pennton's page

There's really only a difference if there is a distinction between starting funds and character wealth by level.

If character wealth is supposed to represent the market price of what an average 10th level character is supposed to have, then that amount would include the use of item creation feats along the way and assume that the mages were using item creation for the entire party's benefit. In that event, the total value of each character's items should be the same regardless of whether they took item creation feats.

If you use character wealth as a literal measure of starting funds, then players with item creation feats get to start with significantly more valuable equipment than players who do not have the feats.

We're about to incorporate the Alpha 3 Pathfinder rules into my current campaign as most of the players needed to make new characters anyway. The new players will be starting at 10th level.

The new rules for magic item creation present an interesting potential balance issue when it comes to starting equipment for high level characters. Suppose we use 62,000 gp for 10th level characters per the Character Wealth by Level table on page 123. If that money is used as starting funds, is a character with item creation feats allowed to use those feats to effectively create his magic items at half the cost, or should he be forced to pay full market price like the other characters who don't have item creation feats?

The same question pertains to a wizard's Arcane Bond. Should a new 10th level wizard be able to enchant his Arcane Bond at 50% the normal cost before entering the game?

This issue didn't really come into play prior to the Pathfinder rules because of the xp cost component. Players would be reluctant to pay a ton of xp for item creation because it would put them behind the other players in experience. Now that the only limiting factor for magic item creation is gold and time, there's no reason not to take full advantage of one's item creation feats whenever possible.

So, should a brand new high level character get an effective 50% discount on all his magic items if he takes the appropriate magic item creation feats? Or is that a misuse of the concept of character wealth by level?

I of course have no idea just how powerful your player's creep has become, but i myself am not at all worried about whether or not Zenith and his invisible pal are challenging enough for my players. After having played several relentless game sessions facing the likes of Aushanna, Mang-Mictho, and Dhorlot the Dragon-Father, they actually deserve to get to the end of the adventure and find something that may not threaten their lives for a change.

In other words, i don't think that Zenith Splintershield was meant to be the main bad guy in this adventure. While you may need to adjust him to meet the creep, i wouldn't attempt to make him the baddest monster in Bhal-Hamatugn.

This is dead on Shimrath. We just went through Bhal-Hamatugn this past Saturday, and by the time we got to Zenith, I was glad the party could subdue him with relative ease.

The multi-leveled room with Blipdoolpoolp's shrine was absolutely brutal. They set off the sonic blast trap on the door coming from the entryway, so everyone was waiting for them when they entered the main room. Luckily, my party was smart enough to do some research on Kuo-Toans before they left and had the foresight to have 20 points of electrical resistance for everyone in the party before heading in. That probably saved them because it made the whips' lightning bolts pretty much ineffective.

Because he had fair warning, Mangh-Mictho was geared up with spells and armor in time to take on the party right as they were finishing off the whips. Unfortunately, the party thought he was the main threat of the room, so they blew a lot of spells taking him out. Then Aushanna showed up...

Needless to say, she completely rocked their world and forced them to flee and come back after resting and recovering spells. On the second try, they successfully took her out along with Dhorlot and the rest of the named Kuo-Toans. Zenith was a push-over at that point, but I really didn't care. The party had earned the right to an easy fight, even if it was supposed to be CR10. I ended up leaving Zenith's build alone.

My players are about to enter the room with the Blibdoolpoolp shrine, meaning 20 rounds later, Aushanna shows up. I've read a few threads warning of the TPK potential of this encounter, and I am slightly concerned about their ability to deal with a flying opponent (if not for a well-timed major image of a gold dragon cast by the beguiler that scared Gottrod away, the party had literally nothing they could do against a flying dragon circling while his breath weapon recharged).

Regardless, I have a question about one of Aushanna's innate abilities that's not really addressed in the Tactics section. Why wouldn't she immediately try to summon a few Bearded Devils (Lemures are pathetic) into the fray to really make things nasty for the PCs? She's bound, not summoned, so I don't think that the "summoned creatures can't summon other creatures" rule affects her.

In your opinion, would this be a sound tactic for her? Is it legal for her to do so? And, is it just cruel of me to pile on the pain of additional devils when she's already such a tough foe on her own?

So my players are about to tackle Bhal Hamatugn in our next session, and I was considering reworking Zenith Splintershield entirely. I (regretfully) allowed my players to use the Complete series of books along with the Book of Nine Swords to create their characters, so because of the inevitable "power creep" resulting from those splat books, they are more powerful than your standard, 7th-level party. Looking at Zenith's stat block, I just know that he'd going to get slaughtered (or at least adequately subdued) in a couple of rounds. When you throw those splat books into the mix, fighters are really pretty weak. And Dwarven Defender just isn't very effective as a "big boss" PrC. What's he gonna do, just stand there in defensive stance while the spell casters nuke him?

Anyway, I thought he'd be much more formidable if I rebuilt him using the Book of Nine Swords. Warblade looked interesting, but he'd have to take a feat to get proficiency in heavy armor, and the flavor of the class doesn't feel quite right for Zenith's background. Crusader fits very nicely I think. He could have originally been a Crusader of Moradin who "lost his faith". His current Crusader abilities would actually be powered by his link with the Smoking Eye.

Any thoughts on this?

My party didn't take on Keygan's shop, but they did decide to rent a house in town, so we had to figure out a fair cost. They're paying 10 gp per month, which seems kinda cheap at first glance, but this is how we came up with the price:

We likened a night at a Common inn (5 sp) to a stay at a typical business hotel in California, which we estimated at about $100/night. We also figured that you can get a pretty decent townhouse/apartment for $2000 a month here. So if the monthly cost of renting a house is roughly 20 times the nightly cost to stay in a decent hotel, we just multiplied 5 sp times 20 to get 10 gp per month.

They're renting a pretty meager place on Lava Avenue. Keygan's place being both a residence and a shop would probably cost a bit more.

My players aren't quite there yet, but they'll probably face Gottrod in the next couple of sessions. I'm just curious how this fight went with the other groups out there.

Gotrrod's tactic of staying in the air and blasting away with his breath weapon every 1d4 rounds could be pretty deadly against a group with no decent ranged capability. Mages could definitely do some damage, but only if they had the foresight to memorize a lot of non-fire spells.

How did other groups deal with him? Ranged weapons? Cold damage? How effective was his tactic of staying in the air and sticking to his breath weapon?

That's just plain lame.

The way I run my game, everything has to be cleared by the DM unless it's from the core books. If a player requests something silly or unbalancing (such as most of what your players are using), I won't allow it. That will prevent this sort of god-gaming.

Alternatively, if you want to allow the players neat powers like these, you've got to go in and change the monsters so they have them too.

Also, why the heck would you allow your players to be level FIVE by the time they fought Tongueeater? The Lucky Monkey is a dungeon designed for a party of four/six level 3 characters.

I think battles in D&D are pointless unless there's a chance of dying. With a group of level 5 characters, a CR 5 encounter has virtually no chance of killing them. So it should be strengthened.

Outright banning things before they've even been play-tested doesn't fly well in my group. Just because something looks overpowered on paper doesn't mean that it is in practice. I have a feeling that even with only SRD options available, the fight still would have been pretty easy for my group. The Haste spell probably had the single largest effect on the Tongueeater encounter.

I try not to fudge xp too much if my players earn it and my players earned enough experience in Life's Bazaar and Drakthar's Way to hit 5th level, which is pretty easy if you have less than 6 players sharing the xp. In the hardcover SCAP, the sidebar at the beginning of Chapter 3, Flood Season, specifically recommends that the party be 4th level when they begin the chapter, so I'm not sure where you're getting the level 3 recommendation. Given that the SCAP is intended for 6 players and I only have 5 in my group, I thought that starting the chapter at 5th level might be OK. Clearly I was mistaken.

I'm going to risk going a bit off topic here. My party consists of four straight SRD characters only. They had pretty tough time with the AP so far (we're at foundation of flame now). The fight with tongue-eater was particularly bad.

I think what happens is that with each new rules expansion (i.e. hardcover), the power level of a character goes up by a fraction. Not only because you get more options, and are therefore better able to optimize your character, but also because the power level of the best spells, feats and items is just a bit better than the best spells, feats and items in the previous book, or the core books. It's not unbalancing in itself, but after something like 20 books, it adds up.

In itself, this is not a bad thing. However, as a GM, you have to adjust for your party's new power level by toughening up the baddies a bit. SCAP was written when during the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 It is balanced for a slightly lower power level than is currently available to most players.

As a case in point, look at your own experience. The party beat tongueeater with ease, and mostly used spells that were not available when the adventure was written. In fact, the only spell they did use from the core books was haste, which, together with fireball is the most powerfull spell at 3rd level.

I completely agree with you. There's a part of me that regrets letting the players use books outside the SRD, but at this point, there's no going back. The various splatbooks do give players some fun options, but there's a lot of potential for abuse. I'll see how the beginning of the Kopru ruins goes and bump up the competition as needed.

My players just finished up the encounter at the Lucky Monkey and will brave the Kopru Ruins in our next game. If you can manage it, I recommend not letting your players hit 5th level before the Lucky Monkey encounter. My players wiped the floor with Tongueeater in just a few rounds. Granted, my players make pretty efficient characters, but still, I had hoped that this fight would give them a bit of a challenge. Here are a few of the strategies that they used to make the Lucky Monkey a cake walk:

Druid: Cast Evard's Menacing Tentacles (PHB II) on himself, sharing it with his riding dog animal companion = 6 attacks per round, 4 of which had 10-foot reach.

Wizard: With the Fiery Burst reserve feat (Complete Mage), kept a Fireball spell in reserve to cast 5'-radius mini-fireballs at will that do 3d6 fire damage. Also cast Haste on the party, effectively doubling their attacks every round.

Cleric: Divine Metamagic/Persistent Spell build using the Ice Axe spell. 24-hour per day touch attack that does 2d12+2 cold damage... ouch.

Basically, access to 3rd-level spells drastically reduced the difficulty of the fights at the Lucky Monkey. Achieving 5th level is a huge power jump for characters in D&D and I recommend not letting your players do it if you want the Lucky Monkey encounter to be at all challenging. Either that, or beef up the competition to compensate, which I failed to do.

Oh well, I think the Kopru ruins ought to give them a run for their money. Don't get me wrong. Ultimately, I want my players to succeed. I just think that the game needs to be challenging to keep it fun for everybody.

The group encountered Drakthar twice during the game. The first time, he was able to dominate the barbarian, who was able to make his second save to avoid attacking the party. They were able to get Drakthar down to 0 hp pretty quickly once he transformed into a dire wolf, which drastically reduced his AC. Both the barbarian and one of the druid's animal companions (an ape) were able to do enough damage per turn to make headway against the DR and Fast Healing.

The second time they encountered Drakthar, they made sure that they had a silver weapon with Magic Weapon cast on it. He barely lasted 3 rounds.

The session ended with him turning to mist and leading them away from his coffin. We'll see how things progress next game. They could end up having to come back a third time if they run into another encounter and have to rest up before returning.

Watch out for wizards with Command Undead.

Heh, there's only one wizard in the party, and he's an evocation specialist. Guess which is one of his prohibited schools?

Seriously, undead are going to be this party's kryptonite. They've got a rogue, a barbarian, two druids, and an evoker who can't cast necromancy spells.

My group is starting Drakthar's Way tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how it goes. They are a smaller group (4 players the last two sessions, 5 players this coming session), so they're already 4th level going in. I expect them to cut through the goblins like a hot knife through butter, but I honestly don't know what's going to happen when Drakthar shows up. It could be anything from a cake walk to a TPK depending on one Will save. My group's favorite tactic is to enlarge the half-orc barbarian and let him do a frontal assault. He's clearly going to be Drakthar's primary domination target and with a Will save of +0, there's a good chance he'll fail. If he does, I think the party is toast.

A quick question about Drathar's Dominate ability. Even if the barbarian makes his Will save, can't he just try it again on his next turn? With a Will save of +0 (Wisdom of 8), it seems like it's only a matter of time before the barbarian becomes Drakthar's flunky.

Oh, did I mention that the party doesn't have a cleric? Ouchy...

I'll be running my group through Drakthar's Way in a couple of weeks, and because they're 4th level instead of the recommended 3rd, I want to make sure I play Drakthar effectively enough to give them a challenge. My players are incredibly efficient/tactical in combat. An example: At 3rd level, four of them took out the Grell in Jzadirune in about 3 rounds. Granted, they made a deal with Yuathyb and knew of the Grell's existence before they entered the room, but still...

If Drakthar successfully dominates one of the PCs and tells them to attack another member of the party, does that trigger the "any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus" clause of the Dominate Person spell? If so, does the PC get to make a new save every round he spends attacking another party member, or just once to resist the general command. It's pretty obvious what my players' opinions will be on this, but I'd like to get some feedback from some GMs.

Also, in Drakthar's stat block, it lists his full attack as morningstar (primary) and slam (secondary). His slam attack is so much more devastating (damage + energy drain + temporary hp) than a swing with a morningstar, I don't understand why he even bothers with the morningstar. Wouldn't he be much more effective if he used his slam attack with his full attack bonus? What am I missing here?