Defending the Temple of Light!


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Okay cats and kittens... Time to put the Martial vs Caster debate to bed one final time.

You are facing the following group (all core, no archetypes):

1 Cleric (LE)
1 Sorcerer (NE)
1 Wizard (CE)
1 Oracle (CN)

All level 12, standard WBL.

-----

You are controlling a group of non-full casters, all core, no archetypes:

1 Fighter
1 Rogue (Unchained)
1 Monk (Unchained)
1 Paladin

All level 12, standard WBL.

-----

Here is the scenario:

Your team of non-casters is defending the "Temple of Light" a sanctuary on top of a mountain.

The Casters do not know what they are facing going in. They only know that the temple is defended not by who or what. Meaning at least 1/4 of the caster spells must be spells that are primarily designed to counter/defend/offset hostile magic. (IE this is a realistic scenario.)

So... For those thinking the casters are imbalanced... You get to go first... You'll have until... Lets say... 5pm tonight Eastern (-5:00 GMT) to post your caster builds, please encapsulate those in spoiler buttons, and then to lay out your strategy.

Remember in your strategy to lay out alternatives for successes and failures. Namely:

"My group will scry out the inside of the temple if that works I will X, if it fails I will Y."

Secondary Note:
Assume average rolls for any variables needed in the event. Namely if it is a d20 assume you roll a 10. If it is a d6 a 4, a d10 a 6, etc.

Couple words of warning:
The other team will go second, being the defender, this gives them the advantage. They have plenty of time to spend their 100k each to shore up the defenses of the temple. Meaning that the casters might face any number of traps designed to combat caster strategies. Casters might find themselves attempting to teleport in and wind up in death traps, from permanent Teleport Traps set up (only 7000k each) by the defenders in the months leading up to this.

The Battleground:

The temple is a small one story structure made of marble. There is no room to reliably camp outside of the structure so any camping must be done before reaching the summit. Attempting to rest at the summit to regain spells is risky and could result in being attacked in the night.

The temple consist of a total of 7 rooms.

The entrance:
A 30 x 30 ft square (6 squares along the X axis, 6 squares along the Y axis) with double doors located leading to the outside from the south in the center of the southern most wall of the entrance. A hallway without doors leads north from here to the main room set opposite the south wall mounted doors.

The hallway:
Coming from the entrance this is a 10 x 30 ft rectangle (2 squares along the X axis, 6 squares along the Y axis) leading to the main room connecting to the main room by the center of its center of the south wall.

The main room:
A 50 x 80 ft rectangle (25 square along the X and 40 along the Y) that contains an alter near the front and a row of 3 10 foot wooden benches along the walls. The floors are covered in mats and there are no pews. There are 4 pillars located in this room that are approximately 5ft in diameter spaced 20 foot diagonally inward from each corner of the room. An altar of worship takes up a 10 ft x 20 ft space at the far north of the room. There are two single doors on each east and west wall. These are spaced symmetrically at 20 ft increments on the east and west walls and lead to sleeping quarters.

4 sleeping quarters:
4 40 x 40 squares connected to the main room by the doors mentioned. These are free to be furnished in any way they wish by the defenders. 3 of these rooms are in use (2 of the defenders sleep in the same room) leaving the 4th to be customized by the defenders for whatever purpose. (In case they want to put a trap or some such here. Up to them.)

The goal of the Defenders:
Kill anyone who invades the temple.

The goal of the Attackers:
Kill the defenders and steal the altar.

Ready... And... BEGIN


You specify core (which is terrible for the martial team) and then include unchained and an Oracle? Curious.


I'm guessing he defines Core as 'All hardcover books of the "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game"-Line', thus excluding all the content of player's companions and campaign setting-books.

Silver Crusade

I'd suggest Leadership for the Paladin.

Other then that, not going to get too involved, I'm not great with super optimization building.

I'd also point out there are a few Ender's Gate solutions to this already.

The party could defeat the bad guys by using their higher physical scores to lift the altar out of its place and just leave the temple. (Can't be killed if you aren't there, altar can't be stolen by the enemy if its stolen by you).

Also is the altar actually 10X20? That's like a city square sized altar.

And the 100,000gp for furnishings and defenses I presume doesn't account for WBL on the part of the martials?


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DM Sothal wrote:
I'm guessing he defines Core as 'All hardcover books of the "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game"-Line', thus excluding all the content of player's companions and campaign setting-books.

Just meaning no archetypes. As in the core class.


Spook205 wrote:

I'd suggest Leadership for the Paladin.

Other then that, not going to get too involved, I'm not great with super optimization building.

I'd also point out there are a few Ender's Gate solutions to this already.

The party could defeat the bad guys by using their higher physical scores to lift the altar out of its place and just leave the temple. (Can't be killed if you aren't there, altar can't be stolen by the enemy if its stolen by you).

Also is the altar actually 10X20? That's like a city square sized altar.

And the 100,000gp for furnishings and defenses I presume doesn't account for WBL on the part of the martials?

The goal is defend the temple, not the altar. No leaving the field.

Silver Crusade

HWalsh wrote:
Okay cats and kittens... Time to put the Martial vs Caster debate to bed

I wish you luck on this most noble pursuit

Silver Crusade

HWalsh wrote:


The goal is defend the temple, not the altar. No leaving the field.

A sensible assumption, yes. But...

HWalsh wrote:

The goal of the Defenders:

Kill anyone who invades the temple.

The goal of the Attackers:
Kill the defenders and steal the altar.

People are going to find loopholes or 'misunderstandings' if they choose to take this thing seriously. Might want to shore up the details of the experiment a bit.

By the established terms, the ECs (evil casters) could choose to defeat the MPs (Martial party) by spending a lot of time leveling up, getting the Immortality discovery and waiting them out before walking into the temple.

Also, the 100k, is that just for traps and "furnishings." Do a wide variety of magic items count as 'furnishings.'


HWalsh wrote:
Okay cats and kittens... Time to put the Martial vs Caster debate to bed one final time.

So far so good.

HWalsh wrote:

You are controlling a group of non-full casters, all core, no archetypes:

1 Fighter
1 Rogue (Unchained)
1 Monk (Unchained)
1 Paladin

Nope, I'm out. "settle this debate" and "only using these specific classes" means that this is a pointless and futile exercise lower even than mental self-gratification.

As others have pointed out, you exclude archetypes and anything outside core and yet include the Oracle and Unchained (so clearly you and I differ on "core"). At a minimum, if you're including other books you should include everything in those books, and that includes archetypes. That's fairly irrelevant to the real problem though, lack of choice. You're claiming to settle a debate about dozens of possible classes with... four examples. Chosen by you, so other people can't even pick the ones they think are better. That's like showing baseball players are better now by pitting the current Cubs versus the 1911 Yankees (feel free to substitute here). Unless the 1911 Yankess had every single one of the best players, there are several other teams from 1911 filled with players that also need to be considered. So this whole exercise is going to settle nothing except "under these very specific conditions, with these very specific restrictions, with these very specific classes, this can happen".

Also, as an aside, you clearly don't fully understand what you're doing. You know how I know? You don't address the Z dimension (or the material it's made of). Is the entire thing 10 feet high (standard for 1 story)? Is the roof just a slab of marble? Because then the casters just collapse the whole thing, burying everyone inside, and sift through the rubble. Yay, glorious victory! I'm not entirely serious with this, but it is something the description of the temple is entirely lacking.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

the LE cleric is he capable of animating the dead prior to engagement and if so what?

if one of the casters is primarily an offense oriented caster are they still required to put 25% of their spells in to defense specifically of magic? would it be better if 50% of their defensive spells were against magic?


Bandw2 wrote:

the LE cleric is he capable of animating the dead prior to engagement and if so what?

if one of the casters is primarily an offense oriented caster are they still required to put 25% of their spells in to defense specifically of magic? would it be better if 50% of their defensive spells were against magic?

I'm only calling for 25% so that it sets up a realistic scenario. So the caster builds don't go:

"Tee hee, I know they are all Martials so I'm not going to worry about dispel magics, or ghost touch, etc."


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

but i mean if realistically he'd have 25% so defensive spells in general, would it make more sense if half of those were magic related? And i'm still curious about the undead pool.

also realize that if you just put all their spells in a general pool it makes 1 character on average entirely devoted to defeating magic basically...

also, feel like mentioning if i do this i probably won't make extremely optimized options i'll just try to make characters. been wanting to put together a cleric of urgothoa.


Bandw2 wrote:

but i mean if realistically he'd have 25% so defensive spells in general, would it make more sense if half of those were magic related? And i'm still curious about the undead pool.

also realize that if you just put all their spells in a general pool it makes 1 character on average entirely devoted to defeating magic basically...

also, feel like mentioning if i do this i probably won't make extremely optimized options i'll just try to make characters. been wanting to put together a cleric of urgothoa.

Well I'm at work right now but I'll come up with a list when I get back home.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

oh also there's no description for stat generation.


The mainstay Diviner alpha strike Wizard is the base Wizard without an archetype, so no loss there. As well, I'm told that Fly, and Mirror Image are pretty standard spells to have prepped, both of which would make the defender's lives more difficult. Likewise Black Tentacles, and Create Pit Spells.

A Heavens mystery Oracle with Awesome Display and fully invested in Charisma could use Colour Spray to good effect.

The Cleric could take one of the low Will save types out for awhile with Hold Person, and buffed properly they'll fight as well as some of the martials, and better than others.

The most likely series of events would be the fighter taken out with a Will save effect (ideally in a way that turns him against his party, but useless is fine too), the rogue and monk debuffed and CC'd by the arcane casters, then swiftly dispatched by the buffed and combat capable divine casters, and only the Paladin would present a challenge. One of the attackers could fall to the Paladin. However, unless the Paladin is an archer (and the good archer Paladin is an archetype, much like the archer monk, thus out), they won't have much capacity to harm the wizard. Eventually the outnumbered and outgunned Paladin would succumb.

Which is a shame. I would love for the martial party to triumph, just like it's fun to root for the underdog in a movie. Sadly, unlike a scripted movie, the more versatile, powerful, and skilled team would win this one.

The real tragedy though? This has nothing to do with the martial/caster issue, because the problem isn't a PvP problem, it's problem solving issue. Magic is a bag of tricks that only gains more options, martial ability is always hitting things.

Edit: How remiss of me, I forgot the sorcerer. The sorcerer summons lantern archons to wear down the Paladin, forcing the Paladin to either devote effort to attacking the archons instead of the attackers, or burn limited resources to keep healing. Otherwise the sorcerer lays down debuffs and control.


Are Beneficial traps of GMW okay?
That would help the Monk save on money for gear.

Since they can't have all dispel slots (due to the rules), the trap will work perfectly. It lasts hours so he can have in in his quarters.

Can we hire hirelings as furnishings? if limited to npcs, Couple adepts and warriors will be good.

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