This sounds similar to Tegal Manor, or close-ish to it. Does your campaign roll ability scores or use a point buy system? Is it race restricted? What are the rules regarding traits and background skills?
How is your GM about paladins? If he's fair and reasonable about paladins, a paladin with the hospitaler and warrior of the holy light archetypes should be brutally effective.
If not, Cleric with Glory and Sun domains does pretty well with heavy feat investment in Extra Channel. It is a prepared spell caster, which is a mixed blessing. Fewer spells/day, but it lets you swap out spells with a bit of downtime to remove nasty conditions and raise the dead, although the latter is (a) expensive, and (b) less likely to work against a lot of what you're facing.
Alternatively there are more complex builds, but they require a fair degree of comfort with the rules.
Basic survival feats: Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Improved Great Fort/Iron Will/Lightning Reflexes and Toughness go a long way to improving your odds of survival. Heighten Spell can be your friend.
ghost touch armor and ghost touch holy bane (undead) weapons - especially a disruption weapon - will have out-of-normal benefits. I don't think you'll have the budget to afford a sunblade or I'd highly recommend one of those.
Do not forget lowly items such as holy water and a fair bit of powdered silver for some of your spells. Buy several scrolls of consecrate with the component cost included. If you're feeling a bit mean you might consider a scroll of hallow with another carrying a 'buddy spell' (see the description of hallow) and an altar to your deity and make arrangements to have that bad boy lugged around with you each time the group sets up camp.
daylight can be a lifesaver, especially in a partially charged wand (say 25 charges, so half cost, which is usually reasonable). Consider investing in a burned out grey ioun stone, some more material components and using Heighten Spell to plop a higher spell level version of continual flame on said cheap ioun stone. If you have a Wizard in the party with permanency, talk things over with that player before you guys begin playing again and compare notes. Your group with a bit of money and some patience of in-game time you're willing to let pass can pull some fun shenanigans with permanency and a fair bit of gp.
A phylactery of positive channeling is worth its weight in gold in this place if you're channeling said positive energy. It adds 2d6 to every single use of channeled positive energy you've got.
Knowledge (religion) and Perception MUST be maximized.
If the GM permits aasimar they are a must-have as they give, among many other benefits, +2 Wis and +2 Cha, ideal for channeling-focused clerics. What's more is that aasimar have a slew of race-specific feats ideal for working with channel positive energy and with their innate racial daylight spell-like ability. Select the deathless spirit alternative racial trait for 5 resistance to negative energy, the ability to not lose hp from energy drain/negative levels and a +2 racial bonus on saves against death attacks, energy drain, negative energy and all Necromancy spells and spell-like abilities.
The Heavenly Radiance feat - which you can select five times over your first five feats at 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 adds +1 daylight/day with each selection to your racial spell-like ability and - of utmost importance for this campaign - lets you cast each one instead as a single-beam sunbeam, which is normally a 7th level spell. This lets you cast it without gesture or word, it wrecks undead and you can do so SIX times a day before tapping into your spells. Use your 11th level feat for Heighten Spell. Generally speaking, don't waste your time with Turn Undead. You want to obliterate them, not make your other players chase the things down.
What about the Favored Defense feat?
If you've taken Favored Enemy (undead) to its maximum - which should be a +6 if I'm reading right - that feat adds another 3 to your Touch AC, AC and CMD against the attacks of all undead.
I'd recommend either urban or whatever terrain type the manor house is set in as your secondary favored terrain type.
You are a spell caster, just not a "full" (up to 9th level spells) spell caster. You do have access to 1st, 2nd and 3rd level ranger spells, which is quite nice.
You want lots of ghost salts (applying to your arrows for dealing with incorporeal undead), but it's more effective in the long run to use ghost touch ammunition. Your class and archetype grant you a few rounds/day of the equivalent of ghost touch with your bow - which is very handy - but it may or may not last long enough unless the GM is being very kind about letting your group rest up when they're done for the day and just want to recuperate. I'd carry at least two efficient quivers fully stocked with ammunition. Take advantage of the whetstone's benefit to sharpen your arrows for a free +1 point of additional weapon damage. Most important perhaps is the humble ring of sustenance. With that you need not worry about water or food and only need to sleep 2 hours/day before your hour of spell preparation.
Do not forget about being able to swap out spells you have not expended for new spells throughout the day. Being able to grab a few lesser restoration spells after a particularly rough fight can make the difference between life and (un)death.
searing light is on your corpse hunter's spell list, so you can use scrolls and wands with that spell on/in them. A caster level 10 wand of searing light, fully charged is expensive at 22,500 gp but it hits as hard as possible, has a 200' range and takes advantage of many of your ranged combat feats. If you go with scrolls, each one at caster level 10 costs 750 gp. Don't forget to carry at least two, preferably three or four, fully charged wands of cure light wounds. If nothing else, when the rest of the group are slavering undead horrors, you can heal yourself back to full hp once you run away far enough.
Oh, and I hope you are wearing boots of speed. 10 free round-by-round personal haste rounds does wonders for both your mobility and gives that all-important extra attack at highest bonus each round, making your undead killing efficiency all the better.
impervious on your bow should not matter unless the monsters have shown a fondness for the Sunder combat maneuver. If they have, keep it and start ramping up your bow's enchantment bonus. If they aren't using an equal or stronger enchantment bonus weapon, unless I am misremembering, sunder does nothing.
And of course keep Knowledge (religion) and Perception at maximum skill ranks. Without knowing anything about race or Intelligence, tack Stealth and Acrobatics onto that list. You'll almost certainly need decent bonuses in Climb and Swim and I'd also highly recommend the humble Heal skill. The Heal skill lets the group - when you've got a good enough bonus in it - get 'free' (costs only healer's kits at most) hp curing and lots of ability damage curing when you camp and treat up to six patients for long-term care.
I do NOT recommend an animal companion for your character. Go with companions as your bond - it should let you share some bits of your favored enemy and favored defense bonuses with your entire group as a move action for a bit of time. Always handy - although I'm going purely on memory at this point, so take this last with a grain of salt and verify it for yourself.
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A life oracle can also be useful in this context. While a cleric gets 3 channels per day + CHA modifier, the oracle with the channel revelation gets only 1 + CHA, but the oracle is a CHA caster, so that evens out, or even works in the oracle's favor. Unfortunately, you can select the extra channel feat only once, but take it. Take improved channel also. A wand of cure wounds is also a good weapon against undead. Using a wand does not provoke an AoO. Aasimars make good oracles, especially with the Heavenly Radiance feat, as suggested above. An oracle is also good for someone new to casters, because the oracle is a spontaneous caster.
If you want to play a martial type, invest in a ghost touch weapon and ghost touch armor, and plenty of missiles with ghost salt weapon blanch.
My group is in some 150+ room castle filled with all undead/incorporeal enemies. None of us are really prepared for this as I've already died twice and we're only about 10% clear. I've only been playing Pathfinder for about 2 months since I'm still learning about classes and builds. I'm looking for an optimized build for evil undead. I'm currently lvl 11 and will start out with 82k gold. Thanks for any help you're able to provide!
Well you have a few options available to you.
Option 1: Paladin- This is easy and straight forward but not the most powerful option you have. It works well but your resources are more limited or weaker than options 2 and 3. You can still optimize this style of build but you will feel gases out (low on resources) faster than other builds.
Option 2: Paladin Variant Multiclass Cavalier Order of the stars.
Not all groups use VMC. But what makes this better than just plain paladin is that Order of the stars adds more levels to your Lay on hands and your Channel energies. So you can actually accomplish 10d6 channel energy at level 11 if you get the phylactery.
Option 3: Spirit Guide Life Oracle with Life Spirit- 2 channel pools and you are a 9th level caster. So you should be looking at like 12+ channels a day, full 9th level caster. one of the stronger options. I quite enjoyed this style of character when I played it.
I'd not spend starting gold on a wand of sufficient power to be effective in melee against the undead unless it is your 'primary weapon', in which case ... do eet!.
A wand each of cure critical wounds and CL 10th searing light in the hands of that Life Oracle would be costly - and quite effective. If there's a way to stuff the former wand into a weapon so you're considered armed all of the time, you're in like Flynn.
Not sure on how many encounters, but rests are virtually non-existent, so I need something sustainable without the need for rests.How many encounters do you need to go through ... what is the pacing for resting?
Do you have a spellcaster able to cast "Rope Trick" or other way to safely rest until "morning"
uh ... erm ... I don't know what to say.
The group is going to need the ability to enforce rests of their own accord then. That requires the entire group works with each other to attain it...
That's brutal. This sounds more like a GM TPK festival than something I'd enjoy. Most of the options people are discussing above require at least some ability to rest after a while.
yeah, they'll need an ability to basically tell the monsters to jam it in their ear so that they can rest easily.
Fortunately, the group potentially already has this option to do so via teleport and shadow walk unless there's some hijinks going on I'm not aware of.
A typical adventuring day has 4-7 encounters. Typically after that, the PC's resources are exhausted and the party NEEDS to rest or it will be a TPK.
New GM, too? Maybe he/she has missed the point that Louise Bishop makes and needs some enlightenment?
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Someone needs a rope trick + keep watch, or tiny hut. This should fix most of the problem you are having.
If things climb up the rope you fight those creatures are flatfooted and you fight them one at a time and you have full protection from spells.
Tiny hut will let you all rest for the night and then some.
A life oracle can also be useful in this context. While a cleric gets 3 channels per day + CHA modifier, the oracle with the channel revelation gets only 1 + CHA, but the oracle is a CHA caster, so that evens out, or even works in the oracle's favor. Unfortunately, you can select the extra channel feat only once, but take it. Take improved channel also. A wand of cure wounds is also a good weapon against undead. Using a wand does not provoke an AoO. Aasimars make good oracles, especially with the Heavenly Radiance feat, as suggested above. An oracle is also good for someone new to casters, because the oracle is a spontaneous caster.
If you specifically want to be an undead nuke, the oracle is the way to go but specifically the spirit guide oracle.
Because if you take the life mystery, and channel the life spirit you can have two separate full-strength channel pools each of which are 1+CHAMod uses per day. The life mystery has the same spells as the life spirit, so there would be redundancy, so the way this is usually done is with a Kitsune taking the "Wrecking Mysticism" curse so they can trade away one set of redundant spells for SLA tails.
Something like 16 uses of a 6d6 channel energy per day is going to be about the most useful thing you can have in a "way too many undead" castle.
Someone needs a rope trick + keep watch, or tiny hut. This should fix most of the problem you are having.
If things climb up the rope you fight those creatures are flatfooted and you fight them one at a time and you have full protection from spells.
Tiny hut will let you all rest for the night and then some.
tiny hut is not impenetrable and enough of the nastier undead can easily perceive through the spell via lifesense. CR 5 wraiths, for example, will ignore a tiny hut when they are in range of the tasty morsels sheltered within. In an APL 11 environment, a pack of 8 wraiths is a CR 11 encounter....
Well, there's dimensional lock on the castle, so we can only get out by physically walking out. Problem is some of the rooms reset and we'd be having to fight a trench mist and juju zombies every time.yeah, they'll need an ability to basically tell the monsters to jam it in their ear so that they can rest easily.
Fortunately, the group potentially already has this option to do so via teleport and shadow walk unless there's some hijinks going on I'm not aware of.
Do you have a name for this adventure, or is it a homebrew? This reeks of Tegal Manor...
Wait ... the group is expected to clear an entire castle of 150+ rooms in a single day? That's absurd.
Do the undead come looking for you from other rooms, or are they reactive? Very few undead except vampires and liches are proactive enough to roam about a massive castle at all hours.
Edit: is there a day-night cycle, or is it conveniently, perpetually a dark and stormy night outside? This matters, 'cause I have a cheese build in mind to deal with such a bizarre set-up.
Edit 2: we still need to know how races, ability scores, traits and background skills and if there are any restrictions on purchasing magic items are handled for character creation to provide a build. 'cause oh yeah, I've got something in mind, but I need this information for it to be worth any effort.
Edit 3: who are the other characters in the party, class(es)-wise?
Do you have a name for this adventure, or is it a homebrew? This reeks of Tegal Manor...
Wait ... the group is expected to clear an entire castle of 150+ rooms in a single day? That's absurd.
Do the undead come looking for you from other rooms, or are they reactive? Very few undead except vampires and liches are proactive enough to roam about a massive castle at all hours.
Edit: is there a day-night cycle, or is it conveniently, perpetually a dark and stormy night outside? This matters, 'cause I have a cheese build in mind to deal with such a bizarre set-up.
Edit 2: we still need to know how races, ability scores, traits and background skills and if there are any restrictions on purchasing magic items are handled for character creation to provide a build. 'cause oh yeah, I've got something in mind, but I need this information for it to be worth any effort.
I'm pretty sure we're running Curse of the Crimson Throne and we're currently in Castle Scarwall.
I'll try to reply to the other questions here in an hour when I have a break
I know Castle Scarwall, I have fond memories of the place from my run through Curse of the Crimson Throne.
First - what every character should have received before entry: their choice of undead bane on one weapon; or ghost touch for their armor while within Scarwall. I'm assuming with your having lost two characters in the place that this boon is denied your replacement characters. Which is a shame as Zellara's deck should be granting it to the replacement characters as well.
Second - did you acquire the Shadowcount's bone house? If so - assuming the operation of the item has been figured out - you guys already have a safe resting place in your grubby paws. If not, it can be dealt with.
Third - resting within the place should already be troubling the characters. Resting is best undertaken outside in the barbican no matter what.
Fourth - you can use dimensional travel to exit the place if you are able to successfully dispel the effect temporarily before exiting. This is excessively difficult, but it is possible albeit so unlikely as to not be worth trying. (DC 31 dispel check for most 11th level casters is as good as a no-go.) It isn't dimensional lock but an unhallow with attached dimensional anchor that your divine casters *might* be able to counter with use of their own hallow spells to create temporary pockets of 'neutral space' in which the unhallow and dimensional anchor are ineffective, thusly permitting egress via dimension door or teleport.
Fifth - trench mists are definitely not native to the originally scripted Scarwall. (I doubt they are in the revised version either, so I suspect GM tinkering here.)
Sixth - the good news is that there are places to rest - yes, you do have to exit, but there are a lot of empty spaces in there. Unless the GM has the place crawling with far more undead than scripted, this really should not be an issue.
Finally, you're coming in a level behind the recommended starting level for the adventure. Ouch.
Lemme know the rest when you have it.
Edit 2: we still need to know how races, ability scores, traits and background skills and if there are any restrictions on purchasing magic items are handled for character creation to provide a build. 'cause oh yeah, I've got something in mind, but I need this information for it to be worth any effort.Edit 3: who are the other characters in the party, class(es)-wise?
Races are restricted to core races, and gunslinger, ninja, and samurai I know are restricted classes. I can't use zen archer or alchemist as they're the classes I was running when I died. Ability scores are rolled. 24d6 and drop the lowest 6, so I'll have to do that for each character. Im not aware of any restrictions on traits and background skills. There are no restrictions on buying magic items, just as long as it's all under 82k (starting gold for lvl 11).
As far as other classes in the group, we have a rogue, paladin, barbarian, and I think a sorcerer but he's worthless in Scarwall as he was more of a pyro necromancer magic user. We have one other person but I'm not sure what class he chose. He died same time as me last week and has to create a new character
Do you assign them in desired order? If so, let me know what the ability score array is before race is applied. If not then we might have something quite good to work with depending on how kind your dice are to you.
Also talk to the new character's player as with only a paladin for divine magic the group is hurting to survive in Scarwall and where the campaign goes from there. Hopefully the other player is willing to roll either a Cleric or Oracle. If they're channel energy-focused, let 'em know to snag Align Channel (evil) in addition, by the latest of 13th level. You're going to need it.
It's a shame about core-only races since I had in mind an aasimar with all five Heavenly Radiance feats (as mentioned above). Nonetheless, one of the core races specifically dovetails very nicely with what I have in mind.
So only 3 die are used per ability, so the highest score to start is 18. Generally there'll be 1 or 2 stays with 18, and then your dump stat generally has between 8 and 10. I can roll the stats in a while, but it would help to know how many abilities I really need to focus on and how many I can dump on.
Depends on Class and Builds.
Some classes only need 1 good stat. SAD- Single attribute dependent
Others need 3 good stats. MAD- Multiple Attribute Dependent.
What is the biggest problem you are hoping to fix? Are you running out of spells, hops, or use per Day abilities?So for me personally my biggest problem is that I keep dying. Now a big part of that is the fact that our whole team is ill-equipped for the type of enemies we're facing and our damage has been terrible, making the fights last way too long. Now running out of spells (or anything with limited use per day) is a problem.
My second problem is that I've never used a spell caster so I really have no idea how to build or use one, much less optimize one.
What Materials are you allowed to use?
Figure out exactly what you want to play and we the community can pimp your ride.
For a caster, I'd go with the Spirit Guide Life Oracle.
If you can access 3rd party material look at picking up a familiar and Improve familiar into Positive energy elemental (3pp). Maximized Channels and LOTS of them. You would cleanse this place quick.
Either way, a Life Oracle would be a great benefit to this group.
ghost touch armor and ghost touch holy bane (undead) weapons - especially a disruption weapon - will have out-of-normal benefits. I don't think you'll have the budget to afford a sunblade or I'd highly recommend one of those.
Do not forget lowly items such as holy water and a fair bit of powdered silver for some of your spells. Buy several scrolls of consecrate with the component cost included. If you're feeling a bit mean you might consider a scroll of hallow with another carrying a 'buddy spell' (see the description of hallow) and an altar to your deity and make arrangements to have that bad boy lugged around with you each time the group sets up camp.
daylight can be a lifesaver, especially in a partially charged wand (say 25 charges, so half cost, which is usually reasonable). Consider investing in a burned out grey ioun stone,...
Totally agree with these sentiments.
J
My group is in some 150+ room castle filled with all undead/incorporeal enemies. None of us are really prepared for this as I've already died twice and we're only about 10% clear. I've only been playing Pathfinder for about 2 months since I'm still learning about classes and builds. I'm looking for an optimized build for evil undead. I'm currently lvl 11 and will start out with 82k gold. Thanks for any help you're able to provide!Well you have a few options available to you.
Option 1: Paladin- This is easy and straight forward but not the most powerful option you have. It works well but your resources are more limited or weaker than options 2 and 3. You can still optimize this style of build but you will feel gases out (low on resources) faster than other builds.
Option 2: Paladin Variant Multiclass Cavalier Order of the stars.
Not all groups use VMC. But what makes this better than just plain paladin is that Order of the stars adds more levels to your Lay on hands and your Channel energies. So you can actually accomplish 10d6 channel energy at level 11 if you get the phylactery.Option 3: Spirit Guide Life Oracle with Life Spirit- 2 channel pools and you are a 9th level caster. So you should be looking at like 12+ channels a day, full 9th level caster. one of the stronger options. I quite enjoyed this style of character when I played it.
In my experience, Louise's advice is always good. These are three very good ideas.
Dwarf
Alignment - does not matter, although Neutral or one of the Good alignments depending on your divine caster's alignment. The Paladin doesn't count for your concerns as the Paladin cannot utter a holy word. Clerics and Oracles can and you do not want to be on the wrong end of those characters' alignment-based spells.
11th level Monk (Martial Artist), do not use Unchained for this build since you really, really wanted as good save bonuses as possible.
Ability Scores assigned in order: Wis, Str, Con, Dex, Int, Cha
Dwarves add lots of good stuff for a martial artist. +2 Con and +2 Wis play to your strengths nicely. Level advancement points are assigned either to Str (preferred) or maybe a point into Wis and Con depending on where your dice put you at, especially for Con. In an ideal world you're putting everything you get into Strength, relying on spells from your allies and/or belts for your physical ability scores and a headband of wisdom for Wisdom. Alternatively, owl's wisdom from a buddy goes a long way to boosting up your Wisdom too.
BAB +8/+3
Flurry BAB +9/+9/+4/+4/-1.
Base Saves all three are +7.
Skills at maximum ranks assuming a 10 Int and no favored class bonus selected: Acrobatics, Perception, Sense Motive and Stealth. If you rolled a 12-13 Int or are using your favored class bonus here, maximum ranks of Knowledge (religion) if your divine full caster doesn't pick up this slack. Otherwise assign odd/even numbered level's ranks into Climb and Swim respectively. At 11th level this means 6 ranks in Climb and 5 ranks in Swim. Do both Kn (religion) and alternating ranks of Climb and Swim at a rolled Int of 14 or 15, saving your fcb for hp.
Background skills (from Ultimate Campaign) are invested in maximum ranks of Knowledge (engineering) and Profession (engineer).
Favored Class option for dwarves is rather interesting with this build, but not what I would consider anything close to a recommendation unless you're fighting a terracotta army. Or animated objects of stone. Probably best to stick to the extra hit points unless your Int score is below a 10, in which case use it there.
Class Abilities (in order received):
- AC bonus (2+ Wis bonus), stacks with Dex bonus.
- unarmed strike (1d10)
- Bonus Feats (monk list) at 1st, 2nd, 6th and 10th. I recommend Combat Reflexes, Snake Style, Snake Fang and Snake Sidewind. Unless your dice boned you out of at least a 13 Dex, this is the way to go. These feats give you some significant defensive options in regards to not getting hit by anything once/round other than nat-20's and let you use attacks of opportunity when bad guys you threaten miss you. Which they hopefully will be. You get more bonus feats at 12th,14th, 18th and 20th (although 18th is the last you might see).
- Stunning Fist - at 11th level you can use this 11/day. It's a freebie rider with your best unarmed strike roll 1/round, use it as you deem fit but generally it is best after a debuff applied by another character.
- Evasion which became Improved Evasion at 9th level. Reflex saves are no longer often much of a concern.
- Fast Movement - at 11th level this improves your dwarf's Slow and Steady speed from 20' to 50'. Congratulations, your dwarf moves at the same speed as a horse. Does not stack with haste and certain bits of magical footwear.
- Pain Points: +1 DC of Stunning Fist and Quivering Palm. Kinda keeps Stunning Fist relevant, but it's a tertiary concern.
- Maneuver Training: your BAB for combat maneuvers is +11. Not that we really care right now, but it's there when opportunity presents itself.
- Martial Arts Master: you qualify for Fighter feats. Not that this build particularly cares, although you might once you've acquired the key elements of the build.
- Exploit Weakness is your swift action every round in almost all situations. Defensively this adds half your monk level when successful to AC, CMD and Reflex saves against one enemy for the round that was within 30' of you when you made the check. +5 bonus that stacks with everything else improving to +6 at 12th, getting better from there.
Exquisitely useful against dragons, pit fiends and other nasties that tend to show up solo, provided your (Wis bonus + monk level) is up to snuff. The harder you are to hit, the better, and you do not have a ki pool - this is your version of it and unlike a ki pool it is available as long as you're conscious.
Offensively this lets you add +2 on all attack rolls and utterly ignore hardness and ALL damage reduction of the target for 1 round so long as you are successful - and assuming you can hit the monster's AC of course. DR/epic? You don't care. DR/marshmallow? Still don't care, so long as you can make the check. Beating down a wall of force? If you can make the DC 30, you can do so with alacrity using just your bare, rock-shattering hands.
Note that you can do one or the other unless you find a way to get extra swift actions. Certain spells from your allies might allow this to happen, but we're not banking on that in this write-up.
guidance and other spells and abilities that improve ability checks from your allies are your bread and butter regarding this key ability of yours. Make sure they know that you need them.
- High Jump - you get +11 to jump and always count has having a running start. No ki pool, so you can't jump-teleport, but still no slouch. Don't forget that your 50' base speed adds another +8 on your jump checks for a +19 jumping bonus with your Acrobatics skill.
- Extreme Endurance makes you immune to fatigue and exhaustion. waves of exhaustion shutting down your barbarian, paladin and rogue? Not you. You laugh them off as you beat face. This gets magnificent when you attain 15th level and add immunity to stunning to your list. power word stun and symbols of stunning at that point are no longer a concern.
- Physical Resistance 2 reduces all ability damage, ability drain and ability score penalties by 2 for each attack/instance. Not a lot, but wait until we get to your gear. This improves at 13th, 16th and 19th.
Feats In addition to Improved Unarmed Strike and the four freebie mentioned above, you're free to pick and choose. I recommend Alertness, Skill Focus (Sense Motive) and Skill Focus (Perception), leaving you three feats of choice from 7th, 9th and 11th level. If you want/need maximum save bonuses, then slot in Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will for these 3 feats.
Gear, 82k gp budget
- ring of inner fortitude (greater) (66,000 gp) - this is the lock that fits the key from your physical resistance class ability. Now your monk ignores 8 or less ability damage and ability score penalty / 5 or less ability drain - including curses, rays of enfeeblement ad nauseam, forever, and ever, and ever. A lucky hit by a wraith or dread wraith can get through this - which is why you have the three Snake Style feats and the option for defensive use of Exploit Weakness. In a nutshell, you ignore the ability damage from shadows and similar undead, as well as almost every disease and poison in the game and have a good chance to ignore Con drain by wraiths. If they hit you, which is no guarantee by any means, and if you fail your Fort save to begin with and the divine caster's death ward is missing for some reason. This ring stacks with physical resistance as they are different sources. The ring is the outer layer, physical resistance the inner layer, so to speak. Anything that gets through that might mess you up a little bit ... the same stuff will kill your buddies PDQ.
- ring of sustenance (2,500 gp). No need for water and food, only need 2 hours of sleep and you're good to go. Of course, since you are immune to fatigue, you don't really need to sleep either.
- prayer stick of cure light wounds (3,600 gp) - a command word activated at-will 1st level cure light wounds in a stick. You can repair all of the hit points between fights given enough time, 1d8+1 hp per round, one recipient at a time, that never runs dry. With your hopefully high AC that won't be too much of an issue.
- handy haversack (2,000 gp) You need something to carry stuff in.
- adamantine pickaxe (3,014 gp; 14 lbs) - total encumbrance of 25 pounds with a traveler's outfit.
The reason for the pickaxe is simple: by hook or by crook you use this thing for two reasons: coup-de-grace (X4 damage with a decent Strength when used two-handed is effective) and more importantly to chisel nice big holes in ceiling and walls for letting in natural sunlight. You camp during the day while in Scarwall. If you can finagle a way to have the sorcerer use rope trick for camping, you put the rope smack dab in the middle of the big pools of sunlight you can make with this pickaxe. Nothing that hates sunlight is going to touch you while so encamped. Enjoy! Oh, and this is why your background skill ranks are all about engineering, asides from being a dwarf and toting along a dwarven weapon. ;)
- 7,886 gp to spend as you wish. You don't need an ioun torch, per se, but it's cheaper than an everburning torch, weighs nothing and comes in handy when you need to read stuff in something other than crummy black and white. I'd recommend a light crossbow and a couple cases of bolts and/or a sling and 10 or so stones, especially if the divine caster knows magic stone or magic boulder which works wonderfully with a pouch full of free river stones you fished up from outside the barbican. Budget some to help pay the costs of restoration and stoneskin spells, the casters will be most appreciative of your foresight.
Spells that you want from your allies is mage armor, guidance, heroism, prayer, protection from evil, death ward and haste as often as possible for a variety of reasons. If they are able to share personal spells then they can really ramp your monk up in effectiveness. greater heroism is awesome if you can get it, but it's a scarce resource at this level, as is good hope when available.
What does this all mean?
Out of the box you're bonuses seem kinda bad. Attack sequence is only (base attack + Strength) dealing (1d10+ Strength B or P as you choose). Saves are base 9s plus ability score modifiers. (7 +2 from feats plus ability scores) - however, the dwarf's Hardy racial bonus comes up a lot, adding another 2 to saves against all of the poisons, spells and spell-like abilities, so you're not doing too badly. In short, you "naked" save bonuses are about where median expectations are for making typical lower-end encounter save DCs are fairly often - and you have no spells from your buddies up and running yet. Snake Style gives you some bonuses to Acrobatics, CMD and on Reflex saves against certain annoying occurrances such as falling off of ledges, into pits and being tripped or knocked on your butt that - in some cases - stacks with the dwarf's stability bonus against the same things. +4s add up fast.
What you do have going are, without any modifiers from ability scores, some nice 'native' skill bonuses in your big four skills. Acrobatics without any Dex bonus is +14 (+33 jumping) - if you're not being menanced with enemy attacks, you can take 10 and jump across a 40' chasm or pit with a sufficient length of rope and spike it to the wall on your side, for an example. Stealth is the same bonus of +14 without Dex. Perception and Sense Motive without your Wisdom bonus are sky-high at a +24 and +26 respectively thanks to Snake Style. Big bad about to cave in your skull on round 1 after you've entered Snake Style? Burn an immediate action to make your Sense Motive check to replace your AC against that attack. Your Sense Motive check replaces your attack bonus to confirm critical hits when you threaten them, so on those rare occassions every 4 or 5 rounds when you roll a nat-20, you're almost certain to land the crit home unless they're wearing fortified armor.
Hope that this helps. As-written your offense hurts quite a bit without spells from your caster-buddies - but that's what they're there for, to spell up their non-caster buddies.
Also, remember some of the game's basic tactics. Provide flanking for your party rogue when they're in melee. This helps you hit too, but this unlocks their primary offensive class feature: sneak attack. Fight from tabletops and other forms of 'higher ground' - each little +1 or +2 bonus on attack rolls adds up fast. You may not be able to use Acrobatics too effectively at this juncture - since enemy CMDs are probably hitting 30+ about now - but you can make it very hard to be hit. Fighting defensively massively penalizes your attack rolls but adds - with this guy's ranks of Acrobatics - another +3 dodge bonus to AC and CMD. Etc.
This guy isn't necessarily all about dishing the primary damage per se, he's a form of poor-man's blocker (threatened spaces) and provider of flank to the rogue and barbarian. He should be able to ignore the nastier undead - or at least vex them mightily - and if properly spelled up (much the same for the rogue) - he's a nightmare.
Edit: The other nice thing about hitting this level of play is that the loot gets much, much nicer very quickly. Filling in the holes in your gear will happen fairly fast, alleviating your drain on your spellcaster buddies.
Then again, at this level you're asking for 3rd level and lower spells plus death ward - which the divine caster is going to want as many of those prepared/available as they can get by hook or by crook in this place. This lets them husband 4th, 5th and 6th level spells for dealing with bad guys once they slather you, the rogue and the barbarian in low-level spelled glory.
In my experience, Louise's advice is always good. These are three very good ideas.My group is in some 150+ room castle filled with all undead/incorporeal enemies. None of us are really prepared for this as I've already died twice and we're only about 10% clear. I've only been playing Pathfinder for about 2 months since I'm still learning about classes and builds. I'm looking for an optimized build for evil undead. I'm currently lvl 11 and will start out with 82k gold. Thanks for any help you're able to provide!Well you have a few options available to you.
Option 1: Paladin- This is easy and straight forward but not the most powerful option you have. It works well but your resources are more limited or weaker than options 2 and 3. You can still optimize this style of build but you will feel gases out (low on resources) faster than other builds.
Option 2: Paladin Variant Multiclass Cavalier Order of the stars.
Not all groups use VMC. But what makes this better than just plain paladin is that Order of the stars adds more levels to your Lay on hands and your Channel energies. So you can actually accomplish 10d6 channel energy at level 11 if you get the phylactery.Option 3: Spirit Guide Life Oracle with Life Spirit- 2 channel pools and you are a 9th level caster. So you should be looking at like 12+ channels a day, full 9th level caster. one of the stronger options. I quite enjoyed this style of character when I played it.
I particularly like Options 2 and 3. How do they pick up Life Spirit, or did I miss something obvious?
I particularly like Options 2 and 3. How do they pick up Life Spirit, or did I miss something obvious?In my experience, Louise's advice is always good. These are three very good ideas.My group is in some 150+ room castle filled with all undead/incorporeal enemies. None of us are really prepared for this as I've already died twice and we're only about 10% clear. I've only been playing Pathfinder for about 2 months since I'm still learning about classes and builds. I'm looking for an optimized build for evil undead. I'm currently lvl 11 and will start out with 82k gold. Thanks for any help you're able to provide!Well you have a few options available to you.
Option 1: Paladin- This is easy and straight forward but not the most powerful option you have. It works well but your resources are more limited or weaker than options 2 and 3. You can still optimize this style of build but you will feel gases out (low on resources) faster than other builds.
Option 2: Paladin Variant Multiclass Cavalier Order of the stars.
Not all groups use VMC. But what makes this better than just plain paladin is that Order of the stars adds more levels to your Lay on hands and your Channel energies. So you can actually accomplish 10d6 channel energy at level 11 if you get the phylactery.Option 3: Spirit Guide Life Oracle with Life Spirit- 2 channel pools and you are a 9th level caster. So you should be looking at like 12+ channels a day, full 9th level caster. one of the stronger options. I quite enjoyed this style of character when I played it.
Life Oracle. Spirit guide archetype into Life Spirit. This overlaps the spells but gives you 2 channel pools of 1+CHA. Some people will go Kitsune and take magical tails in place of Life mystery spells then get those spells back with the Spirit guide archetype. Not losing spells Known while picking up magical tails SLAs.
If you're running the hardbound version, you are supposed to be 13th level at the beginning of this chapter and should be 14th sometime during your exploration of the castle. If you're only 11th level, and all of you are unprepared and inexperienced, then it's suicide - every battle will be at a minimum difficult, at most impossible. Furthermore, the book clearly states that there are only a limited number of random encounters, and there's nothing that I see about "respawning" encounters, either. Your GM is at best, unaware of what he/she is doing, at worst... nvm.
There's only 1 option.
You're missing ammunition entirely unless "paueliel" generates infinite arrows for you.
You desperately need a melee weapon of some sort. Suggest either a silversheen or mithral cestus at a bare minimum, making it +1 would be better.
Trait: +1 Will saves (find one you like) - long term your Will save scales slower than your Fort and Reflex, so every little nudge helps.
Regarding Spells
aspect of the bear and barkskin do not stack with your amulet of natural armor as both spells and the amulet provide enhancement bonuses to natural armor - probably want to drop both of those spells.
ward of the season is an elf-exclusive spell, fyi. I presume your character has somehow acquired permission to acquire this spell.
Suggested prepared Ranger spells: CL 8th, concentration +15
- 3rd (3/day) named bullet (2) , ward of the season
- 2nd (3/day) gravity bow (2), halt undead
- 1st (4/day) acute senses (+20 enhancement bonus on Perception checks for 8 minutes), delay poison, feather step (2)
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I'm the only one in the group at 11, the others are 12 or 13. The only reason I'm at 11 is due to joining the game late and dying twice and my XP resetting to the lvl min (105k)If you're running the hardbound version, you are supposed to be 13th level at the beginning of this chapter and should be 14th sometime during your exploration of the castle. If you're only 11th level, and all of you are unprepared and inexperienced, then it's suicide - every battle will be at a minimum difficult, at most impossible. Furthermore, the book clearly states that there are only a limited number of random encounters, and there's nothing that I see about "respawning" encounters, either. Your GM is at best, unaware of what he/she is doing, at worst... nvm.
There's only 1 option.
That's even worse. Not only are you gimped to the point where you will continually die, but tbe party is as well. Has your GM ever done this before?
Maybe an alternative would be to go Oath of the Skyseeker Paladin - it gives you a reusable smite evil, as long as there is a similar target (same type & subtype) as the one you originally smited within 30 feet. Thus, you shouldn't worry about running out of gas immediately.
This can also of course be combo'd with VMC Cavalier, as Louise mentioned earlier, and might also help with survivability - but then again, a Paladin is nothing if not survivable.
EDIT: If this is literally also a 150 room dungeon, with a few minutes of rest between encounters, this might be where a Kineticist gets to shine. Specificially, an Aether Kineticist, given that with its defense talent, you get a buffer of temporary HP that also blocks secondary effects - if it doesn't get through your temporary HP, that is.
Maybe something like an Earth / Aether Kineticist? That would allow you to glide through walls to scout and see what's happening, be constantly invisible (can't target what you can't see), give you both DR = 1/2 your class level and temporary HP, limited flight, and a lot of other goodies - one of which also being a constant AoE with the Impact infusion.
If you want constant flight and level 14 is too long to wait, you can always also tack on VMC Wizard (Air school) to have Fly at will @ L10.
As has been pointed out, as-scripted the place is enormous but is not what the OP's GM is doing to it.
Trench mists shouldn't be in there at all. There aren't an infinite supply of wandering monsters to encounter. Scarwall is nasty, but it's not clear-the-entire-place-in-one-go nasty. That'd take a much higher level party to pull off.
With the right tool and investing semi-worthless background skill ranks plus a rope trick from the sorcerer the group can camp safely within the main castle once they create sufficient openings in ceiling and walls to bathe the group's camping spot in natural sunlight. Then they camp during the day and rest with relative impunity inside said rope trick.
If you're running the hardbound version, you are supposed to be 13th level at the beginning of this chapter and should be 14th sometime during your exploration of the castle. If you're only 11th level, and all of you are unprepared and inexperienced, then it's suicide - every battle will be at a minimum difficult, at most impossible. Furthermore, the book clearly states that there are only a limited number of random encounters, and there's nothing that I see about "respawning" encounters, either. Your GM is at best, unaware of what he/she is doing, at worst... nvm.
There's only 1 option.
In the 3.5 original version the group should have certain undead-specific boons in place and be at absolute minimum of 12th level when starting Scarwall. The group is expected to have access to 7th level spells at the latest mid-way through the complex...
Jeez the poor OP.
As has been pointed out, as-scripted the place is enormous but is not what the OP's GM is doing to it.
Trench mists shouldn't be in there at all. There aren't an infinite supply of wandering monsters to encounter. Scarwall is nasty, but it's not clear-the-entire-place-in-one-go nasty. That'd take a much higher level party to pull off.
With the right tool and investing semi-worthless background skill ranks plus a rope trick from the sorcerer the group can camp safely within the main castle once they create sufficient openings in ceiling and walls to bathe the group's camping spot in natural sunlight. Then they camp during the day and rest with relative impunity inside said rope trick.
To clarify, if the 2nd new character coming in has access to control weather - which is probable - they can guarantee bright sunny skies while they are encamped in their rope trick amidst that beautiful pool of sunlight. A bit spell intensive, but not overly so given the dangerous environment that they're in.