Your playtest continues to be thorough and shows how well the Ninja works with a party, without overpowering anyone. Good work, plesae continue! I hope Jason is reading this thread, so the Ninja doesn't get nerfed into uselessness.
Thanks! I'm going to keep posting them because it's fun to keep a log on how awesome I am.
Times a rogue would've been screwed over: 10
Total damage taken that would've been prevented by evasion: 36
Total ki points used: 32
Vanishing trick freebies used: 9
Traps found: 3
Traps disarmed: 1
Traps avoided: 1
Traps set off: 2
This session I GM'd again and the DM took my rogue.
We fought a rogue with elemental traits and an elemental (hooray rogue uselessness). On those fights the ninja just used his enervation wand.
We fought three weird as hell fey fish demon people in the water. Without Invisible Blade the ninja would not have contributed to this fight at all. Without Improved Iron Will he would have been: confused, held and slowed. Thank god for Improved Iron Will.
We fought a froghemoth (enervation wand) and the ninja finished it with shurikens when I ruled a force bomb knocked the froghemoth "off balance" instead of in the water and prone.
No traps, no reflex saves. Ninja did use Light Steps to run across the surface of a deep bog in two separate combats, both times participating when a rogue would not have.
As a rogue? I can see him spending a majority of his time moving. In one fight, two ooze mephits dropped back-to-back stinking clouds on the party. The ninja used light steps to both evacuate the area, clearing it completely, and get to the mephits, ignoring the deep bog he had to move through to get there. The oracle aced three saves and swam out of the cloud in three turns. If the ninja was a rogue, he wouldn't had to do the same thing, and wouldn't even have participated in combat at all. At least the oracle went early and cast a spell.
Next, he would've just cast enervation on the rogue elemental, then enervation again on the elemental. No changes here.
Versus the froghemoth, I don't see much change in the fight. He'd just flail around a bit until it went dex-denied due to unbalanced.
Finally, versus the shark fey creatures, without invis he'd have to swim all the way to them and flank. Oh, joy. I definitely don't see him doing much more than finishing one monster-- moving at 1/2 speed, having to flank, etc etc... just sounds like the rogue would've done nothing but be useless.
Again, the ninja is the Rogue That Can.
And now that the devs aren't releasing a Ninja 2, it looks like I'm just doing this for fun.
Well, I hope you continue to have fun doing these write-ups. I sure do have fun reading them. :D
Please continue, its interesting to read and who knows what or who you can still influence.
Surprisingly? A pretty tame session.
Sessions played: 8
Times a rogue would've been screwed over: 10
Total damage taken that would've been prevented by evasion: 36
Total ki points used: 34
Vanishing trick freebies used: 9
Traps found: 3
Traps disarmed: 1
Traps avoided: 1
Traps set off: 2
No traps, and weprimarily fought plants so there was very little application for going invisible, which is an illusion, which plants are immune to. So, instead I got a lot of use out of Advanced Rogue Talent: Opportunist. In the end? I think I made ten attack rolls the whole session, and the rest wasn't a lot of good playtest data. Just roleplaying!
Oh, and finally, a creature hit the party for 48 damage on a reflex save. Of course, I wasn't there. I had flown away using my celestial armor's fly, and ended up just completely avoiding the damage-- it would've almost doubled my total. Too bad the monster's initiative was 6, and my minimum initiative at this level was 7. Thinking about taking Improved Initiative at level 15 just to be annoying about that, too.
Also, now that I have a lot of freakin' gold, I find that I have a lot of cool abilities that are way too good for me. Boots of speed, celestial armor, a wand of summon nature's ally... I really feel like I can make a difference now, even without swift invisibility. If I had been playing the last 4 or 5 levels as a rogue, maybe I'd start feeling useful now.
we primarily fought plants so there was very little application for going invisible, which is an illusion, which plants are immune to.
Not to be a smart-ass, but Invisibility is a glamer and Mirror Image is a figment, both which are not mind-affecting, therefore they work fine against plants.
Plants are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep, and stun.
Otherwise, again a very nice write-up. Please continue! :)
we primarily fought plants so there was very little application for going invisible, which is an illusion, which plants are immune to.Not to be a smart-ass, but Invisibility is a glamer and Mirror Image is a figment, both which are not mind-affecting, therefore they work fine against plants.
Plants are immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms), paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep, and stun.
Otherwise, again a very nice write-up. Please continue! :)
Forsooth! My friend said 'mind-affecting effects' when he read it off.
Oh well. No big.
Times a rogue would've been screwed over: 11
Times a rogue would've been the victor: 1
Total damage taken that would've been prevented by evasion: 44
Total ki points used: 43
Vanishing trick freebies used: 11
Traps found: 6
Traps disarmed: 2
Traps avoided: 1
Traps set off: 5
Barbarians suck. The ninja's true bane is Uncanny Dodge. The moment someone has that ability the ninja's groove grinds to a halt. It really sucks to fight a bunch of weak creatures you need to flank to sneak attack.
Rage!
Besides that, uh, three traps snuck up on us, two glyphs of warding and one mechanical. A rogue would've been able to see all of the traps with their +6 on trap-ception and disarm them on 1's with their +6 to disable (DC28 to see, DC28 to disable-- I'd have a 21 to see and 28 to disable...). Overall it cost less than 100 gold to heal the damage from both traps (15 gold per wand charge!) though, and everyone still made the saves. So why does the rogue win? Well, one trap was on a priceless statue that broke because I set off a trip wire. Price was reduced because of that. Rooooooooogue!
Invisibility, invisibility, invisibility... haste, ki points, flying... I used celestial armor's fly to bring our paladin 20ft in the air to two oni so he could fight them. They flurried him to death a round later as he hung from my arms. I went berserk, activated my anime power up (ki point and boots of haste) and avenged him, hitting 5 out of 6 attacks and doing 128 damage in one round. Whoa! Not too bad.
Besides that, not much to say. Murder, murder, murder. And a new high on single-attack damage: 40 on 6d6+1d6+4. Immediately ret-conned by Improved Uncanny Dodge. Sigh.
** spoiler omitted **
Uncanny dodge certainly nerfs assassinate to point of uselessness without some murky DM fiat territory (such as trying to use a feint to get past uncanny dodge, and still make an assassinate attempt). But flanking still works to get your sneak attacks if you can pop some shadow clones to eat up the attacks.
** spoiler omitted **Uncanny dodge certainly nerfs assassinate to point of uselessness without some murky DM fiat territory (such as trying to use a feint to get past uncanny dodge, and still make an assassinate attempt). But flanking still works to get your sneak attacks if you can pop some shadow clones to eat up the attacks.
Well, the area we encountered them in was a... I think a 1sq wide pathway leading up to a 2sq wide 6sq long area
Looked a lot like this
|..XXXXXXXX
|..XX
|..XX
|XXX
Then they also had around 90 hit points... not a lot of good chances for flanking. I personally _really_ obscenely hate it when creatures with uncanny dodge come in packs. Oh, look, ten 5th level barbarians for our 10th level party to fight. This would be fine if they didn't have 60 hit points and didn't drop in one hard hit or two light hits.
If it's one guy, or like, three tough guys, that's fine. But like a mob of weak guys? Blehehh. Get in flank, one attack, miss, then someone kills him on their next turn. Get in flank, one attack, dies instantly. Grr!
** spoiler omitted **Uncanny dodge certainly nerfs assassinate to point of uselessness without some murky DM fiat territory (such as trying to use a feint to get past uncanny dodge, and still make an assassinate attempt). But flanking still works to get your sneak attacks if you can pop some shadow clones to eat up the attacks.Well, the area we encountered them in was a... I think a 1sq wide pathway leading up to a 2sq wide 6sq long area
Looked a lot like this
|..XXXXXXXX
|..XX
|..XX
|XXXThen they also had around 90 hit points... not a lot of good chances for flanking. I personally _really_ obscenely hate it when creatures with uncanny dodge come in packs. Oh, look, ten 5th level barbarians for our 10th level party to fight. This would be fine if they didn't have 60 hit points and didn't drop in one hard hit or two light hits.
If it's one guy, or like, three tough guys, that's fine. But like a mob of weak guys? Blehehh. Get in flank, one attack, miss, then someone kills him on their next turn. Get in flank, one attack, dies instantly. Grr!
I hear that, but that's what fireball or lightning bolt is for. Or for that matter, flurry of stars :D
I hear that, but that's what fireball or lightning bolt is for. Or for that matter, flurry of stars :D** spoiler omitted **Uncanny dodge certainly nerfs assassinate to point of uselessness without some murky DM fiat territory (such as trying to use a feint to get past uncanny dodge, and still make an assassinate attempt). But flanking still works to get your sneak attacks if you can pop some shadow clones to eat up the attacks.Well, the area we encountered them in was a... I think a 1sq wide pathway leading up to a 2sq wide 6sq long area
Looked a lot like this
|..XXXXXXXX
|..XX
|..XX
|XXXThen they also had around 90 hit points... not a lot of good chances for flanking. I personally _really_ obscenely hate it when creatures with uncanny dodge come in packs. Oh, look, ten 5th level barbarians for our 10th level party to fight. This would be fine if they didn't have 60 hit points and didn't drop in one hard hit or two light hits.
If it's one guy, or like, three tough guys, that's fine. But like a mob of weak guys? Blehehh. Get in flank, one attack, miss, then someone kills him on their next turn. Get in flank, one attack, dies instantly. Grr!
Flurry of stars... Are you missing that Uncanny Dodge says: "She cannot be caught flat-footed, nor does she lose her Dex bonus to AC if the attacker is invisible"?
I did have a wand of lightning bolt, but I don't think two of them lined up at all until the very end.
I am still enjoying your playtest. :) Thanks for continueing it!
I hear that, but that's what fireball or lightning bolt is for. Or for that matter, flurry of stars :D** spoiler omitted **Uncanny dodge certainly nerfs assassinate to point of uselessness without some murky DM fiat territory (such as trying to use a feint to get past uncanny dodge, and still make an assassinate attempt). But flanking still works to get your sneak attacks if you can pop some shadow clones to eat up the attacks.Well, the area we encountered them in was a... I think a 1sq wide pathway leading up to a 2sq wide 6sq long area
Looked a lot like this
|..XXXXXXXX
|..XX
|..XX
|XXXThen they also had around 90 hit points... not a lot of good chances for flanking. I personally _really_ obscenely hate it when creatures with uncanny dodge come in packs. Oh, look, ten 5th level barbarians for our 10th level party to fight. This would be fine if they didn't have 60 hit points and didn't drop in one hard hit or two light hits.
If it's one guy, or like, three tough guys, that's fine. But like a mob of weak guys? Blehehh. Get in flank, one attack, miss, then someone kills him on their next turn. Get in flank, one attack, dies instantly. Grr!
Flurry of stars... Are you missing that Uncanny Dodge says: "She cannot be caught flat-footed, nor does she lose her Dex bonus to AC if the attacker is invisible"?
I did have a wand of lightning bolt, but I don't think two of them lined up at all until the very end.
o.0 oops, I did forget that. That was foolish.
Seems like it was a situation that would have been tough on any rogue though. Could have been worse. They could have been a bunch of half-orc falchion rogues with uncanny dodge AND evasion :P
Seems like it was a situation that would have been tough on any rogue though. Could have been worse. They could have been a bunch of half-orc falchion rogues with uncanny dodge AND evasion :P
See? Awful. The AP writers should tactically consider when they want to make rogue players useless. So far during The Vaults of Madness I've run into like 7 places a rogue would be useless. That's just mean as hell.
Double session update!
We're pushing into book #5 of Serpent's Skull now.
Sessions played: 11
Times a rogue would've been screwed over: 12*
Times a rogue would've been the victor: 1
Total damage taken that would've been prevented by evasion: 62
Total ki points used: 47
Vanishing trick freebies used: 14
Traps found: 6
Traps disarmed: 2
Traps avoided: 1
Traps set off: 5
*An innumerable amount of times in just a moment
So, we get to the end of the dungeon earlier and bushwhack a crazy powerful flesh golem. I find a horn of valhalla, blow it, fake being a spellcaster with Use Magic Device and get 4 level 3 barbarians to come kick ass with me. We find a secret door and enter to find...
Well, the boss in there is kind of cool, so I won't spoil much. But, well, he was really frustrating. Lots of stupid stuff, spellcaster being a spellcaster, using lesser globe of invuln to cancel out the light from daylight, casting fire spells on himself, all kinds of things. It took him ages to die. Ages. Aeons. He didn't really scratch us much, either, but we ended up ripping him apart.
We then moved on into the next area of the campaign, and met up with some friendly mongrelfolk who needed help. Then, we fought... mongrelfolk barbarians with intellect devourers in their brains.
That's right. Uncanny dodge creatures that die and become creatures immune to mind-affecting effects with DR 10/adamantine.
I hate. A well-timed daylight spell blinded them, and I got sneak attack dice because being blind doesn't make you flat-footed, but denies your dexterity to AC, kind of. Mostly, it was to let me do something. In reality, I shouldn't have done anything that entire fight.
Then, two golems... DR bludgeoning, so I whip out my nunchaku, give one a good hit and the alchemist had soloed the encounter (essentially). It's getting kind of annoying playing a set-up character who can never get time to set up. I wish more and more that I played a wizard as time goes on.
Now, this last session. The DM was late so I ran some encounters-- let me suggest derghodaemons as opponents due to the sheer amount of annoyance they can inflict. I didn't join the session for any combat until the end. The real meat is us entering the bad-guy's lair.
It's a gigantic (GIGANTIC) fortress in the middle of a lake. How do we get in undetected? How do we save the person we need to?
a. I stuff the party members in a portable hole and turn invisible using an alchemist extract
b. I fly using celestial armor
c. I stealth through the entire dungeon.
Oh, and for the first time ever No Trace actually did something. The final encounter of the entire dungeon and I had a run-in. I was in his office, looted some items and then, right before I left, he came in and noticed they were gone. He looked for the intruder, and I stuck against a wall-- my stealth was unreal, but he could still make the easy DC20 perception check to detect invisible opponents nearby. Well, DC 20 Perception check to detect an invisible creature nearby gets my bonus from No Trace if I'm standing still. He got a 22 and I had +3, so the DC was 23-- he missed me by one.
Now that I look at No Trace, though, the wording actually makes it completely unusable. It's actually a garbage ability. +1 insight to disguise per 3 levels? A level 20 ninja has +6 from No Trace to disguise. So, +39 before you add charisma, assuming they're going to use Sudden Disguise. I can think of a lot of good uses for this, to be completely honest, up to and including using your disguise to enter a room you're about to dungeon crash, mingling with the locals, and then getting a surprise round when the group bursts in on your cue. Not bad, to be fair.
But you only get your No Trace bonus to stealth on opposed stealth checks when you have stood still for one round. Again, seriously, +3 to stealth when standing still for one round. I don't know. It seems so extremely small, especially since I'm level 13. At level 6 I had a +3 to disable device, and by now I'd have a 7. If you remove standing still, having to wait for one round for it to kick in, a +1/2 level bonus on stealth would actually be extremely useful.
Oh, and the +1 to survival DCs... I dunno. It's kind of nice, but I can't really imagine a lot of situations this would ever come up in. Stuff like wild empathy or woodland stride are niche and come up every so often, and a ninja would need this bonus to avoid being tracked back to his dojo, but as a player, it's extremely forgettable.
Well, after successfully bad-ass stealthing through this entire fortress, we learned when we found a map that the prison was only accessible through a secret door, wasn't on the map, and that we actually had to fight the entire dungeon to complete our goal.
We ended the session jumping a guy in his bathroom. We one-rounded him, again. Hopefully fighting the entirety of the fort won't make me go cross-eyed with boredom.
It seems we are getting into general "fights are too short for a Rogue-like character to actually do something meaningful" territory. :p
It seems we are getting into general "fights are too short for a Rogue-like character to actually do something meaningful" territory. :p
It'd be worse if I was a rogue. As a ninja I can at least go invis, charge if I want to melee or flurry of shurikens if I actually want to do something.
Rogue wouldn't do anything, really. I don't see how, when most of these monsters have 100 hp or so and full-round attacks from the ranged characters do 100 hp.
It seems we are getting into general "fights are too short for a Rogue-like character to actually do something meaningful" territory. :pIt'd be worse if I was a rogue. As a ninja I can at least go invis, charge if I want to melee or flurry of shurikens if I actually want to do something.
Rogue wouldn't do anything, really. I don't see how, when most of these monsters have 100 hp or so and full-round attacks from the ranged characters do 100 hp.
That is a general problem with high-level Pathfinder ( and 3.5, etc. ). Even monsters with 200-300 HP die way too quickly to the damage output from PC's. When the playtest was going a few years ago, I advocated for massively raised monster HP's as a possible solution, but it didn't happen. :(
That is a general problem with high-level Pathfinder ( and 3.5, etc. ). Even monsters with 200-300 HP die way too quickly to the damage output from PC's. When the playtest was going a few years ago, I advocated for massively raised monster HP's as a possible solution, but it didn't happen. :(
With my last group this started at level 9 and led me to max all monsters and enemies HP or give them more HD.
|
As much as I want the rogue to be more powerful, I do have to point out that a 9th-level or higher rogue can effectively flank, catch flat-footed, and sneak attack 5th-level barbarians. They need 4 levels more in the class that provides Uncanny Dodge, that's it.
If your ninja'd had Uncanny Dodge, he would have been able to do the same.
As much as I want the rogue to be more powerful, I do have to point out that a 9th-level or higher rogue can effectively flank, catch flat-footed, and sneak attack 5th-level barbarians. They need 4 levels more in the class that provides Uncanny Dodge, that's it.
If your ninja'd had Uncanny Dodge, he would have been able to do the same.
Flank, but not catch flat footed from invisibility. Therein lies the problem in the party-- I feel useless when I fight barbarians, but the caster, the alchemist, his bombs work fine versus golems so he's not at all inconvenienced by that. And we haven't been underwater in months, so...
Times a rogue would've been screwed over: 13
Times a rogue would've been the victor: 2
Total damage taken that would've been prevented by evasion: 102
Total ki points used: 53
Vanishing trick freebies used: 15
Traps found: 7
Traps disarmed: 2
Traps avoided: 1
Traps set off: 6
Empowered chain lightning trap got me. That sucked-- 40 damage almost doubled my running total so far.
We went further into the serpentfolk fortress this session. We fought some monsters and stuff. The main thing? I fought my character's destined foe.
He blew into the room as we were fighting some serpentfolk, a mean, big, huge cobra-hooded badass, looked right at our oracle in the back and said "You! Me! Tonight!" I, being the protector of all that is good and holy, used my ungodly acrobatics to ascend to the balcony where he stood (a full move with blessing of fervor's movement bonus to him).
As an aside, how good is the ninja's acrobatics bonus? So good that when I rolled a 19 I got a 100. Wait, what? That's right. Being level 13 (+13) with a 7 dexterity modifier (+7) and 3 trained (+3) while wearing a ring of improved jumping (+10) and a set of celestial chainmail (-2) gives me a total of 31. Rolling a 19 gives me a 50, and acrobatics DCs to jump are halved for ninjas over 10th level. 100 feet, or a virtual acrobatics check of 100. EDIT: Forgot the +12 from +30 movement, so that's actually 124. : )
So cool.
Anyways, I bounce on up there. This guy looks ready to murder, so I lay a sneak attack in on him from invisibility, rolling pretty dang hot. The ranger's cat came to help.
"I have more important things to do!" he declared, leaping on the banister of the balcony and then running down it, sliding into the oracle, ready to completely turn the Professor inside-out.
I tripped him as my AoO.
What?
Well, since I was invisible, I had a +2 to attack. Since I was invisible, he was flat-footed. He had a flatfooted CMD of 30 (+17 BAB!!) and I had rolled a 15, giving me a 29-- and just minutes before, our oracle had put bless on me, giving me the 30 to trip him before he got more than an inch away.
He took a standard action to defend himself, prodding at the cat and doing small time damage. I had to lay into him to keep him there-- I couldn't let this guy get back into the party before the paladin and ranger could come save my worthless ass-- and I definitely didn't want him to use dominate person if he had it. My attack bonus was +16/+16/+11/+11-- I got an extra +6 from being invisible and him being prone. (I promptly forgot the +1 from bless.) I rolled my attacks-- 1, 4, 2 and 5. Oh, god.
"Does a 26 hit?" I asked, meekly.
"Oh, yeah."
"Cool. Um, 19?"
"Oh. Yeah."
I was shocked.
"Then... I hit every time but the 1."
After I laid out over a 110 damage, the DM then revealed his cards:
Versus the party? His AC was 39. My primary attack bonus without prone bonuses, dual-wielding penalties and invisibility was +18-- I could not hit this person unless I rolled natural 20s. Dual-wielding and flanking, I had +18/+18/+13/+13-- I needed even more natural 20s.
But... versus me? The invisible ninja? Since he had a Dex of 7, an Int of 6 and a dodge of 7, and I ignored all of that by being invisible, and he did not have blind fight or uncanny dodge, I effectively lowered his AC by 20 to 19.
I had found my destined foe.
A round later, utterly shamed by a street urchin from Riddleport, a know-it-all with a ridiculous southern drawl, this grand high general of the serpentfolk fled combat, crying like a child.
After the waves, waves and even more waves of no-fun-allowed monsters for me, being able to essentially solo kill the highest CR encounter in the entire dungeon-- 2 levels before we were supposed to do it-- WAS AWESOME.
That just shows you how OP Improved Invisibility is for everybody. :p
My last session can easily be summed up in bullet points:
1) Got hit by prismatic spray and went insane. Had 123 damage on him out of 125 because the alchemist's splash damage is 16 and he was bombing the person I was standing next to. I think I took something like 64 damage from the alchemist, 41 damage from a dragon's breath, more splash, and 10 damage to myself from being confused.
Amount of damage dealt in the encounter: 7 (or, alternatively, 17, because I dealt damage to myself)
This is the rematch with the destined enemy, where I guess the DM really disliked the fact that I won so much that he had him come back with the wizard we fought having cast see invisibility on him. Cool stuff. Nobody ever comes back for a rematch with the alchemist with (or has ever used) protection from energy or resist energy or wind wall so I feel pretty good being singled out as the one person that is unacceptable to be allowed to win.
2) Used Ghost Steps for recon through a wall, and successfully distracted the hell out of the bad guys, getting two in immediate melee range of the door (extremely dangerous double weapon wielder-- dead in one round due to focus fire) and soaking up a bunch of readied actions to shoot bows. (This is the part of the session where life was good)
3) Ran up to engage a construct that, for no reason at all, had DR10/- instead of DR10/adamantine. I could not do damage to it and actually did not. I took out a katana to hope for a sneak attack, but they were a) immune to electricity and I rolled a 6 on my die, giving me 10 damage. We have a house-rule that damage that doesn't exceed DR blunts sneak attack. They also had all-around vision for no reason other than to make me feel useless.
I went to 91 damage out of 95. Wait, what? Oh, yeah, they did a Con poison too, which I took 5 damage of, dropping my max by 30 to 95. It was refreshing knowing that 1 more point of Con damage would have killed me. I barely survived again.
Amount of damage dealt in the encounter: 0 (or, alternatively, about 60, because the monsters had body blades and did damage when I attacked them)
4) The final encounter is pretty mean, so I'll spoiler it.
We entered the final room to find what we came to find.
The Emperor of Scales fell from the ceiling.
Everyone at the entire table failed their will saves against frightful presence. The Emperor has a confusion aura, and activated it. We all failed our saves versus confusion, everyone but the paladin. (The GM ruled that magic circle vs evil doesn't protect versus it)
The bomb alchemist, rolling attack nearest creature, bombed me for 104 damage. One round, by the way. His last iterative would've hit me on a 7, but he only rolled a 4. (Why does this class exist? Why is this class contain the best parts of barbarian and rogue and bard spellcasting?)
Then I stepped up to full attack the alchemist, since I was confused. I turned invisible (he has see invisiblity) and then full attacked. I missed every attack because he had an AC of like 35. Second highest AC in the group? The wizard. Of course.
Then, rolling attack nearest creature, the oracle used destruction on the alchemist, dealing 150 damage to him. He rolled a 1 on the save, and survived with 2 hp. Yeah-- the alchemist has more HP than me, by 27. Why? Because he has #$@!@ing Greater (+6 to dex, +4 to con) Greater (that lasts 15 hours) Greater (that gives him a +4 bonus to AC) Rage. Of course, that's balanced. Why play any character but the Alchemist? They're already every character.
Right after that, the ranger laid into the paladin and missed all but one attack and did 60 damage.
The monster also swung and missed, then moved up, swung, and did very low damage. Immediately after that, everyone made their saves versus confusion but me. The oracle got in range to use word of recall to get everyone out of there.
I died thanks to sticky bombs. I took 48 damage and a d6 of fire (I think 3) and went to -29.
Amount of damage dealt in this encounter: 0.
Yeah, nerf the ninja.
As an aside, this is the last playtest for the Ninja I'll be posting. We still have one game left, but I've decided to say that my death caused my character's arcane abilities to awaken. To mimic my greater invisibility and my in-game explanation (moving at extreme speed), I'm going to take Spell Perfection: haste.
Should be able to find a way to explain all of my abilities, and take a trait so that Disable Device and Perception are still maxed. : )
Wow, so the Alchemist did not take Precise Bombs? Is the player not a people person or what is his problem? Also, the class begins to sound more and more overpowered if he can do 100+ damage to you while you are only the secondary target. That doesn't fill me with much confidence for the future of my big bads in my running Kingmaker campaign. >.<
Also, the GM sounds highly antagonistic. So far, every house rule you cited in that last session write-up sounds like a "screw you!" to players.
( On a tangent, the APG really seems to have introduced at least two pretty OP classes, the Alchemist and Inquisitor. I hope that trend doesn't continue and we get more balanced classes... like the Ninja. ^^ ).
In our first adventure where i play a ninja now, i started of in a tavern dicing. After walking out there the DM had some Aberation? hunting me, that could change to a black cloud and nearly killed me in first place. It could always see me, despite being invisible. Only later i found out it was because of a magical coin that was the campaing starter^^
We also have an Alchemist in this group who i pretty neat. He can do most of things i can by his potions and extracts and then still fight decently with bombs and in melee, also with poison. I don´t know if i would say its OP yet, but i will see soon im sure.
ALso the DM already circumvented all my sneaky abilites by having a mage get some of my stuff and scry on me. And that while my halfing was disuised as a noblewoman in Cheliax, so i couldn´t even take up disguise, less sneak in his rooms and get my stuff, a handkerchief actually, back.
Wow, so the Alchemist did not take Precise Bombs? Is the player not a people person or what is his problem? Also, the class begins to sound more and more overpowered if he can do 100+ damage to you while you are only the secondary target. That doesn't fill me with much confidence for the future of my big bads in my running Kingmaker campaign. >.<
Also, the GM sounds highly antagonistic. So far, every house rule you cited in that last session write-up sounds like a "screw you!" to players.
( On a tangent, the APG really seems to have introduced at least two pretty OP classes, the Alchemist and Inquisitor. I hope that trend doesn't continue and we get more balanced classes... like the Ninja. ^^ ).
I wrote it when I was still mad, but he's not that antagonistic. He just hates that really powerful monsters have 90% of their abilities blunted by protection from evil, so decided to change it-- and, well, it didn't turn out well, so I'm changing my house rule I'm going to use for Carrion Crown too.
In addition, we have had a lot of house rules transition from this group's first D&D games back in early high school, where the DM made a lot of calls like rogues not dealing sneak attack if their attack is absorbed by DR and such.
Oh, and he was dealing splash to me because he was "missing" his target but hitting mirror images, so he couldn't apply precise bombs. I think he hit 4 images and missed 4 times, but the bombs always landed near me, and I just kept busting out the 1s to 6s on them.
Then, natural 1 on save vs. prismatic spray followed by 6 thanks to Improved Iron Will. Needed a 17 to save.
And yeah, alchemists, like inquisitors, are a huge grab bag class. No class in the game should have what they have and also get spellcasting. A bard has 6 dead levels-- 3 where they just get spells, and 3 where they just get inspire competence, which I consider extremely difficult to use considering a lot of skill checks you'd need the bard to prance about for a large amount of rounds, often exceeding 10, and the bard doesn't want to do all that to give you a +2 on a check where you have a +15 and the DC is 30. An alchemist gets something every level, often many things, and spellcasting. An inquisitor is the same.
1st level, 1d6+5 single-target damage is better than any other offensive spell, and it only gets better when he does 5 splash to everyone around that guy. I mean, this is the level where burning hands can do 1 damage reflex save DC 14 for 1 damage. He can likely do it 5 times a day. Can apply the selective trait to his bombs as soon as 2nd level. At level 10, a wizard dropping a maximized fireball can do 60 damage with a reflex for half. At level 10, an alchemist full-attacking with bombs can do 15d6+36 () and then, on their turn, 1d6 fire , and then 36 damage on that target again at the beginning of his next turn thanks to the sticky bomb discovery. He can hit a similar amount of people with his bombs since he's applying the explosive bomb discovery-- the save is similar, but the damage is only 17. As a bomb alchemist, that's 3 out of 17 bombs. He has to hit touch for the primary target instead of making them make a save.
Just saying, it's really annoying that the alchemist has a higher to-hit bonus to me, does more damage, attacks touch, and attacks at range. He didn't take precise shot. Why? Because the highest touch AC we've ever fought was 26 (at level 13 he had like +9 from BAB and like +8 from dex, +1 from throw anything, +1 from haste or something for like +19. +19/+19/+14/+9. That AC was not impressive to him).
A lot of the adventure path is the party scrambling around and fighting and missing pretty often and the alchemist just killing every single person in the room for us in like four rounds.
So, now I'm a sorcerer and maybe I can contribute.
I wrote it when I was still mad, but he's not that antagonistic. He just hates that really powerful monsters have 90% of their abilities blunted by protection from evil, so decided to change it-- and, well, it didn't turn out well, so I'm changing my house rule I'm going to use for Carrion Crown too.
I feel his pain. I only say: Ileosa. What is your new houserule? Or are you returning to the standard definition of the spell?
Oh, and he was dealing splash to me because he was "missing" his target but hitting mirror images, so he couldn't apply precise bombs. I think he hit 4 images and missed 4 times, but the bombs always landed near me, and I just kept busting out the 1s to 6s on them.
Uh, "landing near you" isn't a direct hit, so it should be only the splash damage you take.
As for the Alchemists power level, that worries me for the single target fights. Although I may luck out, the player is more focused on using his repeating crossbow and thinks the bombs are there to clear the room of massed enemies. I may get lucky, although I am not counting on it. ^^
I wrote it when I was still mad, but he's not that antagonistic. He just hates that really powerful monsters have 90% of their abilities blunted by protection from evil, so decided to change it-- and, well, it didn't turn out well, so I'm changing my house rule I'm going to use for Carrion Crown too.I feel his pain. I only say: Ileosa. What is your new houserule? Or are you returning to the standard definition of the spell?
If someone's hit by an effect while protected from evil that would be blunted by the big catch-all of immune to all mind-affecting effects, first I check to see if it really warrants being stopped by protection from evil. Then, I make the party members save anyways-- if they fail, they're effected by the weakest version of that effect. For instance, a dragon's frightful presence would make the party shaken instead of panicked, or a hypnotic pattern would dazzle instead of fascinate.
Then, at the very least, the monsters abilities are being used for something.
** spoiler omitted **...Ice Titan, your write ups have been tremendously informative on a class that interests me. I would like to thank you for taking the time to do so. I do not want an OP class only one that is effective and balanced.
No problem. I did it because it was fun.
Interesting read, and I agree with alot of your points. I'd also like to point out as a long time DM (longer than I care to mention) having Dm'd from even before 3.0 (ok I mentioned it), and DMing every version of D&D there has been (focusing in the 3.x era) I have learned a few things. I see the arguments about casters and melee all the time, and I think I have hit upon the weakest part of the 3.x era system (3.0, 3.5, and PFRPG) and that is the Touch AC. Simply Put, casters outshine melee starting with 3.0 because suddenly spells work off a new AC, made just for them. The fighter, et all, Attacks ACS starting at the 15 range at low levels that goes into the 40s and 50s by high levels (or more, they get nuts). Sure they have a good attack that kind of keeps pace, but your still needing 14 or 15s on the dice to hit (a roughly 25% success rate on attacks). Casters are attacking touch which is 10-14 at low level and stays somewhere around 8-16 at higher levels. With their measily bonus They get something like +2-+9 to hit. They still have a success rate in the high 50 or 60% range. Then add in that the fighter needs to beat DR while the caster just has to use appropriate elemental damage. Spell Resistance is the only limiting factor and they can choose non SR spells that force saves etc. Regularly I see the combat go Fighter type attacks and hits 8 or so times for 40 or 50 dmg after DR while the casters just roll 6s and 7s and do 100+, and thats at the midlevel... add in no save spells, no sr spells, and save or suck and theres the systems failing. The fact that crits and sneak attack are more universal helps even this out. Honestly thats just my view. Ive contemplated taking a more 2e and prior approach and just dropping the touch ac line from the game and making all roles against ac normally and see how that changes things....