As a group we're gathering up as many different AP's as we can afford and speculating about the character's we'll eventually run in each. The party composition we currently have for LoF is as follows:
Human Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)
Ifrit Sorcerer (Primal Fire bloodline)
Ifrit Sorcerer (Primal Fire bloodline)
Goblin Rogue
If a fifth party member is added, it will likely be a Human Lore Warden weilding a reach weapon.
We have a few concerns. The first and the biggest is over our two Ifrit Sorcerer's. The players are really excited about the idea of a pair of Ifrit twins who's mysterious heritage can somehow be worked into the AP storyline... clearly they will focus on fire spells and summoning fire-themed creatures. A few other genie-type spells (Silent Image, Fly, Disentegrate, Limited Wish/Wish, etc.) but for the most part damage will be almost entirely fire-based. I have to believe that the AP holds more than a few fire-immune threats and that possibility doesn't necessarily deter them, but the idea that there might be some major bosses or even climactic chapters where they are almost a non-factor does.
The second one if the addition of a Goblin to our ranks. No one in our group has ever run a humanoid race before, and this one is being cast as sort of the group's mascot, a brighter than average (but only just) sincerely chaotic good character with a penchant for petty larceny... can anyone anticipate any major RP problems with introducing a humanoid race into the AP? I ask because I know LoF came out quite a while back, before such circumstances were common.
Any other thoughts and advice would be most welcome.
You won't really be feeling the pain of fire resistant bad guys till later in the adventure path, although many of the big bosses have at least some. They might really be hurting in the last two adventures though, when a lot of them are just plain immune to fire damage.
And a goblin could work well. There's a couple goblin NPC's which it could be really fun to see that PC bounce off of. The bulk of the AP takes place well off the beaten path of civilization. Perhaps the third adventure where they walk to a major city could pose some issues, but Katapesh is such a cosmopolitan, money talks city, that most people won't blink after any initial awkwardness.
I'm GMing LoF now, and from that perspective, the two largest issues that I'm seeing are:
1) The lack of healing power with this party composition. The fire-based immunity or virtual immunity of bad guys may be irritating and hard to deal with, but by the time you're really to that point, they should have seen the writing on the wall and started to make plans accordingly, but with a paladin as their primary healing source, you're going to have to ensure that there are a *lot* of healing wands, potions, and the like available (many more than the modules themselves do) to get the party to that point.
2) The careful monitoring you're going to need to do in order to adjust encounters in the module series so that they don't wind up being overbalanced for a party with this balance.
There are two "bosses" in AP 1 (if you don't count the pugawampi chief which I don't) and they are both fire resistant. That party will have a lot of trouble with the last boss of the AP in particular (if the pally fails his will save I'd say wipe for sure).
There are plenty of ways to switch energy though. Maybe work out someway to give them the metamagic feat or an appropriate rod.
A goblin is fine. He may even find a friend in AP 2.
No primary divine caster is going to hurt even disregarding healing entirely. There are plenty of places that basically assume the party have fire resistance in particular the sidetrek for AP 2.
There are quite a bit of fire resistant baddies, including some bosses, but it's not ubiquitous by any means. Are the first players adamant about being ifrit sorcerers? A pair of sulis might fit thematically as well. Maybe a fire and ice theme could be worked out with one of them an oracle or cleric with the appropriate mystery or domains. I only recommend the class changes because it would be a good idea to get another character that can go toe-to-toe with enemies.
What are the 'primal fire' bloodlines? I can't seem to find them? I imagine they may come with fire immunity eventually, which should come in handy.
'Primal Fire' is the term I use for the Wild-blooded Archetype for the elemental bloodlines called 'Primal'. You can locate the bloodline here. The characters were planning to sling fire and summon fire elementals to fight for them, and yes they would eventually gain a high level of fire resistance.
The players were very excited about the concept and have done a good bit of planning with them, but we're discussing Sulis now instead. The problem is that the mechanical advantages are much lower and they've got this whole pyromaniac thing going on in their heads... of course nothing says that they can't choose spells of other elements to compliment their fire use even if it doesn't benefit from their bonus damage, and I know they are both planning on taking Disintegrate as soon as possible. On the flip side, the Paladin is now interested in running a Suli rather than a human. Two Ifrits and a Suli might be a bit overkill on the party theme.
We almost always have a '5th member' run by the GM who can kind of serve as his mouth and help fill in whatever aspect the party is missing, as well as serve as both hook and red herring over the course of the campaign... my guess is that we'll see a bard or an archeologist for LoF which should help with some of the healing issues.
I'm GMing LoF now, and from that perspective, the two largest issues that I'm seeing are:
1) The lack of healing power with this party composition. The fire-based immunity or virtual immunity of bad guys may be irritating and hard to deal with, but by the time you're really to that point, they should have seen the writing on the wall and started to make plans accordingly, but with a paladin as their primary healing source, you're going to have to ensure that there are a *lot* of healing wands, potions, and the like available (many more than the modules themselves do) to get the party to that point.
We handle healing - or rather the availability of healing - a little differently in our campaigns. Collectively we agree that we don't like the idea that divine power can be bottled and sold to the highest bidder, so divine wands and scrolls only work for those whom share a faith with the person who crafted the item. Moreover, we don't have traditional healing potions - though we do have 'healing draughts' which basically work as like the spell Heal... obviously they are much rarer and more expensive than traditional Cure potions and will often be seeded as treasure.
On the other hand, the Paladin is planning on leaning very heavily on Lay on Hands with most of his feats either increasing them in number of effectiveness, so there will be that... and as I mentioned above, we will likely have an NPC whom can help out at least somewhat.
Yeah, I think your pyromaniac sorcerers will be having problems during the final third of Legacy of Fire.
Part Five is like 85% fire immune enemies, and half of what's left is fire resistant to some degree. Part Six isn't quite that bad, but it's still probably 50% fire immune enemies, with an additional 35% fire resistant.
Yeah, I think your pyromaniac sorcerers will be having problems during the final third of Legacy of Fire.
Part Five is like 85% fire immune enemies, and half of what's left is fire resistant to some degree. Part Six isn't quite that bad, but it's still probably 50% fire immune enemies, with an additional 35% fire resistant.
Yeah, the whole concept is being re-thought. The Suli Paladin is really excited though.
Its a shame that there aren't more Cold or other energy based spells out there, though I see no reason why most existing fire spells can't be easily flavored with other energy types (like Vitriolic Mist vs. Fire Shield does).
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Its a shame that there aren't more Cold or other energy based spells out there, though I see no reason why most existing fire spells can't be easily flavored with other energy types
There are ways for a spellcaster to alter the energy type of a spell cast. The Elemental Spell metamagic feat is the key. +1 level to the spell in order to change it to the one type of energy you need it to be most. Combine that with Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus in that energy type and you have one nicely built, single energy-type spellcaster. So if those Ifrits decide they want to be Undines instead, they can just change all of their fire spells into cold spells. Or perhaps Oreads and acid, or Sylph and electricity.
Its a shame that there aren't more Cold or other energy based spells out there, though I see no reason why most existing fire spells can't be easily flavored with other energy typesThere are ways for a spellcaster to alter the energy type of a spell cast. The Elemental Spell metamagic feat is the key. +1 level to the spell in order to change it to the one type of energy you need it to be most. Combine that with Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus in that energy type and you have one nicely built, single energy-type spellcaster. So if those Ifrits decide they want to be Undines instead, they can just change all of their fire spells into cold spells. Or perhaps Oreads and acid, or Sylph and electricity.
I think that's an unnecessary bit of rules-based legwork. PC's can research their own spells. GM's can create their own spells. The idea that you can alter a ball of exploding flame to crackling electricity via feat but that there isn't or can't be a spell that does the same thing seems ridiculous to me. Even elemental sorcerers get to cast variants of established energy spells as spells themselves.
Any spell that deals energy damage should exist in all energy versions, with things like admixture or Elemental Spell only being useful when you want to change a prepared spell on the fly (which in and of itself is very useful).
You could suggest that one of the sorcerers play a Flame Oracle (perhaps with the Blackened curse). Spontaneous casting fire spells with Charisma fits the bill, and a little healing on the side wouldn't hurt. Convince your DM to let the Fire Affinity ability apply on the oracle's Mystery spells and effects.
If the other one plays an Elemental bloodline sorcerer instead of the Primal Fire one, he would have a LOT more versatility (he could take all the other element spells and convert them to fire when facing non-resistant enemies).