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Messages - Tempest

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1
Min/Max 3.x / Re: [Pathfinder] Building a Necromancer
« on: December 28, 2013, 02:41:03 PM »
Oh, an NPC. Well, just screw following the rules then. Give him the stats, feats, spells, and items you want him to have, make some undead minions using whatever race and template you want, make sure his hideout is enchanted to give a permanent Unhallow (ie. Darkskull), and call it a day. When making NPCs like this the only thing you really have to care about is their CR, and you should know what your players can handle anyway.

2
Min/Max 3.x / Re: [Pathfinder] Building a Necromancer
« on: December 28, 2013, 06:35:00 AM »
Well, first of all, the Undead Lord archetype isn't really worth it unless you have a lot of downtime between adventures, and a large menagerie from which to draw bodies for your undead companion. If you want to stick with Cleric, I'd suggest avoiding the archetype unless you really really want the companion. It's widely seen as a trap choice.

I personally love the Agent of the Grave, one of the best five level prestige classes imo. My advice would actually be to go Juju Oracle instead of Cleric, this not only reduces MAD, but also gives you the lovely Juju zombies (Seriously, read the template) and 6 HD of undead using Animate Dead instead of the usual 4. Then just scour the other spell lists for some non-Oracle spells, and have enough Int by lvl 5 Agent to grab the ones you want. Oh, and if you get a Trait for your character, make sure to grab Magical Knack so you don't lose the CL from the Agent.

For feats you'd likely need to get Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus in Necromancy, I'd also suggest Undead Master if you're gonna be heavily minion focused. Spell Specialization and Spell Perfection in Animate Dead is just awesome, I'd suggest your three Metamagic feats be Extend, Heighten, and Quicken. Also, if you can afford it, consider getting Varisian Tattooo in Necromancy. As a last note, if you're going to be LE or CE and want to use Summon Monster spells for undead creatures, you'll want to get the Sacred Summons feat.

For basic undead minions nothing beats Juju Zombies, really, the template is crazy. If you just wanna get some skelingtons, you'll always want to get Bloody ones, and having a few low HD Burning ones is really great too (They're basically walking, flaming landmines)

The only really good magic item I can think of for a necromancer would be the Darkskull, so you might want to grab one of those. Otherwise you're pretty much free to get whatever magic items you feel like, though obviously a +Cha item is a priority if you're going Juju/Agent. Getting a small +Int item might not be bad either, just make sure that you've been carrying it around for at least 24 hours before you get to lvl 5 in the PrC  :P


This is just off the top of my head, I have a family holiday thing to go to so if there's anything you want expanded upon please feel free to tell me and I'll get back to you once I'm home.

3
Gaming Advice / Re: How Ridiculous a Race is This?
« on: December 28, 2013, 05:42:46 AM »
That race reads like a novice RPer's power fantasy. I don't believe I've ever seen something more terrible than that outside of homebrews.

4
Gaming Advice / Re: Soul Eater Questions
« on: October 11, 2013, 09:04:48 AM »
We had an issue in the session with the Soul Eater's character pointing out that his Energy Drain didn't have a save, as there's none listed, which caused the DM to promptly state "no save negative levels is OP, it has a standard save."

If its a question of nerfing the Soul Drain there's a much easier, and rule friendlier, way to do it. It is a Supernatural ability, and the SRD states the following:

Quote
Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise.

Since the Soul Drain ability doesn't state otherwise, it should be a Standard action by RAW. I'm sure that's not how it was intended, but I did mention that the Book of Vile Darkness is often poorly worded. Another way to do it is to limit the Soul Drain to once per round, like a Vampire's similar ability.

5
Gaming Advice / Re: Soul Eater Questions
« on: October 10, 2013, 06:43:59 AM »
Thirding the Wight template.

In response to:

Quote
6. The character will have leadership for a pocket Cleric, he intends on draining the Cleric and having the Cleric heal himself (kinda sadomasochistic relationship.) If the Cleric had the Heart of Nabassu feat and absorbed the negative level harmlessly, would the soul eater benefit from having used his soul drain ability?

I'd have to say yes. The Heart of the Nabassu feat states in its example:

Quote
you can gain up to two negative levels on a given day and not suffer any ill effects.

Which means that the Negative Levels are still there, you just don't get any penalties from them.

Also, if you want to get technical, many of the 'Soul' abilities only state that he needs to 'use its energy drain ability' for them to work, so they'd still trigger even if you used it on undead for example. The one ability which probably won't work this way is the Soul Blast, since it states: 'can be used once per day, and only on a day when the soul eater has drained levels'. Still, that just means that you could drain a living creature earlier in the day, and then activate the ability upon using Soul Drain on an undead/construct/whatever.

Vile Darkness is full of badly worded stuff like that, so take from it what you will. Personally I'd rule that Soul Drain actually has to deal Negative Levels for all those abilities to work, but that might just be me.

6
So, uuuh... another try at the Pathfinder concept?

7
Gaming Advice / Re: This GM Needs Advice
« on: March 17, 2013, 08:02:19 AM »
Sounds like Way of the Wicked to me, in which case I'm guessing you talked about the campaign and the expectations it set beforehand. There's a good reason it doesn't allow CE characters, namely that the entire story is set in a country full of paladins, clerics and other good aligned characters. Didn't you tell them what kind of character mindsets were allowed? If you did, then it just sounds like him being, as mentioned by others, a douche. In which case you need to have a talk with him about it.

8
Gaming Advice / Re: Sorcerer ACF's that trade familiars?
« on: February 27, 2013, 05:26:58 PM »
Only other one not mentioned I can think of is Spell Shield from Dungeonscape. It's pretty nifty if you're lacking in the defense department, allows you to spend a spell slot as an Immediate action and soak damage equal to Spell Level x 5.

Also, have this link:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872054/Alternative_Class_Features_III

9
I'd go both. Reanimator with Alchemical Zombie.

The Zombie discovery is all well and good, but it does cost you a hefty amount of gold, and it doesn't look like the undead is controlled either way. The first Simple Reanimation from the Reanimator gets you a controlled undead, variant even, so use it to get yourself a nice variant zombie as a semi-permanent pet.

Alchemical Zombie is neat because it pretty much states that the zombies it creates are of the Alchemical variant. All you need is some UMD and Command Undead in a stick. Or a dip into a class with the spell on their list instead of UMD.

The 13th and 15th lvl abilities will allow you to keep some strong undead around without having to pay the gold price of Alchemical Zombie. Not to mention they're pretty handy for a timed ambush, just fill a few corpses with the goo and they'll rise to kill anything nearby within the hour.

10
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimising Skeletal Minion?
« on: February 03, 2013, 07:38:31 AM »
Spellstitch the minion?

That would be awesome. Just throw a Wis item on the skeleton and you'll have a pretty effective caster familiar. Even at low levels having up to 4 extra Magic Missiles, Greases or Cause Fears is great.


11
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: [3.P] Int, Wis or Cha for bonus Action Points?
« on: February 02, 2013, 05:15:00 PM »
Charisma, it is often used as the attribute that defines the 'strength of soul', as seen most obviously in incorporeal/some undead bonus HP, deflection bonus from various thematic abilities, and of course the Sorcerer casting.

12
Gaming Advice / Re: [3.P] Shadow Walk or similar
« on: December 25, 2012, 05:31:58 PM »
Firstly - Yes, it's entirely like switching to say, the Astral Plane, only that the Plane of Shadows is somewhat a mirror image of the Prime Material, only twisted and dark.
Secondly - Nope, a few Forgotten Realms DMs might use the 'void' inbetween the Prime Material and Plane of Shadow in their campaign, which might be close enough to the Material plane to get 'detected', but otherwise it's nothing like Etherealness.

I've scoured my books for a spell you could use, but so far I've had no luck. Shadow Well creates a sort of prison out of a creature's shadow into which its thrown for a few rounds, but that's the closest thing concept wise I've been able to find.

I suggest a homebrewed spell. The Player's Handbook already suggests the idea of spellcasters creating their own spells from scratch, so there's nothing stopping your character from doing this.

13
Gaming Advice / Re: Dragon egg-laying
« on: December 25, 2012, 05:26:12 PM »
Depends on what system you're  using, but according to the 3.5 Draconomicon (Page 10) a female dragon can produce eggs beginning at Young Adult and through Very Old. Which also means that a female Great Wyrm can't produce eggs anymore.

Males are capable of fertilizing eggs from Young Adult through Wyrm, and the eggs are fertilized inside the female's body. They're laid in clutches of two to five as often as once per year.

You could always talk to your DM about any special circumstance present in your campaign, or if you're the DM you could always just ignore Draconomicon entirely. Or it's possible some sort of advanced magic or ritual would allow a Great Wyrm female to lay eggs, but that has to be homebrewed.

14
Gaming Advice / Re: Creating a floating isle
« on: December 22, 2012, 09:40:40 AM »
I'm guessing that ya'll are thinking about the Proctiv's Move Mountain epic spell from the Player's Guide to Faerun? It's the spell the Netherese used to create their floating enclaves.
5k XP and you've got a permanent 1 mile radius of floating mountain to play around with.

If you're not interested in using Epic magic, you could always just ask your DM if Reverse Gravity can be made permanent, then just build your own island with Walls of Stone. Walls of Force works too.

Otherwise there's the Raise the Keep spell from Relics and Rituals I, it does require a few arcane casters, access to 8th level spells, a dragon heart, 50k gold and a bit of XP, but it's probably easier than messing around with Reverse Gravity, and safer for that matter.

Or you could just make a vertical Wall of Force or Rock, then build your little hut on it, place a permanent Levitation spell on the base, and voila, flying hut. Get some giant eagles reined to it and you can fly around with it too.
It does cost a bit of gold, but shouldn't be too bad as long as the structure isn't too heavy. If you're really rich you could just conjure up a Ice Castle from Frostburn and then permanent Levitate/Reverse Gravity it.

15
Gaming Advice / Re: Seelie and Unseelie: Saint vs Shadow Creature?
« on: December 03, 2012, 04:04:04 AM »
You could always use the official templates from Dragon Compendium, they're found on pages 214 and 222.

16
Gaming Advice / Re: PHB Backpack
« on: November 26, 2012, 10:04:18 PM »
I'd just use Pathfinder's backpacks:
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Backpack, Standard

A standard backpack is constructed of water resistant, reinforced leather and holds 2 cubic ft. or 60 lbs. of gear.

Empty Weight: 2 lb.1 Capacity: 2 cubic ft./60 lb.1

1. When made for Medium characters. Weighs one-quarter the normal amount when made for Small characters. Weighs twice the normal amount when made for Large characters. Containers carry one-quarter the normal amount when made for Small characters.
---------

Backpack, Masterwork

This backpack has numerous pockets for storing various items that might be needed while adventuring. Hooks are included for attaching items such as canteens, pouches, other small bags, or even a rolled-up blanket. It has padded bands that strap across the chest and the waist to distribute its weight more evenly. Like a common backpack, it can hold about 2 cubic feet of materials in its main container. When wearing a masterwork backpack, treat your Strength score as +1 higher than normal when calculating your carrying capacity.

Empty Weight: 2 lb.1 Capacity: 2 cubic ft./60 lb.1

1. When made for Medium characters. Weighs one-quarter the normal amount when made for Small characters. Weighs twice the normal amount when made for Large characters. Containers carry one-quarter the normal amount when made for Small characters.

17
Gaming Advice / Re: [3.5] Telflammar Shadowlord's Shadow pounce
« on: September 26, 2012, 09:24:17 AM »
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Any time he uses an ability, spell, or effect with the teleportation descriptor (for example, his shadow jump ability), he may execute a full attack upon completion of the teleportation.

'Upon completion' is the key line here, in my world that makes it a seperate action from the teleportation. I'd think it's up to anyone's interpretation, since it doesn't state one way or the other.

Also, nowhere does it say that teleportation is movement. It is a transportation/translocation effect. 'Movement' is making use of anything with a movement speed, like ground speed, flight speed, etc. It's also important to note that leaving a threatened square with a teleportation effect does NOT provoke attacks of opportunity, all kinds of movement that doesn't state otherwise does, thus it stands to reason that a teleportation effect is not the same sort of movement that prohibits a 5-foot step.

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You can move 5 feet in any round when you don’t perform any other kind of movement.

You do not 'perform a movement' when using a teleportation/translocation spell/ability, the spell that you cast is what 'moves' you.


My former answer still stands. Feel free to use my interpretation or not, this is what makes the most sense to me.

18
Gaming Advice / Re: [3.5] Telflammar Shadowlord's Shadow pounce
« on: September 25, 2012, 03:27:00 PM »
You're free to do a non-action, as stated by the SRD:

'The only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks.'

And a 5-foot step is a non-action.

But you're also capable of using a free or swift action when making a full attack, seeing as drawing an arrow is a free action and allows a bow user to make several attacks with a full attack. If you weren't able to do so, archers wouldn't be able to attack several times a round.

So that's a yes, you 'may' make a full attack action after using Shadow Pounce, and you can 5-foot step either before, between, or after the full attack. Same with free actions, though I'm not entirely certain if you can take a swift action between attacks. I'd guess no to that one though, but it doesn't stop you from using a swift action either before or after.

19
It depends a lot on the other parent I'd say, so finding a template for 'any' pairing is going to be hard.

As an example, if your troll half-devil half-dragon character ends up having a child with a dragon, the child is likely to have the half-dragon template instead of draconic, same with a devil and half-fiend. As lackluster as Draconic might be, it's the most realistic template for your child to get with any non-draconic parent. Half-troll is obvious for any non-troll pairing

So basically, any non-draconic, non-fiendish, non-troll parent will result in the child having the half-troll, draconic and fiendish templates. Unless shenanigans were involved in the birth and/or the other parent has an exotic race and/or template herself.

If you're looking for something else, Dragon Mag 350 had a number of different 'mutation-based templates', which were basically creatures tainted by magical pollution in one way or another. Any creature born to a parent with a high number of magical bloodlines/templates is likely to develop a mutation as a result of the intermixing, and likely unstable, DNA/magical energies. The Arcane-Blood and Stoneboned templates are the most likely, but it's also possible the mixture of troll/fiend/dragon blood creates a Corrupted off-spring, especially if your troll, or the other parent, has spent any time in toxic landscapes or places of dark/evil/fiendish magic/energy, or has been experimented on in quite heinous ways.

That's about it though, all I can think of, hope it helps  :)

20
Gaming Advice / Re: good way of killing dragons?
« on: July 26, 2012, 08:46:07 PM »
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The problem is, the DM doesn't like rolling fights - most of her adventures can be solved through clever thinking, reasoning with NPCs and out-of-combat magic use. This is quite satisfying most of the time and I do like it. However, as the result, my wizard is much better suited to espionage than to actually hurting things.

Actually, this might work more to your advantage than not, a lower level fight against a dragon often requires great preperation and strategic thinking, and having an open minded DM like that is certainly a preference. The first thing you want to do is limit the dragon's mobility, fighting it in its lair is often preferable to fighting it outdoors where it can make use of an open sky, if it does turn out that fighting it in an enclosed space is going to be impossible, there are a few things you might try.

It depends on the size and age of the dragon in question, but it's entirely possible that you might get lucky and get an Earthbind spell (Draconomicon) through its SR, and even if it makes its Fortitude save it'll still have its flight speed greatly reduced. On a similar note, both Scale Weakening and Suppress Breath Weapon from the same book are excellent spells when dealing with a dragon with a SR you can actually beat.

As for your other spells, both Vampiric Touch and Bestow Curse are sort of pointless, considering you'd need to get close enough to touch the damn thing, Troll Form is pretty powerful normally, but a lack of a ranged attack and negation of Regeneration due to its Acid breath weapon makes it somewhat useless. Summon Monster IV however does offer a number of excellent choices, as a group of smaller flying creatures can really become a pain for a larger dragon very fast. Consider summoning a Lantern Archon or two, they have Perfect flight speed, a ranged TOUCH attack (Though it doesn't deal much damage) as well as Magic Circle Against Evil and Teleport at Will. The Archon can't actually bring another creature along with it, but it can bring 50 pounds of items, such as 12 tanglefoot bags, dropped from a height above the dragon capable of dealing enough 'damage' to the bags for them to split open and spill their goo all over it, and even if the rule states that Huge and larger creatures aren't affected by them, try to reason with your DM that the amount of sticky substance would at the very least hamper its movement. Aside from that, the Celestial Giant Eagle is an excellent aerial summon in that level of Summon Monster, and even if their attacks won't make it through the dragon's AC all that often, they do have better mobility than the dragon, as well as Evasion and a decent Reflex save to soak up its breath weapons.
If you do manage to ground the dragon, summoning a couple of Howlers can quickly make life hell for it if it fails its Reflex save just once against their Quills.

In the end, the greatest weapon you have against a dragon is preperation, make sure you have every advantage you can get, Energy Resistance spells will do wonders, and getting a method of flight for your melee warriors is a must if you can't get the dragon grounded. Heck, getting your hands on a ballista or two and preparing them in advance would be great, maybe a pair of them with a large net to take the dragon out of the sky.

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