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Just something I'm curious about, my instinct say's no the action economy would get them when they reached the later books but some people do make very overpowered characters. So I'm asking those who do more optimization than I do would an adventurer who survived one adventure path be able to complete another one solo? Say one of the party who finished mummy's mask decided they'd had enough of the heat, sand and undead so they went alone to Irisen only to get dragged into the winter war AP by themselves. Could they complete it?
I think it may depend on if you allow the rules for progressing past 20. And the kind of class will matter too. Some classes are much better soloists than others.
It is going to depend on the adventure paths and how high the character is. From what I ca see most adventure paths start with the characters at 1st level and end with them being around 15th level. A single 15th level character is probably not going to have too much trouble with the earlier parts that are designed for lower-level characters.
Due to the fact that it requires more XP to gain higher levels the character is probably only going to gain 3 or 4 levels on the second adventure path even though they will be getting all the XP. The lower-level treasure is also going to be useless to the character as they will already have much better equipment. What is likely to happen is that the character is going to breeze through the earlier parts but will eventually run into more than he can handle in the later parts. For the most part the characters are not likely to get to 20th level, and even less likely to exceed this.
Wraith of the Righteous gives the character mythic tiers and goes to a higher level than most. A 20th level tier 10 mythic character can easily defeat almost anything.
Depends on the APs in question. A character who survived RotR could stroll through most of Giantslayer, but might crash and burn in book 1 of War for the Crown because it’s all about the influence system and needs multiple characters to be making checks at the same time.
Depends on the APs in question. A character who survived RotR could stroll through most of Giantslayer, but might crash and burn in book 1 of War for the Crown because it’s all about the influence system and needs multiple characters to be making checks at the same time.
There are ways for a single PC to have multiple characters under his control. A class with an intelligent pet would be useful for that. Summoner would be the obvious choice, but a class with that grants a familiar would also work. Improved familiar can get you some decent help. Leadership will give you a cohort that is two levels lower than yours. Since you will probably be at least 3-4 levels higher than the normal you cohort will actually be higher level than a normal party member. At that level spells like planar ally or planar binding can get you a powerful summoned creature to do your bidding. Your cohort could also have an intelligent pet giving you an additional creature able to assist you.
An 18th level wizard with improved familiar, having a 16th level summoner cohort with an eidolon gives you 4 characters to that can work together. That is a party of 4 by itself. That is without using spell to bind outsiders to boost that up even farther. The wizard also probably has a decent number of 6th level followers that can also be used. The wizard is also high enough level to create some simulacrum to assist him.
Are you telling me that a 18th level wizard with a cassisian familiar, a 16th level summoner with an angle themed eidolon, a couple of devas, 2 9th level simulacrum wizards, and about 8 4th to 6th level followers are going to have trouble with the first book of any adventure path?
Are you telling me that a 18th level wizard with a cassisian familiar, a 16th level summoner with an angle themed eidolon, a couple of devas, 2 9th level simulacrum wizards, and about 8 4th to 6th level followers are going to have trouble with the first book of any adventure path?
Yes. That group would not make it to the first encounter of Skull & Shackles because (spoilter alert) they would never have been knocked out and shanghai'd in the first place, which is the setup for the entire AP.
Are you telling me that a 18th level wizard with a cassisian familiar, a 16th level summoner with an angle themed eidolon, a couple of devas, 2 9th level simulacrum wizards, and about 8 4th to 6th level followers are going to have trouble with the first book of any adventure path?
Yes. That group would not make it to the first encounter of Skull & Shackles because (spoilter alert) they would never have been knocked out and shanghai'd in the first place, which is the setup for the entire AP.
umm, no, the campaign trait does that for you....
If the player was a murderhobo Hell's Rebels could be finished with just one PC incredibly fast.
Most APs, excluding a PC that went through Wrath of the Righteous as people have said, would be hard.
Taking Leadership a few times would make any AP easy.
Let's say you finish an AP at level 17 and you're playing through another AP that brings you to that same point and using XP, but you get all of it as it isn't divided up amoung the group. By the time a regular group is supposed to be level 13 you're now level 19, when you're supposed to be level 15 the single PC is level 20. So if you have taken Leadership a few times you have a party that will be 17th level with a PC that's level 20 by the end of the AP.
You cannot take leadership multiple times, and most of the times a GM is not going to allow cohorts or pets to take leadership. But you don’t really need to if you are playing a class with a pet. Even if your cohort does not have a pet being 3-4 levels above where you are is probably going to be enough. The big thing you have to watch out for is bad luck. Rolling a 1 on a save or die spell can still take down the high-level character.
Not all classes will be able to do this, but with the right class and if the character is built right, it can probably be done.
The action economy is going to be a big thing, but there are ways to counter it. Basically, the character needs to be able have allies around the same level as the AP is designed for. Most characters are going to have trouble at higher levels. You will need to build the character to do this.
A herald caller cleric with the animal domain would be my suggestion. Boon companion will bring up your animal companion to full strength. Take the feat sacred summons and quicken spell to allow you to summon twice in a round. The first time you summon using spell 4 levels lower than your max, the second time you summon using the normal level. Doing this will use up your higher-level spells, but you can flood the board with summons. Pick up leadership as another feat to gain a druid cohort. This gives you a second animal companion and the druid can also summon creatures.
The cleric also has access to the planar ally spells. At 17th level you can summon up an 18 HD outsider that will stick around for 17 hours. That gives you 5 combat worthy members in your party without using any summon spells. So, the first round of combat the two animal companions and the outsider attack and keep the casters safe while they summon creatures. After the first round you will have 8 creatures in your party. If needed both the cleric and the druid continue to summon, otherwise they start casting other spells. The fact you are higher level than expected means you have higher level spell slots. Those can be boosted with metamagic to increase their effectiveness.
This type of strategy will not work for a martial character. It works best with a full 9th level caster with a pet. Even a 6/9 caster is probably not going to be enough to pull it off. A martial character is going to have an even tougher time surviving.
I agree entirely that an 18th level character plus AC / summonations / cohort can deal with all of the combats in the first half of an AP. I’m more thinking that a lot of those have contrivances which force the PCs to go along with the plot which such a character could trivially bypass, thereby meaning they could ‘Win’ or walk out of the adventure in book 1.
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I would say most PCs who finish an AP would be able to solo the first 4 books of basically any other AP. The experience gained from those 4 books is probably enough to level them up enough to solo book 5. However book 6 is usually geared towards a party of 4 high level adventurers, so even a fairly well optimized PC would have real trouble with this.
Having said that, you could certainly build a PC who could solo another AP. If you had particular APs in mind it would be easier to tailor, but you could build a generalist that would be able to handle most APs. We're in the middle of book 6 of Iorn Gods, and some of the weapons in that AP are ridiculous, load up on batteries and you'll be golden. I'm sure a lot of APs would have some advantage that you could bring to the next one.
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If the player was a murderhobo Hell's Rebels could be finished with just one PC incredibly fast. ** spoiler omitted **
Same thing for Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Most APs, excluding a PC that went through Wrath of the Righteous as people have said, would be hard.
Taking Leadership a few times would make any AP easy.Let's say you finish an AP at level 17 and you're playing through another AP that brings you to that same point and using XP, but you get all of it as it isn't divided up amoung the group. By the time a regular group is supposed to be level 13 you're now level 19, when you're supposed to be level 15 the single PC is level 20. So if you have taken Leadership a few times you have a party that will be 17th level with a PC that's level 20 by the end of the AP.
A character can take Leadership only once. AFAIK, he can take only one kind of leadership-like feat, you can't take Leadership and Vile Leadership or Monstrous Companion.
It is possible to take leadership and Dynasty Founder, but you only get more followers and a bonus for your leadership score:If you also have the Leadership feat, increase your Leadership score by 3 for the purpose of determining how many followers you have.
Interesting, I'd have thought action economy would get them in the later books excluding wrath obviously. Didn't consider them adding NPC ally's though I doubt they'd get many extra levels given the XP gained vs required.
Leadership and a cohort was my first thought, I hadn't thought what adding the right familiar and an eidolon would add to that.
At the start of atypical AP a character would be around level 15, let's say he would have 650,000 XP, and at the end around level 17, 1,300,000 XP.
At the start of the sixth module of the second AP the character would have gained around 2,600,000 more XP and be at level 20 with a few hundred thousand XP to spare, and not even close to level 21.
Besides the capstones and some special abilities, for most classes the power gap between a level 17 and a level 20 character is small. The main effect would be that the cohort will be level 17.
They won't get XP for things that are 10 or more CR lower than their APL.
although you should never bother awarding XP for challenges that have a CR of 10 or more lower than the APL.
It doesn't sound as if "the character doesn't get experience from encounters with a CR 10 level lower than his", but it seems to be "playing and scoring those encounters is too much work for too little reward".
A 15th character meeting a few gnolls and hyenas, even if they are numerous enough to make up a CR 6 encounter, will make short work of them, probably taking some damage only from the lucky 20 made by the opponents, but playing the encounter blow by blow will probably take an hour of playing time.
Story experience may also be relevant. But if we assume the players started with wrath of the righteous, they should start the next AP at level 20. So then we have to ask if the rules for advancing beyond 20 are being used.
Immortal (Su): At 9th tier, if you are killed, you return to life 24 hours later, regardless of the condition of your body or the means by which you were killed. When you return to life, you aren't treated as if you had rested, and don't regain the use of abilities that recharge with rest until you next rest. This ability doesn't apply if you're killed by a coup de grace or critical hit performed by either a mythic creature (or creature of even greater power) or a non-mythic creature wielding a weapon capable of bypassing epic damage reduction. At 10th tier, you can be killed only by a coup de grace or critical hit made with an artifact.
If the character who completed wrath of the righteous is also tier 10, they probably don’t need anything else. Unless there is someone with an artifact level weapon no one in the AP can kill the character. Even if there is an artifact it is probably in the hands of the BBG at the end of the last module. Up till that point the character simply comes back a day after being killed. You don’t gain a negative level or take any other penalty for dying.
Some of the earlier mythic abilities are also going to be a huge advantage. At tier 2 you can spend a mythic point as a free action to gain an extra standard action. At tier 3 you can rest for an hour and spend a mythic point to regain the use of your class abilities including spells. At 5th tier a successful saving throw means you suffer no effect from a spell or special ability from a non-mythic source. If you are a 9th level caster you will probably be able to spend a mythic point and cast any spell on your spell list even if you don’t know the spell or have it in your spell book. Schroders Wizard is quite easy to achieve with the mythic rules as is Schroders Sorcerer, Schroders Cleric, Schroders Oracle or any other Schroders caster.
So, do we want to just leave Wrath out of the question, because I feel like you could build a wrath character that can solo the rest of the APs by himself. But if you don't start in wrath, I don't think you could ever beat it without a party.
Same thing for Curse of the Crimson Throne.If the player was a murderhobo Hell's Rebels could be finished with just one PC incredibly fast. ** spoiler omitted **
Oh! Good point! Crimson Throne BBEG is more subtle so I didn't think of it.
...Taking Leadership a few times would make any AP easy...A character can take Leadership only once...
Yeah... I forgot about that point.
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So, do we want to just leave Wrath out of the question, because I feel like you could build a wrath character that can solo the rest of the APs by himself. But if you don't start in wrath, I don't think you could ever beat it without a party.
So, do we want to just leave Wrath out of the question, because I feel like you could build a wrath character that can solo the rest of the APs by himself. But if you don't start in wrath, I don't think you could ever beat it without a party.I figure coming from Wrath as your first AP is a solved problem unless someone wants to really go indepth and break it down?
I think Kingmaker may be of interest to discuss both as the initial AP and as the second one.
I'd probably be most interested in which APs are particularly interesting as the source AP, like how Kingmaker or Hell's Rebels would likely start with some form of organization under the PC to some extent or Wrath of the Righteous guarantees Mythic stuff, as well as which would actually be an interesting follow up from the soonest possible point.
Also which APs would instantly derail vs. Which ones could be adapted to the greater personal power and likely mobility.
I'm happy to leave wrath out and look at AP's that have interesting rules/benefits after completing them.
Immortal (Su): At 9th tier, if you are killed, you return to life 24 hours later, regardless of the condition of your body or the means by which you were killed. When you return to life, you aren't treated as if you had rested, and don't regain the use of abilities that recharge with rest until you next rest. This ability doesn't apply if you're killed by a coup de grace or critical hit performed by either a mythic creature (or creature of even greater power) or a non-mythic creature wielding a weapon capable of bypassing epic damage reduction. At 10th tier, you can be killed only by a coup de grace or critical hit made with an artifact.
If the character who completed wrath of the righteous is also tier 10, they probably don’t need anything else. Unless there is someone with an artifact level weapon no one in the AP can kill the character. Even if there is an artifact it is probably in the hands of the BBG at the end of the last module. Up till that point the character simply comes back a day after being killed. You don’t gain a negative level or take any other penalty for dying.
Some of the earlier mythic abilities are also going to be a huge advantage. At tier 2 you can spend a mythic point as a free action to gain an extra standard action. At tier 3 you can rest for an hour and spend a mythic point to regain the use of your class abilities including spells. At 5th tier a successful saving throw means you suffer no effect from a spell or special ability from a non-mythic source. If you are a 9th level caster you will probably be able to spend a mythic point and cast any spell on your spell list even if you don’t know the spell or have it in your spell book. Schroders Wizard is quite easy to achieve with the mythic rules as is Schroders Sorcerer, Schroders Cleric, Schroders Oracle or any other Schroders caster.
I can never shake a feeling that should be killed by a coup de grace or critical hit by an artifact wielded by a mythic character of equal or higher tier..
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I think I like it being an artifact better. There are lots of stories that feature something like a mythic bad guy that can only be defeated by the non-mythic heroes when they use the artifact weapon they had to quest for
I have to agree with the artifact being enough. Tier 10 characters are about the level of a demi-god, not a full deity.
Starting in Curse of the Crimson Throne gets you an Artifact sword, Iron gods gets you all sorts of technological goodies... aside from that I don't know what benefits APs other than WotR would give you.
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I have to agree with the artifact being enough. Tier 10 characters are about the level of a demi-god, not a full deity.
I think I like it being an artifact better. There are lots of stories that feature something like a mythic bad guy that can only be defeated by the non-mythic heroes when they use the artifact weapon they had to quest for
I think my issue is it just feels like a bit of a downgrade since in this system pretty much nothing I've seen does epic damage unless its mythic which is somewhat rarer than artifact class items and at 9th tier its mythic or bypassing epic DR. Then at tenth its only artifacts, I suppose it'd feel better to me if it was a mythic artifact maybe but I just feel it'd be easier to get ahold of an artifact like Aiger's kiss to coup de grace or critical someone with. As DAOF's said starting in curse of the crimson throne gives you an artifact sword.