I am running a campaign for a group of friends. But I recently received the pathfinder book: Blood of the beast, and got inspired to make a ratfolk encounter. These ratfolk are heavily focused on the swarming racial trait. The idea I am currently running is the two ratfolk-explicit archetypes, plague-bringer alchemist, and Gulch-gunner Gunslinger, with perhaps a dex fighter, and Witch.
Feats I would like to include/play with would be:
Rat stack: 3 allies that have this feat can share the same square, if they have tunnel rat, up to four can share the same square.
Tunnel rat: You count as 1 size smaller for purposes of squeezing.
Rending swarm: +1 on melee damage rolls for each ally that shares your square that also has this feat. If two or more allies in the same square hit the same opponent, deal an extra 1d6 + the highest STR modifier between attacking allies at the end of the round.
Squirming pile: while sharing a square with an ally with this feat, you gain +25% chance to negate the extra damage from a successful critical hit, or sneak attack. If negated, it is rolled normally. This doesn't stack with similar protection (ex. Fortification armor)
Swarm scatter: For each ally who is adjacent to you, gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC. As long as you have this bonus, you are immune to the swarm attack, and distraction ability of rat swarms.
And Underfoot: You can share a space with a hostile creature at least 1 size category larger. Gain a +2 shield bonus to AC and a +2 bonus on attack rolls against the creature whose space you share.
The level is around 7-8, which I know isn't enough to get all of those feats, but I'm trying to build a cohesive group to try out the idea against the PC's.
The Idea I was playing with between these is that the plague bringer alchemist could poison weapons with his disease as a swift every turn, and provide pre-prepared buffs to the group prior to an ambush, as well as some ranged control with bombs, but particularly add to melee damage, as that won't provoke AoO.
Gulch-gunner is going to attack touch with firearms, and thanks to the gulch-gunner special, WILL provoke AoO, but get grit back every time he does.
Fighter is the primary Tank/Damage-dealer, And will likely be dex-based, because of the ratfolk's racial scores.
And Witch is supposed to be a debuffer with hexs that don't provoke AoO.
As stated before, the mechanics I really want to play with if ratfolks and their swarming mechanic, though I don't want something as bland as 4 fighters so they can take all the feats. I'm still building this myself, but wanted to throw this out and see if anyone had any better suggestions for classes, or feats, or even equipment. A lot of this encounter is adjustable, including scaling back to three ratfolk, or changing classes/archtypes entirely.
Thank you all for your time, and assistance if you provide any.
Definitely need a rogue in there, with swarming they're considered to be flanking
skulky wrote: Definitely need a rogue in there, with swarming they're considered to be flanking Rouge or ninja? Anything that does Sneak attack? And what would I switch? Perhaps the fighter? If I'm getting the extra dice anyway...
It sounds like you are going to have the Ratfolk swarming out of their nice safe warrens where they have all the advantages. Why?
The ratfolk witch fcb is great too extends the range of their hexes.
Daw wrote: It sounds like you are going to have the Ratfolk swarming out of their nice safe warrens where they have all the advantages. Why? Well, in this particular case, the PC's have done some things to warrant a VERY high interest with one of the big bads. Who more or less has a bounty on them now. So these ratfolk are more mercenaries/assassins for coin. It was going to be a different, more normal encounter with a mix of humans and whatnot, but as stated, I recently got Blood of the beast, and saw all those swarming feats that I wanted to experiment with a bit.
Though I suppose a lure MIGHT work to get them into a warren, It's more likely they are just going to run and run to a more safe area.
Lots of teamwork feats.
Paired Opportunist + Outflank comes to mind.
Have you considered having something important to the story stolen by the Ratfolk to encourage the party to have to fight on the Ratfolk "turf"?
Actually, done right, your players should have little or no chance with a target who won't engage "fairly" in a straight-up fight. Having your Ratfolk, desperate for the reward, going head to head is probably best. Have the Ratfolk start out by harassing until the party catches wise and attempts to leave is a good way to start, Skulky's witch being a good trick. Once the party decides to split, the Ratfolk have to engage or lose any chance at that reward. Remember, distraction is the Ratfolks friend here in the end fight as well, low level swarming zerglings and the few more impressive ones keeping the party off balance.
Kiba Kurokage wrote: Daw wrote: It sounds like you are going to have the Ratfolk swarming out of their nice safe warrens where they have all the advantages. Why? Well, in this particular case, the PC's have done some things to warrant a VERY high interest with one of the big bads. Who more or less has a bounty on them now. So these ratfolk are more mercenaries/assassins for coin. It was going to be a different, more normal encounter with a mix of humans and whatnot, but as stated, I recently got Blood of the beast, and saw all those swarming feats that I wanted to experiment with a bit.
Though I suppose a lure MIGHT work to get them into a warren, It's more likely they are just going to run and run to a more safe area. Yeah sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun/deadly
I agree teamwork feats would work great any of the classes/archetypes with tactician could get nasty. A reach hunter is another idea for the tank/damage dealer.
skulky wrote: Yeah sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun/deadly
I agree teamwork feats would work great any of the classes/archetypes with tactician could get nasty. A reach hunter is another idea for the tank/damage dealer.
A hunter may actually work well, especially because I need a decent reason for why they can track them through offroad woods and find them.
Daw wrote:
Have you considered having something important to the story stolen by the Ratfolk to encourage the party to have to fight on the Ratfolk "turf"?
Actually, done right, your players should have little or no chance with a target who won't engage "fairly" in a straight-up fight. Having your Ratfolk, desperate for the reward, going head to head is probably best. Have the Ratfolk start out by harassing until the party catches wise and attempts to leave is a good way to start, Skulky's witch being a good trick. Once the party decides to split, the Ratfolk have to engage or lose any chance at that reward. Remember, distraction is the Ratfolks friend here in the end fight as well, low level swarming zerglings and the few more impressive ones keeping the party off balance.
Well, currently, the important part is information, but it's entirely possible after they finish this particular part, I can have the next part set up more specifically for this idea. It's actually a pretty fun one, retrieve important stolen item from Rat warren, and zerg-like flood of swarming rats of fodder-level, and a few high-level mini-bosses that strike and retreat... Burrowing fangs making everything impossibly frustrating...
If you focus on Teamwork feats:
1. Fighter just cuz... feats
2. Inquisitor makes decent use of Teamwork, gets some spells
3. Hunter, as stated above, gets the same
4. Slayer, Ranger, Rogue to utilize Talents for an extra TW feat
Also... don't forget about the lowly NPC classes. If you're shooting for a level 7-8 group encounter, let's consider a CR7 fight. Barring your Witch, Gulch Gunner and Alchemist, let's imagine 4 ratfolk adding up to, say, 400 XP/EA meaning each of the melee minion types are going to be CR1.
That is the equivalent of 3 NPC levels. You could have each of the swarmers be Adept 2/Warrior 1. Why that breakdown? B/c each of these melee types could have a donkey rat familiar and 2 feats. Donkey rats are Small sized creatures meaning they can set up flanks; give them the Valet familiar archetype and they share their controlers' Teamwork feats; trading their starting feat of Skill Focus: Perception to the feat that gives them 2 Traits could easily make these creatures Helpful (+3 on Aid Another bonus delivered to their controllers) and Dirty Fighters (+1 damage in a Flank)
The adepts themselves would be able to toss out a Bless spell on themselves and their rats for +1 Attack; an Obscuring Mist for a quick escape; 2d4 of Burning Hands - not much damage individually but if they hit some flammable oil in the area or just focused all 4 of their spells for 8d4 on a single PC...
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