Mathius's page

Cool, lots of options. I am glad I can give several choices. I am betting on greensting slayer.

Thank you. Since the player is new I want front load as much as possible.

I have new player who wants a caster that can use stealth to dispatch foes as as cast. Is there an archetype out there that adds sneak attack to a caster or casting to a SA based class?

I have always limited fabricate to a single item or related set of items. A Nobel's outfit is fine while ten shirts is not. A pair of earrings works but not two bracelets.

By the rules fabricate in a magic item will allow repeated something for nothing castings. After 50 uses you are in pure profit. The fix is make the materials a target instead of a component.

Most encounters will be CR 4-6 (balanced for a party of 6) and involve monsters of CR 2-4 but each hex will have unique larger monster of CR 5 to 7. Since 1 vs many encounters are boring the Boss monsters will show up in pairs, trios or in the company of lessor monsters. These encouter will range from CR 6 to 8.

The hex boss does not have to be connected to a hexes major feature but often will be.

Nice, I can make those work. I think iron golems will be the way to go but they only engage the party if the PCs hurt them or disrupt their work. A definite case of look but do not touch.

So my PCs have just reached 4th level and have decided to to go on a deep exploration of the local megadungeon that is is campaign setting.

I plan to run this as a hex crawl. The area they are exploring is a little less then a square mile. I plan to break that up into 19 hex for them to explore.

Since I have 6 PCs in the party I am fine tuning around that. Also we are using E6.

The dungeon had doors that lead to small demiplanes (as big as 200 sq miles) that reset and change under certain circumstance that allow then to be repeatedly plundered. That is the basis for the economy of the metropolis above.

I need to put at least 1 major and few minor things in each hex.

This is to brainstorm ideas on things to put there.

What good is riflemen in today's world? If the other side has planes, not much. A wizard with fireball is similar to modern man with a missile launcher. Where the army of grunts is useful is occupation not aggression. Send the elite squad to take out the enemy hard points and elites. I would not send the grunts near a city with 9th level wizard any more then I would send infantry against a city with intact artillary.

True, but would just live above the law and do whatever they want around others or would they actually want to rule?

i can see taking power because you want make the world a better place or because you are sadistic but at some point I think subjects would be more of liability then boon.

Eventually spells like Mage's mansion, create demi plane, simulacrim, fabricate, and planer binding allow a caster to live however he wants. At this point the caster does not need the resources a population can harvest for him.

With no need for resources would casters really care all that much about the world any more. If a the BBEG can have whatever he wants already then he needs some motivation other then greed or power for world domination.

At what level does a caster really no longer need commoners?

How much magic is in the city?
Do animated object fly folks around?
Illusions as signs?
Windwalk platforms

How poor/exploited are the poor?

How extravagant are the wealthy?

How present is the military? Are they also the town guard?

How do you get into the city?

Does being closer to the ceiling mean anything?

Where are children? How are they treated?

What do they use as currency?

How will they react to surface items like clothes made out of wool?

How much or a criminal element is there?

Bribes go how far?

What festival is going on or is being planned for?

What NPCs do you want them to interact with?

I can not help you with magnetism as I am not familiar with that.

Your fighter is pretty much untouchable and has forgettable damage. What does he add to the fight? Do the PC have to deal with him before melee becomes an option against the Ichor?

I suspect that his will save will be his downfall and if the PCs can make rolls to learn his weakness it will happen on round 1. Maybe a ring of counter spells to make it take a bit longer?

I might take a level from the fighter and use it to pay for a bunch of CR 12 mooks. With only two actors on the bad guy side it is too easy for the PCs to not pay attention to them and shut down the artifact.

This might be a place use waves of mooks. Bring on 2-6 new mooks every round until the shut the thing down.

Most pit fiends are likely to spend most of their time in a fortress with forbiddance on to prevent being called in the first place. They have enemies that want them dead who have the power to do so if they go out on their own. Therefore they likely spend most of their time at home. When they do go they guards and contingencies in place for this kind of thing.

Assuming finite number of pit fiends it is likely that you will not find one available to call. If they are infinite in number they you will get one but it is likely to want to be called. It could also be new or careless but that is less likely.

Imps have have commune once a week and a pit fiend can have as many of those as he wants. A summoner may be protected by mind blank but the fiend would know something is going to call him.

The confirmation has some undead in it that night be hard to swap out. It is great for introducing players though if he can deal with skeletons and zombies.

I agree, if the caster can get the pit fiend there in the first place there is almost no chance of getting the wish off.

At this level it is likely that caster has private demi-plane and small army ready to deal with you.

If the caster actually wants a service and not simply to end you then the best bet is to go along with and use you charm to corrupt the caster and other along the way.

A decent counter measure would be always have minion nearby ready to wishport you back if you suddenly leave. A genie and one of your devils would work just fine.

Play with gravity

Slowly flooding dungeon. The whole thing will be under water 30 min after they enter.

All young or giant monsters.

They shrink down and fight bugs. Just use the stats for the big ones. Make sure to include unshrunk loot.

Chess, card, dice based like Alice in wonderland.

Overflow archive looks great. Lots of humor in that one.

I am already running mummy's mask for some of the same players. They found half dead city easy. That group is less optimized then this one.

Mwangi sounds good so I will look at those but investigation bores some of the players.

One of my PC's is a goblin so the frost fur captives would not work out.

Never heard of the overflow archives. Will look at that.

I have not had a chance to prepare for Wednesday's game and I need to fill a session or to with out to much work. I have 6 2nd level PC's that are OP. The game is mostly combat centered with a health does of crazy plan to gain the upper hand. I have frame that let's me run anything but I want to avoid urban adventures and those that focus on monstrous humanoids since we have done a bunch of that already.

Thanks in advance.

That is would. I know nothing of the occult classes so that a learning experience for me.

Group mate kinda wants his PC to be based on the above. What build can do that in an E6 world.

I am torn between that and keeping orc ferocity to swap to Ferocious Resolve at the end.

Would be more fun to have him fight to -con even if that is likely just one round.

Thank you to everyone who responded.

Any got a 3rd level bodyguard build?

I like that Cheburn's brawler build. I think I want drop the mutigenic archetype.

That would cost 2 AC, and 4 str but I would gain a floating feat 1 AC back. Replace dragon style with Intimidating Prowess but regain it with MV and switch it for Ferocious Resolve at the end.

Where does the bite come from? Can you use it with brawlers fury. With dragon style his first attack would be almost the same as his bite right?

I want to give him PC WBL since he is mob boss but if drop consumables it should still be close to the sheet you.

4K brings us up to a 24 str
4K more brings the AC back to 20
1K bumps saves by 1
That leaves 1500 for something neat.

Thanks, gonna have to look at that as well. The only issue I see is the AC 13.

Bloodrager and Barbarian could be fun but maybe a bit to likely to 1 shot the PCs.

Not really, I just have no experience with the brawler and my monks tend to wis and dex based. I know I can reskin it but monk does not feel quite right for gorilla in a suit who gets pretends to be civilized but will rip your head of if he does not get his way.

He tried to bully the PCs, he broke but did not kill them. The PCs broke into his vault (trap/stealth optimized rogue) and stole a crap ton of money.

The PCs ran into the mega dungeon under the city and ate the first wave he sent after them. A 4th level ranger, 3rd level level fighters, and 40 1st level warriors. The fought smart and when that was going to fail they went for insane and got lucky.

Now the head huncho is coming because a lot of the money they stole he was simply holding for others. He has to get it back or his power base will collapse.

My 2nd level PCs have made a serious enemy in the form of a kingpin (minus the brains) mob boss. It looks they they are going to actually try and fight him (and his minions) so I am going to need his build.

I have established that he is a 5th level half orc, very strong, fights with his hands, and wears light or no armor. He does need to frightening but not super op.

He also has 2 3rd level orc orc or half orc body guards and wizard who can cast invisibility at CL 5. I would prefer the wizard to be 3rd or 4th level.

He also has about 70 1-3 level warriors and ten to 15 1st or 2nd level PC classed minions. I am thinking his penchant for uber violence means he will not have any other casters but maybe a cleric or inquisitor could be fun.

I 6 PCs and they are quite OP so they can eat APL +3 encounters easily and APL+5 is hard but not lethal. I never use anything CR=APL+4 or more because that is ether a TPK or cakewalk.

Banner of restful nights or Faithful Lantern or Bivouac Banners should allow for an alarmed campground.

If you want the PCs to give up the sword you could set up a hostage situation. At high level I recommend many hostages separated by vast distance. You do need to include a reason that returning the sword would actually save the hostages.

Does possession of the sword make the PC who wields notably more powerful then the other PCs. If not there is no mechanical reason it needs to be removed.

This one is pretty great.

Magic can make a huge difference. In a highly magical society they could probably copy of even surpass modern technologically societies. Also the issue of what is possible vs. what actually happens can be studied in our world.

Their is enough food in the world to feed everyone yet many stave due the logistics challenge of getting the food to them.

Something like 80B dollars would raise the standard of living dramatically. Yet even if we tried to do that we would have to spend far more to upset all the apple carts in the way. Most of the world's rich makes its money off the poor and needs them to stay that way if they are to continue to make their money. Why would wizards want to change that? Divine casters would stalemate each other (LE church goes a far here) and cha casters could set themselves up as gods. The one thing they would all agree on is that they do not want any new players in the high magic game.

Sorry for the rant, was more meant to say that magic would not create a utopia.

That feat would do it.

Thanks.

I have seen it said that somehow a sorc can use a spellbook. What is that referring to?

Looks like no from what I can tell.

I saw the song bird of doom thread and thought that could be neat with reduce person. Then I saw that MoMS will not get me later style feats early. Is there any way to do that now?

I only ever worry about this kind of stuff at low level and then only for big things or weak characters. Once they character gets and ant haul belt even a weak character can carry reasonable things and permanently enlarger dwarf with one gets crazy fast. My current game is a zany mega dungeon. At first level the pooled wealth to by a yak, a cart, and driver. The driver gets about 10 times what he would with a profession check so he is very loyal. This allowed them to cart out a wine cellar the found.

I think the big difference between slavery and restricted freedom is the concept of personhood. If a person is denied their personhood then they are slave. I do not denying personhood to a thinking being is ever good. By this definition slavery is never good.

That said being in bondage to the government or an individual is not slavery unless it is also dehumanizing. An argument can be had about bondage always being dehumanizing.

One can also say that some governments enslave most of their populations.

Mature adult Blue dragon got here a year ago and made the tower his. He just wants the library witch he has yet to access.

So I have PCs who want be able to more quickly get a bunch of buffs.

They would like a gem then can cast multiple buffs into then activate later as standard action.

The spell slot is occupied until the spell is released from the gem and fades after 24 hours. (The do not want more spells, just to turn them on faster)

No personal spells

Spells effect only the holder of the gem even if the original spell could effect an area or more then one target.

An example would be a gem that could hold 6 levels of spells of up to 3rd level.

The casters in the group fill it with Haste, enlarge person, and bull's strength and then give it to the fighter.

Several hours later the party encounters a dragon that breaths on the PCs and downs the casters. The fighter spends a round and now gains the benefit of all 3 spells as if they were just cast.

Timeless magic on a demi plane gives all the time we need.

Make a sim of The infernal duke. Recast timestop and make him go deal with the issue since he can leave while still under time stop.

Or make a time dragon and go back far enough to stop the launch.

I realize that. I was switching because the base gnoll race or monster is dull. The kuru have a neat bite ability as well as the bite in the first place. I just figured that gnarled would bring their CR up to somewhere near a 1.

I am aiming for a CR 4 for 6 players with gnolls being a CR 1 each. I am changing over to the Kuru for their neat bite.

Gnolls have great flavor but rules wise they are boring and seam a bit weak for their CR.

They are mean to be kind of scary for my level 1 PCs but if I compare them to my PCs they worse in almost every way except HP.

I was thinking that gnarled Kuru warrior 1 armed with a long spear.

I was thinking of going with a simple weapon focus for the feat.

So what do folks think would be the most interesting way to beef up a gnoll to be a CR 1 threat?

I am thinking that a D6 bite and reach would do the trick. Sub power attack for multi attack. No reach on the bites.

I was just double checking my self before I give them a buff.
I was considering adding two to all stats or giving them natural reach or both. Also considered adding a d6 bite and more Nat armor or some sort pack bonus.

I was considering doing just that but also wanted to discuss the general point of either under CRed humanoids or over CRed NPCs with their first level and NPC wealth.

I just ran an adventure with hobgoblins and we are moving on to gnolls. Hobgoblins are tougher in every way then gnolls, this made compare the above categories.

To me most CR 1/2 humanoids are about the same as 2 HD humanoids.

Is this a case of the money difference between NPC and PC gear at 1st level not being enough to matter? A 1st level fighter with its 390 GP and one with one with 260 are both CR 1 or CR 1/2.

My instincts tell me that CR 1/2 accurate and that would mean that most of the CR 1 humanoids and monstrous humanoids are under CRed but I wanted to double check before a boost my gnolls.

The right fix fell like it should be better stats for humanoids and better natural weapons and armor for monstrous humanoids.

Silly players not going where I thought they were going. This will be great when they actually go that way.