Hello all
I am facing a dillema with my ninja in the AP. My ninja is now 200XP away from level 9. So far every encounter we have faced in book 3 has been a huge disaster for me. I'm running into the following.
-Just about everything we run into is either in some way incorpereal or immune to sneak attacks. Lots of enemies with concealment up to this point means I picked up shadow strike. Is this is continuing trend ion the later books or is it something that gets better in later books?
-Also struggling with gear. So far all my extra money had to go into keeping the caravan running as it get's wrecked at every turn. The DM is not allowing us to buy any magic gear not listed for a settlement. Not a lot of meaningfull settlements around near the northpole. And if they have something it is out of my price range or not at all usefull to me. Is there any decent ninja loot to look out for? (dex based ninja)
Would it be better to start taking a ranger levels for the last part of the AP? Or something else dex-based. My main worry is combat capability as I find myself being completely useless once combat starts.
Stats are
STR -12
Dex - 18
con- 10
int- 12
wis- 10
cha- 14
Just quickly read over what I wrote. It wasn't my intention to sound so negative.
Just really hoping to get some insight in some decent options to salvage this characters combat abillity. (or if the sneak attack situation gets better so I can stick to Ninja).
I really want to make this work since this character is the last remaining original party member. But struggling a bit to make this work (died once but got revived by the seal).
Also I know it's not the most optimal stats but it's what I had to work with.
Not sure what to tell you. I'm playing, not GMing, so I don't have a good look behind the screen.
We've got a ninja in our party and probably 50% of our total party damage comes from him. Between Vanishing Trick and Shadow Clone he rarely ever takes a hit and I haven't seen many monsters that are crit/SA immune.
We're on book 4, to the best of my recollection book 3 was all about oni, hobgoblins, monstrous wilderness encounters, etc. What exactly are you running into that's sneak attack immune? Could it be that your GM is tweaking things? Well, I guess there was the storm sorceress chick, but she presents the same issues to any melee character.
There's not much you can do if you GM is just making up crit immune encounters, but most of the other stuff you can fix with tactics and party composition. Do you have a reliable flanking partner? If you don't have someone beefy in your group distracting monsters while you backstab them you may want to pick up Improved Feint. That will also help with humanoid enemies that are immune to flanking due to Improved Uncanny Dodge and isn't gear dependent.
Are you TWFing? That can boost rogue/ninja dpr considerably. And as a ninja you can skimp on defense and topload your offense while you rely on vanishing trick and shadow clones to keep you up.
Forgot the level 8 stat bump dex would be 19.
we have only really been running into ghosts. or people summoning/creating incorpereal creatures/undead.
Already have TWF but hardly have the chance to use it due to abominable hit chances. Flanking hardly applies since whatever he charges tends to get one shotted. Including the dragon in the crevass (It was a crit but still).
The rest of the party consists of
-A fighter/barbarian not sure on build/levels wielding a elven curved blade
-A zen archer monk
-A undead lord cleric (pretty strange build if I recall)
Now I know I'm a great deal behind on the WBL table. due to me not making a new character after dying. Means I got to pay for allmost all of the caravan expenses :(.
have brought this up with the DM but he tells me I should not worry about gear so much. That's basically why I'm hoping something good shows up when we're finally done with the frozen wasteland we're in.
(would really like some opinions on upcomming ninja loot from players who made it further into this AP.) just good,bad or okay will do :P
The vanishing trick worked amazingly well for the first few levels but hitting to many enemies who simply ignore invisibility due to true sight or blindsense. (or fly and toss explosives and other big AoE's at us)
Another player has jokingly told me I should just let my character die and make something that works. But a party without any original member seems odd to me (in this AP at least) especially with a ressurection device in the pocket.
Yes, some good Ninja gear comes up later in the AP. I think I can say that without spoiling much, after all the journey goes to quasi-Japan.
It sounds like your GM is trying to run caravan combat unaltered, which is a disaster, because the caravan combat rules were not playtested and do not work as written (i.e your caravan will explode from about every hostile random encounter).
And the town WBL rules don't work in the way your GM thinks they do. The listed items are the ones which are 100% available, others have a chance to exist in a settlement with WBL appropiate rating. Kalsgard should have had a plethora of available gear, since at its size it has a base value of 30.400 GP. Since it has a sizeable Tian expatriate community, getting Tian gear should not have been very problematic.
While the third module has a good number of non-standard enemies, it sounds like your GM is altering the module to counter against sneak attacks.
While the third module has a good number of non-standard enemies, it sounds like your GM is altering the module to counter against sneak attacks.
Actually, I didn't realize this myself from just looking at it, but playing it through (I am currently running Part 3), the number of things that either have obscuring mist, fog cloud at will, use their wings to beat up a dust cloud that grants concealment, or incorporeal in the first part of Part 3 are...nearly every planned encounter. Now, you can totally sneak attack all those things I just said if you are prepared with ghost touch and either headband of ninjutsu or Shadow Strike, but they could negate sneak.
Could be. I've run the module twice and there are a lot of encounters which allow sneak attack just fine. Maybe more in the second half of the module, though.
It depends on if you go to the mountain region or not. Also if you arbitrarily leave the road in the area where there is a pact of safe travel with the giants as long as you don't leave the road, and then defile the graveyard, you do get an encounter that can be sneak attacked. Frost Drake random encounter, Area C, Area G, and Area L are all either incorporeal or generate concealment lots of times. Also Polar Ooze caravan enemy is immune. We just finished L in our group, looking forward many encounters afterwards are not like that.
Yeah lot's of creatures gaining concealment through dust, fog, spells or other abilities. Picked up the shadow strike feat to deal with that.
headband of ninjitsu is a no go. No acces to a crafter and the DM has made it pretty clear that we can't in fact buy specific magic items.
thigs we can buy is basically just +1 +2 armor/weapons (no special abilities). So basically I'm dependent on good stuff dropping from opponents. Which so far hasn't been working all that well.
I currently own
+1 chain shirt
+1 Wakazashi
+ Amulet of natural armor +1
and a ring of protection +1
the rest of the loot has been pretty much caster gear or useless for our group setup.
But hoping for some decent loot on enemies soon. we killed a dragon last session and we still need to find it's hoard. (should be around since we killed it in it's lair)
And thanks for the replies everybody
I get the feeling that the DM is changing encounters to stop sneak attacks.
(we have had some prior discussion in which he made it pretty clear he considers sneak attack something terribly overpowered. he has even argued to limit it to once per round. Even actual damage calculations from our party have not convinced him he is wrong)
I has to be said that the rest of the party is in a similair situation wealth wise. The only meaningfull gear in the party ahs been gained by characters dying and bringing in a character on WBL :(
I actually really like the roleplaying aspects of the campaign. So far the GM has been excellent in those areas.
However as soon as combat starts I'm not at all usefull. My max damage output with sneak attack is equal to the fighters minimum damage, and his secondary attack has the hit chances of my main attack.
Caravan combat is even worse. Almost every enemy attack wipes out a wagon and their crew :S. The GM has added a few villages along the way otherwise there was no way we could have taken enough provisions to get anywhere.
I will (attempt to) discuss these issues with the GM one more time. And if that doesn't work I'will jump on the bandwagon and just let my character die. Inquisitor with average level 9 loot sounds good to me just about now.
And try to get the party to help out with the caravan costs for once.
I know this is particularly unhelpful advice, but wait until level 10 and get Hidden Master. Improved Invisibility helps. A lot. As for total damage, two-weapon fighting helps with that.
Yeah lot's of creatures gaining concealment through dust, fog, spells or other abilities. Picked up the shadow strike feat to deal with that.
headband of ninjitsu is a no go. No acces to a crafter and the DM has made it pretty clear that we can't in fact buy specific magic items.
thigs we can buy is basically just +1 +2 armor/weapons (no special abilities). So basically I'm dependent on good stuff dropping from opponents. Which so far hasn't been working all that well.
I currently own
+1 chain shirt
+1 Wakazashi
+ Amulet of natural armor +1
and a ring of protection +1the rest of the loot has been pretty much caster gear or useless for our group setup.
But hoping for some decent loot on enemies soon. we killed a dragon last session and we still need to find it's hoard. (should be around since we killed it in it's lair)
So, the GM was supposed to put a cool minor item for each character at the end of Part 1. Also, you should have Whispering Shrike (+1 wakizashi that can shield other) and the extremely femininely cut but rather interesting Shozoku of the Night Wind (2 extra vanishing tricks, 1 invisibility in low illumination, +5 stealth, +2 armor) at BARE MINIMUM and possibly Suishin depending on your build and other team members. Our group ninja, Kagi, dual wields shrike and Suishin (usually, sometimes someone else uses Suishin and he uses a MW Wakizashi), the Shozoku, and then +1 Amulet, +1 Ring, +1 Cloak of Resist, and +2 Dex belt round out the rest of his gear. He just hit level 8.
Sorry!
Okay, a more civil way of saying things,
your GM shouldn't worry so much about countering his player's abilities and just roll with it, keep things loose and just have fun with it:)
now the caravan rules as written can be a big pain in the rumpus (which is a bit surprising considering who mostly worked on them)
i strongly recommend removing them entirely and replace it with encounters for the PCs while describing the action of the rest of the caravan, run it just like S&S ship battles, if the PCs win the caravan pushes on, if not then figure the repercussions to the caravan. the obstacle encounters (like ice ravines and such) are a bit harder but i just try to keep it cinematic without delving too deeply into the rules aspect (if that makes sense?)
So, the GM was supposed to put a cool minor item for each character at the end of Part 1. Also, you should have Whispering Shrike (+1 wakizashi that can shield other) and the extremely femininely cut but rather interesting Shozoku of the Night Wind (2 extra vanishing tricks, 1 invisibility in low illumination, +5 stealth, +2 armor) at BARE MINIMUM and possibly Suishin depending on your build and other team members. Our group ninja, Kagi, dual wields shrike and Suishin (usually, sometimes someone else uses Suishin and he uses a MW Wakizashi), the Shozoku, and then +1 Amulet, +1 Ring, +1 Cloak of Resist, and +2 Dex belt round out the rest of his gear. He just hit level 8.
Well that's a dissapointment then. All we got was 2 +1 flaming shuriken and a cloak of resistance. (ande the warding box and it's contents obviously)
I had whispering shrike but it got lost the one time my character died. Suishen went to ameiko as no one in the party was really any good with it. pretty sad considering how awesome suishen actually is.
Shozoku of the night winds got a make-over as far as I can tell. Basically the GM has made it a chain shirt for monks.
and I made exactly that suggestion to the GM after the first round of caravan combat captain yesterday. Really no fun in watching one player roll a dice all evening and then hearing how many people.wagons on your side have died/shattered this round.