Shadowrun, ah memories. Headaches, and memories.
Right, you can dip 3 levels into something else and essentially lose nothing. If you have a lenient GM you can dip 5 with Magical Knack and still essentially lose nothing. With the recent change to SLAs you could qualify for Mystic Theurge at level 4 and end up with Cleric 2/Wiz 1/MT 10/Wiz 5/Cleric 2 and end up with a caster level of 17 in one class and 19 in the other with Magical Knack. You can do some crazy things, like:
A Fighter 1 / Wizard 1 / Rogue 1 / EK 10/ AT 7 build would end up with a BAB of +14/+9/+4 which is only one less than a 20th level Rogue. Heck they'd still be able to cast level 9 spells at 20 even without Esoteric training...and they'd get it at level 17 with it! Nearly as good a Rogue, nearly as good a Wizard, and a passable Fighter. Not bad at all. If it were a Dragon Disciple instead you could still go Aasimar Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 1 / EK 10 / DD 8 and (with Esoteric Training and Magical Knack) end up with 9th level spells as a 20th level caster and a BAB of +18/+13/+8/+3 not to mention 11 levels of d10 HD and 8 levels of d12.
Long story short, if you are willing to put in the leg work you can nearly completely nullify the penalty for multi-classing as a character. This is a tiny bit off topic, but since we are talking about powerful characters, getting 3 free caster levels should be part of the conversation.
You know, I keep hearing that, but I don't understand it:
The game has had fame rules for ages; and if the GM doesn't like it, make them jump through more hoops to earn it. But everyone complained about multi-class casters being a trap, they gave a way around it that you have to earn and people reject it. I really just don't understand.
I'm running a huge group of 8-10 players through Wrath of the Righteous, and most of the party is evil, two are neutral and only one is good...but he's lawful good. My benchmark has been simple: Alignment guides behavior and overall world view, it's not a set of manacles. Lawful Good doesn't mean you are a flawless boy scout, and chaotic evil doesn't make you a cackling mad man. It means your character values law, and values goodness. Or values chaos, and values evil. Or neutrality. A chaotic evil character might save a child from a burning building just to see people's faces when they did, or to engender good faith to help them rob them blind later. A lawful good character might let an innocent man who was justly convicted go to the gallows for the sake of the 'greater good'. As long as there is a logical reason in the plot of the adventure as to why they'd be together without murdering each other, be it duty, money, revenge, or simply for the lulz, then it makes sense. If he wants to force the issue and play it as awful good, or lawful stupid, then he'll get steamrolled by his evil compatriots...and rightly so.
This build would be a bit odd since it doesn't advance Magus Arcana or Domains, but if you are using the Guild rules from Inner Sea Magic and went with Magus 6/Cleric 4 you *could* end up with 6th level Magus spells and 9th level Cleric spells:
Eclectic Training (5 Fame): Guilds often require members to master and train in different subjects. When your Fame score in a guild reaches
5, choose one spellcasting class you have at least 1 level in—you increase your effective caster level in that class (including the number of spells you know and can cast per day) by +1, to a maximum caster level equal to your total Hit Dice. Single-classed spellcasters should still pick a class to which this bonus applies, since this bonus is retroactive. Esoteric Training (35 Fame): The bonus to caster level you gain from Eclectic Training increases to +3 (but is still limited by your total Hit Dice). You may select a second spellcasting class to gain a +1 bonus to effective caster level. Bare minimum, if you took Esoteric Training and Magical Knack you'd be able to cast level 6 Magus spells as a level 20 caster. At least in pure spell casting power the multi-classing wouldn't cost you anything at all. And as an aside, since we are talking about Magus'
Believe it or not, he works best as a Kensai Magus/Paladin: At the risk of some thread necro, seeing the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug got me thinking about this again. It's very late here, so I apologize if what I am proposing ends up being illogical of somehow impossible due to rules I've overlooked. In looking at ways to approximate what we actually see Gandalf DO, which isn't much casting at all, and beating the Balrog in sword fight, I've come up with: Samsaran w/Mystic Past Life
Build wise either Kensai Magus 20; Or
*Sorry for all the links, but I figured I'd save you some googling.
At the risk of some thread necro, seeing the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug got me thinking about this again. It's very late here, so I apologize if what I am proposing ends up being illogical of somehow impossible due to rules I've overlooked. In looking at ways to approximate what we actually see Gandalf DO, which isn't much casting at all, and beating the Balrog in sword fight, I've come up with: Samsaran w/Mystic Past Life
Build wise either Kensai Magus 20; Or
*Sorry for all the links, but I figured I'd save you some googling.
Check out Beastmass: A challenge to Master Min-Maxers which is all about builds that can solo Shoggoth, a Balor, a Pit Fiend, an Ancient Gold Dragon, a Solar Angel, and the Tarrasque, all with just a single round of rest. And yes, it can be done. The Vacuum is a wizard build in there that specializes in 1-shotting these things, and there's a few other suggestions about how it might be done.
Slayer from the Advanced Class Guide Playtest...it's this exact thing.
Fun fact: The character in question got Dominated last session, and did in fact liquify the sorcerer in a single turn.
Greetings all, I have question about Improved Natural Attack and how it stacks with other size affecting things. One of my players is running a Bloodrager for the playtest with the Abyssal Bloodline, which gives him claws that do 1d8 at level 7. He has Aspect of the Gorilla, Demonic Bulk (essentially enlarge person) and a party druid who can cast Strong Jaw on him. The debate is how those effects interact. Demonic Bulk expressly makes you larger, Strong Jaw and Aspect of the Gorilla do not (although the flavor text says your arms get longer, you do not increase a size category). Pending how you look at this, it can get out of hand quickly. The issue is whether or not these effects move you along the Improved Natural Attack damage progression, or the Strong Jaw damage progression: He sees it like:
Improved Natural Attack Attacks made by one of this creature's natural attacks leave vicious wounds. Prerequisite: Natural weapon, base attack bonus +4. Benefit: Choose one of the creature's natural attack forms (not an unarmed strike). The damage for this natural attack increases by one step on the following list, as if the creature's size had increased by one category. Damage dice increase as follows: 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6. So that would mean he is attacking at level 8 at
Whereas, I see it like:
Looking at it, it seems to me that it comes down to this I'm *thinking* Improved Natural Attack is a fixed bonus. X monster picks up the feat, improves one step. If it happened to be large, or gargantuan at the time, it goes up. No problem. The feat takes something made out of wood and makes it stone...seems legit. However, if you start growing and stacking things on *top* of that, you don't follow the INA progression, you follow the spell/effect's progression. Strong Jaw expressly says this spell makes these attacks work like this, so that would override INA in my mind. That, and doing 16d6/16d6 EVER, much less at level 8 is flatly stupid. A mythic red dragon doesn't hit that hard!
And curve ball: Does Aspect of Gorilla even stack with Improved Natural Attack?
I appreciate your thought, or even if you can direct me towards this has been officially addressed before, thanks!
We all beat the page on our initiative rolls and caught it flat-footed.
I'm hoping not one iconic is a dwarf, gnome or halfling because those races are completely ridiculous. And I'd like to see an elf that wasn't shark-attack, but with black eyes that's gonna be hard...I actually want to see a female dwarf iconic. We have never seen one of those. It's already been explained why there are no Dwarven women:
Gimli: It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for dwarf men.
Aragorn: [whispering] It's the beards. Gimli: And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no dwarf women, and that dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground! [Eowyn laughs] Gimli: Which is, of course, ridiculous.
The seasons 'officially' change on the Equinox and Solstices. Since that's what would have been observable in the world even if you didn't have a calendar. More importantly, we are apparently starting to crack up since we are debating the Gregorian calendar system to help pass the time now. So let me try and get this back slightly on the rails:
What are you all planning to do?
Well, since I'm living this vs just posting about it, let me tell you what happened. We kicked off Wrath today, after finishing the first two parts of RotRL:
I had their god appear to them and warn them that the forces of evil in the Worldwound thought everyone was distracted battling Karzoug, and were preparing to strike, so it was up to the heroes to defend the world on two fronts.
I had them enter Kenabre as strangers (where word had spread about them in Magnimar). When the demon attack hit, rather than do it as a flashback as the AP suggested, I had them be in the town and in the middle of the fight. They are level 7, but I hit them with a CR 17 demon with the express purpose of having them all get killed so that Terendeliv would "save" them, and they'd end up unconscious in the hole like the AP starts. Of course, my Bard--who has astonishingly good luck--tries charm monster on it and I roll a 1 on the save, so I had them get wiped out in an explosion when Terendeliv goes down fighting Khorramzadeh. They woke up in the hole at 0 hit points with only the Barb with Die Hard still conscious, and their NPC healer missing. He woke the cleric with a potion of Cure Moderate, and I had his channel energy awaken the 3 NPCs who are supposed to be down there with them. Long story short, even though the players are aware we're running two APs dropping in some narrative threads to connect them has helped a lot.
I'm also going to have newly resurrected and now all-demon Nualia and Xanesha make a comeback to grief them a bit later to strengthen the tie, and I'll probably have some demons show up on the way to Xin-Shalast to give them a more cohesive experience. No matter what, at least conceptually it works.
I have a Marvel Super Heroes game where the players are battling an invasion Cyber-Sith invasion with Borg/Dalek hybrid troops. The last thing that happened was them rescuing Yoda and Sarek of the Green Jedi Corps from Darth Sinestro. So, I know a thing or two about homebrew. There are several advantages of APs: Professionally produced maps, art, lore, everything. And even I, the DM, can be surprised by the narrative unfolds, as well as how the players react to it.
Page 289 in the Beastiary 4 has a 'monsters statistics by CR' table that is exactly what we were talking about earlier. I just got my hands on it today, and I think it's all I need to be able to adjust these encounters. Once I have a better handle on the templates, especially the mythic one. Ameiko isn't involved in Runelords at all after you save her, so your timeline would work. I'm with you Matt...we play the long game. And hey, my players really may be ready to retire after RotRL / Wrath...but I would still like to have *the choice* to do more, which right now doesn't really exist. And Tangent...another Night Below vet? Not too many of us still floating around, I don't think!
Most people don't allow 3rd party feats in their games. However, the recent changes to SLAs make it possible to enter MT as early as level 4, and the inclusion of Eclectic/Esoteric Training makes it possible to still end up with double 9 casting. Eclectic Training (5 Fame): Guilds often require members to master and train in different subjects. When your Fame score in a guild reaches 5, choose one spellcasting class you have at least 1 level in—you increase your effective caster level in that class (including the number of spells you know and can cast per day) by +1, to a maximum caster level equal to your total Hit Dice. Single-classed spellcasters should still pick a class to which this bonus applies, since this bonus is retroactive. Esoteric Training (35 Fame): The bonus to caster level you gain from Eclectic Training increases to +3 (but is still limited by your total Hit Dice). You may select a second spellcasting class to gain a +1 bonus to effective caster level. So a Cleric 2/Wiz 1/MT 10/Cleric 4/Wiz 3 (or some other combination) would be a 17/17th level caster at 20 that casts as a 17/19th level caster. In fact they'd still get 9th level casting in one class at 17 and the other at 20, pending how they played it. So you really don't need to stray any further than Inner Sea Magic to get it done.
I buffed Malfeshnikor and altered the fight so that Nualia,Lyrie, Bruthamus and a returning Tsuto all fought the group at once, and after they were defeated Malfeshnikor revealed himself to be the Goblin cupbearer hiding in the corner. After they complained about how hard the fight was I showed them the mythic Barghest to show them how much worse it could have been, hahaha. My group finished Xanesha tonight, so we're detouring to Wrath of the Righteous now to pick up some tiers before heading back to RotRL. Again, you've probably already seen it, but you can find buffed up versions of Nualia, Aldern Foxglove, Xanesha and all the other 'main' RotRL villains here, which you can then slap the mythic template on.
This guide will help you a lot, especially section two.
I will take that and raise you one swashbuckler/bloodrager Is that like Cap'n Jack Sparrow who becomes the Hulk? And wouldn't that just be the grey Hulk? ;)
Well, couple of things. First, Thor is the God of Thunder; *he* controls the weather, Mjolnir is just his focus for doing so. He also shape shifts / polymorphs into Dr. Donald Blake, a magical effect. He enrages (like a barbarian), and is essentially physically invulnerable. Here is a pretty extensive list of powers Thor has been seen to do in his 50+ years of comic appearances. I definitely think all of that is best approximated by Angel-Blooded Aasimar (Angelkin) Barbarian (Armored Hulk) 2 Oracle 4 Rage Prophet 6.
I actually came across a quote from James Jacobs in an old thread about whether or not Blink and Displacement stack with one another that I think is relevant here. Including a bit more of the block quote for context (emphasis mine):
They way I look at it is it's a game, so the player's experience is the most important thing. If I only want to adhere to a strict rule set, I can go do some HTML programming. I've had mobs hit because the story necessitated they hit, just like I've had them miss because the story necessitated they miss. I've had a heroic attack that should have left the BBEG with 5 hit points kill him instead, and I've had BBEGs mysteriously come back from the dead later because the players hatred of them enhanced their experience. If they are enjoying the thrill of victory as well as the occasional agony of defeat, you're doing it right. If they keep showing up to sessions, and ideally occasionally ask to play more often, you're doing it right.
Thank you for keeping us in the loop.
I wanted to start a mythic campaign *this* weekend :(
And thus the internet in general and forums in particular is revealed: Save vs Reason + Cooperation...DC 250.
He doesn't have a dire bat. He has a synthesist that the barbarian THINKS is a bat. And in this, I have discovered how Casty survives AM BARBARIAN: make him think you are a batty bat. |
