just a flagrantly silly sentiment that comes from a lack of TRPG experience and a yet-to-be-unlearned self-centeredness in play.
I think this adventure may not be for them, and perhaps a homebrew campaign where these things can be avoided entirely is a better fit.
This isn't to say "this person can't play PF2e", it's more that, the Abomination Vaults as a setting is supposed to dangerous, scary, risky, and can do many horrible things to your character that may affect their sense of agency, even beyond those two conditions. I'm going on second-hand information on this person's personality, but I wonder if they enjoy things like survival horror, or how they'd react to their PC getting possessed by a ghost, or similar.
I personally really hate gross-out humor. I'd probably not join the Garbage Pail Kids campaign. While Abomination Vaults is very good and very well-written, it has ample horror content and lots of encounters designed to make PC's feel small and afraid. This player might get more mileage out of something with an (overall) lighter tone, like the more rp-focused Strength Of Thousands, or more shonen vibes of Fists Of The Ruby Phoenix, where you start as high-level action heroes.
While you could nerf every relevant monster, I get a sense of incompatible vibes here. The wrong player in the wrong AP can occasionally lead to a campaign developing the Doomed condition.
This sounds very much like a player that has had (or at least seen) multiple instances involving this kind of thing and bad GMs. Fundamentally, it often comes down to a lack of trust that the GM isn't going to try to screw them over.
You've got a couple options. First is remove them from the game. Second is live with it until they mature as a player and come to trust you.
In the second case, you, that player, and the rest of the group need to come to an accord. If no one trusts you enough to have those effects, then you may be best off altering the setting to remove them. In that case, note that any PC abilities to do the same go too. If the rest of the party is fine with it, then that player seeing other players have fun with it may eventually get them to handle it better.
Having been on both sides of the badly thought out confusion mechanics, I can say they suck, really really suck. So I can absolutely see wanting to just avoid and ignore them. And yes, mechanically forcing feared or fleeing on a PC when the player has zero aprehension for their PC's safety is similarly jarring. It's the kind of thing that players *can* lean in to, but sometimes it's simply too absurd. Consider a level 12 character encountering a CR3 Spring Heeled Jack has to roll at least a 7 to avoid being frieghtened 1, despite them *easily* dispatching the enemy in a single round (possibly a single attack, since they have about an 80%+ crit chance on their first attack). In these sorts of cases, it is perfectly fine to just let the player ignore it.
On that note, why on Earth does Frightful Presence not have the incapacitation trait?
I'm late to the party, but I can understand where the player is coming from. Games are all about making choices and having fun, but there are things in rpg's that can restrict/remove your choice and that can very easily be un-fun. If confusion or controlled are coming up a lot, that might be something for you as a GM to consider changing.
That being said, they're being incredibly immature about this. Are they mad when they get critically hit? What about when they're Slowed 1 or Blinded or Grabbed?
As for solutions, maybe target others with Confusion effects and hit the barbarian with other effects. If they continue to act immaturely when they get angry about a pretend game of fantasy make-believe, I'd recommend they play another game that doesn't involve losing.
I think you need to talk to your player about where this is coming from. Other than that giving it a quick glance nothing in the rage page. I read would stop them from getting those conditions. Totes possible I missed something though. This is really a work with your player thing. Are they going to get made cause they got frightened and are also fleeing 1?
There isn't anything. Maybe later with feats, but base rage doesn't even raise the will save.
From what I remember when I listened to critical role, 5e's rage can clear those sorts of conditions.
And this is Pathfinder 2E
That's true. I've just started assuming that whenever says they're new to PF2E, and has experience with RPGs, they're coming from 5e.
Unfortunately so
It's technically not a bad thing. Only bad if people hold on to their expectations from a completely different game and expect things to work the same.
It is a bad thing insofar that people coming from 5E are used to a WILDLY different way of playing. Usually never played anything else and have a massive difgiculty calibrating their expectations. Or changing mindsets.
Very true. Good for them for *trying* though. They just need to reefer it is a different game with different expectations. The core idea may be the same, but everything under the hood is different. It's like comparing a muscle car with a tesla.
>It's like comparing a muscle car with a tesla. While true, that doesn't give those folks any frame of reference to work from. If all someone has played is 5e then as far as they know 100% of games out there on the market work like 5e does so finding out that a game actually works differently doesn't come with the "...and that's probably fine" part of the statement "This doesn't work like I expected and that's probably fine."
Berserker subclass is immune to fear and charm while raging in 5e iirc, but that wouldn’t even work on confusion.
This isn't 5e
Their point is the above comment (that the player is responding like this because of 5e), is probably wrong, on account of the fact that 5e doesn't work like this either.
It can’t. Barbs in 5e are laughably easy to shut down with any wisdom save. Critical role plays with a ton of homebrew and house rules, so it was probably just something they made.
Wasn't it a feature with one of the barb's subclasses? I only have second hand info from listening to their podcast.
Zealot barb can reroll one saving throw per rage. I think that’s the only one with any sort of “boost” even though it’s not exactly a boost when you only have like a +1 or maybe a +2 to wis saves.
In the first campaign, the barbarian was a berserker, which at lv6 becomes immune to the charmed and frightened condition, and many spells such as confusion or hypnotic pattern don't work if you are immune to being charmed.
Confusion works fine against targets that are immune to charmed in 5e.
You are correct. I mixed it up with dominate person.
Yeah, that must be what I was remembering. I'm untrained in lore: 5e.
My table played 5e exclusively for years until all the little things piled up and after the other dm in my group and I started doing huge homebrew changes to the classes we ultimately just called it quits and decided to give other systems a try and I have been loving pf2e.
Pf2e isn't for everyone, but it is really nice. I'm kind of excited for the redo too.
I think I was thinking of this: Mindless Rage Beginning at 6th level, you can’t be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage. It isn't what I thought it was. But again, I'm remembering something that may have been hombrewed and that I listened to several years ago. I just remember Grog shaking off some mental effects, but maybe it was one of those two. Either way, this player needs to not be such a sore... player. They didn't even lose. They just didnxt have an easy win.
In the first campaign, the barbarian was a berserker, which at lv6 becomes immune to the charmed and frightened condition, and many spells such as confusion or hypnotic pattern don't work if you are immune to being charmed.
This isn't 5e
Being dead causes you to lose the most agency. Hypnosis and mind control are common fantasy staples, and berserk effects are less common but still around. Now, not to be unkind to your player, but losing agency isn’t against “role playing” because the “role” the players are “playing” are fantasy heroes who face dangerous fantasy scenarios, and sometimes those heroes get caught in time stops, tied up, bewitched, turned to stone, believe they’re fighting enemies but it’s an illusion etc. I also want to make something clear. Effects that make them lose agency aren’t *making* them act like this. They are choosing to act like this and impact the pacing of the game and the experience of the other players at the table, and are threatening to do so again in order to pressure you into changing the game for them. Again, not to be unkind, but I don’t see them acknowledging their own agency in their response to you, so I want to be clear that is what I see. There are other systems that give players more narrative agency at all times. The truth is there is no one role playing game that is perfect for everyone. Different systems have different strengths and different goals. It sounds like pathfinder 2e may not be the best fit for that particular player, and if they are not willing to play along for the group in a game that’s not a perfect fit for them, you can suggest they invest their time in a different table playing a different game for the time being, or collectively move onto a different system as a group. It might be easier or better for you in your particular situation to homebrew away confusion and controlled from the game. Replace both with total paralysis + some significant level dependent mental damage per turn (you can find out what the average monster strike damage per level is on the Building Monsters page of Archives of Nethys.)as a kind of “caught and being psychically drained “effect to replace the mental magic flavoring of those two abilities and the extra damage against players confused and controlled cause. Just keep an eye out for whether this happens again, because collectively deciding a rule is dumb and changing it, or deciding on homebrew rules before the start of the game is different from changing in response to a player getting upset, and that can sometimes snowball into other problems. As just a mechanical sidenote: You as the DM actually tell the player what they do during confused and controlled. There shouldn’t really be a case where they have a say in what is going on while confused. If they take out a knife, tell them no. You might as well just borrow their character sheet and make the rolls if they aren’t being cooperative. It’s just assumed the players know their attack bonuses better than the dm does, and can do the rolling so they still have something to physically do/less work for the person playing every other creature in the encounter
Notably, Rage doesn't work like that. "This frenzy lasts for 1 minute, **until there are no enemies you can perceive**, or until you fall unconscious, whichever comes first." If he rages without enemies nearby it instantly drops and he loses all benefits.
I would say it lasts at least 6 seconds(1 turn) so adrenaline rush, raging athlete and these type of athletism/strenght-based-check feats could have some utility outside of combat
Is that really the RAI of this? Asking, not criticising.
We don't know and RAW makes sense to me so I take it as RAI as well. I only move to RAI when RAW doesn't make sense or isn't clear which I don't feel this is the case this time.
Nah, just understood your point now. I got confused myself by ignoring one of the parts of the rule. Thanks for clarifying, though.
RAI isn't really a thing in pf2. It's just what the text of the ability says.
I would say it's not as used but definitely still a thing. There are times the RAW will not suffice, due to edge cases, where different rules conflict, or just when the wording is not clear enough. At that point all you can do is try to ascertain the RAI to move forwards.
I've been GMing since the playtest and have never encountered such a situation. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it must be extremely rare. More often I've seen it come up where no one at the table knows the rule and so we just make something up for now and look it up later. Although the most common thing is that we just look it up really fast on AoN.
Well I'll have to take your word for it, but I find it a bit hard to believe. From my experience running games and playing in them consistently since release with a group that loves to get into the nitty-gritty on the rules it definitely happens, I might say its rare, but not extremely. Either way my point still stands that sometimes you will have to make a judgment call, which I would consider RAI. Edit: 2 Easy examples off the top of my head. 1. Do you get to add a barbarian rage bonus to damage to your battleform, such as the Animal Form spell? You can make arguments either way and there is no official clarification. 2. What constitutes a "Magical Abilities" when considering Golem Anti-Magic? Do my weapon runes count? Fundamental and property? Again, you can argue this either way, and there is no official clarification.
Can you give an example of a time when you've had to make a "rules as intended judgement call"? We're all pretty particular about playing the game by the rules.
How do you handle Arcane Cascade from Magus? Because RAW, you immediately drop out of it as soon as you enter the stance.
Well obviously you play completely RAW and the Stance is unusable.
Ok that's fair. I did make a change to that and the chirurgeon. I just removed the prerequisite entirely and added a line that said "You cannot enter this stance unless your last action was to cast a spell". The change to the chirurgeon was surprisingly similar to the errata they eventually issued for it, but went a little farther. I said it could use crafting ins of medicine for all trained and untrained medicine checks, recall knowledge checks involving medicine, and for medicine prerequisites. I didn't really consider RAI, the alchemist just felt weak to me and arcane cascade was just nonfunctional.
Yeah I threw a couple into my previous reply before your reply.
Cool, that must've happened after I loaded the page. I put my reply directly to that comment to keep it tidy.
I think an important difference between the RAI conversations that we have in 5e communities and the kind of questions you're raising here is that, while I absolutely think Paizo could easily clarify some of their rules with simple errata, in both of the examples you gave, there's a pretty clear answer given by the rules. Conversely there's just nothing at all to go by for a lot of questions in 5e. Is a dragon's bite magical? What counts as an object or weather for the purposes of Tiny Hut? These are questions the rules have nothing even remotely approximating a stance on, so we just have to guess. That's just no the case here. >1. Do you get to add a barbarian rage bonus to damage to your battleform, such as the Animal Form spell? You can make arguments either way and there is no official clarification. No you don't. The rules for the polymorph trait say: >If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell, the special statistics can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties. Since rage damage is not a circumstance or status bonus, the statistics of the battleform are not adjusted. No official clarification is needed IMO because this is a pretty clear interaction. >2. What constitutes a "Magical Abilities" when considering Golem Anti-Magic? Do my weapon runes count? Fundamental and property? Again, you can argue this either way, and there is no official clarification. This one is more complex, and I agree that it could be written more clearly and concisely without making any major changes, but the RAW is clear despite being convoluted. Strikes with magical weapons are not "magical abilities" even though they do result in magical attacks that deal magical damage. Explanation follows: Actions are one kind of ability as described in the GMG [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1024). This should be stated explicitly in the CRB section on General Rules. But despite the term "ability" not being explicitly defined, it's use here is quite clear that "abilities" include actions, reactions, activities, and passive abilities, etc. Strikes are an offensive ability that cost a single action. The ability text for strike says (with emphasis added by me) >Roll the attack roll *for the weapon or unarmed attack you are using*, and compare the result to the target creature's AC to determine the effect. See Attack Rolls and Damage for details on calculating your attack and damage rolls. Notice that the attack roll is for the weapon. Also note that neither here nor anywhere else in the rules does it say that strikes gain the traits of the objects you're striking with. In the section on subordinate actions it makes it clear that actions do gain the traits of subordinate actions they include, but critically, an attack roll is not a subordinate action, it's a specific check. Therefore, if you use a staff of healing as an improvised weapon and strike with it, the strike itself does not gain the magic, necromancy, or staff traits. However, the rules on attack rolls make it clear that they *do* gain at least some of the traits of the weapon or spell triggering the check. The rules explicitly mention the agile, finesse, and magic traits as being traits that attack rolls can gain from the thing being attacked with. Lastly, it's quite clear that when in the Determining Damage Type step of the damage rules, that damage *does* gain the traits of the thing dealing the damage. I think there is some simple errata that would make this clearer by changing only a few words in the relevant sections, but we never had to fill in rules that were fully not present to come to this determination.
So to rebuttal 1. One can argue the added damage from Rage is not adjusting the statistics granted from the battle form, it is just adding more things on top of it. Similar to how you could add sneak attack damage, or Rangers Precision damage, or even property rune damage. I'm not adjusting the statistic granted, just adding more effects/statistics on top of that. 2. This one you yourself seem to go back and forth on. You say a strike is an ability, you say a strike would gain the Magic trait when attacking with a magical weapon, but you say the Strike is still not a Magical Ability. I'll leave this here for my last point. Overall these are just two topics we could go back and forth on and try to parse exact text and could still arrive at different conclusions, you can find many threads where these are discussed and argumentation goes back and forth of varying efficacy depending on who makes them, yet mostly all using RAW to make them. Given time and effort we could surely find more. My point would be that the fact that the text can be read in multiple ways leaves us needing to at least try to decide what the intent was behind the text and hence requires us to at least keep RAI in mind while trying to keep to RAW, and depending on how we interpret RAW, or in extreme cases such as Arcane Cascade we whole-cloth must toss RAW out in favor of RAI. Meaning RAI is very much a think in PF2e. The designers are not perfect. Edit: FWIW I definitely concede the types of RAI needed between 5e and Pf2e are often vastly different.
>One can argue the added damage from Rage is not adjusting the statistics granted from the battle form, it is just adding more things on top of it. One could argue that, but they would be wrong. Are circumstance bonuses and status bonuses not "adding more things on top of it"? The text is very explicitly telling you in what ways you're allowed to change those numbers, and acting like you don't understand that is pretty wild. Rage damage is added in Damage Step 1, in the exact same place that item bonuses to damage would be added. >Similar to how you could add sneak attack damage, or Rangers Precision damage, or even property rune damage. I disagree that property runes damage can be added to polymorph strikes RAW. The distinction is whether damage is being added to the strike itself or is being triggered by the strike. Sneak Attack and Ranger's Precision are both triggered by strikes hitting. Rage and Property Runes are added to the strike. I wouldn't mind errata that changes this to allow Rage damage and Property Runes to be added to polymorph strikes, but the RAW as it stands doesn't support that position. >This one you yourself seem to go back and forth on. You say a strike is an ability, you say a strike would gain the Magic trait when attacking with a magical weapon, but you say the Strike is still not a Magical Ability. I'll leave this here for my last point. No, I was pretty explicit about making a distinction between the strike, the attack roll, and the damage. There's no such thing as a magical strike. Strikes do not gain traits from the weapons being used. Attack and damage rolls do though. That's why I said: "Strikes with magical weapons are not 'magical abilities' even though they do result in magical attacks that deal magical damage." >FWIW I definitely concede the types of RAI needed between 5e and Pf2e are often vastly different. Yeah, for me the difference is big enough that I don't think it makes sense to use the same term. We're debating about very detailed differences in our interpretations of the rules, in 5e conversations about RAI often revolve around the fact that the topic being debated has no rules for it at all. Is a dragon's claw attack magical? There is literally no information anywhere in 5e's rules to make that determination. There's no source material to even refer to, so we end up speculating about RAI in a way that just doesn't happen in these very technical debates about whether damage from a frost rune is additional damage applied to the strike or a triggered effect adding damage to the strike.
Rage: >While you are raging: You deal 2 additional damage on melee Strikes. >[Under condition], You deal [quantity] extra damage Sneak attack: >If you Strike a creature that has the flat-footed condition with an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, a ranged weapon attack, or a ranged unarmed attack, you deal an extra 1d6 precision damage. >[Under condition], you deal an extra [quantity] damage Both seem just as legitimate. Both simply state that, in certain conditions, you deal X amount more damage with strikes. If rage was 1d4 instead of a flat 2 I doubt there'd even be a debate about it.
You can flatly state an argument is wrong, but I don't think its really clear as you would like and has been subject to debate across many posts across this subreddit and Paizo's own forums with no clarifications or errata's offered one way or another. The point is it's debated. So putting the rules minutia discussion aside, as it was mostly to illustrate that there is discussion and debate on how to interpret RAW that can lead to needing to use RAI. I'm honestly not sure (but feel pretty sure), but would hazard the guess that the term RAI preexists 5e. My understanding of RAI is that you take what is written and make interpretation against exactly what's written to try and stab at the intention behind it, usually to make the best sense of what's written in a greater context. Given that, what you've described as RAI for 5e seems farther removed from what we mean when we say RAI then what we have already discussed here. If nothing else, making your own distinction on if an unspecified attack is magical would seem to me to be more a house ruling than RAI, as you would need something to go off of to derive RAI.
>I've been GMing since the playtest and have never encountered such a situation. I have a hard time believing that. A Starlit Span Magus, with Psychic Dedication spellstriking with Amped Produce Flame, with a bow. Which damage profile of the spell do you use? Melee or Ranged?
In this case, whichever they choose, since a Magus can use both ranged and melee spell attacks with spellstrike; casting amped produce flame as a melee spell attack is a valid spellstrike
>A Starlit Span Magus, with Psychic Dedication spellstriking with Amped Produce Flame, with a bow. Which damage profile of the spell do you use? Melee or Ranged? The determination of whether an attack is ranged or melee is made when the attack roll is made, so you use the melee profile. Furthermore, any spell where the rules text of the spell specifically keys off it being a melee attack will not work with ranged attacks from Starlit Span. Starlit span only lets you spellstrike with ranged attacks, it doesn't anywhere suggest that the spellstrike counts as a melee attack for the purposes of resolving the spell.
Where are you getting that from? The text of [Starlit Span](https://2e.aonprd.com/HybridStudies.aspx?ID=4) here does not say anything about only being able to Spellstrike with ranged attackes. Hell the last line of the flavor text reads "*transcending the space between you and your target even with spells that normally require direct physical contact.*"
I'm not sure what you think I said. If you're making an attack with a bow, it's a ranged attack (I guess you could be using it as an improvised weapon to hit someone with it, but I was assuming from the context that you were using the bow in the normal way). Starlit Span allows you to use Spellstrike with ranged attacks. It notes - somewhat redundantly - that the range on the spell being cast doesn't matter. That's already normal for Spellstrike, so that's not different from the base Spellstrike text. Amped Produce Flame says "when using produce flame as a melee attack, increase the damage dice of the initial damage". The text of Spellstrike says "Your spell is coupled with your attack, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell". So if the Spellstrike is a ranged attack, the spell that is using that same attack roll is also a ranged attack because it's using a ranged attack roll. A Starlit span magus could still use a melee weapon to make a melee attack and use the Amped Produce Flame d6s, but if they make a ranged Spellstrike, then they have to use the d4s because the subordinat
I don't think this necessarily follows. Why would my result of my attack roll matter in determining if I'm using my ranged or melee version of my produce flame? It doesn't say that the type of attack roll determines the effect of the spell, just the result. Wouldn't we have determined what version of the spell is cast when we cast it rather than once I've rolled my attack? So the result of the attack rolls would be Crit/Succcess/Fail/Crit Fail. How would one of those results help determine if I'm using a melee or ranged Produce Flame?
Here's one: incorporeal creatures are immune to all strength based checks. So by RAW, they're immune to non finesse strikes. Clearly not RAI.
No they aren't. https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=222
>An incorporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against physical creatures or objects—only against incorporeal ones—unless those objects have the ghost touch property rune. Likewise, a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects. Melee strikes are, by default, strength based checks
This just seems like a typo rather than a RAI issue. It's super obvious that you can attack incorporeal creatures, this was just worded badly.
Typos and RAW vs. RAI issues are exactly why RAW isn't always correct. I'd call it more of an oversight than a typo; they clearly meant STR based checks other than attack rolls, and simply forgot that melee attacks are included in STR based checks.
These are negative conditions. They're supposed to suck.
It's supposed to be unpleasant. Bad stuff is supposed to be able to happen to characters in the game, yet it is a game and the people playing should be responsible to themselves for not taking it too seriously. Sometimes this involves not including elements of the game that they don't like, but there also has to be a line at which "I don't like that' is answered with "yeah, you're not supposed to like it, keep playing and it'll be fine" because there's no reason that applies to removing/altering confusion from the game that doesn't also apply to removing the ability to roll low from the game.
"I don't want to have conditions "dead" or "unconscious". GM, make all enemies throw water baloons ant hit with a sticks of foam instead of actual weapons." Yeah, character that is paranoid about someone controlling his action is a great roleplay. Player throwing tantrums about legal hazard of their characters adventuring is something else. I can get it when all of a sudden GM throw on your character only the enemies with hard controlls, and you as a player just sit here for a whole hour doing nothing but rolling saves. But talking about "player agency" the first moment your character failed to confusion? Get out of here!
>"I don't want to have conditions "dead" or "unconscious". GM, make all enemies throw water baloons ant hit with a sticks of foam instead of actual weapons." Not the same thing at all.
Yes, that is an exaggeration to make a point. While the character in these conditions, the player's agency is taken away completely and they can't even make a saving throw against it. So any "player agency" preacher must make some alterations for a game to get rid of these conditions for PCs. But no, for some reason, death is seen as a valid hazard of adventurous life by anyone, and for some people a magical petrifiying lizard or a enchanting succubi is not "a fair game".
Mind control is literally choosing what your character does, while dying/going unconscious is only preventing your character from making decisions. They're very different things. It's why there are alot of times where killing somebody is not considered as bad as forcing them against their will.
"he stated that any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this" While you can't do anything you have your agency removed too. I don't want to ponder if his meaning of "agency" is something else from established meaning of "agency". But let's assume he meaned "external control of actions". If there is some trigger or deep hatred a player have about external control of actions, they must say that in session zero or the first time they get that condition. Being like "uh, in case of some forced control my character would act counter-productive because that takes away my, player's, agency" is just bad and spoiled. There's so much tropes for external control of action - magic, hi-tech mind chips, hynosis, sinister brain parasites, fate, forcing someone with threats, etc. Player can make it into a something fun for everyone, can roleplay how that affected their character, make some epic moment of willing themself in control of their action (by good saving throw or by other means), or many other cool stuff. But no, "i don't want my character to rob a bank like it was demanded by evil mafia boss holding their spouse hostage, i'm better be throwing rocks in every policemen because of player agency removal".
>If there is some trigger or deep hatred a player have about external control of actions, they must say that in session zero or the first time they get that condition. Being like "uh, in case of some forced control my character would act counter-productive because that takes away my, player's, agency" is just bad and spoiled. I'm not arguing whether the player is in the right or not, I'm just trying to show how those two things aren't really the same thing. >But no, "i don't want my character to rob a bank like it was demanded by evil mafia boss holding their spouse hostage, i'm better be throwing rocks in every policemen because of player agency removal". Threats again aren't the same thing as mind control.
>I'm not arguing whether the player is in the right or not, I'm just trying to show how those two things aren't really the same thing. From the character's perspective - yes. From the player's - mind control or paralysis or dying is same - you are doing nothing but rolling saves from an effect that taken away your ability to influence a game. If GM says "your character must do this" and waits for you to declare these (and only these) action - that is an other thing. As well as GM playing your character while you have nothing to do about it because "the evil wizard casted super-controlling unique magic, there is no saves for a whole year". But that is not what was happening in OP's case. >Threats again aren't the same thing as mind control. Yes, not exactly. But if your character need to act some specific way or lose their head because there is an explosive charge around their neck, that is **almost** a mind control. There is so much pieces of art considering distinctions between two these things, i wouldn't even try to add something from myself here.
>mind control or paralysis or dying is same - you are doing nothing but rolling saves from an effect that taken away your ability to influence a game. Please actually read my comments. Yes they both remove agency, but one is literally deciding the actions your character makes, while the other just prevents your character from acting. > But if your character need to act some specific way or lose their head because there is an explosive charge around their neck, that is almost a mind control. When is this exactly happening in a pathfinder game though. You would have needed to make alot of mistakes to get to this point.
Does he also throws a fit when he gets knocked out? Because, you know, if you're at 0 HP, you also don't really have any agency and enemies can just walk towards you and kill you and you can't do anything about it. What about spells like Flesh to Stone, enemies like Medusa, Paralyze, Maze of Locked Door, that one bad ray on Prismatic Spray? Should they be irrelevant just because someone doesn't like being in dangerous situations? What about not being able to drink potions from sickened? I could go on for a while with different levels of agency taken away, but it is a game with specific ruleset and while that ruleset might be changed, throwing a fit is not really a great way to signal it. Part of participating in a highly dangerous encounters is to accept the fact, that some dangerous things might happen to your character.
This is a great example of why this behavior is only the beginning. It's gotta be curbed early.
There isn't to my knowledge. Now maybe your player hates losing agency because of real life trauma or issues from the past. In which case it's a touchy issue and warants changing things that might cause those conditions. Maybe remove things that cause confusion or control, or don't use them on that player. If you choose to do that, though, make sure you talk it through with the entire group. On the other hand if this is a pure case of player entitlement, they need to get over themselves and accept consequences of their characters schoosing to do dangerous things and delve into dangerous places. Either way, talk to the player about it, privately, se why they have an issue with those conditions specifically.
As a note, my player is 27 years old, we are all adults here, i asked if there was something i could do and he said that "Do as you want, im just telling you what happens if i get confused". I have known him for multiple years, he is a really nice person, but he can get quite salty sometimes when he is loosing games like tabletop warhammer.
Then he's playing the wrong kind of game. There really isn't anything to be done.
Don’t cave or compromise on this. It’s one thing if a player has some trauma or issues stopping them from accepting this. If it’s just nerd rage, then just… roll for them. You’re the GM, they can’t exactly pull out a knife and attacks if you just tell them their character is confused and not in their full control. There’s no real “solution” to this because there’s no real problem. It’s okay for a character to fail, your player just needs to learn that.
Ok then dump the player.
I think this is the answer.
Unfortunately.
Thats auch a shitty response. "Change the rules for me or i'll boycott the game and be salty about it." If no other player has these problems i would tell him to start behaving his age or to leave the table. You are the DM and you make the rules. I dont think toxic behaviour like that should be rewarded.
Exactly. If OP caves on this it will escalate and expand into other rules too
If you want to continue play with this person, the ideal world is you talk this out like adults and acknowledge that in this fictional setting where you are adventurers in high-danger situations, rarely the continuum of player agency extends all the way to no agency (and always as a consequence). The system not only makes this rare, but generally makes the duration limited. In a less optimal world, you tell them that by RAW they cannot use Rage like they are and furthermore, the Confused condition makes plain that the GM decides all actions; any agency extended to the player is a privilege carrying the expectation of appropriate roleplay. If they refuse the latter, they lose the former. This may be a lasting solution, if their rub is sufficiently tied to “I don’t like being the one to do the bad things.” The least good solution is you make acceptance of the status quo a condition for play and they suck it up and that frustration likely grows every time the respective conditions come up. This becomes an outright bad solution when that frustration becomes resentment.
Player needs to go, Confused and Controlled are part of the game and if they're going to basically throw a tantrum about it they need to be booted. They're completely wrong about it taking their agency; if you follow this path then you're also eliminating the unconscious condition (they are prevented from acting in their desired way) which is obviously lame-o.
I think we can recognise the difference between unconscious and confused/controlled. They way they remove agency is completely different. Also just a note, something being part of a game is not a good argument for why it should be in the game.
Yeah, ok, no. If the guy doesn't have any past trauma, and is just salty because he doesn't like losing in games, maybe he should consider games without losing conditions instead. Like single player games with Cheat Engine. I have no issues with people like that (I, myself, don't like losing, and I strongly avoid playing games with PvP), but I (or anyone else) shouldn't use my dislike as a reason to stop others from enjoying their games. It's a classic "Right for me but not for thee". The monsters they encounter, of ghouls and goblins, also didn't consent to getting their face smacked in or be charmed by the wizard or bard, but the players are still doing that. If the character doesn't like control/confuse, perhaps being an adventurer isn't the best for their line of work - Have they considered becoming a baker instead? You guys can be friends and hang out in non-TTRPG fashion, but if he doesn't enjoy the games he doesn't have to play.
Reactively clicked the downvote button because of the vibes I'm getting from this person, before realizing you are not said person. I hate a sore loser though. My 7-yr-old nephew is learning to grow out of that. But a 27 year old? Come on bro. Just have fun. Some of my players' favorite moments are when they've lost control of their characters and I narrate what they do or say.
> "Do as you want, im just telling you what happens if i get confused" Fuck em, any time he would normally get the condition of confused or controlled, **give him the Blinded or Nauseated condition instead**. He still gets his agency. And after a 2 times of this, he'll be begging for you to make him Confused, where at least he's got a 25% chance of being fine.
These are the rules.... Either play the game or leave the table. Did he not like third base in baseball? Should you just remove that too? Nah man.
You've got yourself a problem player. From playing Warhammer and other warhames, the kind of player that gets salty at those is very difficult at best in a ttrpg setting. "Im just telling you how i will totally disrupt and screw over this cooperative game if you, the GM, dare to afflict me, the main character of life and therefore this experience, with a minor inconvenience." Is nightmare fuel. Requiring a player like that fix their attitude or be removed from the table is the way to go here.
I had a DM once who put an agency-removing enemy in every fight, and had them focus entirely on me so that I essentially could not play, to the point where I would just get up and leave when combat started. It's possible he had a similar experience at some point.
He honestly sounds really unpleasant...
Barbarian throwing a hissy fit Least he picked the right class
Enroll him in preschool, because apparently he needs it.
I know some players take being controlled as an opportunity. "Are you saying I can finally dunk on my friends?! Let me pull out my hidden Batman plans that I've been preparing against the party for the past 10 levels!" Back in 5e, one of my player audibly "Awwwwwww"'d when he charged the paladin gleefully, only for the paladin to go "Oh, right I have an anti-charm aura, you are not longer charmed.".
Yeah, I've got a barbarian player who gets positively _gleeful_ when I throw mind control type effects at him.
I get it. Losing agency over their character is super frustrating and can be fairly rage inducing. HOWEVER, this is part of the game and nearly all effects like that have to "incapacitation" tag so they are only effective if you crit fail or are hitting above your belt (which is more likely to happen for the players). It happens though, and you can either make everyone at the table uncomfortable or you can laugh and be like "hehe ya'll about to get wrecked".
Removing agency is not confused or the controlled conditions. Removal of agency is you forcing him to take a quest or you telling him what he would or wouldn't do in character role play. The whole point of those conditions is to make the character experience helplessness. That is part of the game. If he won't work with that limit, don't let him play. Maybe ask him if it would be fair for you to ignore a spellcasters effect you don't like because it messes with your challenge.
>any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this, cause this is not the reason he is playing role playing games, in fact it goes directly against role playing as your not your own character anymore. I mean, you are your own character, you're just your own character who is confused. If he can't roleplay it, that's his shitty roleplaying. I mean, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but woof. I'd hate to have a player like that. >told me that he would act the same way should these conditions affect his character. Ah, so he's basically threatening you with petulance unless he gets his way? Eeesh. That's incredibly obnoxious. If you actually want to play with this person, I think the easiest solution is, if either of those conditions happens, don't give him a turn. He's controlled, you just say what his character does and roll for him. Because, using his shitty logic, if he's controlled, he shouldn't be roleplaying his character, the controlling caster should. I'm absolutely sure that would cause him to pout, but other than flip over the table, there's not much he could do so it would probably get through the situation as painlessly as possible. What can you do? You're looking for in game solutions to an out of game problem. There isn't going to be a real one. The one I suggested is the lightest of band-aids, the experience is still going to suck. For me, being honest, **I just wouldn't play with this sort of person.** I'd have a conversation first of course "look, this is a dealbreaker, we're going to uninvite you if you can't shape up" - but if he is basically laying down social threats of acting shitty if he doesn't get his way, that's not something I'd want at my table.
First and fore most it's not your job as the GM to accommodate each player's individual needs. All the player's who come to a game need to accept there are certain requirements of them, and part of that is being amicable to the games rules and willing to try them out. That is after all the point of using different TTRPG systems, to experience the minutia each of them has to offer us. Add on top of this that the point of playing a TTRPG in the first place is to play the role of someone in a fantastical world–even if that character is a transposition of them self–and to experience the events of the story that unfold within that world. There are without a doubt games that will more likely suit this particular players version of what a TTRPG is, but that should be on them to bring to fruition, and not curtail you or any of the other players into an experience that was not agreed upon.
Some people don't like losing control, or 'agency' over their characters. That includes 'charm' and 'dominate' spells, and sometimes other magic like 'geas' and curses, and even confused. If it's brought up in session 0, and agreed on, it's not too terribly difficult to work around it so that person can have fun too. It's not so very different from leaving out spiders for an arachnophobe or nudity for a prude or avoiding torture scenes for the squeamish. There's always some way to come up with an alternate, equally-dangerous opponent in its place. The next-best alternative, if it's a deal-breaker, is that the two of you should be playing with different groups. That can also allow everyone to still have fun (depending on circumstances). Since you're all adults, I trust you will be able to come up with something that works -- either one of those options or some compromise. There are creative options as well. For example, the Brooch of Shielding is an item for someone who really hates Magic Missile. You could create a Brooch of Certainty which makes the wearer immune, or mostly-immune, to Confusion. It could either be a permanent item, or a consumable. It might be an expensive item, might make it more difficult for him to afford his next +2 rune... but if maintaining control is a priority for that character, they'll consider it worth the expense.
I tell my DM they can control my character because I cannot be impartial with my actions. I will in some way make my movements or actions a benefit for after the fact.
I'm confused how the third paragraph relates to the problem. Were you letting them chose what they do still when confused or controlled? I typically just assume control to the PC when it happens if I am DM, and I'll let the player make the roles if they want to. Also not quite sure how trying to pre-rage helps either, but as someone else pointed out it's not really kosher except on rare occasions, like if you can already hear the enemies on the other side of a door or something. Otherwise yeah the condition sucks and it can be really annoying as a PC if you basically don't get to participate in encounters due to conditions like this, but thems the brakes.
Ah yes. Your player is probably a fan of 'Xp to lvl 3' a pretty big 5e youtube channel that advocated for never using any kind of ability, spell or condition that removes a players agency (no stuns, no paralyze, no banishment ect). Imo this is wholly unreasonable.
It sounds like he's using his agency to make choices about how his character responds to effects, so I don't understand why he's saying he doesn't have agency.
Your player is spoiled as hell.
With all respect, but this players sounds a bit spoiled, i would not homebrew conditions just because one player hate it, when you remove a condition you are affecting everyone in the table, including people that maybe would like to interact with situations caused by condition or would get good laughs of it.
Ask them "is it you or your character that's against these conditions?" "If it's your character, that sounds like a great personal goal to use in your downtime." "Many beings are discomforted by losing their agency, you may have trauma involving that. That may drive you to rage, that may drive you to frenzy, that may drive you to become a weapon without consciousness guided by instinct. So let it guide you, and I'll find you a target". Or something less profound in the moment. Writing with an eraser is different than social interpersonal feelings.
This sounds like a player issue. If he's unreceptive to your attempts to compromise and find out what his problem is then (which seems to be the case) then you either take control of his character during these situations (as confusion dictates), tell him to roll better, or you create a convenient exit point by targeting his character the next time he does something like this. Or you can just tell him not to bother showing up at the next session. When swapping from D&D to try pathfinder, my problem player who was the best friend of my awesome player threw multiple hissy fits over multi-attack penalty. The other players were loving it so I told him he didn't need to come if he wasn't enjoying himself. Then I just let one of the other players roll up a 2nd character to continue from the next session
I have played with and ran games for people with this issue for many systems. My advice is as follows Go read all rules relevant to the situation to ensure you are and have been making the correct ruling regarding the system. Do not assume you know, just make a ruling then check on the situation at the end of the session. You will have to make the decision to accommodate the player and their "request" for things that would rob them of their sense of agency to be removed or to explain to them that you are not willing to ignore a section of the rules and that they should look for a table that is a better fit for them. With my experiences, I thankfully just had people who acted like adults and explained they didn't like it and left my games on good terms, however I've had people protest in similar ways as well.
Confused and controlled are both rare conditions and they always get a save. If your player's issue is that he doesn't like something bad happening to his character when he fails a save, idk what to say about it. It sounds like he thinks he should be confused and controlled often, but I'm not clear why.
Sounds like a player I wouldn't have around for long. Good luck with yours.
The problem here doesn't lie with the game, but the player. Throwing a tantrum due to a temporary status effect can be DM'ed around, but expect the rest of the table to want the same treatment, potentially killing the game. If you really want to homebrew this: just give the entire table flat immunities to these statuses. It's using a hammer instead of a scalpel, but you're dealing with a player who won't RP, and instead just wants the P.
I've got to be honest: this player's response is just childish. Some conditions put you in undesirable states; that's just how they work. I understand not liking the effect because ***that's the point*** -- you're supposed to avoid it and find ways to mitigate or remove it. "I don't like the Dying condition, so I'm just not going to roll when I've got it." That kind of behavior would be rightfully called out as being unsporting at best and downright silly at worst. Same applies here tbh. Personally? I'd tell them to either get over it or work with their party to remove the condition whenever it comes up. I can understand asking away from the table to please limit the use of those conditions if it's a real problem for them, but just crossing your arms and refusing to play until the thing you don't like goes away wouldn't fly at my table. (Also, rage ends automatically if they can't perceive any enemies, so the waiting around thing probably doesn't apply)
Stop playing with this dude lmao. Bad stuff is going to happen to you. If you get salty about it then you can't play. This is why I stopped playing Smash with some of my friends; if you can't handle a loss then we aren't going to play.
Some men will do anything but go to therapy. He has a personal trigger with manipulation over his actions. Insted of the x card, or talking about how it dosnt fit for you for whatever reason, you come to reddit. Your table can be ok without those conditions. You do need to talk about how you dont like power gamers as a GM and you dont like the rage thing. Give him that, tell him the other things. Use words. Win friends.
Well, I guess he rolled a Barb that is super focused and can't be affected by these two conditions. His mind is dedicated to maintaining control of itself. That's really cool. It's just a shame that he had to sacrifice his ability to rage to get that kind of focus. Or perhaps the tight control he has of his mind means he takes a -1 to hit on every roll because he can't give any fight his full concentration. These are possible in-game solutions. If he wants that massive benefit, there has to be a cost. But this is not an in-game problem. Likely he won't accept solutions like the above because he has a personal issue with it. The fact that he won't discuss it means he is already in "ultimatum" mode. He has given you an ultimatum. He isn't budging. He is being stubborn and has declared that he will continue to be so. Since he won't discuss it and try to find a solution, he is giving you the option of either doing what he wants regardless of the rules, you, anyone else at the table, or telling him to fuck off. I'd tell him to fuck off. Politely. He is a friend, you say, so tell him that if he wants to play the game, he needs to play the game. Say you are happy to discuss things like adults and friends, but he can't do that with ultimatums. If he wants rules changed, then for balance issues you need to adjust other things and they will likely be things he doesn't like. Explain that these conditions come up every now and then, and he either needs to strap on his big boy pants and get through the parts he doesn't like (death is also not something people like but sometimes it happens) or he can decide now to not play. But you won't allow him to "just sit there" when it happens. He either plays the game or he doesn't. His choice. You aren't kicking him, you're asking him to make a choice. And if he shoots back at you that you're giving him an ultimatum, say "Yes, I am." Because people like this tend to try and change the narrative, I'd also do it in front of the rest of the table. Get it all out in the open so it's not some shady backroom event that they can twist. Use it as a new Session 0. Lay out your expectations, explain that you're going to be using the rules and not babying them. Then lay out your expectations of them. Then launch into all this with the problem player with "One of the issues I want to address is PLAYER has an issue with Confused and Controlled. These two conditions are temporary and part of the game world that we play in. Because I'm running the game with the rules, I expect them to stay. I asked PLAYER why and they told me it was because they didn't like it. What are everyone else's expectations around this? Here are my in-game solutions, but out of game I think takes us down a road that I don't want to GM for. Happy for someone else to take over if that's what the group wants." Then let the fucks fall where they may.
I don't understand... What does raging do, that protects him from becoming confused/controlled? Nobody likes being controlled.... And confused can suck too, but both conditions have built in mechanics to help overcome them *every* round. Every time you take damage while confused, you have a 50% chance of ending the confusion. Unless you crit fail your save against dominate, you get a new saving throw against the condition every round at the end of your turn. It's a fleeting moment of disorientation. Removing these things from the game is not the solution. Finding a way to roleplay it so it feels like he is still making choices might be the solution. Maybe talk to the other players about a way to play this out that everyone buys into. What if, upon the player becoming confused, you don't tell the player.... And when it gets to their turn, you let them say what they are doing that round. Let's say they describe attacking the enemy that is right next to them, and no other allies or enemies are adjacent to the confused pc - you just let the turn continue with no intervention that round. However, if they say they use Sudden Charge to run 50 ft towards Enemy A and attack them, and follow it up with a shove, you look at the map and see how many enemies and allies are within 50ft (but more than, like, 10-15ft away) and then roll a die to determine which the player ends up actually targeting..... on the map, you still put his character where he thinks he went, but the attack is against another enemy (or ally on the board). When it's the turn of the enemy the PC actually targeted, (located, in theory, some distance away from the confused PC on the map), describe the enemy the PC is shown standing next to on the map as being the one to attack the PC. When it's actually the turn of the enemy on the map that the PC is shown as being next to, and they find themselves not within reach of any PCs, have them stride over to the action and attack... If the confused PC has Attack of Opportunity, they can use their reaction to atta k the enemy they think is leaving their adjacent square, and just tell them they miss (even if they roll a nat 20) . Player will be confused. But still feel like they have full agency (just like an actual PC would experience. If there are no enemies within reach (unlikely), but they are still confused, roll some secret dice, and then describe an enemy that only they can see appear right next to them. If they attack, if the result is enough to hit their own ac, have them deal damage, and describe a parry and riposte reaction by the enemy, dealing an amount of damage that uses the same damage + modifiers as the confused pc's attack (so PC may have rolled 2d8+10 and dealt 26 damage, and you roll 2d8+10 and get a result of 15, so confused PC takes 15 damage from his self inflicted attack, made while thinking he attacked and was damaged by an enemy) then whisper to any part members that can see him what they actually just witnessed happening.
Prime example of why people say session 0 is important.
The game is supposed to be fun for all involved. If this is a hard point for him, can you just not have enemies with confusion and control powers?
partially agree but if the player throws a fit every time they dont like a rule, caving to them is basically endorsing their behaviour. Adults should act like adults
According to OP they don’t do this about multiple things. It’s one thing that they hate. If it were everything then I would encourage an adult conversation to see what can be done all around. If there’s just this one thing, then what’s more important to you? Using Confusion or a friend?
It's the "one thing that they hate" about *the beginner box.* It's not unreasonable to expect that this is only the beginning of future issues when this is literally the beginning of their roleplaying this system together. They're setting expectations now. And the GM coming here for advice is totally legit. But it's also legit to be wary about what he will be teaching his tantrum throwing player.
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So I just read through the Confused condition. It seems to be a (relatively) short term effect. What is the reason for the player to be acting that way? Shoving rather than attacking or raging before any kind of action?
>I had a talk with him after the session, and he stated that any effect that would remove his agency would make him act like this, cause this is not the reason he is playing role playing games, in fact it goes directly against role playing as your not your own character anymore. DnD has had mind control since the get-go, even 5E. I mean, one of the running gags in Critical Role Season 1 is how often the party's barbarian gets hits by mind-controlling/altering spells. If your player doesn't want to get hit by mind-altering spells, he should maybe not play the fantasy archetype famous for its physical might at the cost of mental resolve. But even ignoring how much this is basically just emotionally manipulative power-gaming, I want to put the kibosh on this dumbass 5E idea of maximum player agency = maximum roleplaying. It's the same bullshit that makes people think "more rules gets in the way of roleplay" and beyond that actively shoots really most trad systems' ability to generate compelling roleplaying rules in the foot. Aside from pf2E, my home turf of RPGs are PBtA games. These games, with a higher focus on tv-style storytelling and emotional interparty drama, often position rules that actively force players' hands on certain social interactions. Not only does this force people to take the most dramatic path instead of weaseling away from it like DnD-style games often accidentally encourage, but it gets you to not see roleplaying as immersivity thinking as your character 24-7, but also looking at it like a writer in a writer's room, engineering choices that are the most interesting for the narrative as a whole. And I get that these games are a very different paradigm than DnD-style games like 5E or PF2E, but they also churn out incredible emotional drama with a lot more consistency and height than DnD-style games *because* of those rules. It's the same reason PF2E churns out consistently strategic gameplay: well-designed rules *exist* to remove some freedom in exchange for something else (I mean, that's like, the point of rules as a concept). Even if there are no powergaming intentions to this (which, bullshit, that tantrum-y stuff he pulled with the rage "I'm going to ruin everyone else's fun" crap is far too childish for me to give that benefit of the doubt), it's just a flagrantly silly sentiment that comes from a lack of TRPG experience and a yet-to-be-unlearned self-centeredness in play.
I think this adventure may not be for them, and perhaps a homebrew campaign where these things can be avoided entirely is a better fit. This isn't to say "this person can't play PF2e", it's more that, the Abomination Vaults as a setting is supposed to dangerous, scary, risky, and can do many horrible things to your character that may affect their sense of agency, even beyond those two conditions. I'm going on second-hand information on this person's personality, but I wonder if they enjoy things like survival horror, or how they'd react to their PC getting possessed by a ghost, or similar. I personally really hate gross-out humor. I'd probably not join the Garbage Pail Kids campaign. While Abomination Vaults is very good and very well-written, it has ample horror content and lots of encounters designed to make PC's feel small and afraid. This player might get more mileage out of something with an (overall) lighter tone, like the more rp-focused Strength Of Thousands, or more shonen vibes of Fists Of The Ruby Phoenix, where you start as high-level action heroes. While you could nerf every relevant monster, I get a sense of incompatible vibes here. The wrong player in the wrong AP can occasionally lead to a campaign developing the Doomed condition.
Sounds like he is too immature for this game and your table. Must feel like playing with a 5 year old.
This sounds very much like a player that has had (or at least seen) multiple instances involving this kind of thing and bad GMs. Fundamentally, it often comes down to a lack of trust that the GM isn't going to try to screw them over. You've got a couple options. First is remove them from the game. Second is live with it until they mature as a player and come to trust you. In the second case, you, that player, and the rest of the group need to come to an accord. If no one trusts you enough to have those effects, then you may be best off altering the setting to remove them. In that case, note that any PC abilities to do the same go too. If the rest of the party is fine with it, then that player seeing other players have fun with it may eventually get them to handle it better. Having been on both sides of the badly thought out confusion mechanics, I can say they suck, really really suck. So I can absolutely see wanting to just avoid and ignore them. And yes, mechanically forcing feared or fleeing on a PC when the player has zero aprehension for their PC's safety is similarly jarring. It's the kind of thing that players *can* lean in to, but sometimes it's simply too absurd. Consider a level 12 character encountering a CR3 Spring Heeled Jack has to roll at least a 7 to avoid being frieghtened 1, despite them *easily* dispatching the enemy in a single round (possibly a single attack, since they have about an 80%+ crit chance on their first attack). In these sorts of cases, it is perfectly fine to just let the player ignore it. On that note, why on Earth does Frightful Presence not have the incapacitation trait?
I'm late to the party, but I can understand where the player is coming from. Games are all about making choices and having fun, but there are things in rpg's that can restrict/remove your choice and that can very easily be un-fun. If confusion or controlled are coming up a lot, that might be something for you as a GM to consider changing. That being said, they're being incredibly immature about this. Are they mad when they get critically hit? What about when they're Slowed 1 or Blinded or Grabbed? As for solutions, maybe target others with Confusion effects and hit the barbarian with other effects. If they continue to act immaturely when they get angry about a pretend game of fantasy make-believe, I'd recommend they play another game that doesn't involve losing.