I've looked into it a little bit, and ai started them off against 2 Pit Fiends, just to get a baseline on how strong they are. They pretty much demolished them. I'm looking at the rune giant fighter on the unique creatures page and that might be a fun thing to throw in, and the rangers favoured enemies include undead and evil outsiders, so thats fine. I use those all the time anyway.
td;dr: Be careful making brand new players run high level characters, but if you do, plan out the initial fights in a way to introduce core concepts gradually before encountering the BBEG.
They've all played some pathfinder before, some more experienced than others, but the discussions where which rpg they should be playing so I want to give them an example of high level pathfinder.
In a bid to get more of my friends to play Pathfinder I've agreed to show them what the "best" they can be is. The true end game. Each character is level 20, Epic Level points buy and I'm creating a handful of homebrew artifacts for each of them.
What sort of monsters would be a challenge for these guys? I don't want to throw the King of Hell at them, cause they'll die. But I do want to throw a good, challenging enemy.
The premise is they are long dead heroes, brought together to fight a strong, enemy in the midst of a war. They'll have to deal with waves of minions and the BAM, so the plan is to keep them almost constantly fighting.
These characters aren't optimised persay, but they do have ridiculous stats and items. So basically. What can challenge them, but lead to a well fought story battle.
Also, the whole campaign will be 10 hours or less.
Yeah, the only thing i can do is talk to my GM about my abyssmal stats, but im not just gonna abandon ship because im not gonna be strong. That just shows poor character.
I'll have to take Bard into consideration since you guys are right about my stats being too low to survive on the frontlines.
I like the look of Slayer, but my GM is normally wary of using classes that we find online, we're normally restricted to the main rulebooks so I'll have to talk to him about it.
As for the whole "Don't play. Use 2h. Don't be bad." I roleplay for the experience of the game. The only reason that I'm even asking for help is that I have 14 less ability points than the next worst fighter type and I dont want to be bored at the table. I want to look into ways to be able to enjoy the game despite being massive weakling.
Oh I should also mention that we're playing a campaign with minimal magic items so the normal "just get a +4 STR item" wont work as they are more rare than CG worshippers of Zon-Kuthon.
Hey guys, we've just made the decision to start a Hell's Rebels campaign and I've decided to play a front line fighter. The only issue is that we don't have a party rogue so I'm gonna have to splash a level or 2 in rogue for that. My original plan was for to do a TWF crit build using kukris but my stats are really low, and I don't want to dump charisma knowing there is gonna be a lot of out of combat action.
I am looking for a fun fighting style that will fit thematically and no 2h weapons as we already have 2 barbarian types. Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I'm also looking at how to fit my levels of rogue in and when i should take them to get the best possible play.
So, knowing my party a little by now, I've decided that they probably wont even consider attacking the caravan as they rarely ask for information in the town and rely heavily on the questgiver for information. I've spoken to the 2 captured prisoners and I am getting them to roll new characters in case everything goes pear-shaped, these will then be dropped into the campaign through story-based means without any negatives to the player other than the fact that their first character died unceremoniously.
I intend to have them find an armoury at some point during the escape, but it wont be well stocked and they wont have ANY armour against the better equipped guards using longswords and clubs exclusively. I will completely make up how many guards they cross, if they get too cocky suddenly a half dozen guards turn up and crush them until they run away.
The long term effects of this encounter will essentially be 2 characters completely unequipped with a couple of rusty swords so they'll have to rely on their own skills and whatnot in order to proceed, one mission and they'll be back on track.
IF they succeed in escaping they will be marked fugitives with constant bounty hunter encounters to the point of monotony.
They will have an encounter with one of the NPC Prisoners and be asked to find information to prove his innocence... a heroic act if ever there was one, and I will find a story based way to make this the start of them changing the public's opinion of them.
I will make a caravan scenario in case they do make that decision, but I'm hoping they don't just so that it becomes more fun and challenging for me, but if they do then they will have no weapons except what the guards are wielding.
Thank you for the help guys and if you can think of anything I'm missing please let me know, I've got until Friday to write all this up and decide on a map to base it in.
This could add some political intrigue, a BBEG that the 2 players need to keep alive for a while, and gives you a way to introduce new hooks.
This is exactly what Reginar was supposed to be, he hired them and has helped them in every way that he can but he's been messed around with to the extreme, we've had 2 six hour long sessions since they were given a quest which, in terms of the story, NEEDS doing... I'm thinking I might get him to say he's given the job to another party whilst I do the prison break session, but when they get back that party is MIA... This is my plan for in case anyone dies, they'll be the survivor of the previous party.
Goth Guru wrote:
Maybe another prisoner always insists he was framed. Let them get attached to him. Then as he dies he begs a party member to find the proof of his innocence.
This is a really, really good idea. It might help them move towards the less evil side of the spectrum if they start to show compassion towards their fellow prisoners...
Yeah I was looking at that, and it's a pretty interesting concept. I always intended to let them plan the bust and I feel like it'll probably not be as clever as busting them out of the caravan, they'll argue until their friends have been in jail for a few weeks...6
They need to be moved because the town they're in is a small town and they were threatened with capital punishment if they were caught again... which they were. They're being moved because the guards know there is a full party and they're more than happy to break the law to get what they want, so they're getting them off their own hands.
I know that it's not my job to think of the how, that's what I've been trying to say. All I was wanting was ideas on how to flesh out the scenario so that it wasn't a case of "We hit the caravan. We kill everyone. We win"
I pride myself on my ability to create interesting NPCs that they want to interact with, even random people they stop in the street get their own story as I go along. I want this to feel as real as possible, so some pre-planning is necessary. I'd rather that they got to the actual jail first because that's more of a fleshy campaign instead of a single fight and win.
However, make the caravan tough in numbers. If they don't coordinate well, they'll get killed and/or captured themselves. A dozen or so guards with a couple of relatively dangerous sorts.
If the other 4 characters drag their feet, they'll have to bust their buddies out of a higher-security prison. Or an asylum, depending on the evaluation. You can use Ravengro from Chapter 1 of Carrion Crown or the asylum from Carrion Hill for the destination prison. In these cases, you'll have to retrofit them as active facilities, but it'd sure be unpleasant for them to make that infiltration successful.
Thank you, I might just do that. I'm hoping to add a couple of useful NPCs to the prison caravan to see if I can set up new situations for gaining quests if I decide that Reginar has had enough of them. I don't want the campaign to end just because they're bastards.
It's all down to personal preference, but I like to let my characters take the lead. I don't care so much for how they play, as long as they have fun doing it. I am not a very rules-based GM, and all my players have rarely needed to look at the rulebook beyond making their characters. I like to drive the story through their actions, and if they prefer the Chaotic Evil way then that's their choice. Lawful Evil is fun and all, but my bad guys are primarily LE. I like the challenge of a group of Chaotic characters (We have a mix of CG, CN and CE in our group, nobody is not chaotic) and they roleplay really well taking on their roles and what their characters would do instead of what they would do. I only have one player who ever metagames and it's easy to keep him in line.
When I introduced these guys to Pathfinder I had only met 2 of the players beforehand, and I didn't know anybody at the table well and it's really driving home the reality that Good tends to stick together while Evil does it's own thing. Good guys tend to band together to fight Evil whilst Evil does what they want, and everyone else is the enemy.
I don't want to outright kill their characters because it's a fun and challenging experience, that's why I want this to be a learning curve, so they can learn that YES it's their world that I'm guiding them through, but I'm in charge of it, and the world reacts in a rational way to what they do. In order to cover their tracks they have to be intelligent and when they slipped up I hit them hard.
Let me explain a bit of one of the characters backstories.
Arrain O'Frogs is a Moist-von-Lipwig'esk character who started the game owning a corrupt casino in town which is where he drew the other players into an efficient money making scheme. He has repeatedly screwed the other characters over with charm and slyness. I applaud this, it's a great backstory. After he "accidentally" pushed his manager down the stairs he forced a nearby worker to hide the evidence then promoted him to manager's position.
This manager is now the reason that he is in jail, and he is also a character that I've been able to develop into an actual NPC, with a full backstory. After he successfully gained control of the casino the group made a plan to burn the place to the ground, but came up against the hired thugs and paid off city guard who were protecting the place. He befriended one of the PCs and that PC then fought against his party members in order to protect his new friend. This is why there are only 2 players in jail, the rest banded together to protect the poor manager.
The party then agreed that, as long as the manager is left alone, they will help the 2 get free. I haven't yet told them the repurcusions of this because that's fun for the future. It's their fault for not thinking about it beforehand.
I'm just trying to set up a scenario for their daring escape. I'm not going to kill their characters without allowing them to at least try to escape, but if they're caught they will all be hung and the campaign will be over. I am not a big fan of TPKs, but when the situation calls for it I have no remorse for their lost characters.
I am not going to do anything deliberate to make them win or lose. I'm just going to set up a situation where they have a chance, no matter how small, to use their own ingenuity to successfully escape, then they'll have to live with the consequences. If they succeed I WILL be allowing them to do heroic deeds to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public and be allowed back in cities, until then they'll have to struggle to sell and buy items due to them being recognised.
Young Guns is a great movie... And that's actually given me an idea for how to play it out in the future! What sort of monsters would even be in a prison though? I don't want them to always be killing core races, so any suggestions on that front would be great! I've got plans for their next target to be a shadow fey and some undead, but beyond that I have no idea what to do...
The guards are nameless. I spent hours building interesting NPCs and then they tortured and murdered them, they're the ones who I feel sorry for. Egarthis... Roeanna... I'm sorry...
Well, as I said, they already work for a secret society by proxy so it's alright if my "heroes" are less heroic than in standard pathfinder campaigns. They're primarily in it for the money so they're not so much a group of heroic adventurers as a large party of mercenaries for hire. I have no issue with running a morally questionable party as it lets me develop my abilities to adapt to the parties actions.
I understand it's a crime, but so is murder which they've already committed and successfully covered up. I'm just looking for inspiration and ideas for when the inevitable happens.
Hey guys, I know that there are several versions of these already in existence but I want to try something new.
I have a party of 6 brand new adventurers who have been going around causing havoc in the local town. In order to give them a lesson in being good I got the troublemakers arrested for crimes they've committed.
They have an unlikely ally in a character called "Reginar" I've created who is part of a shady society and also the guildmaster to the local hunter's guild. He bailed them out the first time, but he's sick of the costs they're amounting and he wont help them out this time. They've lost their local business they were running and now the 2 have been arrested again, this time for capital punishment.
I want to move them to a higher security prison, but they're only level 2 so I want to stage an escape that involves the party of 4 outside choosing whether to break them out or not, and the party of 2 inside deciding what they want to do. I fully expect them to all decide to do the breakout, but I have no idea how to plan it.
Any ideas on how to make this challenging, yet possible? I don't mind if one of the 2 troublemakers are killed as they've all agreed that if one of their characters die we will deal with it in the correct way, but if both die then that gives me the impression of being a tough GM, even though I'm not.
At level 2, as I've mentioned before, the spellcasters aren't particularly tough but we have a rogue on each side of the fort.
I think that Dirty tricks might be one way to go, but I'll wait to see what other people think. I'm not going to be levelling up for some time, so I have plenty of time to think about it.
I'm a relatively new player to pathfinder, and I haven't played more than 2 characters at all throughout my life as a roleplayer (I'm part of one roleplay group and we've been playing the same campaign for nigh on 3 years now) and I've recently built a rogue character who has ridiculously good stats, but I have no idea where to take him.
I'm currently in a dungeon fighting kobolds, aiming to slay the Kobold King and my DM has plans beyond that, either into the follow on campaign or on a custom made campaign.
As this is my first serious role playing campaign I was not entirely sure about what a good stat set is, I am still learning, but when 2 of the other members of your party have more than one 18 and the other has 20 int at level 1 you kinda feel insignifficant
There is some truth to your words, but the other side is that if the cleric changed then the person who plays her will be meta gaming. The simple fact of the matter is that at the beginning of the campaign the gamer stated that her cleric was more of a barbarian than a cleric, but was brought up by the priests of Ergothoah (or however her name is spelt) and within her character is a sense of duty that she cannot shirk. His INT is his dump stat and his STR is now 21.
I play the game like i live real life, i don't want anything to go wrong that is why my character turned out the way he did. I created the character to go as the complete opposite of who I am to make them harder to role play and thus helping me to develop them, but they've become just as paranoid. I will have to sort this out, maybe a triumphant return to the old him as he finds his old cloak (gobbled by oozes. the only thing he had from his mother) or the cloth from his banner (Destroyed by a flesh Golem in his first encounter)
With your stat array, I would recommend focusing on summoning and/or battlefield control. With your rebuild, replace your domain and a handful of feats with better selections for your intended role. Have fun figuring out what your character wants to do, not what is optimized for your party.
I will definitely talk to my DM about this, I am thinking about asking to take the Fire Domain, since my character is only about 2 steps away from being an arsonist. I just worry that without my little bits of support my party will lose the cleric before too long.
The answer to your question is both. I feel that if my druid was a little better at what it is HE DOES then I could enjoy playing him again. To begin with the campaign was fairly even, that was until i picked up the craft wondrous item feat and was nigh jumped on by everyone to make them magic items. This left me completely out of cash as I had loaned it out (my druid needs very little of it) and I had made nothing for myself. THEN the cleric got his nice +3 battleaxe (which i bought) sundered and completely destroyed, so he picked up the wererat's +1 greataxe (the very weapon that killed his) and decided he liked it. Now, his shield doesn't count to his AC and therefore I am in constant demand on the healing front. The Fighter had a base of 18 STR and is always asking for buffs. The Rogue is never visible because he found a wand, plus he is straying towards necromancy, so I am almost having to babysit him.
I want my Druid to be able to kill off the enemies faster so that I can keep an eye on what the party is doing, rather than having to sit back watching the party kill and just doing what i can to keep the idiots alive
Although my character has settled into a buffing role, the spells that I am having to take are not the ones that my character would take if he were a real person. He has a particular fondness to using fire type spells. Is constantly summoning fire elementals when a simple bird would suffice and he likes rats. Yet for some reason he is taking 2 Bulls strength for the BAB boys and Cure Light Wounds for the cleric who is really going to get himself killed horribly. What makes this worse is the fact that (although it is technically meta gaming) I am taking all these spells to benefit the party since i am friends with them all IRL, but my character physically hates the Cleric, is rivals with the Mage and only thinks of the Fighter as his personal meat shield.
What do you mean, no plants? You mean there are no weeds growing in the cobblestones or ivy clinging to the sides of the buildings? Are there no gardens? Every city since the beginning of civilization has had wild and cultivated plants growing in it.
At the beginning of the campaign I brought this exact fact up with my DM and he ruled that the weeds growing in gabs between cobblestones was not enough to cover an area to even affect a medium animal, let alone the horses that I was talking about tripping up.
As for animals, most of the "dungeons" we are in always seem to have no animals in. At all. and asking mice for directions is good at low levels, but with +18 perception and the ability to transform into a diminutive animal i prefer to do the scouting myself since i have an INT that is probably at least 10x higher than that of a mouse.
I have settled into a buffing, burning and supporting role and that is what annoys me, my character started out as flamboyant and maybe a little bit gay if i'm perfectly honest, but has since become callous and withdrawn, even straying to evil measures simply because his spells (such as the heat metal you mentioned) are simply AMAZING at torturing people (I know, I've done it)
Take a look at the Urban Druid archetype and see if that'd work for you. Still a druid and all, but focused more on the environment you'll be playing in.
I have had a look and this would be perfect except for the nerf'd wild shape. I have used this ability WAY too much for my DM to even consider allowing me to nerf it. I have used it as recon, to intimidate, to show off (turning into a lion whilst walking onto stage then transforming back)
My only option that I have available to me at the moment is to become a lycanthrope, my campaign involves a lot of wererats and, since my druid has a particular fondness for rats (often called steve or geoff), my DM has allowed me to learn to control my instincts if i accidentally contract this disease.
feats
Improved Initiative
Skill Focus (Perception)
Natural Spell
Craft Wondrous Items
Combat Reflexes (Both the DM and I agree this will have to go)
Quatar said wrote:
Owl is definitely not a form for actual melee combat, but might be ok for flying above the battlefield and slinging spells (but there might be smaller birds that are even better)
Elf Owls are diminutive animals allowing me to have a higher AC than out of wild shape form
I have talked to my DM about a PC rebuild, he says he is willing but I have to keep the same class and stuff so that it doesn't throw the campaign off its tracks. I just feel that given a different stat set and maybe the option to drop the animal domain would be a nice change of pace.
Another thing that one of my party mentioned is loaning gold off the other players to completely kit myself out with AC and WIS boosting items and armour such as full Dragonplate Wild Armour so that, although i won't be a big hitter, I wont be hassled by the enemy big hitters.
I am relatively new to the Role Playing scene and have just recently joined a long running team of role players. As this is my first campaign I picked a class that I thought would be fun and didn't check what the rest of my party would be or their stat sets.
After I had decided to be a Half-Elf Druid, regardless of my rolls I did my rolling and came up with an unbelievably weak stat set despite rolling 3 different sets of stats.
I have played my character from level 1 to level 8 and have not enjoyed the fact that we have; a Fighter who hits something only for it to immediately go down, a Cleric that hits something and it immediately goes down, a Rogue/Wizard that sneak attacks humans and they go down or simply blasts little holes in the enemy spell casters, and then we have me. A druid who foolishly took the Animal Domain so that I could have the spells of a cleric domain and an animal companion (who has never been outside of our home) and then I found out that the entire campaign was going to be in a city. No plants to control. No Entangle. No special abilities. A waste.
I have since decided that I am going to stay in Wild Shape as an Elf Owl almost permanently as I have a better armour class in that form and I have the wild spell feat, but I have no idea how to progress from here. I can't ever be the huge hitters that my other compadres are but I will always have the highest level spells, is this a good thing when my wizard friend will eventually overpower me?
Stonehart
