I know your question was about DOuble Strike and Vital Strike stacking...
But if you're looking at dealing heavy damage with each strike on a TWF'er, go with Half-giant TWF Ranger, wielding a standard of 2d6/1d8 (longsword/swortsword), and from level four on cast lead blades on yourself, upping those to 3d6/2d6. You'll probably have 14 dex at first but that's why you rely on Comba Style to give you the TWF feats while waiting for your stat bonuses to boost your dex up.
The Druid was there with her lion. She was intending on stepping in if the Rogue falls unconscious. After the fight she used a wand of CLW to bring him back up to 20, and they went on their merry way.
Thank you all for your input. I think I will follow a combination of the advice here and give the PC XP for the encounter level, adjusted down to 2 as per Gauss' points. So he will get 800 for handling the 3.5 Void Zombies on his own. He'll be a little ahead of his fellows but not too much- at most leveling up one encounter earlier than them, which fits with him fighting one on his own.
If I were railroading the PCs onto the path, I would probably just level them up at the appropriate story points, but since this group went so far as to beat Saul at his own game in the first leg, I don't imagine they'll go along with the "proper order of events" as things go on.
Did the other party members take any kind of active party in the combat ?
If not then give him the xp for all 4 cr 1 creatures so that's 1600xp maybe next time the others will help out
They took no part in it. My only problem with that is that it would push him over halfway to level five, while they're just past level 4 right now. Three encounters in to this leg shouldn't have him that far along yet.
I had a sorc I was playing wear Leather armor just for the heck of it. 10% is technically the same chance as crit threating with a long sword, and it only caused him to lose a spell once in the ten or so fights I went through with that char. I'd say, if you're not going to pick up Mage Armor and/or Shield, just take the 10%, and don't bother dipping into another class or taking a feat to reduce that. "Time to roll the dice." As Mat Cauthon would say.
So I'm putting my party through Children of the Void (part two of Second Darkness) and i recently ran into an interesting scenario.
Spoiler:
When the PCs get to Witchlight, and abandoned settlement on the island, they have the option of disturbing and fighting four zombies. Well, my game only had three PCs there in the session, and one decided to move on to the watchtower, another decided to actively search every nook and cranny (the rogue), and the third decided to watch the rogue go about his business from afar, intending to step in if he got himself in serious trouble.
So long story short, the Rogue disturbed the zombies, and ended up killing all four of them in a combat that lasted about 20 rounds, with him taking nearly fatal damage (he was down to 4 out of 21 HP). He was able to handle it deftly because he has 19 AC and was wielding a slashing weapon which bypassed their DR. They were swinging +2 and -3 when he let then get both attacks, so they had a 15% to hit with their primary and a 5% with their secondary. So my question is, how should i go about awarding experience for that fight?
Looking at the EXP table..
He fought four CR1 creatures. If he got the full exp for each one, it'd be 400 apiece so 1600.
If he gets what's listed in the column for a party of "1-3" he'd get 135 apiece and so 540 overall, but that total seems to me like it factors in him having help from others.
If we use the CR equivalancies table, four CR1s is equal to one CR4 encounter.
If I give him the total xp for a CR4 encounter (since he handled it himself) that would be 1200.
Lastly, if I give him the 1-3 exp for a CR4 encounter, it's 400.
Now, I want to be fair, but I also don't want his experience to outpace the other members of the group. In the last session they racked up a combined total of 805 XP from their other two encounters.
My next session is tonight and I'm just trying to have the XP totals from last week on hand when we start our game.
Any advice on how much XP I should award this PC?
I just want to say, those last few combinations are pretty awesome...
But I'll add that if you go Weapon Finesse and pick up a wakizachi instead you lose 1 avg damage but can focus your build more heavily on dex. Sadly going two-handed with a light weapon wouldn't get you anything so you wouldn't have that option, but you're not focusing on strength anyway so you might have a 12 or something in it, giving no benefit to two handing anyway.
Take any of these high damage builds, make them a half-giant. Powerful Build will allow them to wield any weapon as a size larger. I can imagine a level 16 enlarged half-giant fighter wielding a great axe doing 20d6 with Greater Vital Strike, and 30d6 on a crit, stack on Thundering and/or an energy burst and you'll be in business...
EDIT: and an enlarged half-giant ranger with a gravity bow, wielding a large holy longbow... doing 6d6 damage per arrow to evil enemies. You can recoup the nat -2 dex half-giants have pretty easily.
Enlarge person does nothing to projectiles.
Quote:
Any enlarged item that leaves an enlarged creature's possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size.
ah, you're right, thanks. Then, minus the enlarge, 3d6+2d6 versus evil is not that bad.
Suggestion: If you pick up Vanish (from the APG) you'll have that as a spell to fall back on in instances where you run out of Vanishing Trick. It's main drawback in comparison is that it's a standard action instead of a swift.
Take any of these high damage builds, make them a half-giant. Powerful Build will allow them to wield any weapon as a size larger. I can imagine a level 16 enlarged half-giant fighter wielding a great axe doing 20d6 with Greater Vital Strike, and 30d6 on a crit, stack on Thundering and/or an energy burst and you'll be in business...
EDIT: and an enlarged half-giant ranger with a gravity bow, wielding a large holy longbow... doing 6d6 damage per arrow to evil enemies. You can recoup the nat -2 dex half-giants have pretty easily.
Yes
I'm only answering to provide further reasoning.
Energy resistances of the same kind do not stack. In any instance where you gain the same resistance from two sources, you use whichever is higher. So in the OP example, I'd say pick a different race or just suffer one class ability to be useless. I think I encountered this with a Tiefling Sorceror.
true. the high cha would account for the ki point loss, and when you're not vanishing, you're feinting, thus the insane Bluff (+19 can overcome most creatures).
Your build has a higher damage potential, but would be limited by the number of times you can cast obscuring mist in a day (at most 4), and if the enemy moves the stage of the combat (to get away from the mist) you'd have to cast it again. And that level, a oracle1/rogue 2 would be decent at hitting low ACs of 13 or 14 but more unlikely to hit the higher AC enemies of 16-20 due to the -4 to all attacks he's getting. Mine's focused on hitting every round, with sneak attack every round.
Interesting idea, what with the water sight and using Obscuring Mist to avoid detection. I'd just use Vanishing Trick to disappear and reappear as needed, until I got to level 10 and got the improved version.
I did a rough build of a halfling ninja designed to be a feint-fighter in case he never gets flanking with the party tank:
Halfing Ninja 6
STR 10
DEX 18 +2 (mag) =20
CON 12
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 18 +2 (mag) =20
alt racial trait: shiftless
HP: 36
AC: 22
BAB: 4
