I don't like banning anything, but if you want some guidelines on how to make things run smoother, try the following campaign restrictions: 1. No evil characters. If you want to experiment with why this is a good idea, play "We be Goblins" and tell everybody to try to act like an evil goblin. If you group can actually not PK each other, then maybe bad guys will be fine. 2. No minions. (Ban Summoner, and all classes have to take the non companion option like arcane bond items for wizards and domains for druids. This kind of auto bans cavaliers and witches. No leadership either. No undead armies.) This speeds up game play with new players. Everybody wants a pet tiger. Nobody bothers to learn how to level one up. Only allow monster summoning spells to function if the player has a stat card with the vital statistics of whatever they're summoning or else the spell fails. The sole purpose of these rules would be to speed up gameplay. If your group has their s*** together, then minions are a rich addition to the party. If not, they grind gameplay to a halt. 3. No third party. Getting one player character whining in your ear about allowing them to play psionic character rules or some race of half dwarf elf things that they found on the internet seems to happen often. Allow it if you're comfortable with it and it sounds cool, but on closer reading, I usually find such third party races and classes tend to run on the brokenly OP or completely useless side of things. Again, I always use "explicit GM permission after discussion" instead of a ban. Also, If you have casters that seem overpowered (unlikely), throw more than 5 encounters at the group between rests. A wizard with no spells is a commoner in a nightgown.
I'm brainstorming a bit on what else you could do to ruin a caster's day. If you went arcane archer, you could get the ability to imbue an arrow with antimagic field and shoot it at a caster. That basically makes them a commoner but you need a strong fighter type in the party to go beat on them afterwards. An improved familiar with a wand could give you the ability to use readied actions to disrupt casting without having to waste your own actions. A wand of silence might serve well. Lightning bolt would be precise for doing some damage without blowing up your party in melee. For a second level spell, I think frost fall is a good anti caster spell. It targets fortitude, gives automatic damage, and failing the save makes the victim staggered so a caster either has to eat damage and probably lose their spell, or waste their turn on a single move action to get out of the effect. Chain of perdition and black tentacles give you some anti caster maneuvers at a distance that also invoke concentration checks. Elemental Aura on your familiar and go park your familiar near a caster. And globe of invulnerability has a 10 ft radius allowing you to shield your whole party. Earth elementals using earth glide and then grapple are pretty effective, so having summon monster is probably smart. Parry spell is a 15th level feat from the APG. The destructive dispel feat (lvl 11) gives you a stun or stagger on any dispel magic you cast successfully.
15. The Savory Donkey. Does your GM roll random encounters from the wilderness tables that go up to CR10 for your level 1 party? Buy a donkey, a bag of spice, a hammer. and an alchemical fire. Put the bag of spice on the donkey, the alchemical fire on the spice, and hit it with a hammer at first sign of an overwhelming hostile encounter. Run whichever way the fragrantly flaming donkey/BBQ doesn't.
Do you have any casters with 3rd level spells in your party or better? Here is what I would do. Go along with your dominated orders and go investigate things like they tell you. At the next evil monster combat doing this task, drop a protection or magic circle against evil as a party buff. Everybody gets another save. If some people start saving successfully, they can start dropping more protections, dispel magic, break enchantment, whatever, and break the domination in the middle of combat. From a roleplaying standpoint, somewhere in your subconsciousness, you know that you need to cast these spells on yourself, so you do whenever it is logical to do so while following orders. Then the whole party either immediately takes on the lone succubus who cannot cast further enchantments while everybody is protected, or the party flees and hides. The latter would probably be the most fun because then you have to go and retake your kingdom back while probably being declared outlaws.
Claxon wrote:
Never ask where somebody will put the rod on the internets.
I kind of skipped all the discussion, but my advice is to make sure that everybody is playing the game that they want to play, players and GM. My campaign is basically a railroaded monster bash at the moment, but I have a group with frequent schedule conflicts and a fair number of newbs that just like rolling dice for big numbers. I'm amusing myself with making every little random encounter uniquely creative at the moment, so that is still fun. If in a few months we get some stable schedules, I know I can add a lot of plot very quickly if people want that.
There is always the "a dragon with anti-magic shell cast on himself is still a dragon" trick. Hello Commoner! Nice Wizard hat! Check out this claw/claw/bite/wing/wing/tail combo! Bonus points if the dragon gets his AC and DR tattooed on himself somewhere obvious. Watch your fighters cry as their magic swords turn into just shiny swords.
This is why when I have a Paladin join my table, I ask which god and code they will be following and just make sure we both understand what is and is not considered okay. Paladin codes reflect this thread. Some people think good is one thing, some think it is something else. Some pathfiner divinities have one code. Some have another. So just hash it out with your GM to make sure you're on the same definition for that character. Feel free to hack and slash or explore the moral gray areas as appropriate to the unfolding story. I guess it just baffles me when I see what appears to be people unable to separate real life from a fantasy game. In pathfinder, you could conceivably have a carbonated can of pure fizzy evil... With a gp value. That really blows all of my arguments to justify anything on morality. All I can ask for is a group consensus at the table.
My PCs in my dwarf campaign nearly unanimously dumped charisma. Talking their way out of encounters really isn't an option. The ended up in a lethal fight with a bunch of centaurs that weren't their enemies last session because diplomacy was bombed that badly. Mechanically, charisma damage effects are effectively a save or die for this character. Also with the electric eel having a higher CHa:
Rincewind (Wizzard 20 Transmutation/Enchancement school, Mythic Trickster 10)
arcane bond: familiar (an animated object (chest) of course)
Skills: Acrobatics, Spellcraft Mythic Trickster: Fleet Charge, Wall Run, Defensive Move, Feather Step, Vanishing Move, Titan's Bane, Masterful Dillitante, Redirect Attention, Assured Skill, Impeccable Balance, Path Dabbling (Impossible Speed) Mythic Feats: Mythic Run, Mythic Fleet x4 He cant cast unless he uses perfection of self to grow a brain for a few rounds, but lots of HP's, decent saves, and can run and tumble and dodge attacks like a complete maniac. Base movement is 230 with a use of impossible speed mythic power. Run is 1610 ft per round or 183 mph. Add mythic Expeditious retreat for a whopping 215mph run.
As far as summoners go, I kind of wish that the Eidolons were made with advancement templates so that everybody knew what the damn thing did. Basically, "I have an Eidolon!"
While it sounds cool, keeping track of your players trying to keep track of their evolutions is a giant headache.
Just to answer the OP: I have no problem banning classes, and usually cite the reason being that I don't know enough about them to want to deal with them at the table. I usually just have a ban on all classes / races that are 3PP, and then any campaign specific bans that make sense for the story line. (i.e. no elves in an all dwarf campaign, dangit, or this fantasy world has no guns period in this campaign so no gunslingers.) I think if you want to ban a synthesist, you can always say that PFS banned them because they were too hard for random GMs to keep track of, so you don't want to deal with it either.
For encumbrance, handy haversacks are awesome. Next, have a bag of stuff that you can drop as a free action. (Why are you carrying all of your camping gear through the tomb you're looting?). Also, mithril is just as good as masterwork steel and weighs half as much. Finally, don't dump your strength unless you're okay with being slowed down. For perception, set some rules. Maybe 1 check per person per area. Next, use time to your advantage. They'll check less if they're chasing something. Finally, write down your player's perception scores and roll in secret. Some players will keep rolling if they roll low. Now they'll never know if they roll low. Fourth, just tell them to knock it off because it's annoying.
On a more serious note (or not), I always liked the idea of giving a wand of fireball to a pixie or other tiny flying thing and having them hold it on their shoulder like an RPG. Bonus points if the wand actually looks like a 7 inch long scale replica of a bazooka. Wands of magic missle that look like little thompson sub machineguns are also acceptable, but only if your familar agrees to wear a zoot suit, fedora, and smoke tiny cigars.
eh, if they have high dexterity, shield, mage armor, and protection from evil spread out amongst them and are smart with their buffing, they're still going to be hard to hit. Also, if they have good initiative I can see a lot of your enemies going down to a spamming of daze before they can act and then just getting shot to death while they stand there. Frankly when I GM I seem to take down the martials classes most often because they wade in and take critical hits. I think that party could be fine if the group works cohesively and cautiously together. If they are working well together, many of your encounters will end with the enemies unable to ever attack anything. Just remember that if it is CR appropriate and they completely shut the encounter down, well that is how they have to play to survive. It isn't because it was too easy. Basically that party is playing rocket tag.
Reach weapons, combat reflexes, step up, and massive damage make you a tank in pathfinder. You have to be a threat that enemies can't ignore and have a way to force them to move the way you want them to. For sword and board, you're probably better off looking at two handed fighting and shield bashing, because then you can shield slam enemies around the battlespace, get the ac bump of a shield, and can attack more to keep your damage up. Also vanilla fighter isn't bad because the armor training will allow you to keep your movement up higher than the archtypes, and you will need to get yourself in front of enemies that chose not to come to you. Throw in some teamwork feats if you have another heavy hitter in the party and you could be a pretty effective secondary smasher.
If you spent enough time on the prince to figure out a level progression, you spent too much time on him. I would recommend the following: Have a few NPCs in succession travel with the PCs on the next few adventures. Have them come and go without incident and have them reoccur occasionally. This gives your world a dynamic element and keeps you from becoming attached to your DMPC. Have one or two even die gloriously. Then rotate this prince guy in after your group is used to you having an occasional NPC riding along and do his thing. Then have him betray the group and become a BBEG like you want. Then he is just one of a reoccuring cast of interesting NPCs for your players to interact with, and you won't even have to lie. I think my best NPC (DMPC) was a half orc cleric that went on two adventures with the group (there was a distinct lack of healing and a few players were out for a few weeks with life). He was dumb as a sack of rocks, but came through in the pinches and went off to help with an orphanage or someting when the other players came back. I'd have him pop in occasionally and give the group plot hints at inns after that. Also, if your players get a whiff of betrayal, they will try very hard to slaughter your npc and leave you in the uncomfortable situation of having to bulls*** why he gets to live after a critical hit backstab or having your entire plot in ruins. In summary, if you want to use a DMPC, slap yourself and make 4 NPCs that can come, go, and die that you won't get attached to and wont outshine your group.
Orfamay Quest wrote:
For my own hilarity, I ran the Crown of the Kobold King as a tuckers kobolds adventure. My favorite hilight was having the PCs all charge into a large room chasing 3 fleeing kobolds (having learned that fleeing kobolds come back with reinforcements already) and screeching to a halt in front of row after row of upturned tables and cots (I was using this room as staging and triage for the kobolds. There were about 25 of them bottled up in here passing around a cure light wounds wand and organizing into new skirmish groups). It was on this day that I uttered my most memorable GM quote. "Give me your D20s. All of them." The javalin barrage from behind cover didn't kill the party, but many hps were lost and the party fled to regoup.
One of my best pieces of advice is the following: Don't get attached to the interesting antagonists you create. The PCs will figure out novel ways to kill them the first time they meet. Never have bad guys that are re-occuring plot elements in your stories after the point in which they first meet the PCs. If your evil lich manages to get off a dimention door and run like hell like he is supposed to after taking some hits, great. Work him back into the story then for next time. Don't have him slated to show up in the next adventure before he survives this one though. You will either make you bad guy too tough and he'll TPK the group, or you'll have horrible tempations to do unbelievable railroading of the plot and battles to keep him alive, and the players will resent it.
If you want damage, fighters are still better numerically. If you want skills, bards are still better numerically. If you want both, rangers, inquisitors, and bards can probably do your job better than you can. And they have spells. Fighters are usually considered bottom tier because of their lack of flexability. Rogues are because of their lack of being able to actually do anything well. See TarkXT gigantic rogue thread for more details.
My best advice for a gm is to go on here and read some of the advice threads on tactics. You can get a lot more mileage out of your monsters if you run them intelligently, setting up flanks, grappling the hard hitters, falling back and regrouping, etc. If you try to start customizing the monsters to make them tougher, you may accidentally build a party wiping hand grenade. Also, look up tucker's kobolds for inspiration.
Yes thank you. I was typing off the cuff. It is the Greater Metamagic Rod, Elemental (cold). Now to correct Ilja on the maths: Caster level 18th
All four of those feats double with spell perfection (fireball) making it
Now the spell DC:
In summary, thats a DC 35 with +33 vs SR cold spell out of a 5th level slot. if that fails, switch to a Greater Metamagic Rod, Elemental (acid) and quicken the same spell out of a 9th level slot. In fact, cast the quickened spell first and assess whether the dragon has defenses up before following up. Drop a time stop as the standard action cast if so and reassess. If our dragon has a belt of dex +6 and a cloak of resist +5, it gets a reflex save of (oh are we doing ancient dragon? I was looking at the great wyrm from the srd) +21. It needs to roll a 14 or better now. If its an ancient dragon, then triple treasure at standard progression for CR 19 is 159,000. Those two items have eaten up 61,000 so far. My build in more detail: human tattooed sorcerer (draconic[brass])
every preferred class bonus into more spells traits:
feats
items so far (incomplete)
spells(incomplete)
tattoo familiar: Greensting scorpion
I've killed some dragons in my time too, you know. And what you've shown here is that killing a dragon is an adventure in an of itself. That's great. That's fun. That's irrelevant to the topic. Look at the first post again. It's tactics and build advice to be able to combat a dragon solo. I mean, you overcame the challenges. You dispatched the servants. You found the correct layer in the correct elemental plane. You eventually got to the dragon AND FOUGHT IT. Great. Now, how did you defeat it? Let us say hypothetically that all those traps and servants and false trails were so devious and expensive that they incapacitated your entire party save yourself, a 18th level caster. Then the dragon drops out of the ceiling or whatever to finish your wounded self and incapacitated party off. Could you still win the fight? The build I posted can. With 1 hp. The only hope the dragon has is to incapacitate him somehow in a surprise round or to get lucky and win initiative. So can we dispense with the crap yet? Hell give the dragon a surprise round. What is its move? Breath weapon? Improved Vital Strike? Cast a spell? Now I'm curious if I can improve my sorcerer build (I know not a wizard, but close) enough to survive getting surprised by a red dragon and still pull off a win. Again here is my stipulation: YOU AND YOUR PARTY BLOW ALL RESOURCES SAVE YOUR OWN TO GET THROUGH ALL PREPLANNED DEFENSES. There are no more. Now its the dragon. He gets a surprise round. What does he do?
Hrm... 18th level blaster sorcerer (draconic fireballer): 35 Cha + greater spell focus + spell perfection + free heighten + magical lineage + dazing + greater metamagic rod of ice = DC 34 reflex save dazing icy fireball. Dragon needs to roll a 20. varisian tattoo + spell specialization + spell perfection + greater spell penetration + orange ioun stone = +33 overcoming spell resistance. You need to not roll a 1. Thats basically unblockable. fire a second heightened quickened dazing icy fireball to be sure. Now you have 9 rounds to blast it with polar rays, frozen orbs, dragon breath, more dazing icy heightened fireballs, etc, while it sits there dazed. A rod of spell piercing may speed things up. Initiative: Dex uh +4, dueling cestus +4, greensting scorpion +4, reactionary +2, Improved initiative +4 = +18 to your rolls Hire a first level halfling cleric with the law domain, reduce person on it, and tie it to your belt to give you 'a touch of law' in case you don't like rolling. I prefer to have the little guy rub my inner thigh.
Elbe-el wrote:
Its not edifying when it misses the point entirely. Let me try to rephrase it for you: The point of this thread is to come up with a rogue build that does anything that another class can't do better. If you look, there are a lot of viable and interesting rogue builds in here. The problem is that whatever the build does, a different class can do better. So try to play along.
Thinking about it, the only thing I think you did that could be construed as unfair was not giving feedback on hits. I think it's reasonable to have an invisible monster grunt or scream when shot, or even to notice that the second bullet he shot didn't hit the wall. It also makes for good description opportunities to add drama to the encounter.
From a player perspective, that fight was very winnable. Inquisitor should have dropped a buff or moved into melee to threaten (setting up flank ideally) on the surprise round. Skellington would have been on the defensive for the rest of the battle. Fighter should have just charged. Both should have pulled out clubs or something on seeing a skeleton. Sorc depending on spells should have probably just greased it, cast protection from evil or enlarge on the fighter, or just blasted it apart depending on the build. It should not have been able to cast due to concentration checks and should have been dead before getting to its second round with only 18 hp and those saves. Of course this assumes average dice rolls and no bad luck.
226. Do a few things very well. Don't try to do everything well, because you'll end up doing everything mediocre, and mediocrity gets killed. 227. If somebody in the group has already made a character that does something very well, don't make a character that does the same thing. A good party does do everything well through varieties of characters, and it's a role playing game for pete's sake. Embrace another role. 227a. If you play the same class/race every game and name your character after yourself every time, nobody actually likes playing with you in your group.
I like to compare Mount to Summon Monster I. With Summon Monster I you get to choose between a bunch of animals with different attributes and they all get a template. With mount, you just get a horse or a pony. But with mount you get it for hours instead of half a minute or so. It seems fine balance-wise. Just remember that summons are still NPC animals and need pushing etc, cant be summoned in the air, and disappear, and it should work out okay. Some uses for a mount that your party hasn't thought of yet: Mount seige: summon two mounts and tie a couple of doors between them. Then you can push them towards a castle and not be pelted with rocks and oil by the defenders by hiding between the mounts under the cover. Mount trapfinder: summon a pony. Push it to stay in front of the party until it finds the pit or the razor pendulum. Summon a new mount. Legitimate Mount Bombing: Summon a horse on a sturdy section of roof. Push it to prance around until it falls through a section that isn't rated to hold a horse. It really freaks out whoever is inside. Also if the rider has feather fall, jump the mount off something high onto your foes and float safely down. Mount torpedo: Summon mounts into a boat until it sinks. Also works on seige towers. Summon mounts until they are too heavy to move forward. Mount wrestling: If you look at light horse stats, they actually grapple pretty well compared to their attack, which sucks. Push it to attack and grapple. Our party has termed this a "rape pony". Take what you will from that. Mount sonar: Mounts have scent. push it to track and find those invisible foes. Mount loot: Summon a bunch of mounts using them as pack animals and take everything from the dungeon as loot including the doors, windows, and sconces. I'm sure there are more.
Ah the argument against power gaming: if your whole party totally sucks and uses a 10 point buy, then all the monsters will be non-threatening. If your whole party is heavily optimized, synergized, and based on a 25 point buy, then the monsters will be using unblockable death attacks. I don't think that is really an elephant in the room when talking about general tactics. It just points out corner cases and the part of the game that isn't easily quantified. As such, I don't think it changes the nature of this discussion.
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