If the background of your character allows it, take tribal scars instead of toughness. Even if you planned to retrain it, this feat is better than toughness up to lvl 7.
war(tactics) is a nice choice and never found a better for a iomedian melee cleric.
Have you checked Daring champion archetype for cavalier ?
you got weapon finesse as a free feat, panache, access to precise strike (+level to damage), parry and riposte and you can challenge a foe for another level to damage.
As human, you can get weapon focus (rapier), weapon finesse, fencing grace at first level and still get another feat to choose at 3.
Look at the teamwork feats you get for ranged attacks :
coordinated charge
enfilading fire
distracting charge
So if you send your companion charging and it is flanking your foe, you get +6 to hit, if it is not flanking you only get +3. After first round , your bonus to hit falls to +1 and your companion bonus falls to +0 until it flanks your foe.
Compare that to melee hunter :
outflank
pack flanking
distracting charge
You and your companion charge, you got +6 to hit your foe. For the following rounds, you and your companion got +4 to hit (you are flanking foe when you are adjacent to your companion, no need to spend rounds moving around large or larger foes).
Add coordinated charge after lvl 10, and you get charge as an immediate action when your companion charges, allowing you to get full attack at your turn.
So at best, a range focused hunter is equal to a melee focused one, in all other cases, he's weaker.
PS :
If you are a half-orc you can take horde charge to add +2 to hit/+2 to damage when your companion and you charge.
I have a problem to understand how this feat works.
I'm playing a half-orc hunter with a companion.
Hunter tactics allows me to give my teamwork feats to my companion :
Hunter Tactics (Ex): At 3rd level, the hunter automatically grants her teamwork feats to her animal companion. The companion doesn't need to meet the prerequisites of these teamwork feats.
And i took Horde Charge as my lvl 3 teamwork feat :
Horde Charge (Teamwork) (advanced race guide)
When you charge with an ally, you are more deadly.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1, half-orc or orc.
Benefit: When charging during the same round as an ally with this feat, you gain a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls in addition to the normal bonus for charging. If you can make multiple attacks on a charge, this bonus only applies to the first attack.
So my question is :
If i am first to charge and my companion second, do i get benefit from horde charge feat ? Or do i always have to be second to charge to get it ?
Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell with the electricity or sonic descriptor, increase the save DC by 1.
Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you apply a metamagic feat to a spell that increases the slot used by at least one level, increase the spell's DC by +1. This bonus does not stack with itself and does not apply to spells modified by the Heighten Spell feat.
The hunter is a good 5th or 6th character, someone you won't pick in your team unless you have all other jobs already filled.
This class have two main problems : he uses weapons but have 3/4 BAB, he casts spells but his DC is too low and he get spells too late for their levels.
With 3/4 BAB, using weapons is not a good idea, except if you can buff yourself. Cleric and bard spell lists are full of buffs to increase to hit chances of the caster, druid spell lists doesn't. The hunter have no way to increase his to hit chances. He's ok against low AC opponents but as soon as you meet opponents with high AC, the hunter becomes less useful in fight, and he can't rely on his spells to do damage.
druid spell list contains lot of utility spells, some defensive buffs and damage. It doesn't contain a lot of offensive buff to increase to hit chances (only cat's grace and aspect of the wolf and both overwrite animal focus limiting this class feature).
Damage spells need a high DC to not be resisted, but with 6/9 spellcasting, this class doesn't really work as spell blaster.
Utility spells are nice in combat and outside combat, best part of the spellcasting of this class.
animal companion :
main feature of the hunter is the pet, but this one is the same as druid one, or the one of a ranger using boon companion. If the hunter's pet dies, hunter lose more than half of his class features for 24h. And actually, the pet of the hunter can't survive 2 rounds of fighting is opponent is hitting the pet, the pet survability should be increased to be more on par with an eidolon.
precise companion :
we found this class feature useless, if other member(s) of the group go to melee, you have to take precise shot, if noone else goes to melee, the animal companion will not survive and you won't need precise companion.
animal focus :
duration is too low, if you use this feature to increase your skills, it doesn't last long enough to help : want to climb a wall or a mountain ? want to swim in the sea ? want to scout the dungeon cloaked by stealth ? forget animal focus, it doesn't last long enough.
This ability really need another type of bonus to not see this ability ruined by the few buff druid spell list contains, or by magical items.
We like the idea of this ability, but actually we found it not as effective as it could be : bonus too low, wrong bonus type, duration too low for the skills bonus. It can help but it's really situational. The hunter doesn't have a lot of class abilities, each one should count and not became obsolete once you get a magic item or when you cast a spell. Yes you can switch to another bonus but the higher level you become, the more magic items become powerful and overwrite this ability, same for spells.
woodland stride :
we always wonder why a ranger, a druid and now a hunter who spent all their life in desert, who never put a feet in a forest, have this ability. We would have prefered something like :
"choose one terrain from the ranger favored terrain list, when you are in this terrain, ignore difficult terrain".
dead levels :
hunter was the only class in this playtest that got 2 levels with nothing new or upgraded (level 4 and lvl 10).
We liked the idea of this class, the feeling, but there is something missing : a better pet (able to survive more than 2 rounds), an ability to increase his to hit chances or the DC of his spells. Actually, we see no reason to take a hunter over an archer druid (who got the same pet, better spellcasting, same to hit chances, better versatility with more spells, higher lvl spells and wildshape) or a ranger with boon companion (better to hit chances, spells with utility and buffs offensive and defensive, better hps, less spellcasting but more versatility).
Slayer:
We found no real problem with this class (maybe open all rogue and ninja talents to slayer), the player had so much fun playtesting this class that he wants to switch his character in our adventure path for a slayer.
Warpriest:
We found only two problems with the warpriest : sacred weapon damage and blessings.
Sacred weapon damage is nice if you use a light or one handed weapon. If you use a two-hand weapon, it's useless : for example, the greatsword got nothing from this ability up to level 20 while a dagger will see its damage upgraded from level 1.
In our playtest, we stopped at lvl 12 and player took elven curved blade. With a weapon using 1d10 damage, he never had an upgrade and he would have to wait for lvl 15.
If you have a class ability, you should be able to use it when you get it, not 20 levels later.
Actually, this ability says : do not use two-handed weapons if you play a warpriest.
Blessings
why do they exist ? Why do not just give warpriest access to domains and subdomains instead ?
Some blessings offer something new compare to domains, but mostly they are fas way below in utility, versatility and power.
small problem : healing with fervor.
In all the playtest, the player never used fervor to heal, the amount healed is too low to be useful : for example at 11, warpriest got 4d6 (average 14), not even half the damage done in one hit by monsters and npcs at this level. Maybe if fervor adds warpriest level, or be like lay of hands : 1d6 per two levels.
The player had lot of fun playing this class, and it proved far more useful than first version.
Nice class except blessings.
Bloodrager:
The player wanted to make a bloodrager resilient to spells so he took dwarf, steel soul, the bloodline destined and feats to resist spells and this worked well (against spells he add +10 to REF and WILL saving throws, and +8 to FOR saving throws).
Blood Sanctuary :
"due to the power of his blood, a bloodrager can stand confidently amid the effects of spells cast by himself or his allies."
A flat +2 bonus doesn't work to help the bloodrager to stand confidently amid the effects of spells. In our test, this ability never helped, either the DC is too high to succeed, or the bloodrager had high enough saves to ignore the +2 bonus.
Area effect spells target mostly either will or reflex. For the few which target fortitude, bloodrager already have Fort as good save + high Con. For the ones which target Will, bloodrage/greater bloodrage/mighty bloodrage give a bonus to help to resist. But for the one which target Ref, the bloodrager have nothing and a flat +2 is not enough.
This ability could be change for good Ref save and evasion or get a bonus scaling with level.
Bloodlines :
As previous version, bloodlines are not balanced, some are strong or versatile, while other are weak (yes fey bloodline, we re talking about you).
Spell list :
This spell list is full of damage spells but this class is not designed for damage spells, really low DC, no way to bypass SR and got access to spells too late.
One way to help could be to have more spells without save and with touch or range touch attack roll.
Lot of nice utility spells mostly useful in combat mainly and not a lot of them useful outside combat (and bloodrager got them late).
With low DC, this class needs more utility/buffs spells.
This class is nice, fun but looks like too much like the barbarian. Uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, DR could be removed and replace for something else (maybe evasion, improved evasion).
The main problem of this class in our test was the spell list. The spell list should be changed for more utility/buff spells and less damage spells.
We would have prefered to not have a specific spell list and instead have to choose our spells in 2 or 3 schools from wizard/sorcerer. This would have open more flexibility when creating bloodragers and two bloodragers would be totally differents (different bloodline, different spell list).
preamble :
For one week, none of us read this forum to not be influenced by what other people can post.
We played this playtest as a mini adventure path with scenarios at level 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12.
Characters were created as level 3 PCs, we choose 2 bloodragers, one warpriest and one skald for the test.
lvl 3 scenario:
PCs are living in a small group of houses, that you can hardly call a village, not far from a big town. This village is full of foresters and their family. For several days, a group of bandits decided to attack all merchants moving through the forest and cut the road between the town and PCs' village. Many supplies are running out, so the PCs decided to investigate and put a stop to the activity of this group of bandits.
After several days of search in the forest, they found one group of bandits. After a fight against enemies hidden in trees or behind bushes, they interrogated prisoners. They learned that this group is just part of a bigger group living in a cave. They walked there and eliminated the bandits in this dungeon of 4 rooms. They found evidences that this group is lead by someone hidden in the ghost market and that this bandits orders are to cut commercial roads to the nearby town and make city guard patrols run out of town as often as possible, but no fight against city guards.
PCs decided to go to town to learn more about this ghost market and the leader.
lvl 5 scenario:
Once in town, PCs decided to be separated in two groups to learn informations : one went to the city guard, showed the evidence found in the cave, other group investigated in town, talked to people to understand how works underground market in this town (maybe ghost market is just the name of the underground market in this town).
They both learned that the ghost market is really the name of the underground market and even found someone ready to show them entrance to the market for a "fair" price.
Once inside the ghost market, they investigated to find the boss of the bandits, missed some social interactions with NPCs and fought several fights they could have avoided but they found the location of the boss. they fought him and his minions.
Once captured, he explained he's working for 3 merchants who want to make a coup and take power. While the PCs are bringing him to the city guard, they walked near the river which runs in middle of the town. The boss jumped in water and disappeared under water. As no PCs took ranks in swim, they watched him swim, cursed against themselves and decided to investigate the 3 merchants case.
lvl 7 scenario:
The PCs decided to visit the houses of the merchants, where they work and to follow the merchants for one week. They began by following the merchants and found nothing, then they visited the storehouses (6 small dungeons of 3 rooms with no real dangers) and found nothing. So they decided to visit the 3 houses in the same night to prevent warning between the merchants.
They visited the first house (dungeon of 10 rooms, full of traps), this house is just a decoy for enemies of the merchant. They found the real house (dungeon of 4 rooms) but no evidence or information.
Second house (dungeon of 8 rooms) was a piece of cake, no real guards but still no evidence of information.
Third house was harder (dungeon of 6 rooms). This merchant have human guards and undead ones with a necromancer wizard as chief of security. The necromancer, once captured, explained that he didn't know anything about this coup, but that his employer talked about something big in two days when the night falls. PCs went to bed, they decided to explain all this to the city guard in the afternoon.
lvl 9 scenario:
After sleeping, the PCs walked in the streets to the city guard building when they heared shouts and cry. They ran and found a troll, 3 city guards dead and people injured. They attacked the troll. After the fight, they learned that around 20 trolls are free in the city and destroying everything, killing people as if under rage. The PCs ran through the whole city, fighting trolls all day long and most part of the night. In the morning, they decided to investigate this attack on the city and begant to collect informations about spellcasters with enough power to charm trolls. They found that outside the necromancer they already fought, only 3 spellcasters are powerful enough to be responsibles of this attack, but none is strong enough to have done this alone.
After research, they found where this spellcasters are hidden (dungeon of 6 rooms), fought them and discovered that this spellcasters used the trolls as a decoy to prevent city guard to act while they tried a coup against the noble leading the city. The spellcasters wanted to prevent the noble to join church of asmodeus, to sacrifice innocents and to open a portal to Hells.
lvl 12 scenario:
With this knowledge, and the information learned from the necromancer, the PCs went to rest to get their spells back and attacked the noble castle to stop opening of the portal before the night. The final battle was a big battle royal with the PCs, the noble and his guards, clerics of asmodeus and devils who entered this plane through the portal, and the merchants and their payed assassins. Every group fought all other groups and fights went to all rooms of the castle.
At the end of the fight, PCs had closed the portal, killed the noble, the clerics of asmodeus, put under arrest one merchant (others were dead), created an office of mayor and ran away of this corrupted city to go back to their village and back to their family and peaceful life.
Nice class but which caster level is a bloodrager ? As this class seems to work like paladin and ranger, we ruled its caster level to be bloodrager level - 3. We haven't found if bloodragers can cast spells out of bloodrage, so we ruled they can.
Bloodlines are good, except some are weaker than others. Fey bloodline is clearly under-powered with other bloodlines (check lvl 8 ability and arcane bloodline lvl 4 ability as an example). Bloodlines should be revamped to be around same power.
Bloodragers should be able to forget some spells and learn new ones maybe every 3 or 4 levels after 4th.
Bloodragers have a problem with their spells : not enough out of combat ones, while combat ones are not that great to use. If bloodragers could have something like spellstrike from magus, or something like blessing of rune (spell-storing weapon) from warpriest usable 3 + cha bonus per day, it would resolve their problem.
Bloodragers don't really need DR, uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, they have spells way better than this abilities. We think they should be traded for blessing of rune (spell-storing weapon) from warpriest.
Warpriest
Hum ... warpriest seems like a cleric under anti-steroids : traded spells for feats, channel energy is too weak to heal people and to damage undeads, lvl 10 blessings need more diversity (our warpriest took erastil and all lvl 10 blessings are the same : battle companion; animal, good, law, plant got the same one).
If warpriest are losing spells, channel energy and got domain-like blessings but with less diversity, they should get full BAB for the favored weapon of their god and/or spontaneous casting in addition of the feats.
Other than that, the class seems to do its job, weaker than a cleric, but still works. If the class go to print like that, no one in our group will play it and will play a crusader cleric instead.
Skald
Nice archetype for the bard, but not that great as a new class. We still are trying to find what this class brings that a bard doesn't.
Skald need a new list of weapons usable, the one they have actually feels too much like bard and not enough like barbarian (a skald with a rapier or a whip ??? please no).
Giving rage powers to other people is nice but choice is limited, new rage powers usable by skald could be useful.
How works raging song with bloodrage ?
Other abilities of skald work nicely.
This playtest took 5 evenings and we stopped our test at 12, so we can't talk about high levels and capstone. sorry.
In an AP, i would love to see :
- roleplay parts (not limit NPC roles to quest givers, reward givers, or targets to kill)
- one big dungeon (like pathfinder #11 : scarwall)
- some encounters where you have to use your skills to resolve it, not increase your damage
Well all things we can find in CotCT but improved, enhanced, and with more challenges to players intelligence and characters skills and powers.
Hello,
i ordered The Shackled City Adventure Path Hardcover Book —Non-Mint.
I received the box yesterday and found the book inside, but i wasn't able to find the booklet with the maps of dungeons or the 8-panels map of Cauldron.
Is it normal ? If no, how can i get them ?
Are you more wizard than fighter ?
I ask because your spell list is what you should take if you're planning to make a character more wizard than fighter.
Fighter/wizard can be put in 2 categories :
- FIGHTER/wizard : use magic to increase their fighting capacities (the best way)
- fighter/WIZARD : wizard with just enough physical capacities to increase their magic power and survability.
Your spell list shows us that you're following the second way. In this case fighter 1/wizard 6/eldritch knight 8 is a better character : you're just losing 2 levels of spell casting to get more BAB and more hps.
But you're build suggest you're going FIGHTER/wizard :fighter 4/wizard 5/eldritch knight 6
If you plan to go in melee, you're lacking all spells to help you (in fact they're all in your wish list), and you have no spell (except scroching ray) to help you to fight at range.
As fighter/wizard, there are spells that are a must-have :
enlarge, true strike, shield, blur/displacement, mirror image, greater invisibility, stoneskin
Because this spells increase your rate to survive fights.
You have a full arcane caster in your group, so leave him utility spells like identify, summon monster, rope trick, ...
Concentrate on spells that increase your survability, your fighting prowess and your damage.
Here is your spell list as you should have it as a FIGHTER/wizard (i limited myself to PHB):
1st level :
enlarge (gives you 5ft to your melee reach, meaning you're hitting monsters, size medium and lower, when they can't hit you)
true strike (+20 to hit is nice against high AC monsters and to increase damage with the feat power attack)
protection from evil/chaos/law/good (+2 to AC and immune to mind-affecting spells is nice for a first level spell)
shield (+4 to AC is nice until you can buy an animated shield)
2nd level :
see invisibility
mirror image (increase your chances to avoid being hit in melee)
blur (increase your chances to avoid being hit in melee)
false life (gives you temporary hps, always good)
alter self (change to troglodyte to get +6 natural armor, or another form to get fly or swim speed)
3rd level :
protection from energy (best energy protection you'll get and use until 20th)
heroism (nice buff to fighting characters)
vampiric touch (damage opponent and heal yourself at same time)
displacement (increase your chances to avoid being hit in melee)
haste (bonus to attack, AC and another attack)
4th level :
stoneskin (ignore some damage is a must have for a melee character)
greater invisibility (you can attack and stay invis)
fire shield (as this spell damages opponents who are in 5ft, those who have 10ft reach or more are immune to this spell)
Anything else than this spells is a bonus but this list is what you must have as a fighter/wizard with a full arcane caster in your group.
beguiler = trapfinding, arcane caster, NPCs interactions, UMD as a class skill for all your needs (heal, blast, buffs, ...)
druid = melee, healer, summoner, blaster
actualy we're 4 in our gaming group. We'll get a 5th after new year as he's out of town.
But from what i have learned with AoW, you'll need an arcane caster in an Adventure Path. So if your 4 players have already choose their classes, you can take a 5th who will play a wizard or a sorcerer.
best way to camp in a dungeon : rope trick.
At level 8th, the dimensional space will stay 8 hours, enough for rest. And as it's invisible, NPC or monsters can't find it. If your players want to rest in a dungeon, show them this spell.
Our DM have a simple tactic when we do stupid things like resting in a dungeon without rope trick : he look at us with a weird look meaning "s$&# they have to create new characters and i need to find a new way to make them finish this campaign" and ask us : "ok, who's the first to die euh i mean the first to take watch ?"
We take it really seriously because he TPKed us a lot of time.
He got a saying : act like a hero and live as one. act as the dumbest living being and die fast.
I love the quality of Sasserine's map and i am wondering if it's possible to get an Adventure Path taking place in a city (i mean from first to last adventure in the city, not just the beginning).
If you're flat-footed, you lose dex, dodge bonus and this defending bonus as you can't take a free action. So AC drops a lot. Dragotha got arcane strike to increase his attack and against a flat-footed or a stun character he can easily hit.
Who said Kyuss had to fight in melee ? Forcecage, a wall of summoned monsters are enough to prevent PC to come too close to him.
And Lashona just have to fly, breath and cast spells. Why should she attack a tank when she'll be better attacking a wizard with their crappy armor ?
And this kind of AC is all about situation. Against a brilliant weapon it drops to 17, same against incorporeal. Touch AC is 17. And if you want to make me run, throw a pack of rust monsters. With the money burned in this armor, i don't want them to destroy it.
But i stop to hijack this thread.
I explained why i think heavy armor is far from useless. I showed an example of high AC with a heavy armor and explained how it works (even if you're not agree about defending bonus, it's still a 48 AC).
I still wait for someone proving heavy armor is useless instead of just saying it.
Using a light armor and a high dex is nice, but at the beginning of each fight, you are flat-footed (and losing this high dex bonus) and if you lose initiative, you're dead.
I'll be happy to be wrong and play a high dex/light armor character and not die every adventure because i lost initiative and had a crappy AC.
nor would i allow the alter self and amulet of natural armour to stack
It's in the rules. Troglodyte form (via Alter-self) gives you a natural armor bonus, an amulet of natural armor gives you an enhancement bonus to natural armor. The rules say it stacks.
Another example : +5 full plate. Full plate gives you an armor bonus, +5 gives you an enhancement to armor bonus. It stacks.
So if you don't allow alter-self + amulet of natural armor to stack, you can't allow armor + magic armor bonus because they follow the same rule.
Now how to get alter-self and a full plate ?
Mithral -10% ASF
Twilight -10% ASF
first level of spellsword -10% ASF
Need a shield ? Take more levels of spellsword or anything that reduce ASF.
I want to add something else i have not seen here : touch AC and flat-footed AC.
A heavy armor increases your flat-footed AC while a high dex doesn't.
A high dex increases your touch AC while a heavy armor doesn't.
There are feats to increase your touch AC, i know none to increase your flat-footed AC (i'll be happy if someone can tell me which feats do it). And we begin all fights flat-footed until we acted.
So unless you're in a campaign where people spend time attacking you with touch attacks, you'll need a better flat-footed AC than a touch one.
I am not saying heavy armors is UBBER and everyone should worn one, i am saying heavy armors are far from useless.
This is simply someone looking to powergame his/her AC so as to become almost invulnerable. No character wants to be hit, but if you're all but guaranteed to NEVER be hit, where is the suspense or, for that matter, fun?
Personaly i finished Age of Worms with this AC :
10 base
+13 armor bonus (+5 full plate)
+5 unamed bonus (+5 defending armor spikes)
+7 shield bonus (+5 heavy steel shield)
+5 unamed bonus (+5 defending shield spikes)
+6 natural armor bonus (alter self in troglodyte)
+5 enhancement bonus to natural armor (+5 amulet of natural armor)
+1 dex
+5 deflection bonus (ring of protection +5)
+1 dodge bonus
---
58 AC
And i was hit nearly every round. At high levels, to have a high AC is not a way to become invulnerable, it's just a way to reduce the number of time you'll be hit, and be sure that monsters will hit you.
To have 40 in AC at level 5 is making you invulnerable, to have it at 20 is normal and you'll take a lot of hits.
As for the Greater Magic weapon ploy... "Does not stack" does not mean "Does not work". It simply means that the higher of the bonuses is used, instead of adding together.
yes, that's the idea.
A +1 weapon got an +1 enhancement bonus.
If a cleric casts greater magic weapon on it, it got a +5 enhancement bonus.
As both are enhancement, only the highest works.
So you got a +5 weapon for the price of a +1 weapon and a spell from your cleric.
no need to pay so much, just pay for +1 defending spikes and get a cleric/wizard to cast greater magical weapon. You'll get +5 defending spikes but cheaper.
In our game we use heavy armor, because you need to have a high dex to beat +18 AC (+5 heavy full plate with +5 defending spikes).
And if you have dex that high, your Str and Con are low. When wearing a heavy armor, you can focus on Str and Con.
And with an armor you can add properties like fortification, DR, ...
But i think all depend on the campaign you're playing.
You were 3 characters ECL 22 against a monster CR 22. Your DM choose weird tactics for the dragon (staying on ground instead of flying, cast darkness when you teleport in front of it instead of full attacking you) and he decided duskblades are broken and should be forbidden.
Does he know that a wizard can kill it faster, alone and around 13th level ? he just have to be in melee range and touch it with shivering touch. So will he ban wizards ?
Does he know that some characters can stay in an antimagic field all day long and keep their buffs and magic abilities of their weapons ? Will he ban this classes (wizards, sorcerers, clerics, ...) because they will easily destroy a dragon staying on the ground ?
IMO, duskblade are balanced and should be banned if you find it overpowered after doing many sessions of play and with many different situations (fight, diplomacy, intrigue, ...), not after a fight with weird tactics.
At high levels, a fighter/wizard (or "gish") like the duskblade is better if his magic helps him with buffs instead of damage.
I have played a gish for more than one year now, and i have fought NPCs who had the feat staggered strike (limits you to standard actions only, no full attack), the feat mage slayer (and the 2 other anti-caster feats) preventing you from casting in melee, who got the feat divine justice ("yeaa ! 200 damage! ... What do you mean it does 200 too ?"), who are protected against negative energy (or healed by it), fire and lightning, ...
And that's against NPC who didn't have SR.
For me, a gish with persistent Bite of the Werebear and persistent Wraithstrike buffs is more dangerous than a duskblade who can channel vampire touch in his blade : because death ward protects against vampire touch, and nothing can protect you against wraithstrike.
At high levels, IMO, only sonic damage is useful because lot of opponents are protected or immune to other kind of damage.
i agree with baudot, the duskblade is limited to damage only. All his abilities and spells are designed to make damage, outside fight he's useless.
This class is not overpowered, it's a balanced class designed for players willing to do damage via spells or blades.
The good thing with this class is it's self-sufficent. you don't need to take levels in a PRC to be efficient (at least, not until you're 13th).
i am showing examples of gishes. some are viable, some not (or unless you have a group willing to help you until you become useful).
It's not about winning or losing (at least for me), it's about explaining why, for me, gishes are not unbalanced.
To solve the problem of ASF : still spell. You need one slot higher but you can cast in armor. and some spells can be cast in armor as they don't require somantic component (like true strike).
The point was that the situation determines potency not the class. True in the real world as well in a courtroom you want a lawyer, in the mountains you want a sherpa - you are in trouble if they are swapped.
What i am saying is there is no situation a fighter can solve that another class can't solve and still add something else to the group.
A fighter can tank. That's all.
A barbarian can tank and use wilderness skills.
A paladin can tank and use divine spells to help the party.
Same for the cleric.
Same for the druid.
That's why playing a gish is not unbalanced, you can play a tank and still got spells to help the party.
situations you described is not about balance but about screwing a wizard.
take a naked fighter, tie his hands on his back and his feet. now throw him in a pit with a hungry monster. He will survive as many seconds as a wizard out of spells and who doesn't have a spellbook to memorize his spells, doesn't get a nice rest night for few days and lost his components.
If you want to say all classes are balanced, put them in the same situation and look at how each class resolve the problem/survive/save the world and win the girl. Look at what each class can do, what is its strength and what is its weaknesses.
You'll see that the fighter can do nothing outside fight and in fight, some classes outshine him without even thinking about it.
A fighter can fight in melee (or use a bow). That's all.
A cleric with the same equipment as a fighter can fight as efficiently. He uses his spells to buff himself (divine power, righteous might, ...) and still got spells to help to party. The fighter don't even have skills useful outside fight.
A druid wildshaped in a dire bear and with a dire bear as animal companion can do it too, and he got spells.
I can continue but i think you got the idea.
And liking characters and stories and min/maxing are not the opposite faces of the same coin, both are parts of D&D and in fact, this game was designed with this two things in mind.
Each time you take a weapon +2 instead of a weapon +1, you're doing min/max.
You can be both a role-player and min/maxer.
nobody plays a 5th wizard/5th fighter.
If you want to compare a 10th duskblade with a gish, do it with a fighter 2/wizard 4/spellsword 1/eldritch knight 3.
The duskblade got more BAB (but just 2 points, and both got 2 attacks per round), more hps while the gish got more feats (3 more), higher spells (got access to 4th level spells) and more versatility.
The problem with the duskblade is that he can only use spells to do damage.
A gish can use his spells to do damage, teleport, fly, change all his melee attacks to melee touch attacks (with wraithstrike), and buff himself (enlarge, stoneskin, bite of the werebear, ...).
But to want all the good fighter stuff and all the good mage stuff in the same PC (while understandable) is unbalancing - and will IMO diminish the game. But thats me, I don't think an unbalanced game is fun.
D&D is not a balanced game. Some classes are more powerful and more versatile than others, even more if you're using only the 3 core books.
Compare a ranger 20 and a fighter 10/druid 10.
Compare a fighter 20 and a druid 20 to be the tank of the group.
Same with fighter 20 and cleric 20.
What can a class add to the group in fight and outside fight ? Look at fighter and a barbarian outside a fight, or a ranger or a paladin.
And i don't talk about fighter and wizard. Imagine a fighter 16 and a wizard 16 getting their 17th level.
fighter : "wow i got 5% more chance to hit and 1d10 hps"
wizard : "wow, now i can stop time, i can summon any living creature except deities and very unique ones, i can change in a devil or demon lord and get all its abilities"
This game is not designed to have classes balanced, it's design to have a group and get people to cover your weaknesses. If taking some PRCs cover some of those weaknesses, why not take them ? Your groupmate won't have to worry about it and they can play the character they want (and not the one needed to cover holes)
I am a great fan of the gish (fighter/wizard). I played one for the last year. And while he was less powerful than a wizard (lower caster level, less spells, lower max spell level) and got less feats and hps than a fighter, he was fun to play and very versatile. I was useful for my group in fight and outside fight.
+1 ghost touch full plate armor with +1 defending ghost touch spikes, cost: 1650 (full plate armor) +16000 (+4 enhancement) +150 (spikes) +8000 (enhancement for the spikes) = 25,800 gp
+1 ghost touch heavy shield with +1 defending ghost touch spikes, cost: 170 (heavy steel shield) +16000 (+4 enhancement) +110 (spikes) +8000 (enhancement for the spikes) = 24,280 gp
+5 amulet of natural armor, cost: 50,000 gp
+5 ring of protection, cost: 50,000 gp
total: 150,080 gp
ask your cleric or wizard to cast greater magic weapon on the spikes of the armor and of the shield.
ask your cleric to cast magic vestment on the armor and the shield.
you'll finish with:
AC :
10 (base)
+ 1 (dex bonus)
+ 8 (armor bonus from full plate armor)
+ 5 (enhancement bonus to armor bonus from magic vestment)
+ 2 (shield bonus from heavy shield)
+ 5 (enhancement bonus to shield bonus from magic vestment)
+ 5 (enhancement to natural armor from amulet)
+ 5 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
+ 5 (unamed bonus from spikes of the armor)
+ 5 (unamed bonus from spikes of the shield)
----
51
So you get AC: 51, touch AC: 26, flat-footed AC: 50
As armor, shield and spikes are ghost touch, this AC works against incorporeal.
Now take the feat shield ward (from PHB II), and you can have a touch AC : 33
sudden metamagic is not a problem, you can get the same thing with metamagic rods. If a player is ready to burn a feat instead of buying an item which can do the same 3 times per day, i would say ok.
At high levels, and if you don't fight people or monsters protected against negative energy, there are more scary things.
Try quickened+twinned+maximized enervation + twinned+maximized+empowered enervation. You opponent gains 16+1d4 negative levels/HD in one round. You just need a rod of twin spell and a rod of maximize to do it at 13th level.
AC for your ranger/wizard :
10 (base)
+ 3 (dex bonus)
+ 7 (armor bonus from studded leather armor +4)
+ 4 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
----
+24
touch AC :
10 (base)
+ 3 (dex bonus)
+ 4 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
----
+17
flat-footed AC :
10 (base)
+ 7 (armor bonus from studded leather armor +4)
+ 4 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
----
+21
AC vs Incorporeals :
10 (base)
+ 3 (dex bonus)
+ 2 (armor bonus from bracers of armor +2)
+ 4 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
----
+19
if you cast mage armor :
AC : 24 (nothing changes as your armor bonus from your armor is higher)
Touch AC : 17 (nothing changes)
Flat-footed : 21 (nothing changes as your armor bonus from your armor is higher)
AC vs Incorporeals :
10 (base)
+ 3 (dex bonus)
+ 4 (armor bonus from spell mage armor)
+ 4 (deflection bonus from ring of protection)
----
+21
i explained earlier how the wizard and the rogue of our group meet, here i'll explained how the cleric and the druid meet and how the whole group meet Lavinia.
The druid was a young man, born and raised in a plantation outside Sasserine. When he was 10, he meet a druid from Sasserine who accepted to train him. But after 10 years living in the wilderness, he didn't know what is a city, how people live inside and how they think. To teach him the white and the black side of people living in a city, his master contacted his nephew, a young cleric of Helm working in the Sunrise watch. The two young men spend the last three months working together in the watch (the druid is not a member but followed the cleric and helped the watch).
The wizard and the rogue were talking and drinking in a tavern in Sunrise. When they left, they saw a young and pretty noble woman being harassed by a group of thugs. The cleric and the druid were in this street talking about weather and the need to find a shelter before the rain falls. They saw the thugs harassing the woman too and they reacted. The cleric showed his symbol of the watch and asked the thugs to leave. The thugs drawed their weapons instead of leaving, so the fight began. The rogue didn't want to enter this fight, but he forgot to remove his Shadowshore watch symbol, so as the cleric and lot of bypassers have seen it, he entered the fight. The wizard joined it too even if he was more interested to talk to the young woman. Only one thug escaped, the others finished dead or surrendered and were put in jail. Lavinia thanked her savors and invited them to a dinner the next day.
This is how we meet Lavinia and each other and began STAP.
human cleric of helm (should be cleric 20 at end of STAP)
human wizard (wizard 6/stormcaster 10/fatespinner 4 at end of STAP)
human rogue (shadow-walker rogue 10/nightsong enforcer 9 at end of STAP)
human druid (druid 20 at end of STAP)
The feyri can be anyone. With their alter self ability (remember it's at will), they cna change to any humanoid so they can be anyone : elf merchant, human beggar, half-elf noble.
Githyanki, well noone knows what they are, but they look ugly. So they can survive only in district like merchant or shadowshore.
Drow will have a really hard time. everyone knows they are evil, betrayers and murderers. So everytime one is walking in the street, a patrol of the watch will follow her/him and she/he will be always the wrong-doer when there will be trouble.
You could convince a player to make a bard or a wizard/bladesinger. Both can use a rapier and use light armor or no armor. This works well with pirate and swashbuckler idea.
One could be a voodoo shaman and uses the druid class. The spirits help him to change in animal forms, give him spells. And he doesn't care about nature. And his animal companion could be a snake or a crow.
One could be a swashbuckler/divine crusader. Just be careful on the domain taken. This brings divine power while leaving the player play a character he wants.
One could be a favored soul of a sea god and uses a rapier, light armor/no armor.
A rogue/duelist is a nice swashbuckler even if he doesn't have the name.
You are right about the number of attacks.
After the grapple, the raghodessa got a free bite attack, then it can do a normal bite attack. But as it is grappling your spellthief, it got -4 to attack (see PHB, section combat, consequences of grappling).
With the +4 bonus from race and -4 from grappling, raghodessa does this last bite attack with no bonus.
human fighter 1/sorceror 9/eldritch knight 10
role : secondary tank, secondary arcane caster
mineral warrior human barbarian 9/runescarred berserker 10
role : tank
human wizard 5/war weaver 5/incantatrix 10
role : arcane caster, arcane buffer
My advices :
- get a cleric for turning undeads. You'll need it a LOT.
- get an arcane caster for blasting power, arcane buffs and movement spells (teleport, fly, ...)
- get a big tank
- buff the group (buffs made the difference between TPK and succes)
We made characters for this new AP and our DM gave us informations about how some of us meet for the first time.
Here is how my wizard meet his new friend a rogue.
He was on a boat sailing to sasserine when pirates attacked. He was captured and became a slave and his precious spellbook was stolen. A ship from new sasserine's fleet attacked this pirate ship and free the slaves but they took all they found in this ship without giving back his book. When back in sasserine, he followed the goods until they were stocked in a warehouse. He waited for the night and entered as discretly as he can. Once inside, he was surprised by a rogue who thought he was a guard.
They talked and agreed to loot this warehouse together instead of fighting.They get back the spellbook and few other goods, fought the guards and escape. The rogue bring him back to shadowshore (and i discovered this rogue is in fact a member of shadowshore watch : rogue 1 with feat militia training) where he sold the stuff. With the money, they get their starting package and were ready to begin savage tide AP.
I can't tell you for other characters of our gaming group.
I hope this information will give you ideas for the meeting of your PC.
I will fight Kyuss next week end, we cleared everything up to him (except lashonna who ran away before we finished her, we're sure we'll find her at top of the pyramide protecting Kyuss) but it was too late to finish.
i asked my DM if he got some infos for you, he offered two tricks he won't use against us.
When the players come to fight Kyuss, he cast time stop, then cast fly and fly away in the city. Once there, he kill commoners and get minions. With a small army and full buffed, he can fight the players.
Another trick : kyuss cast time stop, then summon monster IX each round during the time stop and get 1d3 vrock each time. He doesn't summon them in pack but spread around the top of the pyramide.
Vrock aren't powerful but they have enough hps to not die in one hit. If your players let them dance and focus on Kyuss, each vrock will do 20d6 damage (your players should easily save to take half damage).
unless i am wrong, forcecage is a 20ft cube, meaning it's 3x3x3 ft or 20x1x1 ft. It's not 20x20x20.
Dragotha occupies a 20x20 ft square on the ground and i don't know about its height but i think it's more than 1 ft.
so i don't see how you can put dragotha in a 1 ft height box.
For me, there is no reason to increase Kyuss in power, just prepare tactics to kill your players, i mean work hard to really kill them, stop to be nice with them. This fight is the end of the campaign, and should be hard.
If some of them die and the last ones finished to kill Kyuss after an epic fight, they'll remember it for a long time.
I'll take your fight with dragotha and his allies for example.
Mahuudril and the avolakia clerics are hidden when players enter the room. The first thing they see is the majesty of a dracolich and a flying wyvern with a rider.
Surprise round :
All players who miss their spot check are surprised by Mahuudril and the avolakia clerics.
Mahuudril and one of the avolakia clerics use enervation on the wizard (who's the most easily surprised, spot is not a wizard class skill and wis is not his highest stat). When surprised, the wizard see his touch AC drops to near nothing and he takes 2d4 negative levels (average 5, so he's losing access to 9th level spells).
The other avolakia cleric cast wall of stone around the cleric blocking his sight and line of effect of spells.
first round :
Dragotha uses his normal breath (everyone makes a Reflex save against 44 and with core books only, it will be REALLY hard) as a free action and charge the wizard (using arcane strike and burning a 8th level spell to get +45 to hit with his bite and 6d6+8d4+1d6+52 to damage + paralysis). This charge activates his frightful aura (Will DC 44, so the barbarian should be running away).
One avoliaka cleric casts wall of stone around the druid.
The other casts flame strike on the wizard.
Mahuudril casts wall of force around the barbarian (if he's not running away).
Zyrith attacks the monk. It should not hit him but this attack is to keep it busy and maybe hit by luck.
Venk uses his eldritch blast on the wizard.
players at end of the first round :
- wizard took 2d4 negative levels, 22d10 fire damage from the breath attack, 6d6+8d4+1d6+52 from dragotha's bite, 5d6 from eldritch blast and took either 10d6 or half from flame strike
- cleric is behind a wall of stone, took nothing, the wall protected him from the breath
- druid took 22d10 from the breath attack and is behind a wall of stone
- barbarian took 22d10 from breath attack and is behind a wall of force
- monk took either 22d10 or nothing from breath attack
The wizard should have took an average of 5 negative levels, 110 damage from breath, 89 from dragotha biting, 15 from eldritch blast (if venk hits) and 30 from flame strike (15 if resisted). He needs to make a Fortitude save against 44 or be paralysed for 2d6 rounds. So he should be dead or near.
Second round and next :
Players have to move out of this walls of stone and force to fight Dragotha and his friends. So they will spend their magic and most important, their actions to get out of their jails.
The evil team will concentrate all his power of the wizard first to kill him as fast as possible, then they'll attack the cleric, the druid, the barbarian, the monk in this order (why barbarian before monk ? because he's easier to kill and does big damage. you don't want him to hit you while you're trying to hit the monk).
Mahhudril will be the crowd controler using his wall of force (he can cast it 8th time per day) to keep players blocked while his team mates kill players one by one. If during one round he doesn't have to cast his wall of force, he cast summon monster 5 (as many monsters as possible, level is not important) to help (and give aid another bonus) the avoliaka clerics who will fight in melee.
Avoliaka clerics will fight in melee the spellcaster players and heal dragotha against the melee players.
Venk and Zurith will make fly-by attacks on players.
Dragotha (and his 1d4+5 mirror images) attacks on melee the spellcasters one by one. He uses arcane strike to kill faster the wizard and the cleric. He keeps his death wind breath to damage players and heal himself. To fight melee players, if he can do it without putting his team mates in too high danger, he just stay out of range while flying and uses his breath and spells.
This is the tactic our DM used against us and we had to run away and come back kill them one by one until we fought only Dragotha. We only survived because we had buffs. Our DM used the standard Dragotha and hopefully we took no Disjunction at the beginning of the fight.
As you can see, this is a totally different fight from the one you saw. All is in the tactic used by the evil guys.
For me, the fight you ruled missed one thing : you forgot Dragotha got 24 in int and Mahuudril 18. They're not stupid and they know what is their most dangerous opponents and how to make crowd control with their spells.
But you and your friends got fun in this fight and this is the most important thing. I hope you the same thing with Kyuss.
