Cat = 3cp, 8lb 120000gp = 12000000cp 12000000cp/3 = 4000000 cats or one 32000000lb cat. Extra points if it's the size of a normal cat, just incredibly dense.
I GMed Rappan Athuk from start to finish, started at 2, ended at 20. The PC's ascended to demi-god status after defeating Orcus. Was a fun campaign with many lulz to be had at ever level. Near the end I stopped trying to challenge the PCs and just tried to kill them, and in a few cases I managed just that.
You need to realize it's not the books that make for imbalanced characters, it's the players that make the overpowered characters. A Core Wizard that hits level 12+ is still stupidly powerful, regardless of what race or feats it has. I don't have any of the books, but I do use the d20pfsrd for material, and basically anything goes that's not 3pp (and even then it's up to the GM's discretion). The only time I ran into absurdly strong characters was when I was running a campaign and the party was approaching the end and everyone was almost at level 20, and even still most of their power was coming from the fact that they were high leveled, not a few gimmicky feats they took. And even the one or two of them that were gimmicky had weaknesses. Sure there was a wood oracle that had a 48STR and vital-striked for 24d8+to-damn-high, but hit him with a few fort or will saves and he's drop pretty quick. Just tell your players not to play gimmicks/one-trick-ponies and you'll be fine.
Magical Item that can cast Teleport Object and Greater Creation at-will/x/day.
To quote The Dungeon Bastard, "You're talking epic level play here. If you don't drop 600 points of damage every time you fart, you're not playing right."
SGG Guide to Flavorful Combat: A rule set to add with normal combat rules that makes combat more cinematic and flowing while not actually changing the numbers of everything too much. Rules for things like leaping off buildings and landing on dragons, to fighting while falling from extraordinary heights. Tables of different epic finishing blows, or gruesome / spectacular descriptions of how certain staple spells affect an enemy and their soon (negatively) altered anatomy. Of course, it will also contains your amazing art work to supplement the vivid descriptions :)
Post your silly, yet ingenious, ways of making absurd amounts of money. I'll start with a fairly simple one. For this you need: 1 Lich, the Lich's Phalactery, a mortar and pestle. So you've just defeated the campaigns Lich, and have found his mountain of treasure, and even his phalactery. But wait, there's more! Don't go smashing the phalactery just yet. Gather up the lich's bones and grab a mortar and pestle, and start grinding. A skeleton weighs about 15% of a creatures body (so 160 pound human, lets say), which means you've got a good 23-24lbs of bones. Now, a dose of posions should probably not be more than 1 ounce. which means you have 23*16 doses of lich dust (a posion). Lich dust costs 400gp per dose. You now have 368 doses of lich dust (or 147200gp). 1d10 days later, the Lich will regenerate, and you're party will be ready and waiting to beat him into a pulp (literally). Repeat for infinite profit. Note: you may need to jump from town to town to sell it all, supply and demand and what not.
Inquisitors probably do it best. Just so long as they are both Spanish, and are unexpected.
Being stuck in the "It's a small world" ride at disney land. Forever.
A Wacky Sack?
The point buy system is wonderful.
A wizard who chooses literally NOTHING but divination spells. Not even the good ones. Choose the most useless of the useless for combat (share language, discern value, etc). A bard with negative charisma who's Bardic Performance gives negatives instead of bonuses to the appropriate roll. Name him Justin Beiber.
Not so much a "f$#%ing hell!" moment, as it is a "Holy f$%#! I can't believe that just happened!" moment. It all started in a custom campaign: Our party was fleeing from countless devils after they discovered our base in the first ring of hell, in Tiamat's nest. We managed to lock ourselves in a vault beneath the dead god's corpse, in which we found six statues: one for each chromatic dragon and one of Tiamat. Further examination revealed that they could be activated to release a breath weapon of the respective dragon... You can see where this is going. Our gunslinger rolled a massive disable device check to figure out how the statue of Tiamat worked, and the gears in our heads began to turn. We set up silent images of walls in all the passage ways in the vault so the devils would funnel in to the area in front of the statue, and activated the statue. There was a small charge up time, which we used to open the massive vault doors and duck behind the silent images. A number of devils, ranging from barbed to a horned devil, filed in like planned. It was like shooting fish in a barrel with enough dice damage to TPK nearly any party. To our dismay, the single horn devil survive the blinding flash of energy and began to flee for his life. As EXP grubbing adventures (and something about being good aligned) we would have none of this. Our gunslinger burst from behind the illusions and fired a single shot at the chain that held the massive doors open (roughly going off the blast lock rules). >Nat 20 The door came crashing down in front of the devil, and we promptly meat swarmed the highly damaged, highly crippled, devil. When we checked the statue again, it had disappeared to reveal a passage which lead straight to Tiamat's treasure hoard. Mountains of gold, jewels, and magical items, as far as the eye could see. Of course it had a irremovable curse on all of it. Didn't matter, we stuck a flag in the room and claimed it in the name of awesome. We'll get back to there someday when were not off saving the word and generally being total bad asses. If you care to know, later surveying of the damage showed that the blast from the breath weapon was something on the scale of a laser cannon from an anime. We were finding devil corpses a mile out from the mouth of the vault. Let this be a lesson to all the DM's who think it's a good idea to give their PC's a canon of any kind. Don't.
First session in and my PCs are doing work. I have a group of 5 using 15 point buy, and they had 7.5k of gold to spend from creation. Two of them have full levels animal companions. After convincing Garreg to tell them about the deal, and enlisting the help of the dragoons, they took on the encounter with only a few hiccups. Only a couple pushers and two smugglers escaped with their lives. Damn good work for a couple level 5s. The thing I noticed here is the CR is off for this encounter (I believe). It is listed as a CR9 encounter (6400 exp), but there are 10 CR3s (the pushers) and 7 CR5s (the smugglers and the enforcers) in the whole thing. This come out to 19200 total exp to be earned (exactly a CR12 encounter) if the party managed to eliminate most, or the whole thing. I would probably drop it to a CR 10-11 depending on the level of the party, and their numbers, but it is not a CR9. If the dragoon's hadn't been there to soak up a few hits, they would surely have been swarmed.
Let's take it to the max... Human 30ft
Totaling that: Velociraptor (60) + Fleet x15 (+75) + Barbarian / Cleric / Oracle (+30ft) + Monk (60ft) + Ki pool (+20ft) = 245ft move speed. He can sprint once a rage at 1350ft in 6 seconds (Out distancing a CL20 dimension door). This translates to 167.045 MPH. That's more that double your average highway speed. His jogging pace (a double move/charge) is 55.677 MPH, which nears highway speeds. He could finish a marathon in a little over half an hour at a "brisk pace". He could get a speeding ticket for jogging down your average city road (though what cop is really going to have the balls pull over a velociraptor doing 55mph?). He could get from New York to LA in under a little over 50 hours, on foot. All this for a small, 28 level, investment. :P
Hello forum! This is my first attempt at a Class Guide, so I'm sorry if it feels a little bare-bones. It takes a look at the little-know 2h weapon Shadow Dancer build that I love. Let me know if there's anything I missed, or anything that I should add. Thanks for reminding me hyperlink it :P All fixed.
My ex-halforc, now dwarf, barbarian got trapped on the wrong of a colossal monster that was rising out of a crack in the earth. He drew his +2 undeadbane greatsword and rammed it into the things shoulder, and held on for dear life. He rolled well on climb and acrobatics and managed to get up on the great sword, and then climb up on to it's massive shoulder. Having no other choice, he leapt 80 feet to the ground, leaving his 18000 gold weapon still buried in the monsters shoulder and made a run for it. Right about when I took the 8d6 fall damage, I remembered I had stocked up on mundane short spears, which could have served just as well. That moment when I used a +3 weapon as glorified disposable scaffolding...
As a GM of Rappan Athuk, there biggest problem you'll find is surviving level 1 and 2. My recommendation is not to power game your ass off to make the strongest character(that will only help you so much against instakill traps and APL+6 encounters). My recommendation is to talk with your party and build team tactics, and always plan your escape before you plan your attack. Also, don't go down the well.
Bring a simple calculator to the table. Your friends may laugh, but at least your to hit and damage is accurate. Make sure your basic attacks and abilities are clearly written out so you can reference them at any time without getting mixed up. Also, keep a piece of scrap paper around to scribble down whatever bonuses you may have, and just scratch them out when combat is over. Add all these things together and your problem. As for number impaired players; I have a tenancy to know most of my players characters as well, or better than they do. They roll and I know the outcome before they do. The only reason I can do this is because I am a bit obsessive compulsive about character builds, and frequently theory craft in my spare time so I have a good chunk of the SRD stored away in my brain. But that's just me.
293. You hit a guard in the knee while practicing with your bow.
Ask the DM what they look like: If they're not wearing any armor it's safe to say they're either a full spell caster or a monk (though this is not always the case). If they're wearing a holy symbol they probably have spell casting (maybe not if it's a low level paladin). If they do not carry weapons, they're either a monk or a full spell caster (with the exception of the iconic quarter staff). If they carry an instrument, definitely a bard (or an NPC class so don't worry too much over it). Ask about their physical build, those with average of scrawny builds are usually not fighter types. Ask how good looking they are. Charisma usually translates to looks, and someone with a high charisma is probably a sorc/oracle/pali/summoner/bard/etc. Be careful though. Magus's (Magi?) wear armor, use weapons, do not have a holy symbol, drop charisma, and don't always have that great physical stats. The only way to get around this is to look at their weapon. If they do not have a shield, and are using a bastard sword, long sword, or a scimitar, they are probably a magus. They are easily mistaken for bards, but there is an easy way to tell. If their face looks like it just got hit with a club, it's a magus. Finally, if they're wearing a pointy hat they are 100%, without a doubt, a magic user.
Send them against a group of NPCs that use consumables. Rogues running around shooting lightning bolts from wands, flying two-handed fighters. Make sure to not put any spell casters with them. When they ask how they're doing it, just tell them, "Oh, he's holding a wand." They will learn.
Idec, The Dice God "The roll of the dice is the will of the gods." -Anonymous D&D player. Idec is a true neutral god. He came into existence via the collective wills of thousands of GMs from across the globe wished they could be playing with their PCs, rather that narrating. He provides GMs an actual roll playing option that allows the to take part in the campaign, while allowing the GM to say unbiased in the decisions he/she makes. Followers of Idec believe that their god will lead them through life successfully, so long as they do not displease their god, and make decisions in their life based on the roll of a die (whatever is available, though the D20 is considered the most holy of all dice. Anything higher than that is just getting frivolous). Followers will always strive to acquire the most balanced dice available, though Idec acknowledges that some may not be able to afford such things. Knowingly using weighted dice, or dice made to purposefully fudge rolls is considered nothing less than an act of heresy, and such acts are liable to cause Idec to descend from the head of the table and smack-a-bro. So is the act of not acting upon rolls if the outcome does not suit the persons personal desires. Many misguided gamblers worship Idec, and are looked upon with scorn. He is not a god of luck, he is the god of arbitrary decision making, can't those fools at least skim his wiki page? Most who worship Idec favor classes that allow them to re-roll checks, as they see these abilities as favors from the Dice God himself (see Preacher's Determination ability, Samurai's Resolve ability, or Weapon Master's Reliable Strike ability for examples). His favored weapon are considered to be any weapon that has a natural crit-range of 18-20 as they give an improved result most often. Keen weapons (especially 18-20 keen weapons) are highly valued by the Idec's followers, for obvious reasons. They are seen as weapons personally blessed by Idec himself (though that's usually not the case). Idec's worshipers are neutral, or chaotic neutral for the most part, though any class of any alignment can worship his ways (except paladins, they can kiss Idec's unaligned left butt cheek for all he cares). More fanatic worshipers tend to become paranoid if someone in their presences seems to be "getting a lot of bad rolls", the infamous "double one" from fellow colleagues is an immediate cause for suspicion. What could they be doing so bad to displease Idec? Maybe they didn't buy enough Ye' Olde Girl Guide Cookies... the monsters! Feel free to add or change anything. You are the GM's, who am I to argue with you? Alright, now how this all works out in game. If you're like me, you love GMing, but you also love playing. While you can't interact with NPCs without looking like a schizophrenic, this lets you have all the fun of making your character, and playing along with the PCs. You don't have to worry about ruining the campaign by doing things that would otherwise be outside your knowledge (either willingly or accidentally). Most any decision (other that the most obvious) will be made by rolling a dice and assigning actions to certain numbers (like what way you should go in a maze, or what door to open next). Such outcomes should be fairly distributed across the dice's sides, though in the case of a level 2 stumbling across a Balor, let's just say Idec is a great advocate of common sense. As long as you are fair to yourself and your PCs, there should be no problems. And if this is a stupid idea, I hope you at least got a chuckle out of it :)
My worst screw up is deciding that I could homebrew a campaign. I had a great backstorys planned out for each of the PC's, and it all went down the toilet when the Efreet ran though a tavern wall scooby-doo style screaming "They're after me luckycharms!" It's been all down hill from there.
Large size + greater rage = +4 str. 51 str. You're welcome.
Seriously? I don't see why you would pick a witch over wizard or cleric. Could someone please explain what they are good for, if anything? |
