Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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Another very hard build (even in an unusual way) is the Aasimar dual cursed Life Oracle of Pharasma: you get absurd ammounts of Channel dice, have an option to give dualrolls via Fateful channel, Rerolls via Misfortune, rerolls via Battlecry and the group likly will not care about HPdamage anymore. This build is in my case useless offensively but the only dying thing in my team since i played it are animal Companions. And i think the failed saves for the relevant spells in all encounters from lv 5 to 8.1 are under 10. When you roll two dice, if you fail miserably you get misfortuned and if you fail you get a reroll via battlecry nearly all saves are possible to beat.
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Just for the record, there were zero doors in need of opening or closing as a swift action in this module.
[ooc] Walter has the right of it. In this module virtually everyone at the table could take apart any encounter with this PC, any of the 3 CMB specialists, my wizard, or even Walter's gunslinger with his OP swift action door closing skills.
I think you used the ability exactly once, and it was completely unnecessary. (very few doors in that particular module in general, I think just the one)
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I personally learned to dislike somewhat mounted classes and combat in general (melee only). It either trivializes encounters focusing on a single powerful blow, usually around 50-150 damage or makes them completely invalid (with flying enemies for example).
Any build focused on Save or go to a coffee break that shuts down BBEG or monsters in general. Likewise, I dislike these spells on monsters or NPCs also. Someone is always unhappy with them, either player or GM.
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Any build focused on Save or go to a coffee break that shuts down BBEG or monsters in general. Likewise, I dislike these spells on monsters or NPCs also. Someone is always unhappy with them, either player or GM.
I've always thought that (and was one of my initial hopes in Pathfinder) was that they should remove the true save vs death etc. Not for the spells to be gone - just not based on a single save or in a single round.
For example - for flesh to stone (or a medusa for that matter) you'd have to fail multiple saves. The first would cause you to be slowed/debuffed. The second (in the 2nd round) would cause you to be slowed further and instead gain a slam attack with whichever arm was turned to stone (randomized), and only on the third failed save (in the third round) would you become stone.
Once the first save was failed, it would take a spell such as lesser restoration or remove curse to remove the slow etc.
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@Charon's LH
I would prefer also if that was the case. Usually when people roll several dices like that, it minimizes randomness and grants more average effect in the gameplay. At least I believe, that everyone would be much better like that, but it is how it is.
Yep - I'm with you - that's law of large #s. It's the same reason that crit fumbles etc are harder on PCs than NPCs. (And it's also how both casinos and insurance work - but that's not really relevant here. :P)
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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It would be nice for the players, but if the badguys had that defense, then players would be less inclined to use those abilities (flesh to stone, Sleep).
I disagree. People still use the Evil Eye hex even though it never progresses beyond -2 to one stat/type of roll. People still use slow even though it never fully incapacitates anyone. So it stands to reason that an effect which started with a -2 (or similar condition), and had a chance to stack on a slow effect, and further had a chance to fully neutralize the target, would indeed be used by PCs (assuming it was appropriately leveled/resourced for its power level, of course).
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The Cockatrice does something like this. It takes several failed saves to get to bad. D&D 4e also had lots of effects like this, where you went down a condition track of slow-immobile-petrified for effects. It would be nice for the players, but if the badguys had that defense, then players would be less inclined to use those abilities (flesh to stone, Sleep).
Yeah - that's one of the things I do like about 4e. Frankly - I liked good chunks of the ideas behind 4e and nearly all of their motivations - but they threw out the baby with the bathwater.
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I personally learned to dislike somewhat mounted classes and combat in general (melee only). It either trivializes encounters focusing on a single powerful blow, usually around 50-150 damage or makes them completely invalid (with flying enemies for example).
At the level at which you have to worry about facing flying bad guys, a good mounted PC should have points in airwalk for their mount and a potion/scroll/wand/item that lets said mount airwalk or fly.
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I personally learned to dislike somewhat mounted classes and combat in general (melee only). It either trivializes encounters focusing on a single powerful blow, usually around 50-150 damage or makes them completely invalid (with flying enemies for example).At the level at which you have to worry about facing flying bad guys, a good mounted PC should have points in airwalk for their mount and a potion/scroll/wand/item that lets said mount airwalk or fly.
I actually checked before about the magical effects that enable mounts to fly in the air and it is pretty troublesome to a degree. Fly spell forces Fly checks on land mounts and Handle Animal checks to Push them. Airwalk is different story and only viable but expensive option. Alternative is if you have druid or another spellcaster in the party to cast it on your mount. There is also few magical items that grant Airwalk spell for a mount I think.
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Just wanted to contribute a character build that I think is pretty darn powerful:
Any blaster wizard built using the "Guide to the Blockbuster Wizard".
Holy wow, do they ever do a lot of damage! Sure, blasting is inefficient, but it can also be pretty darn impressive.
(I may or may not have a blockbuster wizard of my own.)
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Another very hard build (even in an unusual way) is the Aasimar dual cursed Life Oracle of Pharasma: you get absurd ammounts of Channel dice, have an option to give dualrolls via Fateful channel, Rerolls via Misfortune, rerolls via Battlecry and the group likly will not care about HPdamage anymore. This build is in my case useless offensively but the only dying thing in my team since i played it are animal Companions. And i think the failed saves for the relevant spells in all encounters from lv 5 to 8.1 are under 10. When you roll two dice, if you fail miserably you get misfortuned and if you fail you get a reroll via battlecry nearly all saves are possible to beat.
I can attest to the power of this tactic, my pet and I am benefiting greatly from those re rolls ^^ and I checked, my level 5 hunter used only a single charge from his wand of CLW (of course until recently it was one of my spells known, but at my level I really can't justify the action cost).
In my limited experience playing with that character build in the group, damage isn't really all that scary, and the only thing that can stop a party with this party sized healing potion is outright killing players or hitting them with nasty effects. Of course I can live with failing will saves three times in a row... against a level 17 demon....^^ (Hint - we survived even that one^^)
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Just wanted to contribute a character build that I think is pretty darn powerful:
Any blaster wizard built using the "Guide to the Blockbuster Wizard".
Holy wow, do they ever do a lot of damage! Sure, blasting is inefficient, but it can also be pretty darn impressive.
(I may or may not have a blockbuster wizard of my own.)
I think blasting in general tends to be underrated simply because people dismiss it because it isn't the most powerful option. But that doesn't mean it isn't a powerful option at all.
Case in point: I have a Fire Domain Theologian Cleric. I consider her a blaster, but she doesn't have a level of cross-blooded sorcerer, wayang spell hunter or any other typical blaster stuff other than a fairly high DC. We ran into a group of monsters that had a very strong combo of abilities that could easily turn the party against itself. Having a typical cleric Will save I was the only one in the party to resist this which forced me to solo the encounter. Two fireballs and an intensified burning hands later, and it was over. That seemed pretty darned effective to me.
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I have run for multiple blockbusters and evil outsiders are not a problem. Even golems are not a problem.
Evil outsiders. vs. Fireball change to Acid/Cold or whatever energy type they just resist, deal 130 points of damage, dead outsider. Oh SR? well since my fireball is being cast at level 15 on a level 9 character and I have spell pen, shouldn't be a problem? Saves? Oh my familiar as a wand of ill omen and obscuring mist, did i mention the goz mask (thank you Steven)
Oh a golem, quickened true strike plus intensified empowered snowball x2, dead golem. Lower level? Cast true strike, next round cast snowball, even just use a wand of true strike for it.
I have a Tetori monk that shut down boss fights, run up grapple boss, boss gets full attack, boss pinned, fight over. (What if boss escapes? on my turn, maintain grapple as move, ready to grapple as standard if boss escapes.) Also blindfight really great feat for Tetori. I want to try a Dex based Tetori at some point, see how viable it is.
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This game of ours is often like "Rock-Paper-Scissors".
When the challenge presented is "Rock" you just need to have "Paper"...
I think I have a totally different approach to this game or something...I read Louis Manko Levite post above and the others like it in this thread (and in others like this one), and I think I'm missing something here...
Why do people consider PCs to be all about combat? Why are they defining their PCs by combat stats only? It makes me wonder is this just a combat game for them? I feel really out of place here I think...
Or perhaps like a feminist turning to a "jock" and saying:
Fem:"Do you think the ERA is important?" (ERA: Equal Rights Amendment)
Joc:"Very important! Many people discount it, but I feel it's very relevant to determining a players abilities.) (ERA: Earned Run Average).
(Combat ability?):
"I can do 150 HP in a melee round!"
"Yeah, but can you cook breakfast? For a Talden noble?"
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