How does my cleric survive a gunslinger?


Advice

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Got a game coming up in which my players will be facing a 12th-level cleric and her minions. There is a gunslinger in the party that absoltely obliterates everything in his path.

The cleric in question has been scrying on the party and knows their tactics and has taken countermeasures.

The only thing she isn't protected against is the gunslinger. Not even wind wall or fickle winds seem like they will help much, providing only a 30% miss chance to her and her minions (which means she will still die in a round or two).

So...what other options might a 12th-level cleric have? (She possesses the charm and trickery domains.)


Buff like mad and kill him first.


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Deflect arrows, bestow curse, and fickle winds might help.


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Stay 50 feet away and use a bow. :P

The Exchange

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He can't reliably hit what he can't see. I believe there is a rod in magic tactics toolbox that allows you to see through clouds. Give your cleric that or some form of blindsight (echolocation spell?), and then sit him inside a fog cloud.

If you want to be really nasty, (quickened) true strike + pilfering hand was a favorite combination of one of my players. How many guns does the slinger carry?

Scarab Sages

melee. get those minions in melee and take those aoo's. also, deflect arrows.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Fog clouds won't work. Every member of the party is equipped with fog-cutting lenses. Using fog spells themselves is one of the party's chief tactics.

Control weather cast well before the battle will take care of PC fog spells, but it will also neutralize any such tactics made by the enemy.


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Have useful minions. Like witch or mesmerist that can debuff and cast pilfering hand (maybe with true strike somehow; ring of serene contortions can grant 1/day true strike) and take gun away.

Shatter whatever non-magical container is carrying ammo. Or pilfering hand the container with steal maneuver if it's loose enough. Or get a minion to sunder it; even magic containers don't have lots of hardness or hit points (I'm not gonna say sunder firearm cuz that's annoying, but if party has a sunder monkey, then the tactic is fair game.)

Get minion to cast charm or dominate person. Make the minion Neutral.

Or gunslinger minions and they all have a shoot out and show him how annoying they can be to fight.

Heightened deeper darkness. Fog spells. Wall spells. Screw with vision with concealment or cover. Have terrain features; make them active.

Get the heighten spell feat and bestow curse or blindness/deafness.

Confusion.

Chain of Perditon and use dirty tricks and trips to make his combat life real annoying.

I don't see why wind wall wouldn't protect the NPC party, bullets ain't that much better than arrows/bolts.

Plane shift him.

Have a great Touch AC. Buff it to the moon. Should be plenty of magic for that.

UMD a wand or scroll of mirror image.

Get a vampire minion or wraiths or something that does negative damage. Or greater shadows or other incorporeal creatures or something that does ability damage.

Several minions that have Cut from the Air feat and stand adjacent to the boss and smack the bullets away.

Brawler minions with deflect arrows, cut from the air, combat reflexes feats to get close. dedicated adversary feats, dirty fighting, greater trip, vicious stomp, then disarm.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wind wall auto-kills bolts and arrows, but not so other ranged attacks. The spell specifically states other ranged attacks (such as bullets) suffer only a 30% miss chance. The gunslinger's DPR is so high, missing on or two shots a round won't actually make too much difference.

The cleric's stats are set (I'm playing a prepublished adventure). The only thing I can really change is her spell list because the module specifically states she has studied the PCs and has taken steps to counter them.


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Trickery Domain. Mislead gives greater invis plus a free illusion wrong target.

Confusion the group, someone always fails.

Nondetection so you can skip see invis.

Wall spells to remove unhindered line of sight. Boneshatter gives exhausted or fatigued on a save

gunslingers are not primary will, there is always hold person.

Bestow curse (50% no action, -4 on attacks/saves, both good worth stacking even)

Cause blindness/deafness, shoot nothing then.

Air Walk while invis is active.

Pack of low level summons that fly, carrying fire seeds.

Always stay out of 1st range increment (flying helps)

surround him with a wall, then drop an ae inside it. walk around a corner after while still invis.

step out from cover only to put a spiritual weapon on him, then get behind cover again. repeat for multiple weapons active.

Dispel Magic on his weapon. on his resist cloak. on any other piece of core magica gear that nullifies one of his better options. Having your saves drop by 5(no cloak) and then getting cursed for -4 more is enough to make most pc's blanch.


Get someone to REPEATEDLY cast slow on party. Repeatedly cuz haste is inevitably prepped several times.


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Make the combat underwater.


Give him a Goz mask and a eversmoking bottle.

Smoke != fog


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rathendar wrote:
Trickery Domain. Mislead gives greater invis plus a free illusion wrong target.

All of the PCs have see invisibility in some form or another.

Rathendar wrote:
Confusion the group, someone always fails.

This worked fantastically during the mid-game. Sadly, the PCs have long since pumped their will saves, so this is unlikely to work now.

Rathendar wrote:
Nondetection so you can skip see invis.

That's a good one. Will definitely be adding that to her list.

Rathendar wrote:
Wall spells to remove unhindered line of sight. Boneshatter gives exhausted or fatigued on a save

Perhaps.

Rathendar wrote:
gunslingers are not primary will, there is always hold person.

See above.

Rathendar wrote:
Bestow curse (50% no action, -4 on attacks/saves, both good worth stacking even)

If she can survive being close to the gunslinger, succeed at an attack (everyone has ungodly ACs), and they fail a save.

Doesn't sound like a good move to me.

Rathendar wrote:
Cause blindness/deafness, shoot nothing then.

Save DCs are laughably low.

Rathendar wrote:
Air Walk while invis is active.

The high winds are going to make this nigh impossible.

Rathendar wrote:
Pack of low level summons that fly, carrying fire seeds.

That could be a lot of fun, but they won't be able to fly.

Rathendar wrote:
Always stay out of 1st range increment (flying helps)

There likely won't be that much space to maneuver. The fight will take place in a shrine with open windows (the better to let the wind in).

Rathendar wrote:
surround him with a wall, then drop an ae inside it. walk around a corner after while still invis.

Not being able to fly easily makes getting over the wall to put an AoE in it tough.

Rathendar wrote:
step out from cover only to put a spiritual weapon on him, then get behind cover again. repeat for multiple weapons active.

Pretty sure you can't do that in the same round without special abilities.


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Oh just saw it's a pre published adventure. Boo. Then yea kinda boned as not a lot of adventures are really prepped for gunslingers in mind.

I guess no more minion suggestions.

Pilfering hand is my best bet. All or nothing.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Some of the minions are rogues with disguise self. Perhaps I can trick the gunslinger into handing over his guns to a trusted ally prioe to his run-in with the cleric?


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There is in Ultimate Combat, Amulet of Bullet Protection. Other than that, ring of protection is nice to boost the touch AC as much as possible. Magic Vestment is another one.


Displacement to get the 50% miss chance, magical darkness that your cleric can see through, scroll/wand of bullet ward/shield and a decent UMD, stoneskin (unless he's using adamantine bullets, protection from arrows, anything that will soak his powder, have one of his minions steal his powder/bullets with a dirty trick or even beforehand.


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If the party is that well built, rebuild the enemies to match. It doesn't matter if it's pre-written unless for some reason you have to run it exactly as written. Raise her stats significantly, give her much better items that disintegrate when she dies so the party doesn't get them, have all of her minions be nearly equal with her in level so they're being swarmed with strong enemies.

Play dirty. Have her have several extra minions that are all high level mercenaries that she hired because she knows the party's tactics. Have an 11th level wizard she hired show up and cast disintegrate on his gun. Watch his face as his gun turns to ash. Hell have a high level mercenary for every party member.


Have a goblin minion or two with wands of mudball and readied actions.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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Use very long range spells.

Use very high level scrolls, like foresight and/or moment of prescience.

Is there any kind of magic that quenches fires in an area?

Spam ill omen.

Poison the Dex out of him?

Summon some grapplers around him? black tentacles + cloudkill/stinking cloud? forcecage?

Shadow Lodge

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That cleric is f!&+ed.

The only way to win this fight is not be there.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
kamenhero25 wrote:
It doesn't matter if it's pre-written unless for some reason you have to run it exactly as written.

I pride myself in running modules as written, unlike other GMs who change so much at times that people begin to wonder why they invested in the module in the first place.

The only reason I'm even here is because the module clearly stated that she takes steps to counter the PCs' specific abilities.


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Blind him. Blinding Ray him. Charm him. Command him. Hold him. Cause Fear him. Paralyze him. Darkness/Deeper Darkness him. Sleep poison him. Dex damage poison him. Dominate him. Put a wall of stone spell between him/the party and your cleric, ideally trapping him in a corner of the temple with no window in it. Burning disarm/heat metal his guns. Sunder his guns or ammo. Disarm his guns. Teleport Object his guns and or ammo. Protection from Arrows (but he/she probably has magic gunsand/or ammo?). Use Cloud spells on him. Black Tentacle him. Curse him. Pit spell him. Icy Tomb him. Build mundane trap covering a portable hole and trigger it to drop him into it (bet he has a magic bag of holding). If your minions are low level clerics then have them 'Ray of' spell the dickens out of him. Have something grapple him. Have something envelop him. Summon air elemental/s in whirlwind form to batter the snot out of him. Have then hire extra magus muscle and a bunch of one or two shot wands to harrass the gunslinger with. Greater Forbid Action on the whole party. Create undead or use Ghoul Army to spam him with paralyzing Ghoul attacks. Insect plague him. Plane shift him. Summon Infernal Host and grapple him to pieces. Setup a covered sign board in the temple and when they come in have the cover come off and the side facing them has one of each of the 5th level symbol spells (this can easily be done in preparation of their attack and they last a LONG time). Put up a Wall of Blindness hidden in the darkness so that they cannot see it when they advance into the temple.

Invisibility/Greater Invisibility yourself. Dust of Disappearance yourself. Divine Shield. Darkvault the temple and make sure your prepared for seeing in darkness and they are not. Touch AC discounts Armor, Natural Armor and shield bonuses. Load up on defense that give Luck, Dodge, Deflection or other bonuses. Mirror Image.

If the save DC's on the spells that would be good are too low them give the cleric Heighten Spell so the save DC's do not suck.

Some of that is Arcane only I know but I have 0 idea what kind of cleric you have or what sort of support is provided by the minions.

Ravingdork wrote:
I pride myself in running modules as written, unlike other GMs who change so much at times that people begin to wonder why they invested in the module in the first place.

Do your players like cake walks or exciting battles? Not adapting even a published adventure to your party is a disservice to everyone playing. The AP is a starting point.

One cannot and should not assume that an adventure path is ideally written to handle any and all party make up. With as much freedom as players have to make effective builds there is no reason a good GM should not rebalance an important encounter to make it more appropriate and memorable to the party make up if it is not going to do so as written.

The most important things an AP give you is a cohesive story. The encounters are great if the work but if they don't then it is the GM's job (and the whole point of them) to make them work better.

Otherwise they may as well just buy the AP and run it like a choose your own adventure book.


Are you allowed to add Metamagic feats (including but not limited to Metamagic Rods)? Heighten Spell was mentioned above; Persistent Spell is also good for forcing unfavorable Save rerolls; if your Cleric has a significant number of blasting spells, Dazing Spell is your friend (better yet, put this on a Metamagic Rod and personally do Persistent Spell at the same time). Is your Cleric allowed to hire mercenaries? Hiring a Mesmerist and/or a Witch would be a good investment, to debuff the Gunslinger through the floor (even literally, if a mercenary assistant spellcaster has Create Pit or greater). And having someone who can summon in Pugwampis would be hilarious.


Ravingdork wrote:
Some of the minions are rogues with disguise self. Perhaps I can trick the gunslinger into handing over his guns to a trusted ally prioe to his run-in with the cleric?

If minions have disguise self, have them all copy a PC and rush into melee. Then, like the PC's will also be doing, have them start shouting out that the other guy is the fake, use XX tactic she has seen them use before.

RE: Wall reply. Several wall spells do not cancel line of effect. examples include wall of fire (she can see in, they can't see out), and Blade Barrier (personal fave, also grants cover when fired through!(more AC!)

Dazing spiritual weapon has been entertaining for my pc's


Add one level of Monk to the Cleric and change around his gear to max out non Armor and non Shield AC? Get his smite to use on the gunslinger somehow to add his Cha to his AC as well?

Give him a one use Wondrous Item of Anti Tech Field. Since they know the parties tactics and abilities and have time to prepare then it would be reasonable to spend some cash for a one use custom item to counter the guns. Or they could simply UMD a scroll if they have the ability.


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If he knows they are coming and is prepared, he should recruit proper allies. Using what's written is not prepared, seems nothing is written with the insight that a full bab touch attack is incoming. Put him in a Blade Barrier, the Cleric or the annoying gunner, the +4 cover will help. Have a hidden set of Animated Undead, at his level he can have a ton of trash burst through the fresh drywall/non-uniform floor tiles to swarm an annoying range character. Have an NPC that can drop terrain buster spells or entangles. Possible combo of the above. A slumber with with good Stealth would be a handy ally.

Granted is the encounter is as written and all you can do is spells, the cleric is toast. But "takes steps to counter abilities" means get help. The guy should know his set up sucks. APs are not written for the optimized gunner shredding every encounter, so bite the pride and make it a decent encounter. BTW, I am one of those GMs that retool most AP encounters to make the game fun for my characters, and to imply we make people wonder why they play is insulting at the least. People don't play the AP, they play the game, and having a guy solo every encounter for 12 levels would not be fun for my players.


what if the cleric disguises himself as one of the minions, and has one of his minions sit up on the throne in a robe. the party uses all their best attacks on him, and then the cleric gets to act. maybe hit all the minions with communal stoneskin so fake cleric lasts longer.


Are any of the cleric's minions also clerics? If so, they should be taking similar precautions. And they should have shield other cast on their boss.

Otherwise, you can use imbue with spell ability to give a level 5+ minion the ability to cast shield other. That minion's only other job is to stay alive.


have her and her minions be pre-buffed with all their buff spells could help, like say, haste etc


kamenhero25 wrote:


Play dirty... Have an 11th level wizard she hired show up and cast disintegrate on his gun. Watch his face as his gun turns to ash...

I'd stay away from this, for obvious reasons this is MUCH more effective vs PCs than NPCs, this also can really kill a character, two rounds later the fighter now has no main melee weapon, and no ranged weapon. (which, he probably sunk close to half his funds into those two weapons) and with a gunslinger being a one trick pony.... well yeah, they are haha. I suppose it can be ok once or twice a campaign, Its just one of those things I'd stay away from.


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Lots and lots of arrow magnets. 5 rounds of all ranged stuff being useless. Hardness 8 hp 5 so depending on his bonuses and weapon it might survive a while.

Arrow magnet: 600 gp
This tiny silver cube is activated by throwing it at an intersection of squares within 50 feet. The cube hovers 5 feet above the ground at that location for the next 5 rounds. Any small projectile or thrown weapon (such as arrows, shuriken, vials, and bullets) that passes through the squares adjacent to the cube automatically turn in midair to hit the cube (no attack roll needed) instead of their intended target. The cube has 5 hit points and hardness 8. If the arrow magnet is touched by a creature or reduced to 0 hit points or less, it falls to the ground and is destroyed.


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There is only one solution to this problem.
...
..
.
Rocks fall, everyone dies.

You’ve painted yourself into a corner with this party.
Your entire party is well beyond its normal power level. You’ve let them get away with too much. They have from what it sounds like, the absolute optimal equipment for every encounter. For example: They all have fog-cutter lenses, they all have some sort of see invisibility, all their AC’s are through the roof, and everyone’s save is impossible to bypass.

I’d probably put your partys APL at about 3 higher than expected. All of this and you are not willing to change anything from the adventure.

Harsh reality here, but you might as well just pack it up and start over.


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Get away with buying 8000gp items around level 10?

I think you are confusing "get away" With "Your players bought the good items instead of the garbage ones, oops"

My advice is to try and yolo disarm the gunslinger and stay out of his 40ft touch range. 30% miss is still worth it on fickle winds


You could also hope he misfires a bunch, lol


Traps of drench or similar effects that makes his ammo wet?
Bullet Shield spells.
Walls for cover, minions with deployed towershields.

As for the wall scenario, you can target the aoe at the top of the wall and let the radius of the spell fill the wall, you dont need to cast it on him directly just far enough away to hit him, so no need to fly over it.

Summon monster traps, archers fighter minions with sunder onto his gun, wind elementals whom have so good fly that they could basically ignore the weather.

Traps of purge invis if thats a issue.

I think the better things you can do against a ranged character is to utilize cover more, dont remember the gun mechanics though but isnt there a range limit on the touch attack?


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Ravingdork wrote:

Got a game coming up in which my players will be facing a 12th-level cleric and her minions. There is a gunslinger in the party that absoltely obliterates everything in his path.

The cleric in question has been scrying on the party and knows their tactics and has taken countermeasures.

The only thing she isn't protected against is the gunslinger. Not even wind wall or fickle winds seem like they will help much, providing only a 30% miss chance to her and her minions (which means she will still die in a round or two).

So...what other options might a 12th-level cleric have? (She possesses the charm and trickery domains.)

What type of gun does the gunslinger use? If it's the default early firearms, instead of advanced, the gunslinger only targets touch AC in the first range increment (unless spending grit for each additional range increment per shot). That's 40 ft with a distant pistol; attack the gunslinger from farther out and the gunslinger has to target normal AC.


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Valantrix1 wrote:

There is only one solution to this problem.

...
..
.
Rocks fall, everyone dies.

You’ve painted yourself into a corner with this party.
Your entire party is well beyond its normal power level. You’ve let them get away with too much. They have from what it sounds like, the absolute optimal equipment for every encounter. For example: They all have fog-cutter lenses, they all have some sort of see invisibility, all their AC’s are through the roof, and everyone’s save is impossible to bypass.

I’d probably put your partys APL at about 3 higher than expected. All of this and you are not willing to change anything from the adventure.

Harsh reality here, but you might as well just pack it up and start over.

This depends, some groups really enjoy the feeling of know that "we could, and did, handle anything thrown at us because we are the best of the best"

which I think is fine as long as everyone is ok with that. And this kind of play certainly has its merits as a stress/steam release.

on the other hand, it could be seen as challenge on the DMs part to see how creative he can get. While I'd be fine adding in some mercenaries, or even just leveling the cleric/mooks up to help make it "semi-challenging"


my advice? Boost the level of the cleric and mooks, that said, if you don't want to change ANYTHING but her spells (which I find a bit silly, given that the book says she counters the party, she can easily swap out her mooks for new mooks/mercs)

30% miss is still worth having the spell cast when they enter.

Have her create undead (ghasts) to supplement her minions

Eagle splendor on self (for higher saves etc)

Have her summon a planar ally (CR 12 creature) and pay it to fight with her to defeat the party.

have all 10min/hour/level buff spells cast and up already.

cast sanctuary then things such as shield of faith, summon monster etc while her mooks fight, then have her newly summoned horde + planar ally and undead swarm gunslinger/mage


A simple spell: entropic shield. Sure it's only 20%. Have it running on a lot of mooks. Let the mooks be the meatshields. Or summoned creatures, of course.

Maybe most important of all: don't give the gunslinger the idea to shoot the cleric. Some simple disguises and everyone's a cleric.


^ this, cleric has plenty of prep time, surely she has an arcane caster somewhere in her mook team, have 2-3 people disguised as a cleric magically, or hell disguise them mundanely. They can only "check" one disguise a turn without spending actions IIRC


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I've looked at the notes again. In addition to the 12th-level cleric, there are several 8th-level rogues and 7th-level clerics. They all have access to disguise self. There are a small number of called enriyes as well.

There are other, more powerful adversaries about, but they are generally isolated.

Not all of these minions will be aiding the lead cleric, but this module seems to leave a lot of leeway for just how these NPCs and monsters defend their fort from the intruding PCs.

Note that the PCs are ultimately supposed to beat the cleric and her minions, I just want to tax them severely, so when they get to the leader of the fortress (and whatever surviving minions that have rallied to him), it really and truly feels like a climactic battle.

Nathan Monson wrote:
what if the cleric disguises himself as one of the minions, and has one of his minions sit up on the throne in a robe. the party uses all their best attacks on him, and then the cleric gets to act. maybe hit all the minions with communal stoneskin so fake cleric lasts longer.

This is a great idea!

TheOrcnextdoor wrote:
Valantrix1 wrote:

There is only one solution to this problem.

...
..
.
Rocks fall, everyone dies.

You’ve painted yourself into a corner with this party.
Your entire party is well beyond its normal power level. You’ve let them get away with too much. They have from what it sounds like, the absolute optimal equipment for every encounter. For example: They all have fog-cutter lenses, they all have some sort of see invisibility, all their AC’s are through the roof, and everyone’s save is impossible to bypass.

I’d probably put your partys APL at about 3 higher than expected. All of this and you are not willing to change anything from the adventure.

Harsh reality here, but you might as well just pack it up and start over.

This depends, some groups really enjoy the feeling of know that "we could, and did, handle anything thrown at us because we are the best of the best"

which I think is fine as long as everyone is ok with that. And this kind of play certainly has its merits as a stress/steam release.

on the other hand, it could be seen as challenge on the DMs part to see how creative he can get. While I'd be fine adding in some mercenaries, or even just leveling the cleric/mooks up to help make it "semi-challenging"

The last five adventure paths my friends hosted ended in TPK in books 1, 2, or--once--book 3. More often then not it was because they changed things to make it tougher. Our group has never finished a single campaign of any kind. Ever.

I'm not doing that. We are now nearly finished with book 5, have only lost two characters along the way*, actually have a longstanding cohesive story arc that hasn't been torn to pieces by a revolving door of new characters, and--though they are cake-walking most encounters--they appear to be having more fun than any of our games that came before.

*:
One to a swarm at low levels, and another died only because I enforced the initial errata to Crane Wing and his build fell apart.


The Erinyes have innate true seeing, so you may want to cast deeper darkness on a couple of them before the fight starts. And of course, your cleric can also cast true seeing to get around the deeper darkness

Unfortunately, for this strategy to be really good, you need heighten spell on the deeper darkness, which I have no idea if you have.


Not to nitpick but shoulda let him rebuild after changing the crane wing style.

On that note, I understand, though normally most published APs tend to be on the easier side of things. (Exception to carrion crown especially book 1 and 3)

And if they are having fun, and you are having fun, no real need to go out of your way like this to challenge them.


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Didn't read through everything here but...
Can you add a minion with combat reflexes and cut from the air that stays close to the cleric?

Cut from the Air will let the minion literally knock the bullets out of the air and doesn't have particularly high prereqs.

You could also have expendable minions with Combat Reflexes, Bodyguard, and In Harm's Way. This would enable some of the minions to take hits for cleric.

Sovereign Court

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I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread because it may end up being useful for my own Iron Gods campaign later on. Anyway, let's start from general principles. To survive the gunslinger (for a while), your cleric could...


  • Tough it out. Buffing HP, stoneskin etc. Not likely to work out, but combines well with any of the other options.
  • Be harder to hit. Let's assume bumping AC is hopeless, so instead use multiple layers of miss chance. We have Wind Wall, Entropic Shield, and maybe more Wind Walls throughout the room, each one inflicting miss chances. After a while the probability of a bullet getting through starts to really drop. Bonus: it can make the combat tactically interesting as PCs try to figure out the topology of the battlefield.
  • Don't be the obvious target. Put someone else on the throne. Put a gazillion-HP inanimate statue on the throne, and hire an illusionist to make it look like it's doing significant things. Meanwhile, focus your own spellcasting on discreet buffing so that it takes a while for the players to realize you're the MVP NPC.
  • Keep the gunslinger busy. Have enemies enter from behind him that harass him, so that he has to work on those.

    Those could be enemies the party knows are capable of sundering guns - they don't have to succeed, they have to present a credible threat.

    With a scroll of Create Greater Undead you can make some Shadows, which will terrify most gunslingers. If you're really nasty you'll have the aforementioned illusionist also seed some fake Shadows so that the gunslinger will be spending time sorting out which ones to shoot.

    With Planar Ally spells you can also call some enemies designed to harass the gunslinger. Lightning elementals for example.

  • Take out the gunslinger or at least try to. Could be tricky if your save DCs are poor, but you can at least target his worst (observed, inferred) saves.

    Again, Planar Allies could be called to do a custom job.

  • Shape the battlefield - with Wall and Pit spells you can dictate where the gunslinger is allowed to be. You may be able to prevent him from closing in to shoot you.

    Another aspect is that by altering the shape of the battlefield, you can force the gunslinger into melee proximity with enemies he doesn't want to be close to. Make it so that the only place where you don't have improved or total cover from him is in the middle of a bunch of smash-happy enemies.

Above all, you want to communicate that this boss knew they were coming and had a real hope to beat the party, not to be just a speedbump. So some aggressive moves against them are needed - which probably don't work as well as the bad guys hoped, because the PCs should win in the end. However, you want the players to see that if the bad guys had had just a little bit more oomph in their DCs, their tactics could have doomed the PCs.


What adventure path are you playing. :-)


What's the cleric's patron deity and domains?

Is it the same with the minion clerics? If not, what are they sporting?

Can the minion rogues be made unchained? Can they swap out two feats for Combat Expertise and Gang Up?


You can get Deflect Arrows on an item. Works on bullets, and it takes out the first attack. It's limited uses, but good for the situation.

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