| Mikemad |
Hi guys,
I'm currently playing a campaign with some close friends of mine (no PFS or anything). We're currently level 9 (started at 4) and everyone playing is relatively seasoned at pathfinder. The party looks something like this:
Archer Bard: Opens every combat by activating inspire courage/casting good hope.
Bloodrager: Pretty standard 2h front liner. Extremely highrolled stat line (Several 16+).
Kineticist: Lightning/grapple focused. He's relatively new to the party so im not 100% sure how he works just yet.
Reach Cleric (Me): Cayden Cailean Travel/Ferocity domains. Open every combat by drinking an enlarge person potion (move action accelerated drinker trait (walks around with a tankard of enlarge person potion for flavor reasons)), casting quickened divine favor (3rd level spell with extra traits reducing metamagic level cost by 2, bonuses buffed by fate's favored) and casting SOME other spell.
The party has always had an incredible damage output, bringing down most encounters in 1-3 rounds. Over time, this has caused our DM to to slowly increase the difficulty of the encounters we face (everything is a slaughter otherwise). This caused us to accumulate wealth much faster than a normal campaign (we killed a level 16 wizard we weren't supposed to, dropped 300k+ gp in items). This combined with liberal use of item crafting feats means we are overgeared as well (perpetuating the high dpr issue). Nowadays, we commonly face cr+4ish encounters.
I've been having issues getting value out of my spells in combat. Most things we fight have some combination of very high SR or unbeatable saves that make offensive spellcasting impossible. Summoned creatures, even with bard aoe buffs, are so underleveled compared to our enemies that they cant consistently do anything (often missing opponents on 19's). Enemies tend to just ignore them. Wall of stone gets flown over/teleported over/walked through by ghosts. Everybody already has boots of haste, making blessing of fervor unimpressive. Other AoE buffs largely covered by the bard (I guess I could cast prayer (meh)).
I honestly have no idea what I should be casting anymore. These days most of my spellbook has been going to out-of-combat utility and prebuffing. It feels like the only thing that works consistently is high-accuracy physical damage. Any ideas of what I should be casting in combat?
((((By the way, sorry for all the parentheses))))(()()(()()()()))))))))))))))))))))
| Meirril |
Umm...yeah. Your campaign is broke. Cast a few buffs for yourself and just let it ride. Focus most of your spells on stuff that is useful outside of combat. Honestly doesn't sound like your GM really cares at this point. If he did, he wouldn't of made all that much wealth available even if you were fighting encounters at CR+4.
Just because you need to up the level of the encounters it doesn't mean you automatically up the treasure beyond the expected for the level of the adventurers. Doing that will result in gear becoming a problem.
| Mikemad |
Honestly doesn't sound like your GM really cares at this point. If he did, he wouldn't of made all that much wealth available even if you were fighting encounters at CR+4.
I should mention the wizard kill wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be a reoccurring villain character. He had every ability to escape and had a horde of minions between him and our party (presumably was going to subdue and capture us then leave). We beat him in initiative. I teleported myself and the bloodrager to him with travel domain. Bloodrager/archer 1-rounded him with full attacks before he ever got an action. We were already buffed.
Otherwise we wouldn't be EXTREMELY overgeared. Just slightly better than we should.
| Meirril |
And that is what Contingency is for, even if all it did was teleport away his corpse.
And lets not mention what other buffs this guy should of had up. A serious BBG should never be presented to the PCs in a weakened, unbuffed state unless the players WORKED to get that. A wind wall and a cloak of displacement would of guaranteed the party couldn't do enough to really challenge this guy. And it would of provided enough information about the BBG to face him later if you would of gotten that nasty surprise now.
You're level 9. Every BBG should have a challenging AC that stacks multiple defensive spells including Mirror Image. You're entire party should be sick of seeing Mirror Image and at level 9 most of the party should lack a method of overcoming it. Everything I'm saying here just puts the BBG at an APs standard level. This isn't even talking about making a boss tough enough to stand up to a heavily optimized group.
| Mikemad |
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And that is what Contingency is for, even if all it did was teleport away his corpse.
And lets not mention what other buffs this guy should of had up. A serious BBG should never be presented to the PCs in a weakened, unbuffed state unless the players WORKED to get that. A wind wall and a cloak of displacement would of guaranteed the party couldn't do enough to really challenge this guy. And it would of provided enough information about the BBG to face him later if you would of gotten that nasty surprise now.
You're level 9. Every BBG should have a challenging AC that stacks multiple defensive spells including Mirror Image. You're entire party should be sick of seeing Mirror Image and at level 9 most of the party should lack a method of overcoming it. Everything I'm saying here just puts the BBG at an APs standard level. This isn't even talking about making a boss tough enough to stand up to a heavily optimized group.
He had 32 AC, stoneskin and a cloak of displacement (which feels like a bad item to me, the version that gives blur seems better) when we fought him. The cloak takes a standard action to activate and only lasts 15 rounds per day, so he never got it up. Wind wall also only lasts rounds/level (although fickle winds might have worked). The bloodrager's greatsword is adamantine, the archer had clustered shots, so stoneskin did little. 32 AC wasn't particularly hard to hit.
I don't know why he didn't have mirror images or contingency. I understand no mirror images to a certain extent because it only lasts minutes/level and you cant expect to have it up all day. Dunno about the contingency.
It felt more like a mistake on his part than a "he doesn't care" sort of thing.
That said, this is all beside the point. I'm just wondering about spells. Whether the GM set things up properly is it's own debate. This was just me and some friends; none of us are particularly amazing GMs and there aren't any regulations or anything.
Edit: Actually, I think I might know what happened. We fought the wizard at the bottom of a tomb designed specifically to stop things from teleporting out (various horrible monsters imprisoned). Its possible he had a contingency teleport, and it fizzled upon activation due to the dungeon's properties.
| Kayerloth |
Every DM makes the occasional mistake. Sometimes the BBEG is overwhelmed, sometimes he does the overwhelming (i.e. oops this will be a tpk). Things will take an increased amount of work to get things back on track. Some of that will be the party being accepting of the DM trimming back the magic items/rewards for a bit to help reduce the overgearing problem. And of course the DM will need to do just that as well as work a bit harder to make interesting and challenging encounters till things swing back towards the desired power levels for the group.
As for your spell choices make some unusual ones and see what you can still do to be effective with those choices. It can be an opportunity to try out some oddball spells or spells you don't normally use. Even if said wizard had a Contigency->Teleport up what's the result if you had Dimensional Anchor available and used it for example? (and when was the last time you had that memorized?). You might come away with a spell or two you find interesting and more potent than you expected or at least learn what circumstance make the spell a solid choice and which don't.
| Cevah |
Put up Prayer, then Bless. These compliment the bard's inspiration.
Beacon of Luck is useful for allies as it gives them a double roll on a save once. This can really help vs. the BBEG's nasty spell.
/cevah