Cohort suggestions in RttToEE?

[Gaiden]

IME, and I stress IME (which may be very skewed given the psychotic nature of my RBDM), every character needs to have some survivability to them both individually and as a group. In my DM's version of RttToEE every battle is about 4 or 5 CR increments above our average party level evinced by the fact that we use absolultely all of our resources every battle and are lucky that we win. And when I say lucky, I mean it. I find it truly unbelievable that our DM is not rigging the dice in our favor sometimes for how lucky we get - a failed smite good here, or a missed save there. But when we question him he just starts rolling all the dice in front of us, and it is...well just plain luck .

Our current party consists of:

human Cleric 6/Radiant Servant of Pelor 4 (me)
half elven Paladin 5/Templar 4 (of Heronius)
dwarven Fighter 1/Psion 9
dwarven Barb 1/Ranger 1 (3.0 version)/Fighter 8

We buff similarly. BTW, prayer and recitation don't stack - they are both luck bonuses. Moreover, I am amazed you are not preparing Protection from Evils or Magic Circles. Those spells have singlehandedly saved our party SOOOO many times.

Anyhoo, what I have noticed in our group is that we suffer from two things: we are hosed on reflex saves and we have no arcane magic (the psion is a very poor substitute - GOD psions SUCKKKKK) - but that rant is best left for another time. The reflex saves we try and boost with Protection from Evil and Recitation and Eagle's splendor for the paladin. What has really saved us though is that every character is incredibly tough. Our saves are all awesome, especially when buffed and hp's are also all above par (well, maybe except the paladin but we always give him endurance, aid, and a shield other).

As a veteran gamer, I notice that our main drawback is not having any arcane offensive power. A few spells would be really REALLY nice:

Invisibility!
HASTE! (even with the nerfed version)
Magic Missile

and many more. I would say go with the arcane caster just to get Haste, just look at it like this - everyone can make an extra move or attack. Mobility is everything with that game - it is the priests only real flaw. Let your increased threatened area-monk act as the wall while your druid and archer pick off people and you counter spells. Hasting your party giving all those PCs and summoned animals extra attacks will be REALLY worth your while.

However, as I mentioned, every character needs some survivability - at least in my DM's sick twisted game. I would never build a straight caster in that game! 10d4 hps + con is just begging for a one hit kill. More importantly, once that wizard makes himself known with one 5th level attack spell, he will be the primary target end of story. You simply can't outrun a fireball . I'd say make a mixture of a melee/caster build. I have been working on such builds for a long time and had the penultimate version (I thought anyway) until 3.5 busted it all up with eldrich knight. Now the build is: Sor 4/MotAO2/Pal2/EK9/Sacred Exorcist 3. Buff the sheite out of that charisma, give him divine might feat, power attack, arcane strike (IIRC), expert tactician have him wear platemail and take the still spell feat. Have him select only a very few attack spells and the rest selected from things like true strike, and other nice buffs (haste of course). With MotAO, he will be able to cast any 1-3 level spell. He has extra spells from Sacred Exorcist, his chr adds to his saves, and he can wear uber armor. He should be VERY survivable. His spell offensive power at that level would only yield 4th level spells. However, he could provide all of those very nice wizard buffs that you are lacking in - blink and haste to name a few. A blinking rogue would be quite nice.

This character's real weakness will be in spell resistance. But let the cleric and druid take those foes on and he can switch to melee and be an additional buffer. Alternatively he can be the counterspeller - which is also a much needed niche in our group, despite my cleric.

Anyway, hope the cohort works out. BTW, don't overlook all those other followers you get. At 12th level I am sure you are aware of the dwarven clan that used to occupy the mines. Drawing from them is probably appropriate, but of course talk to your DM. A bunch of crafters is incredibly useful - I am planning on taking leadership at 12th for that express reason .

 

[jaults]

We buff similarly. BTW, prayer and recitation don't stack - they are both luck bonuses. Moreover, I am amazed you are not preparing Protection from Evils or Magic Circles. Those spells have singlehandedly saved our party SOOOO many times.

The attack and save bonuses of prayer and recitation don't stack, but prayer also adds to damage and skill checks, so they are both still useful. And, we do usually prepare Prot Evil or Magic Circle. It is usually only for the protection from mind control and domination, though, since we often already have at least a +2 resistance bonus to saves and a +2 deflection bonus to AC.

As a veteran gamer, I notice that our main drawback is not having any arcane offensive power. A few spells would be really REALLY nice:

Invisibility!
HASTE! (even with the nerfed version)
Magic Missile

Exactly. We do have a Wand of Invisibility, but the charges on it are almost gone. And Haste will be very nice, especially for the monk and archer. But what we really miss are the area affect damaging spells, like Cone of Cold and Fireball/Lightning Bolt. We have to hack away at one guy at a time, which can really, really slow us down.

However, as I mentioned, every character needs some survivability - at least in my DM's sick twisted game. I would never build a straight caster in that game! 10d4 hps + con is just begging for a one hit kill. More importantly, once that wizard makes himself known with one 5th level attack spell, he will be the primary target end of story. You simply can't outrun a fireball . I'd say make a mixture of a melee/caster build. I have been working on such builds for a long time and had the penultimate version (I thought anyway) until 3.5 busted it all up with eldrich knight. Now the build is: Sor 4/MotAO2/Pal2/EK9/Sacred Exorcist 3. Buff the sheite out of that charisma, give him divine might feat, power attack, arcane strike (IIRC), expert tactician have him wear platemail and take the still spell feat. Have him select only a very few attack spells and the rest selected from things like true strike, and other nice buffs (haste of course). With MotAO, he will be able to cast any 1-3 level spell. He has extra spells from Sacred Exorcist, his chr adds to his saves, and he can wear uber armor. He should be VERY survivable. His spell offensive power at that level would only yield 4th level spells. However, he could provide all of those very nice wizard buffs that you are lacking in - blink and haste to name a few. A blinking rogue would be quite nice.

Hmmm... interesting build. I think I am pretty pleased with the way that the Elemental Savant build came out. Like you say, he'll have around 60 HPs (Dwarf +2 Con is gooooood), but hopefully, he can stay toward the back and blast things from there. Also, between a cleric, a monk and a druid, we have lots of healing available, so even if he does drop, we can get him back on his feet.

Anyway, hope the cohort works out. BTW, don't overlook all those other followers you get. At 12th level I am sure you are aware of the dwarven clan that used to occupy the mines. Drawing from them is probably appropriate, but of course talk to your DM. A bunch of crafters is incredibly useful - I am planning on taking leadership at 12th for that express reason.

Hmmm... It looks like I can get one 3rd level guy. Not much they can do in the way of Crafting. Especially since it says that Followers don't gain XP, so they won't have XP to burn on crafting items... But I will certainly keep that in mind.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Jason

 

[Gaiden]

Hmmm... It looks like I can get one 3rd level guy. Not much they can do in the way of Crafting. Especially since it says that Followers don't gain XP, so they won't have XP to burn on crafting items... But I will certainly keep that in mind.Jason

You're still thinking inside the box. I was not referring to magical items, but rather the host of mundane materials that can be all too useful in the course of one's adventuring career. I don't want to give anything away as I am not sure where you are in the game. As a point of reference we are at the moment going to do battle with the leader in that god-forsaken spike - I will say no more.

Shortly before our epic conflicts in the center we were ambushed. A simple thunderstone won us the battle. I kid you not, a lucky roll, educated guess, and a knack for the ingenuitive caused our avg. 10 hp party with no resources left and an unconscious companion suddenly ambushed with a globe of darkness (can you tell I am from 2e) to cause the guy who could pinpoint our location with sound to go deaf. We still were by no means in the clear. Our paladin was suddenly down to (IIRC) ~2 hps and my cleric was getting impaled. The psion had taken blindfight back at 1st level and so rather than trying to border on the outside of the globe, charged in. The foe, I guess never expected this and his escape route was cut off. After flanking, and the paladin going down, my cleric and the psion, the two worst melee combatants ever (we both have absolutely no attack bonus) confirmed crits! Low and behold, the battle was done. The thunderstone won us that battle, no two ways about it.

All I was referring to with the craft skills was mundane armor (for those god forsaken rust monsters and green slime), tanglefoot bags, tindertwigs, holy water, alchemist fire, acid, poison, etc. I think there was a large spider somewhere in the beginning of the mines (that your DM may or may not have glossed over - it was a real joke with out party - a noticed metagaming bit of humor from Monte Cook). Have your alchemist or herbalist attempt to extract its venom. There were some fireworms - might be able to get some alchemist fire out of that, etc.

All of those little cheap items can be amazingly useful. Heck, even a 1st level adept with scribe scroll - if you want to go with magic item creation can be useful. He can be a back up healer when the party rests so that the other spellcasters don't have to use all of their spells healing the injured and depleting their own repetoir of useful buff/combat spells.

Hell, I had an NPC bladesinger with leadership have a contingent of followers that were around 2nd and 3rd level and a bunch of people with buff spells (from the cleric cohort) gave all of those elves some mad attack bonuses with their bows given their level. I think it was something like +10 on top of whatever their normal bonuses were. You could get some warriors and probably see them put use effectively.

BTW - I thought Recitation was prayer except that the bonuses were +2 (or +3 if you were of the same faith)? I thought recitation gave you a bonus to damage and skill checks...no? IDHMBWM