I know that I could have posted this in the SnS forum but what I need the most help with is the restating of a powerful sorcerer and not story ideas. Below be spoilers for the Raiders of the Fever Sea.
The PCs have recently come into possession of a tower on a small island. The have gained the enmity of faction that is sending a ship to take revenge on them. The ship will end up being quite a prize for them but is actually faster then anything the PCs have right now. As such I am removing the ship from the actual battle so that the PCs need to chase it down.
The ship approach to island will be covered by night and a light rain. It will drop two ships boats when it is about 5 miles from the island. At its closest the ship can be detected with a DC 39 perception check. There is on member of the group that will make that check if he is on lookout duty at that time and equipped with a scope.
The boats will run dark on their two hour approach to the island. That means that sighting them will not be possible until they are quite close by. Since the many of the PCs lookouts have dark vision I know the boats will be spotted in time for an alarm to be raised. With a DC 25 perception check the crews can hear something sooner.
The boats will be attacking the PCs two ships with the intention of burning them. All of the above is will be mostly background.
The main attraction is Inkskin Locke, a 9th level tattooed sorcerer who is gunning for high value targets while the boat crews deal with the ships crews. The PCs will most likely be spread out between the tower and their two ships. They may even be asleep when the assault begins. However they tend to be very good at making advantage for themselves.
I was thinking of having Inkskin be a dedicated summoner. Before the boats arrive she buffs up and flies invisible ahead. Once there she casts obscuring mist summons up a host of lantern archons to hunt down the PCs. She also has viper familiar that she will use to deliver vampiric touches for her.
Need to flesh out a sheet that gives her the best buffs and feats to reflect these tactics. I also need a way to break down doors and preferable one that allows her to remain invisible. Also a way to see through her own fog would be nice.
I can not seam to find an online version of her sheet.
To start with I am making her a half orc. I will sub in sacred tatoo. I am also going to replace Skill focus sailor for augments summons, Martial weapon proficiency for superior summons, and combat casting for Ferocious summons. The loss of feat will hit lightning reflexes. May take iron will instead of Ferocious summons.
Half orc is not needed but I defiantly need a decent will save due to the party witch.
S 8 D 14 C 12 I 10 W 14 Ch 14 seams like a reasonable stat array since her spell save dc will make little difference. We get up to an 20 with item, level and racial mods and that is enough for bonus spell purposes. Might even throw 2 more points into con since an 18 gets you a bonus 4th level spell and HP is nice to have.
Well if you are dead set on the half-orc can't really suggest much.
If you are okay without a half-orc, an ifrit summoner would be fine for your suggested tactic. Just make sure to grab the firesight racial feat, ifrits can see through smoke and fire. The witch won't be able to target the ifrit with the smoke, since it requires line of sight, while the ifrit can operate normally.
Not dead set on half orc but the ifrit's does not seam to offer all that much. I would have to take a feat to see through smoke and I can nod find a low level spell like fog cloud that uses smoke.
I could use their power to bring in even more small fire elementals but lantern archons will do much better with two attacks a round and a nice DR.
I am considering halfling but the loss of darkvision could hurt at night in a storm.
Good Spells to have
Level 1: shield, air bubble, mage armor, obscuring mist, expeditious retreat, touch of the sea, grease (2 over)
Level 2: resist energy, glitterdust, slipstream, blur, invisibility, mirror image, false life, (3 over)
Level 3: Fly, vampiric touch, stinking cloud, haste,
Level 4: Summon monster 4, ?
For those of us who have not read or run this AP, it might help if you told us (1) the level and composition of your party, and (2) what other resources are available to Locke. (For instance, if she's part of a powerful attacking group, it might make more sense for her to hang back and cast group buffs and battlefield control spells.)
Doug M.
She has a ships crew but nothing beyond 2nd level warriors. She is bring 30 with her and leaving 70 on the ship.
The PCs are 6th level party made up of a witch, magus, cleric, bard, and monk. They pretty well optimized. The also command small garrison and 2 ships crews. Among the crews are 3 ghouls, many cultists and enough mercs to fire all 7 ballistas on the ships. Round that out with enough sailors to make sure the ships can function. About 60 all together.
I think I will take the aquatic bloodline. Since this grants a swim speed I can remove touch of the sea from her spell list.
I get slipstream from the bloodline but none of my 3rd level spells appear on the list. That means 5 favored class bonuses go into spells. For my last forth level spell I want freedom of movement.
I can gain one more spell with favored class bonuses. She is using 6 of 8 1st level spells, 7 of 7 second level spells (2x resist energy) and all 5 4th level spells. After fly that leaves her 2 1st and 6 3rd levels spells to cast during combat.
Stinking cloud and vamp touch should be fine for in combat casting but maybe lightning bolt should be added just for damage reasons. That does break invis though. A few more buffs would not hurt either since the combat is unlikely to go 6 rounds.
Note that summoning and buffing don't break invisibility.
Consider summoning a flying creature with good stealth and perception to pre-scout. If memory serves, there are a couple of decent ones in the SM II and III lists.
If you're playing this character intelligently, she should try to pick off individual PCs. If she's an experienced fighter, she'll probably have a list of preferred targets -- like, KILL OR NEUTRALIZE THE BARD FIRST, then the party healer, then everyone else.
Doug M.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Douglas Muir 406 wrote: Note that summoning and buffing don't break invisibility.
Consider summoning a flying creature with good stealth and perception to pre-scout. If memory serves, there are a couple of decent ones in the SM II and III lists.
If you're playing this character intelligently, she should try to pick off individual PCs. If she's an experienced fighter, she'll probably have a list of preferred targets -- like, KILL OR NEUTRALIZE THE BARD FIRST, then the party healer, then everyone else.
Doug M.
I'd have some of her 'minions' dressed up like a caster and mimic spell-casting (or give them a wand or two with only a couple of charges each) plus UMD.
Also if she's 9th level and she wants to burn the other ships...why not just fireball from 760+ feet away? Guessing that the PC's being level 6 won't have any gap closers that she cannot outrun. If she has a range advantage, she ought to use it unless there's some reason not to.
If you want to stick to summoning...I'd go with water or air elementals. Whirlwind/vortex the party, and either fly up and then drop them for falling damage or try to drown them. Minimum effort for maximum results.
My party has is not good at ranged combat and I do not want to just blow them up. I would be easy to build a sorc that could trash their boats and leave but that would be no fun.
I thought about elementals but she gets 1d3+1 lantern archons to 1 medium elemental. To bad the smalls can not whirlwind the pcs.
I will definitely be targeting the non martial characters first. Giving that the magus and monk both get two stats to AC their will be hard to hit with a +3.
I think I am going have the lantern archons base the squishes in an attempt to prevent casting. The sorc mistakenly thinks that martials will not be able to hurt the. She should keep them at range but if I do that then PC have no good means of attacking them. Either that or reduce their range to 10 feet.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Well your initial build was a flying invisible summoner which I personally find more unfun to fight than a straight blaster. :)
That said since you want to stick with your concept:
To see through fog?
Fogcutting lenses. 8,000 gp.
Feats for a summoner?
01-Spell Focus: Conjuration.
03-Augment Summoning.
05-Superior Summoning.
07-Feat ???, Bloodline Feat ???
09-Feat ???
Suggested Summoning Gear:
Summon Slave Crystal
Summoning Shackle
Suggested Bloodlines:
Abyssal or Celestial (your summons gain DR/Evil or DR/Good). Also with Celestial she gains wings and a fly speed (good) at 9th.
Since she is a tattoo summoner she loses the bloodline feat. For the other two feats I was thinking ferocious summons and iron will.
The only bloodline ability she gets it the 3rd level one. Unfortunately she loses out on the DR. Her being a tattooed sorc is important to the storyline so can not give that up. Wings would be quite nice though.
He gear is only worth about 10k so the goggles are bit out of reach. I was just going to have her leave the cloud once she was done summoning.
Blaster are more fun but only if you can blast back and this party can not. It is big weakness on their part but I do not want to ruin the fun.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mathius wrote: Since she is a tattoo summoner she loses the bloodline feat. For the other two feats I was thinking ferocious summons and iron will.
The only bloodline ability she gets it the 3rd level one. Unfortunately she loses out on the DR. Her being a tattooed sorc is important to the storyline so can not give that up. Wings would be quite nice though.
He gear is only worth about 10k so the goggles are bit out of reach. I was just going to have her leave the cloud once she was done summoning.
Blaster are more fun but only if you can blast back and this party can not. It is big weakness on their part but I do not want to ruin the fun.
Not sure how the party is going to deal with invisible flying summoners but you know what your PCs have better than I.
Right on the Tattoo thing. I forgot you went Tattooed Sorc. You do lose some bloodline perks that way. The rest of the list should hold though like her bloodline arcana.
10k cap? I figured since you said she was the boss she would have PC wealth. I don't know of a lower cost solution to bypass fog. Maybe she'll just have Blur+Mirror Image or something similar up then if she is concerned about defenses. Did you plan to have her within 30 feet of the party? (Hex range)
I suspect she will be glitterdusted early on in the fight. The witch has some sort of darkness spell the also allows her to hex farther then 30 feet.
You combo plus a decent AC will make up her defenses. I suspect that they will spend a great deal of time dealing with the lantern archons and the 30 pirates in the boats. Once they do that she well grow enraged and start lightning bolting them.
Eventually the cleric or witch will dispel her fly and their zombie dire croc will attack. I know party has at least 4 dispels prepared and once they can see her they try that. If she see the croc I will have her over land but she is on the ground the martials can close and that gets ugly.
I could go PC wealth for her. That would beef her up a bit but do little for he attacks. Might be worth it. The party would like the goggles so that is nice. Could make some it tattoos so the PC can not take it so easily.
I also can see harpoons or summoned flying creatures showing up. Or the monk climbing and jumping or something. The players are good at that stuff. If I do not make near TPKs we all get board.
Thanks for helping me think through it.
Inkskin
Female human sorcerer (tattooed sorcerer) 9
CE Medium humanoid (aquatic, human)
Init +2; Senses blindsense 30 ft. (when immersed in water);
Perception +11, Darkvision 60'
Defense
AC 21, touch 12, flat-footed 19 (+4 armor, +2 Dex, +1 natural, +4 shield)
hp 66 (9d6+14)[1d10+9 temp]
Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +5
Resist cold 5 electricity 20
Offense
Speed 70 ft. (downhill 80 ft., uphill 40 ft.), swim 50 ft, fly 60
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 9th; concentration +13)
3/day—acid splash
1/day—geyser (DC 18; CL 11th)
Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 9th; concentration +13)
4th (0/day)—Freedom of movement, geyser* (DC 20; CL 10th),
summon monster IV (CL 10th)
3rd (5/day)—aqueous orb* (DC 19; CL 10th), fly, lightning bolt
(DC 18)[9d6], vampiric touch [4d6], haste
2nd (0/day)—resist energy, false life, invisibility, mirror image, glitterdust (DC 18), blur, slipstream*
1st (3/day)—grease (DC 17; CL 10th), hydraulic push* (CL 10th),
mage armor (CL 10th), obscuring mist (CL 10th), shield, air bubble, expeditious retreat
0 (at will)—bleed (DC 14), daze (DC 15), detect magic, light,
message, ray of frost, read magic, touch of fatigue (DC 15)
Bloodline aquatic*
stats
Str 8, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 20
Base Atk +4; CMB +6; CMD 18
Feats Ferocious Summons , Eschew Materials, Iron will, Superior Summons , Augmented Summons, Spell Focus (conjuration), Varisian
Tattoo (conjuration)***
Items: Fogcutter goggles, Head band cha +2
Still need to work on this.
If you want to do the whole "I can see through it but you can't" routine, combine Ifrit + Firesight + Pyrotechnics (Smoke Cloud effect).
The ship is bound to have an oil lamp on deck for the non-darkvision crew members. It would be highly unusual for an anchored ship to ever not have a lamp on deck after sundown.
How about Summon Monster II for a small fire elemental? Put a smoke cloud on deck with Pyrotechnics and have a fire elemental run around on deck trying to set stuff on fire inside the smoke. (Bonus: this creates new flame sources for additional castings of Pyrotechnics) That could be fun and would keep some of the PCs busy for a while. Hit them with the blindness effect of Pyrotechnics when they're all running around in the smoke like fools trying to catch the elemental.
Maybe you could start the attack that way. The PCs will quickly try to go help destroy the elemental and stop the ship from catching on fire while the enemies from the ship's boats move into position...
i dont get it o.o why not run her as she was written, personally it was alot of fun, though our dm had her become an ally after the fight (and a trip to church to raise her from the dead after my alchemist snapped her neck) lol
Mathius wrote: I know that I could have posted this in the SnS forum but what I need the most help with is the restating of a powerful sorcerer and not story ideas. Below be spoilers for the Raiders of the Fever Sea.
The PCs have recently come into possession of a tower on a small island. The have gained the enmity of faction that is sending a ship to take revenge on them. The ship will end up being quite a prize for them but is actually faster then anything the PCs have right now. As such I am removing the ship from the actual battle so that the PCs need to chase it down.
The ship approach to island will be covered by night and a light rain. It will drop two ships boats when it is about 5 miles from the island. At its closest the ship can be detected with a DC 39 perception check. There is on member of the group that will make that check if he is on lookout duty at that time and equipped with a scope.
The boats will run dark on their two hour approach to the island. That means that sighting them will not be possible until they are quite close by. Since the many of the PCs lookouts have dark vision I know the boats will be spotted in time for an alarm to be raised. With a DC 25 perception check the crews can hear something sooner.
The boats will be attacking the PCs two ships with the intention of burning them. All of the above is will be mostly background.
The main attraction is Inkskin Locke, a 9th level tattooed sorcerer who is gunning for high value targets while the boat crews deal with the ships crews. The PCs will most likely be spread out between the tower and their two ships. They may even be asleep when the assault begins. However they tend to be very good at making advantage for themselves.
I was thinking of having Inkskin be a dedicated summoner. Before the boats arrive she buffs up and flies invisible ahead. Once there she casts obscuring mist summons up a host of lantern archons to hunt down the PCs. She also has viper familiar that she will use to deliver vampiric touches...
Her stats are all already provided in Appendix! this is a tough fight she is level 9 tatooed sorcerer and the PCs should be level 5 or 6 at this time...
One of her magic item, Svigli's Eye, allows her to see through fog for one round once a day, by the way.
It's a suped-up True Seeing effect that ALSO allows you to see through fog and smoke and gives you +10 Perception to detect secret doors and the like...
Thanks for the advice. I ran her Wednessday night and she got trashed.
She got all her summons in and the lantern archons did what what they were supposed to do.
She got glitterdusted, dispelled (freedom of movement), and blinded in the first round. After that the bard use wand of true strike to fire the grapple monk at her with a catapult. Once she was grappled it was over.
She did manage to poison herself and die. They tried real hard to keep her alive and the thresher did get away.
I am glad I beefed her up but this version did not fare much better then the weak one in the book.
All in all it was fun.
LOL! catapult?? (I thought Tidewater Rock had ballistas?)
I think your players are more seasoned than mine... plus my party has no real caster to contend with her spells (just a bunch of melee guys). So for them, the challenge was huge. Plus they split the party: two of them went downstairs to fight the horde of 15 level 2 fighters, one of them flew away from the fight, and one of them stayed on the roof to fight Isabella... alone. He was promptly charmed and tasked to guard the roof exit for her, while she went inside and attempted to murder Lady Smythee. She almost did: Royster McCleagh (Lady Smythee's guard captain) saved her by scoring a crit on Isabella with his greatsword. She charmed him too. Then the PCs finally made it upstairs to finish her off.
She's not dead yet. Was unconscious but the PCs healed her after tying her up. I'm not saying what happens next as these guys might be lurking on these boards... :)
My PC are really really enjoying the sandbox this AP allows. Once they decided to take the rock they bought 20 soldiers and a cat just because they thought it might need to be beefed up.
They also bought an immovable rod and put 1000 feet over the keep, built a crows nest on it and dropped a rope ladder down from it. That was one of the main reasons I needed rules for how hard a ship is sight when you a 100 mile horizon.
They really go whole hog with things and nothing is ever enough. They always try and crank it to 11. An example is there fast dire croc zombie. Add in muleback cords and heavy lift belts and the darn thing can carry an entire ship. The at least do not try and use it to win combat encounter but only to for its narrative power.
LOL... so that the ship can go overland? if so... wow... an amphibious ship... awesome... I would reduce ship max speed by 20 though, as the crocs create drag under the ship while at sea! lol
all these solutions are just one dispel magic away from catastrophic failure though... is this a party of gnomes? LOL
i'm wondering what the purpose of the "lead roof" is at Tidewater Rock? not sure if I remember correctly but I seem to remember reading this and wondering, "Huh?"
I saw that to and just made it a standard flat roof.
There is a gnome who acts like a Ferengi and claims to be a fallen god to his cultists. Also trying to found Amway.
Animate dead is not dispellable but the crows nest might fall at some point.
The boat is not actually any faster with the croc but it can strike the sails and go upwind faster then most. The also use the croc to grapple other ships. They still need to fight a boarding action but it does tend to stop ships from fleeing.
They have not paid to have the ship refitted to ride the croc so no overland yet. I said it would cost 20k since the ship really not meant to be lifted that way. They are waiting for fabricate on that one.
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I think they need to be reeled in a little... LOL
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