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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gort" data-source="post: 1635773" data-attributes="member: 11239">Gorts Random D&D Advice.Here's my advice...If you're a non-spontaneous spellcaster, make sure you pick up the Scribe Scroll feat. It is AWESOME, and will save your party many times over. Spend any time you can scrounge penning those awkward useful-once-in-a-lifetime spells that you never think will come up, so you never need to bother wasting a slot memorising them. Any spell for which caster level doesn't matter, scribe three of them. Spells like death ward, restoration, heal, get 'em down. Once you have all your utility spells on scrolls, memorise nothing but healing, blasting, anything you KNOW you'll use. Then if a situation requires versatility, you can fall back on your scrolls. Don't be afraid of the experience cost, it really is small, and get your party to reimburse you for the scrolls if everyone'll benefit. (5 GP per experience point spent is a fair deal)Next, not only should every party member have a ranged weapon (that are proficient with them, natch), even if they're not specialised in it, they should also have a variety of projectile types for it. Silver, adamantine, cold iron. Then if you come up against some beastie that you need a silver weapon to harm, you're not screwed. Also, your friendly neighbourhood cleric should have a scroll of align weapon and greater magic weapon handy to cover other bases. Once you can spare it, upgrade any secondary weapons to +1, so they count as magic.In a similar vein, make sure every main weapon in the party is made of a special material, such as adamantine. You'll be glad when you fight a golem. Carry bottles of Silversheen to make your sword count as silvered in times of need.Never bother with two-weapon fighting. In my experience it's the same or inferior to two-handed and sword-and-board, AND you have to dump a load of feats into it just to do it! Don't bother with it. If you're going to be a ranger, go archery style. You don't have the AC and hitpoints to go toe-to-toe, so lay the hurt down from a distance. Archery is very powerful, since you can full-attack in almost every situation.Don't underestimate bludgeoning weapons. They often have lower damage codes or worse criticals than slashing ones, but they're the king of damage types. Many things are vulnerable to bludgeoning weapons that scorn slashing ones. Make sure EVERY character carries a healing potion of some sort. Even cure light wounds is fine. This means that when the whole party is bleeding to death except for the rogue (who has no ranks in heal or use magic device or healing potions) he can see to it that nobody dies. Put a cure moderate on the cleric so he can get up and heal everyone else.Buy wands of cure light wounds for downtime healing. They're cheap for what you get, and mean your healer doesn't have to use his more powerful healing magic to heal when it's not crucial. Likewise, when healing people out of combat, use your least powerful spells first, so you have the big ones ready for when time is important.Buy cloaks of resistance as soon as possible. They're extremely cheap and well worth it for what you get. Passing a save is often the difference between being useful and being a burden, or even life or death.Use feats to compensate for your bad saves, ESPECIALLY fortitude and will. A failed fortitude save can kill you instantly. A failed will save can make you kill your friends. A failed reflex save usually just means a bit of damage. However, damage should be avoided, so boost reflex as well, if you can spare the feat.Fire resistance is the best resistance type. Many D&D locations are very hot, and a good bit of fire resistance comes in very handy. Many creatures also have fire attacks, and a lot of druid, cleric, and wizard attack spells use fire. Being able to shrug these off is very useful.Make sure you use the right armour type for your dex - even going so far as to design your character around the kind of armour they'll wear. Platemail? 12 dex. Chain shirt? 18 dex. However, if you inadvertently end up with a platemail-wearing fighter with a 16 dex, all is not lost. Mithril platemail allows you to use it all. Anyone with 12 dex in platemail should make theirs adamantine - DR 3/- is great.Trap DCs are usually enormous. Always travel with the rogue in front, and make sure he's maxed out his search. Then get him a magic item which adds to his search checks. This will give him a hope of spotting those fiendish traps. Once they're spotted, there are several ways of dealing with them. If they're only dangerous to whoever triggers them, send a summoned creature into them to set them off. But always check to see if they've reset. Send a second one to make sure.Walls of Force are awesome. Nothing breaks them except for disintegrate spells, so use them to divide difficult encounters into several easy encounters, taking your time between each one, or just to give yourself some healing or buffing time in difficult situations.Wizards are wussy. Be careful with them, make sure they're always invisible and flying if possible. Greater invisibility is a great help to their survival. Greater invisibility on the rogue works wonders for slaying your foes.When buying magic items, get the lowest level of bonus in as many different categories as possible before rasing anything to the next level of bonus. This is a more efficient use of your money than buying one large item. (For example, buy a +1 to your armour, shield, natural armour, and ring of protection rather than a +4 ring of protection.)</blockquote>

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