Deicide: The slaying of Cyric. 3.5 Epic

[Myth and Legend]

Shayuri I'm playing with in another game or two so no vouching needed. What bothers me is that my orginal plan for a group of 4 now turns to a 7, and 7 PCs are a lot... But since you will all be traveling together and figuring stuff out together it won't be more work for the DM (that would be me).

BTW guys you will need a "face" for sure, you can't expect the knowledgeble people in Faerun to help you with info on how to kill a God without some Diplomacy/Gather Information etc.

For Warlock, there is always this that can help with choosing stuff.
Awakened Monkey: Well in CM's game I did want to play an Antrophomorphic donkey Cleric but that's one of the worst races to take. It has a huge LA for NO gain at all. The monkey... Hmmm... Well I'm not one to ban things in my games, but the feel of this campaing is that you are the best of the best, elite Epic level characters sent on a high-on-impossible mission. How does a monkey (awakened or otherwise) fit in to that? Unless it's Crazy Monkey but that's different

The PCs are taking the Chosen of Mystra/Red Wizards/Elven Magelords/Witches of Rashemen places in this trip. And these groups have some pretty powerful heroes on their sides.

[sblock=Nitpicking Ironbound]If you really weant this class, you can take it. It seems underpowered for this campaign IMO.

Requirements: it makes more sence for the class to require Craft (Armorsmithing) than (Weaponsmithing), unless the creators think them the same.

d10 HD: meh. D12 is the only way to go for a pure tank. Barbarians, Knights and Crusaders all get D12.

Exotic Armor Prof: well extra feats can be gotten as straight Figther too, and are more versatile than this.

Ready Shield: not seeing much use for this. It's nice to have but it's nothing fancy.

AC Bonus: Nice to have, but not going to tip the scales in an Epic game. +3 AC will not make or break your character.

Armored Home: considering that resting will happen in a Magnificent Mansion or similar places, you will have time to don armour or remove it. Or you can take the Forgotten Realms regional feat that makes your character immune to Fatigue.

Fortress of One + Duel Shield: these are all nice and good, but remember you will be fighting either top ranking heads of powerful organizations, powerful outsiders or Cyric himself. I don't plan on playing NPCs and monsters with 20+ INT as dimwits (those of you in my VOTD know this). As such, don't expect the hordes of demons to target the guy with the two shileds while conveniently ignoring the necromancer 20 ft. behind him, foaming at the mouth as he summons yet another Planetar.

What I'm trying to say is, unless at a choke point (which I'm sure there's lots of in a Dwarven fortress) how will your PC make the NPCs target him while he poses no threat with his two shields and taking a full defence?

Shield of Faith: 1/day is not impressive. Be a Cleric if you want this.

Unhindered: not really vital to your character.

Magic Vestment: see Shield of Faith.

Armored Will: 1/day is not impressive. Especially when you can be a race that is immune to Mind-Affecting things if you want to. Or you can have the Wizard cast Mind Blank.

Untouchable: nice to have vs Ray attacks.

Overall: a sub-par class. It lacks battlefield control, max HD, spellcasting or any of the goodies in ToB that make melee classes at least semi-fun to play at this level. Really If you can, get your hands on Tome of Battle asap. If you can't, i can send a PDF your way but that's illegal.

A cleric with Divine Metamagic, enough turning attempts per day, can persist the good Cleric buffs and cast the others prior to the fight, making him/her a better tank and fighter than this PRC.

Even if you want ot go the pure fighting class route, honestly the plain old Dwarven Defender seems better. And there are better choices available in Races of Stone if memory serves (i'd have to dig around to find you something though).[/sblock]

 

[Shayuri]

Myth, it's okay to say 'no.'

I'm perfectly fine if the game's full...I was simply asking if it was or not. If it is, I'll enjoy reading the thread. No hard feelings. Don't mess up your vision on my account.

 

[Myth and Legend]

7 is a sacral number, let's go with that. BUT NO MORE PLAYERS!

 

[grufflehead]

OK, I'm in over my head here. I won't even pretend to understand some of the things being thrown about so I'm going to be like a rabbit in the headlights and possibly dragging other people down with me. Time to admit I'm not experienced enough with the game system and step away rather than back out after a few weeks because I can't handle it.

Thanks again M&L. Happy gaming all.

 

[Myth and Legend]

As you wish, although if you tell me what exactly is it that you like about this PrC in terms of mechanics, I can suggest something? Or what don't you understand from my comments? I'm letting you know how things will work in this game.

In an epic environment, a class lacking battlefield control, damage, hitpoints, damage reduction, spellcasting or utility will be hard to make use of.

A Knight, while tier 3, at least has a means of taunting the baddies to attack him, and has some ways of preventing them to rush by (when they are not flying at least)

A Barbarian can't be easily ignored as Greater Rage gives him some juicy bonuses to STR and thus more damage. A Barbarian/Frenzied Berzerker with a Greatsword and Power Attack will have around 30-40 Con depending on items, so around 500 HP, but will be a bad bad BAD thing to ignore, as he will do somewhere around 200 damage per round. If he is supported by say, a Bard with Calm Emotions, he will not be a liability to the party.

A Crusader has very good offensive and defensive power with his stances, and cannot be ignored as well. He can heal himself via his outbursts and is generally thought to be the best melee clas in 3.5

A Bear Totem Barbarian/Warshaper/Bear Warrior with an Antimagic Field on him will be able to grapple the level 40 Lich and rip off it's limbs, one by one, unless someone tries to poke him with a stick to let go. Not that it will do much good as this guy will have around 600 HP.


So there are some pretty fun and interesting builds you can do, but focusing solely on the utilization of armour (which could be done better - ACP is not important for combat, +3 Armor bonus is sub-par when the enemy will have 25+ bonus to attack, using two shields will just make the baddies ignore him etc.) will not yield the best results.

Things to note:

[sblock=Leap Attack]from Complete Adventurer:
You can combine a powerful charge and a mighty leap into one devastating attack.
Prerequisites: Jump 8 ranks, Power Attack.

Benefit: You can combine a jump with a charge against an opponent. If you cover at least 10 feet of horizontal distance with your jump, and you end your jump in a square from which you threaten your target, you can double the extra damage dealt by your use of the Power Attack feat. If you use this tactic with a two-handed weapon, you instead triple the extra damage from Power Attack. This attack must follow all the normal rules for using the Jump skill and for making a charge, except that you ignore rough terrain in any squares you jump over.[/sblock]

[sblock=Shock Trooper]from Complete Warrior
You are adept at breaking formations of soldiers when you rush in to battle.

Prerequisites: Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, Base Attack Bonus +6

Benefit: The Shock Trooper feat enables the use of three tactical maneuvers.

Direct Bull Rush: To use this maneuver, you must make a successful bull rush attempt as part of a charge. For every square you push your foe back, you may also push that foe one square to the left or right.

Domino Rush: To use this maneuver, you must make a successful bull rush attempt that focuses a foe into the same square as another foe. You may take a free trip attempt against both foes at the same time, and neither foe gets a chance to trip you if your attempt fails.

Heedlesss Charge: To use this maneuver, you must charge and make the attack at the end of the charge using your Power Attack feat. The penalty you take on your attack roll must be -5 or worse. In addition to normal charge modifiers (which give you a -2 penalty to AC and a +2 bonus on the attack roll), you can assign any portion of the attack roll penalty from Power Attack to your Armor Class instead, up to a maximum equal to your base attack bonus.

Special: A fighter may select Shock Trooper as one of his fighter bonus feats.[/sblock]

These two feats will be mentioned a lot in guides. You can see why. Check this thread as well.

 

[Shayuri]

Will you be allowing the Warlock epic feats from the Wizards website? I find they go a long way towards closing the power gap between epic warlocks and other epic arcanists...

Failing that, is Eberron material acceptable? A warforged with appropriate feats and PrC's can be pretty formidable at these levels...

A link to the epic feats, just in case:
http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a

 

[Myth and Legend]

Yes, anything published by Wizards for 3.5 is allowed so long as i have access to it. You really seem to love those Warlocks Be sure to check out the Warlock handbook link i postead earlier.

Eberron is ok, but Warforged are one of the very setting-specific races. If you make it work from a RP perspective - why not! However, this is a Forgotten Realms campaign so I'm not sure how exactly will Elminster and the other Epic NPCs be convinecd to let the fate of this world in the hands of something that they have no experience with.

grufflehead: It seems Races of Stone is the way to go for you if you want some of the armour bonuses of this class without sacrificing 10 levels. Check this discussion here.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

can I use this (Deadly Aim) feat with my Archer? It's essentially power attack for bows. I would get a -6 to attack and +12 to damage. If this seems broken to you that's fine, I can also live with a houserule that I use so that it works exactly like power attack just for a bow, which seems reasonable to me, given that power attack exists.

 

[Myth and Legend]

Gandalf I will be running an Incantatrix in your game, nothing your PC and his bow come close to the level of brokeness I'm talking about Have the feat, no problem. Just declare what attack penalty you will be taking on the round PRIOR to rolling that attack, or roll with the appropriate negative bonus. Applying PA after the roll has been done is an exploit readily available for PBP (Hey i rolled 16 to attack. That leaves 8 attack bonus over the monster's AC i can convert to damage). Not sayuing youl'll be doing this, but it's a way i DM my games.

BTW what is up with Savage Tides? I'll have this weekend to myself finally and will finish El.

 

[Shayuri]

I have what I hope is a fairly interesting backstory for the warforged that will justify its presence in the group. That's assuming I go that route, of course. Nothing's decided yet.

What is everyone else playing so far again? I recall a conjuration specialist wizard...what else?