Evil_Wizards wrote: Dax Thura wrote: Why isn't this undead servant assumed to be at 'full' at the beginning of each encounter? Healing undead is difficult for a wizard, as he doesn't have a spell for that. Getting good bodies isn't easy, either.
In that regard, the test is completely okay, or even favorable to the wizard: due to travelling and legal/social concerns, it's not unlikely to loose undead minions between encounters. That's making value judgements. Eberron might disagree with you on the social acceptedness of undead.
But you can leave your undead outside town and they'll probably be there when you get back (and if not, that could be a plot hook and beyond the scope of this test). And you can seriously pay a cleric to cast inflict light wounds. I mean, the default assumption of D+D is there are seriously temples to evil deities in major metropoli, and that's ok.
But yeah, walking around with a bunch of undead minions will depend on the campaign world. But the necromancer option isn't much fun if you can't do that.
I only implied that there is a possibility of loosing your undead between encounters. Of course it's difficult to implement that in a playtest, and it wildly differs from campaign to campaign and adventure to adventure. So, I think you setup is pretty much okay in that regard (and most others, despite the inescapable-pit-of-death-discussion).
Notes: She scribes all scrolls she can herself.
!Xou'aktl, female Halfling Necromancer:
Forbidden Schools: Evocation, Divination
Str 6
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 20
Wis 10
Cha 12
Level 7:
Racial: Small, Slow, Keen Senses (Sound), Sure-Footed, Halfling Luck, Fearless, Weap Fam (Sling)
Skills: Spellcraft 7, Kno(Planes) 7, Kno(Religion) 7, Kno(Arcane) 7, Kno(Dungeoneering) 7, Kno (Nature) 4
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Improved Initiative, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Spell Penetration
Class Abilities: Necromancer (56HD undead), Grave Touch, Arcane Bond (Bone Ankh), Spells, Spellbook, Ray of Enfeeblement 1/2CLs, False Life 1/day, Vampiric Touch 1/day
Equipment (19k): Handy Haversack, Ring of Protection +1, Spellbook, Wicked Bone Ankh (Arcane Bond), Robe, Staff, Crossbow, 20 quarrels, 20 silver quarrels, 20 cold-iron quarrels, 50' rope, flint and steel, grappling hook
Expendables: Potion of Neutralize Poison, Scroll of Animate Dead, Scroll of Dimension Door, Scroll of Fly, ~1.3k gp cash
Total cash spent on additional spells: 3500gp
Wicked Bone Ankh (Amulet, 8k): Intelligence +2 (1.5k gp), Perception +10 (3.75k), Resistance +2 (2k), Natural Armor +1 (.75k)
Spellbook:
0th: Resistance, Acid Splash, Daze, Read Magic, Ghost Sounds, Disrupt Undead, Touch of Fatigue, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Open/Close, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation
1st: Ray of Enfeeblement, Sleep, Protection from Evil, Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor, Feather Fall, Grease, Shield
2nd: Web, Glitterdust, Blindness/Deafness, Levitate, Darkvision, Protection from Arrows, Knock, Resist Elements
3rd: Dispel Magic, Ray of Exhaustion, Halt Undead, Stinking Cloud, Suggestion, Major Image, Fly, Slow, Greater Magic Weapon
4th: Greater Invisibility, Enervation, Animate Dead, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door
Spells Memorized (4/6/4/3/2): DC 15 + spell level
Cantrips: Open/Close, Touch of Fatigue, Prestidigitation, Ghost Sound
1st: Mage Armor*, Feather Fall, Expeditious Retreat, Protection from Evil, Shieldx2
2nd: Glitterdust, Darkvision*, Blindness/Deafness, Protection from Arrows*
3rd: Suggestion, Stinking Cloud, Ray of Exhaustion
4th: Black Tentacles, Enervation
*already cast
Senses:
Perception +10 (+12 listen)
Initiative +7
Darkvision 60'
Defenses:
HP: 38 + 12.5 temporary (false life) = 50.5
AC: 20 (10 +1 size +3 dex + 4 Mage Armor +1 Natural +1 deflection), 15 touch, 17 Flat-footed
DR: 10/magic vs. ranged (Protection from Arrows)
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +10
Offenses:
Ray: Ranged Touch +7
Spells: DC 15 + Spell Level
Undead Minion:
I'm keeping the Huge Zombie Centipede, which is probably worse than what I would have if I actually adventured from 4-7th level, but there'll be less arguments this way.
Humongous Centipede Zombie. HD 12d12+15 (93hp), Mv 40' Climb 40', Init +1, AC 19, DR 5/slashing, single-action only, Svs F+4 R+5 W+8. Bite +10 (2d6+6), S/R 15'/10'
The above post accidentally left out Command Undead (2nd level spell), which should be in her spellbook (she has the cash).
The problem with copy-pasting is sometimes you don't catch everything.
I've just started the level 7 performance analysis. Should be up at some point.
nevermind...missed that she's a necromancer...can't have color spray.
EL 7 Challenges
40 ft spiked pit trap with a proximity trigger Fireball (8d6) at the bottom.
A Chimera
A Succubus
An Huge Air Elemental
A Lillend
A Spectre
A pair of Achaierai
A pair of Green Hags
Six Chokers
An Elf Wizard 7
40 ft. spiked pit trap w/ prox fireball (8d6)
With no way to detect the trap, !Xou'aktl falls in and casts featherfall. This avoids the falling damage and arguably the spike damage, but not the fireball, which is somewhere in the ballpark of half the damage. Fly can be used for escape.
Even Fight. (Half Damage sustained)
(I suppose I could let my zombie minion set off the trap by walking ahead of me, but then i have to get him out and find a cleric in town later).
A Chimera
Its native to temperate hills, which have an average spotting distance of 110'. Not a good distance for it to be at. With Will +6 it is vulnerable to Suggestion and Glitterdust at that range. Of course, !Xou'aktl can then try Blindness/Deafness for permanent Blindness, and can use Black Tentacles if its on the ground at the start of the encounter (unlikely). Even if it makes its first save, it can't reach her in one round, so she gets a second chance to nail it with something. Its best combat chance is in melee with her, which means it'll be vulnerable to Black Tentacles then. And she can instead pepper it with Enervation, Ray of Enfeeblement, and Ray of Exhaustion instead of save or lose spells to seriously hamper its effectiveness. (average -12.5 strength, leaving it with a mere 6.5 strength, and -6 dex leaving it with 7), which really opens it up to get hosed by Evards when it lands. Closing and landing are its best option because if it gets blinded while flying its in trouble.
Certain Win.
Animate Dead nets us a nice Chimera Skeleton! (12+9 = 21HD, well within her limts).
Chimera Skeleton. 9d12HD (58.5hp), Mv 30', AC 13, Init +6, DR 5/bludgeon, Imm Cold, Atts: Bite +8 (2d6+4), Bite +8 (1d8+4), gore +8 (1d8+4), 2 claws +3 (1d6+2), S/R 10'/5'
A Succubus
No divination and Perception +10 means we fall for the Succubus's pick-up lines. One kiss later, and we get a will save that we make half the time - so really, we're down 1.5 levels before we can do something on average, and our minions are elsewhere. (Actually, a necromancer might just be that kinky... you know something, I am not going there). If the Succubus gets another turn she's going to Charm Monster with a 45% chance of making the DC on !Xou'aktl's part, so we cast Protection from Evil first. Then we spank her +7 CMB with some tentacle pr0n... I mean Black Tentacles, because we're now immune to all her scary abilities. (If there isn't space to move away and drop that - yes, we take the AoO - we can use Ray of Exhaustion followed by Ray of Enfeeblement for a 50% Chance to drop her Str to 0 (and thus render her immobile). She can probably run if she wants to, but that's a win.
Probable Win. We take at least one and maybe two negative levels, but 3.P really takes the bite out of negative levels, and we keep our spell slots. At which point we have all our responses available, and lots of ones that stand a good chance of disabling the succubus. Having a good will save helps.
An Huge Air Elemental
She can't attack its CMB effectively (too big), its immune to mind-affecting, has no eyes, and probably gets surprise on her. If she's lucky, she gets to try to escape with Greater Invisibility, but her minions aren't so lucky. And it probably sucks her into a whirlwind and spin-cycles her to death
Certain Loss. Elementals are pretty brutal for their CR.
A Lillend
Ew, a grapple attack and save-or-lose spells. Not pretty. However, we have an initiative advantage and we have minions to help in close combat. So Protection from Evil for starters to ensure we don't fail a critical save, forcing it to close for melee (or run away). Its got pretty good saves, so we probably start hitting it with debuffers to make it more palatable for our undead minions, and we can pass the spellcraft checks pretty easily if any are called for. Alternately, we can Enervate and then drop a save-or-lose to take advantage of the -1d4 to its saves.
Certain Win in most cases - some small number of times it wins initiative and we fail a saving throw to charm person or similar, but this happens less than 5% of the time.
Yes, this becomes another minion... mmmm... skeletons...
A Spectre
The spectre pops out of the wall, and hits her for 2 negative levels in the surprise round. She has a chance on the initiative roll, with a 50% chance to act first in the round. Even if it hits her, she still ankhs for a command undead, which it fails the save to 50% of the time, and gives her a spectre buddy for 7 days. (Ok, 6 - on the 7th she leaves him somewhere if he's still following her).
Even. 50% chance for Command Undead. I'm amused how negative levels are completely inconsequential to a wizard now until they kill her...
A pair of Achaierai
Heh, !Xou's chimera skeleton expects to deal (.45*11+2*.45*8.5+2*.2*5.5) 14.8 damage per turn, during which time one Achaierai expects to deal 27 damage to it. Which means my two minions (not counting the skeletal Lillend) can handle one Achaierai on their own... This combat probably goes down with !Xou winning initiative at range (Achaierai are plains animals), and dropping a black tentacles to get both of them. The tentacles have a 2pt CMB advantage, meaning one escapes on average, and !Xou Ray of Exhaustions the one that doesn't, followed up by a Ray of Enfeeblement while the minions engage the loose one (already injured from the tentacles). !Xou can alternately open with Glitterdust, removing one of the Achaierai from combat while its blinded and around 100+' away, then provide debuffer support to her minions against the other one. (Or hit it with a Blindness/Deafness for a 50% success, and so on).
Certain Win. A Skeleton or zombie may go down (to be replaced by two Achaierai skeletons) if !Xou is unlucky, but that's the worst of the damages.
A pair of Green Hags
They have stealth on par with !Xou's perception, meaning they ambush 50% of the time, and that's not factoring in invisibility - so make that all the time. They hit quite a lot with small damage but a DC 16 poison that does nasty str damage, something we fail a little less than half the time. On an unlucky ambush !Xou goes down to 0 Str, but they can't do much to her minions with their low damage, and team skeleton drives them off (if not kills them). On a lucky ambush !Xou gets to drop a save or lose spell like glitterdust, or can use Suggestion to great effect to turn one hag against the other. Of course, !Xou only passes the level check 60% of the time, so really, this is a job for team monster - !Xou's job is to cast greater invisibility and wait if she gets a chance to act at all (otherwise she regains the use of her limbs sometime later surrounded by her skeletal bodyguards). Technically, !Xou can use her spell-like abilities while at 0 Str (don't require anything but mental action)... SR is still a problem.
Certain Win, mostly because team skeleton is awesome at dealing with low damage foes who proc fort saves.
Six Chokers
An ambush monster, their attacks are actually pretty low, as are their saves. Depending on how clustered they are, it may be one or a few spells before they're dealt with. She has a 50% chance to spot them before an ambush, and the same sight range as they do. She also has team skeleton, who might get attacked before she gets into sight range of the chokers. Team skeleton absolutely destroys team choker, and spells like Glitterdust can make this even more lopsided.
Certain Win.
Elf Wizard 7
Even. Mirror match by definition.
Certain Win 5
Probable Win 1
Even 3
Probable Loss
Certain Loss 1
7.25/10. And we're in overpowered territory.
One of the things thats really helping the wizard is that arcane bond lets you grab any spell you didn't memorize that day. Its nice because it makes your entire spellbook of relevance. Its just also really powerful. The cheap imbuing costs are just icing on the cake.
A problem for a number of the monsters is that they have offenses which ream her and utterly fail against her minions, or they have offenses that she can easily negate.
Finally, I will note I did not go down the Secret Page road for cheap spell additions to her spellbook (not to mention cheap copies of her spellbook).
Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote: nevermind...missed that she's a necromancer...can't have color spray. huh? she banned Divination and Evocation, not Illusion. I love Illusion. (Not that I'm using it much. Too easy to get into arguments about what it actually does because most people don't follow the letter of the rules for illusions).
squirrelloid wrote: I'm amused how negative levels are completely inconsequential to a wizard now until they kill her... Ok so for all of our disagreememt I have to applaud you for pointing this out. In fact I think this needs it's own post so on the forum (it's your discovery so you should post it) so that Jason can know that now negative levels hose only martial types and not spellcasters since he might miss it on this thread, seriously bravo for learning this. I might not agree with all of your assesments but an ability that only hoses certain classes when it's meant to be detrimental to all is a serious failure in function.
I would like to take a second to commend you for taking the time to run a few playtests. I understand that every person has their own style or nuances in how they would build and run a character but thanks for the effort.
In an attempt to see just how broken this is...
Notes:
She makes all magic items she can herself
10min/lvl spells which are extended last 200 minutes, or over 3 hours, more than enough for a day of adventuring in most cases.
Arcane Bond is really obscene. In addition to the amazing tactical versatility of grabbing any one spell in your spellbook 1/day to use, the 1/2 normal enchanting cost (and thus 1/4 normal item cost) is truly obscene. Even assuming wrong slot (*1.5 cost) and extra ability (*1.5 cost), the net cost multiplier is 1.5*1.5*.25 = .5625 of the normal cost. Ie, you pay a little more than it normally would have to craft the item in the correct slot (and you don't need to grab the feat!). Crazy. This only gets crazier when its something that has an affinity for the slot! (And its pretty crazy if that other slot would normally be overloaded). So normally by 10th level my wizard would have craft wondrous... but I really can't justify wasting the feat with the small cash differential compared to overloading my wicked ankh.
!Xou'aktl, female Halfling Necromancer:
Forbidden Schools: Evocation, Divination
Str 6
Dex 18
Con 15
Int 23
Wis 12
Cha 12
Level 10:
Racial: Small, Slow, Keen Senses (Sound), Sure-Footed, Halfling Luck, Fearless, Weap Fam (Sling)
Skills (ranks): Spellcraft 10, Kno(Planes) 10, Kno(Religion) 10, Kno(Arcane) 10, Kno(Dungeoneering) 10, Kno (Nature) 7
Feats: Scribe Scroll (b), Improved Initiative, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Spell Penetration, Craft Rod, Extend Spell (b), Quicken Spell (b)
Class Abilities: Necromancer (80HD undead), Grave Touch, Arcane Bond (Bone Ankh), Spells, Spellbook, Ray of Enfeeblement 1/2CLs, False Life 1/day, Vampiric Touch 1/day, Animate (10HD/day), Waves of Fatigue 1/day
Equipment: 45.3k/47k gp
Non-expendable (~33.75k): Handy Haversack, Ring of Protection +1, Rod of Extend, Spellbook, Wicked Bone Ankh (Arcane Bond), Robe, Staff, Crossbow, 20 quarrels, 20 silver quarrels, 20 cold-iron quarrels, 50' rope, flint and steel, grappling hook
Expendables (~2.25k): Potion of Delay Poison, Potion of Neutralize Poison, Scroll of Dimension Door, Scroll of Fly, 250gp of diamond dust (used)
Total cash spent on additional spells: 9300gp
Wicked Bone Ankh** (Amulet, 23.75k): Intelligence +4 (6.75k gp), Perception +10 (3.75k), Resistance +2 (2k), Natural Armor +2 (3k), Dex +2 (2.75k), Wis +2 (2.75k), Con +2 (2.75k)
**The back of the ankh has, in small letters, text to the effect of 'I memorized Exploding Runes today' some few hundred times - in case anyone tries to steal the ankh - then !Xou can drop a dispel magic on it to detonate them (which leaves the ankh unharmed), or can just wait for them to look at the back.
Spellbook:
0th: Resistance, Acid Splash, Daze, Read Magic, Ghost Sounds, Disrupt Undead, Touch of Fatigue, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Open/Close, Arcane Mark, Prestidigitation
1st: Ray of Enfeeblement, Sleep, Protection from Good, Expeditious Retreat, Mage Armor, Feather Fall, Grease, Shield
2nd: Web, Glitterdust, Blindness/Deafness, Levitate, Darkvision, Protection from Arrows, Knock, Resist Elements, Command Undead, False Life
3rd: Dispel Magic, Ray of Exhaustion, Halt Undead, Stinking Cloud, Suggestion, Major Image, Fly, Slow, Greater Magic Weapon, Haste, Displacement, Protection from Energy, Magic Circle vs. Evil, Explosive Runes
4th: Greater Invisibility, Enervation, Animate Dead, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, Bestow Curse, Stoneskin, Fear
5th: Magic Jar, Waves of Fatigue, Shadow Evocation, Mind Fog, Dominate Person, Teleport, Cloudkill, Dismissal, Wall of Stone, Persistent Image, Baleful Polymorph
Spells Memorized (4/6/6/4/4/3): DC 16 + spell level
Cantrips: Open/Close, Touch of Fatigue, Prestidigitation, Ghost Sound
1st: Mage Armor*, Feather Fall, Expeditious Retreat, Protection from Good, Shieldx2
2nd: Glitterdust, Darkvision*, Blindness/Deafness x2, Protection from Arrows*, Command Undead
3rd: Suggestion, Stinking Cloud, Ray of Exhaustion, Magic Circle vs. Evil*E
4th: Black Tentacles, Enervation x2, Stoneskin*E
5th: Persistent Image, Mind Fog, Baleful Polymorph
*:already cast
E:extended (via rod)
Senses:
Perception +11 (+13 listen)
Initiative +8
Darkvision 60'
Defenses:
HP: 61.5 + 15.5 temporary (false life) = 77
AC: 22 (10 +1 size +4 dex + 4 Mage Armor +1 Natural +2 deflection), 16 touch, 18 Flat-footed, +2 vs. [Evil] creatures
DR: 10/adamantine (stoneskin - to 100 absorbed damage), 10/magic vs. ranged (Protection from Arrows)
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +13
Offenses:
Ray: Ranged Touch +10
Spells: DC 16 + Spell Level
EL 10 Challenges
A Trap-Filled Hallway
A Bebilith
A Fire Giant
A Guardian Naga
A Clay Golem
A level 10 Elf Wizard
A Pair of Mindflayers
A Pair of Behir
Twelve Trolls
A Horde of Shadows
A Trap-Filled Hallway
Without divination, this is not the cakewalk it could be (a wizard with divination has Arcane Sight up, sees the magical runes glowing on the wall, and dim doors/teleports past them). However, the 'scout' minion hits the traps first, and gets sent down the rest of hte hallway so !Xou can see what all it trips. When stuff stops exploding, !Xou teleports past the traps with her minions. (A pit trap just means teleporting just past the pit to magic out the minion if its still alive, and sending it or another minion further down the hallway). Alternatives for wizards in general include charmed or dominated minions Tomb of Horrors style, summoned creatures, and so forth. Wizards don't actually care about doing anything about the traps, just figuring out where they end.
Certain Win.
A Bebilith
This guy is an ambush monster with an impressive stealth check. It also has a web attack to hold !Xou in place, but the entangling won't do much to stop her spellcasting given her +19 spellcraft check (yes, that's an autopass for any spell she casts). It also has little reason to care about Team Skeleton. Of course, it is evil, which means we get the AC boost, but that just means it misses on 4 numbers instead of 2. With an initiative advantage and not inconsequential perceptive abilities, !Xou may get a partial charged during the surprise round, but the Bebilith's odds of getting within 40' unnoticed *and* having a clear line to !Xou'aktl with her skeletal entourage about her aren't the greatest. !Xou doesn't spot the Bebilith 70% of the time, and we'll just give it the partial charge. With surprise it hits 95% of the time, slips 6 whole damage through the Stoneskin (on average), and injects her with a DC 24 poison for con damage. !Xou makes that save less than half the time, but its only 1d6 con, and thus not immediately life threatening. Even if she loses initiative, she takes another piddly amount of damage (the claws don't even matter), and another poison hit, which we'll also assume she fails the save to. 2d6 con doesn't kill her, so its casting time. She drinks her potion of delay poison, because that stops the Bebilith from killing her. At all. She then proceeds to bend it over its pathetic will save and gives it a spanking. If its smart it Planeshifts away before it ends up smothered in tentacles, blinded, exhausted, and possibly spending the rest of its days as a sheep - which it won't be long for. We'll assume it planeshifts given its 11 intelligence - it might not be brilliant, but it knows when its fighting a lost cause.
Certain Win.
A Fire Giant
We ankh for grease. We laugh as it falls on its ass and can't get up. We suggest it makes snow angels for the next 2 hours and proceed on our way. (The fact that the grease will be gone shortly means that's gonna chaffe, but that just means we're laughing on the inside as we walk along... no, scratch that on the inside part).
Certain Win. Killing it is also pretty easy, but there is value in style. Scratch that, I want me a fire giant skeleton.
A Guardian Naga
As a native to temperate plains, they both see each other at around 100'. Its typical spell list makes me sad, because it has nothing worth casting at that range except damage (or divine power and pray for melee - i'm thinking damage is the better plan). It also loses initiative 74% of the time. At which point it becomes a sheep. About 40% of the time its mind follows suit, and we can stop caring (actually, i have my minions tear it to shreds because a guardian naga skeleton sounds like a great plan (creatures revert to true form on death). If it keeps its intellect it has a hard time casting spells (no components possible), nor any other way to defend itself. Which means it just knows to run away, black tentacles stops that plan. Even if it gets its spell off, its options are greater invisibility (yeah, glitterdust is great for revealing where it goes then) or lightning bolt (7d6 damage, quaking in my boots here).
Certain win. And minion++
A Clay Golem
The horrors, a Golem, whatever shall !Xou do?
(1) Cast Persistent Image (and wow is that overkill - i could have used silent image) to create the illusion of walls around it that says 'This is an Illusion'. It has no intelligence and can't read, so it doesn't know its an illusion and can't think to interact with it, so it sits there. (illusions only allow a save if you interact with them)
(2) Ankh for Grease. It falls on its face with a Reflex +2 and seriously can't go anywhere. Xou walks on.
(3) Put a Wall of Stone around it. Same effect as Persistent Image, but its actually a wall.
Note, none of these target the Golem itself, so its immunity to magic is totally irrelevant.
Certain Win.
A Level 10 Elf Wizard
Even. Mirror Match.
A Pair of Mindflayers
They know !Xou'aktl is about first due to telepathy, but they can't pinpoint her location with it, meaning we both become aware simultaneously at 60'. They try to mindblast her, which doesn't work most of the time, and !Xou owns them with Black Tentacles. She then blinds them to stop spamming mindblasts at her. The Black Tentacles does x-rated anime stuff to them, and !Xou's twisted enough she probably watches.
Certain Win. Even if they do manage to mindblast her they have some pretty impressive skeletons to deal with. Mindflayers are not impressive against mindless creatures.
A pair of Behir
Initiative +1, Will +5, no notable stealth ability. Game over. Glitterdust to blind both is just the opener, and I'm pretty sure the fire giant skeleton can take both of them while blinded, not to mention other minions.
Certain win.
Twelve Trolls
This is actually a really silly combat. Starts over 200' distant on average, which really hoses the trolls as they're basically in !Xou's medium spell range (after a move) and far from melee range. !Xou wins initiative. Opens with a Black Tentacles which grapple a good number of them. Proceed to blind (glitterdust) many of them. Start doing nasty things to anyone not currently grappled, blinded or both (permanent blindness with blind/deaf, baleful polymorph, etc...). Tentacles and minions reduce them to many many negative hp. Team Skeleton drags them all to a local low point in the mountain topography and !Xou ankhs for Cloudkill, which kills them in less than 30s.
Certain Win
A horde of shadows
This is actually pretty scary. They're incorporeal which means they get surprise. They drain strength. They aren't actually undead. My minions can't hurt them. At best !Xou gets to teleport to safety, which due to the Shadows low attack bonus, is actually a reasonably likely end result, but its still a loss.
Certain Loss.
Certain Win 8
Probable Win
Even 1
Probable Loss
Certain Loss 1
8.5... Wizard continues to own. (And i'm pretty sure that's not the best possible spell set for memorization - Wall of Stone + Cloudkill makes the Troll fight a lot less silly, for example).
Ok, wizard performance is escaping towards 1. As silly as a level 13 playtest would surely be I doubt it actually needs to be done. Unless someone wants to see where the wizard starts batting 100.
Undead Minions + Infinite Cosmic Power + Arcane Bond = totally uber. Even without exploiting Planar Binding, Fabricate, or any of the other crazytown abilities the wizard has access to, its possible for the wizard to be a plausible party all on her own. Really, take Leadership for her level 11 feat for a Cleric (of death, duh) Cohort, and !Xou'aktl is good to go. And that's just silly.
While you may be able to make your own gear at half price I am not convinced that necessarily allows you to break the WBL rules. The value of the item remains the same even if the cost for you to create it is less.
Having said that I doubt the outcome would be substantially different.
I would be interested in seeing how the Sorceror with the limited spells known and spell tax performs.
Also, if enchanting your gear you seem to be missing a bunch of the spells required to complete the enchantments. You also need to employ someone with Barkskin for the natural armour (I think, cant be bothered to check).
You seem to be getting the same results I did with my wizard playtest. His power quickly dropped down to that of a well-played rogue after the first fight he uses Arcane Bond.
I would state that the golem fight needs a bit of a rethinking, since grease doesn't do anything if you don't move, if I recall. And when the golem starts getting attacked by the skeleton, there's a chance he'll just attack. Still a win for ya.
Also, drinking a potion does provoke, so you need to reconsider the order in which he does this; though he still takes the damage later and doesn't have a way to cure himself, which could result in mutually assured destruction (making it more a tie). I don't believe black tentacles does as well as you think it does, especially against a huge thing like a bebilith.
Virgil wrote: You seem to be getting the same results I did with my wizard playtest. His power quickly dropped down to that of a well-played rogue after the first fight he uses Arcane Bond.
I would state that the golem fight needs a bit of a rethinking, since grease doesn't do anything if you don't move, if I recall. And when the golem starts getting attacked by the skeleton, there's a chance he'll just attack. Still a win for ya.
Also, drinking a potion does provoke, so you need to reconsider the order in which he does this; though he still takes the damage later and doesn't have a way to cure himself, which could result in mutually assured destruction (making it more a tie). I don't believe black tentacles does as well as you think it does, especially against a huge thing like a bebilith.
Grease requires a reflex save to stay standing if you're in its area when its cast. The golem's odds of making a DC 17 reflex save are rather poor.
!Xou makes 1 save in 3 against the Bebilith, so even taking the AoO doesn't actually matter. And once she drinks the potion she's fine. We've also assumed the worst possible scenario where she gets surprised, the Bebilith can get into a place to partial charge her, *and* loses initiative, which is actually 28% of the time even if you assume it can always get the partial charge. (Not to mention the average of 3d6 con damage if she fails a third save is 10.5, which doesn't kill her, and delay poison will make her able to ignore the poison from then on until the Bebilith is dealt with and she can drink the neutralize).
I don't assume Black Tentacles on its own is going to be especially effective. But once its blinded, exhausted, etc... the tentacles become a lot more effective. I'm pretty sure if it gets polymorphed into a sheep the tentacles just eat it. As I said, the Bebilith probably flees via planeshift when he realizes he's doing absolutely nothing to !Xou, but she can dump enough debuffer effects on him to make his life miserable if he doesn't.
andreww wrote: Also, if enchanting your gear you seem to be missing a bunch of the spells required to complete the enchantments. You also need to employ someone with Barkskin for the natural armour (I think, cant be bothered to check). Please excuse me for not listing the 30gp I had to pay a spellcaster to do that for me. (lvl 1 x 10 = 10gp/day for 3 days). Seriously, none of those effects are especially valuable (few days), and paying someone to do it is pretty cheap. I have the cash.
Squirrelloid wrote: andreww wrote: Also, if enchanting your gear you seem to be missing a bunch of the spells required to complete the enchantments. You also need to employ someone with Barkskin for the natural armour (I think, cant be bothered to check). Please excuse me for not listing the 30gp I had to pay a spellcaster to do that for me. (lvl 1 x 10 = 10gp/day for 3 days). Seriously, none of those effects are especially valuable (few days), and paying someone to do it is pretty cheap. I have the cash. Actually you dont seem to have any of the spells for enchanting any of the effects on the Ankh.
Its not a huge anmount but if you are trying to be accurate you could at least account for it.
andreww wrote: Squirrelloid wrote: andreww wrote: Also, if enchanting your gear you seem to be missing a bunch of the spells required to complete the enchantments. You also need to employ someone with Barkskin for the natural armour (I think, cant be bothered to check). Please excuse me for not listing the 30gp I had to pay a spellcaster to do that for me. (lvl 1 x 10 = 10gp/day for 3 days). Seriously, none of those effects are especially valuable (few days), and paying someone to do it is pretty cheap. I have the cash. Actually you dont seem to have any of the spells for enchanting any of the effects on the Ankh.
Its not a huge anmount but if you are trying to be accurate you could at least account for it. !Xou has 1.7k disposable income remaining. It costs her much less than that. (about 700gp all told - its actually cheaper for her to learn Fox's Cunning, so she does so) Actually, lets just assume that she learns all the spells she can of those, and it still comes out to less than 1.7k gold.
One point of contention. FOr many fo these creatures, especially the Nagas, you're starting really far away. I know it's the DMG guidelines, but in eveyr game I've ever played the DM uses a convenient ridge or something to start almost all enocunters within 100 feet, and often within 40 feet. And a Naga being an intellignet spellcaster creature wiht a name that implies guaridng thigns, ought to be inclose quarters. Simlarly, I still believe that you can beat the troll pack easily, but I'd be more itnerested ins eeing how you do it if they jump you.
Squirrelloid wrote: Its not 'put it to sleep and run away' or 'disable and run away'. The point is to get past the challenge. Permanently disabling lets you do that, running away means not getting past it. Ie, she gets to walk around/by it because its not chasing after her, so she bypasses the encounter. You don't have to kill a monster to defeat it, that's just one method (and a relatively common one). If you can go along your way, you're fine. Wait -- so a barbarian with a potion of Invisibility can just run around all enemies invisibly (outside of scent range if necessary)? Score! :)
One note on your level 4 run: the Pathfinder version of Glitterdust allows a save every round. That puts a bit of a snag in your tactics, I think. Web and Grease work differently in Pathfinder, too; they've all been hit with the nerf bat. Please read the spell descriptions more carefully.
Overcoming a challenge by not actually encountering it (such as a potion on invisibility) is tantamount to beating (and earning XP) for every single monster in an entire dungeon because you summoned a thoqqua and made your own backdoor to the final room.
What you should get for circumventing a monster without actually neutralizing it is a tie, not a win.
Now, I'm not saying the hydra example should be a tie. The wizard still neutralized it, as opposed to turned invisible and never encountered it. I'm a touch confused as to how he couldn't kill it if he wanted to though, as it's easy enough to perform a coup de grace; and is in fact why one of my players always carries a scythe when he plays a mage.
hogarth wrote: Squirrelloid wrote: Its not 'put it to sleep and run away' or 'disable and run away'. The point is to get past the challenge. Permanently disabling lets you do that, running away means not getting past it. Ie, she gets to walk around/by it because its not chasing after her, so she bypasses the encounter. You don't have to kill a monster to defeat it, that's just one method (and a relatively common one). If you can go along your way, you're fine. Wait -- so a barbarian with a potion of Invisibility can just run around all enemies invisibly (outside of scent range if necessary)? Score! :)
One note on your level 4 run: the Pathfinder version of Glitterdust allows a save every round. That puts a bit of a snag in your tactics, I think. Web and Grease work differently in Pathfinder, too; they've all been hit with the nerf bat. Please read the spell descriptions more carefully. I noticed web. I've taken that into account. I do think they've overnerfed web, as it effectively has a CMB of -3+Int Mod, which is stupidly low. I would have been using it a lot more if they hadn't made it suck.
They really need an index. Having looked... The change to glitterdust only really helps if the monster has a decent will save (I mean, yes, there's an off chance they make the save in most of these cases... but its really not that spectacular). The only change to Grease was to replace Balance with Acrobatics check, ie, its functionally identical.
@Virgil:
Fast Healing 15 + a good fortitude save vs. a str of 6. Not generating many actually killing blows there.
Squirrelloid wrote: The only change to Grease was to replace Balance with Acrobatics check, ie, its functionally identical. Look again. Now you can move 5' per round without needing to make an Acrobatics check, so essentially anyone can get out of the area of effect in 2 rounds (crawling, if necessary).
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