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"Not power gamers" It seems they have pretty good mastery to me. Nothing overtly outrageous, but they definitely picked good choices.
Use multiple enemies especially during boss fights
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Maybe I'm missing something, but channeling only dazes creatures for 1 round, and only within 30 feet of the cleric. And since it doesn't hurt the enemies, at best each channel is giving your melee blokes a chance to smack someone; I don't see anything like a RAGELANCEPOUNCE Barbarian or machine-gun Zen Archer capable of dealing huge DPS in the party. Dazing fireballs are a bit trickier, but are also a much scarcer resource. (IMO the two metamagic-cost-reduction traits shouldn't stack, but it may be too late to revoke that.)
Seems to me your out is pretty simple: have enemies attack in waves, don't keep them clustered together, and extend the adventuring day to the point where this tactic becomes too expensive to use against every group of enemies they come across. Particularly if the group relies on channels for healing, too.
Throwing in a few ranged units that target the witch and/or sorcerer could help, too, particularly if they ready actions to attack the casters when they cast. Mostly make sure they keep out of Channel range.
Raising the saves of the opposition is also good. Perhaps the NPCs have heard of the PC's tactics, and have started recruiting only the strongest-willed mooks out there (so they all have Iron Will).
You have a cleric that have made Channel negative energy work, enjoy it:)
Have some encounters start more than 60ft apart. And let some baddies be clever in smart ways. Remember the limitations of selective channeling.
"Benefit: When you channel energy, you can choose a number of targets in the area up to your Charisma modifier. These targets are not affected by your channeled energy."
I realize that the cleric most likely have cha bonus to not daze and harm the rest of the gang but let some battles happen where there is other folks present.
I assume they are around level 4 ( +4 DC from cha and +2 DC from level for a DC of 16) so you are also getting in to the levels where you can throw some of the proper undead after them and see if the cleric can deal with them.
And yes waves of not so hard baddies pehaps both Living and undead.
And remember the heroes is supposed to win. It just have to feel like they acomplished somthing winning so it have to be a little hard.
Your team might not be power gamers but they are certainly optimisers and they will obviously stomp any generic encounters in a stand up fight. Unless your monsters are at least on par in teamwork and design they don't really stand a chance.
Firstly make sure that they are doing the 4ish CR appropriate encounters a day before resting.
Secondly ramp up the difficultly of battles by increasing the CR or mob count. For more even encounters +4 is actually closer to being an "even" fight most of the time.
Thirdly start using environmental effects, throw in water encounters, stormy nights, magical darkness, obscuring mists and other scenarios. The big culprit is the cleric and things that can stop him from seeing his opponents, stops him from hitting with his channel.
Don't be afraid to take off the kiddy gloves when your players are obviously much better than expected.
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Stop throwing low will save monsters at them? Their entire lineup seems to obviously rely completely on their enemies being low will. Better yet, use creatures which are immune to daze! Constructs? Oozes?
Get some bad guy casters in there buffing up his minions or slinging his own dazing fireball.
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Secondly ramp up the difficultly of battles by increasing the CR or mob count. For more even encounters +4 is actually closer to being an "even" fight most of the time.
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but remember that "even" encounters have a 50% chance offending the game prematurely.
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Thirdly start using environmental effects, throw in water encounters, stormy nights, magical darkness, obscuring mists and other scenarios. The big culprit is the cleric and things that can stop him from seeing his opponents, stops him from hitting with his channel...
i think this is wrong Channel is a bust so it need line of effect not line of sigth. But using selective channeling may be harder if you dont know exactly where your friends are.
Stop throwing low will save monsters at them? Their entire lineup seems to obviously rely completely on their enemies being low will. Better yet, use creatures which are immune to daze! Constructs? Oozes?
Get some bad guy casters in there buffing up his minions or slinging his own dazing fireball.
I dont think anybody is immune to Daze. That is one of the main problems with Dazing Spell and Dazing assult.
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Note that Channel Energy is a Burst effect; it doesn't go around corners. It's not really metagaming if smart opponents actually use cover, and don't stand close together for AoE attacks.
Dungeons tend to have more cover; outdoors you don't have to stand so close together or even so close to the cleric.
That said, the PCs are obviously on to something here.
@CommandoDude: surprisingly few creatures are actually immune to the Dazed condition. Often (but not always) Dazed is caused by a Mind-Affecting ability though, and immunity to that is much more common.
Encounters with archers who start at a good distance, say 240 feet.
Anything immune to mind effecting is gonna ruin them.
NPCs with class levels are always the toughest encounters for the CR, use them.
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Anything immune to mind effecting is gonna ruin them.
Nothing in the OP's list of tactics is mind affecting.
Things that will work against the current tactics (not so much against Dazing Fireball):
-use more creatures, higher HP characters. The listed daze effects only last one round. It's a lot harder to mop up everything if they can't kill everything while they are dazed.
-start combat from further away. The listed tactics only work at <30 ft.
-Include creatures with high will saves / channel resistance.
-include more combats in a day to stretch their resources.
Make creatures stronger or put more of them.
Giving a monster the advance template and or addign some class levels buffs it really quick.
In addition to the above advice, I'll offer the following.
You seriously want to reconsider allowing the two traits stacking with meta-magic reduction. They are only level 3, and you are just getting a taste of what that combination can do. I would suggest talking to the player with that combo now and requesting they replace one trait.
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Clerics next feat : command undead / versatile channeling. Ra is a neutral deity so both options are open. At least he isn't a sun domain cleric...
Versatile channeling means he counts as 2 lvs lower for purpose of alternate channel. Which means his DC drops by 1.
I wanted to create a cleric like that for PFS, just substituting the 2 metamagic traits for fireball with sacred conduit and magical knack (going to dip 1 lv into draconic sorc), so ill be keeping an eye on this thread to watch people playtest my idea for me :p
I am curious (scientific curiousity) what stat lineup did the cleric take to carry out such an idea(the init is insane, dcs reasonable), as he probably had to sacrifice a lot of wis to do it, so the dazing fireball dc probably wont be that high as he will have not enough wis/feats to pump spell focus and greater.
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Um, let's see:
There are LOTS of easy solutions to these tactics:
1) multiple ambiguous encounters during the day, sometimes with reinforcements arriving on the 3rd round.
2) Bad guys set ambush, while covered by a silent spell to cover the noise their armor makes - it also incidentally negates all sonic attacks.
3) monsters that are immune to daze effects
4)BBEG uses scry spell to observe party tactics and creates specific encounters for these exact tactics.
5) Traps
6) Traps interspersed with monsters
7) Encounters where killing the bad guys is the wrong thing to do and has major negative consequences.
etc.
Let them fight ants. Their will saves spell will do nothing at all. Should give the barbarian advantage since he can walk and run faster.
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Well, as they level, the dazing fireball trick can be countered in many ways too. For example, mix civilians in with the bad guys so they can't fireball at all, or spread the bad guys out, or have lots and lots of little guys who will die from a single fireball, but will simply be replaced by the rest of the hoard.
Bottom line, the solution to this problem is variety. Give them a wide variety of encounters, some of which let them use these tactics and some of which don't.
I'd let the villains just get smarter after hearing or seeing them in action. Your BBEG can instruct his minions appropriately. No one needs to come within 30 feet to attack them, just blast them from afar. Let them destroy the random encounters with this tactic and have the important ones behave intelligently and challenge the group.
Also remember surprise rounds don't care who scores the highest initiative...
There is a lot of good advice here. I would advise you against simply boosting the saves more and more for the bad guys-- or at least the majority of the bad guys. Get creative with placement, terrain, and tactics! Find something which spits acid from far away, booby trap and encounter area, put something which can charge and grapple in there.
Next to nothing is immune to daze. It isn't a mind affect with metamagic or channels
Dazing spells just wreck incorporeals, etc. It has dominated all our high level play
Ear Piercing Scream has Fort saves, many things have immunity to effect that allow Fort saves such as construct and undead. The spell Daze itself is enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting], so any monster that has immunity to it would be good as well, like vermin.
Reward their behavior with untrapped loot, then trap it for maximum effect. Their strategy will vary if you use different forms of attack, curses and ambush will do well since in the surprise round though enemies can only perform 1 action, they may fire ranged weapons. Also refrain from editing monsters too much. If the monsters need more than a plus 2 to stats then you need to just add a template to a big one ore use different monsters completely. It's frustrating when characters encounter kryptonite around every corner when they're superman.
Ear Piercing Scream has Fort saves, many things have immunity to effect that allow Fort saves such as construct and undead. The spell Daze itself is enchantment (compulsion) [mind-affecting], so any monster that has immunity to it would be good as well, like vermin.
The spell is mind affecting, but the condition is not. You can daze almost anything with a spell like dazing fireball, including creatures immune to mind affecting.
Ruling that daze is always subject to mind affecting immunity is a decent houserule and would go a long way to curbing the power of the metamagic, but it isn't RAW.
I don't understand why you guys are talking about daze effect when the problem he has is the fact his PC is using "ear piercing scream to daze", and the solution I pointed works perfect for his problem. It has nothing to do with Dazing Acid Arrows nor Dazing Spell.
I don't understand why you guys are talking about daze effect when the problem he has is the fact his PC is using "ear piercing scream to daze", and the solution I pointed works perfect for his problem. It has nothing to do with Dazing Acid Arrows nor Dazing Spell.
I Think the screaming is only if some one saves vs the channeling?
A dozen by the book hobgoblins would clean their clock if played intelligently. Being outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 by people whose main priority is staying at least 150 ft away is a huge problem for groups that rely on melee and short range effects.
A dozen by the book hobgoblins would clean their clock if played intelligently. Being outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 by people whose main priority is staying at least 150 ft away is a huge problem for groups that rely on melee and short range effects.
I can't really see how this fight would be any more difficult for this party than any other. It's extremely difficult to stay at range in the pathfinder ruleset unless you have a very high base movement, especially given the barb fast movement present here who can cover 150ft in a single round. Large groups of enemies with relatively poor saves are dazing channel fodder. I would also be suprised if the party doesn't have at least a scroll of obscuring mist: if they don't, that has more to do with their lack of proper preparation than their builds per se.
Yes the cleric in question is channeling negative energy we talked about that. Channeling negative Will boost undead diplomacy not human.
Edit: this one was a response to a post that dissapered.
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Yes the cleric in question is channeling negative energy we talked about that. Channeling negative Will boost undead diplomacy not human.
Edit: this one was a response to a post that dissapered.
Yes, I wrote my post after reading a few of the initial posts, but voideternal had already raised the question,
Actually, with the OP's current setup, I think an undead encounter gets around the daze problem.
1) They're not living, so negative energy to harm doesn't affect them -> Immune to daze from channel negative to harm.
And Just a Mort gave a possible response to that:
Clerics next feat : command undead / versatile channeling. Ra is a neutral deity so both options are open. At least he isn't a sun domain cleric...
so the post was a unnecessary repetition ad I deleted it.
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Haha. I love your session. A dhampir! How delightfully surprising and creative! Undead I would have expected, and clerics in all rp reasons would be happy to pump their knowledge religion and give you a knowledge religion roll. But knowledge local? Especially when they know they have diplomacy to cover knowledge local.
I am impressed by your groups use of non aggressive tactics (diplomacy), as most people I know off are murder hobos (too much pfs), and I also fall victim to my muderhobo urges occasionally.
More suggestions hmm..not to immediate story, but let them do a helms deep city defense scenario, or rescuing of hostages in the curb stomp bbeg dungeon kind of thing.
2nd one has potential for more immediate use. Maybe the dhampir has a group of followers and a human "cattle" farm somewhere, or he's a evil cult leader who's trying capture innocent humans and turn them into full fledged vampires.
That sounded like a really good session!
There's an item that provides big resistances or bonuses vs channeled effects but I can't remember what that is though (help from other posters?). Obviously an item your Dhamphir needs though.
I swore I read the title as "GM with a dating problem."
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Remember one thing: they have a 25 point characters. That is 10 point above the standard for an AP and 5 point above the standard of PFS.
It allow people a maximized primary characteristic and very good secondary characteristic.
To balance that you need to have stronger opponents, the average NPC has a = points buy, one with NPC classes has a 3 point buy, one with PC classes has a 15 point buy. You can easily increase the NPC point buy by 4 points without problems, or (for semplicitly sake) give them either a +1 to hit/damage or a +1 hp/level or a +1 to spell/abilities DC. all of those are roughly equivalent to a +2 in a characteristic, what 4 buy point would buy you.