*sigh* This was discussed already in another thread, but I don't have the time nor inclination to dig for it so I'll just retype it.
Nymphs get innate casting as a Druid. For the purposes of spellcasting, they are essentially 7th level. They do not have class levels, it's all innate.
If they were to take a level in Druid, they would have 1 level of Druid class abilities, but 8 levels of Druid spellcasting. Taking levels in the class advances their casting, even if it puts it well ahead of what their actual class abilities would imply. That's simply a boon of being a Nymph.
All Mystic Theurge requires is "ability to cast 2nd level Divine spells", which the Nymph, without class levels, possesses. It does not require any Druid (or Cleric, or Oracle, or any other divine class that could qualify) class abilities. Nymphs are capable of casting 2nd level Divine spells. Therefore they meet the qualifications for the Divine half of Mystic Theurge.
Her Sorc levels get her the Arcane half.
The MT levels advance her casting just as if she'd taken Druid levels - she has the class abilities of an MT and Sorc and lacks those of a Druid, but has the casting. And that's all she needs to qualify.
What Orthos says. :)
Bottom line: a nymph with druid (or mystic theurge) levels is nasty…
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I understand that part- I don't have a problem with them using the innate spellcasting to qualify for the prestige class; I'm saying the mystic theurge class should not advance the druidic spellcasting because the character has no actual Class Levels in Druid.
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OK, never mind, I've caught up with the relevant part of the bestiary and I guess it does actually work that way. But in that case, it appears the monster is under CR'd since they've added 16 class levels to a CR 7 creature...unless they only count the sorcerer levels as half (since it not primary as a druid). but with the prep it should be higher even still.
The Sorc levels are unassociated so yes they only count for half. The prep is part of her class abilities so no it doesn't adjust CR. She gets a +1 CR for having PC-level wealth though.
The "Sound of a Thousand Screams" thread covers most of your questions in a very similar discussion, I believe.
Wow! Thanks for posting this - really awesome and inspirational for my young campaign.
Glad you enjoyed it, Edward and Touc. :)
We've since started a Shattered Star campaign, for which I'm writing up a campaign journal as we go along.
Why would a king do dig around a piddly boggard lair when he could send troops in to crush them or chase them off their land?Because there's more than one way to solve problems? Perhaps this kingdom counts kobolds and centaurs among its vassals and doesn't bat an eye at recruiting boggards to its banner. Or maybe the ruler doesn't want to spend BP on an army just yet, and is willing to take the personal risk of dealing with the boggards with just her longtime companions.
Also, pacifying the boggards is a secondary problem. The problem is the Drelev Demense and its designs on the PCs' kingdom. The boggards only matter for two reasons: first, they're blocking traffic on the Sellen, which is something of a minor problem for the PCs' kingdom til they start claiming land along the river, and second, they happen to live between the PCs' kingdom and Fort Drelev. Now, Fort Drelev can be dealt with a number of ways, by assault, or by intrigue. Assault would require an army, and that army could be employed along the way to pacify or drive out the boggards. But an army would be detrimental to subversion and intrigue.
Pacification with a party can be a lot quicker than marshalling and sending in troops. Less deaths too when the professionals are involved (in the kingmaker game I played, there was a lot of party vs. all comers).
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Congrats! Details? :)
As a DM, I'd like to see the sheets of your players, it seemed like they had a hard time so I'm wondering how strong they were, what point buy did you give them, how min-maxed were they, etc
The PCs were actually quite powerful, without being overly optimized. The players are very experienced, and know how to play the game. We had a group of 4 PCs, one with a cohort, and we use 15-point buy. Core and APG were allowed, as well as other Paizo supplements from the Campaign Setting and Player Companion lines.
I don't have the character sheets, but the group was, overall, more powerful than I would have liked for some parts of the campaign. They steam rolled quite a few encounters (which is not surprising with Kingmaker), but difficulties of the last fight stemmed from the conditions:
- the paladin wasn't overly powerful against an evil fey, the conditions meant she couldn't use her main ability (spirited charge while smiting);
- they were taken by surprise by Nyrissa's appearance and were almost not buffed;
- Nyrissa's blinding beauty with DC 29 is very problematic for those who need to see her, like spellcasters;
- they did not have antimagic field to counteract her antilife shell. They had considered it, but had decided against it so they could keep their own magic.
- Nyrissa is a beast.
In the end, I was very happy, because this final fight was very climactic. The PCs didn't do anything really wrong, that is just a very tough fight. :)
I ask because the way it will go down for me, will be with 3 players, 1 fake cohort (works as a leadership npc, 2 levels bellow the group, but is there for story, and they feed him magic gear to keep in check with power)
I see it ending as a sorc with 2 levels of bard (with GM aproved healing abilities that tie to his backstory), a melee ranger wielding throwing axes (Briar will shift to a throwing axe shape to fit it's master's preference), a bomb alchemist 110% focused on bombs and being OP with it, and a crossbow kobold ranger that hates faeries.
If I see them having trouble, the king's wife, an actual cohort with oracle levels might join in to help, at least to make people mint before the end fight. I'm thinking crafting in excess and being 25 point buy should help them handle the boss.
I forgot to mention that my group also had crafting feats, so they were likely above WBL.
I can see it being tough with only 3 PCs, but I always find it difficult to add too many accompanying NPC without slowing down the game a lot, and detracting the attention from what the "heroes" (the PCs) are doing. One option I would consider is to have the PCs be one level higher than expected by the AP to compensate for them being 3 plus a cohort.
The fact that two of your PCs (plus the cohort?) are focussing on ranged attacks may actually make it easier for them than for my group. The antilife shell is moot with the alchemist and the ranger, and the alchemist only needs to hit touch AC, so that's going to be much easier than my group needing to hit AC 50-ish.
I could see your group missing the ability to "de-buff" Nyrissa, or counter her spells, and that's where the oracle could come in handy. But it depends so much on whether the PCs take Nyrissa by surprise or not, whether they could prepare or not, etc that it's hard to guess.
The alchemist will probably annihilate every encounter with that simple fact. But Nyryssa will have energy soak prepared, as she will know the alchemist very well. My group's half optimized, so I think it will work out. But depending on how well they handle all the other super strong bad guys in the house (I don't think there is any chance to rest between killing the linnorm, then dragon, then worm, then naga, then hag cleric and then Nyrissa) I will either have it done the normal way, or the surprise attack way. But I'm saying this from the point of view of having them, at level 10 (and the kobold ranger 8) 2 turning a cr 13 black dragon mostly with the use of bombs and 2 good hits from the ranger's throwing axes.
I'm currently playing with a group of level 15 characters so I know how powerful high-level play can be. :)
For my group in Kingmaker, they fought the black dragon outside, and she was destroying them, until I rolled a 1 on her baleful polymorph save. The fight against the linnorm was dead easy for them, same thing against the jabberwok (the paladin charging on her flying pony had the shining knight ability to make the charge target flee if they failed a save, and the jabberwok failed this save), and the worm that walks was a little more problematic, but once they spotted it, it was reasonably easy with some dispel magic. The naga was also a very easy fight for them and I had not placed the hag cleric in Nyrissa's castle.
So these fights used some of their resources, but not very much. Of course, my PCs had it easy since they uprooted Thousandbreaths!
I think you'll have ample time to figure the best way to do this fight if you still have 6-7 levels to go. And, yes, Nyrissa should definitely have resist energy on against the alchemist's bombs. ;)
Is your group the type to over prepare and bring in potions and scrools and whatnot? I fear that mine might run out of healing on the way in, but I'l have a quick way to remedy that. They use the hero point system so they have some relative safety
I always find that they don't use consumables enough, except for one player (who was playing the paladin in Kingmaker), but they certainly always stock up on healing before they go adventuring.
If you see them running out of healing, you can always add a wand or two in a treasure trove. Same thing with (lesser) restoration scrolls.
Where it gets more difficult is with Nyrissa's blinding beauty that requires more specific spells like break enchantment and remove blindness. It's easy to add one or two scrolls here and there, but that may well not be enough since the PCs will typically need to save against Nyrissa's aura every round. That's where my PCs' consumables came in handy. The bard cohort also helped.
Well I did give them a staff of meteor swarm in Vordekai's loot. With only 2 charges, I wanted to see if they could be creative. They used 1 charge to scare the barbarians into leaving Drelev's segment of the map. Of course they will return later as part of the adventure's path (I try to stay on the *rails* somewhat) but Drelev is now an ally. He will not be a foe in the 4th book and will be replaced by someone else of similar power. His wife will betray him for power and Stroon will still be there.
Having Varn, Drelev, Grant (PC) and the sexy mistress girl (who for me is the last member of the 4th explorer group) all united will make for good fun.
Hah, my group has exactly the opposite reaction - they don't trust Drelev, consider him too much of a Stepford Smiler, and consider Pavetta far more genuine even if she is a shrew. Which works out for me, because I'd already changed the Drelev situation to make Maray the real villain and Drelev her willing little puppet. I imagine once they clear those two out Pavetta will get a quick divorce and then take over (likely as vassal to my PCs) along with her brother.
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Hah, my group has exactly the opposite reaction - they don't trust Drelev, consider him too much of a Stepford Smiler, and consider Pavetta far more genuine even if she is a shrew. Which works out for me, because I'd already changed the Drelev situation to make Maray the real villain and Drelev her willing little puppet. I imagine once they clear those two out Pavetta will get a quick divorce and then take over (likely as vassal to my PCs) along with her brother.
I did something similar. I also had her escape (via dimension door and good old fashioned hoofin' it). She returned to Pitax, and became the "Boasting Contest" entrant. Her boast was about how she destroyed Drelev for threatening Pitax's borders, and ruined the village of Tatzlford with only her wiles.
Mine has a contingency from the Black Sisters that will get her quick out of dodge when things turn south. After that she'll be helping them out at the tomb when the PCs show up.
Is Ilthuliak worth foreshadowing? I just threw a clue in at the end of book 2 and I'm wondering whether its worth getting the players excited about this black wyrm.
I've been playing her up a lot, but dragons are a Big Deal in the area in my setting where the Stolen Lands are - it's a barbaric territory known as The Northlands, run by dragons using various bestial tribes as living chess pieces, and the only reason a lot of the colonies have been able to be founded in the first place is "the badass black dragon who used to live in the Slough is no longer around, so before her territory is 'up for grabs' by the other dragons we're going to move in and colonize".
I'm also ramping her up into a much nastier challenge though, by making her well on her way into a transformation into a Tarn Linnorm hybrid, and then
So she's a bit more of a major player in my game, if you don't plan on focusing on her as much - both in foreshadowing and her absence's effect on the region, and in the actual encounter itself and events to follow - then it might not be as big of an event.
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I love the recounting of the fight, it was very fun to read. thank you very much for the write up!
Below is something that could make the fight very boring, but allows the party to pretty much crush her.
She becomes AC 18, and very, very dead to... pretty much everything.
Also cyclopes can still throw axes :D
That certainly works, although it also penalizes the PCs who were all magic-based. More importantly, they did not have antimagic field memorized, so that wasn't really an option!
I'm quite happy they didn't use it, actually, since it would have made the final battle of the campaign far less epic, much more anticlimactic, and a much poorer read. :)