Ok, so my character died a glorious heroic death doing what impulsive bloodragers do best. Charging straight into and taking on the small army of powerful undead and dragons. Huzzah! The PC was recklessly brave and not very bright, so it wasn’t an unexpected result (even though he has been one of my favorite PC’s to play in recent times). The way this went down, he is not recoverable. At least, certainly not at our current party wealth level. So I need a new PC.
We are playing a modified version of the Strange Aeons AP. It is significantly more difficult and dangerous than most AP’s. Understand, I have zero complaints about this. There is no GM vs. player situation. We wanted, asked for, and are getting the deadly challenge we requested. So no vilifying my GM for being ‘unfair’ or a ‘killer GM’ or anything like that. I’m having even more fun in this campaign than I expected. =)
I will say a few things about this GM and campaign. Pretty open to house rules for things that ‘make more sense’ to the GM or us if we ask. He likes to add templates and/or weird rare creatures. Tends to not give quite as much info from knowledge checks about creatures. Similarly spying by scrying and divination tends to not give very many specifics. That does make planning ahead more difficult. He is pretty generous with magic loot. Especially for unique items with weird powers.
We use 20 point buy. Level 7. Standard races obviously allowed plus Ifrit and Gillmen. But he tends to allow other races if we can come up with a good enough in game justification. My dead PC was a Nagaji. We also have a Deep Gnome and a Wyrwood construct. Campaign so far has made it abundantly clear that decent will saves are an absolute must.
Current party is a half-elf TWF fighter and half-elf cleric of Gorum. Married characters. A Wyrwood artificer (3.5 ed). An elf investigator. A Deep Gnome Magus. A necromancy focused Dread Gnome oracle (non-animating).
We’ve got most of the primary roles covered. The oracle is a decent face/diplomat character. The artificer can obviously craft what we need. The investigator could be a good scout. He is roleplayed as moderately cowardly or extremely cautious. So he doesn’t really scout ahead all that much. The oracle hasn’t been as successful as anticipated for offensive casting. The offensive necromancy spells are usually close range or touch. He’s having a difficult time getting that close-and-personal without getting slashed to ribbons. Plus much of what we’ve been encountering recently has been immune to many of his spells. The magus is a new character joining the group so I don’t have any details on him yet. He may be able to pick up the slack on the offensive magic. Melee direct combat is adequately covered by the fighter with back-up from the magus and cleric. The only thing we are obviously lacking is long ranged punch.
So some of my thoughts for my replacement PC. (Note: I am a more experienced optimizer than most of the other players. Therefore I take weird concepts to role play and optimize. They tend to still be effective, but I don’t really have to worry about outshining the others. Plus, as a group, we just like bizarre characters.)
1) Many of the monsters have been immune or highly resistant to some types of spell effect of energy times. (Undead vs mind affecting, constructs vs. fort save, energy resistance and immunities, etc…) So I was considering a caster that focuses force and sonic spells. Very few creatures are resistant to either. I don’t think any are resistant to both. Plus I’ve never seen anyone try this, so it seems intriguing.
2) One of the builds from the “I Throw a Rock at It” thread. I just find those hilarious.
3) Halfling hunter riding a giant wasp as a mounted archer.
4) Since the investigator doesn’t scout ahead of the group much, I was considering making a super scout shadow dancer.
5) Dimensional step with some sort of monk/fighter/brawler/warpriest build. Never built anything like this so not really sure how it would work.
6) Considered illusionist. But so many of the opponents have been immune to mind effects that I’m not sure it would be very useful.
So what do you think about these ideas. Again, no spoilers. But do you think they won’t work well for some unknown campaign reason? Any that you think will work especially well for unknown campaign reasons?
As a GM, I really liked messing around with my Amnesiac Abomination Psychic. Super thematic for the campaign and comes with a lot of interesting story stuff if your GM likes to take advantage of that.
Crunch-wise, it's basically just gambling turned to 11. There are definitely enemies that'll resist some of your psychic spells, but there's buffs and summoned monsters that you can toss out if you can't as directly affect creatures. But with dark half and spell recollection, you can throw out some really destructive spells that can lead to some really cool clutch combat moments (dropping a black tentacles at level 6/7 can be devastating). Just make sure you have a few spells a level above you jotted down!
Sounds like you need an archer.
The Warpriest is a great chassis for an archery build.
The halfling on a wasp is awesome.
Worship Uaransaph, NE daemon harbinger, with the Air domain, and the repeating crossbow for a favored weapon.
Take one level of Bolt Ace Gunslinger for a masterwork repeating crossbow, wisdom based Grit, and some deeds to start you off right.
Bolt Ace Gunslinger
1. Grit pool = Wis mod
1. Deeds
.. Sharp Shoot, targets touch AC
.. Vigilant Loading, reloading does not provoke AoO
.. Gunslinger's Dodge, drop prone to avoid ranged attack
1. Gunsmithing (free feat to be retrained at your convenience)
1. Feat: Rapid Reload (repeating crossbow)
Vanilla Warpriest
2. Aura
2. Blessings (minor)
.. Zypher's Gift, firing ranged weapon does not provoke AoO
2. Focus Weapon (repeating crossbow)
2. Orisons
2. Sacred Weapon Damage 1D6
3. Fervor 1D6
3. Feat: Point Blank Shot
4. Bonus Feat: Rapid Shot
5. Channel Energy
5. Sacred Weapon +1
5. Feat: Precise Shot
6. Sacred Weapon Damage 1D8
6. Fervor 2D6
7. Bonus Feat: Manyshot
7. Feat: Iron Will (or Improved Iron Will, if you retrain Gunsmithing for Iron Will)
Sounds like you need an archer.
The Warpriest is a great chassis for an archery build.
The halfling on a wasp is awesome.
Worship Uaransaph, NE daemon harbinger, with the Air domain, and the repeating crossbow for a favored weapon.
Take one level of Bolt Ace Gunslinger for a masterwork repeating crossbow, wisdom based Grit, and some deeds to start you off right.
...
To have the wasp even halfway decent you need to be hunter, ranger, or druid. (Hmmm... Or maybe variant multiclass druid. It wouldn't be as good, but I'm just using it as a mount for ranged attacking.)
For a halfling with ranged attacks, I'm seriously considering seeing how good I can get with the halfling sling staff.
I started another thread called Air Cav to explore this option.
An idea for a strange monk I've been thinking about playing. The build is about doing monk mystic stuff, not punching things. Drinking = ki points, and as long as you make sure you're loaded up on easily accessible alcohol you have unlimited ki points.
Qinggong Drunken Master Monk. ...
You know, normally I hate the whole concept of the drunken monk. But this is possibly the one campaign where I just might give it a shot.
Thanks for the idea.
As a GM, I really liked messing around with my Amnesiac Abomination Psychic. Super thematic for the campaign and comes with a lot of interesting story stuff if your GM likes to take advantage of that.
Crunch-wise, it's basically just gambling turned to 11. There are definitely enemies that'll resist some of your psychic spells, but there's buffs and summoned monsters that you can toss out if you can't as directly affect creatures. But with dark half and spell recollection, you can throw out some really destructive spells that can lead to some really cool clutch combat moments (dropping a black tentacles at level 6/7 can be devastating). Just make sure you have a few spells a level above you jotted down!
Wow! I never even though of that. That would be exceptionally appropriate for this AP. Never really looked into it, but definitely needs investigating.
You could combine a few of those options, Callistrean wasp familiar (mauler, or a tiny pc) to fly on, telekineticist for ranged rock throwing. I think you and it could both end up being able to invis at will, for excellent scouting.
An idea for a strange monk I've been thinking about playing. The build is about doing monk mystic stuff, not punching things. Drinking = ki points, and as long as you make sure you're loaded up on easily accessible alcohol you have unlimited ki points.
Qinggong Drunken Master Monk. ...
You know, normally I hate the whole concept of the drunken monk. But this is possibly the one campaign where I just might give it a shot.
Thanks for the idea.
I liked the idea of this for this campaign, but it is just too much of a 1 trick pony. With the only attacks being hydraulic torrent and scorching ray (or later, dragons breath), that is just not enough different things he can do to truly be useful.