Eric Levanduski's page

Since everyone was so helpful with my current character in another thread of mine I thought I'd ask everyone for some advice with how I can get some battlefield controlling elements into blasting in a new character. I know blasting is frowned upon because you are God and is below you, but entertain me.

The goal is to make a playable blaster from 1-20 who not does not sacrifice damage for battlefield control because he doesn't have to. I looked over psionic hamster's missile mage and other's suggestions and this is what I got so far:

Human Wizard(PFS Variant, Admixture Specialist Variant)[traits: Magical Lineage (Magic Missile), Precocious Spellcaster (Magic Missile)]
Familiar (Greensting Scorpion)
forbidden schools: Necromancy,Divination

Feats:
1.)Toppling Spell
Wiz) Spell Focus(Evocation)
Human)Varisian Tattoo (Evocation)
3.)Spell Specialization (Magic Missile)
5.)PBS, GSF(Evo) or Spell Penetration
Wiz)Rime Spell
7.)GSF(Evo), Spell Pen, Selective Spell, or Greater Spell Pen

Notes:

At level 1, you are casting Toppling Magic Missiles that can trip 2 targets (at 3+INT) for fun. Of course you also have color spray, grease and sleep if you wanted to do something other than what your magical lineage dictates.

At level 3 you are casting your Toppling Magic Missiles at CL-7 (4 bolts!)

At level 4 you switch your spell specialization to Scorching Ray. This kicks your Glorious trip rockets down to CL-6 (3 missiles :< ) but you gain a dual-ray scorching ray. Being able to do 8d6 at level 4 in whatever type of elemental damage you want is pretty impressive.

At level 5 you gain rime spell. Now you are doing 4d6 damage and entangle for 2 rounds. You also have 4 trip rockets. Your feats open up here letting you get what your DM is throwing at you. Need higher DCs? GSF. Spell Resistance? Spell Pen. and of course... PBS for scorching ray fun.

At level 6 you switch your spell specialization to (?????)
Note: In my original plan I was going with the 3.5 spell Manyjaws (and eventually toppling manyjaws) Anyone have any thoughts what I should replace it with? I suppose Fireball could work as a place holder. (9d6 in any element of your choice).

At level 7 you have Entangling Cold Fireballs in addition to all 4th level fun spells.

I have no idea what else I can put into this later on from level 7.

I think it is important to stress that this guys is basically has all the abilities of a controller but also happens to hit pretty darn hard.

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

Hello,

Now I'm not very experienced when it comes to tabletop RPGs and this is my first ever arcane caster, but every guide and topic I've read seems to suggest that I am playing a wizard effectively. I disagree.

To get to the point, I basically feel I am not getting the desired effects of playing a God-like wizard that I want. (My wizard is both a Treantmonk's Battlefield Controller "God" and a character with a a slight superiority complex.) I'm expecting 2-3 spell combination auto-win a fight style wizardy and all I end up doing is making some glittery orcs puke. :/

To provide a bit of background, I play in a weekly desert campaign (APL is currently 7.5). I play an infernal teifling conjurer with an ego and taste for finer things in life. (unlike the filthy demonic teifling magus peasant that keeps following him around.) Asides from the new magus player, we also have a summoner, a fighter, and a stalwart defender that bring the pain up front. Our last member is a cleric who is typically working triple overtime making sure these 4 still have their precious bodily fluids. (I constantly remind him he can conserve resources by simply not healing the magus >:D )

We have had our share of fights with undead, orcs, trolls and we recently have been dealing with a sect of rust-monster riding barbarians. I mention this because I feel that humanoids and giants will continue to be what we are forced to face and will help with spell choice decision making. Also fire resistant creatures and monsters are common.

All paizo material is allowed as well as some 3.5 stuff (spell compendium for instance is ok). The only houserule my DM has is that death effect spells are 3.5 death effect spells.

We are about to get to a library where I can finally find and scribe some decent level 4 spells down. Prior to, I have been making do with borrowing a spellbook of a dwarven pyromaniac. The reason I'm coming to you all now is that since UM came out I have a good chance of being able to "re-train" and tweak my character a little bit as far as feats and spells go to accommodate new source material at this time as well.

My feats are Toughness, Improved Initiatve, Disruptive Spell, Focused Spell, and Sudden Maximize

Every major combat so far has been a derivative of this forumla:

What happens when I follow this formula:

Out of character, I feel like I'm doing things right. The more experienced members of the group who are helping me have never once said I was doing something especially stupid, but nonetheless I am disappointed at my wizard not auto-winning fights or playing up to my percieved potential. I also know I will only get better when I have more and more spells but I thought I would be contributing more than what I am doing now.

As far as improving goes, I'm looking over UM and I really think I should go for more evocation focused play. Toppling magic missles, toppling many jaws, disruptive many jaws, and hydrolic pushing mounted barbarians off their rust monsters seems more of what I am looking for.. but perhaps I'm wrong and could just be doing more with what I have already.

Thank you for reading and I hope a few of you are nice enough to help me out.

I've decided I'll keep a log of the events of my group here online.

First, I'll share a little bit about the players and then I'll do the cast of characters. We are all either juniors or seniors in college. My group's total amount of pen and paper experience totals to about a 1.75 years. (I being 1.5 years worth of it.) I gave them all the option of whether or not they wanted to play the a classic save the world game (Rise of the Runelords) or a indiana-jones jungle adventure game (Serpent's Skull).

Cast of Characters:

Saldlon of the Vial, LN Elf Alchemist
Played by my friend Dan. (The one who makes up the remaining .25 years of gaming). Not much is known of Saldlon. Boarded in Cheliax, he is travelling to Sargava to continue his personal alchemical research. He is socially aloof but extremely knowledgeable. Very sarcastic/arrogant.

Olandir Onyxbeard, CG Dwarven Barbarian (Invlunerable Rager)
Played by my friend Matt. Olandir was a dwarven soldier when the drow attacked his clan's hold somewhere in Varisia. He hid while his whole clan was massacred. His personal cowardice combined with the gruesome scene forced him to flee and get away from it all. He took the first boat out of Magnimar. Perhaps here he can regain some of his honor and quell the burning rage that is building within him. He is quite peculiar, personality wise. He owns 10 pounds of soap and remains as clean as possible.

Piper Peppergrin N Halfling Bard (Savage Skald)
Played by my friend Thom. Piper is from Whistledown in Varisia. He is a kind-hearted halfling and always had big dreams. He blames his lofty ambitions from the comics of Grognak the Barbarian he read as a boy. He left for Magnimar to live among the tall folk and hear more stories of adventurers. He got a rude awakening in Magnimar when he realized how terrible most people are. They made fun of his shortness but the kid kept up hope as a tavern waiter. He loved hearing the stories Don Tomas de Colours would share with him. He told Piper he too could be a hero and if he has the cojones he should catch up with him in Eleder sometime. Piper dreams of being a barbarian hero like Grognak from his comics, a Noble Paladin like Don Tomas. In the meantime he is okay with playing his flute and smoking fayleaf (basically weed) for musical inspiration. He wields a halfling warsling (which is described by him as a glorified lacrosse stick).

Deirdre McRath, NG Half-Elf Druid (with Balor the Tiger)
Played by my girlfriend, Beth. Deirdre also comes from Varisia.. from a town called Willow Pond near the Ember Lake. She was an orphan and constantly bullied as a child due to her elven heritage, and spent her time in school attempting to develop a charming personality to fit in. When she entered into he teen years with little success she began to withdraw, spending more and more time in solitude in the forest. She befriended a tiger cub and was taught the druidic path from Bretta, an elderly druid from Willow Pond. She got in a slight incident involving her tiger almost mauling a boy so she, too, left for Magnmiar looking for the first boat out. Maybe on her adventures she'll find out something about her elven mother.

Olivia, N Human Witch
Played by Dan's girlfriend, Steph. She is a newcomer who hasn't provided me with a full backstory yet. She has an owl familiar and I believe either deception or trickery as her patron. I'll update her backstory when she sends it to me.

My thoughts on the party:

WOW. I can't get over how good these backstories are for people who never played any sort of tabletop RPG before. Everyone (besides Seldlon and Olivia since they haven't sent me an official backstory) loved the 10 minute backstory and the creation of a background for their character. (If you don't know what this is, it is a wonderful template someone made on the wotc boards that I've shamelessly stolen to help my beginner players with what I'm looking for in a backstory.) Since mostly everyone is from Varisia, I'm thinking about as the campaign progresses having a portal to Viperwall and running some stuff up there that ties into the serpentfolk/characters backstories.

Next up is a rundown of our first 3 sessions.

I was thinking about using bear traps in creative ways... most notably throwing them at people!

Assuming I took catch-off-guard/throw anything... does this actually work?

how would this work in combat? I would throw a bear-trap into a square occupied by an enemy.. which would trigger the +10/2d6+3 damage?

Hello,

I have 4 first time players in my savage tide game. They are battling through Kraken's Cove and loving the story so far.

My problem is scheduling the times we play. We all want to play more, I want DM more, but none of us want to continue on in the game unless everyone is there. It is usually only one of us who has plans and cannot make the DnD game, leaving the 3 other players and myself waiting until the next possible time to play and continue the story. The players and I don't want someone to miss out on any developments as they hunt down that scoundrel Vanthus.

So I was thinking about running another campaign for whoever can make it and it be related to the Savage Tide campaign now. Unfortunately I'm having trouble thinking of ideas for a campaign. I wanted to maybe do something involving the adventures of Lavinia's parents and the founding of their colony (which they know because of someone in the party knowing sylvan when in the vault), but I don't want to reveal too much of the horror or surprise of future Savage Tide developments. Any ideas or helpful advice would be much appreciated!

Hello all,

First, thanks for taking the time to read my thread. I'm currently the de facto DM of a STAP campaign with some friends who are completely new to the game. Since I will be expected to be DM for the next campaign, a role I'm beginning to like, I figured I wanted to branch out and try something completely different from any normal DnD campaign I've known and try something all my players would LOVE to participate in.

I am planning on starting a campaign this fall with my group that uses the mournland as the setting for a fallout-esque survival/horror campaign. (I'm considering actually converting Kingmaker so they can establish a settlement there and use the city building rules.)

Now I know I will be having to change a lot of Eberron lore and allow natural healing in the Mournland (for starters), but I was hoping I could get some advice on how to implement some type of radiation mechanic that the players will have to deal with.

Also I was running into snags about the motivation of the campaign itself. I am stuck wondering why would ANYONE want to set up a settlement in the Mournland?

I was thinking the campaign begins as follows:

• players were convicts who were transported to a labor camp near the mournland (where they were forced to dig down into the earth but never told what they were looking for)
  Spoiler:

  some sort of magical artifact needed for this pre-war mega-weapon.

• From here they can RP in the mines perhaps... and then they either found something and/or after some sort of catastrophe in the mines they are trapped and the artifact is lost again.

• The PCs find the only way out which leads into the mournland. (The players wont mind the sort of rail-roaded start since basically this becomes an open sandbox environment).

In a wonderful campaign journal of a WLD posted here on the message boards, the DM's makeshift city/commune was made from refugees/prisoners/other adventurers banding together out of necessity to survive. I was thinking about doing a similar idea in the Mournland.

I was thinking the city would grow by interacting with the natives of the mournland (some few Cyreans who actually survived by living in underground vaults) and even some other escaped prisoner NPCs and go from there.

Here the PC's will band together and hopefully convince the natives/other NPCs if they can join their small town/take it over by force/whatever and slowly shift the campaign focus from trying to escape to saving a world they never really were a part of and see their city become a bastion of civilization in the mournland.

(I'm thinking about ideas for the later half of the campaign... But I am kind of liking focusing around that they must stop the Lord of Blades from activating a pre-war mega-weapon with that artifact (sort of like an arcane nuke) over/under their new city.

I am going to purchase the kingmaker 2-6 later on to flesh out the city-building and utilize some of the adventure hooks and just change them to match the setting.

Anyways, anyone have any advice for this fledgling DM and his daunting idea for a campaign setting?

Thanks in advance for reading this whole post.