Divine Power & Righteous Might Supersize Me

[frankthedm]

Hit the PCs hard and fast, clerics are only balanced when most of thier spell selection is being drained off as healing.

If the players spelldump, have the whole dungeon converge on them when they start falling back. If they fail to ration thier resources and the cleric burned off Planeshift rather than Righteous Might, the onus is on the players to survivewhen their foes mobilize.

Tactical combat decisions can help negate actions. Most sentient combatants that see a caster go jumbo start playing avoidance. A creature with improved grab walks or runs off with it's meal if the victim's packmate becomes too big to eat.

CR is based on how much the creature challenges the party. If the creature does not live up to what your party can do, make the critters tougher.

 

[Anthraxus]

Yeah, it's nice, but to be fully BBEG combat prepared you need like 2-3(+) rounds of buffing. Sure it's neat when my cleric of Mayaheine gets fully buffed and starts knocking bad guys around, but there's almost always better stuff I end up doing.

I could hit recitation, give everybody +2's;
Air walk the barbarian to chase down the flying bad guy;
Heal the fighter who just took 50 points of damage in the suprise round, and 50 more in the 1st round;
Etc...

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

*me never understood why people accept Core is the best* Cause I think of other stuff that's better and much better than core spells.

Well the truth of the matter in my case is that I don't own any rule supplements. I am constantly playing catch-up with work, (future) study and life - there isn't time to integrate more rules into the campaign.

Anyway, with RttToEE, it was designed with the core rules in mind so our original characters were also created with core rules. Later characters have to adhere to core as well otherwise some of the starting character development decisions would be weak, and that just wouldn't fly.

I think that new rules deserve their own campaign, I'm not a fan of adding stuff after the beginning. Then again I like a campaign world with known niches and many certainties because once norms are established it can then give a context for whacky characters.

In the case of 'Priest' (the thread subject), he will become reknown for embodying Crom (he he he ) in that amongst his brethren he turns into a hulk sized Conan. Needless to say we're going to have to help the player write up some decidedly crude and barbaric prayers for before big fights.

 

[Drowbane]

meh, whats the big deal?

Yeah, the Cleric is a melee powerhouse... guess what, Wizards can blow up entire communities!

God forbid you ever find out what a Druid is capable of.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

He he, oh I've already seen the stats of a Druid that could wildshape & buff to to do an improved grab with 39str.

Of course the wildshape rules have changed but there's no need to look them up because the player changed his mind - suffers from 'chronic character build syndrome'.

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, but the Wizard of Doom relies on spells from additional books (which may not be allowed), access to polymorph forms (which may not be available, particularly if the dm runs on an must-have-encountered basis), and requires the investiture of feats. CoDzilla is free and its core.

Of course. There's really enough in the core rules, though, it's just that some of the splatbooks have some really crazy stuff in there (like Wraithstrike, which isn't quite properly thought through... balance-wise ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Nightfall]

Depends on your definition of better, I guess. What's the one you're using here?

I'm using the one that makes the most sense to me and thus is best for my tastes in gaming.

That's what best/better for me.

Free,

Who said anything about rules?! Why not add a pack of Slitheren instead of Were-rats? Or maybe a few Blade Demons instead of just some evil outsider with class levels? Or how about a cleric that can cast Belsameth's Blessing and thus turn all the countryside into lycanthropes?

Not saying use it all, just some or as little as you want. WotC isn't the only source for fun.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Well yeah Nightfall, we do go outside the rules in a 1st edition way sometimes. Sort of like that 'game designer cheats' thread. Those examples you give we just do, without a solid mechanic to back it up - but we do back it up.

Like, um, there is a loosely fleshed out wererat plot in our RttToEE campaign. A nearby Elven kingdom has a clandestine wererat plague made worse by the infected hiding their affliction as part of their sickness. You know, acting like a chaotic evil wererat. Anyhoo one of the mid-level baddies is the original wererat, though haven't done his story, but slay him and bingo, all solved.

Which brings me in a round about way back to the thread topic. The said cleric has another super combo ready and this wererat mage is the leader of the next lot of baddies... it would be a little sneaky of im to have a scroll of dispel tucked away. Fortunately the pc's have a reserve teleport scroll.

 

[Nightfall]

yeah...

Not quite the same thing but hey if it works for you that's fine.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I saw this combo in my WLD game.
It caught me off guard as well, but it was impressive.

It showed the true power of a well done combat cleric by surpassing the group's barbarian, but just only for one combat.