I think it's cool that you're willing to listen to feedback from us. In my opinion, the best way to increase the difficulty is to add mooks to the battles. If you think about it, most of our battles have been with one or two strong enemies. That makes it easy to focus all of our damage/debuffs on one target.
Give us battles with bigger groups of weaker enemies, terrain difficulties, etc, and it should end up being more challenging.
It was an interesting expirament. Don't feel bad for trying.
I agree that adding more mooks is the way to go. Play around with templates too take Burning Skeletons for example - they explode when they die, adds more dynamic to a fight. You can try more objective based encounters but not tied to a single repeatable action.
On a different note Anyone interested in trying out some teamwork feats? I think I've mentioned before that while I'd like Outflank Drak doesn't have 4 bab - Rybal, would you prehaps be interested in Tandem Trip?
That would be pretty nasty, but I'm actually leaning towards Weapon Focus. I'm looking ahead and it seems like the most logical choice.
Right best I explain the experiment I was trying, didn't quite work out how I wanted it to but I will try a bit harder with it. Basically I wanted to give you guys a combat with more than the objective of 'kill them' as you guys burn through CR+(2-3) appropriate challenges with ease. I will try to bake in more objectives so you guys have a bit more of a challenge on your hands with each fight. If people do have suggestions or critiques as I go along with this do say, it would be much appreciated.
Love your ideas. They tend towards giving a 'new' feel to the game.
Ok... In a pickle.
Thinking of level 5 feats.
I had initially created the character to be a bit of a Gish - able to melee (E6 is great for Gandalf style characters who can fight Orcs and goblins and still be casters), but the last few encounters were just not a good idea for Variel to jump in on... Add to that the fact that witches are just so damn versatile and rarely lack for options. Melee at that point seems a waste.
Do I take arcane strike, a feat that helps my knowledges (an area I tend to roll crap on) or go for the Cauldron / brew potion option and start passing out potions - assuming I can elect to make them CL1 or 3 and not 5, they should be cheap enough or the same but with Scribe Scroll?
I am a bit directionless here so any and all suggestions appreciated.
I'd be down for precise strike - adding an additional sneak attack die is kinda nice, even if it's less interesting then other options. Between your Grace and my invis flanking shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.
Honestly I've never used any teamwork feats before and I am sort of itching to try some, and thought this would be a good game to try some if anyone else was interested.
I think it's cool that you're willing to listen to feedback from us. In my opinion, the best way to increase the difficulty is to add mooks to the battles. If you think about it, most of our battles have been with one or two strong enemies. That makes it easy to focus all of our damage/debuffs on one target.
Give us battles with bigger groups of weaker enemies, terrain difficulties, etc, and it should end up being more challenging.
Yep. Pretty much this.
Don't forget also the other things you can do TO mooks. Add a bard or bless spell? Those mooks are now +1 to hit... They can aid another to create some awesome combat manuevers... Buff them with area effect spells as well. They can pre-drink potions in prepared combats too. Splash weapons can be effective - 4 mooks throwing alchemical fire? Pain. Throwing tanglefoot bags? Great for movement debuffs.
Prayer would be even better then bless.
(Also remember that bless stacks with prayer which stacks with bard inspire courage. At least with the +hit bonus - it's been a common mistake in my expirience that people think they don't.)
Evangelist Cleric? Could potentially do it all in a single body.
One other thing you can use - Weather Effects.
Prayer would be even better then bless.
(Also remember that bless stacks with prayer which stacks with bard inspire courage. At least with the +hit bonus - it's been a common mistake in my expirience that people think they don't.)
Evangelist Cleric? Could potentially do it all in a single body.
One other thing you can use - Weather Effects.
Evangelist clerics are cool.
Another cool thing about E6 is that, with our limited max caster level, things that are normally not crazy good in regular PF can be a really strong challenge for us. For example, if the Man in White is a Level 9 Bard (maybe Sandman Bard archetype) with high UMD skill who is not actually a super potent caster on his own, but steals magic from other sources--that could be a really cool twist. He sends all of his converted, unwilling lackeys (buffed of course) at us and further buffs them during the fight and strips away our buffs/ steals our casters' spells. That would be awesome.
Again, not trying to rewrite your story because it's good, just showing an example of how mob tactics could be written into your already existing story.
Will take a day or so to think about my level 5 feat choice... toughness isn't entirely silly as a choice either... will take me to 35hps and I would finish HP-ing up at 41-42hps... pretty tough for a spell slinger.
Thanks for all the suggestions :)
I shall try to include a set of mooks in the next encounter and see how it fairs, maybe have something that is one CR below as the leader and lots of little guys. I shall still try to bake in an objective so if feels more dynamic than just kill em. ^^
As for your leveling up when you have decided on your choices include them in a spoiler here in the discussion.
Since it came up, I very recently read what I felt would be a good guide about designing encounters. It's a bit on the 'mathy' side of CR and less design but I thought it was an interesting read - passing it along here. If you don't like it don't worry it won't hurt my feelings.
I'm alive, sorry all! Somehow accidentally hid the thread and didn't notice. Will get Rikaku levelled up asap. Was thinking of going down the Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot route Drak suggested a while back.
At level 5 I get:
+9 HP (includes favored class)
+1 BAB
4 skills
--Acrobatics, Climb, Intimidate, Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
Ready Pike (Ex)
Weapon Focus (Bardiche)
Eek. Lots of server issues for Paizo lately.
Here's Rikaku's level up bonuses:
+5 HP
3 skill ranks (Spellcraft [2], Perception)
+1/2 damage to cold spells (fav. class bonus)
Level 5 feat: Point-Blank Shot
Sorcerer bonus feat: Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
Hoping Trogg or Variel wants to pick up Ritual Spellcaster at some point once we hit 6th :)
I haven't yet picked my spells know yet though. I have two new spells, 1st and 2nd level. Any suggestions?
Was thinking endure elements (or maybe communal endure) might be handy considering our latest exploits... invisibility could be very useful too, or glitterdust.
Useful link Drak, might use some of these on the upcoming fights.
Still haven't chosen my level 5 feat... I'll take arcane strike. I can use it for a lot of things.
Feat - Teamwork feat Precise Strike
sneak attack damage now 3d6
favored class benefit 1 hp (Total HP Gained - 8)
Been quite busy today, will post first thing in the morning GMT.
Any knowledge skills apply here?
:)
Thanks for waiting for me--i can post my move in a few hours. Very excited for this battle!
Darn.
Drak will take Quickdraw then.
Yea it's fine to shop around for new feats.
I have tried contacting Trogg but I don't think he has logged into the site for a while at all. So not sure what's going on with that. If he isn't back by the end of the combat Variel can take the wands as I think he can use all of them? We're still at a stable 5 participants so we should be good aside from losing our druid. :(
Sucks to lose another player. Looks like only Variel and I are remaining from the original crew. Good thing we got 'extra' fresh meat last time :)
And I love the new guys too. Helps that one of them was just as awesome in a CC pbp I was in.
Feedback: That was cool encounter.
I love how you mixed up that encounter, I love how you allowed us to have an outcome in negating part of the encounter by successful application of a skill.
That was good GMing all round and good encounter design.
Not sure of the CL rating of the encounter but it would not have been an easy one without those minotaurs and even harder with the witch involved. It may have seemed like we got off easy but encounters just roll that way at times and not every encounter needs to be deadly in its intensity.
Thoughts on Post level 6.
We are now getting towards level 6, and I am excited. It wont be long (all things being relative) now before we are in the 'E' part of the E6 model with the additional feats.
Am a bit torn for choices on my first epic level feat post level 6.
Do I take major hex or improved familiar? I know I want both. I also want to bump my Int by 1 point. Gives my spell and hex DCs a bump and gives me an extra level 1 spell (and 6 new skill points which I am looking forward to).
If I go Major Hex I am thinking Major Healing Hex. Not because its the most favoursome or cool but it does make me a very good healer because the major hex and the normal hex are considered separate. IE I can use both on you once each day. I should probably look to getting some buff spells but to be honest, we really don't need buffing as yet.
I am enjoying my character - I can fill multiple roles. There is no doubt that Rikaru is the blaster of the group but Variel can throw out some hurt as a blaster. He is a healer and he is something of an ineffective skill monkey. He can melee and if this game plays on for another year or more I'll throw some feats into making him an archer too.
But any other suggestions?
Also am torn on my level 6 hex option.
Do I a) Go misfortune. Its a great debuff b) Fortune - its a great buff or c) go for something wierd and wacky like nails or prehensile hair OR something really off the wall like 'Scar'?
Hear me out. Scar allows me to hex a target from a mile away. It can be used to convey distance hexes instead of touch hexes. See some possibilities here? I could scar you all ritually and then heal you from a comfortable distance (and possible fortune hex at a later time).
If anyone was curious about the CR.
There were four CR1.
Three CR2.
Three CR3.
Then the witch was CR5.
I designed the witch in a bit of a different way, the wind wall effect she had was a defensive mechanism that you could exploit. It redirects any ranged effects or spells to her minions on the battlefield. (So she survives longer) She had less defence that pretty much every thing there except the kobolds. So figuring that out you could fire ranged attacks or spells at her to more easily kill the minions. You could engage her in Melee but the downside is she is a Minotaur so can hold her own against multiple foes.
The other 3 minotaurs were effectively CR2.5, I downgraded them from actual minotaurs, took away their power attack and gave them bodyguard instead. They were there to help weather the blows, of course I wasn't expecting side by side fighting until Rybal gave me the idea.
You used skills to mitigate part of the encounter, which is fine in my book.
All in all though, even though it wasn't as difficult as planned I still managed to do decent damage to the players and it was a fun set up. Hectic on my end to do all the calculations but I do enough number crunching at work this is simple enough ^^.
As for your build there could be plenty ways to go, I mean one way a healer can work is by preventing damage. As it is basically effective healing, if the thing didn't hurt you then there is nothing to heal. So major hexes such as Ice Tomb could be worth a look at. The only thing bad about it is it targets fortitude which is often a decent save. Though would be good at taking out casters or something from the combat to kill them later.
Retribution is another good source of crowd control, as you can hit the bruisers with it and then even if they try to do a lot of damage they will take quite a bit in return.
Misfortune boosts either of those hexes of course, as they will have a much lower chance of getting out of the cackle loop of not being able to do anything.
Ward on Rybal or Malthu can but a dent in most of the enemy plans as they already have high AC.
That's just some ideas on my end, I find witch can really fill a lot of different types of supporting roles just by hex choice. Sometimes you really do feel spoiled!
Hi guys... things seem to have slowed down some.
The story is ramping up nicely though, (unfortunately down one flaming sphere to deal with a white dragon).
Is there any issues with anyone thats slowing posting?
I think it might be if someone doesn't have anything to add they don't say anything. So usually if I see that posting has slowed I move on, I think people have different interests to the different scenes. At least from what I gather. Like Rikaku enjoys the dragon bits, Rybal enjoys planning for a fight etc.
Guys I got 36 hours to put together a comprehensive site support contract - a task that nominially takes weeks. Will be not posting for about 2 days.
Sounds like IT or perhaps maintenance where a custom contract is needed (rather than one that is prewritten) and a lot of money is being thrown at the company to do it in a rushed fashion.
Good luck with that! I will post shortly.
PSU decided to die, sorry for the radio silence. Will post when I have a replacement tomorrow.
Sweet - A reprieve from the Man in White.
Hope you get better soon.
Still a bit sick - if things really kick off, then bot me.
Obviously there is a contagion spreading through the forums.
Hi all - tween lack of sleep from insomnia and my aniversary today I'm calling it a day here. Will post in 12 or so hours.
The items after this fight will give you powerful boons that are either uses per day or a bonus of some kind for performing specific actions.
Hey guys, just wanted to say sorry for Rybal's bossiness in this fight. His pre-fight vision, coupled with his desire to kill the man in white, is bringing out his soldierly instincts--that's why he's barking out his commands. Feel free to argue with him/ignore him. ;-)