Just doing a quick check with you guys since I'm lazy. Here's my spell loadout so far, I have 10k gold left for scrolls and adding to my spellbook. Party is (unfortunately) a swashbuckler, ranged dps ranger, rogue using a whip and rapier (ugh), and a healbot Oradin.
1st Level: Protection from Evil, Grease, Mage Armor, Shield, Unseen Servant, True Strike, Liberating Command, Magic missile, Ray of Enfeeblement, Crafter's Fortune, Vanish, Feather Fall
Level 2: False Life, Glitterdusf, Mirror Image, Create pit
Level 3: Haste, Dispel Magic, Battering blast, Halt Undead, Fly
Level 4: Emergency Force sphere, Enervation, D Door, Confusion
Level 5: Suffocation, Teleport, Telekinesis, Wall of stone
Level 6: Contingency, Greater Dispel Magic
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Based on your post, respect for your fellow party members.
Kudaku wrote: Based on your post, respect for your fellow party members. Good point! They actually play really well it's just that mechanically a lot of encounters are difficult for us and even my current wizard isn't pulling his weight which is why I've asked my GM to allow me to roll up a new character.
These guys are my best friends so I don't care what they play or even if we die in a horrible TPK, just looking for ways I can contribute more and prevent that.
vorpaljesus wrote: These guys are my best friends so I don't care what they play or even if we die in a horrible TPK, just looking for ways I can contribute more and prevent that. Fair enough. I have some concerns that increasing your personal optimization will only create a bigger gap between the characters and will cause more difficulty in balancing the encounters as a whole and you may be better off helping the less mechanically inclined players improve their characters, but that's really something you should discuss with your fellow players and your GM. I don't know your party dynamics.
It would be helpful to have your character build, especially what race you're playing as well as a list of your exploits and metamagic feats. If you have any idea what kind of campaign or adventure path you'll be playing in, that's also useful information. Some spells are mostly lackluster but are highly useful in specific settings. That said, here are some initial thoughts.
Consider picking up Reduce Person. The entire party seems likely to see some benefit from it.
Charm and compulsion spells can help your group if they're lacking a good face character. Similarly divination spells such as Contact Other Plane can help flesh out your information gathering department.
Create Pit is an excellent spell at low levels, but as you continue to level up you'll see more and more enemies that have access to flight.
While blasting is not an ideal option for an arcanist, you should have at least one decent AoE damage spell to deal with minions and swarms. Fireball is the classic, but feel free to pick whatever you think is appropriate.
Overland Flight is a great spell. Cast it at the start of the day, then use Quick Study to prepare a different spell.
I tend to prefer Wall of Force to Wall of Stone, since the stone wall is very fragile. The force wall can also be dismissed, which is nice if you accidentally walled off something you shouldn't have - like an escape route.
You need at least one 6th level Necromancy spell, since you're playing a Twilight Sage. If you have Empower Spell then an empowered enervation is a decent option if none of the 6th level necromancy spells appeal to you.
Leaving aside the various abuses associated with the spell, Planar Binding is an amazingly versatile and useful 6th level spell. Provided you have a decent imagination, it's well worth picking up.
A better question might be, "What is your party doing wrong?" because at 12th level the Swashbuckler should be doing fantastic damage and taking little, the Ranger should be destroying whatever is most dangerous the moment a fight starts, the Oradin can still provide great damage via Smites whilst ensuring no-one else gets low and even the rogue should be able to do *something* like trips and disarms (or if they stick to flanking with the Swashbuckler, decent damage). This plus whatever style of Wizard you were playing seems like a great party with solid melee, ranged, magic and skill/face roles all covered.
Since it seems like it's not working out however, lets try and fix the problem at the source rather than create a bigger bandaid. What typically happens in combats, how are they challenging, what seems to go wrong that you feel that most fights are harder than they should be?
If nothing's going wrong, then perhaps the GM is just overestimating what you guys can handle, maybe talk to them about how every fight feels like an end boss and that's just not fun all the time.
Kudaku wrote: vorpaljesus wrote: These guys are my best friends so I don't care what they play or even if we die in a horrible TPK, just looking for ways I can contribute more and prevent that. Fair enough. I have some concerns that increasing your personal optimization will only create a bigger gap between the characters and will cause more difficulty in balancing the encounters as a whole and you may be better off helping the less mechanically inclined players improve their characters, but that's really something you should discuss with your fellow players and your GM. I don't know your party dynamics.
It would be helpful to have your character build, especially what race you're playing as well as a list of your exploits and metamagic feats. If you have any idea what kind of campaign or adventure path you'll be playing in, that's also useful information. Some spells are mostly lackluster but are highly useful in specific settings. That said, here are some initial thoughts.
Consider picking up Reduce Person. The entire party seems likely to see some benefit from it.
Charm and compulsion spells can help your group if they're lacking a good face character. Similarly divination spells such as Contact Other Plane can help flesh out your information gathering department.
Create Pit is an excellent spell at low levels, but as you continue to level up you'll see more and more enemies that have access to flight.
While blasting is not an ideal option for an arcanist, you should have at least one decent AoE damage spell to deal with minions and swarms. Fireball is the classic, but feel free to pick whatever you think is appropriate.
Overland Flight is a great spell. Cast it at the start of the day, then use Quick Study to prepare a different spell.
I tend to prefer Wall of Force to Wall of Stone, since the stone wall is very fragile. The force wall can also be dismissed, which is nice if you accidentally walled off something you shouldn't have - like an escape route.
You need at least one 6th... All great suggestions, thank you. I'm not particularly concerned about increasing my personal optimization, but, as you say, helping the party perform as a whole.
That's a really smart use of overland flight and quick study, I planned on picking that spell up and you reminded me.
Wall of force vs wall of stone was something I debated and probably will continue to. WoF has always been one of my favorite spells.
3rd level blasts are hard for me to justify as it competes with Haste and Slow which I plan to get, and fly to help if it's needed as well. That's such a loaded level I think I'll have to end up getting scrolls to scribe into my book and have around for quick study at least.
Charm and compulsion spells are a good idea too, I really should grab a couple although I feel like I may need to change my build to give them a batter chance of working and I always worry about immunity to mind affecting.
By the way, my build:
Traits:
Magical lineage (suffocation), so I can prepare persistent suffocation in my 6th level slot
Wayang spell hunter (battering blast), so I can use dazing battering blast in my 5th level slot
Feats:
Persistent Spell
Imp Init
Craft wondrous item
Craft rod
Spell focus (necro)
Spell specialization (battering blast)
Exploits:
Quick study
Potent magic
Metamagic knowledge (dazing spell)
Dimensional slide
I'm an Elf with fleet footed amd darkvision.
I wear an otherworldly kimono for the boost to caster level checks and saves.
I have a normal rod of quicken.
Permanent Arcane sight and See invisibility.
I do have concerns about using my highest level slot for a Save or Suck targeting Fort, but I'm hoping it will be useful in a decent amount of encounters.
I plan to take Greater Metamagic Knowledge (maximize) at 13th level, switch my spell specialization to Chain Lightning at 14th level, take Spell Perfection for it at 15th.
I'm aware I'm far from optimized, we like to play our concepts first and foremost. I do definitely like advice and am willing to tweak it so I appreciate the consideration.
Maybe I should go a little more toward buffing or at least have that option.
I just want to be able to get people out of trouble and set up encounters to make them a lot easier for us, and also to have options to shut opponents down quick if need to. I also find myself having to mitigate awfulness like curses and mind affecting spells a lot, even if it's just with a wand of prot from evil to get my guys a new save.
You've given me a lot to think about so far, I really appreciate it.
Suthainn wrote: A better question might be, "What is your party doing wrong?" because at 12th level the Swashbuckler should be doing fantastic damage and taking little, the Ranger should be destroying whatever is most dangerous the moment a fight starts, the Oradin can still provide great damage via Smites whilst ensuring no-one else gets low and even the rogue should be able to do *something* like trips and disarms (or if they stick to flanking with the Swashbuckler, decent damage). This plus whatever style of Wizard you were playing seems like a great party with solid melee, ranged, magic and skill/face roles all covered.
Since it seems like it's not working out however, lets try and fix the problem at the source rather than create a bigger bandaid. What typically happens in combats, how are they challenging, what seems to go wrong that you feel that most fights are harder than they should be?
If nothing's going wrong, then perhaps the GM is just overestimating what you guys can handle, maybe talk to them about how every fight feels like an end boss and that's just not fun all the time.
Great points and I think this gets to the crux of the issue as far as encounters are concerned.
The DM maxes hit points for all creatures. I think he also Advances all the creatures, or at least the main one or two for each encounter.
I probably worry too much about the swashbuckler since he can handle himself really well normally. He does do really solid damage when he doesn't have trouble hitting (he usually hits a good percentage) and he has a few tricks up his sleeve. Main problems are: failing will saves, opponents have maxed HP and we don't so he ends up having to use a lot of panache points it seems standing toe to toe with the Large and Huge creatures we face at this level. I was enlarging him for awhile to help him with reach and he asked me not to (understandably) because it lowered his damage a little bit. So I stopped. He picked up some scarf type thing to increase his reach but it either costs panache or uses an action for him or has limited use.
The ranger is a very creative player but he's built into Improved Snap Shot and when creatures arent coming at him because they're busy with other things, this seems to be an underutilized feat tree. I feel he'd get more out of rapid shot and manyshot.
The Oradin, I think, feels he has relegated himself to a healing role. He has a TON of money (60k) that he's saving up to "buy an awesome sword". He spends most of the time in battle waiting to heal people, which I've suggested to everyone could be better spent doing other things but they say without his healing we wouldn't have survived so far. Which we wouldn't have but if he were putting put some damage it might be even better. I've told him Id buy him a bow so at least he could ranged smite evil but he hasn't taken me up. I think this is a case of the player not being used to playing this part in a party, maybe I could use some help getting through to him how he could contribute more tactically. Typically he casts bless and spiritual weapon then waits to channel.
The rogue hasn't had a chance to be very roguey just yet. He spent a lot of money on a rust monster antenna whip which our DM is letting him use normally as a weapon, but i feel like we won't be fighting a lot of enemies where that will be very useful as It doesn't even work against magical armor. Its such a cool idea though we were all like "awesome!" When he mentioned it. He's had trouble hitting and didn't put a lot of ranks in acrobatics to help him move into flanking position.
For my own part I'm unhappy with my Wizard. I lack damage capability except for my summons. I have augment summoning and I just retrained for superior summoning but haven't had a chance to use it. I play him poorly. I feel like I should summon and everyone says "what no haste?", I try to hit with slow but it doesn't connect often enough for whatever reason. 4TH level spells seem like a dead slot to me as i have enervation but nobody else is targeting their saves. So it helps but not as much as it could on the same round. I have Telekinetic Charge but the other PCs dont take kindly to me dictating their positioning. I feel like Im poor at choosing what to summon and when, the versatility has helped us get through weird situations but hasnt added much to combat capability. Ive rolled poorly but even a pouncing Dire Tiger has felt lack luster. I think a lot of it comes down to the 1 round casting time. I also don't like adding more combatants at a certain point. It was nice when we had 3 PCs but now it's more chaotic and time consuming than I'd like. Glitterdust, grease, create pit, web, protection from evil, bralani azatas have saved the day several times but i feel like Im lacking the well timed punch when we really need it. Hoping arcanist will help my save DCs a little, and this new build will give me some damage options and a better ability to incapacitate the enemy.
Okay cool, tons of info to work with there!
It really seems from what you're saying that your group, whilst all individually pretty decent, doesn't gel together terribly well in fights, almost like you're all fighting the encounter without any plan or group cohesion. First step, sit all the players down and see if they feel the same, that fights are tougher than you all think they should be, if they agree then great, you can start to fix it!
I think my strongest suggestion is also the one that will make the most difference... tactics. You have a decent ranged composition to your group, if the enemy are all melee, let them come to you. You blast/buff away with whichever character you're on, the ranger sends out arrowy death, the rogue, oradin and swashbuckler ready actions to attack anyone who comes in range and stand in front of you and the ranger. Speaking of the oradin, unless they traded away Smite, get them to start Smiting the hell out of bad guys (there are numerous items that improve this or give them extra smites), that's a lot of damage. If they want to go ranged that's fine, they can stand back and provide a switch hitter, protect you and make ranged attacks, then if someone gets up close, drop the bow, draw their weapon and go to town.
By making the enemy come to you you're denying them full attacks due to moving, potentially gaining AoOs and *still* getting readied attacks back on them, plus you decide where the battle is fought and what part of the terrain you're on. If you have to go to them due to an excess of magic or ranged enemies then act smart, the rogue moving in first and tripping from range or destroying a weapon with his whip, followed up by the other melee is a much safer approach than simply charging.
It sounds like you all have a lot to offer but you need to work together more, plan out a few simple scenarios and what you'll all do in them; primarily melee enemy, primarily ranged, etc. If you all cooperate I think you'll find you multiply the effective power of your group significantly.
A way better and fuller explanation of solid team tactics is provided by TarkXT here, well worth a read if you have time.
Fueling the Forge by TarkXT
More articles on combat by TarkXT (all well worth reading!
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