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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dandu" data-source="post: 6050092" data-attributes="member: 85158">Well, we were talking about barbarians...But no matter what they do, they have to have a sense of purpose and the motivation to achieve their goals. This applies to every field of human endeavor. For example, if someone wanted to play a detective, that's great! And I'm sure the detective would spend his time trying to be the best detective possible. If someone wanted to play to be a poet, that's fine. It's his decision to take whatever he feels best enhances his ability to write poetry. Of course, if he ends up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon" target="_blank">fighting in the trenches</a> and carries on writing in iambic pentameter without developing any skills more suited to his situation, I think we can both agree that's a bad idea in and out of character.We are playing characters in a game, so we as players should be able assess the options of our characters, who are not entities unto themselves but merely puppets that we control.In the "game world" the characters do not know what BAB, bonus feats, or saving throws are, but they do know that wizards are worse at hand-to-hand combat than barbarians, certain martial arts masters have training regimes that teach special tactics to their students, that knights can hold their alcohol better than the average person, and that fighters are more physically resilient than sorcerers. This is obvious.The characters have to have, at some basic level, a general idea of how their world works, otherwise it becomes impossible to function in it. I do not say that it must be to Order of the Stick levels, where they comment on metagame concepts for humor, but the concepts such as "training under Master Lin at the White Lotus Monastery allows you to punch people better" must exist.To draw on a real world example, the laws of physics that govern our existence are arbitrary and strange, but we've developed quite an understanding of them during the past century. Electrons, for example, are both particles and waves, and their "orbits" around an atomic nucleus is not given by rails, like the generic picture of an atom depicts, but rather by a probability distribution with a shape governed by mathematical equations.Example: d oritals of transition metals<img src="http://faculty.uml.edu/ndeluca/84.334/topics/fig0708c.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Another example would be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_constant" target="_blank">Planck Constant</a>. There is no known reason why its value is 6.62606957×10−34 Joules*second; it just is.What I'm saying is that if our world operated off of BAB, saving throws, skill points, and feats, you can bet someone would have figured it out, seeing as we've already started to probe the arbitrary laws that make up our existence. So expecting characters to have some idea of the laws governing their existence is reasonable.And as for the specific Barbarian/Oracle multiclass in question, I imagine you could have a situation similar to this:"Worf son of Mogh, I have heard that those warriors who make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Boreth in order to undergo a vision quest may be rewarded with visions of Kahless, who guides them in battle and renders them indefatigable should they be men of worth and honor."Actually, that brings up an interesting historical point: in Japan, it was common for Samurai to study under Zen teachers in order to overcome their fear of death, calm their minds, and, in some cases, become better people (or, at least, less violent). And there were certainly many warriors in the West who also had a religious side - military orders such as the Knights Templar, for example. The proper term is <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/prestigeClasses/rageProphet.html" target="_blank">Rage Prophet</a>. It's a prestige class in the Pathfinder Advanced Player Guide. Which, curiously, makes the munchkin multiclass dipping combination of Barbarian/Oracle that you are raging against officially supported. Vision quest. Communing with spirits. Taking lots and lots of mescaline. Asking really nicely. You're a bright kid, you can surely come up with a creative answer.I personally don't let the default fluff of classes bother me that much. Fluff is mutable. I pay more attention to the mechanics of a class. It enables me to create more interesting characters. For example, a Pathfinder Barbarian is a berserker according to the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/barbarian.html" target="_blank">official class description</a>. If I choose to play a Barbarian, must I follow the provided fluff to the letter, or can I play a Barbarian who is not some kind of Viking? What if I wanted to do it differently?Could I play, for instance, the son of a common smithy who leaves his family business in the city of Calimsha to join the army in defense of his homeland against the invading Goblin Khanates? He'd be strong, tough, and quick from working in a smithy, have a good amount of skill points from doing skilled labor, be illiterate because most commoners were through most of human history, and might have a bit of a temper to explain his ability to rage. Upon reading more about the Oracle class, I note that the Final Revelations of the Battle Mystery reads:Now, could choose to interpret the fact that the Final Revelation of the Battle Mystery is gained "upon reaching 20th level", without reference to the Oracle class level, as meaning any L20 character gains this ability. But that would be unbecoming of me, as I would be using semantic gymnastics commonly seen in munchkins. It would, of course, be wrong of an upright man such as myself to emulate the dishonest and disingenuous rules-lawyering of lesser roleplayers who seek to twist ambiguous wording to their advantage whenever it occurs.Anyways, I have read the Oracle class and it is clear from the context of the class feature that the intent of the designer is for the player to select the curse when he takes his first level in the Oracle class. The curse is a class feature of the Oracle, after all, and you cannot benefit or suffer from class features without first having levels in said class. If you examine the wording of every class ever published by Paizo, you might notice that they use the term "at xth level" liberally without specifically stating that they refer to class level based on the assumption that people understand what they mean.If you have any doubt, you can always ask Paizo. I believe that they have a very good customer service department.If you wish to play your character in such a manner, then by all means do so. But is there anything wrong with attacking the wizard in the situation you just described?I know we don't, but should we not aspire to make the correct life choices? <img src="http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/uploads/NathanGreno/2012-05-06_165644_Detective575.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />I know, I know, Batman was disarmed in 1939. In universe, this was explained by his desire to avoid taking a life, since firearms do not generally have a non-lethal option. He makes up for it by lots of martial arts and sophisticated gadgets, so I'm not sure if your point still holds. Yeah, he might not have a gun, but he certainly has a lot of wonderful toys, like a jet with missiles on it and anti-shark spray.If your argument is that Batman is not optimized for his role, then you've shot yourself in the foot.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage" target="_blank">Doc Savage</a>Spiderman - Lives in New York City, which has strict gun control laws. Presumable, Peter Parker didn't want to break the law in that regard and draw even more attention from the police. After all, he's the good guy. The Punisher, on the other hand...As do we all. But, to be honest, I feel like you are throwing about many false dichotomies here. Why does it seem like you believe there is no middle ground between roleplaying and optimization? From some of the responses I have been reading, it seems like you think that people build a character to fulfill a roleplaying concept or be an "uber-optimized PC", but not both.To bring up an examples from before, here's a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/327699-shiver-me-timbers-its-black-jack-wellesley.html" target="_blank">pirate captain</a>, as well as a <a href="http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8034.msg126392#msg126392" target="_blank">dwarven martial artist</a> of my own design. Both have used multiclassing with, in my opinion, justifiable justifications for having done so, and I think it enriches the character concept.Shall I get off your lawn?</blockquote>

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