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Could somebody explain the Crusader mechanic? I feel like I've missed something interesting.
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Oct 20, 2011 08:34
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Mojo Jojo posted:Could somebody explain the Crusader mechanic? I feel like I've missed something interesting. You know, say, 6 maneuvers. At the start of each combat deal out 3 random ones, and each round after that you get a new one. If you expend a maneuver, it goes in back into the deck.
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Oct 20, 2011 10:47
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Piell posted:You know, say, 6 maneuvers. At the start of each combat deal out 3 random ones, and each round after that you get a new one. If you expend a maneuver, it goes in back into the deck. Oh, that's super cool. I can see why people would dislike it for flavour reasons though.
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Oct 20, 2011 11:16
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Mojo Jojo posted:Oh, that's super cool. I can see why people would dislike it for flavour reasons though. It's kinda hard to translate it into an online game where you can't really make physical cards ;p
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Oct 20, 2011 11:31
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It's not so hard. Roll a whatever sided dice and reroll if the card is out.
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Oct 20, 2011 11:34
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It's really easy to do online actually. Set up a spreadsheet with the maneuver in the first column and random numbers in the second, and generate a new random number set at the start of each battle and sort by that column. Takes a minute to set up, and seconds to use at the start of each combat.
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Oct 20, 2011 21:33
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Piell posted:It's really easy to do online actually. Set up a spreadsheet with the maneuver in the first column and random numbers in the second, and generate a new random number set at the start of each battle and sort by that column. Takes a minute to set up, and seconds to use at the start of each combat. The second I have to set up a spreadsheet is the second it is officially too much.
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Oct 20, 2011 23:57
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LogicNinja posted:Foil Action is stupid broken dumb. Beyond that, it's pretty good, with stuff like Improved Delay and Greater Combat Focus. Stupid broken dumb at the level where prime targets of Foil Action can comfortably stand 30 feet away from the Fighter? Disregarding that, don't forget the scaling feats. A good chunk of the class is built upon how crazy good those things are. I mean, FrankTrollman is a massive loving sperglord, but he does at least bitch his way towards bringing melee classes up on par with Wizards and Rogues. There's logic there, even if it is sperglogic. Under that sperglogic, it is tuned more to deal with what Wizards can do. quote:Or you could just use Tome of Battle, which is better-rounded, better-balanced, and more fun. ToB owns and all, but it isn't balanced for poo poo. ToB is pretty much alpha playtest material/random ideas thrown out because whatever, like the Tome of Magic and Incarnum. Unlike those other two, it (sort of) works. Fun is subjective, but the power selection and refresh mechanics of Crusaders, Warblades, and Swordsages aren't balanced against each other (swift action replenish for a class that doesn't really need swift actions vs. a random draw until you deck and one-and-done unless you take a certain feat). Warblades get gold, Swordsages get some neat stuff from Shadow Hand (which the real juicy plum can be put on an item) and Crusaders get poo poo. Crusaders have the same problems that Paladins do with actually taking hate and they get gimped or late versions of Pally powers (Smite at 6, Divine Grace only to Will, no spells). To add injury to insult, their reserve damage pool doesn't scale well with level at all and doesn't help them stay upright past level 6 at best. White Raven is a great school, but Warblades get it too. Stone Dragon is jokes and Devoted Spirit is marginal. This entire conversation has nothing to do with Pathfinder so...what'd be a good story hook for a game where everyone is an Advanced Race?
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Oct 21, 2011 05:40
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MadRhetoric posted:ToB owns and all, but it isn't balanced for poo poo. ToB is pretty much alpha playtest material/random ideas thrown out because whatever, like the Tome of Magic and Incarnum. Unlike those other two, it (sort of) works. quote:Fun is subjective, but the power selection and refresh mechanics of Crusaders, Warblades, and Swordsages aren't balanced against each other (swift action replenish for a class that doesn't really need swift actions vs. a random draw until you deck and one-and-done unless you take a certain feat). Warblades get gold, Swordsages get some neat stuff from Shadow Hand (which the real juicy plum can be put on an item) and Crusaders get poo poo. Warblade refresh is swift action and no use of maneuver that round. Crusaders can literally use a maneuver every round and not care, and every single maneuver you know is awesome so the random refresh doesn't even matter. Power-wise, Crusader is easily at the top, not the bottom, of the three. Swordsage is actually the weakest, if not by much. quote:Crusaders have the same problems that Paladins do with actually taking hate and they get gimped or late versions of Pally powers (Smite at 6, Divine Grace only to Will, no spells). To add injury to insult, their reserve damage pool doesn't scale well with level at all and doesn't help them stay upright past level 6 at best. White Raven is a great school, but Warblades get it too. Stone Dragon is jokes and Devoted Spirit is marginal. Devoted Spirit is a mixed back of tank-and-heal, junk, and terrific. Just take White Raven stuff anywhere that DS is junk (like 5th level strikes). They're also the best class to mix with the Master of Nine PrC, as they get a huge number of maneuvers readied/granted. Start the combat with 7 out of 9 prepared maneuvers ready to go, wheeee! quote:This entire conversation has nothing to do with Pathfinder so...what'd be a good story hook for a game where everyone is an Advanced Race?
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Oct 21, 2011 06:48
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MadRhetoric posted:This entire conversation has nothing to do with Pathfinder so...what'd be a good story hook for a game where everyone is an Advanced Race? I'll bite. - They were all facing an invasion from an expansionistic human army, then one day, something mysterious or extremely powerful, or both, wiped out 90% of the humans. The PCs meet picking throught he ruins of what was the command camp; some of them recognize each other from previous diplomatic meetings. - A mysterious (grippli) wizard has approached each one, telling them that fifty years ago, their ancestors took part in a quest, and that one of their blood descendents is needed to seal or unseal the resurgent danger. - One of the races is the dominant local culture, and the other PCs are members of races with friendly or non-existant relations. They meet for the usual reasons: mercenaries, members of cults, hired by a reckless treasure-hunter, attracted by a bounty, etc.
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Oct 21, 2011 12:48
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The standard "players are wizard experiments" could work.
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Oct 21, 2011 14:00
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Mojo Jojo posted:The standard "players are wizard experiments" could work. There was a Ravenloft module back in the day that slopped the PCs into flesh golem Frankenstein monster bodies that was a trip; depends on what sort of 'advanced' races you aim to poke around with.
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Oct 21, 2011 14:18
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Alright, and now for something complete different: Starting out running 3.5 again with the Rise of the Runelords adventure path (yeah, I know it's a bit of paint by numbers dungeon-crawling with some neat set pieces, but I wanted something simple to start RPGing with again) and I was trying for some advice: * Any experience on things in that campaign I should be fixing up from either a challenge perspective or else a narrative perspective? The lamia at the end of Skinsaw murders is supposedly pretty TPKerific, but does anyone else have any experience with fights that might do well with a second look when they come up? * Since I'm doing this campaign with 3.5 (what everyone in the group has books and experience with) I know there's a serious caster >> martial issue cropping up around level 10 or so. I plan on correcting this somewhat, at least to the point where they stay in the same ballpark. Part of this is playing as mostly core only (eliminates problem spells, feats, & PrCs) with the stuff I add back in being primarily martial oriented stuff that lets them bridge some of the power gap. First choice is to go with Bo9S, which could fit with the whole ruined vaguely oriental culture vibe I get from Xin-Shalast. But if the players don't want the oriental theme (and really, Bo9S does almost nothing for existing martial classes-- it just replaces them) what would be a good easy replacement? Players Handbook 2 is the only other thing I'm coming up with-- lots of extra mid-level fighter feats, and a new martial class that actually has something like a defender mechanic (the knight) Any other suggestions, third party or otherwise?-- I have most of the first party books for 3.5, but not much third party beyond Adventure Paths and Arcana Evolved, but can get most stuff that's available at a reasonable price.
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Oct 21, 2011 20:43
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What Level are the characters starting out at? I feel full casters begin pulling away by the time they have ~level 3-4 spells. If you are going to allow full spellcasters, any attempt at parity is going to be very difficult and a huge amount of effort besides. You'll have to be permissive to the non spellcasters - and they'll have to optimize aggressively. You'll have to ban some spells, even from core. You'll have to disallow spellcasters from using certain magic items. There are other attempts at solutions like partial gestalt or tier based point buys. Mixing one of those with the above might pan out or it might not depending on how much work you do and how well you do it. My preferred solution is to see if the group can agree to play only tier 3/4 classes. Everyone will have opportunities to feel powerful and useful throughout the campaign. If you can get your players to agree to that things will become much easier.
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Oct 21, 2011 23:29
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rkajdi: That pull-away is also a factor in PF, and will probably require gentlemen's agreements to keep the casters from running away with things. Granted, casters really running away with things assumes a modicum of optimization (which you should encourage in the melee class players), some lateral thinking (which should be rewarded within reason), and a general shift in how the system works at double digits (which is a fundamental part of 3.5, even in Core). If you don't want to deal with that, don't play to double digits. Trying to rebalance things through spot-fixes is a massive undertaking which can end up being way more trouble than it's worth. You just have to ask the caster players to be discreet and push the fighter players into good optimization practices if and only if you have a skilled optimizer rocking a caster. If you can, you should still try to teach the fighter-type dudes about stuff like Power Attack + Leap Attack + Shock Trooper or Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip + Reach Weapon or Rogues with TWF + Rapid Shot + Point Blank Shot + flasks or wands and a way to get consistent SA damage. Remember, a lot of the stuff that makes casters win either makes fighter clean up easy as pie (the various Fog spells, Entangle, Walls) or can be used on the fighter-types (Cleric buffs and stuffs). Also remember, Divine Power, Planar Binding, Magic Jar, Entangle, Black Tentacles, Solid Fog/Cloudkill, Wall of X, Forcecage, Glitterdust, Color Spray, Web, Scorching Ray, Blasphemy/Holy Word, Telekinesis and a good chunk of the more powerful spells are Core only. And Druids don't even need spells to make fighter-types feel bad about themselves. Natural Spell just pours salt in the wounds. Here to Help: Casters are pretty much good with a stat booster and a Cloak of Resistance, so I'm not sure what barring certain magic items (outside of Candles of Invocation/Nightsticks) is gonna do to bring balance.
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Oct 22, 2011 01:25
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MadRhetoric posted:I'm not sure what barring certain magic items (outside of Candles of Invocation/Nightsticks) is gonna do to bring balance.
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Oct 22, 2011 01:55
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There is no Pathfinder discussion in the PFRPG thread. But anyways,rkajdi posted:* Since I'm doing this campaign with 3.5 (what everyone in the group has books and experience with) I know there's a serious caster >> martial issue cropping up around level 10 or so. In core 3.5? It starts cropping up around level 8. By level 12, it is definitely a thing. quote:I plan on correcting this somewhat, at least to the point where they stay in the same ballpark. Part of this is playing as mostly core only (eliminates problem spells, feats, & PrCs) with the stuff I add back in being primarily martial oriented stuff that lets them bridge some of the power gap. Ban Divine Metamagic, and the rest will fall into place. quote:First choice is to go with Bo9S, which could fit with the whole ruined vaguely oriental culture vibe I get from Xin-Shalast. But if the players don't want the oriental theme (and really, Bo9S does almost nothing for existing martial classes-- it just replaces them) what would be a good easy replacement? Actually, Bo9S offers some decent multiclassing potential, and even feats that will grant you some martial adept powers, if you like the book's style. quote:Players Handbook 2 is the only other thing I'm coming up with-- lots of extra mid-level fighter feats, and a new martial class that actually has something like a defender mechanic (the knight) Any other suggestions, third party or otherwise?-- I have most of the first party books for 3.5, but not much third party beyond Adventure Paths and Arcana Evolved, but can get most stuff that's available at a reasonable price. PHBII is good, and largely replaces a lot of the late 3.0-era third party stuff. Most of Complete Warrior is decent, as long as you steer players away from the Samurai and Swashbuckler. Spell Compendium stuff should be on a strict, case-by-case basis only, if you even allow it (I don't mind including some of the domains and a few spells). What you really need are some things that allow save re-rolls; if you can't find enough in the PHBII and Complete Warrior, consider stealing Improved Iron Will (and its friends) from Pathfinder (you can get the text for free online).
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Oct 22, 2011 05:14
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Swashbuckler isn't that bad if you take three or four levels of rogue and the Daring Outlaw feat from Complete Scoundrel. Then you're just a rogue with full BAB and d10s for HD. Complete Warrior's Samurai is absolutely terrible though. Right down there with the soulknife in terms of being unable to do the job it was designed for. I'm not sure how much of the Spell Compendium you'd ban, since a bunch of them help boost the power of fighting classes through buffs and the like.
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Oct 22, 2011 07:23
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LightWarden posted:I'm not sure how much of the Spell Compendium you'd ban, since a bunch of them help boost the power of fighting classes through buffs and the like. Anything that's a ray or ranged touch and does something other than energy damage is definitely banned until proven otherwise.
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Oct 22, 2011 15:14
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I posted this question over on the Paizo boards, but I thought I'd post it here as well. I have a question regarding the spell Abundant Ammunition. Does black powder count as ammunition? It seems like it should, but it’s unclear as written. Also, if a Gunslinger wanted to use it to maximum effectiveness (i.e. on both his bullets and his black powder) that would require two uses of the spell, because they're in two seperate containers, correct?
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Oct 22, 2011 17:16
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My question for you is: why would you want to dick over the Gunslinger any more than their own class features already do? (One cast, bullets and powder.)
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Oct 22, 2011 21:29
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Well played sir, well played indeed. While I agree with what you're saying, I do wonder if black powder is considered ammunition on it's own.
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Oct 22, 2011 23:28
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In the hopes of both kindling a new discussion and getting some feedback from folks who have dug into such, I'd like to point towards the (relatively) recent resurrection of Necromancer Games into Frog God Games and their re-release/conversion of all sorts of material into the Pathfinder system. The guys behind the Tome of Horrors (which most everyone should be familiar with), promoting 'first edition feel' back when it was going out through third edition--and touting the same now here for Pathfinder. So, what've we got?  First up, there's the Tome of Horrors Complete--which is all three of the Tome of Horrors books mashed together into one freakishly huge (over 800 pages) book with all of the critters converted to Pathfinder rules. That's loving insane--it's huge, it's just totally ridiculous, and I have a hard time imagining anyone ever realistically using more than half the entries in the course of all the DMing they might get up to. That said, it's pretty marvelous and a lot of the things you find in Tome of Horrors ended up being huge staples over the years--which also contributed in part to why it was so drat tricky for licensing to bring it all out together for Pathfinder. Again, this thing is just massive--and clocks in at $30 for a PDF or $110 for a kill-a-man-when-struck hardcover book. I haven't had a chance to handle a hard copy of the compilation, just the original three separate books. A bunch of the creatures in Tome of Horrors have ended up in the Pathfinder Bestiaries also--having originated here, though; throughout the adventure paths as well you'll find plenty of Tome of Horrors critters. All that said, it looks pretty phenomenal to me but there is a caveat--creatures that are present in both the Bestiary books and the Tome of Horrors updated-for-Pathfinder collection have... inconsistent stat blocks. Urk. You end up with two different versions of the same things, which is a bit of a pain in the rear end.  Now, I'd like to eyeball the Slumbering Tsar Saga. Holy crap, again. To Paizo’s Adventure Paths, this is a similar sort of deal—basically one big sprawling mega-campaign, albeit it is supposed to enter with the player characters already at 8th level. I could see someone running a 1 – 8 campaign and then segueing into this beastly monstrosity, if one were so inclined. Here you’ve got them rolling things up to Pathfinder rules with the ultimate intention of eventually releasing another shelf-breaking massive hardcover book when it’s all over with. This is also where they’re pushing the first-edition-feel again—it’s all extremely deadly and intended to be rolled through with a larger party of characters. Has anyone had experience with the 3rd/3.5 edition of the Slumbering Tsar, or dug through the Pathfinder update at all? It looks very interesting—frankly the drat cover art is pretty evocative of adventuring itself with the spelunking into horrible places. In addition to these two big’uns they’ve released a variety of other things reworked for Pathfinder—and I’m quite curious if any of you have actually played with the stuff yet.
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Oct 27, 2011 17:04
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Hey guys, GMing question here: I just finished running a 2-4 campaign for some folks. It was okay, I mean the campaign itself seemed kinda dumb (I should probably just stick to making my own from now on), but there was one big consistent problem: our party's Synthesist. The guy is huge on min/maxing, so of course his Eidolon is a loving god-tank, he had something like 80HP and 24+ AC at 3rd level. Most of those HP were temporary, but this actually plays into a related problem I'll detail later. Most of the encounters in this campaign could literally only hit him on a natural 20, and his AC is gonna go up. We use Maptool; I just hide my rolls by using real dice and I hate to sound like an rear end in a top hat GM but honestly there were times when I bumped up my hidden rolls just to say "okay for once it actually hits you. For like three damage. Out of eighty." Plus most of the monsters in the campaign are non-intelligent so I had to go by the priority rule of "closest combatant > most recent aggressor > nearest targets," and because the guy is a megatank obviously he has a bunch of dumb animals attacking him with flanking bonuses that can't touch his AC without a natural 20. But when they do, they inflict damage, and that's where the other problem comes in: the temporary HP. I lost our healer today because I was worried if he was actually enjoying himself or not, and hey! Guess what? He fuckin' loves to heal. He doesn't like to attack, he just likes to sit back and take care of the injured folks, it's like how I like to design houses in Terraria and not actually go mining or monster hunting or whatever. He's out because he just was not having any fun at all because you can't heal the fused eidolon's temporary HP. Once in a while, we'll get an encounter with intelligent creatures but even then I don't wanna patronize everyone else by making it seem like I'm specifically not targeting him so I just spread out the attacks with a semblance of intelligence and once in a while it'll hit one of our other characters, but even then that's just one CLW away from a full heal and it's like "oh fun I can roll a 1 and I'll fully heal you anyway"--the guy doesn't even have to roll and he just says "okay I do this" and that's all he ever did. Of course even though he was doing what he enjoyed, it wouldn't be very fun. So my question is, as a GM, how do I fairly balance this without making it seem like I'm going on a loving vendetta against the guy? I could give everything Scrolls of Dismissal or Banishment or whatever but that's the fuckin' king rear end in a top hat of assholes moves. I could attack everyone else and force them to sustain damage, but then that just seems unfair to everyone else playing, and even then these things will get attacked by his full action four attacks per round with his ridiculous to-hit bonus and it's all very difficult to consider a solution. On one hand, I almost wanna say, "no. no more synthesist," but that's even shittier of me than putting Banishment Wands on everything from goblins to gel cubes (which do have touch attack damage but the drat things rarely have good BAB at this level) to barbarians. On the other hand, if he keeps just powering through absolutely everything, everyone else is going to lose interest and nobody will have good times at all because nobody will be playing anymore. Suggestions?
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Oct 28, 2011 04:34
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Tell him honestly "Dave, you optimized the character way harder than everyone else did and they're not having fun. Let's see about how we can tone it down a little, okay?" Talking like adults should generally be the first course of action.
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Oct 28, 2011 05:22
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Make all those monsters flanking him rogues, that way when they do hit they rip right through all that temporary HP. Just don't have them flank other players. "Gang up on the big guy and keep the others busy" is a valid strategy. But really it just sounds like the guy way over-tuned his character and needs to tone it back. It's an easy trap to fall into, but to go as far as he did it must've been on purpose.
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Oct 28, 2011 05:56
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As a general rule I don't allow Summoners in games I play because they pretty much just make a mockery of any attempt at 'balance' at all of the prime playing levels. What you can do, since he's already there, are a few things. One, the eidolon goes away when the summoner sleeps, so campfire ambushes, sleep poisons that take a while to take effect, and witch's sleep hexes or spells here or there are a good way to get the (somewhat) vulnerable Summoner exposed without his mega monster. Two, I guess you could drop Outsider(whatever) bane properties, even temporarily, on some of your monsters. You can also give them bonus feats like Outflank to up their flank bonuses to +4 from +2, which maybe brings them into hitting him a bit more often, if he's frequently allowing himself to be flanked. As you get higher you can have Cavaliers charge/challenge him more often to get their bonuses up to realisting to-hit levels, or have the occasional Ranger that really hates eidolons. Three, you're going to need to start using more intelligent enemies and having them use battlefield control abilities to keep the big loving scary monster thing away from the fight. If you do get your healer back, you can also at this level start having the occasional monster with the last stone from a lovely version of a necklace of fireballs or something start dropping area of effect hp damage that will not only go a way towards knocking out the eidolon, but keep the healer plenty busy. Really though, a Summoner is pretty much always going to stand head and shoulders above every other party member, at least until a wizard's really high level spells start kicking in, at which point the game is vastly different anyways. Four, you could always throw a Synthesist at the party. I always consider any optimization or cheese tactic the party uses fair game to throw back at them, and it's something I always tell my groups before we start. Five, keep careful track of his magic item slots. I know Synthesist sort of 'gets around' a lot of the shared slot restriction but it still exists and is one of the very few tradeoffs a Summoner has to make. If his eidolon isn't there, any magic items it had are gone. If his eidolon isn't wearing any of the items, some of them may not work as intended. Lastly, you could always split the party and just throw tougher monsters at him/his group, though I (and I imagine most GMs and players too) don't like this because it slows games down, hilights the disparity you're trying to overcome, and is generally annoying and/or railroady. Obviously if you do all these things all the time you'll just come off as being a dick to the Summoner's player, but I think you can mix it up enough to make the rest of the party relevant. And there are always those Dismissal/Banishment spells, or extraplanar adventures that can have odd effects, or whatever.
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Oct 28, 2011 05:57
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Are there creatures that do a lot of touch attacks? That might help with the ridiculous AC problems. Or possibly casters with whatever the Eidolon version of banish is. Alternatively you could set your combat in an area with circles of protection against [summons] or anti-magic. Letting the villains run and hide but still be vulnerable to the other party members or clever tactics (spilling enchanted braziers powering the circles, etc.) may give a more fulfilling combat all around. Those might not be things normally available to Pathfinder; I'm a little under-experienced in the system and system fluff. GM-fiat's got to be useful for something though.
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Oct 28, 2011 08:09
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Benly posted:Tell him honestly "Dave, you optimized the character way harder than everyone else did and they're not having fun. Let's see about how we can tone it down a little, okay?" Okay, so ignore Tactical Bonnet's 1001 Way to Fight a Sythesist and do this instead. 3.X/Pathfinder is NOT a balanced game. The various player classes are IN NO WAY equal in power or utility. This is a fact that you and your players have to accept and work around. Talk to the guy. Work out a gentleman's agreement. Explain to him that he's ruining the game for the other players, and that he needs to change. Maybe suggest that he try to optimize with a weaker class, as an exercise to challenge his system mastery. As long as you're playing in a system that doesn't even pretend to be balanced, you're going to run into this sort of problem pretty frequently. Talking it out and reaching a mutual agreement to keep things in line is 100% necessary for having a good time with an unbalanced game, so get used to it.
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Oct 28, 2011 11:14
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Does the optimized Eidolon actually do any damage? Even a dumb monster is going to start ignoring something that doesn't hurt them and go for some other target.
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Oct 28, 2011 15:57
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At level 3 that eidolon could potentially make three attack rolls, all at around a +6 for bite 1d8+1d6+4 or so(one point for the bite attack, one point to improve the die size from d6 to d8) and two claws for 1d6+1d6+4 or so(2 points for +1d6 energy damage to all natural attacks, last point for improved die size to claws). The bonuses only go up if the summoner spends his spells on self buffs, His AC could potentially be as high as 25, again, higher with buffs. So yes, he could probably keep anything's attention, he's bound to hit with one of the attacks. fake edit: I only know this because I play a synthesist who is built more around surviving and providing burst healing in combat because I didn't want to be a show-stealing dick. v  v
Tactical Bonnet fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 19:31
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Tactical Bonnet posted:At level 3 that eidolon could potentially make three attack rolls, all at around a +6 for bite 1d8+1d6+4 or so(one point for the bite attack, one point to improve the die size from d6 to d8) and two claws for 1d6+1d6+4 or so(2 points for +1d6 energy damage to all natural attacks, last point for improved die size to claws). Can he still do that with all of his points going towards tanky abilities though? That's my question. Obviously he can do those things, can he do all of them at once? That was usually the problem with "tank" PCs, even if you could get your AC way up it was hard to be worth messing with barring the unusual druid with wild full plate because your damage output was so low that after a round or so of wailing on that guy with no success and also not being hurt even something with 3 int would go "I'm going to kill something that's actually hurting me!!"
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Oct 28, 2011 19:33
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Yes, because the eidolon provides a natural armor bonus all it's own that stacks with any armor the summoner is wearing(armor bonus+nat. armor bonus). I was a little high with the AC bonus because my synthesist was higher level, but at level 3 having an AC of ~20 and a potential max HP of 54+con bonus(I had 63 total at level 5) is pretty close to invincible.
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Oct 28, 2011 19:40
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We had a crazy powerful summoner in our last Pathfinder game and the DM just had him reroll because it was dumb. He completely outshined both the melee classes and the wizard when he even chose to cast spells. They get a limited spell selection, but it's pretty much Conjuration's Greatest Hits and the best spells in the game for the levels PF is normally played at.
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Oct 28, 2011 22:46
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Synthesists can't cast spells while they're merged with their eidolon. Synthesist is basically an interesting idea but just a mechanical mess.
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Oct 28, 2011 23:39
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The White Dragon posted:On one hand, I almost wanna say, "no. no more synthesist," but that's even shittier of me than putting Banishment Wands on everything from goblins to gel cubes (which do have touch attack damage but the drat things rarely have good BAB at this level) to barbarians. On the other hand, if he keeps just powering through absolutely everything, everyone else is going to lose interest and nobody will have good times at all because nobody will be playing anymore. Suggestions? First of all, don't ever allow the synthesist again. Keeping the eidolon's physical stats while using the summoner's mental stats basically resurrects 3e's big druid wildshape problem. What outcome are you looking for? If you want to fix your campaign, there are a few things you can do. Realistically, a bunch of unintelligent foes are going to get punked by a magical super-hero, so maybe it would be a good idea to spice up the encounters a bit. Do you just want to take the guy down tactically without hosing everyone? It's not that hard to do. If he can still be hit on 20s, start brining in the foes with huge numbers of attacks. Let him go up against a foe with an obscene to-hit bonus and some outsider bane arrows. Do you want to punish him and make him feel remorse while potentially destroying a campaign you are probably hating anyway? Send him up against equally powerful NPC summoners who have some additional broken stuff added. Do you want to empower the healers? Get something that does obscene hit point damage and make him dig into his personal reserve to avoid having his eidolon unsummoned. The one thing I would not do is worry about looking "fair." You're not on a vendetta. The player has proposed his ideas about the campaign, embodied in his supertank character. You can respond in any proportionate way you choose. Personally, I'd let him enjoy his supertank character, but tailor some threats specifically to him that will make him sweat. Not only will that take him down a peg, it will actually give him something to do, which in the long run, is more interesting for everyone. You don't have to make the threat harmless to the other PCs, either: "Send in the summoner" is a valid response to a visible (and fair) threat you propose for the group. Almost any anti-summoner guided missile can be justified in story terms, if you want to go that route. Just make sure there is a plan in place to keep the campaign going if he decides to switch characters or drop out.
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Oct 29, 2011 06:19
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Going to reiterate what everyone else said but I think it largely depends on what kind of person/player he is and your relationship with him that should dictate your approach. In my opinion having him reroll another character would be better since it would lower the amount of work you would have to do and you would get instant results without having to experiment with approaches. Min/maxing in itself is manageable, he could be a min/maxing wizard who buffs the whole party for example, but if he is hogging all of the glory that seems to be the bigger issue. If you don't think that particular approach will work based on the player and your relationship, there is a lot of good advice here for dealing with his character while challenging the rest of the party. The key thing is simply to change to more intelligent creatures with actual battle tactics. Having them flank the party or draw him off will let him clean up his enemies while challenging the rest of the party. The party won't be insulted if you present it in a logical way: if a group of intelligent enemies sees one particular creature destroying everything in its path they are not going to focus their attention and march to their deaths, they are going to try and draw it off or regroup and reevaluate their tactics, possibly trying to capture or threaten the things friends, or call for reinforcements/switch to ranged attacks/etc. Having midnight ambushes or using spells/abilities which knock him unconscious or take away his eidolon like grah said are also great and valid tactics. I might suggest if the eidolon is Large using cramped spaces where it won't fit like a narrow hallway in a dungeon to make it irrelevant for that specific battle. Spells also open up a lot of possibilities like touch/ranged touch attacks or automatic damage or debuffing effects (the synthesist does gain the eidolon's ability scores but not save bonuses, so it still won't have the greatest Ref and Fort saves). Frankly, all of the tactics listed above have some merit, and even like you said using banishment or dismissal could work, just don't use it in every single battle. Use a different type of tactic every other battle or so, then have a regular battle where he can shine. It won't seem cheesy taking him out of the fight once if he gets to kick rear end in the next battle, and then the following battle he is only slightly gimped, then in the next goes back to being great but the enemies are spread out and he can't finish the whole encounter himself. Mix it up and not only do you have more interesting battles overall, you give everyone something solid to do at least once per session.
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Oct 29, 2011 21:35
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Scribe Scroll is probably a better choice for a cleric seeking to occasionally double as an evoker than theologian focused on the fire domain, right? It's not like you can just find divine scrolls of fireball at your local magic emporium.
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Oct 29, 2011 23:35
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Strontosaurus posted:Scribe Scroll is probably a better choice for a cleric seeking to occasionally double as an evoker than theologian focused on the fire domain, right? It's not like you can just find divine scrolls of fireball at your local magic emporium. I'll just take this moment to point out that in general, wands don't provoke when you use them, but scrolls do. Wands are obviously more expensive, at least initially, and cap out at (almost prohibitively expensive) level 4 spells, but for battle magic the lack of AoO is a huge plus, and if you're going to be shooting off lots and lots of fireballs, you will come out ahead on price versus making 50 scrolls. Edit: If it's just 'occasional' then scrolls work fine of course, but it's something to consider, especially if your gm will let you make wands that aren't full for fractions of the cost.
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Oct 30, 2011 00:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:Synthesists can't cast spells while they're merged with their eidolon. Unless there's some errata I'm not aware of yet, this is just flat wrong.  If there is, please link to it, as I'm playing a synthesist myself, and what you say is a direct contradiction of UM80 posted:While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist can Tactical Bonnet fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Oct 30, 2011 |
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Oct 30, 2011 03:28
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