Max Mahem's page

To much focus on fireball. A decent spell to be sure, but if you absolutuly positivily want to decimate opposing armies, the go to spell should be cloudkill, which (properly placed) could decimate potentially legions of mooks. One scroll of cloudkill could easily turn the tide of any battle.

Downside? Getting that optimal placement is tricky. It's a medium range spell and the cloud itself is relativily slow in speed (10ft round). But if you could somehow manuver its effect to go through the width of the enemies collumns, game over man!

Funny, my group just ran this encounter, literally like an hour or so ago. My Paladin/Bard focused in archery dropped the Erinyes in literally a single full attack. Smite + Multishot and a lucky crit. But even if I hadn't critter the thing would have gone down quite easily. If it had lasted another round I would have been surprised. I was actually thinking of making a post on how evil outsiders are to easy for paladins when they smite them. A smiting paladin plays significantly above their level when fighting a smitable foe. Like +3/4 levels easy.

Now admittedly my build is near optimal for this critter, but for any group a paladin, there is really very little reason for this encounter to last more than a couple rounds. That is assuming they have a bow. And THEY SHOULD! Even the [urlhttp://www.d20pfsrd.com/_/rsrc/1286223100630/classes/core-classes/paladin/Seelah.jpg?height=400&width=279]iconic paladin (sword and board lady) has a bow strapped on to her back[/url].

I don't know, I'm thinking my Paladin Undead Slayer Archer is going to put the hurt on him big time when we get there. Smite (Ignore DR) + Good Saves is going to equal a world of hurt. I'm not certain I'll even need to ready to disrupt him. The ravens head mace will also come in handy for the party cleric of phasmera. Every time it hits its like a 5% chance of autokill.

I second Aelryinth's suggestion. Undead are super common in this campaign. Overwelmingly so in a couple of the adventures, and present in all of them. You should really boost that favored enemy at every chance you get.

Well there are quite a few items my characters would rather nit recive because they are crap (and overpriced crap at that) because of the opportunity cost they represent.

But don't forget that Grease, like oh so many other powerful magic spells is only close ranged. In which likely means its not just a bow you have to worry about, but the fighters charge!

I'm not certain why everyone keeps attributing things to daylight that it does not actually do. Despite the name daylight does not actually create 'daylight' for the purposes of destroying Vampires or rendering Wraith's powerless. You need the much more powerful spell sunburst to do that. All daylight does is create an area of 'bright light.' This temporarily blinds and dazzles creatures with Light Blindness such as Drow. Arguably its ability to dispel darkness is more valuable, but rather irrelevant to Aasimars, who have darkvision.

A good argument could be made that daylight, as a third level spell should have some more concrete effects, such as some minor damage to undead or something. In generally its pretty underwhelming, but check out the spell as written. I doesn't do all the things many players think it does.

Problem with confusion is if you attack a confused character they automatically attack you on their next turn (assuming their still confused). Great when two baddies go to wailing on one another, less great when its you they hit, and you can't retaliate without effectivily ending the spell.

Which makes confusion (along with Fear) one of those better for NPC spells.

Thanks for the replies, some additional thoughts.

Obviously the monster is designed to be somewhat sympathetic, but frankly this isn't enough. No matter how sympathetic you might play him up to be, some characters are simply going to bawk at the thought of defending a Flesh Golem. The adventure I think should have taken this rather obvious objection some characters might have into consideration. It doesn't really.

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I was a big fan of the Six Fold Trials as well (well I like the play part at least, the adventure does have some other problems, but thats a topic for another day), and I think that is an opportunity this adventure misses. I mean this adventure is really about the players being detectives and uncovering the evidence needed to exonerate the beast. The players are only called upon to act as witnesses, for a rather inarticulate defense attorney. The players mainly play the part of detectives following up leads, which can be fun as well, but the adventure really doesn't set them up for roleplaying in the classic hard boiled detective story style I think.

Instead (or in addition), having the players play the part of his defense attorney could be so much more fun! I would love to be playing a part in a Trial and get the chance to shout "OBJECTION!" and cross examine and all that. Anyways the trial is still a great chance for roleplaying, but could have done so much more.

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On further consideration by the book it may be outright impossible for some parties to complete this adventure. The Bondslave machine requires a UMD check, a skill that cannot be used untrained. So if the party lacks a member with ranks in this skill (about half the parties I've ever seen do) by the book the machine simply can't be activated.

You can take a 20 on the linguistics checks, but they also cannot be untrained. Ranks in linguistics is very uncommon in my experience, and even then its likely only a few ranks, its very possible that even if a character does have ranks in the skill they can't make the DC30 linguistics check (need a +10 bonus).

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The loot is way behind as well. As I said before the players should pick up about 17k in treasure (68k total for a party of 4) in this adventure to be on track for WBL, here is my breakdown of what they can get. Still running the numbers on it, but there is no way it hits the mark.

So I've received my copy of the Trial of the Beast and read it over, and while it mostly looks like a pretty good adventure, I have my concerns. I don't think its going to be a good adventure for all groups (by this I mean reasonable party builds), and I'm pretty worried it wont be a good fit for my group.

Plot Issues

Obviously the module is quite a bit rail-roady, but the track is a bit bumpier then most and offers very little room for deviation from the set course.

Obviously the Adventure resolves around the trial of a sentient flesh golem. Well right there is your first problem. Not all characters are going to be particularly interested in defending a flesh golem, no matter how innocent he may appear. For example my party contains a priest of Pharasma who is likely to view the exist of the creature as a tragic abomination that needs to be put down. Being as it basically a conglomeration of corpses given life, even if not technically undead, the desecration of corpses it represents is a violation of some Pharasma's basic principles. A wizard or other knowledgeable person might also point out that flesh golem stand a chance of going berserk if provoked, not helping the situation. A good case can be made that the creature should be put down in the name of public safety. At best my group is going to be unenthusiastic about defending this thing, and I doubt we are alone in that.

Of course if the group doesn't choose to defend the beast the adventure really can't even get off the ground. But actually they can't really kill it either as the beast is generally far to tough for players to kill unless it decides to die willingly. This is really my biggest concern, the adventure is quite likely to be a non-starter for my group.

I like the idea of the Trial, though I think the adventure misses out on a great opportunity to have one of the PCs actually play the part of the defense attorney, rather then just have them be witnesses.

This adventure (like to a degree the first one) is pretty skill heavy as well. Which isn't a problem, per say, but I think its something the players guide could have pointed out more. Our group didn't realize going into these adventures that investigation would play such a large part, and so have suffered for our lack.

I have no problems with the investigative encounters, though the trail to lead the players to the true villains seems a bit tenuous. It relies on the players either chasing down an absurdly long trail of clues. Wait, so I check the symbol on some medical tools, find their maker, find the auction house he sold it to, find the shop the auction house he sold it to, the shop the auction house sold it to, and then the guy? You've got to be kidding me. Otherwise they have to chase down a name on some random paper/tube in a burned down house (likely only the tube because I doubt most parties can reliably make a DC20 linguistics checks, I know mine cannot).

The Chymeric works is a fine dungeon, but as I said getting the players here is a bit of a challenge. Its also somewhat ironic that in an adventure that resolves around a trial, the adventure seems to assume that the players will have no problems breaking and entering into this location to get the evidence they need. I love the section on Pharasma, but maybe a section on the Law in this area might make for a better side bar?

I love the encounter with the mob. Great fun. It might be fun chance to show in person to the players just what an fearsome combatant the beast might be. The mob of course poses literally no threat to him.

Its kind of sad that the outcome of the trial (what the whole adventure revolves around) is more or less irrelevant to the rest of the adventure. And the thread that is suppose to lead the players to the final dungeon is a bit tenuous. I mean if they support the beast innocence, and he's found guilty, why don't the just leave well enough alone? Or if they support his guilt (a likely conclusion for Lawful characters) and he escapes, they might chase him for justice, or they might realize that their chase is rather futile, as they certainly don't poses the means to bring him in. The idea of the mob as a time limit is a joke, as they certainly can't harm the beast.

After the players arrive at the final dungeon, the adventure again seems to assume the players are going to just start looting all the possessions in this guys house. I'm pretty sure there is some sort of law against that. The encounter difficulty is certainly kicked up a notch as well (not necessarily a bad thing, but see other notes).

I have mixed feelings about the final encounter. The idea of controlling a powerful monster to defeat another one is pretty cool, but I also want the adventure to be about my character, not a NPC. It might be better suited for something other then the adventures ultimate encounter. And unfortunately, the final golem is so tough its unlikely the PC can defeat it any other way. It's also quite possible that the PCs might wash their hands of it. The final golem is most probably to tough for them to defeat (hell with its grapple powers, quickness, and webs in the room, they will be doing VERY well to just retreat). They might just leave the top level unchecked, and so have no idea that the crazy machine even exists.

Of course even if they get to the machine, activating it can possibly prove impossible. It's a DC25 Use Magic Device, to activate it blindly (well actually two DC25 checks, but the DC20 Know. Arcana check is probably a bit easier to past for the first one). Which verges on impossible for parties which may be entirely lacking the skill (not uncommon in my experience). I guess you can get a lousy +2 bonus from deciphering some earlier scripts, but no, that's all but impossible. I mean come on, DC 25 and 30 linguistics checks? You've got to be kidding me. Oh, and you need to do both of them to get the bonus.

So they need to make this DC25 UMD check, while on a roof, dodging freaking lightning bolts the whole time. Oh and yeah, if you fail that check by more then 10, you take damage as well. I'm having a hard time seeing a party hang around for this (which is kind of a shame because the whole Frankenstein feel is cool).

Mechanical Issues
I've already covered a lot of the absurd skill checks required for parts of this adventure. The last encounter being particularly bad. There are a few other that are troublesome, but I give them a pass because they skills they call for (Perception, Diplomacy) should be present in the party anyways.

First off I love that there is more monster spread in this adventure. The last one was undead, undead, and more undead. However, this adventures has another problem to me, an abundance of Golems. Now undead may be boring, but they are rarely a problem for an adventuring party to face. Golems OTOH tend to represent a real challenge for adventurers. They are immune to magic and mostly immune to swords. Now fight a Golem every once in a while is fun change, just like other tough/unconventional monsters like Oozes, Shadows, and Rust Monsters can be fun from time to time. However their nature makes them frustrating monsters for players, and so a little bit of them goes a long way. This adventure threatens on going over that limit I think. Recall that a relatively large amount of characters types are basically useless against Golems, such as offensive casters, archers, and TWF.

The adventures gives the players very little in the way to combat the golems either. A single adamantine blanch is it. And while I haven't run the numbers, the adventure feels behind in loot. PCs should acquire like 17k in wealth during this adventure, and I just don't see it happening. Their is like only one magic weapon given out in the whole book, most of the rest is potions and other consumables and a few wands. No armor that I saw. Certianly if the players don't loot the Nobels house they will be behind.

All in all I can't say I can give this adventure a very favorable review. But if you got this far, thanks for reading my thoughts!

Max Mahem wrote:

We always take the average rounded normally (that is up, on a side note we also ignore the rules and round everything else normally as well, that is, .5 rounds up). One of the advantages of this is it makes it easy to audit character sheets. At any point in your characters history it is easy to calculate what his hitpoints should have been, without having to have kept a running total of what your hp rolls were for the last X levels.

Pardon my perhaps-noobish question, but why would you need to track the history of a player's HP in Pathfinder? Perhaps to track level drain in older versions of D&D? But in PF aren't we just operating with negative levels now, which penalize a player a standardized 5 HP each?

So you can be sure that the current total is correct. In other words an Audit. When a player hits level 15 how can you be sure his current HP total is correct? Maybe he accidently added a HP total in twice? Or maybe he forgot to add it one level. When you roll HP there is no good way to Audit this, aside from keeping track of what he rolled every level. Having a staticly determined HP every level makes recalculating HP easy.

Maybe you guys are better than us, but I (and my players) have a heck of a Time keeping our HP total correct, even with static HPs/level.

We always take the average rounded normally (that is up, on a side note we also ignore the rules and round everything else normally as well, that is, .5 rounds up). One of the advantages of this is it makes it easy to audit character sheets. At any point in your characters history it is easy to calculate what his hitpoints should have been, without having to have kept a running total of what your hp rolls were for the last X levels.

I don't see a problem with Extra Smite. I've played a couple Paladin's in Pathfinder and for none of them would Extra Smite a super-optimal choice I mean think of your typical Paladin builds, Archer, TWF, Sword and Board, Sword and Bash w/ Board, THW. Only the Sword and Board and THW paladin are not feat starved till the upper levels, when a Paladin already starts to get multiple smites and thus the feat starts to look less attractive.

Now if I was a THW or Sword and Board guy I might have the spare feats to consider taking it, but it would still would be a tough decision, as other feats like Weapon Focus, Cleave, ect are more universily usefull then an extra smite. Consider a 4th level Paladin that faces 8 smiteable foes, one the BBEG, and the rest lesser challanges, in a given day. When he smites the encounter is more or less over, but he can only smite once a day, so he saves it for the BBEG. Now by taking Extra Smite he can easily win vs one additional foe, but he still doesn't have enough to roll through all the smiteable foes he faces. So extra smite might be a good idea, but taking a different feat that helps him against all those foes also looks very attractive. Which (to me) is pretty indicative of a properly balanced feat.

Yeah, it would be great if Devoted Performer increased my uses/day of Smites, but a strict reading of the 3.5 feat doesn't lend itself to that. The feats pretty nicely balanced as written, and adding that might upset it a bit. In any case I talked to my GM about it, and he is cool with the feat.

As far as spells I can do verbal components just fine (some kind of sacred chanting/song/flute music I suppose). Originally I was looking for spells without a Somatic component (working about spell failure) but on further consideration, I'll probably be in light armor most of the game anyways, so it probably wont matter. Thank's for the spell suggestions, Vanish is a good one I hadn't considered as are the other buffs.

I looked at the Caviler as opposed to the Bard, but really this character was always designed as a Paladin, whom (after playing a couple levels) I decided would make some sense to splash some Bard, rather then the other way around. If I had to do over again I might seriously look at the Cavalier/Bard, but OTOH this campaign is evil/undead heavy it seems, and so Paladin bard might still be the best choice.

I'll show the item to my GM, he's a big fan of Monks robes for his characters, so it at least has a chance!

Well my group finally faced the Splatter Man, and things actually turned out fairly okay. We were semi spoiled going in (I had read the encounter, but kept my knowledge to myself, and let the other players dictate the action, rest of the group only new we were likely facing the BBEG, and in for a tough fight and nothing else). Due to some research we had done above ground we knew the likely location of the splatter man (we knew where he had been incarcerated, and had cleared out the rest of the dungeon). This was extra knowledge from the GM, because though the players could certainly happen across this data in several ways, it's never spelled out that the GM should give it to them.

The party consisted of 3 persons, a Dwarf Cleric (AC Tank), a Life Oracle (Skills, Channel, and 2HW), and a Bow Wielding Paladin/Bard, all level 4. All builds are about average, My character was the Paladin. Encounter went like this:

If you're a blaster style sorcerer (and don't let anyone tell you there is anything wrong w/ that BTW, it's my favorite style of magic user to play!), then the meta-magic feats you are looking for are primarily empower, quicken, elemental, and maximize, especially empower. Using these feats you can get quite a lot of mileage out of a few damaging spells. For example, scorching ray + empower (later maximize) generally actually beats the equivalent damaging spell of it's metamagiced level when you first get it, assuming you only want to hit one target of course. An empowered Fireball can be just as good as Cone of Cold (assuming you don't need Cone of Colds huge area).

Blasting works best when you are going up against hordes of lower level enemies, and if this is the case, and you're allies are in there mixing it up, you might want to look at selective spell. Though I have found it's often better to settle on a damage type and then cast the appropriate protection from element spell. Widen spell is crap though, +3 spell levels to double the area? I know it's a 3.5 hold over, but it's total crap.

You can also consider Intensify spell, but in general I think empower is a better deal. In fact don't think about it. If you want to cast damaging spells, you want empower. It's really a no brainer.

Thanks for the replies, you're advice is very helpful!

Going to level 4 (at least) does seem a rather good idea, as the major thing I've lost w/ my level of Bard is that point of BAB. And you're right since I've already lost that, so no reason not to go at least level 4. Especially if I can use the devoted performer feat!

Thanks for pointing out Devoted Performer feat to me. It sounds perfect! I'll bring it up with my GM, but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be allowed. Seems a Pathfinder interpretation of the feat would allow your Bard and Paladin levels to stack in terms of Smite Evil damage and Rounds of Bardic music, but not for number of uses of Smite Evil or increase to Bardic music effects (like Inspire Courage/Competence). Only down side is taking this feat delays my taking my next significant Archery feat, Deadly Aim, till level 7. Which will have a major negative effect on my damage output.

As for Arcane Duelist, I've decided against it. I do not envision this character as an Arcane Duelist, she's mainly a Paladin who happens also to inspire people ala Bard, the Arcane magic is just a side benefit. To bad there is nothing I could trade spell in for, like full BAB!

And, on further consideration, I'm not sure the benefits make any sense for the level range I'm talking about. At most I'm thinking a 50/50 split of Bard/Paladin which means over the 15 or so levels this campaign will likely last, I'll only hit level 8 or so in bard, likely less. So I will miss out or only get a small taste of the best abilities, Arcane Armor, Bladethirst, and Arcane Bond. All I end up getting is one pretty good feat (Arcane Strike, though the swift action use conflicts w/ my Lay on Hands).

In exchange I give up Versatile Performer, which could possibly be killer for me. My character has a low Int, and took a custom flaw which prevents her from communicating normally, basically she can only speak in Verse/Song sort of like the Chanters from Dragon Age, which lets her communicate basic concepts, but makes conveying details difficult/impossible. Versatile Performer will let me mitigate this to an extent by letting me play my flute for some diplomacy checks, probably only for stuff like changing people's disposition, but better then nothing. It's to bad I can't mix'n match what I take from an archtype class, because the feats I give up for this are totally not worth it, but everything else would be. I'll ask my GM about it though!

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Anyways, since I'm probably stuck with the Bard spells, any thoughts on what I should take given that my spell progression is going to be comparatively severely retarded, and that my party already has ample access to divine magic? And that my alignment/character decisions are going to prevent me from taking any spells that don't seem fitting with the concept of a paladin (charms, fear effects, other less then honorable spells are probably out).

So I've decided to play a Bard/Paladin of Shelyn in our Carrion Crow campaign, focusing on Archery as my combat style. The rest of the 3 person party consist of a Dwarven Cleric of Torag and a Life Oracle of Desna. As you can see we're fairly heavily anti-evil/undead focused (which seems appropriate for this campaign).

Any advice/comments on this build? I know it's not the most optimal, but I thought that a Paladin of Shelyn (goddess of art and beauty) multiclassing into Bard was pretty flavorful. And one level of Bard doesn't really cost me much. 1 BAB, a few hitpoints, delay of my paladin progression. In exchange I get inspire courage, skill points, class skills, and some minor magic. Given my dex heavy build I am likely to be in light armor anyways, so spell failure isn't as big an issue.

So far one level of bard seemed doable, the boost from inspire courage being good enough to counter the things I lost. But I'm questionable on multiple levels. A 2nd level would get me versatile performance (which is great) but it seems to drop off on further levels. I would like to keep a good blend for flavor reasons, but I'm finding it hard to justify past level 2. I'm also looking favorably on the arcane dualist archtype for bard, which would be mechanically advantageous, but the flavor doesn't seem to fit. Thoughts?

Also does anyone know of any PrC (3.5 3rd party or otherwise) for a Bard Paladin build?

Anyways you can see my current build here.

But, really, if haunts are a problem, it might be a good idea to search out their source and put an end to it so they don't bug you or the imperiled locals any more. Or do what most threatened villagers do, hire some adventurers to take care of it for you.

Doesn't this really just bring the thing full circle? To reiterate, my problem with haunts is two fold:

1) Overly specific method of destruction. 'Heat Metal' and 'Bless Weapon' are spells granted only to two specific classes, Druids and Paladins. If the party does not contain a member of one of these classes, destruction of these Haunts is impossible. These classes can be rather rare in many settings. For example while Ravengro contains a low-mid level cleric there is no Druid or Paladin.

2) Respawning nature. If the Haunt can't be destroyed, the fact that it respawns can be quite an anoyance. Again, its rarely fun for the players to face the same hazard multiple times. And in some situations (haunt in an urban area for example) simply bypassing the haunt is not an acceptable outcome.

You can see how these two can compound one another. Its frustraiting for the players to be powerful enough to be able to 'kill' a haunt, but lack the specific resources to put it down for good. Now sure, for some specific haunts, the research and work to figure out a way to put it to rest for good can be a fun part of the campaign, but this can't be the case for every haunt. I mean the 'Cold Spot' a CR1 haunt is clearly not designed to be a session defining encounter, but putting it to rest is far more trouble then stopping any other CR1 threat.

The specific examples in Carrion Crow are just examples as how it can work out in a specific campaign setting. It's good that there exists in the campaign an alternate means of putting it to rest (not the players have any possible way of knowing this), but its certianly not in the default rules for the haunt, which is the problem.

Max Mahem wrote:

I would let anyone wanting to use a sling reload for free, without need for any trait/feat. I mean its a 1d4+STR simple weapon, I don't think letting it get a full attack really breaks anything.

The thing is that slings are simple weapons (nearly anyone can use them), and bows are martial weapons. I suspect that's why they put this limitation, in order to show that martial weapons are better for combat.

Sure, but when you look at the difference between Melee martial and simple weapons, the difference in weapon quality is not nearly so big. Compare:

Mace 1d8, 20x2
Longsword 1d8, 19-20x2
The only difference being the crit modifier.

Now the sling however is worse in just about every concievable way to the weakest of ranged martial weapons, the shortbow. Compare:
Sling 1d4+Str, 20x2, 50ft
Shortbow 1d6, 20x3, 60ft

The sling already suffers enough penalties to make it a vastly inferior weapon to the shortbow (the weakest martial weapon hardly anybody uses). There is no need to limit from a full attack as well.

IMO, giving the sling a full attack just prevents players from paying an additional tax on an already inferior (but potentialy flavorful) option. Note that the ninja above could already be using the superior shortbow if he wished, or has already paid a feat tax for the slingstaff, which is still inferor to the Composite longbow!

Drack530 wrote:

I am not sure how far the haste spell is assumed to be in use for monster cr's and what not but when it comes to comparing haste to other buff spells of the same level it is way better. No one I know takes the spell heroism over haste. Even with me nerfing haste to one target, players still pick haste over heroism.

It's even worse on the stupid summoner who can barely learn any spells, but gets Haste on his second level list which makes the rest of the list COMPLETELY obsolete.

+1 to this. It's still a 3rd level spell for bards (also 6th level casters) and a steal at that.

I can't see taking him out quickly either. He's got a (relativily) huge amount of HP (67 something IIRC0, and takes half damage from any PC physical attacks (assuming they even have magic weapons!), and is likely to save against any channel ability. The most potent things the PCs are likely to throw at him are their own magic missles and some of those ghost touch arrows (if the PCs have any left).

Max Mahem wrote:

One of my problems with haunts and there necessary destruction methods is that they are overly specific. Even assuming the players make the knowledge/investigation check to figure out how to destroy the haunt, it is quite possible to do so. The cold spot, requires 'heat metal' a druid only spell. So I hope you have a druid in you're party, or else the haunt is pretty much indestructable. Worse, another requires Bless Weapon a Paladin only spell. So again, a Paladin is required or your out of luck.

Why do you have to destroy them? If you can, great. If you can't, no biggie. You get XP for surviving a haunt, not for destroying it.

What if (as our GM did, playing right out of this book) the Haunt occurs in a location where its destruction is required. Like say a Choking Hand haunt in the town jail, or some darkened alleyway, as mentioned in the description? Doesn't do the town folk much good to say, 'Well don't go in there', or 'Don't worry, we will comeback every day and kill it again.' While haunts can of course appear in dungeons, they are also the sort of obstacles designed to show up in inhabited areas, and indeed this often the most appropriate setting for some of them.

But even in a dungeon the resetting nature of undestroyed haunts is a serious inconvenience. It’s rarely fun for the players to face the same hazard more then once. And they will rightly feel a bit put out having to expend resources to defeat a hazard they have already defeated (and may not get anymore XP for).

I would let anyone wanting to use a sling reload for free, without need for any trait/feat. I mean its a 1d4+STR simple weapon, I don't think letting it get a full attack really breaks anything.

I do think it makes bookkeeping sense to just assume that all bows are composite bows and can deal damage equal to your strength bonus. Maybe not the most accurate, but I'm all for simplification.

One of my problems with haunts and there necessary destruction methods is that they are overly specific. Even assuming the players make the knowledge/investigation check to figure out how to destroy the haunt, it is quite possible to do so. The cold spot, requires 'heat metal' a druid only spell. So I hope you have a druid in you're party, or else the haunt is pretty much indestructable. Worse, another requires Bless Weapon a Paladin only spell. So again, a Paladin is required or your out of luck.

Just be aware that players are often inordinatly hard headed about facing opposition that you have designed to be to hard for them. In order to get a 'omg, this guy is to tough we can't fight him head on' type of reaction, the treat really needs to be completely overwelming. I mean like not just 'oh he's real tough' but like 'OMG This is an Adult Dragon and we are level 1!' type of situation. From the brief details of this encounter you've given. BBEG, Pet Medusa this doesn't seem to be immediatly obviously to tough for them to fight.

It's important to remember that the statistics of you're monsters are largely hidden from the players, they can only make their estimations based upon obvious visual clues. There is no way for the players to know (for example) how many caster levels a wizard has, or if the Pet Medusa is actually a 10th level ranger, or how many HPs they have. In you're specific case you've made some reference to an enviromental hazard (baby medusa's using their gaze attack all over the place), how are the players to gauge the difficult of this hazard untill the encounter it? Worse, medusa's are particularly troublesome as by the time the players realise it may be a good idea to retreat, it may already be to late to do so. Try and see things through their eyes, the encounter's difficulty is obvious to you, but you have all the data, the players do not.

In my experience this tendancy is very hard to fight, and you are making it worse by putting him at the end of a dungeon which tends to encourage linear head-on type thinking rather then out of the box solutions. The best way to set this up is for the players to have knowledge ahead of time that the foe is likely to strong for them to face head-on. By the time they have rolled initative it is probably to late, again recall that it is very difficult for players to guage the difficult of an encounter mid encounter.

First you're disregarding accuracy. Many spells can hit their targets significantly easier than physical attacks and if they miss they still deal half damage.

Your expected warrior damage would be [2d6+bonuses]*accuracy, which easily could reduce it to ~15 if not lower. The harder the mob is to hit the better off magic tends to be.

Firstly, the extra expected damage output for Fred (linked above) does consider his to hit chance, as measured against a CR appropriate enemy (AC 24). But I did disregard it in my initial level 5 estimate. However, I also disregarded the potential for saving throws against fireball and the like, which also reduces its expected damage. I also didn't consider elemental resistances, SR, DR, miss chance or other factors which could all change the equation. There are of course quite a number of foes against whom magic comes out inferior to, especially the area of affect damage spells we tend to be discussing here. But you have to use some basis for comparison, so I selected raw damage output.

Also remember that a lot of spells scale off the CL. Lightning Bolt deals 5d6~10d6. Fireball deals 6d6~10d6 to multiple mobs. Ball Lightning deals 3d6 to 2~5 targets. Dragon's Breath deals 7d6~12d6 damage to multiple mobs. Cone of Cold deals 9d6~15d6 to multiple mobs.

Warriors gain 2~3 damage every 4 levels whereas mages are gaining 4d6 (~14). Magic does more damage the higher you go, often to more targets as well.

I did consider magic damage scaling, but 3rd level spells cap out at a max of 10d6. How a warriors damage scale is highly dependent upon the build, but in many cases exceeds the 3.5/level wizard magic does so. For example a Paladin's smite damage scales at 2/level for Evil Outsiders and Dragons before we consider the effects of power attack, weapon and stat enhancements, and the like.

Also note that we are primarily discussing only a single strike from a warrior, at high levels you could expect the 5% increase in his-to-chance over his full attack haste gives him to be a very meaning full increase to his damage output. For Fred the +1 is worth a whole level worth of Wizard increase (3.9) bringing his expected damage increase from haste up into the 40's.

You're right that damage spells can be multi-target. But of course haste hits 1 target a level as well.

Also mages approach combat very differently than physical classes. You often cast your strongest spells first and follow them with weaker spells. For a turn by turn DPR calculation you would want to consider your highest level spell when comparing it to haste because that is what you would be casting. They are very different approaches to combat, but fundamentally you're looking at the output from the mage's turn and not the warriors.

There are a number of valid strategies a wizard can take into battle, one of which is attempting to conserve his spell power for later potential encounters. Which strategy is appropriate depends, again, on the situation. However when determining the value of haste, I don't think comparing it to higher level spells to determine its value as a 3rd level spell spell is appropriate. Though I would note that in many situations damage from haste can exceed any spell in the game. Taken to the extreme, 20 high level warriors wailing on something for 20 rounds is going to beat the pants off of the damage any other spell a 20th level caster could possibly cast.

But the comparison for turn by turn damage comparison goes only unfavorably for you though. We've only considered a single round of damage a single warrior could potentially do with haste. When considering the encounter in its totality, the damage increase is multiplied by the length of the encounter. A single round of haste for a warrior can do comparable damage to any 3rd level spell, 10 rounds of it does several times more damage then any 9th level spell.

Don't get me wrong, haste is indeed an awesome spell. Even more so if you can pop it off without delaying any of your aggressive casting, but it doesn't detract from the fact that a mage could easily do more damage than an additional melee hit per turn if they are going balls to the walls.

I'm not really interested in a warrior vs wizard debate, but I don't think the numbers bare this out. Of course which spell is appropriate against which foe is of course always situationally dependent, but in terms of damage output, especially when considered over the length of an encounter, haste should almost always win out over any 3rd level spell, and quite frankly can win out over much higher level spells. And none of this considers the defensive and speed boost haste also gives.

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I think the old 3.0 haste may have been more the right style. Not the partial actions bit, but 3.0 haste affected a single target and you needed level 6 haste (mass haste) to affect the party. Probably a better fit IMO.

Even then, a nuke should be doing much more damage than a single additional swing, so Haste is only giving you an advantage in damage if you take multiple full round attack turns within the limited duration.

Almost certianly not. You're 5th level fireball does only 5d6 or ~17.5 average damage. A 5th level warrior with a two handed weapon easily exceeds that in a single swing (assuming +4 Str) 2d6+1 weapon +6 Str +6 Power Attack =~ 20, which is a rather concervative estimate, many builds could do quite a bit more. Even a sneak attacking rogue will come quite close (could pass it depending upon the build).

Of course the math changes at every level, but consider when fireball caps out at level 10. It does ~35 damage now on average. Our fighter has moved up even more though. Going off of MiB's Falchion Fred deals very nearly as much, 34.5 with an additional attack. And of course from this point forward, he will exceed that total.

In terms of damage, if the party warrior can get a full attack on the target, haste is almost always the most damaging spell the wizard can cast, even if only a single round of damage is considered.

I think this is a good idea. The question to me always seems, would I still be casting haste if it was a 4th level spell? And the answer is almost certianly yes. In fact it could be a much higher level spell and it would still be cast. Haste is probably the best party buff spell, regardless of level.

So from that perspective, it could make sense to split it into two different spells. I like the idea of Haste being split up into a single target and a mass version at say levels 2 and 4.

Haste could also be tunned down in various ways. One no brainer is having it only affect level/2 instead of level number of creatures. That way when a wizard first gets it, he can't apply it to the whole party just yet, giving the spell some room to grow. I also like the idea of haste fatiguing the targets when it's duration runs out.

Meh, it always struck me as kind of odd that Erastil was LG anyways. I always conceptualize the good of hunting as somewhere around the CN alignment.

But that's just me, I really don't pay to much attention to the fluff.

I've glanced through the first module, and I have to admit I'm a bit concerned. In particularly the last two penultimate ghost look particularly rough.

Now I enjoy a good challenge, but this looks to be setting up for a TPK.

So how can there be offspring between two changelings if there are only females?

MAGIC.

Better check the range on those wizard spells as well buddy. Most of the best SoD or SoS spells are close ranged spells, or as fighters like to call it, 'Charging Range.' This is one of the rules I find myself forgetting quite frequently. But if you dimension door 800ft away, all your best spells (Dominate Person, Finger of Death) are out of range, as are most of you're lesser spells (medium range). Basically only damaging evocation effects have long range. This is especially important to recall for the wizard who thinks he can just fly around lobing spells from out of range (also hope

Summons are good at taking hits (especially from monsters), but rarely a threat to fighter of equivelent level. They can generally either be ignored (they won't do enough damage to stop him from killing you), or slayed rather easily. And the spells duration is to short, and casting it takes to long (full round action, very easy to disrupt), for it to be terribly effective.

Now Plannar Binding/Ally have staying power, but have their downsides. The summoned beast could of course break free during its summoning, and if you've summoned something nasty enough to inconvience the fighter, you could be in a world of hurt. Or if you go with the ally option, you are spending resources. No reason the fighter couldn't similarly take some money and purchase some back-up to fight for him. Maybe it would have to be of the more conventional nature, but that doesn't make it any less effective.

In many situations making the other party flee is the exact same thing as victory. What if the fighter is just about to kill the Pope or something and the wizard needs to stop him? If you have to retreat you have lost. After all victory is not always measured by the life and death of the potential combatants.

The other thing I think is important to recall that D&D is really a team game. You're party of lvl 10 Wizards is going to be in for a very rough time if they get ambushed by say 4 Shambling Mounds (could be a TPK) and would almost certainly have to retreat vs virtually any kind of Golem. Add a fighter into the mix and the situation changes drastically.

Play an archer, hopefully win initative, and get ready to counterspell, aka, shoot them with an arrow(s) when they try and cast a spell. If you hit and do a good bit of damage (and any archer build should be able to) then you are very likely to disrupt the spell, as the DC is fairly difficult (10+Damage+Spell Level). Rinse and repeat until the target is dead (or low enough that a full attack can bring them down).

Failing that an item that creates an anti-magic field (used to be a torc in 3.5) shut a wizard down almost completely. Their only remaining options being a wall of force or a prismatic wall, which only allow him to escape. Or any creatures he may have planar binded/ally, which (barring excessive numbers) a warrior should be able to put down.

Many people make it out to be that melee has no chance vs magic, I find this to be untrue. If a warrior can get in melee combat with a wizard, he is in for a world of hurt, few builds can last more than a couple rounds with a warrior. Yes the wizard has a variety of options to avoid this, but everything is circumstantial, none of it is guaranteed. About all a wizard can reliably count on is the ability to escape a potential conflict.

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And if it's just fearing a fighter, they already should. You're average lvl 10 wizard has what say 70 HP and a none to high AC? It's not hard to build a fighter who can drop him in a single full round of attacks. The wizard should be only as brave as he can reliably hope to keep this from happening.

Just building my first Paladin for a Pathfinder AP, and it has come to my attention that a number of the gods lack symbols/icons that are easy to represent with a simple holy symbol. Any suggestions for alternate Holy Symbols for gods like Shelyn who's symbols might be hard to represent in a hand-held icon?

Okay some revisions taking the above advice into account.

Thanks for the feedback. I went back and forth on the DR level. I'm thinking that DR equal to half there level may be better, though it does eliminate the nice symmetry bettwen the character and demons, which typicaly have DR/10, and at 10th level, where this class traditionaly ends, they would also have DR 10.

1) True Seeing continues is a bit much. But note that Dragon Disciples get blind sense which is similar, if less potent. True Seeing is also an iconic demonic ability. But maybe a number of uses/day would be more appropriate.

2) Dragon Disciple also gives all the bloodline abilities, so this is no different in this regard (in fact Dragon Disciple gives access to some of them early).

3) The ability score increases are less potent then the those the Dragon Disciple gives (though the abyssal bloodline counters this somewhat). I am considering forbidding taking the same ability advance twice in a row.

6) Hmm, hadn't considered adjusting the progression. Didn't want to give to much, demons only get 60' typically.

7) The demon summoning ability is designed to mimic the Dragon Form ability. Dragon disciples get access to a 6th and then 7th level spell. The demon diciple is similar, except they get early access to a 5th level spell. Usage/day is the same.

8) Teleport at will is very good, but note its the 20th level capstone. It was more a theoretical addition as I doubt it will see play.

It's hard to balance against Dragon Disciple, as it is itself a potent class.

So for our Council of Thieves campaign we all ended up playing Tieflings. Which is working out pretty well, but makes going into the "Dragon Disciple" class kind of hard to justify. So I modified the Dragon Disciple into the "Demon Disciple" to fit our theme.

Principle changes:

• d10 instead of d12 HD.
  
• 4+Int skill points instead of 2+Int skill points
  
• Bluff instead of Escape Artists
  
• DR Silver equal to class level instead of AC bonus
  
• Ability increases every 4 levels instead of every 2
  
• Darkvision and True Seeing instead of Blindsense
  
• Ability to Summon Demons instead of Dragon Form
  
• No bite attack
  
• No wings
  
• Expanded to 15 levels
  
• Teleport at will at 15th level
  

Check it out here and let me know what you think.

Any chance we could get a umm... "directors cut" of what those nasty puguwumpi were going to be like teamed up with those slaves? I think I am going to add them back in (just because the Aura of unluck is SO cool), and the players hate them beyond all reason.