Hi! I am new to the adventure paths (My Dm mostly only does homebrew campaigns) and I was wondering if you guys think that my group would be able to do Rotrl.
So far my group consists of a Kitsune Bard, A Half-elf ranger (I told him to play an inquisitor or a barbar but he refused to.) He will be by far the weakest guy in our group, And a Sylph Wizard (Me). I will be the most optimized of our group by far (I have been playing much longer, and I am very good with arcane casters). I think the bard will fair fine because i can help him with his spells list and such. But I am worried about the ranger. He just will not change.
So Plz let me know if you think my group will be able to do Rotrl
If you could respond soon that would be greatly appreciated.
Once again Thanks!
You should be fine, but going through an AP without access to some of the key divine removal spells is going to be rough. You'll probably want to get the Bard a Mnemonic Vestment, a good UMD score, and plenty of scrolls--stuff like Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Blindness/Deafness, etc.
You're also short a person from the typical party, so, I hope you have better stats and/or wealth and/or that you level faster or something, because you're expected to have four for these things.
Oh, and I don't see why an Inquisitor or Barbarian would be so significantly better than a Ranger. A well played Ranger is one of the best full BAB classes in the game--easily right up there with Barbarian. The Inquisitor would have helped with the Divine stuff, but would not provide the, I guess, "meatiness" you might want in the front line. Unless you intend to summon more, that is.
Ask your GM for a NPC healer to accompany you, bringing your group up to 4 - maybe later someone, probably the bard, can turn it into a Cohort.
You don't need 4, and you don't need a healer, but a group like this won't finish the first book without rounding out their missing team member in some way, and a good healer, or even a battle-cleric or paladin or someone else who can remove conditions when necessary, would be the ideal 4th character.
Of course, if your GM is going to deliberately weaken all the encounters for you, especially the boss fights, then yeah, your group will be fine.
Rangers can actually be one of the best classes for ROTRL.
However, with that he is probably going for an archer, which is fine, but you need a decent tank of some kind, to keep monsters back from .
Since you only have 3 players perhaps you can arrange for a 4th player to be an NPC. A reach cleric might be good for keeping enemies at a distance from your party. Possibly a warpriest. Maybe a dwarf with a longhammer.
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The problem is not what class are they playing. It is how are they built? Is the Bard, or Ranger built to take care of traps? As you advance to the higher level play. The lack of roles filled will be harder to make up. This is where party building comes in.
If your group looks like this you should be fine.
Bard (buffing, social skills, knowledge skills, melee combat, some range)
Ranger Urban Ranger (switch hitter, wilderness skills, trap skills)
Wizard (crowd control, knowledge skills)
If your group looks like this. You might want to rethink how you make characters.
Bard (casting focus, social skills, knowledge skills,)
Ranger (switch hitter, wilderness skills)
Wizard (Blaster, knowledge skills)
My top suggestion.
Ranger: Urban Ranger
Cleric: Evangelist Cleric (reach weapon melee combat)
Sorcerer (crowd control)
Currently I'm in a giant slayer game with just two players. We are using a higher point buy than normal (20points). However we built the character as to handle combat solo. This was done to make sure if one of use went down the other could still make it. Something you might want to think about in a small group.
Characters are.
Hunter / Bear (Wilderness Skills, Animal Companion, Melee Combat)
Oracle Mystery Moon / Small Cat (Social Skills, Animal Companion, Divine Caster, Reach Melee Combat)
I have run RotRL with a party of three. At higher levels you are definitely going to want to get a cleric (or even druid) in there - possibly with leadership. Both for condition removal and for bringing you back when someone gets got by a monster's lucky crit.
While the party mostly did pretty well, each of them got taken out by a crit at some point.
My first experience with Pathfinder was RotRL with a veteran GM in a party of four with two experienced players and two total noobs.
It was absolutely brutal.
So many deaths at low levels because the noobs weren't optimized and the experienced players didn't care enough to take the lead. Also we had no good divine casters until around 9th level (which if we'd had it before then would have saved us probably four or 5 deaths with status condition removals alone.)
A standard bard (which I'm assuming your new friend will create) cannot carry their weight in combat at low levels, and your ranger sounds like he doesn't care to improve so he's probably going to be a burden as well. As a wizard, I don't think you can carry a 3-man party through the difficult early levels. Without a 4th character as a divine caster, I predict much frustration and death in your future. As a new player, RotRL was not a fun way to be introduced into the world of Pathfinder.
Edit: Even after creating a much more balanced party with 5 players at level 9, we full party wiped at level 11 and just called the campaign. I never intend to go back.
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I joined a RotR group. 20 point buy core. Nothing from any book that said "advanced, etc..." without GM permission.
By the end of book 1, the entire party had been captured and there were at least 3 PC deaths. I joined the game after the party rogue quit and made an Unchained Rogue (GM allowed these). Mouse lasted exactly one session before dying. And we were a party of 5 (2xfighter, wizard, cleric and rogue.)
Unless your GM softballs or adjusts the game somehow, you will most likely have multiple PC deaths.
Could also be that your gm adjusted AP to be harder <_< I have heard of horror stories of gms who thought "Too easy, let's do this instead" with this AP xD
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A standard bard (which I'm assuming your new friend will create) cannot carry their weight in combat at low levels, and your ranger sounds like he doesn't care to improve so he's probably going to be a burden as well. As a wizard, I don't think you can carry a 3-man party through the difficult early levels. Without a 4th character as a divine caster, I predict much frustration and death in your future. As a new player, RotRL was not a fun way to be introduced into the world of Pathfinder.
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I dont undestand what standart bard is if it cannot carry its weigth in combat. And why Does a guy that want to be a ranger and not a barbarian( read a Martial that Can do stuff outside combat) need to be a burden. You dont need to be a Master of the system for these two characters to shine and Carry the party. Yes lag of status removal is gonna hurt but both bard and ranger Can help there. All 3 Can be a burden if they mess up and it is easyer, to mess up with the wizard than the other two.
And if you played RoTRL with 4 guys that died all the time i suspect the GM May have been boosting the baddies.Edit: and to the OP. Let the GM worry about this stuff. There is no need for you to tell the others what to do already in the character creation phase. Just enjoy the story and the game and pehaps consider a occultist arcanist instead;)
Standard Bard can do fine in combat. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Archer Bard is an excellent option. Melee is harder with a Kitsune due to str penalty.
A small party like this will have a difficult time, I agree, but there's nothing inherently bad about those class choices.
Were running ROTRL right now as Core and APG only. Our group is human Sorcerer: undead, Elf (changed to dwarf) Sorcerer: infernal (changed to Destined after death), Gnome Druid, Gnome Monk. There have been a few pets and we got a new multiclass... something (bard??) that joined in around book 5.
It's a BRUTAL AP and we are so far from optimized it isn't funny. We've had some close calls and a couple deaths but we're up to book 6 now!
Out of curiosity, what do you have against rangers? Full BAB, bonuses against specific enemies (useful in APs). Some Clerical spells...
We went through Serpent Skull with a Ranger as our only Full BAB martial... her only back up was a rogue. (He died a LOT...)
A ranger with favored enemy goblins and giants will outshine almost any other melee you bring to the table with the exception of a barbarian - and if they focus on archery they'll outdo the barb in many encounters.
In my game (mid way through book 3) our ranger makes the wizard look like a chump - the ranger is a 100% unoptimized and the wizard is a vet that plans things out.
Heck the ranger did this with a single magic item up to book 3.
I think you vastly are underestimating what a ranger can do. I hope your wizard has use magic device to backup the bard. The ranger can use divine wands and scrolls fyi without a check - so really you all need to back each other up with that stuff.
I'll admit - I think if you try to 'push' someone into a role they don't want - it just makes the game unfun for them - so I'm biased on your actions here - if you feel the party needs a different role why don't you provide it? I will say the AP can be done without a wizard.
You should be fine, but going through an AP without access to some of the key divine removal spells is going to be rough. You'll probably want to get the Bard a Mnemonic Vestment, a good UMD score, and plenty of scrolls--stuff like Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Blindness/Deafness, etc.
You're also short a person from the typical party, so, I hope you have better stats and/or wealth and/or that you level faster or something, because you're expected to have four for these things.
Oh, and I don't see why an Inquisitor or Barbarian would be so significantly better than a Ranger. A well played Ranger is one of the best full BAB classes in the game--easily right up there with Barbarian. The Inquisitor would have helped with the Divine stuff, but would not provide the, I guess, "meatiness" you might want in the front line. Unless you intend to summon more, that is.
Thanks!
The inquisitor is better because it has 6th level spells, and the barb can deal alot more damage.
Rangers can actually be one of the best classes for ROTRL.
However, with that he is probably going for an archer, which is fine, but you need a decent tank of some kind, to keep monsters back from .
Since you only have 3 players perhaps you can arrange for a 4th player to be an NPC. A reach cleric might be good for keeping enemies at a distance from your party. Possibly a warpriest. Maybe a dwarf with a longhammer.
I was thinking of maybe doubling up and playing two characters. The second would be a dwarven battle cleric.
Thanks though
The problem is not what class are they playing. It is how are they built? Is the Bard, or Ranger built to take care of traps? As you advance to the higher level play. The lack of roles filled will be harder to make up. This is where party building comes in.
If your group looks like this you should be fine.
Bard (buffing, social skills, knowledge skills, melee combat, some range)
Ranger Urban Ranger (switch hitter, wilderness skills, trap skills)
Wizard (crowd control, knowledge skills)That is pretty much exactly what our group looks like
Thanks alot!
It is not that I do not like ranger. I have played a few and I like them just fine. But the problem is that my friend who is playing one is not into optimizing and I think a non optimized barb or inquisitor or even heck a paladin is better than a non optimized ranger.
1 The inquisitor has 6th level spells just in case (Its better than 4th level spells)
2 Barbarians will always deal more damage than a non optimized ranger
3 At least paladins make good takes. You do not need to optimize them to. It's in all of their class abilities.
So Plz understand that I like rangers, I just do not like non optimized rangers.
Thanks!
How badly unoptimized are we talking?
All you really need to do is pick the right favored enemies. In this case, goblins (though it might be short sighted), giants, humans, and I would probably do undead or monstrous humanoid.
Well he is pretty new about half a year now
I do not think he has ever made a character past lvl 4
I also want to know if you guys think the anniversary edition or the normal edition is harder.
Thanks!
Just so everyone knows we will be doing this with 20 point buy
Could also be that your gm adjusted AP to be harder <_< I have heard of horror stories of gms who thought "Too easy, let's do this instead" with this AP xDI joined a RotR group. 20 point buy core. Nothing from any book that said "advanced, etc..." without GM permission.
By the end of book 1, the entire party had been captured and there were at least 3 PC deaths. I joined the game after the party rogue quit and made an Unchained Rogue (GM allowed these). Mouse lasted exactly one session before dying. And we were a party of 5 (2xfighter, wizard, cleric and rogue.)
Unless your GM softballs or adjusts the game somehow, you will most likely have multiple PC deaths.
no first book of RotRL can be brutal... make sure you have a lot of good will waves... I GMed for RotRL there's a TON of places goblins can trap you or taken advantage of their numbers or size.
Thanks!
I appreciate all of these helpful comments about Rotrl
I think my gaming group will have tons of fun on this ap
So far our party is like this
Kitsune bard (Party face, knowledge, backup healer, backup arcane caster, and buffer)
Half-elf ranger (Martial, only ranged, hunter gatherer (He will keep our party alive in the wild)
Sylph wizard (Controller, debuffer, killer, backup buffer, and backup knowledge person)
We really only need a battle cleric to complete the party.
I will also help the ranger to be more optimized so that he wil be able to fight well (ex. help him pick good feats, skills etc.)
Any more advice on rotrl would be greatly appreciated
Thanks to everyone who responded quickly and everyone who helped me.
Any more advice on rotrl would be greatly appreciated
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PAY ATTENTION... TO EVERYTHING!
occasionally ask for details of the room you're in if you're in any kind of dungeon or location.
Thanks!
You have been very helpful.
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So far our party is like this
Kitsune bard (Party face, knowledge, backup healer, backup arcane caster, and buffer)
Half-elf ranger (Martial, only ranged, hunter gatherer (He will keep our party alive in the wild)
Sylph wizard (Controller, debuffer, killer, backup buffer, and backup knowledge person)
...
I'm not entirely sure you need a 4th character if you are careful.
The potential problem is lack of divine condition removal spells and melee capability.
The Bard with a high UMD can handle the condition removal if the group sets aside funds to purchase scrolls.
Also the wizard can get some condition removal spells from their list. Can also get a high UMD with Pragmatic Activator.
The ranger can quite easily be a THW switch hitter that is mostly an archer. It really takes away very little of the archery capability but gives another option when something gets close. Then at later levels when he has all the feats to do the archery in melee, he can train out of the THW feats.
Probably won't need the melee too often. An archer with much spell support can often kill most everything before it gets to melee range. But occasionally things will get close. The group needs a way to deal with that.
Ask him to come on the boards and we can help with a fun build that does what he wants.
Edit: Accidentally hit the submit button early.
Thats exactly why we need a fourth person
The B
Huh? What do you mean the B
Do you mean you think our team is a B team?
I personally don't like the option of adding another character.
If I as GM run it, it is just a headache for me and has the potential to become the dreaded GMPC.
If another player runs it, that player is now taking twice as many turns as everyone else. That sometimes causes hurt feelings, since some can feel it makes the game all about that player.
I am much more likely to reduce the encounter strength a bit than to add additional characters.
If I really felt there was no other workable option and I really had to add a character, I would give them a pretty heavily nerfed NPC that I had created.
Much lower point buy and wealth than the other characters.
Dumber than dirt and never make it a face or scout type character, so it doesn't steal 'spotlight' time from the PC's.
In this case a cleric of Gorum, heavy armor proficiency, wisdom just high enough to cast his spells, dump int & cha to raise con, then he would just be a halfway decent tank to get in the way of charging enemies and heal out of combat.
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I appreciate all of these helpful comments about Rotrl
I think my gaming group will have tons of fun on this ap
So far our party is like this
Kitsune bard (Party face, knowledge, backup healer, backup arcane caster, and buffer)
Half-elf ranger (Martial, only ranged, hunter gatherer (He will keep our party alive in the wild)
Sylph wizard (Controller, debuffer, killer, backup buffer, and backup knowledge person)We really only need a battle cleric to complete the party.
I will also help the ranger to be more optimized so that he wil be able to fight well (ex. help him pick good feats, skills etc.)
Any more advice on rotrl would be greatly appreciated
Thanks to everyone who responded quickly and everyone who helped me.
As long as the group buys items early on you don't need a cleric. You replace the cleric with gold on items. Works very well with a bard in the group. Just split the gold you get 4 ways. 1/4 of the gold you get is spent on the following items.
Wand of Cure Light WoundsWand of Infernal Healing
Wand of Lesser Restoration before level 5
Wand of Remove Curse before level 7
Wand of Remove Blindness/Deafness before level 7
Scrolls or Wand of Restoration before level 9
Scrolls Raise Dead before level 9 (Just keep one on hand just incase)
Scrolls Heal before level 10 (After level 10 you will want to have at least 4 on hand)
Keep on posting
Plz
I appreciate all of these helpful comments about Rotrl
I think my gaming group will have tons of fun on this ap
So far our party is like this
Kitsune bard (Party face, knowledge, backup healer, backup arcane caster, and buffer)
Half-elf ranger (Martial, only ranged, hunter gatherer (He will keep our party alive in the wild)
Sylph wizard (Controller, debuffer, killer, backup buffer, and backup knowledge person)We really only need a battle cleric to complete the party.
I will also help the ranger to be more optimized so that he wil be able to fight well (ex. help him pick good feats, skills etc.)
Any more advice on rotrl would be greatly appreciated
Thanks to everyone who responded quickly and everyone who helped me.
As long as the group buys items early on you don't need a cleric. You replace the cleric with gold on items. Works very well with a bard in the group. Just split the gold you get 4 ways. 1/4 of the gold you get is spent on the following items.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds
Wand of Infernal Healing
Wand of Lesser Restoration before level 5
Wand of Remove Curse before level 7
Wand of Remove Blindness/Deafness before level 7
Scrolls or Wand of Restoration before level 9
Scrolls Raise Dead before level 9 (Just keep one on hand just incase)
Scrolls Heal before level 10 (After level 10 you will want to have at least 4 on hand)
Thanks!
You have been very helpful
Just so everyone noes I took the trait adopted and I took the ability samasarans get to get spells from another spell list of the same type either arcane or divine. I took a few healing spells from the witch spell list just in case. I took infernal healing greater, healing, CCW mass and a few other non healing spells.
Just so everyone noes I took the trait adopted and I took the ability samasarans get to get spells from another spell list of the same type either arcane or divine. ...
Unless your GM has house ruled it, that's not actually the way it works. It really isn't that powerful.
It is a common confusion between racial traits and race traits.If you take Adopted by dwarves, it lets you take one of the traits that usually only a dwarf can take (the 2 or 3 you get at first level). So you could take Brewmaster, Goldsniffer, or Tunnel Fighter.
You could not take something like Deep Warrior or Rock Stepper.
Yes you can!
Yes you can!
No, seriously, you can't. Not without a bizarre hoiserule that would make you a fool not to be adopted, since, at its most boring, you coukd get a free feat from being human, never mind all the other crazy options.
Yes you can!No, seriously, you can't. Not without a bizarre hoiserule that would make you a fool not to be adopted, since, at its most boring, you coukd get a free feat from being human, never mind all the other crazy options.
Then I am really confused on what it is supposed to do.
Plz help
Yes you can!No, seriously, you can't. Not without a bizarre hoiserule that would make you a fool not to be adopted, since, at its most boring, you coukd get a free feat from being human, never mind all the other crazy options.Then I am really confused on what it is supposed to do.
Plz help
You get a race specific trait. A trait like Adopted, except from the racial category. Someone adopted by halflings could, for example, take the Helpdul trait to increase their aid another bonus.
adopted is boring like that, but you do get a free racial trait with it, so it doesn't use up your 2nd trait slot.
I also want to know if you guys think the anniversary edition or the normal edition is harder.
Thanks!
The rumors I've heard is that Anniversary is more 'balanced' in that the original edition was brutal bloody guaranteed TPK... Some of their enemies were tougher then they had any right to be and they fixed it in the reprint.
Regardless, I always recommend going with the 'newest' version. The errors are corrected, the stats are updated... the original was still 3.5 rules while the Anniversary is 'Pathfinder rules'. There is a lot of rewriting and adapting if you try to play some of those early APs with the current rules system.
We've done half and half. We started with the original AP up till book 3 or 4 and then switched over when the anniversary edition came out. Still insanely difficult but the book allows some more options/classes/feats that the original hadn't planned for.
The anniversary edition is identical to the original AP except the changes Paizo added after years of reading feedback from other groups as well as playing RotRL themselves. If you can choose between the two I'd very much go with the anniversary edition.
And yes, Adopted gives you a race trait - not a racial trait. It's really unfortunate that those two names are so similar.
Thanks for the clarification and for which of the two to pick
I am going with rotrl anniersary
we will be starting next week
I think we will have a blast
Our Oracle was a key reason we survived, and yes he was the dreaded GMPC. We absolutely loved him, and later a player took him over to run as a PC. Focused on healing, the Oracle kept us going, especially at lower levels. We had close calls but no deaths in our party.
Sounds like you have your bases covered now in any case.
You seem to Think your party have a problem and try to fix it by changing you friends character. If you play a witch instead of a wizard you Can fill the hole your self. It seems you plan your wizard to be able to fill every potential wizard role? I suggest Against that since that Will spread you thin and put you in risk of not fillig any.
You seem to Think your party have a problem and try to fix it by changing you friends character. If you play a witch instead of a wizard you Can fill the hole your self. It seems you plan your wizard to be able to fill every potential wizard role? I suggest Against that since that Will spread you thin and put you in risk of not fillig any.
Thanks for the advice but no