Bit of a Carrion Crown spoiler so I'll spoiler the details. The basics are, we're running a Gestalt campaign as a side game to our first game, and I'm GM-ing this one, we're doing Carrion Crown, and the party had just leveled up to level 3 (it's our second session, I put it on the fast track so we could catch up to our original campaign in levels). I have bumped up a few encounters to compensate for the players' generally good ACs, and the Eidolon and Catfolk Barbarian's sheer damage output.
The only things that really gave them pause were a room with a Cold Spot and the room with Old Ember Maw in it, which they quickly figured out how to bypass completely while moving around the prison. The first floor was dealt with in short order, and with a clear mission finally (destroy the five Prisoners) the newly minted level 3 party headed upstairs.
All was well for about 5 minutes up there. They killed some Stirges, bada bing, and they moved on. Next place they headed to was Father Charlatan's Cell. I had made it clear after a slight altercation with the Summoner player upon entering the prison in the first place, that the Eidolon did not count as a player for most things (half of Carrion Crown is rendered moot when you can just make the Eidolon take one for the team), which I handwaved as the spirits not being interested in Outsiders and animals like the Raptor companion, and when he asked how they could know that I said the Splatter Man had a really good Kn. Planes bonus and that he had spread the word. So the Eidolon doesn't trigger Haunts and traps upon walking into them. He can make his nearly godlike (for level 3) Perception to find out if one is THERE (which he did) but he can't set them off.
Anyway, the Eidolon walks into the room and hears the faint jingling of chains and such, and I ask if anyone else walks in there to check it out, expecting one or two people to be curious enough to walk in (instead of doing the whole "last to walk out" thing I was going to just roll a die and see who came up). Nope, they'd had enough of Haunts after Old Ember Maw nearly ganked my Cleric/Alchemist GMPC/Healer/Device Monkey, so everyone stayed out.
Everyone except Seeth, the Catfolk Fightarian. So Seeth walks out with Father Charlatan's ghost shoved down his pants.
Now of course, the next logical place to go is the nice hallway full of cells that look interesting, and none are the wiser that the big FC is shadowing Seeth. So they get there, I roll a d4 for random number of rounds before the skeletons wake up (3), and in the meanwhile they're busting open the cells to see if any of the skeletons shout "Boo!". After 3 rounds and 3 opened cells, they do indeed. Now to make the skeletons at least somewhat of a challenge, I had hyped them up a bit. I was nice, and let there only be 5 skeletons (instead of the 7-8 there should have been with cells cracked open) who came after the PCs in all of their Advanced Templated glory. The players did well for a while. They were doing solid damage to the skeletons, and the skeletons were having a hard time hitting the PCs even with their +7 attack bonus (I don't think anyone had below an 18 besides the Cleric, at 17 and the Summoner at like 13, and the Eidolon and Armored Hulk/Fighter had a whopping 25 and 22 respectively).
So the Skeletons are all about half dead, save two, especially after the Cleralchemist channels for 2d6 on a few. And then the dice showed their fickle nature, and the PCs whiffed on every attack for two rounds in a row, while the skeletons nearly killed the Eidolon. More importantly, Seeth finally took a hit. To make it realistic, I played it off as some kind of special attack from his skeleton (who had hit nothing yet) and rolled something like 4d6+20 instead of the actual 2d6+8 (two claws) I marked down. For bonus points, it dealt exactly 32 damage (Seeth's HP remaining after an earlier encounter with the Cold Spot), so he drops unconscious. I inform him to make a Will save, he obviously fails with his whopping +3 (I let him keep his Rage bonus that round) and he keels over. I inform him he's dead and that he needs to leave the "room" while I chat with him over Steam.
He does so, and he repeatedly fails Will saves while the PCs are getting their behinds whipped by the skeletons (who still number 5) because they can't roll a solid hit. Realizing that a DC 15 save is nearly impossible for Seeth, and not wishing to murder a PC after only two sessions, I drop the DC down to 12 and he manages to only fail 4 times instead of all 6. While he required a healing potion (CMW) be shoved down his throat to survive, he was fairly safe after Protection From Evil was cast by Ramon (Cleric), and he made it through with a whopping 5 HP left, Charlatan defeated. The problem is, the skeletons were still going strong and the Eidolon was at 8 HP and Seeth was at 5, so the heavy hitters were out of the game almost, and the others were looking the worse for wear as well. Realizing I may have overbuffed the skeletons (I gave them 30 HP because that was roughly the amount of damage Seeth and the Eidolon could deal on a near-max blow, and bumped the AC by 2 to 18), I dropped the HP down surreptitiously so the party could kill them quickly and they were mopped up singlehandedly by the Cleric (the Summoner's player left and the rest of the party was nervous, a Channel to Nuke Undead and a CMW on the one with the most HP finished them off) who ushered them off before they stumbled down the hallway directly into the Piper, and that's where the session ended.
So, was it mostly that I overbuffed the skeletons (or did I do so at all)? Should I have had the Haunt attack someone who at least had a chance of making the saves unaided? Was it just a combination of terrible rolls and my own goof ups?
Would you have handled it differently at all? I feel kinda bad about this because I had expected the encounters (taken separately) to be challenging, but not overwhelmingly so, and they ended up being a pretty grueling mess as a whole (the whole thing took like two hours total, it was messed up), when all I wanted was a challenge and a bit of a laugh at how they thought a PC had died when the Haunt triggered.
Did anyone die? I may have missed something, but I think they all lived. All you did was make them sweat a little.
If you went wrong anywhere, it was upping the skeletons AC and hps. It doesn't add anything to the encounter, it just makes it take longer. Longer battles tend to be hard on PCs. It's been a long time since I played gestalt, but I think they recommend bumping encounters up a CR or two? I would look at templates that add special abilities, or adding another monster that will add some variety to the encounter.
No one died, but I don't think there was a single player besides the Cleric (who hung back until the last minute) who was above 10 HP by the end, and all of these skeletons could deal that with their two claws if they got a hit, and the Barbarian was knocked below 0 HP twice and managed to limp away with only 5.
And that's a good point. I probably should've made them burning skeletons or something more interesting rather than just making them harder to kill.
I just hate having made an encounter that took so long inadvertently. I had expected one of the big melee classes to make a big hit and utterly flatten one of them at some point, but it never happened and it just dragged on and on and on until everyone was about taken out by the Death of a Thousand Cuts. If my GMPC Cleric (a Pharasman, for just this reason) hadn't been there it would likely have been a wipe.
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No one died. They got by by the skin of their teeth. They had a fun game. You learned a valuable session. Seems like things went well.
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It sounds like it didn't go that badly unless everyone was bored during the fight.
That said, as far as making more powerful monsters go, IME its nearly always better to just increase HP than it is to raise attack and AC bonuses. It's much easier to predict the outcome of your changes based on changing the size of a health bar than it is when you screw with all the various characters' different odds of hitting. Rather than double their HD (with the double-dipping into attack bonuses, AC, saves, and feats that implies), you are usually better off just saying "These skeletons have maximum HP on all their dice!" Makes the monster reliably twice as difficult with less luck involved all around. Give them a special ability with damage or DCs appropriate to the original level if you think they still need a little something something.
As a rule of thumb, I suggest that if the main attack roll of the most accurate fighter in the party has less than a 50% chance for the player to hit the monster's AC, its too much for the party to handle.
It's not foolproof, but it usually works, and you can adapt that to other comparisons too; Use the highest stat in the party against the monster's average counterpart. Party's best spell DCs vs monster's average save, Player's highest saves vs. average monster ability DCs, Highest player AC vs average monster attacks.
Hm, that's a good point too. Though the main fighter did have a solid chance to hit him (he has something like a +9 to hit when Raging)...buuuut he was the one that got dropped by the evil Padre. It's kind of funny that he's the one who got hit, because he's one of the more overly cautious players (in our other game he was Druid), and he's slowly been becoming a more active investigator and participant with this campaign. Hope he doesn't think I was trying to "teach him a lesson" for sticking his neck out that one time. XD
Toying with the idea of making a skeleton "Haunt" out of bleeding skeletons, similar to the Slamming Portal at the very entrance of the prison.
I have no idea why I thought 30 HP was a good idea in hindsight, I should've just made them barely tough enough to take one of the average hits from the Big Guys in the group rather than banking on them hitting max damage at least once.
That last bit sounds perfect, sorta. I don't really like putting the monster up to the highest player's stats because it seems like sometimes that makes it difficult for the lowest party member in that stat to make a difference at all. I think putting it somewhere between the second highest and the highest, or directly on the second highest might be better for this group, because there's a pretty large gap between what one guy's good at and what another guy sucks at.
All in all though I think it was more bad luck than over their head except where I derped on the HP and AC feeding off each other. But they got a good chunk of EXP (enough to push them up to halfway to the next level thereabouts) from those encounters and what I'd marked down for what the EXP had been bumped to, so they're excited about that at the very least.
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One thing I am very careful about when scaling encounters is scaling BOTH AC and HP. For most parties at low to mid level those are the two main things that control encounter length. Upping both of them typically causes encounter lengths to extend longer than it seems it will.
In general I will scale HP before AC, just because it's more fun when the party members hit the monsters. Also scaling AC really favors the optimized characters in the party and exacerbates any issues with differential effectiveness in the party.
Otherwise I don't really have any issue with what you did.
I have been known to shave off a few monster hit points here or there in the middle of an encounter if I think I need to... ("You hit, how much damage? 15? OK [deducts 25 from monster hit], that looks like it hurt.")
This fight at almost wiped my party too. we were playing normal, at level, no adjusted monsters, outcome was really close to the same, almost a TPK. IIR there were 7 or 8 skeletons for us
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When I see the word "gestalt" I think that the problem is identified. Balancing for gestalt is just to touchy - you either get milquetoast or overkill.
Gestalt has been a bit tricky, but it's a helluva lot of fun to play. Allows for a bit more versatility of concept in some areas, or an improvement on what you already wanted to do (Our Summoner is a Bard, for example). I think I've just about hit the right range now though. I need a combination of "Easy enough to hit, but good damage and solid HP" for a Gestalt, especially once the Barbarian gets a few levels higher, because he already has the potential to unleash massive damage.
So I think what I'll do is leave most ACs alone unless they're under 12-14 (in which case I'll bump them up to there), then give them max HP or a little higher for that monster, and then bump their damage up either a couple of flat points or by a damage step (effectively giving Improved Natural Attack as a bonus Feat for NA's), and then throw in a mix of non-CR or very little CR raising templates (have the skeletons be a mix of Burning, Bloody, Acid, etc.).
But yeah, I think if I had actually made it 7 skeletons (as it should've been, there were supposed to be 4 skeletons besides the doors they opened) it might've actually resulted in at least one death unless they managed to run away and not get killed by the Haunts and such on the way out. The Haunts I've been pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of, Old Ember Maw in particular is a solid "Don't come here" deterrent.
You can, for sure.
One thing that I took to doing in 3.5 when I ran a gestalt was taking similar abilities and actually giving a single pool or blending abilities together. You might want to look at doing that, if you're going gestalt. It actually helps keep book-keeping down (though it's a bit tougher in PF than 3.5, as the various little abilities are so... varied).
For example, I determined that one character's bardsong and turn undead happened at the same time. With the exception of range they were mostly the same in terms of use/day, and it was flavored that by singing for the glory of her god (Pelor), the player was inspiring her comrades and channeling divine wrath against the wicked.
You may wish to do that to streamline a gestalt game, especially in PF, as it has so many "fiddly" bits to it... though it is a more difficult task, I admit.
One other example in PF is in a home brew I'm working on, I'm applying some traits from some classes into others (it's not true "gestalting" but it takes a number of pages from that). So alchemists, for example, will choose a specialty school, an element, and a subschool, and gain all those abilities but, where appropriate, the abilities they gain come from a similar "pool" (usually 3+INT/day). This allows much of the variety of gestalting without the bookkeeping (okay, this power has been used how much? This spells how often? Wait, did I cast divine or arcane this round? etc.)
Now this isn't the only way to do it, and if you're enjoying it, by all means continue!
I simply bring that up because it's a bit easier to balance for, I found (also brings it a bit more in line with the concept of gestalting the saves/hp/bab/etc).
We've had a lot of fun with gestalt campaigns (and non-gestalt campaigns, for that matter) and while gestalt can be swingy, generally we've found that granting both players and monsters maximum hp and (though this template didn't exist in 3.5) granting monsters the advanced template (or something similar, and/or celestial/fiendish/etc templates) brings it pretty close in terms of similarity. The primary difference, of course, being the hp increase and the AC synergize really well in mosnters' cases.
Also, it's not quite as bad as my first Star Wars d20 encounter... I nearly killed all of my characters the first time they ran into danger (none had more than 2 hp left... as they ran away). Made it very hard to summon up enthusiasm for continuing the game... alas. :)
EDIT: you ninja'd me. Your ideas sound pretty solid! Will critique more later. :)
I streamlined the Gestalt as much as possible. Combining Spells Per Day so they don't get separate spell pools to draw from, things like Ki Pool/Arcane Pool just stack together (though nobody has one), things like that.
Funny thing is, the big problem everyone latched onto (boosted HP + boosted AC) comes from me buffing the HP and then deciding to add the Advanced Template to all of these guys.
I really like Templates though. It'd be easier if we were fighting zombies, I figured something like Fast Plague Zombies or a Void Apocalypse Zombie would be frightening enough without buffed anything else. Not until higher levels though before I start mixing templates, but any one of those 4.
Sadly, there are no zombies in Harrowstone. Maybe I need to fix that where appropriate, there are some places (mostly in the dungeon) where it seems sealed enough that all the flesh wouldn't have rotted maybe.
Edit: Thanks!
I'm trying to find the right balance between "fun and challenging" and "challenging and a slog", so hopefully I'll be able to find that before next session (should be 2 weeks, I think we're going back to Serpent's Skull next week).
in a gestalt game, do you make the NPCs gestalt also? how does that turn out?
Actually, I did so (at least for important NPCs), and in some cases bumped up NPC classes to full PC classes. I'm particularly proud of Sheriff Caeller's promotion to a Gunslinger/Rogue (Investigator) Gestalt. The image of him in the cowboy hat and what seems to be maybe a longcoat was too much to hold out against temptation. The others I bumped up to Gestalts follow a similar formula, flavor over substance and one "in combat" class and one "out of combat" class.
Some I just bumped up to PC classes if it was extremely unlikely for them to fight (the Dwarf Blacksmith guy became a level 5 or 6 full Fighter instead of a level 8 or 9 Fighter/Warrior multiclass for example).
So the PCs aren't in this world where they're the only ones who've mastered the art of being two different classes.
Though it hasn't really "worked out" so far, the PCs haven't been in an encounter with an enemy with class levels yet. I think Vorch will be their first and I made him a Fighter/Undecided 3. He may just stay a straight Fighter, though he definitely has a "Blind Monk" vibe to him I think could work.
That last bit sounds perfect, sorta. I don't really like putting the monster up to the highest player's stats because it seems like sometimes that makes it difficult for the lowest party member in that stat to make a difference at all. I think putting it somewhere between the second highest and the highest, or directly on the second highest might be better for this group, because there's a pretty large gap between what one guy's good at and what another guy sucks at.
That works. The important thing is that every character should usually be able to do their strongest schtick to it without failing most of the time. I can only really think of two exceptions:
+ Those cases where you want your monster to have a very strong resistance or immunity to a specific kind of attack (Say, a dodgy NPC rogue vs a PC blaster wizard, or powerful undead with Turn Resistance). And for most mooks, a strength like that has to come with a weakness somewhere else.
+ The (very) rare monster you actually *want* to be an unbeatable terror and that your players know in advance they will need to flee from. And there, you have to be sure they *can* actually get away. Speeds higher than 30 are evil.
TPKs are always the fault of the players.
Do you mind a brief/light post of what your group consists of?
Seeth, Catfolk Fighter/Barbarian
<?>, ??? Summoner/??? (and Eidolon)
<?>, ??? Armored Hulk/???
Ramon, ??? Alchemist/Cleric (GMPC)
Am I reading that right? The Armored Hulk could be your catfolk, though, so, I don't know.
That would also seem strange that they couldn't hit ACs given their basic attack power. Also what point-buy are you using (or rolling method or straight up stat-assignment)?
One of the things with both a hit point and AC boost is that it's really subtle. It's quite a strangely swingy factor.
Also, the hp increase of the skeletons seems quit substantial (up from the normal four, or, if maxed out, eight, if you're using normal skeletons - I don't have the HoH in front of me, so I can't say for sure, though), so that probably has something to do with it.
The maximum hp (occasionally, if they need it, adding in Toughness) and +2 AC don't usually cause that much trouble for a given level/CR, but it can definitely do so at lower levels.
I do tend to prefer to 'ad hoc' additional hp over AC, though. It lengthens the fight without making them harder to hit (and also can be quite impressive when you slam into the guy and he doesn't really flinch).
Seeth: Catfolk Natural Attack (Two claw + bite) Barbarian/Fighter, he was using his Earth breaker to crush skeletons when he was taken down by the one in front of him.
Maudril: Aasimar Summoner/Bard and Eidolon (Uttaushala). He usually stays back and sings Inspire Courage while the Eidolon wrecks things and people.
Pending Patent: Half-Orc Armored Hulk/Fighter, sword and board. Uses a longsword to decent effect, usually forgets to Rage but he's got the highest HP and highest non-buffed AC of the party anyway to make up for it.
Ramon Veracruz: Human Cleric of Pharasma/Alchemist (Grenadier). I set him up so that he didn't have to be with the party the whole time ("Well Ramon's back at the Temple taking care of things"), but he's got the Souls and Healing Domains so he can get them out of pickles when he needs to, and Disable Device because everybody's response to "Locked door" would have been "Smash it down!" (which they did once anyway, Seeth busted down the big metal door to the property room).
Candice Root: Changeling Fighter/Druid (TWF with a Warhammer and Gladius) and Raptor (Bob). She was fighting the same skeleton that dropped Seeth so she drug him out of combat over to where Ramon could tend to him (After a round where it was clear he would be failing nearly every Will save, Protection From Evil became super effective and dealt 2d6) and where she could be on hand to shove healing potions down his throat when he dropped unconscious again.
We're rolling stats and everybody got a really good (Having nothing below 14 and 19-20 in their main stat good) point buy except for Seeth (He had something like 14 12 11 11 11, 13), so I gave him a pseudo-point buy where I took points from his nonessentials and put them in Str (so he has 20 now) Dex (he has 14 after Racial modifiers) and Con (14), while dropping his Wis/Cha to 10 and Int up to 12 (everyone else had lods of skill points, he needed some).
Now, everyone has a decent to-hit. The Eidolon has +6 when Power Attacking, Seeth has +8 (+10 when Raging), Pending has +8 (+10 when Raging), Candice has +6, Ramon Channels and uses touch attacks, and Maudril has something like +5. And the Raptor can't hit the broad side of a barn sometimes (+3). And that's not counting that a few have Masterwork weapons (though Candice TWFs so she's at a usual +4) and Inspire Courage was playing, so I figured an 18 AC was doable until nobody rolled over a 3 for a while.
But yeah, the combination of the +2 AC and the almost 4x HP made it tougher than it needed to be. They got a big chunk of EXP and a couple of Masterwork weapons I'd put in there anyways, making everybody Masterwork weapons-wise (Hey, if all the prisoners are using rusty scimitars and wearing chain mail there must be some loot around), so everyone's happy and have a memorable story, right up there with the SS game where the Sorcerer was almost eaten by the Chupacabra at level 2.
Hopefully so. This is why we decided to run this, to work out the kinks in a Gestalt campaign (we call it our "Experimental" campaign), as well as a few other house rules. Though the entire party is not melee oriented, it's just the majority. Both Ramon and Maudril are archers, though Ramon (me) himself has only used his bow once, preferring to toss Bombs, now that he has Precise Bombs, or fling spells around. I'm debating making him more of a switch hitter type though, throwing Bombs as he closes in to melee, but I'm not sure about that.
Seeth is the character of our weakest optimizer, as you can probably tell. In SS he had a Druid with only 13 Wisdom and 19 Con. Though his new Magus seems like he's learned his lesson on that, he still doesn't have the same grasp of the rules some of the other players do and I've mostly been trying to steer him away from the extremely poor options. He HAS built an absolutely brutal melee combatant. The one swing he got in was at minimum damage and it almost mulched the skeleton that hit him the next turn, though his AC is sub-par (18) comparatively.
Now Candice is debating taking my offer to let her player respec a little to Cleric/Fighter. He wanted Candice to be able to Channel, and the only way I could figure it would be for him to blow 3 Feats on a nerfed Channel. So I gave him the option to be a Cleric of Erastil (most likely) so he can keep his Animal Companion and still be a TWF-ing Healer/Undead Nuker with the Animal and Good Domains.
I extended the same "You can respec a bit if you don't like your execution of your concept" courtesy to everyone else too.
TPKs are always the fault of the players.
Exactly. I'm running a Pathfinderized Shackled City campaign right now. I've TPKed the party of 6 three times in the first three sections. After a TPK I give the party an option to do over. They always do fine on the second try, and not just because they know the fight.
do over? like sonic he hedge hog? maybe they TPK so often because they seem to know they will just get a do over. they would likely act differently of they didnt know there was a do over.
Would kill some of my fun, personally.
True.
I think most everyone is fine with dying as long as it's a fair death. If it's one of the normal, by-the-book encounters and they die they'll just roll a new guy. I made it clear going in that the AP was fairly tough and some of 'em might die, but I want to avoid doing that just because I f@+%ed up.
But I do know a few ways to bring the more "show stealing" PCs down a notch if I need to, it's the "how to bring up the stragglers without making the heavy hitters too powerful" thing that may be an issue some time. I don't think most of them are prepared for someone like the Splatter Man.
Curious has this group run into Splatterman yet?
That's umm a challenging encounter, especially for this group.
No, they haven't. The Charlatan was their first taste of the Prisoners, and if they keep on their current course the Piper will be their next Prisoner.
What I'm worried about is they'll get a long hard look at the "tricksy" (I'd personally use the word "douchey") Haunts first, and then be wholly unprepared for the face-eating attack power of the Lopper and Splatter Man (and to a lesser extent Vorch).
On the bright(?) side, if they die to those guys it won't be because I buffed them, and it'd give 'em good indicator of what they need to survive in a campaign like this.
do over? like sonic he hedge hog? maybe they TPK so often because they seem to know they will just get a do over. they would likely act differently of they didnt know there was a do over.
Would kill some of my fun, personally.
Even though we've had three TPKs, I've killed at least seven characters who have been replaced without getting a do over. I'm a firm believer in making the adventure dangerous, there's no point in making it a cake-walk.
I give them the option for a do over only when there is a TPK. We have three players running six characters, it's not always fun to build a whole new party. Although, that's what is happening after this last TPK. They're making a new party to find out what happened to the last party.
TSM is going to be a beast encounter for your mostly bashy party.
I don't recall lopper being particularly hard.
How is it they did things like old ember maw, but missed lopper, then went up two levels to deal with FC and Piper in the attic?
I'm curious... how'd this group deal with the front door?
The Lopper is in the dungeon. They went upstairs because the dungeon stairs were buried and they didn't want to take the hours to dig 'em out just yet.
I'm not sure what you mean. There are only three levels (ground floor, upper floor, and dungeon) so they only climbed one flight of stairs (Ember Maw is on the ground floor).
The front door? You mean the Will save one or the Slamming Portal Haunt?
One the Summoner got hit with (that's the altercation we had, when I told him his Eidolon didn't count as a player for most things in there), and the SPH they just busted through.
They explored every room on the ground floor (talked to Vesorianna and agreed to help, found the Property Room/Hidden stuff, ran like hell from Old Ember Maw after Ramon got hit by almost max damage from Scorching Ray, etc.), and then decided to go up.
Candice is debating getting Mother's Gift as her level 3 Feat, so maybe that'll help with ol' Splatty.
They completely bypassed pretty much everything o the Grounds after they explored the Observation Towers and had to run away from the rat swarm. They were almost gonna mess with the pond, but decided not to, and they passed the Kn. Engineering/Perception check to see the house wasn't safe, and after all that they just said "F#*& it, let's go inside.".
my bad, i thought maw was in the dungeon next to the dwarf with the hammer, must be remembering it wrong.....
the door gave us bones..... ended up needing a little Dm Fiat to get past.
Nop. The Marauder is the one next to the Torture Chamber Haunt (Mourning Maiden).
What do you mean the door gave you bones? I think your GM might've shifted some things around to keep it interesting, in the book at least the front door(s) are just a Will save to avoid being shaken for 1d4 rounds and a simple Slamming Portal Haunt in the Foyer. Pretty standard/boring fare, but it adjoins more dangerous stuff.
door kept closing, kept failing saves, kept closing
Since people have been commenting on party makeup already, I figured I'd put this here. We're possibly getting a new member and he wants to fill the blasty bang bang magic category we're missing.
So, what are your thoughts on a Gunslinger (Pistolero)/Spellsinger Wizard combo?
And yes, I've made guns commonplace for him. No, enemies will not be precluded from using them in that case.
why go gunslinger, why not just stick with spellslinger?
why go gunslinger, why not just stick with spellslinger?
Gestalt, remember?
This way he gets gun training and all that good stuff but can fire magic bullets.
And "free" Dragon's Breath rounds with Burning hands.
I did not read the whole thread as I am going to work, but Carrion Crown can be very very tough, especially the first book. Every session I played in our group almost TPK'd it seemed, it honeslty just makes the AP more fun and memorable, every night we sat at the table we were afraid for our PCs life.