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Some swarms are immune to weapon damage. Do flame fountain fireworks deal damage to such swarms? The description says it behaves similarly to a heavy mace, which might make one think that it would not. However, it's not exactly the same as a melee weapon, and I believe torches DO affect swarms. Thoughts?
In the last session of a game I am running one of the players suggested that a PC should be able to identify any spell that they themselves know when someone else casts it. For example, a cleric should recognize every spell on their spell list that another cleric casts without needing a spellcraft check, as long as the spell is not being cast with metamagic enhancements. (For most classes this would be restricted to a much smaller group of spells known.) I did notice that specialist wizards get a +2 bonus to identify spells of their school, but aside from this there is no mention of bonuses or automatic successes on spells that the PC knows. edit: Also, the rules associated with the counterspell action seem to make the automatic identification a definite no, but what about bonuses? I see the player's logic, but I ruled against it because I feel like it might work against game balance. I do feel like the character making the spellcraft should get some bonus though. What are the RAW on this?
Thanks for the responses! I was aware of the elemental resistances, as the same GM made a mistake before, thinking that abilities like acid dart are affected by DR (rather than elemental resistance). I'm certain it was a lich, he said so himself, and made it sound like it was pretty much a vanilla lich. On the treant, he did say something like "you need bludgeoning damage to do full, he's resistant to slashing" not "he has DR/blugeoning, it says exactly so right here." If it helps it was spawned from some kind of magic bag of beans we found. I'll try talking to him but he's been kind of difficult about reaching him outside of the game and discussing rules in the past. I can deal with it if he just won't see logic or rules it as a homebrew, I'm mainly concerned about getting RAW correct for my own campaign. Edit: For clarity.
In a homebrew campaign in which I'm playing, the following happened last session: 1.) We fought an evil treant that supposedly had DR/bludgeoning. I was under the impression that treants have DR/slashing. Of course the GM has the last word, but he claims he was reading straight from the rules, and he thought that it may be because they were the evil counterpart to normal treants. I think he's just getting the DRs mixed up. What's the deal here? 2.) We fought a lich which took no damage from a magic missile that I cast on him. I beat his SR, and the GM said the missile struck him directly in the chest to no effect. I rolled 12-14 damage on the mm. He said the lich did not have the shield spell cast on him, did not have a brooch of shielding (that protects from magic missiles), and that it was a type of damage reduction against magic spells. Again, I honestly think he just doesn't understand how DR works. (I think when he sees DR 15/bludgeoning and magic, he thinks that means he has reduction AGAINST bludgeoning and magic, which is the opposite of how DR is supposed to work.) What's the deal in this case? Is there some kind of damage reduction against magical damage? I looked up both creatures and DR rules because, as a newbie GM myself in another campaign, I want to make sure I have a good grasp on the rules. Is there something I'm not aware of, or is he just wrong/making up homebrew rules?
Can any combat maneuvers be attempted by a prone character? If so, which ones, and what are the modifiers for that situation? What combat maneuvers can be attempted on a prone creature? What modifiers apply?
This makes sense now! I totally missed the part where it said that most knowledge checks don't require an action. The party bard thought it was a standard action, so that was why he was concerned about the situation. Thanks for the responses, these answer my question perfectly.
Not sure if this has been asked elsewhere, but a lengthy search turned up nothing. Currently playing in a homebrew campaign where the party bard has redonkulous bonuses to every possible knowledge skill. Every time we fight a new enemy, he attempts a knowledge check to determine if the creature has weaknesses, immunities, etc. The GM refuses to tell him which knowledge skill to roll (arcana, religion, etc), saying that he has to simply choose one and see what happens. There have also been instances where the GM has made up the monster from scratch, and claims that no knowledge check could possibly reveal anything about the creature. I realize this particular use of the knowledge skills is one that gets houseruled a lot, and that in the end everything is up to the GM's discretion. However, I am curious as to how this is "supposed" to work. I am a newbie GM and run my own campaign, where I tend to try to stick close to the rules. I usually simply tell the players which skill check they need to roll. So what is the "right" way, or at least the one most commonly accepted? What are the rules on this in a PFS game?
If a creature has DR 5/magic how does the conjuration school ability Acid Dart and other similar abilities interact with this? I think acid dart would do full damage.
I vote scarred witch doctor... Tons of hps... Lots of good abilities for enemies that are not much higher lvl. The SWD looks really good. Con as a casting stat is borderline broken. You can play one as half orc, right? Only problem I have noticed with witches is that they have limited ways to affect multiple enemies and tend to focus on shutting one down at a time. They lack some of the better BC spells. They do get web, glitterdust, and stinking cloud though, all of which I think are really good. Would it be good to open up with a single BC or area debuff spell and switch to debuffing one enemy? I know I won't be able to get the awesome slow and haste as level 2 spells build that someone mentioned, as my GM doesn't seem to be big on allowing traits :(. However one of the patrons grants haste at level 6. Open with haste, then area effect, then debuff a single target? How would you play the first 3 rounds of encounters like the ones I described?
There are a lot of good options with a summoner and I know very little about the class. I'd really appreciate seeing a build. I like this build. The heirloom trait is the only one of the two my GM would allow me but this doesn't really matter as it could just be tweaked slightly. Honestly it seems like a much more practical version of my last summoner. Didn't even know the spirit summoner existed, the hexes are a really nice addition. Question though, does the eldritch heritage allow you the higher level powers later? Because the way it reads it seems like you only get the 1st level ability. Thanks for the well detailed and formatted build! I'm leaning more towards battlefield control than buffs and dpr, but I'll keep this as an option. You don't have to be too specific, but generally what type of eidolon would you go with? Pouncer style? Sometimes we run into weird damage reduction so I thought if I made a summoner again in this campaign I might let him use manufactured weapons.
I could also recommend the Spirit Summoner. A player in our group is running one where he fights side by side with his eidolon to devastating effect. You get the buffs and you get to be a bad@ss in combat at the same time. Want to see a build?Encounters that long seem like they would be REALLY taxing on full casters, especially at that level. Have you considered a Witch? Hexes are inexhaustible plus you get spells that can be very useful, from healing to control. They make superb compliments to martial-heavy parties.Yes, they are really painful for the casters. Typically my summoner and the bard would use up 75%+ of our spells in one encounter. Thankfully, we usually have only one or two encounters per day, although each encounter is like having multiple normal difficulty encounters without any break between. I'll check out the witch for sure, inexhaustable debuffs sounds amazing. There are a lot of good options with a summoner and I know very little about the class. I'd really appreciate seeing a build.
I like the pit summoner idea, never saw anything like that when I was researching summoner builds. I know create pit is awesome as a control spell and it was definitely on my list for any caster that could use it. Also will be able to get 22 CHA for 2 bonus level 2 spells so that would help a bit with running out of casts. I feel like my summoner wouldn't have died if he wouldn't have been on the front lines all the time. The damage output by the eidolon helped us shut down enemies as well, so this is definitely on the list now too. Glad I made an account so I could post here, thanks for the fresh ideas everyone!
Encounters that long seem like they would be REALLY taxing on full casters, especially at that level. Have you considered a Witch? Hexes are inexhaustible plus you get spells that can be very useful, from healing to control. They make superb compliments to martial-heavy parties. Yes, they are really painful for the casters. Typically my summoner and the bard would use up 75%+ of our spells in one encounter. Thankfully, we usually have only one or two encounters per day, although each encounter is like having multiple normal difficulty encounters without any break between. I'll check out the witch for sure, inexhaustable debuffs sounds amazing.
That sounds insane, plus haste and slow seem to be particularly effective in this campaign. The summoner casting haste was useful every time he cast it, and the party has no problem understanding that buffs are useful. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll be sure to check it out.
I'm reading about both of them now, thanks for the suggestion!
1.) The wizard died during the second real combat encounter we had. I got too aggressive with him, placing him out near the front line with the paladin and trying to use closer range spells like color spray. For one, I didn't realize how lethal these encounters would be, but mainly I knew that (since they don't really understand BC) they wouldn't hold their actions for the initial BC spells or work with me to position when appropriate. My fault for being reckless and not willing to be more assertive, that's why I'm going to roleplay my next character as an assertive former tactician, so maybe they will listen to me at least in character. I'll keep to the safest place possible and try to utilize more area control spells to funnel the enemies into the meat shields and away from the squishies. The summoner died because he was too squishy of a glass cannon who mounted his eidolon and rode into battle. Due to a homebrewed trap his eidolon was put under control by the enemy and he was in a situation where he was unarmed and basically had two chances to make a dc 17 str check or die (long story). What I essentially took from the two characters' deaths was stay back and try to force the enemies to fight only the high AC meatshields (who barely get touched most encounters). The GM kind of seems to design encounters so that everyone with a less than 20 AC who does direct damage has a giant target painted on them. 2.) Most encounters go 10-15 rounds, but we've had two that went over 20. Usually the bard and sometimes my own character are either knocked unconscious, killed, petrified, etc. This leaves only the fighter and paladin as real damage dealers as the oracle can't do damage and honestly can't do anything useful if someone isn't hurt. The paladin's damage output is kind of "meh" and the pace of the battle slows to a crawl. The GM has told us he doesn't think combat should be very fast paced (over in 5-6 rounds or less) so he tailors the monsters towards that goal. In one case I was petrified by a basilisk for 2 hours of continuous combat real world time. Typically the battle starts with 2-4 enemies, then either another 2-4 appear or a mini boss appears attacking us from another direction. Then as we're finally making progress this happens again, or the room starts to fill with mind controlling gas, etc.
Need advice on class/role choice in a combat-heavy homebrew campaign. The group includes myself and 4 other PCs. The party is currently level 5 and consists of: A standard two handed build fighter that hits very hard, a paladin who has about 26 AC and a tower shield focused on defense/tanking (but enemies tend to ignore him and focus on the other PCs due to his low dpr), a bard that orates, gives the fighter +2 str, then typically gets smacked down after firing an arrow or casting flaming sphere due to his low defenses, and a "healbot" kobold oracle that typically casts an aid or two and heals himself after taking life link damage and is nearly incapable of doing damage. So far in 7 sessions I've lost two characters (wizard and a summoner) due to the difficulty and length of combat encounters. I know encounters are typically less than 6 rounds, but ours are generally 10-25 (30 min-2 hours) and the GM says that's how it should be. We generally get close to a TPK once every session or two and I feel like this is due to the length of the encounters. As a side note the encounters almost never consist of one BBEG, it's typically 4-8 enemies at a CR that feels 2-3 points higher than the APL. I feel like what is needed here in a fifth party member is a character that can shut down or delay a few enemies at the onset of the encounter. Essentially, I think we need a Battlefield Control character like a "god" wizard. The group consists almost entirely of 10+ year D&D veterans but none of them (including the GM) really "believe in" the battlefield control style of character. They all think a wizard should cast magic missile/fireball over and over. They also keep hinting that they want me to play a rogue, but I played one before and found it underpowered. Furthermore, there has been a grand total of one trap (that couldn't be disarmed anyway) and zero locked doors or devices to disarm. The party bard has all social skills and knowledges covered, so the only point in playing a rogue is as a "glass cannon" style, which I think is inferior to a two weapon fighter (or the insane dpr Summoner that just died). My idea is to play a BC wizard, whose backstory includes him working as some sort of military adviser/tactician. I think insane initiative, BC, haste, and "save or get pooped on" spells are what is needed to cut these crazy encounters into bite sized chunks that we can eat quickly enough to cut encounter times and casualties down. I'll be creating my character in the next 4 days and will start at level 5 with standard wealth. Outside of character creation acquiring the gear you want or need is almost impossible, so I'm avoiding builds that require specific eq later down the line and need to get most essentials at creation. I would really appreciate any advice on builds, especially what roles or classes would fit best into the party we have. I apologize for the length, but I thought the details would help devise a build for the particular situation. Thanks! |
