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Well now that we are on soon page 3 i just have to ask Ravingdork:
Could you go through the ideas in here and point out which ideas that is close to your fancy and which that is outside your "realm" of limitations?
I think its going to be easier for us to suggest solutions and for you to find something in the line of what you are looking for as to me it kinda feels you are going through the old: "Throw ideas at me so i can shoot them down" spiel.
Also one of the many simple things you can do that is in the realm of possibilities is the mundane options of wooden barricades, flipped over tables, stacks of chairs, doors that have been taken off their hinges from the far side of the dungeon and to be placed in the throne room.
There is so much you can do with it, and it does give the feeling of a "last stand" if you have a heavily barricaded "boss room" which challenge your players in positioning due to line-of-sight breakers.
Even if they put everything on fire an can see through the smoke you have the wind effects that push the smoke back at the players and their followers and might have a effect due to all the smoke and take fort saves or start getting choked out.
Just looking quickly, and possibly it's addressed by an effect or power from someone else, but checking the AC, she might have a lower armor class. Can't use Nimble in the celestial plate armor, still counts as medium. Even without that, her encumbrance is Medium (unless the total you have is in some extradimensional spaces or she drops her backpack and gear in a fight.) That would give her a max dex of +3 instead of +6 and slow all her movement. I don't know how much Dodging Panache gets used, but that might be hindered too.
I've audited the character and found that the encumbrance was not as bad as listed. I've updated the character sheet to reflect the correct values.
You were right about the medium armor and the nimble ability being incompatible and have adjusted the AC and CMD down 2 points as well.
Having a light load carrying capacity of 66 pounds (with masterwork backpack), and gear weighing 77 lb. and 10 oz. puts the character into a medium load. Oddly enough, the glove of storing and endless bandoleer allow her to stay in a light load, but ONLY when she isn't wielding any of her pistols. The moment she pulls one out, however, she hits medium encumbrance.
The medium load encumrbance penalties are not yet reflected in the stats. I will inform the player of these changes before our next game and give him the opportunity to adjust the character's gear before the final showdown.
Thanks for pointing that out Pizza Lord! :D
You have rogues that can spot the party and walls. Any chance the cleric could have a metamagic rod with Extend? Can the NPC cleric speak Terran?
Should be easy enough to get a picture of the gunslinger. Summon a group of medium, large or a single huge earth elemental from the other side of a wall when told the group is in place. Tell the earth elemental(s) to go for the gunslinger and the gun.
Earth glide plus tremorsense means they can get right up to them before attacking.
Then supplement with the other attackers.
To the best of my knowledge you can't shoot through a solid wall.
{. . .}
Chain of Perdition can constantly trip a target, removing full attack option potentials due to having to stand up again. This is a fun fire and forget area area harassing effect. {. . .}
For even more fun, also have a minion who is a Bard, Magus, Sorcerer/Wizard, Summoner, or even Cleric with the Earth Domain cast Greasein the Gunslinger's space at the same time.
Do note that the Gunslinger can fire from prone, so this isn't enough by itself unless it also prevents line of sight from the Gunslinger to the Cleric, but it may still result in some more wasted actions, especially if something else is beating on the Gunslinger at the same time (like the abov-mentioned Summons examples).
Another idea along the same lines is the Create Pit series of spells, accessible to Sorcerer/Wizard, Summoner, and Cleric with the Caves or Earth Domain (these Domains do not necessarily grant access to all spells in the series). The Dimensional Acid Wondrous Items do the same things (item description has links to the spells). Good luck getting a shot off while stuck in a Hungry Pit, preferably while under Forbiddance against Flying . . . Note that if the Cleric casts the spell instead of using Dimensional Acid, since the spell offers a Reflex Save, technically applying Persistent Spell should work, especially if you have applied a debuff against Reflex Saves first (see below).
Prior to the above, or maybe at the same time, I do like the idea of a Persistent Confusion on the party, making sure to get the Gunslinger. This spell is accessible to Bard, Bloodrager (the latter won't be high enough level if they are minions, though), Sorcerer/Wizard, Witch, and Clerics with the Madness or Trickery Domains or the Entropy, Lust, or Whimsy Subdomains. Whether to do this at the same time as or before the Create Hungry Pit (or equivalent Dimensional Acid) depends upon how many other party members you can get in the pit at the same time -- if you can get multiple ones at the same time (Black Tentacles can help with this), do both at the same time, to get a chance that they will be fighting each other while in the pit. (If using Black Tentacles to help deny Dexterity bonus to help against the Hungry Pit save, you need an arcane caster, but a 7th level Sorcerer or Wizard is good enough.)
I would give the cleric Heighten Spell and have her cast a Heightened Murderous Command on the Gunslinger. One round of a gunslinger full rounding one of her allies.
^If you're going to do that, Persistent Spell is usually better, if you can get it.
Also for more fun with pushing the Gunslinger into the pit (Create Pit series spells), have a Wizard minion cast Battering Blast (preferably Persistent), and position the pit just behind the Gunslinger.
Edit: Here's another thought: Have the Cleric get her own Gunslinger mercenary! Works even better if the Gunslinger is disguised as the Cleric.
For a 12th level Cleric with minions and prep time to defeat an optimized party including a Gunslinger I suggest the following tactics.
A) Make use of the spells Disguise Self and Disguise Other to confuse the players, their effectiveness is moot if they waste time on mooks.
B) Make use of summoned/animated minions commanded by the message spell. With several clerics in tow, any number of them can have animated 1 HD skeletons and either disguised them as the leader (see above), or given them Tower Shields and orders to provide the leader with cover. Likewise weak summoned creatures like ravens can be brought in en-masse by the lesser clerics to harry the party. Low HD summons/undead will be easy to kill, but to weak to feed the Gunslinger any Grit, wasting their action, bullets, and possibly even grit spent killing them.
C) Use Alarm, Invisibility Alarm, and Sentry Skull to prevent the party of sneaking in.
D) Use Glyph of Warding (and Greater GoW). These handy clerical spells makes it easy to trigger your short-term contingency spells at a useful time, and the mook clerics can waste days worth of spell slots placing spell-traps in obnoxious places. Possible triggered spells include:
Deeper Darkness, Dispel Magic, Calm Emotions (to silence occult casters), Chain of Perdition, Invisibility Purge, Murderous Command, Raging Rubble, Silence, Summon Monster III (1d4+1 Eagles to perform disarm/steal attempts), Vision of Hell, Trial of Fire and Acid, Wind Wall.
Note: If you choose to use skeletons (see above), you can combine them with Cold Blast Runes, which you have the skeletons trigger, or stand adjacent to. The skeletons are immune to cold by default, the players are unlikely to be similarly protected if they are expecting a standard negative energy centric cleric.
Similar spells worthy of consideration include Symbol of Sleep, and Symbol of Sealing
E) Use the Spark spell to blow up the gunslinger's keg of blackpowder, or the shatter spell to destroy all of their nonmagical bullets, blackpowder (the keg/horn they hold it in), and containers (so that they cannot use Abundant Ammunition). Use summoned creatures (see above) to harry the gunslinger. Use Pilfering Hand plus Truestrike to deprive them of their magical weapon or ammunition belt (such as an Efficient Quiver or Beneficial Bandoleer).
F) Use defensive spells to last longer or hinder attacks; such as: Blade Barrier, Deathless plus Life Pact, Dust Form, Entropic Shield, Ironskin, Magic Vestment, Prayer, Sanctuary, Shield Other (cast by a mook cleric), Stone Shield, Stunning Barrier (or Greater SB), Trueseeing, Wall of Stone, Wind Wall/Fickle Winds.
G) Consider the Word of Recall spell as an escape plan if you wish for the villain to survive.
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The low will saves in the party was terribly problematic during the midgame. That's why many of the characters have taken steps to bolster their saves. Half of them got hit by an insanity spell once. On the rounds that they were lucid, however, they identified the affliction, teleported to an allied temple, and got cured (but not before instigating a brawl with the acolytes).
If the module is fairly free flowing in how the enemies can be encountered, perhaps then its time to go a step beyond merely mechanically wearing them down. It may be time to wear them down psychologically with mind games, oh delicious mind games. You're already using disguise self quite a bit; use that to your full advantage to divide and conquer. Have a mook disguised as the cleric show up a couple of/a few encounters in to make them pull out their best resources prematurely and then become thwarted as they find out it was a ruse. Have disguised mooks run in opposite directions around corners and lure them into ambushes. Have them yell false instructions to each other to throw the party off to their tactics. Anything to make them harried; if they get flustered enough they might be thinking in top form.
Since your cleric's been scrying, she should have gotten a few glimpses of some all those minions they have. If you have enough lead-in time, have them abduct a less often seen NPC (perhaps one of their scouts in the field?) and then place the poor fool in an overly elaborate yet not-so-easily-escapable deathtrap (if the area has one) to split up the party and/or take up actions. Or barring that, there's nothing saying you can't disguise your own mooks as their own mooks to lure the PCs into disadvantageous situations. Mix up illusions with the real McCoy for best results.
Above all, you need some incentive to keep them inside the base. If your party has some timed objective (or at least, seems like there is some timed objective), then that might make them less likely to teleport if things go sour. Your cleric has sending, for example. You could just play with that without actually having to use it by leaving some papers (letters, etc.) lying around indicating a greater force is arriving shortly, or some horrid ritual is about to be enacted.
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I'm frankly confused how a gunslinger is the scariest thing in this party. Can you post his build?- catfolk gunslinger 6/fighter 5/swashbuckler 1 (picaroon, pistolero)
- half-elf arcanist (school savant)
- half-elf unchained rogue 3/fighter 2/red mantis assassin 7 (lore warden, rake)
- human sage sorcerer 12
- human cleric 7/holy vindicator 3 of Besmara (cohort)
- Numerous followers that rarely fight, but are often used for scouting and guarding
Use Wall of Stone as a time-out box. Because of its writing, you could simply encase the gunslinger, even in the middle of the room. It's WAY more effective if you are able to get him against a wall or in a corner. Double-up the sections so the wall requires multiple hits. If he's in a corner, you can put 4 layers on the remaining 2 walls + "ceiling." Each will have 45 hp and 8 hardness. That's a major pain for a ranged character to address.
Use a Caller's Feather in advance to Planar Ally for a Derghodaemon or some other 14 HD outsider. It can greater teleport into the middle of the party and free action Feeblemind within 30'. The DC is low, but you could catch one or two of them and shut off some abilities.
Fight him on the correct battlefield.
Lay prone +4AC
Behind stone wall w/ murder holes +8AC +4 Reflex save
Design the encounter so that in order to circumvent those two elements he must move to a position that is equal to your movespeed + melee touch attack
Designing your map with verticality will make this even better.
Mooks to distract + touch attack blindness = fun encounter.
How is the gunslingers wisdom 14? He has no magic boosts to it and catfolk have a Wisdon penalty. What pointbuy did you use where a character is starting with(by my math) 12 16 14 10 16 8. unless i didn't factor the level up bonuses correctly. Because there is a catfolk racial penalty to wis and it would seem his is a little high for no magic buffing it.
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How is the gunslingers wisdom 14? He has no magic boosts to it and catfolk have a Wisdon penalty. What pointbuy did you use where a character is starting with(by my math) 12 16 14 10 16 8. unless i didn't factor the level up bonuses correctly. Because there is a catfolk racial penalty to wis and it would seem his is a little high for no magic buffing it.
All of our PCs use 25 point buy. We've known for years that we prefer high powered characters. (Yet somehow, we still die all the freaking time in other campaigns.)
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The gunslinger dual-wields +1 pepperbox pistols, but also has a backup (standard) +1 pistol. She also has a pair of weapon cords and a glove of storing
Enforce ALL the rules on these. First, a pepper on requires a free hand to rotate (no dual wielding). Also, they misfire on a 1-2., and is goes up to 1-3 with alchemical paper cartridges. Enforce that always. Odds are she will misfire at least once every couple of rounds with the rate her character sheet shows (and she cannot reload/rotate barrels)
Also, enforce grit usage as I assume she is using up close and deadly to hit hard.
Gloves of storing take a standard action to store, it is only s free to retrieve.
Hells, hit her with fire attacks, such as Flame Strike and perhaps fireballs? She has a necklass of fireballs!
Do whatever you can to manipulate the range. A pistolero only has 20' in her first range band.
The thing is, gunslingers are not as broken as many people think... it is often missing some of the rules (intentionally or not) that can make them so.
Oh, and if she is close enough, use pilfering hand (with true strike?) then use her guns against her!
The cleric knows they are coming? Everyone gets heroes feast!
How about a contingent word of recall? Give the cleric a chance to heal up. Or just get away.
Also, realize that this group is definitely at least +3 APL, probably more like +5, due to the stat bumps, crafted items, and team size. To balance? Maybe the cleric and some of her cohorts have +2 or more inherent bonuses.
When you make the rogues, have them do the disabling to movement rate, so she cannot close,
That's just a few ideas. A lot of work for one character but I think that thoughts thug is enforcing the misfire, and the barrel turning. That will be an issue in and of itself. Don't let her, or any other character, get more actions than they deserve.
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I can't imagine being justified in saying "one barrel twist a round" while still letting high level archers draw 14+ arrows in a round.
Both take roughly the same amount of effort. I try and avoid double standards like that--and I'm not about to also cripple archers just to balance gunslingers.
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One particularly nasty trick - if you can get in melee range of the gunslinger so that he attracts an AoO - is to attempt to disarm him.
He's carrying his gun - a ranged weapon - so there's nothing he can really do about it. You don't need Improved Disarm since he can't react. If for some reason he can react, you might have to take a bullet, but it's still worth it to avoid taking ten more.
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why not go the simplest route that is often overlooked at high level? Disarm the bastard- Burning Disarm may not outright disarm him, but you could houserule that Burning Disarm ignites that black powder, causing more damage and a higher save to keep hold of the weapon.
You could also build a character that speciallizes in Disarming with Ranged/Ace Disarm and Directed Disarmor an even lesser used tactic- have someone/thing steal his black powder.
Or for more hilarity- reverse pickpocket an ignited Tindertwig or Toothpick of Pyrotehcnic into his black powder.
RD is not fond of houserules.
Another trick would be to have the Cleric UMD a Scroll of Projected Image, and use that to do unpleasant things to the PC party. With Projected Image, all spells (and speech) can appear to come from the Projection, while everything unloaded on the Projection either does nothing to it or at worst dispels it, and bullets won't do anything to it unless they have some kind of Ghost Touch AND Dispelling property combination. The Cleric needs line of effect to the Projection but not direct line of effect to the PC party. Note that if the Cleric has the Deception Subdomain, that spell is actually accessible except for being 1 level too high (you said 12th level Cleric if I remember correctly, although maybe a +1 or even +2 level bump would be in order against the party you have described -- if you do that and have the Deception Subdomain, no UMD needed).
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I can't imagine being justified in saying "one barrel twist a round" while still letting high level archers draw 14+ arrows in a round.
Both take roughly the same amount of effort. I try and avoid double standards like that--and I'm not about to also cripple archers just to balance gunslingers.
Of course, most people don't try to dual wield bows, so there is already a double standard.
The Cleric after watching the PCs may decide they are doomed. Their last desperate action is to acquire a scroll of Greater Planar Ally to summon a powerful Daemon to destroy the PCs in exchange for their soul. If the Cleric somehow survives they can always try to weasel out of the deal later.
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Ah this encounter!
Are you dead-set on running this as a combat encounter? The cleric has info on the party and knows what they are capable of, she is presumably aware that her odds aren't good. I'd be tempted to let her bargain with them as a first resort. She also has info on their main target and the layout of where they are.
Given the nature of this particular pre-written piece the PCs are likely to have dodgier allies than her to begin with so why not a few more? Well the group I ran for did anyway.
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I can't imagine being justified in saying "one barrel twist a round" while still letting high level archers draw 14+ arrows in a round.
Both take roughly the same amount of effort. I try and avoid double standards like that--and I'm not about to also cripple archers just to balance gunslingers.
If the gunslinger has a hand free, then, yes, she can shoot multiple times. But she has to have a hand free. Can't be two weapon fighting.
I can't imagine being justified in saying "one barrel twist a round" while still letting high level archers draw 14+ arrows in a round.I think it was more about multiple storing, rotating one pepperbox's barrely, retrieving, swapping hands as a free action, storing the spend pepperbox as a free action, spinning the cylinder...
Mostly about doing store/retrieve multiple times rather than cylinder rotation, not saying that's what you're doing.
Meh, I've always been of the opinion that, that limited free actions rule shouldn't exist. It serves no other purpose than to limit players' options, and I've always been a strong proponent of "rules should expand options and fun, not limit them."
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If nobody has said it yet there's a 1st level spell that would work.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/damp-powder
basically prevents him from firing for a standard/full round depending on saves. 1st level may not be likely to hit without a significant boost but it's low enough that any mook can use it.
For the pistols i guess the player shoots with her main hand first, then off hand, and then store the offhand and then fire the rest of the shots with a single gun.
The issue would been larger if you had imp.Two weapon fighting that allowed a second offhand shot, but so far it just seems you can do just that and fire a offhand shot once and then store/drop it.
For visuals:
MH/OH/Drop/MH/MH + MH for Rapid shot.
Find a way to cast control winds, Windstorm level winds make ranged attacks with anything but siege weapons completely impossible.
Find a way to cast control winds, Windstorm level winds make ranged attacks with anything but siege weapons completely impossible.
There will already be such an affect in place, but most of the encounters will be taking place inside a fortified structure.
I intend to have windstorm level winds outside the fort. Later I will also have an exciting tornado in the background as they fight the boss out on the ramparts. Though the tornado will be too far away to be a threat in its own right, there's something distinctly cinematic about having whole sailing ships falling out of the skies onto the walls around you as you fight. I can use that narrative power to shape the battlefield as I please in real time to make things more fun and exciting.
I will describe the fort as having many open windows, murder holes, and such, so that the wind will be one grade less severe while inside. This will still be strong enough to penalize their ranged attacks, fly checks, perception checks, and prevent cloud/gas spells from functioning properly indoors. The penalty to ranged attacks, when stacked with miss chances, mirror images, and other buffs ought to be sufficient to buy the bad guys a few more rounds I would think.
Meh, I've always been of the opinion that, that limited free actions rule shouldn't exist. It serves no other purpose than to limit players' options, and I've always been a strong proponent of "rules should expand options and fun, not limit them."I can't imagine being justified in saying "one barrel twist a round" while still letting high level archers draw 14+ arrows in a round.I think it was more about multiple storing, rotating one pepperbox's barrely, retrieving, swapping hands as a free action, storing the spend pepperbox as a free action, spinning the cylinder...
Mostly about doing store/retrieve multiple times rather than cylinder rotation, not saying that's what you're doing.
the purpose of that rule is to increase verisimilitude and willing suspension of disbelief. the game labels many things as free actions and tell the GM to determine how many can be realistically done in 6 seconds to save page space. can you imagine how much more room it would take to attempt to write out every combination of free actions one might accomplish in 6 seconds? the effort wouldn't be worth it and the list would surely be incomplete.
it's unrealistic that a single glove of storing (since RAW you can have only 1) would be enough to allow the gunslinger to free his hand quickly and efficiently enough to allow full two-weapon fighting full-attacks. even with weapon cords (originally a swift action retrieval, but now a move) it's a stretch.
of course it's up to you if you want to limit your own ability to challenge your players. assuming you're all having fun, you do you.
Cast a heightened, quickened Daze cantrip, 5' step toward gunslinger
Follow up with channel energy 2x via the feat that allows for move action channels.
Rinse, repeat as needed.
Dead Gunslinger.