Author Topic: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)  (Read 37394 times)

Offline oslecamo

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #80 on: March 06, 2019, 05:01:54 AM »
Telekinesis allows for multiple options, last one being Violent Thrust that allows to throw stuff as ranged weapons with the same range as the spell, the heavier/sharper the better, up to one object per CL. And since the Vrock has CL 12 that's up to 12 objects it's flinging per round. It may look like a melee opponent at first glance, but can easily become a ranged sniper, in particular if the enemy is a giant enemy crab with massive pincers.

Anyway seems like you beat the "brute melee" enemies well enough, but have a glaring weakness to kiting.

Still you handily beat the fire giants, bebilith and trolls. You're not immune to the Mind Blast, but do have a good +13 Will save so chances are that you can resist a couple mind blasts and did pick up a Third Eye Clarity in case you roll low so that you can get close enough and murderize them. So that's the 4 minimum wins covered, you're a nice melee brute but kinda powerless against high mobility+range. Although you're also packing White Raven Tactics so worst case scenario you're giving extra turns to somebody that can fly. Your reflex save's also nothing to write home about which is another vulnerability (which is good in this case).

Offline ketaro

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #81 on: March 06, 2019, 05:46:29 AM »
I wrote a backstory for Decus.

It's god. damn. adorable.

You're welcome.  :cool

Ohhh, that's not only pretty good but also fits extremely nicely in the campaign, great work! :clap

(also your character's now one of the main reasons Bonnie's island has such a bad reputation, there's an angel going around confirming it!)

I legit spent like 4 hours going back and forth between writing and cross-checking it with your world fluff just to make sure I could blend seamlessly into everything already set up as far as things concerning Bonnie. Had to give it that extra oomph to justify being an actual Legend among the commonfolk of this world  :cool

(ketaro lives to serve~  ;) )

Offline Jarob22

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #82 on: March 06, 2019, 07:28:58 AM »
Alright, great - as long as you’re happy with what I’ve got, Osle, I’m happy. Should I try to bump up my ref save a bit, or would you not want that?

Offline YuweaCurtis

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #83 on: March 06, 2019, 10:01:27 AM »
Noice backstory ketaro!

Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #84 on: March 06, 2019, 10:55:46 AM »
Os, you have another PM because I over think things.

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #85 on: March 06, 2019, 10:58:00 AM »
But... butbutbut...

I LIKED the human base. It let me took Adaptive learning, which meant I didn't have nightmares about managing my skills!  :bigeyes

(That's pretty much why my base race was human in the first place!)

Also, I never heard about humans losing feats and skill points from acquiring a new type, even as a replacement...
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #86 on: March 06, 2019, 11:00:24 AM »
If it's the monster class:

Quote
Valkyrie Body: The Valkyrie  loses all other racial traits and gains outsider traits (basically darkvision 60 feet). She's a medium sized creature with base speed of 30 feet.

It's not a template class so it replaces racial abilities like human bonus feats.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #87 on: March 06, 2019, 11:13:49 AM »
Unless you take two feats to keep your original race features.

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #88 on: March 06, 2019, 12:40:04 PM »
Damn it all... am I gonna have to give up on Valkyrie? Or can I even take adaptive learning when losing the human type later?
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Offline Jarob22

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #89 on: March 06, 2019, 03:12:11 PM »
Surely you can keep the feat, it just won’t work until you take the two monstrous feats to allow you to be human again?

Offline ketaro

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #90 on: March 06, 2019, 03:53:02 PM »
He can keep the feat and not have it work in the same way he can have his 12th level feat and not have it available until 12th level.

But yeah, with the monster classes, you dont have a base race. The class is and always was your race from the moment you take one at 1st level.

Offline Skyrock

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #91 on: March 06, 2019, 04:10:55 PM »
Running the encounter check for my character:

Easy, I could take on double of that:
- 2x Mind Flayers: Auto-success on the save vs Mind Blast, and the grapple attack is unlikely to ever reach the Extract stage
- Lotsa Shadows: Reach Weapon + Thicket of Blades + Lesser Truedeath Crystal + lots of AoOs has been made for this.

Doable:
- 6 Trolls
- Vrock: It's still a victory when they teleport away, right?

Not soloable:
- Fire Giant: I'd need Law Devotion just to not get curbstomped, and would probably run out of it before I have taken that down. And is that Improved Sunder that I spy? Well, so much for my poor armor, we barely knew ye.
- Young Blue Dragon: The slow death of being kited, especially with zero lightning resistance
- Bebilith: As fire giant, plus a DR I have only sharply limited ways around, plus that web.

???:
 - Evil Cleric 10 + 1HD skeletons: There are too many different ways to spec a cleric.

So, that makes 4 won encounters (2 of them easily so), 3 lost encounters, and a wildcard.

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #92 on: March 06, 2019, 07:15:59 PM »
Running the encounter check for my character:

These are actually a bitch for this character, since he's much better at support. All of my strategies to solo an encounter involve reliably making quickened utterances (not trivial) and spamming invisibility after every attack.
(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)

Being able to no-check dispel single spells, un-dispel, and maintain a readied action indefinitely to absorb incoming magic via spellfire makes me a great anti-mage (for the average NPC "dude who casts some spells" kind of mage).

EDIT: My life gets a lot easier if someone else in the party has an at-will targeted SLA, because then I can recharge spellfire between fights for more efficient healing and a backup nuke. I'd do it myself, but readied actions prevent taking any other action so I can't just Ready->Surge->SLA

EDIT2: Additional bottlenecks:
 
- Cunning knowledge is 1/day/skill, meaning fighting the same creature type more than once in a day reduces my attack/damage bonus from Knowledge Devotion from +5 to +3 on average.
- Arcane Dilettante forbids the preparation of more than one copy of a given spell. This means I can only DDoor or use other similar tricks 1/day. I'm researching hour/level buff spells, since I can prepare a bunch of level (max-1) as easily as mixed levels.
- I only have 6 inspiration points. I'm likely to burn through all that by turn 2 of most fights.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2019, 10:59:34 PM by Nytemare3701 »

Offline Jarob22

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #93 on: March 06, 2019, 07:36:40 PM »
No LA allowed, but you can use vermin/plant monster classes  to make low level minions using the elite array of stats.
Apparently I cant read text - my leadership score would be something like 22 or 23 rather than the 12 or 13 I thought it was - I forgot to add my char level. Now I need to deal with this... :P

Edit: would I be able to use Awakened Monstrous Crabs as my followers?
Super edit: if I were to use most of my followers to guard my hoard, is there some sort of item or something I could get to allow me (maybe with friendly help) to teleport there and then back to where I was? Else I’m gonna need to go back there every so often to placate them, make sure they’re all ok, by mundane means, which may be a problem?
« Last Edit: March 06, 2019, 08:22:43 PM by Jarob22 »

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #94 on: March 06, 2019, 08:29:08 PM »
My sheet isn't done, but let's take a look at those encounters...

Fire Giant: doable. He has no specific defenses against what I can do. He hits pretty hard, on 10/15/crit against me in armor (even though natural armor stacks, I think it would be cheating for me to count my Charisma TWICE to armor and then my Strength and Dexterity mods on top of that). It'd be a slugfest for sure, but I think I'd come out on top due to Fast Healing. I can't grapple that well, so draining this guy would be a problem.

6 trolls: I forgot my torch in my other pants. That said, the regular trolls only hit me on a crit and the 6th-level ranger examples needs a 14 or better. Their Will saves are low enough that I can Dominate them one or two at a time and make them fight each other, which gives me some breathing room - the regular trolls would need an 18 or better and the 6th-level rangers would need a 13 or better, assuming I didn't burn through blood charges in order to heighten the DC and/or my attributes, at which point even the rangers would need an 18 to resist.

Bebilith: Immune to poison. Web could be a problem, but... why immobilize me if his attack options are melee? Damage is not particularly high, rend armor could be an issue, but that's assuming he hits me with both claw attacks, which he'd need a 16 or better for. Pumping blood charges in for higher AC would trivialize that issue and render him effectively useless against me.

2 Mind flayers: Immune to the mind blast, plus I can grapple better than they can. It'd be suicidal of them.

Vrock: Could get nasty fast with that telekinesis, but I can't exactly one-shot the guy. Hits about 50% of the time, not much damage to speak of (which is good because I don't have a whole lot of HP). Another slugfest because I sure as hell can't grapple the bastard, but he'd still be in for some nasty surprises, mostly energy drain.

Evil 10th level cleric: I don't think the skeletons would be much of a problem, mostly because they can't hit me, but I don't have a lot of ranged options and this dude is sure to come loaded with plenty of anti-undead artillery. If I sink my teeth in him, though, it's over. Initiative would play a big part here.

A lot of Shadows: I'm immune to their drain and I can hit their incorporeal selves thanks to MoL. Easy peasy.

Young Blue Dragon: Now THERE is an interesting challenge. As I mentioned before, I don't have a whole lot of ranged options, and even though I can fly, I don't have the sheer speed to keep up with this guy. My ability to deal with this would be limited by my ability to ground him, for which there is exactly ONE maneuver I can think of. Otherwise, he's got the edge on me. If the dragon plays it smart, victory is his.



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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #95 on: March 06, 2019, 08:43:30 PM »
Well, I got some backstory up.

Looking at the fights, it's pretty similar to the above. A lot of it comes down to luck on the rolls; if I take a bunch of hits in a short period of time I'm going to go down fast, and my damage isn't super high against these guys. Most of my maneuvers are more useful for their debuffing effects than straight up damage, unless I start pumping blood charges like crazy into them and that (plus abusing Diabolic Wave) has downsides in future fights.

There's some pretty obvious downside in planning to fight most of these in that I outreach them and also have flight, but that's a symptom of vampire lord and any ranged attack. Assuming some ranged capability or a ceiling does a lot to reduce it.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #96 on: March 07, 2019, 12:27:18 AM »
Os, do you have any issues with me taking Cut the Gordian Knot which when combined with arsenal weapons counting as discipline weapons for Modern Maid allowing me to hide/unhide my arsenal weapons?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #97 on: March 07, 2019, 12:32:39 AM »
Damn it all... am I gonna have to give up on Valkyrie? Or can I even take adaptive learning when losing the human type later?
As pointed out, you can spend a couple feats to keep human race bonus.

Running the encounter check for my character:

Easy, I could take on double of that:
- 2x Mind Flayers: Auto-success on the save vs Mind Blast, and the grapple attack is unlikely to ever reach the Extract stage
- Lotsa Shadows: Reach Weapon + Thicket of Blades + Lesser Truedeath Crystal + lots of AoOs has been made for this.

Doable:
- 6 Trolls
- Vrock: It's still a victory when they teleport away, right?

Not soloable:
- Fire Giant: I'd need Law Devotion just to not get curbstomped, and would probably run out of it before I have taken that down. And is that Improved Sunder that I spy? Well, so much for my poor armor, we barely knew ye.
- Young Blue Dragon: The slow death of being kited, especially with zero lightning resistance
- Bebilith: As fire giant, plus a DR I have only sharply limited ways around, plus that web.

???:
 - Evil Cleric 10 + 1HD skeletons: There are too many different ways to spec a cleric.

So, that makes 4 won encounters (2 of them easily so), 3 lost encounters, and a wildcard.

Thanks!

But for the Vrock, it can teleport away from melee range and snipe you by flinging stuff with telekinesis from 880 feet away, do you have a way to deal with that? If not you'll probably need to pump your combat numbers a bit higher until you can at least beat the fire giant.

Running the encounter check for my character:

These are actually a bitch for this character, since he's much better at support. All of my strategies to solo an encounter involve reliably making quickened utterances (not trivial) and spamming invisibility after every attack.
(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)

Being able to no-check dispel single spells, un-dispel, and maintain a readied action indefinitely to absorb incoming magic via spellfire makes me a great anti-mage (for the average NPC "dude who casts some spells" kind of mage).

EDIT: My life gets a lot easier if someone else in the party has an at-will targeted SLA, because then I can recharge spellfire between fights for more efficient healing and a backup nuke. I'd do it myself, but readied actions prevent taking any other action so I can't just Ready->Surge->SLA

EDIT2: Additional bottlenecks:
 
- Cunning knowledge is 1/day/skill, meaning fighting the same creature type more than once in a day reduces my attack/damage bonus from Knowledge Devotion from +5 to +3 on average.
- Arcane Dilettante forbids the preparation of more than one copy of a given spell. This means I can only DDoor or use other similar tricks 1/day. I'm researching hour/level buff spells, since I can prepare a bunch of level (max-1) as easily as mixed levels.
- I only have 6 inspiration points. I'm likely to burn through all that by turn 2 of most fights.

Really appreciate people running the simulations themselves.

-You mention you're going kinda nova and burning through resources fast, so any battles that you can win where you would lose if the enemies are doubled? Because if you're still winning over half of them then that's too stronk.
-Did you take in account the dragon's blindsense? That way it would be able to detect where you are even if invisible and hit-and-run with lighting breath.
-The vrock has at-will mirror image, you got any way to go around that and if not can you win the slugfest of you trying to hit the real vrock while removing spores and it just telekinesis stuff in your general direction hoping to make up for the 50% concealment chance?

No LA allowed, but you can use vermin/plant monster classes  to make low level minions using the elite array of stats.
Apparently I cant read text - my leadership score would be something like 22 or 23 rather than the 12 or 13 I thought it was - I forgot to add my char level. Now I need to deal with this... :P

Edit: would I be able to use Awakened Monstrous Crabs as my followers?
Of course, and I was feeling a bit suspicious your Leadership score was so low you could only afford lv1 followers.

Super edit: if I were to use most of my followers to guard my hoard, is there some sort of item or something I could get to allow me (maybe with friendly help) to teleport there and then back to where I was? Else I’m gonna need to go back there every so often to placate them, make sure they’re all ok, by mundane means, which may be a problem?
Let's say 4k gp for an 1/day item to go back to your hoard or back to the previous location you teleported from, sounds good? Double price if you want 2/day so you can check and go back in the same day.

My sheet isn't done, but let's take a look at those encounters...

Fire Giant: doable. He has no specific defenses against what I can do. He hits pretty hard, on 10/15/crit against me in armor (even though natural armor stacks, I think it would be cheating for me to count my Charisma TWICE to armor and then my Strength and Dexterity mods on top of that). It'd be a slugfest for sure, but I think I'd come out on top due to Fast Healing. I can't grapple that well, so draining this guy would be a problem.

6 trolls: I forgot my torch in my other pants. That said, the regular trolls only hit me on a crit and the 6th-level ranger examples needs a 14 or better. Their Will saves are low enough that I can Dominate them one or two at a time and make them fight each other, which gives me some breathing room - the regular trolls would need an 18 or better and the 6th-level rangers would need a 13 or better, assuming I didn't burn through blood charges in order to heighten the DC and/or my attributes, at which point even the rangers would need an 18 to resist.

Bebilith: Immune to poison. Web could be a problem, but... why immobilize me if his attack options are melee? Damage is not particularly high, rend armor could be an issue, but that's assuming he hits me with both claw attacks, which he'd need a 16 or better for. Pumping blood charges in for higher AC would trivialize that issue and render him effectively useless against me.

2 Mind flayers: Immune to the mind blast, plus I can grapple better than they can. It'd be suicidal of them.

Vrock: Could get nasty fast with that telekinesis, but I can't exactly one-shot the guy. Hits about 50% of the time, not much damage to speak of (which is good because I don't have a whole lot of HP). Another slugfest because I sure as hell can't grapple the bastard, but he'd still be in for some nasty surprises, mostly energy drain.

Evil 10th level cleric: I don't think the skeletons would be much of a problem, mostly because they can't hit me, but I don't have a lot of ranged options and this dude is sure to come loaded with plenty of anti-undead artillery. If I sink my teeth in him, though, it's over. Initiative would play a big part here.

A lot of Shadows: I'm immune to their drain and I can hit their incorporeal selves thanks to MoL. Easy peasy.

Young Blue Dragon: Now THERE is an interesting challenge. As I mentioned before, I don't have a whole lot of ranged options, and even though I can fly, I don't have the sheer speed to keep up with this guy. My ability to deal with this would be limited by my ability to ground him, for which there is exactly ONE maneuver I can think of. Otherwise, he's got the edge on me. If the dragon plays it smart, victory is his.
Thanks as well for covering the basics.

So, the tiebreakers here seem to be the vrock and fire giant, would you say your character can still take them on in the double enemy battles? (double cleric means you can only sink your teeth in one while the other spells away).

Well, I got some backstory up.

Looking at the fights, it's pretty similar to the above. A lot of it comes down to luck on the rolls; if I take a bunch of hits in a short period of time I'm going to go down fast, and my damage isn't super high against these guys. Most of my maneuvers are more useful for their debuffing effects than straight up damage, unless I start pumping blood charges like crazy into them and that (plus abusing Diabolic Wave) has downsides in future fights.

There's some pretty obvious downside in planning to fight most of these in that I outreach them and also have flight, but that's a symptom of vampire lord and any ranged attack. Assuming some ranged capability or a ceiling does a lot to reduce it.
As well, any fights where you can probably take on the standard enemy but not the double version?

Os, do you have any issues with me taking Cut the Gordian Knot which when combined with arsenal weapons counting as discipline weapons for Modern Maid allowing me to hide/unhide my arsenal weapons?
Sounds good and flavourful.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #98 on: March 07, 2019, 12:38:33 AM »
Quote
As well, any fights where you can probably take on the standard enemy but not the double version?

Honestly? Aside from the trolls being stuck entirely on nat 20s because they're low level and I can't actually reduce my AC any further without just randomly levelling INT instead, anything that might hit has a much, much better chance. Septette has poor AoE and my minimal HP means I don't have any sort of safe buffer to deal with more attacks being more damage.

HP is low enough that a chain of good rolls from a multiattack enemy is probably enough to win if I've already expended my one maneuver that actually prevents damage. Pretty good AC and DR only do so much as generic monsters obviously lack the means to pierce the latter.

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Crown's Courtyard (OOC general discussion)
« Reply #99 on: March 07, 2019, 01:23:13 AM »
Hmmmm. Well, with doubles the tactics themselves have to change, but the short answer is "not without burning through blood charges like they're rife with bacteria".

Neither the Vrock nor the Fire Giant have phenomenal Will saves. So, if I pump up my Charisma with Vampire Might and burn through as many blood charges as I can (I ASSUME the limit is up to HD, but there are instances of abilities that suggest that's not true) I could pump up the Dominate DC to 28 (10 + 10 blood charges + 6 CHA mod +2 total Untyped from Vampire Might), meaning that the Fire Giant would only save on a 18+ and the Vrock on a 19+. Of course, the Vrock has SR, so I only get so many chances to get his buddy to help me, but the Fire Giant doesn't have that. At that point all I have to do is have one grapple the other and energy drain the non-dominated one, then finish off the one that IS dominated.

The Vrock is a tougher call. If I succeed on the Dominate (for which I need to be in range... so I would have to get close to one of them, which may not be an easy task), then it can use its Telekinesis SLA to play counter to the other guy or even immobilize it completely via TK combat maneuvers. TK has a maximum range of 880 feet for the dominated Vrock too, and it can't use an SLA while in a grapple, so it can't escape that way. That fighting plan relies on a number of variables such as the terrain in which they're fought not allowing for a direct line of fire so I can get close enough, as well as landing the dominate. If either condition fails I could be in for a world of hurt, though gaseous form pretty much ensures that they can't really knock me out.

With two clerics it's harder to advocate as well. If they have any prep time beforehand, dominate is straight out because of the several ways they have to protect against charm and the like. At that point my best bet would be to harass one with summons and try to chomp on the other. I doubt either could rebuke me, but that doesn't mean they can't lay on the hurt. If I had to deal with one at a time, spell turning from MoL could offer some degree of protection, but with two of them laying fire on me things get dicier.

Either way, I could SURVIVE those encounters, but not necessarily win them, and even to win it would take me a good deal of resources. Upping my AC would probably be in the cards as well.
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