GabrielMiller's page

How is this for a fix. A monk stil uses 2 points to get a levels worth of healing. But a monk can also chose to spend more ki points. Spend 4 and you get twice your level. Spend 6 and get three times your level.

Sure it will drain your ki points fast, and it doesnt actually add anything, but it will allow a Monk to dumb all of his Ki and give himself a pretty decent healing boost.

So a 10th level Monk with about 10 key points could in one action burn all 10 of them and heal himself 50 points. Very expensive in points but could easily be the difference in surviving that BBEG you have been going toe to toe with.

Killing the character probably will not solve any problems. His replacement will be even more optimized since he can build it from scratch.

Another problem, unless the entire party hates him you would have to both kill him and make it impossible to Raise Dead the character. At 9th level the party cleric can easily bring the character back.

Finally you cannot be obvious. Why is this character being targetted. You need to attack the entire party and make sure the death does not seem too obvious.

If you absolutely have to kill the guy then ignore his high saves and hitpoints. A well built sorcerer with lots of focus on touch attacks an Enervation (expecially with a metamagic rod or two) can fry just about any character and its only a touch attack to succeed.

Majuba wrote:

Right idea, wrong calculation. Two CR 8's = CR 10, so divine by 2. That should work for several encounters.

I love honest typos like this that end up having an entirely different game meaning. :)

We never divine by two. It is hard enough to get even one person to play a cleric in our campaign. Two would be impossible.

Regarding the heated discussion: I think some players had characters who -like some of mine- had had a hard time when using realistic rules like "we don't sleep in heavy armor" when suddenly awakened by a horde of monsters, or "the king's guard threw you in the sewers sans your shiny items". Personally, that's why I tend to like the monk so much. And the druid, too (and perhaps the psionics as well).

Those players see the less visible advantages of playing a character not dependent on items to survive the day-to-day adventures. Others might not have had such a hard time/house rules/whatever, so they can concentrate on the purely mechanical description of the classes as they are written.

All of this is situational.

Well said. If it offends someone that I call this style "video-game" because I feel it accurately reflects that style then I am sorry. It is not the game style I would want to play in, but to each their own and I wish you as much fun as you can have at the table.

GabrielMiller wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

GabrielMiller wrote:

And of course the fact that the monk move 4 times as far, can swim, climb, and jump. All of those mean nothing in comparison to your turtle in armor.

At what level? Because at the level where the monk can move four times faster, they're both wearing boots of flying that move at the same speed.

Anyhoo, other people covered the other stuff. Suffice it to say, monks are still a 3/4 BAB, d8 HP class whose main combat contribution is "I hit it in the face." That just doesn't work.

So your one of those players whose characters are just a sum of their magic items. How nice for you.

Like I said, go back to your video games. A decent DM wont let a fighter be superior all the time because he cannot be all the time. A fighter isnt wearing his armor 24/7. A fighter wont have his weapon in hand 24/7. A fighter wont be able to sneak up and scout and then attack. A fighter will have brains of mush from a will save and wont be getting out of the way for reflex saves.

Every class has good and bad points. A monk is at a disadvantage when a DM runs like some computer game where the fighter is always in his armor, always has his sword, where unsteady ground doesnt exist, or when he hands out magic items that turns players into flying superheroes.

What is wrong with you? Do you go around insulting everyone that does not agree with you in real life? His point is that many groups try to get the ability to fly at certain levels, and that the fighter is ahead more than the monk is. Nobody ever said other classes dont have bad points. Flying is not even that expensive. Even if you cant afford an item just get a few potions to carry around. If you have a point argue the point dont argue with the person. I feel like I am telling some kid how he should behave

Like I have already said you have missed the point completely. Maybe its my age. In older versions of the game this would never come up because there were not hard fast rules for everything from farting to flying. So everything did not have to add up in a math manner to determine what was better and what was subpar and considered a liability.

To say it bluntly the raw numbers will give fighters an edge. That is becuase raw numbers equate to a video game style. You are never out of armor, you never fight in terrain that is a problem for your gear. Even when attacked at night you have all your equipment. Someone earlier argued that the endurance feat would let them sleep in their armor for fear of being attacked when not wearing it. This works in a video game. In a video game style the NPC doesnt give a hoot how much you stink, how nasty you look, or anything else. But in a game with a skilled DM there are going to be challenges besides advance 30 feet and start whacking with sword. If that is the extent of a game then great, run a fighter and max for direct in combat damage knowing that is all the character will be good at. But if your DM is going to attack you on ocassion at night. When monsters act as smart as NPCs instead of waiting in their room to die. When stealth has to happen, which a monk can do as well as a rogue and after that first round of sneak the monk will quickly out damage the rogue. then a variety of classes are needed.

Every class has its place. When the number crunchers start comparing damage per round and proclaim a monk or any other class subpar becuase it looks inferior on a spreadsheet then all they are doing is playing a video game. Because only in a video game are the paramaters so set in stone that those spreadsheets work.

If you think I insulted you then my apologies. I probably did a bit and I shouldnt have. But when people start throwing around who is better this or that based on a set of rather boring parameters (and several have in this thread, I am not pointing at you) then it gets annoying.

GabrielMiller wrote:

And of course the fact that the monk move 4 times as far, can swim, climb, and jump. All of those mean nothing in comparison to your turtle in armor.

At what level? Because at the level where the monk can move four times faster, they're both wearing boots of flying that move at the same speed.

Anyhoo, other people covered the other stuff. Suffice it to say, monks are still a 3/4 BAB, d8 HP class whose main combat contribution is "I hit it in the face." That just doesn't work.

So your one of those players whose characters are just a sum of their magic items. How nice for you.

Like I said, go back to your video games. A decent DM wont let a fighter be superior all the time because he cannot be all the time. A fighter isnt wearing his armor 24/7. A fighter wont have his weapon in hand 24/7. A fighter wont be able to sneak up and scout and then attack. A fighter will have brains of mush from a will save and wont be getting out of the way for reflex saves.

Every class has good and bad points. A monk is at a disadvantage when a DM runs like some computer game where the fighter is always in his armor, always has his sword, where unsteady ground doesnt exist, or when he hands out magic items that turns players into flying superheroes.

I played a Sorcerer through this portion of the AP already and it was frustrating to say the least.

I'll stay on topic however... Sorcerer with 20 Dex and a +1 Seeking Composite Longbow (Mighty +2). Also, this is before the Bestiary came out. I couldn't HIT the Rakshasas AC with the bow or with a touch attack due to Spells/Dex. When I DID manage to hit them their DR gobbled up the arrow damage or their SR just flat-out prevented my spells from landing.

There is at least 1-2 other creatures in the same vacinity as the Rakshasas that will provide the exact same difficulties. I pretty much WATCHED the rest of my group play for 2, 5 hour sessions.

By the time we had completed 90% of the module and we're on our way out, we rested/leveled... you can't imagine just how fast and happy I was to learn 'Orb of Force'(Spell Compendium) and just quickly I ran out of them.

I kind of figured sorcerers will be screwed. Even if a party knows that a Rakshasa is coming along a sorcerer cannot just buy a new useful spell like a wizard can. At best you can buff and blast with wands of acid arrow, etc.

GabrielMiller wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

You need a fantastically large amount of wis and dex to out-AC the fighter even in PF (you need a total bonus between the two of +13 to match a fighter who fills out the max dex cap of mithril plate armor)

And of course the fact that the monk move 4 times as far, can swim, climb, and jump. All of those mean nothing in comparison to your turtle in armor.

All that AC of yours makes you meat for touch attacks. Gee, the monk has 90% of his AC against those same touch attacks.

Everything has its pluses and negatives. Your idea of DnD which is playing a MMORPG with paper and pen will of course better fit your dirt origional tank with a big sword.

In my game which does not play like some computer game the faster monk just as much has his place. He moves. He gets to the enemy in one round and keeps his attention so your slower than dirt melee monkey doesnt get chewed down with 4 rounds of ranged attack. He saves against those Reflex based attacks that maul you and those Will saves that turn you to mush and convince you to beat on the cleric next to you that used to be your ally.

Oh and I was curious. What is your character going to do in the middle of the night? He going to sleep in that armor? Or if the party is attacked is he going to abandon his mates for the first 7 rounds of combat while he puts on his armor? I know what they monk will be doing. He will be running around being 100% effective.

Fighters move at full speed after level 7, and there is a feat that allows their Shield AC to count against touch attacks.

If your DM is a fan of night attacks the endurance feat works.

The Barbarian moves at 30, and can also take Endurance. He will probably be raging giving him a bonus to his will saves.

The paladin cares as much about saves as the monk does, and he cant move as fast as either of the above but when he gets there the bad guys start to hate life, at least for the next few seconds they still have it.

I can see the whole point went right over your head. Go on back to playing your computer games using pen and paper.

As for why each foe is monk-proof or close to, Fire Shield is bad because monks make up for their bad damage by making extra attacks, which is detrimental. DR X/impassable is bad because monks can't switch weapons without losing more than another class, and because they aren't getting 1.5x str or 2h Power Attack, and they likely aren't doing as much damage as a proper two-handed weapon for most of their career. One-attack foes bone the monk because it can't flurry, so it's using bad BAB and doesn't benefit from extra attacks. Full concealment bones the monk because you can't move-action to perceive and then flurry. And, finally, bad melee mofos do not tolerate squishy classes standing in melee with them.

Yeah because my Monk will NEVER ever EVER take Vital strike to improve his damage when he only gets to make a single attack. He will never be the rogues prayer when the rogue needs a flank and the fighter is just too damn slow to get there.

Oh and my monk is going to b-slap you like yesterdays lunch if anyone ever dares use improved disarm on you and take away that nice shiny sword you love so much.

You need a fantastically large amount of wis and dex to out-AC the fighter even in PF (you need a total bonus between the two of +13 to match a fighter who fills out the max dex cap of mithril plate armor)

And of course the fact that the monk move 4 times as far, can swim, climb, and jump. All of those mean nothing in comparison to your turtle in armor.

All that AC of yours makes you meat for touch attacks. Gee, the monk has 90% of his AC against those same touch attacks.

Everything has its pluses and negatives. Your idea of DnD which is playing a MMORPG with paper and pen will of course better fit your dirt origional tank with a big sword.

In my game which does not play like some computer game the faster monk just as much has his place. He moves. He gets to the enemy in one round and keeps his attention so your slower than dirt melee monkey doesnt get chewed down with 4 rounds of ranged attack. He saves against those Reflex based attacks that maul you and those Will saves that turn you to mush and convince you to beat on the cleric next to you that used to be your ally.

Oh and I was curious. What is your character going to do in the middle of the night? He going to sleep in that armor? Or if the party is attacked is he going to abandon his mates for the first 7 rounds of combat while he puts on his armor? I know what they monk will be doing. He will be running around being 100% effective.

GabrielMiller wrote:

So its a D20 + 10 to make a CR25. Using the second point you have two chances at making a 25% chance sucess.

I don't think I have ever played in a party where someone didn't have Knowledge: Planes trained to full. The party wizard with a 20 intelligence thus would more likely have a K:P bonus of +15 (7 ranks, 3 class skill, 5 intelligence), for a 65% chance of identifying a rakshasa without having to spend ANY harrow points on rerolls, and do note that the rerolls granted here are specifically allowed to be done as long as you spend harrow points on them. After one reroll there's an 88% chance to identify a rakshasa; after two there's a 96% chance.

I will have to drop hints. I can tell you that no one in my party will even have that skill much less have it trained to max.

GabrielMiller wrote:

How did anyone in your party know what a Rakshasa was? The Rakshasa from House Arkona appear to be the only ones in the region if not the entire Inner Sea since they came over in a rather specific manner. More likely for in-character thinking would be to see all those animal head human body statues and think strange Shoanti totem creatures.

Knowledge: Planes. I made the DC of the check. Rakshasas are Outsiders and are thus identifiable with a DC 10-15+CR Knowledge: Planes check (10-15 is based on how rare you determine them to be; there's no text in the module that declares that they're particularly rare). Since they're treated as CR8 in the module, that's anywhere from a CR18 to a CR23 check. Considering that the Harrow Point uses for that particular module include getting to reroll Intelligence checks and getting to add +5 to Intelligence checks, it's not that hard a check to make.

I would say pretty rare since everything in Pathfinder says they are from across the ocean. Which would make it CR23. If you swap in the new Pathfinder Rakshasa then its CR25. Since the +5 can only be used on an untrained skill your best bet is a wizard with say a 20 Int at this point. So its a D20 + 10 to make a CR25. Using the second point you have two chances at making a 25% chance sucess. If the party wizard fails then others can try but their chances of sucess will drop.

Our party just went in to the fight against Bahur with 3 party members participating and killed him. We did lose one party member. That was a rakshasa with more HP than the Bestiary ones plus a bunch of class levels; a CR 14 encounter with a party of 3 level 8s. We should have TPK'd, according to you; instead, we used clever tactics. And we didn't know ahead of time that he was a rakshasa (not far enough ahead of time to specifically prepare for him, anyway -- we did learn there were rakshasas around because we found the rakshasa statues).

There are ways around his excellent defenses, even in core, even for an unprepared party. Acid arrow, for example, is SR: No and a ranged touch attack, that deals continuous damage over time (and thus forces concentration checks). There's also true strike for bypassing his high AC.

How did anyone in your party know what a Rakshasa was? The Rakshasa from House Arkona appear to be the only ones in the region if not the entire Inner Sea since they came over in a rather specific manner. More likely for in-character thinking would be to see all those animal head human body statues and think strange Shoanti totem creatures.

GabrielMiller wrote:

Properly used a Rakshasa can quite easily TPK a 10th level party unless the party is prepped for him and either ambush him or start on equal footing. Unfortunately the abilities of a Rakshasa will pretty much guaruntee the fight will happen how he wants it to happen and when he wants it to happen.

I kind of think that "Properly used" is the wrong way to describe a rakshasa that uses every available resource and a fair amount of GM fiat to make everything work to its advantage, since it's easy to overlook the fact that rakshasas are prideful and arrogant. I can see them underestimating the party and making some bad decisions to taunt and humiliate the PCs when, perhaps, they should be focusing on doing as much damage as possible. A "properly played" rakshasa in my opinion is a tough fight that the PCs should feel they're being toyed with and tormented but that by taking advantage of the rakshasa's arrogance they can survive and win.

That is a possibility. But intentionally running a foe dumb so the party has a better chance does not make much sense either in my opinion. A Rakshasa can read minds and does so per the description pretty easily and effectively. If it goes up against someone who know what it is and what its weaknesses are and still stands there boasting is pretty stupid.

Anyway this goes back to meta. The only way a party should know what a Rakshasas weakness is should be by a decent knowledge check. Otherwise its out of character knowledge on a monster that is from a different continent and thus well outside the pervue of a party made of homegrown heroes.

Think about it this way. Take a Rakshasa, change nothing on it except make it DR 15 Lawful and Blunt. See how many parties in Escape from Old Korvosa dont get steamrolled. Very few parties going into the module should know the weakness of a relatively unique monster.

There are lots of rumours surrounding the Arkonas that hint that they're not what they seem (especially in the Guide to Korvosa). Certainly my players had worked it out and prepped for Rakshashas.

Meta-deduced I think is a more accurate statement. I just read those sections of the Guide. Obvious is House controlled by something, strange immortals who "die" and are replaced every few decades, and a link to the Pathfinder version of India.

The only reason this says Rakshasa in any way is player meta-knowledge that the only Monster Manual entry with links to Indian mythology are the Rakshasa and possibly the multi-armed female demons being similar to Kali the destroyer.

Just as likely is the House being led by vampire, liches, a sucession of dopplegangers, or any number of longterm threats.

The other problem being that I doubt many of my players will peruse the guide all that much and I dont find anywhere in the module, which is where they will expect clues relevant to the adventure, clues that will help them out here. I will have to add some I guess. Maybe I will throw in a few more "wild" sounding rumors that people say thugs who really disapoint the Arkona are often invited to the house for one final meal and never seen again.

The thing about rakshasas is that, yeah, they have great defenses but once you know what those defenses are, a well-prepared party will get some align weapon spells and lots of piercing weapons AND some spells that don't require SR checks to function (like conjuration spells). Rakshasas are strange creatures... if you don't know you're up against them you're in trouble. But if you're armed right, they're pretty easy to fight.

That said, the Bestairy rakshasas ARE tougher. Here's the two ways I'd handle this if I were running "Escape from Old Korvosa."

1) The rakshasas in the adventure are degenerates; after living in society the way they have for so long, they're weaker than most rakshasas and still use the 3.5 stats for them.

2) The rakshasas are as they exist in the Bestiary, but there's just a LOT fewer of them in the adventure. As a general rule, you can handle this by simply halving the number of rakshasa encountered. And by reducing (or just eliminating) the class levels of others encountered.

Are there any hints in Escape from Old Korvosa that I missed? As far as I can tell the party will wander into the dungeon pretty clueless and get jumped by not just a Rakshasa but one with levels of monk. In this situation there is no prep and one cannot really retreat well to get prepped and come back.

Also as a side item. Clerics in the PFRPG do not have a single SR ignoring spell to throw at a Rakshasa. All they can do is align weapons if they have the spell handy, or summon meatshields of Summon Monster. Since Rakshasas do not have spellcraft but can read minds I would expect one in battle to throw a magic missle spell at any caster trying to summon allies with full round casting spells.

1. The Rakshasa has no mirror image by default. You must have confused it with minor image (yeah, happens to me as well.)

2. Bum rush it. It's Pathfinder, casting while threatened is no longer a breeze and Rakshasa has CL 7, +3 casting stat and no Combat Casting so casting defensively is a problem. And even if, damage spells are never battle winners, and DC 16 spells are not much of a trouble at lvl 10.

It can't fly / teleport, so getting away from you is a problem,

3. grease, stinking cloud, black tentacles, fog spells .. and god forbid if SC is in play, orbs ahoy. SR is powerful, but there are means of countering it.

4. Dispel the bugger. I assume that any self-respecting party has a couple of dispels handy at that point.

4. summon some nice, tough monster. With a lot of HP.

5. If you have a dedicated maneuver monkey, go for it. The CMD is not that great.

6. Once you have the kitty cornered: just power attack with 2h weapons until you chip the HP off. And in case it manages a rare soundly damaging full attack, have the cleric sigh loudly and throw some heals.

1. Your right my bad.

2. No combat casting but its DR means it can cast and you can hope to do some damage and disrupt it. Also it has a movement of 40. The monk and barbarian can keep up.Everyone else is hoping for a haste spell.

3. Great spell choices if party has wizard instead of sorcerer and assuming you select becuase you are fighting a Rakshasa. In this particular module you have no warning and no real way to retreat, prep, and return.

4. Most summoned monsters are going to do nothing against the DR. They can grapple though you are right.

5. Their CMD is 29. Assuming a fighter that has gone combat maneuver nuts and has a 20 strength he will need a 12 or better for most maneuvers. Doable but not a guaruntee.

This is all an option. But this is a Rakshasa. Shape change and mind reading means it picks the battle. Which means you pretty much assume it gets off the ambush not the other way around. So the party barbarian gets a charm person or suggestion spell. Then while party is still at range it eats a not too damaging lightning bolt or magic missle aimed at whoever is trying to dispel on the raging former best friend barbarian. All the while the Rakshasa has gone invis and is waiting for the fun to end. Once you refriend your barbarian, (or worst case knock his butt out then heal him) the Rakshasa can start again.

Properly used a Rakshasa can quite easily TPK a 10th level party unless the party is prepped for him and either ambush him or start on equal footing. Unfortunately the abilities of a Rakshasa will pretty much guaruntee the fight will happen how he wants it to happen and when he wants it to happen.

Overall I guess it comes down to the fact that a Rakshasa is a fair CR10 in a normal fight. But the abilities it has means it should rarely be a normal fight and its one of those foes that in an ambush easily hits as a CR11 or 12 foe.

Well, your'e not supposed to compare monsters vs. monsters, but monsters against a PC party. And an average, balanced lvl 10 PC party will take down a Rakshasa without major hiccups. Sure, it will be a time-consuming and frustrating fight, but still I don't any major issues with the monster as it as.

The explain how it will happen. The tank of the party wont do as much melee damage as the fire giant you mentioned. The casters even with improved spell penetration will need to roll 15 to get through the Rakshasa's SR. The party thief even when flanking will not be hitting an AC of 33.

Even if the party cleric happens to have aling weapon it wont be effective on the main tanks great axe or great sword. Odds are the thief and his rapier or a ranger with his longbow.

Now survive the onslaught. Multiple lightning bolts, potential turned allies from charm person.

Where is the trick that is going to allow a 10th level party to easily take down a Rakshasa. It can be done but the best chance for sucess is only if the party knows in advance and the wizard/sorcerer of the party loads up on buff spells instead of damage spells. Even then winning this battle will come down to someone in the party being decent with a piercing weapon and catching the Rakshasa by surprise so it isnt mage armored, shielded, and mirror imaged.

I came to the exact same conclusion. It exists only to use up all but 1 ki point at the end of the day when you go to bed. Bare minimum I would make it only cost 1 ki point to activate it and even then its a pretty weak ability.

Im about to start runing this adventure tonight I am going to use the new rakshasas because Ive seen what the players are capable to do, we are using PFRPG character and Ive been converting the NPCs, and they have been capable of dealing with them very easily, Adaisin and her undead version (the BBEG of the las adventure) was killed in a few rounds the only problem was the Leukadaemon and that was the strategy the PC choose.

They will be dealing with the rakshasas in a couple of weeks Ill let you know how it went.

I will be very interested in hearing how it goes. If the Rakshasa buff at all their AC goes over 30. Their DR nullifies most damage. Their SR ignores all casters at this modules level unless caster rolls a 19 or 20. Oh and the Rakshasa can also mirror image themselves for extra protection while throwing around five 7d6 lightning bolts.

The Rakshasas have ho-hum Fort and Will saves, and they really do funny amount of damage per round (around 20 on a full attack which connects with everything). A Fire Giant does 77 dmg with a fully connecting full attack, 103 if he Power Attacks. You can actually heal up thru a fight with Rakshasa while the party dispels his buffs, targets his saves or just wallops him to the ground.

Ho hum saves that are protected by SR27. Also the Rakshasa has DR 15 so every single hit of your fire giant is going to be less a good amount. Every fire giant hit does 3D6+15. So against a Rakshasa that will be 3D6 straight up. So that averages to be 10 points of damage per hit. A Rakshasa has a base AC of 25 with both mage armor and shield as spells that can cast. This means an AC of 33 in most battles. So your fire giant needs a 12 to hit with his first attack, even more if he plans on power attacking, a 17 with his second, and a crit with his final attack. So on average the fire giant will hit once per round against the rakshasa and do 10 points of damage.

This means on average it will take a fire giant 12 rounds to kill a Rakshasa, not counting the use of any other spells by the Rakshasa such as mirror image which will really ruin the giants day. In response the Rakshasa has its melee attacks as well as five 7d6 lightning bolts, 7 acid arrows, and 5 magiv missles (7 minus the 2 buff spells).

I think it is pretty safe to say a Rakshasa will not only defeat a Fire Giant easily in combat but will shred any fire giant in encounters and be eating the giants brain for lunch very soon into the battle.

Oh, someone as for a spoiler tag. My apologies, I should have added one. If there was a way for me to edit my origional post I would. My apologies again.

As mentioned, the 3.5 Rakshasa was really more of a CR8 monster. One of the goals of the Bestiary was to correctly CR all monsters; for quite a few of them, that involved either making them stronger (Rakshasa) or weaker (dragons).

Well the certainly did that. I think they made them one of the more powerful CR10 out there now.

I would like to point out that it has long been stated that certain monsters like dragons (as well as demons and devils I believe) were intentionally made powerful for their CR ranking because they were supposed to be epic foes. Whether this was a good idea or not is a different question, but the actual strength of them versus their CR was intentional.

Not really, Rakshasa's melee capability is not really much better than CR 10 dragons, fire giants and bebiliths.

Each one of those would be vastly easier to take down. Its not the raw damage of the Rakshasa. Its the incredible defense along with a heavy dose of hitpoints that make them so tough.

Also if I take one of these improved Rakshasa and add 6 levels of monk on top I am fairly certain you will have a foe that will easily eat any 8th level party for lunch.

Okay. I am reading through the modules so I understand the full path before I run them as a DM. At the same time I am looking at the new Bestiary.

There is no way I can just swap out the old Rakshasa for the new. They have the same defenses, better offense, and double the hitpoints. Not counting the lord Rakshasa, or the Monk Rakshasa, there are several times when the party encounteres two or three at once.

I know they do not deal insane damage. But I fear that with their strong defense they will easily wear down a party or best case turn into very long very boring very unexciting nibble fests as the party slowly wears them down through the DR.

Even if they have align weapon the odds of them having several available (or even one this will be a surprise foe and how often does a cleric mem this spell just for the hell of it) it wont be enough to deal with the sheer number of foes.

What do other poeple think?

Okay. Looking through the new Bestiary and one thing really jumped out at me. The Rakshasa. I say this because I am reading the Curse of the Crimson Throne series in prep to run it as a DM.

The 3rd module "Escape from Old Korvosa" has a large number of Rakshasa in it. I certainly cannot use them as modified in the Bestiary. They have the same DR and SR but have had their hitpoints pretty much doubled and their offensive melee ability heavily increased as well.

While the module knocks them down to CR8 by calling them glass cannons that were overrated at CR10 I think the Bestiary has now done the opposite. Now Rakshasas are going to be killing machines. Even when a party figures out the vulnerability a Rak is still going to do huge damage since they will have double the staying power. This doesnt even account for the Shield and Mage Armor spells that a party will be hard pressed to dispel and will give the Rak a 30 plus AC that only the chief tank will be able to barely hit.

So was it intentioal for them to go from the weaknes CR10 foe to easily the srongest? Also any suggestions on how to use them in COTCT without total TPK?

All I can recommend is giving them a few solid leads then have the riots take care of said leads. Have them run into a squad of Hellknights who don't care about their minor concerns and order them to disperse from an area (or a prisoner they've captured). Better to use the Hellknights than the Korvosan guard because if they join the guard they'll have jurisdiction over the Hellknights in the future.

--Vrock and Awe!

To me this sounds like you are advocating that she basically railroad her players back into the AP. Or am I reading you wrong?

Couple questions as I read this module.

1. Cressida says she got the note from Vencarlo that day. If a party has access to Dimension Door (which they should) they can get into Old Korvosa in a couple hours. At what point do the Red Mantis assassins start watching the place. If Cressida got the message in the morning and the party moves quick they could be at his house within an hour of being told. Will look odd that he is long gone when they reply so quick to his communication.

2. Someone suggested adding Rolf to the Mad King encounter. Wouldnt this rather strong increase the DC of that encounter? Thats not a small fix but a rather large ramp up.

3. How is the crazy elf Laori's armor class figured? Going by 3.5 rules (which are the rules the module was written for) she has 5 from armor, 3 from magical vestment, and 2 from dexterity for a total of 20 not 22. Even when adding in the better armor of Pathfinder you only get to 21.

If you want to play a character who is good at all kinds (excluding magic) of combat, go with fighter. If you want to play a character who specialises in unarmed combat, go with monk. In pathfinder, a monk gets the same attack bonuses as a fighter of the same level dual wielding. The monk will do more damage out of this. On the other hand, a monk can be very good at hit and run tactics due to his greater speed. A fighter with the correct feats can also be good at those tactics, but won't move as quickly. The monk gets ki strike; the fighter simply gets to ignore up to 10 points of DR, regardless of what would normally be required to bypass said DR.

A fighter with a great sword and the correct feats and class features would probably do about the same damage on a full attack as a monk on average, due to being able to automatically confirm criticals and having 2d6+8 versus 2d10 (average 15 vs 11, lower minimum damage and equal maximum) and multiplying strength by 1.5 for a little extra damage.

A fighter will also have a superior BAB combined with lower costs for enchanting his weapons. Also need to include that a fighter can up his armor class more easily than a monk.

Finally a monk has several stats that are important to him which means his primary stats are generally going to be lower than the stats of a fighter. Basically a monk needs all the stats of a fighter plus wisdom.

I needed to kill some time during this week's session, so I ran the encounter. While the party was doing their shopping in Kaer Maga, Rolth caught up to them and captured Trinia.

After calling out the enchanter, we waited to have dominate/suggestion/whatever cast on him, then Feebleminded the enchanter. The two mages then proceeded to have a thrilling slap-fight (amazing initiate/break grapple checks on both their parts) while the rogue snuck around and tried to free Trinia. She nearly died, but once she was out of danger the rest of the party got involved and Rolth had to run away, abandoning Jolistina.

Not content, the party pulled the lame scry-and-teleport trick, murdering Rolth in his home. Rolth *should* have had some scrying defenses up, but I don't have the spells well-enough memorized to know the options available, and I'm terrible at thinking on my feet.

However, I noticed there's a Clone spell available... it's a bit too high for Rolth to memorize, but he's well-enough off (even after being looted multiple times) that he should be able to afford it. The body is still growing, but depending how long the party spends on the next two adventures, he might be back for more.

The party's paladin (aka "soon to be fighter-without-bonus-feats unless he atones") willingly participated in this murder, so we'll have to have some fallout from that. He also had no qualms about hiring an evil cleric to fix the mage, so we've got a strike against both Law and Good.

First off Paladin does not mean lawful stupid. Rolth is a necromancer who has murdered for his trade and willingly worked to spread a plague that is going to kill thousands. He has also demonstrated at least once his ability to escape when his defeat seems emminent. To call his death a "murder" because the party refused to take him prisoner when they got the drop on him is completely disingenuous and sounds more like sour grapes from you for them killing Rolth. The fact that you are deciding to retcon his death after the fact through a clone spell reinforces that feeling.

As for the damsel situation, you are failign to understand what lawful good means. Lawful good does not mean every law must be obeyed no matter what, that is lawful evil. Lawful good does not even mean the local laws must be obeyed by a Paladin. It should mean that a Paladin has a higher calling or code that influences his decision.

I am guessing from your comments and your need to "remind" the Paladin what is proper and what is not that you and the Paladin's player have not taken the time to put together a code for the Paladin? If you are having a problem with how the Paladin is acting then you should do this. Work with the player to create a 10 Commendments of the players deity that fits the deity. The important thing though is the player must work with you as well. You need to go into this open. If things you absolutely feel need to be in there are opposite what they player thinks then you should agree to retcon the players deity choice to another deity that you and the player can better create a code under.

Just my opinion.