Starwars and Guardians of the Galaxy.
This is literally the best analogy of the Starfinder setting and system. So what is it he doesn't like about sci-fi rpgs?
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My Solarion is an actress who plays a magical soldier in the vein of Sailor Moon.
Are we talking Sci-Fi in general or the Starfinder setting? Because I don't see Paladins being too out of place when Sarenrae has a literal solar theocracy and Iomedae as the goddess of humanity.
I think the 3.x Paladin being garbage was another reason, it reduced the insane amount of MAD that the 3.X Paladin had to have: High strength for hitting, Con for soaking, at minimum 14 Wisdom by 14th level if they want full spellcasting, and good Cha for class features like lay on hands, divine grace,
Your black hole changes look good for the most part, but having it provoke AoOs might be excessive. The event horizon addition is especially nice, but I think that at least that portion should allow a save, even if the initial pull doesn't. Having it allow a save allows for counterplay, and gives the solarian more incentive to increase charisma. That was my thought as well, except I would reverse the order: Save against the initial pull, but once you're in you're in, since thematically nothing is able to escape the event horizon, not even light.
Okie doke! Thanks!
Sorry about any inconvenience but is there a way to cancel the Bestiary 2 portion of this order, I've just learned that a friend had actually purchased me a copy as my intended Christmas present.
Thanks, much appreciated, hopefully I'll be giving it right back to you come next paycheck. :p
So my order finally arrived today, I was super stoked, especially since I've got a bunch of players who aren't familiar with the setting. However as I was looking over the book I noticed something:
The packaging itself was undamaged so it doesn't appear to have been damaged during the shipping process, it's not a huge deal just thought I'd let you guys know. PS: Thanks again for all the awesome things you guys do and the Holiday Card! Have a wonderful Holiday Season yourselves!
Thanks much!
Please cancel my AP subscription.
DM could use some counseling on how to run monsters. And from your side of the story sounds like a TPK without your OPness. The Woundwyrm was supposed to be a CR 15 encounter. I did see that everyone is ignoring the 64 point buy stat block though....*smh* come on that is OP and you know it! Even if everyone is that powerful, FFS that is just a set of mortal avatars. Well I am Wrath Spoilers: :p The Son of Iomedae
Your GM could stop focusing the fighter with CC affects. If you really have been doing all of this WONDREOUS activity in a land of Evil as the Holy Hand of your god, then you will be come more and more of a target. I do see a little bit of an issue with the GM not adapting to your situation. Honestly I agree. In the beginning of the Woundwyrm fight the DM started off well enough by eliminating the Rogue with a petrification after he got a full rotation of his alpha in. The Cleric was trying to keep the Fighter and Barbarian alive from fails on their Breath Weapon saves. The Gunslinger was sidelined by it's Mythic Entropic Shield. I was able to close, took a full attack from all it's attacks (with the DR 5 from my Guardian path ability I was brought to less than half my hit points), then my Mythic Vital Smite rotation came into play after a LoH. After it's miasma effect ended the Fighter and Barbarian moved up, instead of breathing on me it hit both them again with it knocking them out of the fight for another couple rounds (they both had to roll a 19 to save against the confusion effect), now the dragon naturally should have gone for me, but instead it knocked the Barbarian unconscious. The other question has been purposed as well. Do you feel overpowered? No, most of the time I feel like the GM isn't utilizing the monster's full range of abilities, like there's no reason a dragon that smart should've stood there and took my hits when it had burrow. The use of the Breath Weapon to sideline the Fighter and Barbarian was tactically good, but he should've been using burrow to play keep away and use it's breath weapon every couple rounds to whittle away everyone. And it happens like this a lot, like when he tells me we're walking through them I check to see if there's something we missed and often times there's completely untouched abilities. Do you feel like you are being the King do-it-all? Are you okay with outshining everyone else at the table, every session? Not really, generally the other outshine me when it comes to skill checks that aren't Cha-based or Religion. How would you feel if you were in the position of the fighter, barb, etc? Honestly if I knew I had a deficiency that someone couldn't cover for me (like my lack of non-Cha or Religion-related skills, looking at you Perception) I'd be patching it quickly with feats and gear. The Rogue had the same problem as the Fighter and Barbarian with will saves, it got so bad our GM made a joke about making the Rogue a ringtone that was going to be the GM saying "Make a Will Save". He asked me, "what would you do", I suggested Iron Will and a Cloak of Resistance; during our adventure he picked up Iron Will and then after we were able to purchase items splurged on a Cloak of Resistance +2. Problem solved.
The GM said he felt I was overshadowing them, though the Fighter has made grumblings about how by the time she gets to a target it's already dead, because as we're fighting a lot of creatures with some form of crowd control she's typically indisposed. Gonna try a complete rebuild of her as well.
Everybody got pretty good rolls, everyone easily has a 20+ stat (the Cleric is rolling around with a 26 Wisdom at the extreme end), the lowest stat in the entire group is the Rogue with a Charisma of 8.
I'm definitely the face of the party and the de-facto leader. Wrath Spoilers: , my character is the bastard son of a Mendevian Duke descended from a cadet branch of the Pre-Age of Lost Omens royal family of Cheliax. So when dealing with elements of the Crusade I can leverage my influence get most anything the group needs. The only skills I typically utilize are Diplomacy and Knowledge (Religion)for identifying foes, sometimes Sense Motive for when I don't have Zone of Truth prepared. We're pretty heavily perception oriented, both the Gunslinger and Rogue have maxed ranks in them and the Barbarian does indeed use Survival. So far Climb has only really been relevant to us once, swim in the Worldwound never, and Knowledge (Nature) once with some aurochs.
I took Touched by Divinity and I've had the reveal Cleric should also be looking for "I can still heal for X rounds after Death" Mythic stuff... Cleric isn't concerned with being outshone, he's as far as I'm concerned our MVP. He's definitely our Healer but he's also the one that typically ends any big fight with Mythic Holy Smite, and can't forget his Dismissals they saved me during the elemental fight we had. He's also got ranged touch for heals and buffs, +50% from heals, and can use mythic to recall spells. Going to try and get him in touch with you Kalindlara.
So of the few and great responses I've gotten the main issue seems to be lack of system knowledge and a potential rebuild. I'm not really familiar with Barbarian all that much (I've been playing for 3.x/Pathfinder for 15yrs now but never played a Barbarian) but I'm going to check some optimization guides on it, Fighter's not that hard to optimize. Failing that are there any other classes you guys would suggest that are easier for the Barbarian to handle that would compliment the party? This would be the second time we did a rebuild for him; the first time he played a druid which I advised the GM to suggest something a little less complicated.
As others have said, you're not even aggressively optimizing and you're still crushing it, as any paladin would do in WotR. Send your GM around and I'll see if I can't offer him some aid. Will do, in conjunction with trying a rebuild.
So my GM and I have run into a point of contention amongst each other. He's convinced I'm overpowered. So here's the basic stats I'm working off of with 4d6 drop the lowest (GM oversaw all player rolls):
Stats:
Paladin 9
Dual Path Guardian-Marshal 3 Str 18 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 16 Cha 20 (22 with Headband of Alluring Charisma) We're in Wrath of the Righteous in book 3 and...
Wrath Spoilers:
I've gotten Armor of the Pious and Radiance and we're Demon's Heresy exploring the lands around Drezen. This means at it's 1-2 encounters before an eight hour rest. I've been able to jack up my AC to 28 with Shield Focus, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, and Ring of Protection. To give an idea of the rest of the party everyone is level 9 and all Tier 3 Mythics and they are:
Now the GM is concerned that I'm outshining the rest of the party. Myself and the Rogue have worked out a 1-2 punch combo (I'm going to use damage averages) wherein I use Flames of Entanglement and Clarion Call in conjunction with Smite Evil and Vital Strike (Mythic). So I average 39 (4.5+6+9 multiplied by 2 since Smite doesn't count as precision damage per RAW) with this my rotation is Vital Smite (as I've come to call it) burning a mythic for Clarion Call to give everyone within 30ft my Smite and then burning another Mythic to use Amazing Initiative for another hit of 19.5 damage for a total of 58.5 (76.5 v Evil Dragons, Outsiders, and Undead)with an alpha strike. After that I burn a third Mythic Point to activate Decisive Strike which I typically give to the Rogue. The Flames of Entanglement flat-foot a target for at least one round even if they make it so the Rogue is doing 1d8(4.5)+6+9+5d6(17.5) for an average of 37 points of damage as well. This typically sets the Rogue up for his rotation to sneak attack with glee. Especially since he has a Legendary Item Longbow which has two Scorching Rays prepared so his own Alpha consists of Scorching Ray+Sneak Attack due to flat-footed and Amazing Initiative for a second Sneak Attack and then Surprise Strike for a total of 8d6(28)+5d6 (17.5), 1d8(4.5)+6+5d6(17.5)+9, and 1d8(4.5)+6+5d6(17.5)+9 for a total average of 119.5. He complained (correctly) that against a Woundwyrm we did more than 200 points of damage between us. We didn't intend this, this happened ad hoc (I literally didn't learn about Fires of Entanglement until last night and he'd forgotten about every spell he gave his bow until last night), we've been playing the campaign for almost a year now and the Rogue only began a couple months ago. Even our Gunslinger is getting in on the action as she gives up her damage to flat-foot enemies all the time. Now my argument is that due to the specific situation we're in (again 1-2 encounters/in-game day) we can afford to burn Mythic Points and Smites like they're going out of style, but I know that in this campaign that's set to change soon. It's also 1-2 monsters per encounter erring towards 1. Both myself and the Rogue are of the opinion it's the way it is because we're paying more attention to how the rules work than most of the group. His argument (which is fair) is that we only run into evil creatures in this campaign simply due to where it's set (not entirely true, since we fought some elementals and if it weren't for Divine Grace and my AC I'd have been totally useless as I was doing 2-9 points of damage per round. His biggest concern is how I outshine the Fighter and the Barbarian. The Barbarian I don't feel is a fair comparison because he's being played by an 11-year old who doesn't fully grasp the rules, for example in the Staunton Vhane fight he tried to imitate me by charging past the half-fiend minotaurs that I only made it past because of a high AC (26 at the time), he was running in at around 40hp an AC around 20-ish and unluckily got critted by both's AoO. The Fighter is having problems because of her will save, she's been mind controlled at least half a dozen times and locked down entirely due to insanity inducing effects even more, in the past three weeks we've had eight encounters and she's done 0 damage due to it; now I've mentioned to the GM that it's a matter of how the rest of the party spends their money when they have the chance, rather than buying a Cracked Amber Spindle Ioun Stone or a better Cloak of Resistance they're spending it on their weapons, which is a valid choice but does still leave their vulnerabilities unaddressed. Her average hit is 1d12(6.5)+11 and averaging 35 with a Vital Strike with the same Amazing Initiative and Champion's Strike options open to her, so she has a potential of 70 points with her own Alpha. Another thing she's not taking advantage of is her Shield Proficiencies, she's a two-handed Fighter but she could still use a buckler and hasn't taken that option. That probably sums up my issue with being accused of being overpowered, yes, my character is especially suited to the campaign I'm in, but the other players have options available to them to utilize which they don't and myself and the Rogue do. Am I right? Wrong? Am I overpowered or am I just utilizing my options better? If you think I'm right, what can I do to convince my GM. If you think I'm wrong, please help me understand his argument better. |