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Put a review up for this AP about the continuity problems between the previous book and this one. The initial set-up has plot holes that break any suspension of disbelief. To sum up the plot problems: - the PC's know too much, the NPC's too little
In depth, Lastwall would know about the destruction of Rosler's Coffer before the events of Books I and II even start. The lands of Lastwall are very fertile, hence the constant attempts by Orcs to invade and claim it, so the odds of peasants in the fields for miles around seeing a 1 mile high death cloud over Rosler's and news not reaching any official breaks any disbelief to the point that the roleplaying can become an insult to the player's agency as story tellers sitting down to tell a story together with the GM. The timing of roleplaying vs downtime is also incongruent. The party is asked to sit on their hands for 23 1/2 hours each day between interacting with the officials that are 'accessible' only then. Again -- Rosler's Coffer is destroyed, a week or so passes in the Dead Roads, a week or so passes to escape Rosler's Coffer, a week passes for the party to reach Lastwall if they are on foot. Convincing NPC's that danger exists shouldn't be the plot point PC's are pushing. Maybe what to DO about the danger, or being brought into the government's plan to subvert the attack, but not what was printed. Even halving these times, news would spread at the speed of farmers hustling their horses in relays to get the news out there. Or a single Sending spell that a kingdom would use to link one end of their borders to the other. The fact that the festival is even happening at this point works against what the PC's should be asked to do to save the city -- the PC's aren't even railroaded by a valid plot -- it's GM fiat in following the AP as written that their own initiatives to save the town are sidelined. Suggestion: Our GM avoided this entirely by having the Deus Ex Machina from Book II transport the PC's (Obols and all is the plot reason) to the old capital of Ustalav (Ardis) before that city was suddenly destroyed centuries ago by the Whispering Tyrant so they could understand the destruction that is imminent in Lastwall (and possibly change the course of history in minor ways). This made the squabbling aristocracy and lack of central command make sense and the fact that they can't explain what happened (in the future) in Rossler's Coffer. Chunks of plot concerning why there were antipaladins set up in the sewers under that city were glossed over without much impact on the party's motivations. After they emerge from under the sewers of Ardis in past Ustalav, they see that city reduced to ashes only to be transported by the Deus Ex Machina to the similar ruins of Lastwall to finish the book more or less as written.
Not so much since the largest chunk of time sat down at the table is during combats. Not having an effect there would just make me remember how much my butt hurts from sitting in one place so long. I have done combat maneuver specialists who could disable an enemy faster than whitling down their HP, but the playing experience was pretty much the feeling of one shot kills or fully disabling with a spell.
My PC started with two Levels of Investigator before going Wizard. Investigator-2 / Wizard-6. Next Level at 9th I'm taking the Feat Additional Traits and am going to add the Trait, Magical Knack. Make sure you are retraining your lvl 1 feat for that. Pretty sure it is only available then. Edit: And yes, you boom more boom.
A friend and I were discussing the problem of our group mostly having full system mastery in P1 and we hit a fun comparison: Superman writers over the decades had to either reduce his power to tell a good story or change the nature of their story writing. The end we settled on is that at his peak, Superman doesn't struggle to win, so the writers can't wring much suspense out of that, but the best Superman stories come from his internal decisions of how to win and what to do with each victory. Does this track with the experiences of other players and GM's?
A lot of combats are spread over days, but like with any AP, a given section is just as likely a mega dungeon. Personally, I prefer strong options when spells need to be saved for later, so I don’t shy away from fewer spells per day. Consider how access to scrolls wands and then staves will effect your strategies, for some area spells a lvl 2 scrolls is equally effective at CL 3 as CL 13. There could be levels without purchase points, but every harbor in the Shackles could be at your disposal for shopping later. Also read the player guide for which spells move with ships and which do not, then confirm with your GM that they have read and plan to rule likewise.
Between this and the 700+ known spells for full Sorcerer, I would say this falls under the ‘work with your GM’. Maybe there is a campaign based aspect that allows you to learn a limited number of chains, or maybe you can only change your chains at certain points along the campaign. Having the GM hold one end of the rope allows you to experiment with a new system while you play, but also not have to plan ahead for every situation the new system could become broken.
Psychic casters have something like this with Undercasting a spell: I think you have a lot of room between you and your GM (or player if you are running). Prepared arcane have their spell books that come preconfigured, perhaps there are spontaneous casters who have mastered undercasting different spell paths that a character could learn (because, let’s be real, the Human FCB changes the feel of being a spontaneous class altogether anyways, why not open the class up and add roleplay?).
Arodus 24, 4719 "So finally again, I have you to hold and time of mind to set down the events of a fortnight past (though in recollection it feels like another lifetime since). To start at the beginning would be too strange, so to start at the end I can say I have done the very thing that by vow I would never do and commit to you these notes from inside the rafters of the Bastion of Light."
Reaver's Roar spoiler:
Calistril 13, 4718 The beast died well enough nearly half a year ago and its head hung in me bar for all in town to wonder at, those stopping and going, though who well read the note of warning beside it's ugly maw? 'Not once were here such a paladin
You would think one or two would have sense enough to ask, but they have the lot of them the cents of an empty purse -- good looks, fair strength, and we know the foulest disposition to any question of their 'good and greater' purpose -- but they would think one from their bright and shinies or some Sky-Wizard worshipper had reclaimed their holy ground, but would their high-and-mighty tongues even ask whether it could be otherwise that not one from theirs, in fact, took the time to save us? But I've told you well who did it, that band of murder-hobos for hire, (as much sense in them as well as cents from a spent farthing to charge into such a place, but as they say, 'go tell it to Druman, a sailor's already heard it') -- but they at the least, they could get a job done and find their own path back home instead of loitering among us decent-work folk. So there the head (and wings) of such a monster became a comfort to me and mine to know after night after night of work and pity-filled tips (who among the holy and haughty would recognize, let alone appreciate in coin, a hard day's work when even it bit their armor chapped arse?), to know as I said, that there are those whose good in their world are their works, rather than 'working' for the greater good. Find in this entry the till and take from the bar and next barrel schedule for the brewery. Tyrant's Grasp Backstory (player's guide content only):
Kuthona 1, 4716 I think you will find this strange enough but for a second time in the second decade we have taken shelter in the ale cellars, at least this time not from the Broken Nail, but from that brute so beastly his attacks were as deadly with his claws, broken nail or no. He was for awhile a spectre, the thought of a memory to pass in a moment, but present at any time. When the rangings of the Reaver became more frequent, we thought we knew down to the alley where he would and would not go, but the livery, the green grocer, the watch house, all destroyed tonight. I will go out with the next relay to make another run of it for any survivors, although all hope diminishes by the minute. Here catalogued are those saved tonight and last words for those saved too late. I wouldn't think the sky-wizards would curse me twice, but for a stick of lightning to split its middle, what I wouldn't give. Gozran 6, 4687 At last I enter into my own in the weening thirties of adolescence. The elder 'Cala’Quessë' would have me wait another hundred years or two if they could, but they know equal share of time was not given to elf or man or halfsies, so here I stand my life before me and twelve grand barrels of masterful ale in storage under what will soon be my own bar. On this occasion I find it fitting to officially record the latest news from my Bellflower contact on the Leafchipper maternal line, with confirmation given by two separate oral sources and written records confirming all times and locations as can be found:
Leaferchipper Family Tree (spoiler free): Maternal Grandparents Meryver Sonbahar (AR 4587 - ??) Corrin Söğüt (AR 4516 - 4590)
Meryver Sonbahar was born free in the Satrapy of Zelshabbar, rising through the ranks of the militia in his youth. He briefly served as a shield bearer for the favorite son and heir to the throne, Elvon Tozmantosu. The Satrapy left his home largely ignored until a gold mine was discovered just within its border. As interest in trade with the kingdom increased, so did the interests of the Vizier’s companions. Eventually they formed a conspiracy to dethrone the king and replace him with someone directly loyal to the Vizier. In the ensuing battle, Elvon Tozmantosu was killed and his Shieldbearers captured, being denied a death in battle for which they would earn eternity in honor and respect. Corrin Söğüt was born enslaved along the Golden Path, the names of her parents were never recorded, her surname instead becoming the house who eventually paid to hold her in servitude. It was there that she met Meryver and had one child, Hafira Söğüt. Corrin died soon after childbirth and Meryver was sold to another family one year later along the Golden Path.
Yes, to the point, for all different campaigns, what is the range of effectiveness of a caster on offense when they dedicate their midrange to high range resources to fight. Do they speed the combat by a quarter, cut it in half? What is everyone’s range of experiences?
From that list alone I’m feeling a strong caster expending a top level spell could consistently account for 1/4 to 1/2 of enemies neutralized in one round (or all in the right circumstance). Do those estimates seem right? What about for mid-level spells, reduce enemy effectiveness 1/4?
Greetings all! I'm looking for some ballpark numbers of how a full offense caster can shape a combat. Looking at paced spell output -- so say a full dungeon with at least six moderate combats and one to two difficult combats, something where casting from your mid to high level resources is the smart decision -- what percentage of the enemies would they likely debilitate or eliminate in the first one or two rounds? For context, we have an all melee party and I'm trying to run the numbers on how many party buffs are too many buffs from my combat oracle given that we don't have a caster on offense. Thank you everyone for your ideas!
I just realised shaping focus requires a multiclassed My vote would be ranger multiclass with Shapeshifting Hunter added in too: Benefit: Your levels of druid stack with your ranger levels for determining when you select your next favored enemy. Also, your ranger levels stack with your druid levels in determining the number of times per day you can use your wild shape class feature, up to a maximum of eight times per day. And welcome to the Forums! (Don't worry, I post to the wrong thread forum too sometimes.)
I’ve run into this issue consistently and I wonder what our collective thoughts on the matter might be. First, I’ve never been a fan of prepared casters, so my first solution to the problem of having so much player experience that it conflicts with PC experience — which is to be super knowledgeable about all kinds of situations and backed by thorough studying, both me and my PC can produce an exceptional plan. The fall back I’ve used is to play super wise characters who work exceptionally well on an intuitive level, so maybe hours in meditation each day or an extraordinary knowledge of the natural world flavor the solution to the problem at hand. But now I’m playing a charisma character and have landed only on the idea that they are a more than decent story teller and that this imaginative play allows outside the box thinking that surpasses intellect and wisdom. Do physical stats work as well? Your hammer itself knows when to swing, your body moves first as if it knew what to do before your mind? (No idea about Con).
The spell has a primary target, but also secondary targets of the caster's choosing within 15' of the first target. In trap form, what are the different ways of deciding who gets hit in which order? Burning Arc: This spell causes an arc of flame to leap from your fingers, burning a number of enemies nearby. It deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6). For every additional target the discharge arcs to, reduce the number of damage dice by half (rounded down). Therefore, at 9th level, your burning arc deals 9d6 points of fire damage to the primary target, then 4d6 points of fire damage to a secondary target, then 2d6 points of fire damage to an additional target. Each target can attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage. The Reflex DC to halve the damage of the secondary bolts is 2 lower than the DC to halve the damage of the primary bolt. You may choose secondary targets as you like, but they must all be within 15 feet of the primary target, and no target can be struck more than once. You can choose to affect fewer secondary targets than the maximum.
Are there any curses that focus on visions or prophecies? Following a lead on those could result in good aligned actions.
As advice, there are 1H finesse weapons and 2H finesse weapons. As rules, improv weapons have you work with the GM, so find a weapon that lines up with Light, Rapier, Elven Curve Blade or such. My angle would be for a Flying V body on an electric and call it the Curve Blade, full distortion but good pick-ups, mash the frets with one hand but play it Spanish on the other. Extra damage points for stringing it right and playing left like Jimi.
Halflings get the best buffing racial trait, Helpful Halfling. It turns aid another from a last, best resort into a practical and free option. Going to bodyguard feat path makes for a great addition to the front line, as does the cautious fighter, blundering defense path. On offense, I favor readying an action to aid since it gives you the most bang for your buck, either when an enemy goes for a big attack or when your party really needs to land a hit. And the +4 from aid is only the start. Lots of ways to increase it from there!
I love full blooded orcs for divine casters since they get used as cannon fodder by other races too much. The idea that an orc has to be half human not to take a penalty was pretty hard baked into 3.5, but mechanics wise with a point-buy it’s not impossible but with rolled stats it’s not a bad option when you roll higher than the rest of the party. There is one or two orc only feats for summoning IIRC.
It is a great guideline to experiment with now that players and GM's that use that OGL have lots of system mastery and are expecting 'interesting choices' beyond the big 6. I'd bet a lot of tables looking for variety in mechanics could come up with a few fun sub-systems to try out and cool ways to stylize it into the setting. Off the cuff, I'm thinking of trying sessions between lvl 6-8 where the party has access to magical properties like a wizard has access to spells and they can trick out select parts of their gear, either each morning or maybe at certain plot points. Finding new items or blueprints can add to their list and plot allows them to anticipate which ones might be needed in the immediate or intermediate future. Maybe everyone has access to the same items all of the time or maybe there is a limit to how many items the party can have particular items active at once. Or maybe it will fail horribly or maybe just expect table variation.
I had a character a while back who studied combat as a profession, but I just got to thinking, the fact that the Platonic solids constitute most of the dice and societies are capable of doing their own data collection for thousands of years, it seems like there should be a cult that worships d4’s to d20’s as the ultimate arbiters of fate. Does this already exist?
Again, a wand of fireballs could be used in the same manner, and up to a certain point would be way more cost effective. Run that math by me? Selective is an option but can it heal friendlies?
But I don't really think this is the most effective spell, since it only works once on any creature in 24 hours. I would much rather go with a permanent wall of fire (granted, that would hurt everyone), a permanent one. Even without maximizing it, you're getting 2d6 + 15 (assuming CL 15) and that doubles against undead passing through it. It's less if they're standing near it, but still doubled. The party on its own could definitely clean up faster, but we are talking hordes of unintelligent undead, so a scout or just someone with a potion of fly could strafe to the center of their cluster, activate, move to another position nearby, wait for them to get to close again, and rinse and repeat. For effectiveness, I wonder -- who is reading the HP limit of Symbol of Death applying to Symbol of Healing? My hot take is that the limit is overridden because it's subordination to the spell effect of killing creatures: "When triggered, a symbol of death kills one or more creatures within 60 feet of the symbol (treat as a burst) whose combined total current hit points do not exceed 150." "functions as symbol of death, except [*when triggered*] all creatures within 60 feet of the symbol of healing instead are bathed in positive energy and heal 2d8 points + 1 point of damage per caster level (maximum +15)." Symbol of death specifies which creatures by HP total, Symbol of Healing specifies all creatures.
Not sure if I'll actually get to do this with our own adventuring party, but it could be fun to plan out and then have the NPC's use it for dramatic effect: Symbol of Healing (Permanent 10k gp, CL 10)
Are there other ways to up the effectiveness against undead?
Small and Medium are the standard character sizes, but what about in a town of Cyclopes? (let's pretend they invented the spell millennia ago): Their magic always performs at the scale of a medium creature, incurring a -2 penalty for using the wrong sized ranged weapon with their standard large ammunition and, on impact, it deals damage as a medium sized weapon. Conversely, if a Halfling learned this spell while staying with them, the spell would fail to fire a bolt from a crossbow or an arrow from a bow because the two-handed ranged weapons are outside of their size capacity. This is not how magic works in game, or how many GM's would describe the spell failure to a lvl 3 Small caster, and that in total could never be the RAW and automatic spell failure for small casters depending on the ammunition is far from RAI. There has to be something else.
3d6 flameblade is nice. Coinshot could work too. Then there is instant weapon. looking for spells that can get close to the Sledgehammer improvised weapon with 2d6 damage. hmmmm. Is there a usable interaction from weapon shift with natural weapon part of a base Monk's UAS? "A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons." The improvised weapon shifts with wildshape into the UAS, which isn't lost as an attack option in any of the forms, but does keep the die progression which can be further increased by increasing size. Edit: And of course there is Shifter to be investigated if we are talking UAS and Wildshape
Yeah, there is room in reading the choice of the word 'properties' in the wording of weapon shift, if only a little. It lists after using 'properties' three weapon 'qualities': disarm, double, fragile. 'Qualities' is the word used exclusively with weapons under the rules section of equipment with no use of 'properties', so if you and your GM (or just your GM adamantly) decide that the author of the feat refers instead to weapon 'qualities' that loophole is closed. But... If your GM and you want to allow something crazy and willfully interpret 'properties' in the broader sense, then 'improvised' could be a 'property' allowed by weapon shift and then Shikigami feats all now apply to your natural attacks. Balance-wise, giving Druids more combat power in this way probably isn't needed, but at the right table with other OP options being used by other players, could be really really fun to smack an enemy with multiple 4d6 attacks or crank a vital strike bite into an ungainly number of dice. |
