I'm running the last stap mod and a lot of creatures have death/negative energy attacks. This has been totally negated by the entire party buying soul fire armor which makes them immune to (death, energy, abilty, negative energy, etc....)
Any suggestions on how to deal with this? aside from dispel magic on the armor for 1d4 rounds... ???
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
|
Im running the last stap mod and a lot of creatures have death/negative energy attacks. This has been totally negated by the entire party buying soul fire armor which makes them immune to (death, energy, abilty, negative energy, etc....)
Any suggestions on how to deal with this? aside from dispel magic on the armor for 1d4 rounds... ???
Mordenkainen's Disjunction is my favorite. :)
Soulfire armor is pretty cracked. My PCs used it in the Age of Worms AP, and it was a massive difference in difficulty as a result. If you feel it would devastate the intention of the game's difficulty, you may want to restrict it, or bump it to a +5 market modifier. Perhaps it's usable as an immediate action 3/day?
then again, you PCs adapting to the opposition's tactics and investing accordingly is "bad" or "cheating" ? Why not penalize them for nefariously increasing their damage by buying magical weapons and spells ?
Heavens fend, but the opposition in the final installments has more than enough other tactics to use gainst the group - no need to fudge and "tailor" your BBEGs against a tactical adaption by the group they have little way of perceiving in advance....
The STAP villains are mean enough (some of the overly so) if run correctly and with some forethought. Upping them further because the PCs act smartly smells like a cheapskate move to me.
YMMV
yeah.. its fine the way it is.
Besides negative energy can be such a killjoy... "i get to start over at 3rd level again".
Now lets abort the campaign while Im off hunting kobolds for a while.
A simple kill would have been nicer.. ;)
Don't let the characters buy magic items.
Edit: Other than potions and scrolls.
lol.. then they will craft them instead.. and the spellcasters will be 2-3 levels behind.. ;)
Or not neccesarely, between that sucking demons dry -50% on xp (hordes of the abyss I), artisan -item feat specific -25% cost and xp (FR, campaign), general thrifty of whatever it was (magic of eberron).. a further -10% general cost and xp.. some guilds another -20% cost (several -waterdeep fex) ;)
Which is a total of letsee.. -55% of the regular cost and some -80% off the regular xp (added it up in my head, sorry about possible missed fractions)
Oh and doing this as a urpriest.. a further approximate halving of all costs and xp (lower casterlevels available) (-78% cost, -90% xp)
Or warlock for even more saved. Yeah, im crafting a rock of meteorswarm at will.. casterlevel 1, spellelvel 9 at 4th level. Questions? ;) err.. okie, try doing that UM roll, punk.
But that would really just cover wondorous, few bother taking the other crafting feats..
I'm running the last stap mod and a lot of creatures have death/negative energy attacks. This has been totally negated by the entire party buying soul fire armor which makes them immune to (death, energy, abilty, negative energy, etc....)
Any suggestions on how to deal with this? aside from dispel magic on the armor for 1d4 rounds... ???
Well, seeing as how that represents a fairly significant cash investment, that is also built into a targetable item.
If the bad guys realize what is stopping the effect, the already-suggested (and time-honored) Mordenkainen's Disjunction can work wonders. (Especially against the low Will save characters.) Frankly though, the bad guys are more likely to just shred the characters into cabbage outright.
And money spent on stopping negative energy effects means money not spent on other things. Such as stopping effects which are not dependant upon negative energy and death effects.
And thier largely good alignments are likely to mean the unholy weapons are going to be plenty effective in tacking on bonus damage by the fistful...
Don't let the characters buy magic items.
Edit: Other than potions and scrolls.
Which pretty much makes character building a DM's puppet process. Magic items are such a significant portion of a DnD character, it really should be under the players control.
Which pretty much makes character building a DM's puppet process. Magic items are such a significant portion of a DnD character, it really should be under the players control.Don't let the characters buy magic items.
Edit: Other than potions and scrolls.
Which is why almost any cleric and wizard around here take "Craft wondrous item" and possibly "Craft arms and armour" at some point in his career, usually around the mid levels.... Get the stuff you _need_ not the stuff doled out by more or less inspired adventure design ( especially fun if recurring villains - like Rowyn or Vanthus - tend to have the same stuff, if possibly advanced the second and third time around...).
I'm running the last stap mod and a lot of creatures have death/negative energy attacks. This has been totally negated by the entire party buying soul fire armor which makes them immune to (death, energy, abilty, negative energy, etc....)
Any suggestions on how to deal with this? aside from dispel magic on the armor for 1d4 rounds... ???
The bolded text is your problem.
I never allow my PCs to simply buy magic items. The min-maxing capabilities are raised considerably when you do that. And my campaign's set in Forgotten Realms where magic is everywhere. If they buy magic items, it's the common stuff everyone wants their hands on to improve life like cure potions or unseen servant scrolls.
I would've had them gone on a dangerous side quest to acquire that soulfire armor, and even then, I'd have probably only allowed one or two (depending on how many melee you have) as a reward from the quest.
|
I never allow my PCs to simply buy magic items....I would've had them gone on a dangerous side quest to acquire that soulfire armor, and even then, I'd have probably only allowed one or two (depending on how many melee you have) as a reward from the quest.
This kind of heavy handed DMing is what made me quit playing 2nd Edition. If the players want to find a crafter of magical armor, why shouldn't they be able to? Achilles did it, Beowulf did it, Aragorn did it, why can't the PCs?
-JLA
I never allow my PCs to simply buy magic items....I would've had them gone on a dangerous side quest to acquire that soulfire armor, and even then, I'd have probably only allowed one or two (depending on how many melee you have) as a reward from the quest.
This kind of heavy handed DMing is what made me quit playing 2nd Edition. If the players want to find a crafter of magical armor, why shouldn't they be able to? Achilles did it, Beowulf did it, Aragorn did it, why can't the PCs?
-JLA
In the situation of them buying it, it was in the mod. I forget the race but they were on a sail barge and they travel through planes selling wares. They reminded me of the Arcane from Spelljammer. Anyway it pretty much gives the party the option to buy whatever they want. It even says these guys can dimension travel to a store house aquire what is needed then dimension door back to the Abyss and sell the party whatever they ask for as long as they had the coin. The party had been saving all thier loot and had enough to buy it... by the book they could do it. So i didnt feel i twas right to deny them simply becuase they had powerful magic items now... it was kind of a reward for getting that far... im just looking ways to try and still give them a challenge when a lot of creatures cr (IMO) count in the fact they have neg energy damage, death gazes, energy drains, etc...which are all useless now.
Oh, btw, Soulfire Armor basically only stops death effects, negative energy effects and energy drain - it does nothing specifically for ability damage/drain and so on unless they are sourced somehow from negative energy. Thus, the Big D can rot them all he wants - probably after softening up his intended victim with a targeted Greater Dispel.
Some of you people must be bad DM's to not allow your player's to use stuff that would actually help them. I guess you cannot overcome the player's actually useing something so instead you just take it away from them. I am so glad my DM is not this way and play's his Bad guy's to the best of there abilities and let's us use whatever we can and sometime's we still lose. Too each his own I guess Hope your group like's the way you Dictate the game to them.
Some of you people must be bad DM's to not allow your player's to use stuff that would actually help them. I guess you cannot overcome the player's actually useing something so instead you just take it away from them. I am so glad my DM is not this way and play's his Bad guy's to the best of there abilities and let's us use whatever we can and sometime's we still lose. Too each his own I guess Hope your group like's the way you Dictate the game to them.
now THAT sounds bitter....
Also I fully agree on running things (mostly) the way they are written. After all this is not "Pimp the BBEG", this is about fun (for all at the table)
Some of you people must be bad DM's to not allow your player's to use stuff that would actually help them. I guess you cannot overcome the player's actually useing something so instead you just take it away from them. I am so glad my DM is not this way and play's his Bad guy's to the best of there abilities and let's us use whatever we can and sometime's we still lose. Too each his own I guess Hope your group like's the way you Dictate the game to them.
Seriously, there is no need to be mean, nasty, and intentionally insulting.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Ika--
The best DM's I've played under share two characteristics:
First, a gift for making their campaigns seem like real worlds, with details. They were able to provide names, mannerisms, and back stories for any NPCs we encountered. There would be events in the world that didn't necessarily concern the PC's (like seasonal festival days or distant wars) but which had ramifications on our careers (such as the temples being closed for the festivals, or mercenaries passing through looking to hire on for odd jobs as they made their ways to the wars).
Which meant that we didn't always get all the stuff we wanted. It was realistic.
Second, an eye towards ramifications. Actions had consequences. We made enemies, sometimes accidentally. And an enitre party, decked out in really expensive magical armor, really ought to have consequences.
Enemies ought to take counter-measures, like some of the posters here suggested. Thieves' Guilds and competing adventureres might take steps to seperate the party from their amazingly cool armor (step one: wait until the party members remove said armor...)
Which means that you can sometimes get what you want, but it's work to hang on to it.
To some DM's running the adventure path, these ramifications would take time and focus away from the main plotline, and they might choose that "not buying the armor" is preferable to "buying the armor, which then gets disjunctioned or stolen".
As others have pointed out, you come across as being quick to judgement, overly-simplistic, and sarcastic when you claim that folks here who make that choice are "bad DM's" who never want their PC's to have useful equipment.
I, for one, would like to see you engage the topic on a deeper level. What would you do, if you were a DM, and your players wanted to purchase particular magic items that, you could tell, would turn next week's adventure into a tedious cakewalk? Would you re-write the adventure, negate the challenge-breaking equipment, or play the ball as it lays?
I am Ika's DM, and in defense of his stance, this subject and similar ones have been discussed ad nauseum at our table. Is it broken or isn't it? In the game I run, I have chosen to allow the PC's to buy whatever they want, assuming they have the gold and the methods to travel to a city where the gp value is sufficient.
I enjoy fleshing out the campaign world, and the NPC's as long as such things are pertinent to the game and to the players. My group (and I'm not saying other groups are wrong who play/feel differently) does not particularly enjoy role-playing just for the sake of role-playing (ie, the tedious trip to the tavern, etc), so I generally keep the game moving along in a fairly linear manner. If one of the PC's wants to do something off the beam, I accomodate them, but most of their role-playing is usually relevan to our current plot line.
In the past, I have felt like some of the posters here...that certain magic items overpower the PC's and potentially castrate some of the NPC's. In reaction to that, I have buffed my NPC's, and it has always turned out to be a bad idea. In the previous two AP's, my players, who are optimizers to the max, have done well throughout, losing characters here and there, but never because of any overt ill will on my part, but when the big finale came, both times they got punked. This despite soul fire armor and just about every buff magic item you can think of. 3.5 makes a lot of assumptions that PC's have generous access to magic items. That may, in fact, be one of the problems that are supposed to be 'fixed' in 4th ed. I hope so. I personally think that the constant pursuit of bigger and better magic items takes away from the game, and I would love to see a mechanic that allows the characters to be powerful in their own right without the need for magical crutches.
That being said, as it currently stands, my PC's need all the help they can get. That is because I do try to play the NPC's intelligently, especially the recurring ones. If said BBEG has intelligence that he/she has gathered about the PC's over the course of adventures, I certainly let them use that to their advantage, ie..."Hey, these guys use a lot of fire magic. I should take defensive measures against that." Yes, I've been guilty of Mordenkainen's Great Equalizer in the past, but honestly, it just ain't that fun. The players have worked hard to get their character's where they are, and to suddenly just cripple them is a little like kicking a puppy. In our current STAP, we have come to an accord in which I have nerfed Mordenkainen's and, in turn, the players have elected to nerf Time Stop (Broken!!!!).
So, in closing, don't judge Ika too harshly. In fact, I agree with the previous poster. DM's should be able to run their game in such a fashion that whatever the party does in-game, they should not be able to break your game if you're doing your job correctly. Therefore, using quick fixes such as just disallowing certain items (or all), or giving the BBEG's instant destroy-all-magic-I-don't-like is sort of a cop-out and literally pits the DM against the players which, IMHO goes against the nature of the game. As I've always told my players, my job is to entertain them...possibly scare them and make them wet their pants every now and then, but ultimately entertain them. This is not accomplished by allowing them to cake-walk through the game, nor by pounding on them mercilessly. As all you DM's out there are aware, it's a fine line we walk in maintaining game balance. This is just one DM's humble opinion, for what it's worth.
I'm running the last stap mod and a lot of creatures have death/negative energy attacks. This has been totally negated by the entire party buying soul fire armor which makes them immune to (death, energy, abilty, negative energy, etc....)
Any suggestions on how to deal with this? aside from dispel magic on the armor for 1d4 rounds... ???
One important thing to remember is your PCs' opponents are intelligent, not computer run low-AI thugs. Given Soulfire armor's relevance to them, and its prestigious ability, their opponents will likely be aware of its abilities.
This opens up two points.
One, it lets them not waste any action-based uses of negative energy attacks. This way they can focus on other abilities/strategies, or target those who might be vulnerable (cohorts, animal companions, familiars...)
Two, they will more readily use dispel magic on the armor, potentially in a coordinated fashion. [Hey look guys, I broke the soulfire! I'm the best demon of all! (Cack!)] Followed by a mass assault on the vulnerable PC.
Personally - I'd probably not allow soulfire, but I'm fairly restrictive on all sides to keep the relative power levels more stable.
Where is the Soul Fire Armor? what does it do
The sound a lot like the armbands we forged during AOW that kept Deathward up at all times
Where is the Soul Fire Armor? what does it do
The sound a lot like the armbands we forged during AOW that kept Deathward up at all times
It's an armor ability from the Book of Exalted Deeds. And it's similar to having Death Ward up at all times.
Thanks Ill have to look it up when I get home to my library
As mentioned above you shouldn't have let "all" the PCs "Buy" soulfire armor. As money is like a river.
If they crafted it themselves that is another matter as they (or someone) spend time/money/xp/ and most importently fore-thought. In which case it would be fine.
Anyway if you're looking for a decent solution you've already said it in your first post. Just add a single enemy whos solo propose is to dispel the PCs. If the PCs catch on and are fast enough to kill the Dispeller-Demons first? Oh well. You did what you could.
You should never punish you PCs for having fore-thought else you should just read a book to them.
P.S. I wouldn't constantly toss Mordenkainen's Disjunction at them but don't be afraid to spice it up now and again. After all that IS your job ;)
I think the PCs should be able to buy what ever they want to take the time and money to get
I think the PCs should be able to buy what ever they want to take the time and money to get
Now if I went around and let all my PCs buy everything at the drop of a hat where would those poor crafting feats be?
Unemployed with no future prospects to look forward too. Could you look all those feats in their many metaphical eyes and tell them that? I don't know about yours but my heart-item-slot could not take that encumberence.Granted in the OPs case they are level 20... with access to Sigil and other Planar cities.
In my mind and maybe only my mind if there is a market for somthing then someone would make a bussiness to exploit it. For custom items or non standard items, I charge a little more for the custom enchantment of items
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
|
if there is a market for somthing then someone would make a bussiness to exploit it.IMC, the Mercanes made every effort to facilitate PC purchases. Indeed, purchases and upgrades of over 50k gp would often be ready within minutes... since the Mercanes typically used wish spells to create these (as it was cheaper than crafting the item normally).
The PC's still had to pay full price though.
Indeed the Mercane (or a trip to Sigil) allows PC's with the money to gain nearly anything they might want. That being said anything bought in such open markets can and will be noted by the appropriate eyes or ears and knowledge is a commodity on the Planes that is cascaded as quickly as healing potions are to adventurers!
--I wanna Vrock... VROCK!