So my DM has decided that he is taking break but when he returns we will be going in to Rappan Athuk. That said I have a bit of a head start on character creation and would like sme assistance surviving as long as possible. While my preference is caster types I'm forgoing that in an effort to last as long as possible. I currently have no idea what the other party members may be as such all ideas are welcome. Creation rules are: all Paizo content is allowed and the stats I rolled are 15,15,14,14,13,7, I personally thing it is gonna be fought with those stats.
Short answer: You will not survive Rappan Athuk unless you are ridiculously lucky or you run away a lot.
Have backup characters readied.
Longer answer: I am GMing RA and without giving away anything, my group is level 10 and we have had no less than 3 party wipes and many more individual deaths.
Running into things that are well above your level is not uncommon. Random deaths occur. It is a very 'first edition' style of dungeon. Heck, we had one fatality in the first session before they even reached the dungeon.
The book has 16 pages of Obituaries (places to record your deaths) with 28 entries per page (448 total entries). There is a reason it is called the Dungeon of Graves.
Teleportation options are generally not available until level 7 (minimum).
Knowledge checks can fail if you are trying to identify something with a high CR (CR+5 or even higher happens in RA).
However, it is possible GMs tone it down rather than running it as written. If that is the case then survival is higher. Luck too plays a large part of things as does which part of the dungeon you go to. :)
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If all Paizo is allowed then a synthesist summoner might be a good idea. 6 levels of casting and the eidolan as a mech armor and physical stat bonuses, plus the eidolans 3/4 bab progression and the eidolan's hp as temp hp for yourself.
I has a friends stat one up once and it was a terror to bring to the table.
Forgive me for threadjacking, but I've been seeing this being said for years now (AND validated by Organized Play's blacklist), and I still just don't understand:
Why is the Synthesist supposed to be so ungodly powerful? On paper, I just don't see it - if anything, how is it not less powerful than a standard Summoner? It's one character as opposed to two....
Understand: I am NOT here to start an argument. I'll accept any answer given, because I'm just totally puzzled.
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Because as a synthesist, you have the attack power of a fighter, AC better then any fighter, hp of a barbarian, and if you dip 2 levels of paladin, your saves are godlike. You don't bother about battlefield control, because bad guys only hit you on a natural 20.
As Summoner and eidolon pair, your eidolon saves arent that good(compared to a syn paladin), smart enemies will go after the summoner instead of the eid. You need to divide your item slots up. If you go max DPS route, your eidolon is quadped, which has a poor will save. Good luck getting hideous laughter, charmed, etc.
That being said, I'd only recommend a synthesiat in a solo game where you don't need to worry about outshining anyone.
I think he was asking about straight Synthesis without the multiclassing originally. Personally I agree that the core summoner is better. Action economy is lower and I only have to take out one character.
However, I think the synthesis has a high floor because it allows you to dump stats without a lot of consequences. Also in PFS, unlike a home game the GM can't adjust the bad guys or his tactics. He must use whatever is suggested in the PFS scenario. That makes them more difficult to deal with.
Don't go down the well.
If you are going in, go on a mission(Get the McGuffin from level 3 for example) Then leave.
Keep your escape route planned.
Battlefield control like the wall spells are good if you need to cut off foes that are too rough.
Rope Trick for resting is a must when you get it.
I've had a pretty atypical experience with Rappan Athuk (only 2 party deaths up until 8th level, followed by a near TPK when a bout of party infighting got nasty) but from my experience, monks do pretty okay. High saves and defenses are a definite must for Rappan Athuk because the CR of challenges tend to be all over the place. Being able to get away from things that are way above your pay grade is going to be important too. So yeah, monks do well, synths do well, there's enough undead and demons for paladins to do really well and having someone be a rogue-like is almost essential. For Rappan Athuk you'll want to stay away from classes that use their HP as their primary defense as you will never have sufficient HP for the fights that matter (or the traps surrounding them), so not getting hit is more important than tanking the hit.
Thrown weapons do better than usual since you're typically going to encounter enemies within charging range, making it hard for bows to not draw attacks of opportunity. Fights aren't typically close quarters but are melee heavy so having some ability that allows you to parry attacks will work wonders for you (my personal favorite is the feat Roll With It). Other than that I don't have a whole lot to say outside of play it safe. The dungeon's basically on par with Tomb of Horrors when it comes to "doing something dumb will get you killed."
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Off tangent, but the only experience I've had with summoners amd synthesists is solo play, where I am both GM and only PC. My experiences may be coloured, since as a solo PC, monsters outnumber you by a lot, and if you don't have good defences, you just get swarmed under/caught in black tentacles. Even a 50% chance to hit because they were blinded by glitterdust adds up, better to make it such that your power is focused on one character(for solo). And if you give your cloak of resist to your eid, you become easy prey for spells and SLAs. If you don't, something bad happens to your eid, you're screwed anyway. No good choice ><
Summoned monsters don't deal with DR/flying or other weird things very well, like incorps, things with sky high AC.
@Taonna,
Have fun! Skip to the end for just PC suggestions.
My RA party has 3 optimized heavy casters just for battle field control and escape and then a rotation of 3 optimized damage dealers. Our party has had 2 deaths by level 6 (1 of them optional), but we have had 50 "would have been deaths" and several brutal routs. Our eidolon had so many stacked permanent conditions that it was an immobile sage NPC for two PC levels.
Rappan Athuk focuses on 3 mechanics to kill players:
1.) No access to magic items, spells, etc. until you can teleport or you loot it. Your gp limit for crafting is TINY.
2.) Outlandishly above CR random and fixed encounters. e.g. a hostile level 15ish full caster NPC at PC level 3.
3.) Straight kill rooms and traps with obscene for level DC's or that just skip DC and flat kill you.
Your priorities as a party have to change.
Priority 1: AVOID every possible saving throw with your PC's. If a PC is the first party member to make a save, or you didn't know the monster was there, you did something wrong and are likely dead.
Priority 2: BE paranoid and creative. Is there a way to do the thing that you want to do without getting close to it or following the expected path?
Priority 3: ESCAPE! You need 5 ways to get out of every situation in 2 rounds or less.
Priority 4: ONLY your life matters. No gear or treasure you have is a sure thing until you are strong enough to take on all comers.
Priority 5: IMMUNITIES are better than anything else. Your starting race matters.
Your stats have no spikes, so you cannot play a spike class like the evangelist hangover cleric.
With that said, your stats are excellent for a high survival character. you can put an impressive score in STR/DEX/CON and still cast.
If you alone want to live, I would recommend a Menhir Savant Druid. You can detect many of the worst threats at will (poison, undead, magic) and by level 6 get the world's greatest get out of jail free card, "become an earth elemental and meld". Your battlefield utility will help the party a lot. Your pet can die.
If you want to live slightly less well and also save way more party member's lives, play a master summoner. Your eidolon is a high level rogue at level 1 that can die over and over. Your summons sit between the party and the things the party can't kill.
If you want to be one of the damage dealers, look at an archer Paladin or Ranger. You've got a good spread for hurting things with a bow. Both classes are tough.
Oh, and Ghoran and Duergar are great races.
All the tips have been great keep them coming at first I was looking at a blazing torch bearer alchemist for the novelty but that would only bring in some knowledge checks and little else.
So what is this well i keep hearing about and why shouldn't i go down it
@Taonna, The "Don't go down the Well" is the most well-known of the sayings regarding Rappan Athuk. It was originally the creation of Bill Webb and Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games.
My players have been in it for about a year and a half now. We've had 4 individual deaths and several near deaths. Their party is:
Magus
Shaman
Theurge (Kobold Press creation)
Spell-less Ranger (KP)
Battle Scion (KP)
Oracle
Being prepared to run away is the most important piece of advice that you can use. There is no such thing as linear encounters in RA. You may fight a CR2 on one level and hit a CR 17 on the next, and the levels are not linear either. For instance from level 3 you can access levels 2, 3A, 4, and 6A. So you see it doesn't go from level 3 to 3A to 3B to 4, etc.
I would suggest that you contact the other players to find out what they are looking at playing. Build a party that compliments each other not detracts. Also create alternate PC's, as some one WILL die.
I will share this much, the first death was a beheading by a Giant Centipede.
I'd love to contact the other players if I could we play online via a program called fantasy grounds so I don't know if any of the other players we played with are sticking around or filling the time slot with something else.
Our first death was my Master Summoner being sacrificed on an altar. Fortunately, after some "loaned" souls and devil-bargains, he's back, baby!
I sent my unfettered eidolon down the well. It wasn't bad for me at all. Him, though.....
The other well-known motto is quoted by Arloro above, "Rappan Athuk? Bah! No one ever gets out of that place alive!"
If you're starting at level 1, I'll add my voice to synthesist summoner. @IHIYC, it's a lot of power early on in the character's career. The benefit combo is that you can dump physical stats, get a whole extra set of HP added to your own, start out with 3 attacks at full BAB at 1st level. IME, the rest of the party catches up with the power level before too long, but it's fun to show off early. If I was going to do Rappan Athuk, I'd definitely try Synth first for survivability.
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I recommend a Primalist Spell Eater Aberrant Bloodrager.
Go with a reach weapon and if you build right you can accomplish a crazy amount of reach and open doors from like 20ft-30ft away. You gain lots of immunities over the coarse of your career. You become Extremely hard to kill if built right. I have never ran RA (Id like to) but I have 2 different bloodrager builds that are just so overwhelming I have been banned from playing them in some of my groups.
Just build a few characters that interest you and use them as they die off.
I'd actually like to see some of these build examples say to 6th level using my stats, two i would for sure like to see is @Gevaudan the druid and @Fruian Thistlefoot bloodrager everyone has been a great help on the tips as well
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I think its better if you can get your entire group here, so we can help plan for the party. We can plan nice stuff for you, but if your party isn't doing their job, you're also screwed, since front liners tend to get the short end of the stick.
You'll need to cover the following bases as a party:
2 Front line(Fruian's bloodrager idea sounds solid)
Condition removal (Clerics are most versatile)
Battlefield control (Suggesting a wizard)
A trapspotter(Investigators are cool)
Ranged (If the cleric is an archer, he can deal with it)
If you want to live longer, play as a caster so you can run off.
Don't be afraid to chit-chat if the monsters are willing to talk. Unless they are 'arglebarglekill!' you might be able to back out of areas that you went into too early.
Also buy Herolab and keep several backup PCs prepped.When ever PCs go up a level, just update the ones in backup.
I've been playing Rappan Athuk for a few sessions now, and I must say, so far it's going pretty well. Maybe we're going in overprepared, though. Our GM gave us some extra options, though.
As written, there's no actual way of getting or selling loot, you'll have to make do with what you find. We got a merchant who can get to a bigger place to buy/sell stuff, but that's not really that big a deal. We just got to a good part of the dungeon where cool magic gear is everywhere.
People say it's incredibly hard, but so far we went from level 4 to 8 without any deaths, nor any close calls. We might simply be overprepared, though. There have been some extremely deadly traps, but we managed to avoid those. My advice is to have a well-rounded party, and have everyone specialise in one or two things. The first few sessions were mostly swarm tactics, with a lot of low-CR creatures (we had a random encounter with 20 enemies, for instance - though they hit pretty hard, we still weren't that much in danger due to superior tactics). Only in the last session (at level 8) have we gotten into some actual tough fights with monsters theoretically outclassing us. But now I fear we're getting overconfident. >_>
There are multiple ways into Rappan Athuk itself, and multiple exits to other levels, so I really can't give any advice, because our paths will most likely already diverge after the first session. Just be aware that if you're getting overwhelmed, you might want to look for a different way in.
I'm not sure what level you start at, but we started at 4, which is pretty good. Depending on where you start, enemies can be a fair challenge to pretty easy, but they'll ramp up soon. I can't imagine level ones surviving for very long.
To give you an image of our party composition:
- Paladin/Oracle. Heavy hitter.
- Slayer (me). Reach tripper. Works well so far, I get the feeling I'll need a new trick soon, once CMDs become insane/enemies too big. Recently upgraded to trapspotter. Can hit a bit, but not as heavy hitter as Paladin (mainly lacking Power Attack).
- Magus tank/trap disabler. Insane AC.
- Wizard controller.
- Druid crowd controller.
- Soon, a Cleric will join the table. Supposed to be an Evangelist, I think. Replaces our controller Witch.
As you see, we're very crowd control heavy. We mainly win because we always manage to incapacitate half of the enemies while we wail on the other half. Negating those swarm tactics are very important, you can't really brute-force your way through some encounters.
One final advice: be paranoid. Be prepared for anything. We managed to survive because we've got all our bases covered. Sometimes, Rappan Athuk doesn't play fair. Build you cheesiest characters. Our GM advised us to do so and we needed it. Without it, we would've had more fatalities, I'm sure (the Magus is a special kind of cheese that I'm still amazed at. The Oradin is a pretty standard Oradin build, which are already pretty powerful).
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How did your magus spot traps without walking right into them? Taking 10 to prod every square in front of you with a 10 ft pole woukd probably cause low level mage armor spells to wear out. I certainly didn't care for finding that pit by WALKING into it.
Suspect that darkvision throughout the party will come in handy.
Just being paranoid and checking every room and hallway. We quickly learned that random hallways are also trapped. Plus, a really high Perception modifier. I now have the Trap Spotter talent, which lets my GM roll to see if I find any traps. WIS of 12, so not that amazing, but with a +2 racial to Perception, full ranks, and those goggles for a +5 bonus, I have a pretty decent score.
@Quentin,
Yeah, you nailed it on the head. Don't get cocky. No level of optimization will protect you from some of the threats at level 8. I'm shocked the tripper is even getting trips off on the BBEG per level. The piles of mooks, no problem.
@Taonna,
This is a simple L6 outline:
Saris, Level 6 NN female Garuda-blooded Aasimar Menhir Savant Druid
STR: 14
DEX: 17
CON: 14
INT: 13
WIS: 18 (+1@level 4)
CHA: 7
HP:50 (8[L1]+22[Av. L2-6]+12[Con]+6[Level bonus])
Init: +5 AC: 17(hide) + spell buffs BAB: +4 CMB: +6 CMD: 19
Fort: +7 Ref: +5 Will: +9
Skills:
Climb +6, Disable Device +11, Fly +9, Handle Animal +7, Heal +8, Knowledge (geography) +5, Knowledge (nature) +5, Perception +11, Spellcraft +9, Survival +9, and Swim +6
Languages: Common, Celestial, Druidic
Feats:
1-Spell Focus(Conjuration)
3-Augmented Summoning or Craft Wondrous Item
5-Superior Summoning or Natural spell
7-The other one above
9-the other one above
Traits: Reactionary, Trap Finder(if allowed)
Gear: Focus on maximizing skill checks to Perception, Spellcraft and Disable Device. Get Tremor Boots.
Orisons: Detect magic, detect poison, guidance, read magic.
Combined with your Spirit Sense, you can detect: magic, poison, undead, fey, outsiders and astral, ethereal, or incorporeal creatures. that's most things you can't see. For the rest, you have 1/day detect invisibility from your racial spell.
I'd recommend one of the beasty Animal companions like the Spinosaurus.
The only problem I can see with the Spinosaurus is it turns Large at 7th level. Some of the tunnels will force it to squeeze which lowers its ability to fight and its AC. It is entirely up to you though.
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Narrow frame solves large animal companion issues. Reduce animal with a duration of 1h/lv is also on druid's spell list.
Next are you sure you wanted a spinosaurus instead of an anklyosaurus(daze on hit? I agree the to hit for an anklyosaurus isn't that good). Or maybe a wolf or a stegosaurus for trip, or a large cat for grab(max dps)? So far the only people I've heard off usimg spinosaurus are sylvan sorcerers who polymorph their animal companions, so they only care about the base stats of the animal in question.
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Teleportation options are generally not available until level 7 (minimum).
Innate teleportation options are not generally available until level 7. Scrolls of dimension door are available earlier and in fact are found in the dungeon in different places. After level 5 I rarely went in without a backup teleportation scroll.
Iammars, but then you have to deal with scroll failure because your caster level is insufficient. While that may be low odds of failure it is still a chance.
As for what scrolls are available to find, I suggest that you not take what you found as 'it is in the dungeon' as your GM may have added any such scrolls.
Also, this is an advice thread, we may want to avoid spoilers of what can be found in the dungeon.
@Quentin,
Yeah, you nailed it on the head. Don't get cocky. No level of optimization will protect you from some of the threats at level 8. I'm shocked the tripper is even getting trips off on the BBEG per level. The piles of mooks, no problem.
I haven't found the "BBEG" of each level exactly, so far most challenging encounters were just sheer number advantage, not one big guy and some mooks. I still manage to trip things pretty easily, with my +16, boostable to +22 through innate abilities (without any magical aid). Still pales in comparison to the Lore Warden tripper I saw once, though. My main problem will be size increases, though.
@ Mort,
The Spinosaurus lacks the late game pizzazz of the pounce AC's and T-rex. The OP asked for a survivable build and at low levels, I don't think there is a tougher, stronger AC. 3 primary natural attacks, good AC, high str/con, swim speed. It's like having a pet lizardfolk warrior.
I haven't found the "BBEG" of each level exactly, so far most challenging encounters were just sheer number advantage, not one big guy and some mooks. I still manage to trip things pretty easily, with my +16, boostable to +22 through innate abilities (without any magical aid). Still pales in comparison to the Lore Warden tripper I saw once, though. My main problem will be size increases, though.
+16 to +22 is really good.
Annnnnnd....now I want to trade notes.
But for the sake of spoilers, let me just say that early into the dungeon proper, PC level 6, we came upon a sudden BBEG and his mooks. Each of the mooks was the equal of a party member in power. The BBEG full round attacked our raging, heavily spell protected barbarian dead in the first round, without using any alignment smites. The paladin went to -11hp in the same round. The cleric went to 4hp in the same round. All from standard attacks.
We fled and the druid snuck back in to steal back the barbarian's body. This isn't even the worst over APL encounter we've had; just the one we took the biggest hurt from.
It is the Dungeon of Graves, fo sho.
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Iammars, but then you have to deal with scroll failure because your caster level is insufficient. While that may be low odds of failure it is still a chance.
Well sure, there's a chance of failure. If I only did things that didn't have a chance of failure my character wouldn't have gone into Rappan Athuk in the first place. Having a backup plan with a chance of failure is better than not having one at all. (Also, a 10% chance of failure at level 5 is still pretty damn good.)
Good point about spoilers for the dungeon though.
Ahhh yes...you look through the door and see...make a save or die. :)
(Note: not a spoiler, just a general idea.)
Our Rappan Athuk party includes an NPC, because we're only three players. The current NPC is a homebrewed version of the synthesist that's more glass cannon-y than the original version of the archetype. When she's inevitably killed, we're thinking of replacing her with a Spheres of Power incanter that's taken all of the Life Sphere talents. That's at level 8. We're hoping having someone who can heal up to four creatures within 55 feet for 6d8+40, and remove almost any condition you can name simultaneously, in addition to granting fast healing and temp. hit points, will be able to help us stave off death.
Hints for RA
- Have a high perception and check everything for traps.
- Don't go first
- Don't be the one opening doors/chests/scouting
- If in doubt: Run
- Don't be that guy with +0 inititive and a 20' move speed (though you do want one in the party. NPC's will stop to kill him while you escape.)
- Don't dump social skills
- Bring lots of potions, scrolls, wands, alchemical supplies
- It's not paranoia, they really are out to get you.
That said: at 8th level I'm the party scout/trapper and am the only person not to have died at least twice. I'm also the first to run when I feel the party is going down. Sometimes I even tell the party what I'm running from :P