I agree more with Rynjin than anything. Also, try not to put words in my mouth next time.
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Entertaining defeat vs boring victory? That's a tough one. Obviously entertaining defeat is more fun but the price is too steep! Rather live to fight many more battles. Hopefully more exciting ones then dull ones.
A defeat doesn't mean Death unless your Party is stupid.
Still doesn't work - the Death domain lets you heal from negative energy as if undead. However, when channeling you have to specify if you're channeling to heal or channeling to harm. A Death domain cleric can channel negative to heal himself, but he cannot harm anyone with the same action. If he channels to harm, he does not heal.Just thought I'd point out, this isn't quite accurate. When you channel energy you choose who to target, living or undead. (It's a slight difference that only matters in rare cases, such as the Dhampir which is living, but is targeted as though it were an undead creature. It may well apply in this situation though, can't say for sure.)
The rules say:
An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) channels negative energy and can choose to deal damage to living creatures or to heal undead creatures.
The two choices are: damage the living, or heal the undead. If a dhampir channels negative to harm the living, it neither takes nor heals damage because it "reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead."
However, I will admit I was wrong about the Death domain cleric - it can harm living and heal itself in the same action, because it says "you heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energy." I was originally reading that as being rather redundant with the next line, "If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area", but they're actually two separate abilities.
Dhampir (or any other undead) cleric:
- Channel positive to heal living: no effect
- Channel positive to harm undead: take damage
- Channel negative to harm living: no effect
- Channel negative to heal undead: heal
Death domain cleric:
- Channel positive to heal living: heal
- Channel positive to harm undead: no effect
- Channel negative to harm living: heal
- Channel negative to heal undead: heal
So the only actual commonality is that they both heal from negative energy that targets undead. And the Death cleric, but not the undead/dhampir cleric, can harm and heal with the same action.
edit: I now realize there's another way to read it, which is that dhampir are targeted as living but respond as undead. So then they'd react like:
- Channel positive to heal living: take damage
- Channel positive to harm undead: no effect
- Channel negative to harm living: heal
- Channel negative to heal undead: no effect
I forgot about channel being separated to heal and harm.
Wait so if a cleric is effected by his own channel, why don't living evil clerics take damage when they channel negative to harm the living?
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They can exclude themselves as Channel targets. It's in the rules.
Oh ok. Duh.
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The wording on
@OP
To be honest, your party has huge DCs and it's probably your fault that you gave them in the first place. :/
Just out of curiosity, how does the hex DC get up to 31? DC is 10+1/2 lvl+Int mod, I imagine there are feats but I never play Witch.Actually, as the player in question, it's a DC 30, but only when combined with Evil Eye and cackle.
Level 10 Scarred Witch Doctor, level 1 Urban Barbarian. Ends up with a 28 Con while using controlled rage, and a 26 DC on the save (after the ability focus feat was taken for the hex at level 11)
10 + 5 (half witch level ) + 9 (con mod) + 2 (ability focus) is 26.
Evil eye with cackle to reduce saves by 4, then apply ice tomb. Its technically DC26 with a -4 penalty on the dice roll, requires 2 rounds to do. DC30 is just the shorthand used to help the DM out from having to calculate everything individually.
So you're using one standard action to evil eye, then one move equiv to cackle, then another standard to icy tomb, over the course of either 2 or 3 rounds, all within short range of the target.
I'm finding it hard to see what's so broken about this. All the target has to do is move out of range of the cackle and the whole combo is broken. Or, you know, stab you or something in the mean time.
Hell, if you allow age categories, then a base untyped witch can pull the same trick with INT pretty easily at your level.
In terms of an answer to the actual thread ...
One of my gaming groups is playing with an accelerated loot track, which puts us more powerful than modules for our level. To scale off-the shelf adventure paths, our GMs typically just throw the Advanced Template on everything, and it stays challenging. The problem with stock APs is they presume stock PCs. That's one of the reason I don't like pregenned modules.
So what's the drawback for Scarred Witch Doctor? Is there any? There doesn't seem to be, in the description.
So what's the drawback for Scarred Witch Doctor? Is there any? There doesn't seem to be, in the description.
Other than a distinctive lack of skills, and an impact on Knowledge and Spellcraft, there is none.
Well, I'd have to disagree with you, Icy. A hard fought defeat is more interesting by far than a steam rolling.
Since there is a good chance that after said hard-fought defeat the campaign is over and I can flush down several AP modules down the toilet, I strive to let the players win, even though the individual battles may be harrowing.
Since there is a good chance that after said hard-fought defeat the campaign is over and I can flush down several AP modules down the toilet, I strive to let the players win, even though the individual battles may be harrowing.
Ah, but defeat need not mean death.
An encounter that forces the party to use all their skills just to pull off a fighting retreat can be quite memorable.
And you can always make it to where the Enemies saved them in some way.
Try a 15-20 point build during character creation next time and houserule that no stat can go lower than 10. This is almost certainly the root of the problem.
As to how to fix it? Add +2-3 CR to EVERY remaining encounter in both remaining modules of the adventure path. If the module says one BBEG for an encounter, then triple it and use them all at once, not in waves.
Dont forget to add extra monsters for any players beyond the four PC requirement for the modules as well.
Some thoughts, to take or leave...
1) I am sure you have done this, but just as a note to cover all bases: check their character sheets and make sure all math and rules are being applied correctly. As noted especially with the cleric, something doesn't seem right with how that's working. Sometimes when something feels like it shouldn't add up--it's because something actually doesn't add up.
2) Their abilities are powerful, but it also looks like they've used some crazy feat combos and attack combos to do a few limited tricks. It is my experience that PCs who are essentially one trick ponies can then get easily stymied when that one trick doesn't work. What happens when an enemy is immune to negative energy? What happens when an enemy is immune to cold? What happens when an enemy is immune to paralysis? Powerful but level appropriate undead characters for example could shrug off both characters' signature tricks. I know you are limited to a degree to what they are going to fight and encounter in the AP, but it is still something to bear in mind.
3) If there is a situation where the PCs are fighting an organization, or otherwise the PCs' activities are becoming renowned, and the PCs repeatedly use the same tactics, their organized enemies are going to learn about these tactics and learn to prepare against them. This is not metagaming, this is intelligent characters gathering information and then preparing against it. Even if it's simply some guy having on hand an easy way to break the 20 HP of ice of the icy tomb so his ally can get back into the action (and said ally is now immune to icy tomb for the rest of the day), that's still something.
4) If the party is mowing through the encounters in the AP for whatever reason, they are obviously not challenging enough. I would suggest looking at the AP itself for its own suggestions as to how to scale up encounters. Also add more mooks, add sensible and appropriate environmental hazards, and similar but easy ways to help make things a little more challenging for the party. If you have a big bad coming up, double check his build and gear to be sure he has a way to avoid various save-or-die scenarios. Little is more frustrating to a GM than a BBEG who then gets dropped by a single well-placed spell, turning what was intended to be an epic fight into something laughed off. It should go without saying (and yet I find I have to qualify this) that all enemy preparations SHOULD MAKE SENSE--a guy who knows nothing about the party shouldn't just happen to have cast death ward, protection from cold, and freedom of movement before the party attacks--but where it does make sense to have a spell or item or feat or ability that helps them, by all means make sure they have it and use it.
5) IF ever appropriate, use similar tactics on them and see if suddenly they go, "Gee, that's broken!" Don't do it gleefully, don't do it vengefully, don't do it out of the blue. But if, for example, there's an enemy cleric of death already in a planned encounter in the AP, make sure he's got his channeling maxed out and see what happens.
I had a player once who spammed waves of exhaustion. It's a nasty mass debuff spell with no saving throw. We talked about houseruling a nerf for it, but the players weren't sure what to do. The PCs' enemies included devils--they knew this, they were very well aware of the fact they had enemies allied with the Hells. There were CR appropriate devils with waves of exhaustion as a spelllike ability. When that got used on them, there was a little more objection. When I asked again, "shall we discuss maybe houseruling it to be less powerful?" the response was much more enthusiastic than the first time.
6) This leads to the most important thing: talk to your players.Let them know you're frustrated, let them know you'd maybe like to talk about putting down some houserules--but absolutely make sure they are down with that and ask their advice on how to alter abilities without making them feel like they're losing a cool ability. Don't enforce anything without the group agreeing on it, but if they agree on some limitations, that can be a great help.
Also, there is a difference between a me versus them mentality, and wanting encounters to be appropriately challenging. A GM shouldn't want to "win," but a GM should want the party to feel like they had to work to get their victory. If the game isn't challenging and the party isn't expending great effort to overcome encounters, that's kind of boring for everyone ultimately. So it is right to be concerned about this, just be clear it's not about competition, it's about challenge.
So from what I'm seeing is a high level character who is built around a save or suck/die ability that takes a round of set up or more, and has extremely limited setup area.
High level characters are meant to be powerful. Powerful characters engaging in very short range makes for very short encounters. Its like ships of the line in the age of sail engaging broadsides at 20 meters.
On the build itself, witches have their hex tricks, that often take multiple rounds of setup. If the save is made quite often nothing happens at all. That means when the save is made the witches contribution is effectively 0. That is why save or suck characters max their save DC, because if they don't they wasted multiple turns on doing nothing. Having a character do nothing for several turns in high level play might mean a PC death.
High level play with decently optimized characters often resembles a game of rocket tag. Each attack from either side might be a encounter ender. The trick is to not get hit, while still attacking the enemy (which is why when you charge the enemy you better be able to drop it, unless you like eating full attacks or short range kill spells).
One of the problems I've found with the APs is they often have solos that have a high CR vs APL, which sounds like a tough encounter, but the action econ actually means they are often trivial (except if the BBEG actually hits a party member, he does hurt to get hit by). Add in that the AP writers don't prioritize initiative as much as parties often do, and you see a recipe for a quick beat-down.
Another problem with APs is they assume a party of 4 PCs using a 15 point buy. Any more than this and the encounter math will break down horrible. Challenging encounters become trivial. Easy encounters become wastes of time. For instance I'm running shattered star with a large party of 6-7 decently optimized characters depending on attendance. I've had to add enemies/templates to make the opposition a threat at all, as the low + to hit has almost no chance to harm any of the party members (the casters have ACs in the low 20s at level 1-4, the martial characters are even higher). I ran the same party through Legacy of Fire, and they stomped the Big Bad of that adventure in 3 combat rounds (though he did nearly kill a party member with a crit AoO).
I feel your pain chap, It's troublesome when it feels like the mobs are gonna get stomped no matter how you set them up.
I used to see the same thing back in 3.5 with high level rouges, which would melt faces with sneak attacks, most common advice I'd see is , "use guys that are immune to sneak attack" which generally meant you had two fights, those the rogue dominated, and those the rogue might as well have just slept though. it really wasn't fun either way.
The way I picture most of your fights going is, Witch prepares doom shot, bad guy either spends turn getting out of range, while getting pelted by the other pc's, or hits the witch, probally not one shotting her, then getting locked in place and battle is over, witch heals with spells and very little has been achieved.
I've started to feel that a bit with the gunslinger in my campaign and it's only been a few sessions since he got his autodisarm/autotrip shot 5 plus times a day. After a chat with him we've compromised that targets will only be effected once by each ability, no 5 turn chaining targets to the ground while the team rips the mob apart.
Honestly though, if your party is having fun, then it's all working, but I know how troublesome it is to be frustrated, they also shouldn't be surprized if you tailor encounters to be a challenge to their group specifically.
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I don't really have a specific topic-I just want to rant a bit and maybe get some feedback. I'm currently running the Jade Regent campaign and we are in book 4. I have a couple of players who pride themselves on some really well thought out character builds-along with excellent craft item checks. One of them is a Cleric negative energy channeler that requires a DC 25 will save from everything in a 30 ft radius or they take 8d6 dm-that he then heals-and he can do this at least 12 times a day. (he sucks in everything else-I was only able to take him out with an army of archers-that were specifically targeting him).
I've also got a player Witch that can cast Icy Tomb Hex with a DC Fort save of 31. They were up against the Swine Shogun and the monster failed the save (I rolled a 1-it happens) in the second round of combat-and with dead minions-courtesy of the channeler-it's game over. I'm not trying to kill the players or be malicious, but I do get frustrated especially when I plan an exciting combat and it's over with a Hex that I think is broken (the boss would have had to roll a 20 to pass the save.)
To be honest...
IMHO at least...
As a DM I see my job as to challenge the players, while making it fun.
Sometimes the fun takes the driver's seat (easy but memorable bar fight where someone ends up grappled in the buxom bar wench's cleavage) and other times the challenge takes centre stage ("That thing just ate Bob, let's get it!" <moments later> "You know, I never really liked Bob, and I think that far hill looks interesting, let's explore it!" <runs away>).
My own style is to default to challenges and try to paint a vivid picture of the events at hand (arterial spray washes up your hand as your short sword finds purchase in the goblin's jugular), which has me adopt one cardinal rule...
If the fight isn't challenging I will make it so.
That might mean adjusting on the fly. Heck I might have loaded a room with 8 treants (Dutch Elm Disease convention maybe?), but when the party goes Death Blossom and it's looking to be a rout then there's some attempt to make it something that people need to think in order to destroy. Mindlessly trying to roll shaped pieces of plastic in order to win is the quickest way back to your bind point in my game, as I reward smart play especially from those that made interesting characters (I simply don't reward optimization in the same way).
...for the tl;dr crowd...
To address the OP: I wouldn't try to take away the party's "I win" buttons, I would just toss in some smart foes and up the intensity on the encounters. Channeling for too much damage? Spread the foes out...blind the cleric...split the party up....give challenges that require some skill or skills to beat and show the optimized-combat only characters weaknesses.
They can exclude themselves as Channel targets. It's in the rules.Where? Just curious.
Second to last sentence in the Channel Energy class feature description.
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So what's the drawback for Scarred Witch Doctor? Is there any? There doesn't seem to be, in the description.Other than a distinctive lack of skills, and an impact on Knowledge and Spellcraft, there is none.
That's pretty lame. Not sure I agree with the balance on that archetype at all.
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Assuming you would be Human either way (using Racial Heritage to qualify for the archetype), the drawback is that you lose one feat, your first hex is kind of lame, you don't have a familiar, and you have hit points instead of skill ranks.
That's a pretty shallow cost for being able to play the most literally SAD class in the game.
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Players need to self-police (i.e. curb their must "win" mentality). GM's are supposed to have fun too. I would have most likely fudged that DC 31 save roll. The BBEG is suppose to be a challenge.
Amen to that - only needing one stat at 14 (STR) lets that orc archetype rock n roll to a fare-thee-well.
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Also, Scarred Witch Doctor is right up there with Synthesist in Super Questionable Archetypes.
Unless they've errata'd it, I think the Beast-Bonded Witch who intentionally dies and lives inside the 20 HD Hommunculus familiar probably smokes all Super Questionable Archetypes.
Design Manager
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Rumpin- if I had to guess, that'd be the Death Domain.Still doesn't work - the Death domain lets you heal from negative energy as if undead. However, when channeling you have to specify if you're channeling to heal or channeling to harm. A Death domain cleric can channel negative to heal himself, but he cannot harm anyone with the same action. If he channels to harm, he does not heal.
The Death Domain actually says "At 8th level, you heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energy. If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area." So it does two things.
1)You heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energyand
2)If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area.
So if you're channeling to harm living, you get healed instead. And if you're channeling to heal undead, you gain the benefits of healing there as well. It's a legit build.
The Death Domain actually says "At 8th level, you heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energy. If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area." So it does two things.
1)You heal damage instead of taking damage from channeled negative energyand
2)If the channeled negative energy targets undead, you heal hit points just like undead in the area.
So if you're channeling to harm living, you get healed instead. And if you're channeling to heal undead, you gain the benefits of healing there as well. It's a legit build.
You're right, I acknowledged later in the thread I was wrong and the way he was playing is legal. I didn't realize at first that the Death domain gave both abilities, I was misinterpreting the first ability as being redundant with the second.
Unless they've errata'd it, I think the Beast-Bonded Witch who intentionally dies and lives inside the 20 HD Hommunculus familiar probably smokes all Super Questionable Archetypes.
I haven't heard of this before, but it seems to have some major limitations. It costs 40K, requires 5 feats (3 crafting, Improved Familiar, and Silent Spell if you want to cast) and bumps up all your spell levels by 1. If you want a Helm of Telepathy in order to communicate with anyone, that's also another 27K. Seems like you're sacrificing a lot of power, but I can see how getting construct traits and the extra HD is worth it.
Hey everybody, I've read the comments and really appreciate the feedback. It seems like the general consensus is to boost the encounters...which I plan to do once we come back from our Xmas break. Being a GM is both an art and a science...and I'm constantly looking to grow and learn.
This is actually one of the first times I've posted in a Paizo forum...so thanks.
BTW I didn't actually state that the Shogun was a BBEG, but I was really looking forward to a fun fight with a pig loving hobgoblin.
Anyway, me and the player are going to talk more about this over a couple of frosties.