Alaka-ooze's page

How much of your GM's intentions behind the combat are your suppositions and how much did he actually clarify at the table?

As a GM myself, I try to make sure that - all other things being equal - particularly challenging monsters lay their destruction on the PCs that can take a few hits, i.e. the ones who are buffed to the gills. Normally, one might think that would be the 'front liners'. If you've made it clear through your choices and your buffing that you're a front liner, too, then naturally you would get a good taste of the foe's savagery.
Now your GM said he was targeting power gamers. I don't know what that means in his opinion but again, if you were in my game and you enhanced your Constitution so that your hit points rivaled our front liners and your Strength so that your attacks and damage rivaled our front liners and perhaps your AC so that you're defenses rivaled our front liners, my monster would treat you like a front liner.

Well, I talked with him after the table after getting hit by two of the above-mentioned horrible little homebrew monsters that nobody could physically hurt except one of our archers (Smaug Arrows, I've taken to calling the weapons the DM gave the guy), by myself and without the rest of the party around to back me up until I was basically out of spells. Our other 'frontliners' only had to hold off one, together. Take that how you will. . .

I don't really know a good idea of what's good for my guys' level for hp, though; is 140ish decent or no? He's level 13.

He's literally told me he's targeting people he perceives are powergaming.

Find a new GM.

Well, yes, that remains as the nuclear option. But I'd rather not resort to that until I'm either ripshit pissed or just utterly sickened.

Clerics can "tank" just fine. They are proficient with shields after all.

In fact, depending on what domains you chose, they can be rather good melee combatants.

I think his reply to my statement like that was something along the lines that Fighters can use Heavy Armor, and Clerics can't. I've taken a feat, however, that lets me use Tower Shields, so I don't much see what prevents me from taking a feat to use Heavy Armor, personally. :P

Aight, here's the situation. Same DM as my previous AC advice question, but this time I'm having a bit more a person to person issue; namely, the DM is under the belief that Clerics can't be tanks, and that only Fighters/Barbarians/what-have-you have a place in the front lines.

He went so far as to say that the point of Clerics are to buff and be healers. He did eventually concede that Clerics can, after all that nonsense, assist in close-combat, but basically the general thrust of his argument was that Clerics are purely support and can't really tank or fight.

Where it actually became a bit of an issue with me, however (besides the rather obvious 'Heal-gimp' scenario), was when he conceded to targeting people who he thought weren't playing their characters the way he thought they should be played; IE, he targeted my guy with this homebrewed monster that could hit like a mack-truck and do so many times a turn, because he figured I was buffing myself too much and not everyone else.

Now, I get partially where he's coming from; I should spread the magical-love a bit, yes. However, where I have a great issue is the idea that classes are built for one thing, and that if it's not according to what the DM thinks, he's just going to lay down the hand of god and start being a wanker about the entire thing.

I can concede certain points, don't misunderstand me, but the idea that there's only one primary role for a cleric, and that any deviation from that role should be punished, irks me. He said it was because he was targeting 'powergamers,' but this doesn't exactly strike me as being entirely honest. . .

How are you set for non-AC defense? Do you have Divine Interference to block most critical hits against the party? Any re-rolls for important saving throws? Got anything to turn aside sneak attacks and crits? Does one of the front-liners wield a reach weapon whose threat zone you can shelter inside (without blocking AoOs, due to size) ? Got DR?

THAT is a nifty feat I am going to pick up, ASAP.

If you mean saving throw stuff, I'm tolerable (not really well off, but tolerable), due to ward-shield, spell immunity, and personally applied SR. I can make someone have to succeed twice just to hit me, and then I can make my save at +5 reflex for AOEs.

I don't think there are any spells that Clerics can apply to allow rerolls, and my saving throws are 11 for fort, 8 for reflex, and 15 for Will. These are all pre-bonus, and haven't had any magical increasing. I get an additional +1 for all spell instigated saves.

I have blind-sense, which lets me know if something is sneaking up on me for most situations, but nothing that specifically turns aside sneak attacks and crits. Thankfully, the DM hasn't thrown Rogues or other sneak attack creatures at us in a very long time.

None of the 'Front-liners' really have longer distance weapons, save for the Ranger, who has a bow.

No DR, sadly. :(

I have a hard time seeing how level 13-14 characters can reasonably be "unpaid grunts". Those are the levels casters can literally create planes of existence. If your COs are badass enough to deny you a proper paycheck, they should be able to fight the war themselves.

Funny you should mention the whole 'create planes of existence' bit . . . in a particularly bad situation that nearly ended in a TPK, I basically ending up punting our non-casting boss-foe of the session into the plane of Acid.

To get away from the Counter-monkeying, though . . . you have a point there; we probably should raise the issue, in all honesty. There are WITCHES of CR 8 that have STICKS that deal more damage due to magic buffs than some of our stuff. . .

Maybe your GM has just been snickering to himself, just waiting for you (or your characters, anyway) to realize you deserve a raise.

Try pushing the matter IC next session, see what happens.

I'll give that a whirl and see what happens. Thanks!

Are you already doing those things?

Ahahaha . . . I use pretty much all of those spells all the time (they really are the best for most situations), so, yeah, I am. I can have an AC of 50 for about 13 minutes, 53 for 13 rounds, without spell extension. But everyone is basically kit out to be the most ultimate of ultimate glass-cannons, and now is the part in the game where those start to shatter if they aren't thought out well . . .

And I don't have Platemail, just a breastplate, currently; I'd love to get some Mithral Platemail, in all honesty, as I'm starting to get close to my carry capacity.

And I can't afford the Pearls of Power, sadly. Might be, after we talk to him, but until then, I'm assuming the worst.

@ GuardianLord

Been using Summons more recently, but don't have the cash to make items, unfortunately. The Summon route is a bit negated by the fact that most of the time, we rarely get the jump on anything; between 8 people rolling for stealth, there's a 2/5 chance SOMEONE is going to roll a nat 1 (any yes, there have been recommendations that not everyone go to and jump the targets all at once; they haven't gone well). I'm also the follower of a LG deity, unfortunately, so Infernal healing is out of the question. Concealment, though, might be workable, but the DM has started pitting us against creatures that have blind-sight and such, as well as creatures that use cone attacks and AOEs; not sure how that interacts with Concealment style buffs off the top of my head, in all honesty.

@Ulfen Death Squad

The party is part of a military, and we're less adventurers than unpaid grunts. We're basically fighting the apocalypse for minimum wage.

As for feats, I've got Tower Shield proficiency, Shield Focus, Toughness, Dodge, and Improved Nat Armor(+1) for defensive styled ones, and my Kobold's HP is about 142, with a Nat armor of 6. I can continue taking Improved Nat armor to increase my nat armor bonus more and more, but eventually +1 armor every 2 levels is going to plateau in effectiveness (though, if I don't take it any further, Nat armor will still get to roughly +8 when Dragon bloodline stuff concludes in giving me armor). I've got a few ranks in acrobatics so I can get +6 for total defense actions, but those sorts of things are only effective up to a point (movement is 20 feet due to all the armor, for example, but I'll be able to fly soon enough and thusly be able to move 60 feet).

This stuff is useful, though; please, tell me if you have any more ideas.

Alrighty, here's the situation. DM doesn't exactly give anyone money for magic items (so . . . basically no loot drops), and what few magic items we DO have we've had for the longest time. There are a few houserules in effect, but nothing too major besides him allowing my Kobold Cleric to multiclass in Dragon Disciple and count spell-scaling from it in Cleric, and artificially inflating the saving rolls of monsters (so good old 'save or suck' is out of the question).

Here's how the party is decked out:

First is a Pally, with a Vorpal weapon, +2 magic armor, and a Holy G%#-d$+n Avenger, robbed from our second Pally (don't ask . . .) Has a Cleric follower who's been hounding my ass to basically act like the party's heal-gimp since jump.

The second is also a Pally, with an emphasis on healing and skills/diplomacy. This character was clearly built more for role-play and less for crunch. He originally had a Holy Avenger, before he made a big mistake involving a CE NPC. A grappler, for the most part.

Third is a Ranger. Has a super-bow that basically lets him do +infinite damage to CE creatures that are undead.

Fourth is who our party decided was Tank, the Inquisitor. He's got a super-mask from the DM that basically gives him +10 AC, stackable. Cool dude, dickish character.

Fifth, sixth and seventh are a Sorcerer, Sorcerer, and monk. None are really important.

And Eighth is me. Kobold Cleric. No longer has a magic item after the DM let me burn it to Rez our second Pally (yes, I didn't have the 5k to get some crushed diamond). Now only has mundane armor, weapons, and feats to aid him, as well as his spells

The problem? We're all level 13/14, and besides me, nobody has 30+ AC, including our 'tank'. I'm currently using a breastplate, tower shield, dodge, Dex, nat armor stuff, and a couple of other things/feats, and have a grand total of 31 AC. After using my two 'prepping for the day' spells, that increases to 37. My TAC is in a similar boat; two spells and it's at about 28. My saves are decent, but don't particularly matter when a super-monster is nomming on my spleen (one monster we had to deal with recently was some sort of homebrew tentacle thing that could make two standard actions in a single turn, could use 6 tentacles as at will attacks to things within 10 feet, could fly, was invulnerable to all sorts of damage save for a certain weapon, and could cast Suffocation at 12CL).

And while I realize that some people are saying 'don't get into an arms race with the DM', the fact is that I've basically been driven into a corner and now actively have to cheese the system to survive.

So . . . what can I do to improve my AC? And, perhaps less importantly, how can I persuade my party that I'm more than capable of being tank, despite being a Kobold that weighs 27lbs, soaking wet?