One of my player's is playing a Tiefling Paladin and is working on an intimidate build using the following feats and abilities. (Spoilered for wall of text)
Skill - Intimidate
Demoralize: You can use this skill to cause an opponent to become shaken for a number of rounds. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target's Hit Dice + the target's Wisdom modifier. If you are successful, the target is shaken for 1 round. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. You can only threaten an opponent in this way if they are within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you. Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition.
Feat - Persuasive and Persuasive (Mythic)
Benefit: You get a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate skill checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in one of these skills, the bonus increases to +4 for that skill.
Mythic - Benefit: The bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate skill checks granted by Persuasive increases by 2. In addition, you can expend one use of mythic power to treat a Diplomacy or Intimidate check as if you had rolled a natural 20.
Mythic Ability - Display of Charisma (Su) As a free action, you can expend one use of mythic power to attempt a feat of Charisma, gaining a +20 circumstance bonus on one Charisma-based skill check or Charisma ability check.
Feat - Cornugon Smash
Benefit: When you damage an opponent with a Power Attack, you may make an immediate Intimidate check as a free action to attempt to demoralize your opponent.
Feat - Ancestral Scorn
Benefit: Whenever you successfully demoralize an outsider of the evil subtype with an Intimidate check, it becomes sickened for 1 round in addition to being affected by the normal effects of being demoralized. If you beat the DC by 5 or more, the creature is nauseated for 1 round instead.
Feat - Dreadful Carnage
Benefit: Whenever you reduce an enemy to 0 or fewer hit points, you can make an Intimidate check to demoralize all enemies within 30 feet as a free action. Enemies that cannot see both you and the enemy you reduced to 0 or fewer hit points are unaffected.
Feat - Dreadful Carnage (Mythic)
Benefit: When you use Dreadful Carnage, you affect non-mythic enemies within 60 feet in addition to all enemies within 30 feet. You can expend one use of mythic power before making the Intimidate check to cause enemies demoralized by Dreadful Carnage to become frightened instead of shaken, for the same duration as the normal shaken effect. While frightened by this ability, an enemy takes a penalty equal to your tier on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.
Condition - Nauseated Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.
Condition - Frightened A frightened creature flees from the source of its fear as best it can. If unable to flee, it may fight. A frightened creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. A frightened creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape.
With the bonuses the PC gets he will succeed 95%+ of the time with his intimidate checks (I'll show figures below to support this). I am aware that the intimidate check takes a -5 for each addition use but with his numbers this won't really make much of an affect.
The basic result of this is two options that he will have access to:
1) With Cornugon Smash and Ancestral Scorn he will get a free intimidate check on every creature he hits and if they are evil outsiders (which a majority of the creatures in this AP are) he will nauseate them, effectively rendering them useless in the combat.
2) With Dreadful Carnage(Mythic) the first creature he drops below 0 hp's will make every other opponent frightened. Which effectively ends the combat.
These abilities are not just going to to affect the lower level opponents they will affect the top level opponents for each module. I am including detailed spoilers below for the main bad guys in each of the top 3 modules but the same applies for other levels.
The Midnight Isles (AP 4)
The PC will have an Intimidate check of: 14 ranks + 8(charisma) + 6(feats) + 2(misc) = 30
The main opponent is Hepzamirah. She has 22HD, a Wisdom of 27(8) and is larger than the PC(+5) for a total DC of 35.
So the PC needs to roll a 5 to affect her or he can spend one use of Mythic Power to take a natural 20 (giving him a check of 50, or 70 with Display of Charisma).
She is immune to fear so is unaffected by Dreadful Carnage, though if any other opponents are there they will be affected by it.
She is not immune to nausea, however, so will be affected by Ancestral Scorn. So for the first four rounds she will be nauseated if the PC spends a use of mythic power. In the fifth through ninth round the PC will need to use Display of Charisma (thus using two uses of mythic power) to keep her nauseated. In the tenth round she will be immune due to the +40 bonus. But after nine rounds of being attacked with no way to retaliate she will be dead. In reality she will probably be dead in two rounds without any way to retaliate.
Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth (AP 5)
The PC will have an Intimidate check of: 18 ranks + 10(charisma) + 6(feats) + 2(misc) = 36
The main opponent is the Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth. He has 18HD, a Wisdom of 29(+9) and is larger than the PC(+5) for a total DC of 33.
So the PC needs to roll a -3 to affect him or he can spend one use of Mythic Power to take a natural 20 (giving him a check of 56, 76 with Display of Charisma).
If the herald fights alone he will be nauseated for the first five to nine rounds. As with Hepzamirah above he will be dead long before that.
If there are other opponents then Dreadful Carnage comes into play so the Herald (and any other opponent) will spend the whole combat frightened after the first opponent is taken down.
When Baphomet himself shows up (He has 33HD, a Wisdom of 29(+9) and is larger than the PC (+5) for a total DC of 47.), he will have two to six rounds where he can do nothing either because he is nauseated or frightened which will probably be more than enough to kill him.
City of Locusts (AP 6)
The PC will have an Intimidate check of: 20 ranks + 11(charisma) + 6(feats) + 2 (misc) = 39
Opponents are:
Aponavicius - 23HD + 3(Wis) + 5(larger than PC) +2(vs fear) = DC: 31(33)
PC needs a -6(-4) to affect her with Nausea or Frightened and can maintain this for 6-10 rounds.
Mistress Anemora - 23HD + 11(Wis) + 5(larger than PC) +4(vs fear) = DC: 39 (43)
PC needs a 0(4) to affect her. She is not an evil outsider so unaffected by Ancestral Scorn (Nausea). If other opponents are there she can be frightened (for 4-8 rounds) but if by herself she might actually get to fight.
Terendelev - 25HD + 9(Wis) + 5(larger than PC) = DC: 39
PC needs a 0 to affect her. She is not an evil outsider so unaffected by Ancestral Scorn (Nausea). She is undead so immune to fear. We have a battle.
Khorramzadeh - 30HD + 8(Wis) + 5(larger than PC) = DC: 42
PC needs a 3 to affect him with Nausea or Frightened and can maintain this for 4-8 rounds.
Khorramzadeh Reborn - Undead so immune to feat and not affected by Ancestral Scorn (Nausea). We have a battle.
Deskari - 33HD + 10(Wis) + 5(larger than PC) = DC: 48
PC needs a 9 to affect him. So he can be kept nauseated or frightened for 3-7 rounds. More than enough to kill him. There are a number of other creatures here but after the first one is dropped the rest will all be frightened for a number of rounds.
As shown above the PC will need to use some mythic power to affect the main bad guys but he will be able to affect most lower level monsters without having to use any mythic power.
It seems that this combination of abilities will make most combats negligible as the opponents will spend 80%+ of the battle either frightened (running away and not able to take any actions) or nauseated (not able to take any action except a single move action).
Demons can just teleport away if frightened but that effectively ends the combat anyway. Or they teleport back in and the same thing happens over again.
Yes, not every encounter, nor every creature in any combat, will be affected but enough of them (including all the ones against the main bad guys) will be affected to really take any level of challenge out of the campaign.
I'm not a big fan of banning things from the game but if a certain combination takes all of the challenge out of the game that, in my opinion, takes all the fun out of the game. Especially for the other PC's who don't have this ability.
Having said all that, what am I missing? What options do I have to mitigate this?
Note: This combination affects all campaigns (even more so ones with Mythic elements) but has an even greater affect in this AP due to the high number of evil outsiders. Which is why I posted in here instead of in the general forum.
I told my PC no for combining mythic display for things that effect combat. I know its a bad word but whatever, you can also add dazzling display and its mythic version to that mess to demoralize all combatants.
Yep, that feat's ridiculously powerful in this campaign, and intimidate-centric builds are generally powerful overall.
Some good news, though; if you're immune to fear, you can't be demoralized (intimidated). Most of the big bads are going to be immune to that particular tactic.
This
Anything that is immune to fear cannot be demoralized and thus cannot be sickened/nauseated by this. Sure, there are plenty of combatants that this guy will just scatter with a look, but the big bad ones (especially demon lords) are immune to fear and thus cannot be kept nauseated.
I appreciate the feedback.
Question? Where does it say that the Demon Lords are immune to fear. I looked at all the main bad guys, including the demon lords, and other than the ones I specifically mentioned in my initial post none of them show that they are immune to fear.
My initial hope when I saw the series of feats was that a majority of the big bads would be immune to this tactic but when I read through the stats for them I was surprised to see that very few of them were identified as being immune to fear in there stat blocks.
Wow...gotta say even for mythic I'm kind of impressed with this. Nasty, nasty.
I appreciate the feedback.
Question? Where does it say that the Demon Lords are immune to fear. I looked at all the main bad guys, including the demon lords, and other than the ones I specifically mentioned in my initial post none of them show that they are immune to fear.
My initial hope when I saw the series of feats was that a majority of the big bads would be immune to this tactic but when I read through the stats for them I was surprised to see that very few of them were identified as being immune to fear in there stat blocks.
It would seem you are correct. Demon Lords don't appear to be inherently immune to fear. That said, I'd quickly put the kibosh on that and house rule them as immune to fear. Seems silly otherwise.
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I'm not a big fan of banning things from the game but if a certain combination takes all of the challenge out of the game that, in my opinion, takes all the fun out of the game. Especially for the other PC's who don't have this ability.
Having said all that, what am I missing? What options do I have to mitigate this?
Very nasty...
Since the Ancestral Scorn and Mythic Dreadful Carnage feats seem to be the main source of the problem, you might think about weakening these feats a little, perhaps like this:
Feat - Ancestral Scorn
Benefit: Whenever you successfully demoralize an outsider of the evil subtype with an Intimidate check, it becomes sickened for 1 round in addition to being affected by the normal effects of being demoralized. If you beat the DC by 5 or more, the creature is nauseated for 1 round instead. This ability cannot be used against the same opponent more than once per day.
Feat - Dreadful Carnage (Mythic)
Benefit: When you use Dreadful Carnage, you affect non-mythic enemies within 60 feet in addition to all enemies within 30 feet. You can expend one use of mythic power before making the Intimidate check to cause non-mythic enemies demoralized by Dreadful Carnage to become frightened instead of shaken, for the same duration as the normal shaken effect. While frightened by this ability, an enemy takes a penalty equal to your tier on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.
These tweaks would keep the feats powerful enough to still make this an attractive build, but would eliminate the possibility of frightening away mythic Big Bad Guys, or inflicting multiple rounds of nausea by repeatedly demoralizing them...
Wanted to thank everyone for there input.
It looks like my choices are:
1) Give a large number of the main bad guys immunity to fear.
2) Ban Ancestral Scorn and Dreadful Carnage (Mythic) completely.
3) Modify Ancestral Scorn and Dreadful Carnage (Mythic) is some way. (Thank you Porridge for your suggested modifications)
I'm not a fan of option 1. I hate to have the player put all his feats and abilities into using this options and then basically nullify them against most of the main foes.
That leaves 2 or 3. Time to discuss it with the player in question and decide on a mutually agreeable course of action.
One of my player's is playing a Tiefling Paladin and is working on an intimidate build using the following feats and abilities. (Spoilered for wall of text)
** spoiler omitted **...
It looks like all of your DCs are off by 9. It looks like you left out the base 10 and the penalty for the target being larger is 4: 10 + HD + Wis + 4 (larger target).
Hepzamirah DC = 10 + 22 + 8 + 4 = 44. So he would need a 14 or better.
Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth DC = 10 + 18 + 9 + 4 = 42. So he would need a 6 or better.
Aponavicius DC = 10 + 23 + 3 + 4 +2(vs fear) = 40(42). So he would need a roll of 1 or 3.
Mistress Anemora DC = 10 + 23 + 11 + 4 +4(vs fear) = 48(52). So he would need a roll of 9 or 13.
Terendelev DC = 10 + 25 + 9 + 4 = 48. So he would need a roll of 9.
Khorramzadeh DC = 10 + 30 + 8 + 4 = 52. So he would need a roll of 13.
Deskari DC = 10 + 33 + 10 + 4 = 57. So he would need a roll of 18.
I know that's not a huge deal but it does make some of the attempts closer to 50/50 without the +20 bonus or natural 20 roll. Ancestral Scorn only affects the outsider for 1 round, the beating the DC by 5 turns sickened into nauseated.
Whenever you successfully demoralize an outsider of the evil subtype with an Intimidate check, it becomes sickened for 1 round in addition to being affected by the normal effects of being demoralized. If you beat the DC by 5 or more, the creature is nauseated for 1 round instead.
trawets71 - Good call on the DC's. Can't believe I missed the initial 10 for them. You're correct it makes it a little bit tougher.
Unfortunately, as you alluded to, with the natural 20 roll or the +20 it's still a guaranteed success for the first round at least. Though he would at least need to use some more mythic power to be guaranteed successful.
Even with those higher DCs I'll let you know that those are easy to hit all the time. A paladin in my group can hit DC 60-70 on diplomacy checks reliably at 12th level. Lots of good buffs can add to skills.