Gaming W/Jemal: War of Gods

[Jemal]

Allright, all of the oriental stuff looks good, though to reiterate, I REALLY don't like the diving, so I won't be allowing dire charge/Dive. You can use one or the other, but they don't work together.. if you use the diving charge, you only get a single attack, period.

Also, if you can get the character finished quickly, I'll let you enter him into round three as the previous one dissapears into "I'm getting the BLEEP outta here"-ville.

 

[Shayuri]

Hey there Jemal. Thanks for rolling. I cannot BELIEVE this week. If I live, I will become stronger; a thing of legend.

As for damage...dude, that's just how Setis rolls. Power Attack wouldn't add much. It'd add 25 to bite and tail slap, and 12 to the claws and wing buffets. So call it +100 damage total...which is not inconsiderable, but won't bring it up to the levels of the other PC's.

I sorta figured with AC 86, I might be able to engage in battles of attrition, but evidently this is not a valid strategy, since nothing's had trouble hitting her yet. I also figured that I could avoid melee with flying, but again...oops.

So I dunno. Either I'm not playing her right, or maybe the concept is simply insufficiently munched.

Though I will be honest and say that I would never have believed before this moment that a character who could do 200 or more damage in a turn to be "insufficiently munched." I mean, come on.

The thing is, I don't want to play a pile of mathematics, you know? I'd like to play a character who is fun. Setis is fun. But evidently is also horribly insufficient. Help me out here. How can we make this work?

 

[Fenris]

Hey there Jemal. Thanks for rolling. I cannot BELIEVE this week. If I live, I will become stronger; a thing of legend.

As for damage...dude, that's just how Setis rolls. Power Attack wouldn't add much. It'd add 25 to bite and tail slap, and 12 to the claws and wing buffets. So call it +100 damage total...which is not inconsiderable, but won't bring it up to the levels of the other PC's.

I sorta figured with AC 86, I might be able to engage in battles of attrition, but evidently this is not a valid strategy, since nothing's had trouble hitting her yet. I also figured that I could avoid melee with flying, but again...oops.

So I dunno. Either I'm not playing her right, or maybe the concept is simply insufficiently munched.

Though I will be honest and say that I would never have believed before this moment that a character who could do 200 or more damage in a turn to be "insufficiently munched." I mean, come on.

The thing is, I don't want to play a pile of mathematics, you know? I'd like to play a character who is fun. Setis is fun. But evidently is also horribly insufficient. Help me out here. How can we make this work?

I hear you Shayuri. But I think this is partly an acid test for Jemal as well. What does he have to build to appropriately challenge us. And because we have such disparate numbers in AC, To Hit, and damage, Jemal has to find different challenges for each of us. And he may have over shot the challenge for the acid test. But that is what this is for. And as Jemal said, if you have an AC of 86, to make something that will hit you occasionally, it will hit most of us always. Meanwhile, let's have fun as we get splattered

 

[Dharuhk Svahre]

Hey there Jemal. Thanks for rolling. I cannot BELIEVE this week. If I live, I will become stronger; a thing of legend.

As for damage...dude, that's just how Setis rolls. Power Attack wouldn't add much. It'd add 25 to bite and tail slap, and 12 to the claws and wing buffets. So call it +100 damage total...which is not inconsiderable, but won't bring it up to the levels of the other PC's.

I sorta figured with AC 86, I might be able to engage in battles of attrition, but evidently this is not a valid strategy, since nothing's had trouble hitting her yet. I also figured that I could avoid melee with flying, but again...oops.

So I dunno. Either I'm not playing her right, or maybe the concept is simply insufficiently munched.

Though I will be honest and say that I would never have believed before this moment that a character who could do 200 or more damage in a turn to be "insufficiently munched." I mean, come on.

The thing is, I don't want to play a pile of mathematics, you know? I'd like to play a character who is fun. Setis is fun. But evidently is also horribly insufficient. Help me out here. How can we make this work?

Help is on the way!!!!

I'm gonna start off by saying Shayuri that the problem is not with the character itself, but with the setting. Druids are supposed to cast spells to go with their wildshaping. If they can't they have a bad tendancy of being kinda underpowered.

That being said, heres a few tips to try and help you out in the current situation.

-First off, you need to play a bit more versatile in order to fully employ its powers. Right now you keep getting beat around, because while your ac is good, its not quite enough to keep you out of the hospital. BUT, you do have a second preset form that has a higher AC. Once you've established that the dragon's AC may be a bit low for a circumstance, switch to the Tayellah.

-More HD does not neccesarily mean better. You currently have 2 form presets, both high HD basic combat types. Don't be afraid to expand that list with monsters that might be weaker, but bring fun special abilities to the table that could overturn the situation if used correctly. Burrow for example is a really fun way to get a leg up on an opponent.

That concludes the strategic suggestions, now time to help out with those numbers. This one is a really easy, add one more combat preset to your wildshapes. The Gloom.

The Gloom's AC works out to be pretty much the same as the force dragons I believe, though its touch AC is significantly better. It has less strength, but is capable of weilding a weapon, which means you can pull out a big two handed weapon and deal about the same damage that you already are doing, but because you are not so big you hit better, and you can add special abilities to the weapon instead of just a straight enhancement bonus. It would also make Jemal's suggestion about the power attack work alot better.

And then comes the icing on the cake. Turning into the Gloom would give you +13d6 sneak attack damage. While this is circumstancial, if you flank an opponent you can deal a significant amount of damage to it.

 

[Shayuri]

Dharuhk, thanks. This is the kind of conversation I need to have. I appreciate your input, and hope you won't be put off by the "adversarial" position I take in responding. I'm just trying to create an environment where only the strongest ideas can survive.

-First off, you need to play a bit more versatile in order to fully employ its powers. Right now you keep getting beat around, because while your ac is good, its not quite enough to keep you out of the hospital. BUT, you do have a second preset form that has a higher AC. Once you've established that the dragon's AC may be a bit low for a circumstance, switch to the Tayellah.

-- The Tayellah has some disadvantages in this brawl. First, it can't fly. Second, it's AC isn't really any better than the dragon. TOUCH AC is waaaaaaaaay higher, but final AC is in the same ballpark. Third, its attacks are less damaging than the dragon's, because it's substantially weaker. The only plus it has in this situation is the poison tail, which may or may not work.

-More HD does not neccesarily mean better. You currently have 2 form presets, both high HD basic combat types. Don't be afraid to expand that list with monsters that might be weaker, but bring fun special abilities to the table that could overturn the situation if used correctly. Burrow for example is a really fun way to get a leg up on an opponent.

-- The list only shows two critters, because those two critters are my main combat forms, and thus, the need for notekeeping on stats and so on is greatest. I have plenty of other forms that I look at...most specialized to a noncombat role. I just haven't written out their stats.

The Gloom's AC works out to be pretty much the same as the force dragons I believe, though its touch AC is significantly better. It has less strength, but is capable of weilding a weapon, which means you can pull out a big two handed weapon and deal about the same damage that you already are doing, but because you are not so big you hit better, and you can add special abilities to the weapon instead of just a straight enhancement bonus. It would also make Jemal's suggestion about the power attack work alot better.

-- I actually looked at the Gloom way back when the character was in development. The Gloom is great, except it needs a weapon. It stumbles there. I can only use certain weapon with proficiencies. None are both 2 handed and qualify to inflict sneak damage. Plus, weapons are darned expensive, and I simply can't afford one of sufficient power to make it worthwhile. Not without a total redesign at least.

There's another huge problem with the Gloom. I only get the Su abilities of Dragons and Magical Beasts. Anything else, and it's only the Ex abilities.

 

[Jemal]

As for damage...dude, that's just how Setis rolls. Power Attack wouldn't add much. It'd add 25 to bite and tail slap, and 12 to the claws and wing buffets. So call it +100 damage total...which is not inconsiderable, but won't bring it up to the levels of the other PC's.

No, but a +50% damage bonus isn't anything to sneeze at.

I sorta figured with AC 86, I might be able to engage in battles of attrition, but evidently this is not a valid strategy, since nothing's had trouble hitting her yet. I also figured that I could avoid melee with flying, but again...oops.

several things to say about this:
First, The battle of attrition is a completely valid strategy, but you're fighting four different monsters, each of which has a different fighting style (Also they're designed to be nasty kill-you-dead monsters, not an 'average encounter'.. one of them alone may be the equivalent of an average encounter).
Secondly, as Fenris said, I have to design the encounters around a very wide margin, and that's part of the purpose of this Acid test, i need to see how your characters work and what can be done to bring them to within a bit more balance of each other before I can reliably send encounters that won't be "Player X beats this thing without trying, but Player Y can't do anything". Those encounters are no fun for anybody but player X.. and even he's gonna get bored after a few.
And thirdly, the beast hit you with 3 out of 12 bite attacks - I wouldn't say that's "no trouble hitting you". You hit it more than it hit you, the only reason you didn't deal twice the damage it did is b/c it nat-20 crit with a X3 multiplier.
As for the strands, as you said before, dragon touch ac not so good.

So I dunno. Either I'm not playing her right, or maybe the concept is simply insufficiently munched.

Though I will be honest and say that I would never have believed before this moment that a character who could do 200 or more damage in a turn to be "insufficiently munched." I mean, come on.

The thing is, I don't want to play a pile of mathematics, you know? I'd like to play a character who is fun. Setis is fun. But evidently is also horribly insufficient. Help me out here. How can we make this work?

I'm always in favour of the fun character over the walking numbersheet, but alot of people seem to express the opinion that you have to be one or the other.. characters can be both fun AND powerful, that's the entire point of playing an EPIC game. And I'm not even saying that she's not powerful enough, just that her damage output is lower than some of the others. From what I'm seeing now, she looks to be a tanky meat-shield type character who takes the hits while the damage dealers dish it out.. in which case, you're doing your job fine. She also has by far the most out-of-combat utility of the party.
You're giving up damage-dealing potential for survivability, versatility, and non-combat utility.

200 damage isn't bad unless the character was designed to deal hundreds or thousands of damage, which you weren't, I was just trying to suggest a way to increase it. I'm not saying "If you can't deal a thousand damage a round you're useless".

-- I actually looked at the Gloom way back when the character was in development. The Gloom is great, except it needs a weapon. It stumbles there. I can only use certain weapon with proficiencies. None are both 2 handed and qualify to inflict sneak damage. Plus, weapons are darned expensive, and I simply can't afford one of sufficient power to make it worthwhile. Not without a total redesign at least.
There's another huge problem with the Gloom. I only get the Su abilities of Dragons and Magical Beasts. Anything else, and it's only the Ex abilities.

Um.. 'qualify to inflict sneak damage'? Not sure if you're remembering from 2nd ed or what, but I've never seen any limits on what weapons can inflict sneak attack other than 'not improvised'.. and that only sap/unarmed can deal nonlethal sneak attacks. I regularly see Greatsword-Sneak Attack characters that ram their blades into peoples kidneys.
A non-epic weapon (+5) wouldn't really cost that much, and would be just as effective as your amulet of mighty fists.
And the Sneak attack IS extraordinary, as is the Opportunist ability the gloom gives.
I'm not trying to push you towards the gloom, just pointing a few things out.

 

[Shayuri]

Jemal...you made some very interesting points, many of which I didn't catch in your first post. Thanks very much for the clarifications.

For example, I didn't realize the monster had 12 attacks and hit with 3.

That does throw things into a sharper focus.

One other request on my part...since Setis gets +2 to save vs the abilities of outsiders, please let me know when that applies? I'll try to remember to remind you too, since I know you have a LOT to keep track of in each post.

Anyway, thanks again! I'll take another look through the SRD and see what other monsters I may be missing.

 

[Dharuhk Svahre]

Alrighty, character optimisation exercise round 2:

-- The Tayellah has some disadvantages in this brawl. First, it can't fly. Second, it's AC isn't really any better than the dragon. TOUCH AC is waaaaaaaaay higher, but final AC is in the same ballpark. Third, its attacks are less damaging than the dragon's, because it's substantially weaker. The only plus it has in this situation is the poison tail, which may or may not work.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how you got AC 86, it seems to me like it should be alot higher. Anyways when it comes to the Tayellah, it has 4 better AC than the force dragon form by my count. 4 AC can easily make the difference between life and death. And if the attacks are either too low or too high for it to matter, than you wouldn't be worrying about it anyways .

Best Guess for AC as Tayellah:
10 Base + 26 Dex (Total Dex = 63: 48 Base + 5 Inherant + 10 Enhancement) + 15 Wis + 19 Natural Armor (4 Base + 10 item + 5 Armor of the Crocadile) + 8 Armor + 10 Deflection + 15 Insight - 4 Size = 99

AC for Force Dragon:
10 Base + 7 Dex (Total Dex = 25: 10 Base + 5 Inherant + 10 Enhancement) + 15 Wis + 49 Natural Armor (34 Base + 10 item + 5 Armor of the Crocadile) + 8 Armor + 10 Deflection - 4 Size = 95

Now for the flying aspect, I actually have a very simply solution for you. Add wings of flying to the character. Thanks to the magic of wilding clasp, anything you turn into can fly. Its just really practical. You won't be able to fly as fast, but combat wise you won't be totally screwed against flyers.

-- There's another huge problem with the Gloom. I only get the Su abilities of Dragons and Magical Beasts. Anything else, and it's only the Ex abilities.

If you take a look at the Gloom, it only has 2 supernatural abilities. A fear aura, and its silence ability. The lack of those powers is irrelevant for what you would be using it for.

 

[Jemal]

Dharuhk's right, your AC in dragon form should be higher.

Although Dharuhk forgot to take into account your +1 dex from level, making the total mod +8, for an AC of 96, and the Tayella has an even 100.

At least, that's the AC I swung against (Yes, the roper has a rediculous attack bonus, it hit 25% vs AC 96)

Secondly, Dharuhk's right about the flying - And it's a good idea anyways, at high level it's usually 'fly or die'.

And also, don't forget to use your Morphic Weapon, you are a Warshaper after all. At this level, it's much more effective to use it for the extra attack than to 'size up' an existing attack, so grow an extra tail if you want some more damage, or an extra head to bite with... Two headed force dragon FTW!


Also, not sure if I'll get much of a chance to post tommorow (Er.. later tonight for the rest of you 'day' people), it's my 10 year High school reunion, so if things go well I'll be busy having a blast.. and if they don't, I'll be busy moping.

Either way, I'll probly be busy. *L* Anyways, I'll try to get a post up beforehand, if Fenris posts in time.



*EDIT:
PS Dharuhk, did you see the msg about me not wanting dive/dire charge or similar combos?

 

[Shayuri]

Hmm...lemme doublecheck here.

Setis has a base AC of 61 in her natural humanoid form...that's assuming no bonuses from wildshape and so on. Just stats and items.

A force dragon adds 39 natural armor to that 61 (including the croc skin thing). Then subtracts 4.

lol...okay that's 96, not 86. I am good at math when I'm tired.

The Tayellah...it adds 17 to AC from Dex (38 points higher than base), 15 from insight and 9 natural...so 41 plus 61 minus 4. So...98 total.

Not overly shabby actually. Thanks for the check!

The Wings of Flying are a good idea too. Especially since I haven't even got a Cloak item by the look of it. Plus, if I have those, I can use their Good maneuvering to hover, so I don't need the Hover feat...freeing it up for power attack, perhaps.

As for Morphic Weapons, Jemal, you have an interesting idea there! Now, as I read it, Morphic Weapons can either create a natural attack the shape normally lacks...thus adding a new natural attack...or it can size up the existing natural attacks. It doesn't look to me like I could create another iteration of a natural attack the form already possesses.

But of course, if you say I can, then I most enthusiastically will. Two bites would be just fine by me.

Edit: One last thing. Do roper strands count as ranged attacks that can be deflected? I can see how they're in a bit of a grey area, since they're still connected to the roper's body...but shoot out over distance.