Hey guys, im new to the message boards and im running a Core Game following the Savage Tide Adventure Path. My 3 players and I are having tons of fun! We are in the middle of the adventure titled Tides of Dread just about to enter the shrine of Demogorgon. The characters are 7th lvl at the moment almost reaching 8th level. My group includes a Halfing dual-wielding dagger rogue, a Human Cleric of Pelor, and a Human Sorcerer. To round out a group there is an NPC Barbarian named Trojar that has been traveling with them since the beginning. But im not sure if im going to keep him around for the long run, as his personality isnt really what the characters have liked :)
The one thing that im having problems with is dealing with the arcane spellcaster aka the sorcerer. He just got fly at 7th lvl and he has fireball as his other 3rd lvl spell. So now those poor dinosaurs and terror birds have no chance vs. the party! Does anyone have any advice on how to DM a caster? My entire group and I are new to D&D so i apologize in advance for not knowing all the rules of the game completely.
It seems as if this adventure is supposed to be one of isolation, and i also dont know what to do when he get teleport! Ahh! Can anyone give any suggestions to me?
Thanks for any help in advance!
IT's really not that bad. It may look that way, but fireball is really well balanced compared to what the barbarian can do at that level.
Try it. Yes, perhaps one encounter will be won by the fireball. Great. But the arcane caster can't keep that up all day. amd then there's reflex saves, fire resistance, spell resistance to soak up some of the damage.
Standard fireball defense is to spread out. it's only a 20 foot radius, so if you're outside, not really an issue.
Teleport is also not such a big deal. Remember, it's only for places the caster has already been, and there's a range on it.
If memory serves, Sasserine is too far. Yes, they can get to the other side of the island, but so what, they could do that without teleport. The change for the DM is to prep the entire mod, so that if they teleport somewhere, you're still ready to run part of the adventure.
IT's really not that bad. It may look that way, but fireball is really well balanced compared to what the barbarian can do at that level.
Try it. Yes, perhaps one encounter will be won by the fireball. Great. But the arcane caster can't keep that up all day. amd then there's reflex saves, fire resistance, spell resistance to soak up some of the damage.
Standard fireball defense is to spread out. it's only a 20 foot radius, so if you're outside, not really an issue.
Teleport is also not such a big deal. Remember, it's only for places the caster has already been, and there's a range on it.
If memory serves, Sasserine is too far. Yes, they can get to the other side of the island, but so what, they could do that without teleport. The change for the DM is to prep the entire mod, so that if they teleport somewhere, you're still ready to run part of the adventure.
Thanks for the response, that is true about the fire resistance and other kinds of ways to reduce the damage. Yeah, preparing for anything is something that im slowly learning...players can be so innovative!
I was also reading ahead into the next adventure and read the battle at farshore at the end...which looks really cool!
I like the way it is done...with the Victory Points to determine if you win the adventure or not...but im not sure if my players will like it or not...Cant the Spellcaster Destroy all the ships before the pirates even land with Fireball?
Its got a pretty good range and probably take out a lot of the pirates before they even reach land...
Fireball is actually a really bad spell and if your Sorcerer is doing only that, then it's the worst he can do. On the level he gets it, Fireball does 6d6 points of damage, meaning 10 dmg on a successful save (and since his DC is probably 18 or 19, a lot of monsters will pass it). 10 damage.
Now compare it to the same level spell - Haste. It gives the whole party, among other things, another attack. Meaning Barbarian will hit something for another ~16 damage (assuming Base 18 str + 2 Enhancement +4 Rage), Rogue will hit someone for another ~18 damage (assuming he sneak attacks).
Oh and guess what. That effect continues for 5 more rounds.
Not to mention that pretty soon your party will be facing almost exclusively Demons and other forms of outsiders who all have at least 10 fire resistance and good reflex saves and spell resistance, meaning foes will usually pass that save, or Sorcerer won't pass their SR and even if he does, he still has to deal with Fire Resistance. Against Haste there's no SR and no Energy Resistance (there is DR/good for most demons but that's easily avoided by Holy weapons or Align Weapon spell cast by cleric, which they should do anyways).
Or you can compare Fireball to a 2nd lvl spell, Glitterdust. Foes who fail that save are, basically, dead. They're not going to do much while they're blind. Even if they do manage to actually attack anyone they have 50% miss chance. Not to mention you're making your foes easy prey to your Rogue, since while they're blind he sneak attacks them as if he was blind and they have no Dex bonus against him and he has +2 on his attack rolls.
Concerning Teleport - In two castings he can get to Sasserine, which is as intended, since it's the only place where they can actually buy any worthwile equipment.
Point is - blasting (casting only damaging spells) is really, really subpar to buffing your allies (since buffs continue to provide benefits round after round), debuffing foes (making them more easy to kill by your alies) or controling the battlefield to your advantage (via Solid Fog, Web, Grease, Fog Cloud...)
I'd be more worried if he was casting those spells. The novelty of fireball will wear of in time.
Fireball is actually a really bad spell and if your Sorcerer is doing only that, then it's the worst he can do. On the level he gets it, Fireball does 6d6 points of damage, meaning 10 dmg on a successful save (and since his DC is probably 18 or 19, a lot of monsters will pass it). 10 damage.
Now compare it to the same level spell - Haste. It gives the whole party, among other things, another attack. Meaning Barbarian will hit something for another ~16 damage (assuming Base 18 str + 2 Enhancement +4 Rage), Rogue will hit someone for another ~18 damage (assuming he sneak attacks).
Oh and guess what. That effect continues for 5 more rounds.
Not to mention that pretty soon your party will be facing almost exclusively Demons and other forms of outsiders who all have at least 10 fire resistance and good reflex saves and spell resistance, meaning foes will usually pass that save, or Sorcerer won't pass their SR and even if he does, he still has to deal with Fire Resistance. Against Haste there's no SR and no Energy Resistance (there is DR/good for most demons but that's easily avoided by Holy weapons or Align Weapon spell cast by cleric, which they should do anyways).
Or you can compare Fireball to a 2nd lvl spell, Glitterdust. Foes who fail that save are, basically, dead. They're not going to do much while they're blind. Even if they do manage to actually attack anyone they have 50% miss chance. Not to mention you're making your foes easy prey to your Rogue, since while they're blind he sneak attacks them as if he was blind and they have no Dex bonus against him and he has +2 on his attack rolls.
Concerning Teleport - In two castings he can get to Sasserine, which is as intended, since it's the only place where they can actually buy any worthwile equipment.
Point is - blasting (casting only damaging spells) is really, really subpar to buffing your allies (since buffs continue to provide benefits round after round), debuffing foes (making them more easy to kill by your alies) or controling the...
Oooooooo yeah. Now that i think about it you are definitely right...spells like Stinking Cloud (Which i suggested instead of fireball), are better than doing damage spells. I also didnt think about glitterdust, i went back and read the spell again. Being blinded is pretty bad. It might just be the idea that he is flying above all the dinosaurs and terror birds casting fireball...which makes him invulnerable to any damage because the terror birds and dinosaurs cant make range attacks hahah.
Thanks for the response, its good discussing this with other people and getting ideas. Its already helped.
Welcome to the boards!
Let the sorcerer go along with using the fireball. He cannot do much damage to a ship. Somewhere in the adventure path there are some combat rules for ships. I think it was in Sea Wyvern's Wake. You could also read the narrative combat in Stormwrack if you have it.
There you can see that ships consists of hull and rigging sections, and that a firewall will do some damage to one or more sections, but not necessarily to the whole ship.
If you want a defense against firewall, let the pirates make the decks and hulls wet (with water, or by draping them with wet cloth).
As as for the dinosaurs: have you already seen the HP some of them have? It will cost a lot of fireballs to kill one of them.
As for the fly spell: your players will soon discover that fly spells become a necessity. If you do not have them, some of the later encounters become very difficult. (E.g. the gargoyles.)
And do not forget that some areas of the island are shrouded in mist and that you cannot see anything in it when you fly above it.
Have fun with your campaign. Starting as a new DM is fun. Do not worry too much about what can go wrong, as long as you and your players have fun. You will learn as you go along.
Welcome to the boards!
Let the sorcerer go along with using the fireball. He cannot do much damage to a ship. Somewhere in the adventure path there are some combat rules for ships. I think it was in Sea Wyvern's Wake. You could also read the narrative combat in Stormwrack if you have it.
There you can see that ships consists of hull and rigging sections, and that a firewall will do some damage to one or more sections, but not necessarily to the whole ship.
If you want a defense against firewall, let the pirates make the decks and hulls wet (with water, or by draping them with wet cloth).As as for the dinosaurs: have you already seen the HP some of them have? It will cost a lot of fireballs to kill one of them.
As for the fly spell: your players will soon discover that fly spells become a necessity. If you do not have them, some of the later encounters become very difficult. (E.g. the gargoyles.)
And do not forget that some areas of the island are shrouded in mist and that you cannot see anything in it when you fly above it.
Have fun with your campaign. Starting as a new DM is fun. Do not worry too much about what can go wrong, as long as you and your players have fun. You will learn as you go along.
Thank you for the insight on the ship battle, i was kind of getting worried there. As long as the sorcerer cant snipe the ships before they get to shore then i can deal with the rest...yeah the gargoyles were definitely a bit of an issue. Now they have to chase down poor Urol! Im still wondering if the players will be able to figure out the way of detecting and finding the currents...
DMing is good so far...i just hope i can understand everything when it goes to high level. It seems to get more and more complicated. Just looked at the dinosaurs HP in the one with the Farshore battle in it...yeah they have lottssssss of hit points.
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Welcome to the boards!
Don't worry about the party being able to do good stuff and kill your monsters - they're supposed to! If they've made it this far then they've earned their power. Your job isn't to stop them and you definitely shouldn't worry if they kill the bad guys, as long as they have fun doing it and overcome a challenge that fits the enemy.
The trick as a DM is to play the bad guys as bad or selfish or evil or clever as fits their description and stats, but not to take their (almost inevitable) defeat personally.
If animals attack the party expecting an easy dinner and one PC takes off and starts dropping fireballs... the animals will run off and look for easier prey. What would a bear do if you fired a bazooka at the tree beside it? What the party really need to worry about the things that are attracted by the blast. Things that go TOWARDS the boom are by definition badass :)
Smarter, braver flying beasts could wait til the sorcerer points his finger and then split up and move to surround him...(ready action). Don't forget the player can change his mind about the fireball when all his targets suddenly split up. Pack hunting tactics are fun :-)
Tool-using opponents, be it cannibals, lizardmen, bullywugs or demons, will all have their own ideas. If they are immune or resistant to fire then they'll ignore the sorcerer. If they are worried they will attack him first - with ranged weapons, spells, nets, tanglefoot bags, whatever. Then it's the group on the defensive, working on tactics to defend their spellcaster. Good practice for everyone for large battles like Farshore.
My group is now 11th level and Fireball is the least of my worries. A 22d6 Disintegrate in your favourite bad guys face... the one you spent two nights rebuilding to make him a cool challenging enemy... followed by a Fortitude save of 12 (total) is not fun. Even after all these years I still get the urge to 'magically' give him an extra 100 hit points, just to let him kick some ass. Usually I can avoid that these days. So they one-shot the bad guy. The next encounter they come across, they have no more disintegrates. After the game I can show them his stats and they can be proud of themselves for taking him out before he unloaded all that nasty mojo on them. As long as I avoid letting them rest too often between encounters it all works out. As DM you have infinite bad guys. As player your spell list gets smaller with every casting, and your nervousness ratchets steadily upwards.
Alternate easy and heavy encounters, don't have a routine that the last fight of the night the hardest is or they will always save their best spells for that one. Every encounter could be life or death, and if they don't have much in the way of knowledge skills they won’t know how tough something is. Let them be heroes and let them be tough, they’re 7th level already. That’s a lot.
Another example; last night the party were in a graveyard and some undead popped up - a huge skeleton, a small one and about ten medium ones. The wizard/arcane archivist had Detect Undead already running and knew that one of them had at least 10 hit dice. He didn’t have another round to wait to tell which one it was, and used his Dark Knowledge skill to give the party an extra 3d6 damage per blow against the big one. Unfortunately, the big one was just a bodyguard, and the little one was a tumbling mohrg that spat its guts out its throat, paralyzed the rogue, reeled him in and clobbered him almost senseless before moving in to do the same to the wizard!
An encounter that I thought would take half an hour took two and a half because the group didn’t trust how easy some things went down and played very defensively. I was a bit confused first until I realized they were genuinely worried that I was going to pull some sort of fast one. They ended up blowing all the Dragon Shaman’s healing, and using quite a few high level spells – in the first encounter of the day! The bad stuff is still to come!
So the fact that they wasted the huge Giant skeleton and the ninja Mohrg is no skin off my nose. More power to them. They the man! Whoo! Whoo! I know they’ll be bricking it soon :-)
Hmmm.. a bit rambling, but basically – don’t worry about the party being good at stuff because that’s their job. Have the bad guys run away if the display of power is too much, then have them sneak back in later. Can’t fireball a monster that’s in between two of your friends, can you?
Also, it's not a very good idea to limit your players to core only, since almost every NPC that's not straight out of some Monster Manual is loaded with non-core feats/spells/abilities/etc.
Anyways, in my (non-core) Savage Tide, the party had a Conjurer/Master Specialist/Archmage who specialised in... blasting. He started out as a summoner, but at some point he just started blasting away. It got so bad that he didn't even bother with self-buffing and party-buffing.
In the final battle he prepared ONLY Orbs of Acid and Acid Storms. Of course, my buffed Demogorgon had on him Energy Resistance (All elements) and Ray Deflection. He didn't even prepare ONE Dispel Magic to try to remove those, so he proceeded to deal about... 15 dmg a round.
So, yeah, blasting sucks.
I was also reading ahead into the next adventure and read the battle at farshore at the end...which looks really cool!
If you are only now starting to read ahead, you are behind in your reading! :) The plot has a lot of foreshadowing and a cast of recurring characters (Vanthus, Rowyn, Harliss Javell) and I wouldn't recommend going at it cold. I suggest reading the whole thing thru ASAP to be familiar with all the ins and outs.
Flying isn't such a horrible tactic to worry about, esp. if you remember that a Huge T-Rex has vertical reach of 32 feet and a base +13 to its untrained Jump check, allowing for an average of 37 feet of vertical reach. Flyers must be careful about their altitude. Also consider all the other flying predators on the Isle -- Pteranodon, Roc, Vrock, Dragons, Wyverns, Dire Bats and Gargoyles -- all make staying aloft a risky proposition.
As for teleport spells, IIRC, Sasserine is 1800 miles away from farshore as the wyvern flies, so this will require 2 castings, 4 for a round trip. The teleporting caster has to plan for making the trip. There are a couple of islands (Ruja among them) that provide weighstations for this, but if the caster didn't scout it out...
To carborundum-
Thanks for the insight, this is exactly how im sort of feeling about some of the monsters in the campaign...when they killed the t-rex pretty easily, i felt a little irratated to be honest. I mean its a t-rex king of the jungle! hah. But yeah i understand what you are saying and i will try my best not to get too mad. I feel for the disentigrate event that happenned. True about the bazooka also, the terror birds did flee after consistent fireballs...and ill think a little more outside of the box when it comes to the monster instead of roll d20 and see if it hits haha.
To Erevis Cale
The main reason im not doing non-core is i dont have a lot of the books for the other supplements...and yeah Demogorgon is bad ass...why didnt the caster stick with the conjuration theme...battlefield control? it seems like they are definitely better than just doing damage like fireball now that ive read most of them. And yeah Dispel Magic, the cleric prepares that every day. He only casted it once but failed, but he believes it will be useful. Sadly though he has to convert it to healing most of the time...
To Hired Sword
It was more of just a phrase, yes ive read the entire adventure path thankfully. haha. That would have totally inhibit my ability to DM if i didn't. I mean...come on...the story is so good who wouldnt want to continue reading it? And i didnt think that a T-Rex can attack people that far up in the air! Ill keep the high jumping rules close :)
Playing Tomorrow night, so ill tell you guys how it goes...i might have a little sidequest before the shrine...im still thinking about it.
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Also, it's not a very good idea to limit your players to core only, since almost every NPC that's not straight out of some Monster Manual is loaded with non-core feats/spells/abilities/etc.
Actually... this isn't all that true at all of most monsters in a Paizo adventure, be it for D&D, 3.5 OGL, or Pathfinder RPG. Whenever we include a non-core monster, feat, spell, item, or whatever, we don't assume that the GM has the book from which that non-core element comes from. As a result, we reprint all of those rules you need to run that element. Which takes up a fair amount of wordcount, and that runs out fast.
So we can't do that type of thing all the time... aka, not "almost every NPC." There's just no room. Of course, I can't speak to the amount of additional adjustment and tweaking and optimizing that an individual GM might apply to the NPCs in an adventure when he/she runs it.
Blasting is an interesting element, though. It's really easy to see how much POTENTIAL damage a blaster can do, and as a result it's usually the first thing that an adventure designer or GM focuses in on to augment defenses against.
If you have a player in your group who's a blaster, you should remind yourself NOT to optimize every encounter to neutralize his theme, in other words. That's actually good advice for ANY encounter and ANY tactic that can be protected against. It's important to periodically let your players feel like bad-asses.
Also, it's not a very good idea to limit your players to core only, since almost every NPC that's not straight out of some Monster Manual is loaded with non-core feats/spells/abilities/etc.Actually... this isn't all that true at all of most monsters in a Paizo adventure, be it for D&D, 3.5 OGL, or Pathfinder RPG. Whenever we include a non-core monster, feat, spell, item, or whatever, we don't assume that the GM has the book from which that non-core element comes from. As a result, we reprint all of those rules you need to run that element. Which takes up a fair amount of wordcount, and that runs out fast.
So we can't do that type of thing all the time... aka, not "almost every NPC." There's just no room. Of course, I can't speak to the amount of additional adjustment and tweaking and optimizing that an individual GM might apply to the NPCs in an adventure when he/she runs it.
Blasting is an interesting element, though. It's really easy to see how much POTENTIAL damage a blaster can do, and as a result it's usually the first thing that an adventure designer or GM focuses in on to augment defenses against.
If you have a player in your group who's a blaster, you should remind yourself NOT to optimize every encounter to neutralize his theme, in other words. That's actually good advice for ANY encounter and ANY tactic that can be protected against. It's important to periodically let your players feel like bad-asses.
Hey its James Jacobs! Whats up! Thanks for responding! Thanks for all the explanations of feats and spell in the character description. I know it takes up a lot of words, but it makes that character more "fleshed out" in my imagination, which is wonderful. Captain Harliss Javell for instance is wonderful and enjoyed roleplaying her. Having non-core items from Stormwrack and Complete Warrior helped out very well.
Also yeah, first thing i thought of was 20ft Radius 7d6 Fireball! Thats a lot more than what he could do before. (Burning hands and Magic Missile). YES, that is excellent advice for every encounter that looks threatening to the monsters that the GM is playing. Cant specifically counter a character's theme or its not that fun for the players...i can see that. Making them feel like bad asses periodically is great. As long as I can have some bad ass t-rex eating halfling time too!
As for teleport spells, IIRC, Sasserine is 1800 miles away from farshore as the wyvern flies, so this will require 2 castings, 4 for a round trip. The teleporting caster has to plan for making the trip. There are a couple of islands (Ruja among them) that provide weighstations for this, but if the caster didn't scout it out...
Right. Obtaining a midway point is unlikely: iirc, STAP PC's would've had no reason to go to Ruja prior to landing on the Isle of Dread... and memorizing a patch of ocean for later use would've been right out. This helps maintain the isolation at least for awhile (an atmosphere that the players appreciated)
IMC (after Tides of Dread) I allowed the PC's to use one of Farshore's trading ships as a midway point while it was enroute to Sasserine. However they still had to wait a long time after the ship left Farshore, and the timing window wasn't very long... long enough for a single, much needed shopping trip, but not viable for continual resupply.
Within a level or two though the party's cleric learned planeshift, allowing for a travel plan of:
1) Planeshift
2) Sleep (to obtain another casting of planeshift)
3) Planeshift
4) TeleportBetween trying to sleep on a different plane and multiple teleportation mishaps (wrong location, which they had to sleep at since they only prepped one teleport each day), much unintended adventuring and exploration took place during 'routine' shopping trips.
Yeah, they definitely didn't search out the area for specific means of teleport so they cant get so Sasserine that way. I like the isolation in the beginning...but yeah i might capture your idea about the farshore trading vessel. It gives them one chance to get items...but not a subscription to the magic shop.
And yeah once the cleric gets planeshift i know he'll take it haha...its a good spell.
Thanks for the help!
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I give the players a new 1st level spell when they learn Teleport. It lets them learn a specific location so they can teleport there as if they know the location very well. Your players can still jump to, say, Ruja with the small chance of missing due to only having visited it once.
My guys bought some gems in Sasserine and a scroll of Gemjump. Players are nothing if not resourceful!
Embrace their power, nod, roll some dice, say you've been looking forward to them being able to teleport. It'll totally freak them out!
Don't be too harsh if the sorcerer learns teleport. It's a huge investment compared to a wizard learning it. They can buy cool stuff in Sass and really feel they are contributing to tje defenses.
A good thing to do as a DM is consider the upcoming fight from the perspective of the enemy. The Battle for Farshore is a good example. You are now a Captain of the Crimson Fleet, arguably one of the most powerful nautical forces, a veritable Pirate Armada with a base of operations spoken of in hushed and fearful tones. For you, there is no fighting fair, no fighting with honor, no foolish rules. There is only victory, and enjoying the spoils of war in whatever way you please.
"Arrr, I be Captain of this here Crimson Fleet vessel! While I must for the time take orders from that poncy wee lad drinkin' himself silly in the cabin, unless he gives me specific orders, I still be Captain!"
"What's that? Some cursed sorceror be throwin' fireballs at us from range? All hands, take up the sails and set a hard course straight for their docks! You, you and you, get to the ballista and try to show that mage what seven feet of iron-tipped wood feels like! And if he roasts ye alive for yer trouble, know it be a far cleaner death than what I would put ye through fer disobeyin' me! Everyone else, into the hold, we'll crash into their pier and swarm them like locusts! And every man jack had better fight harder for it; we won't be retreating if we be beached upon their shores! Kill or be killed, ye scalawags!"
And that isn't even assuming they might have a caster who could cast Protection/Resist Fire or one of the Stormwrack anti-fire spells. Or even a boat made IMMUNE to it (totally feasible considering their resources and backing). Doesn't even need to be all of them. Just lead with the first, most people won't keep trying with fire attacks if the first boat is completely unharmed.
You could make the Fire Immune or Resistance on the boat from a magic item, (constant, charged, uses per day, as you please) like a set of Rubies that go in the figurehead's eyes. That way the players can find out (A) why their fire didn't work and (B) gain it for themselves (which all players like doing when their tricks are stonewalled).
One would be advised to keep in mind that fire damage is halved vs. most objects, including ships, and that hardness applies. Each fireball is likely to do single digit damage against a ship.
One would also be advised to consider that while roasting low level rogues and/or fighters that make up the majority of the pirates is mighty good fun, and a great way to show off the PCs power, the real threat to the colony is in the form of the various special encounters built into Tides of Dread. Encounters that are not easily dealt with via fireball.
Let your PC shine, let him have his fun. Let him kill some of the pirate crews. In the scheme of things it isn't likely to be an issue, especially given the difficulty he is likely to have with the vrocks and the golems.
And keep your Vrocks fighting on the ground, or give them Improved Flight!
Or, in Pathfinder, max out their Fly skill. A basic Vrock has 9 HD, and a Fly skill of +12; swap out a feat they don't use (Improved Initiative or Lightning Reflexes, from their default list, are my recommendations) for Skill Focus. Since a roll of 1 is NOT an auto-fail for Skill Checks, they can now make the DC 15 Fly check to Hover while performing another action on any roll.
Fly up, Hover, Dance of Ruin. Nanna nanna nanna nah...
My characters have finally reached level 15 now...and now the issues that I had before about how powerful arcane casters were at level 9 seem like chump change. Now there's disentigrate, limited wish, etc
However, Im growing more fond of the the demons with dispel magic greater as a spell like ability, something has to deal with all the crazy buffs my characters have on.
Including the Cleric casting heroes feast at the beginning of every day, immune to poison and fear for 24 hours is soooo gooood
