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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ormraxes" data-source="post: 400626" data-attributes="member: 4618">Haha, nice to see you too on this board, Kartanikos. Although this post won't have any relevance to the thread subject, I would like to clarify a few things. First, a story about the Ice Burst that killed my bitter friend Kartanikos: This was way back when the only character who had died was an NPC (Xaod the Slayer). Kartanikos played a monk at this time, and when we run afoul of some apes we though it wouldn't be very hard. So Kartanikos charged in, and was quickly surrounded. I asked him (knowing full well he had evasion) if he wanted me to include him in an Ice Burst so that i could damage all the apes. He had plenty of hps and said yes. He made his save, and the apes were severely wounded. They roughed him up a little on their turn, and on my turn I asked him if he wanted me to Ice Burst again. Obviously excited about last round's success, he said something along the lines of "Bring it on", and I started rolling d4's. Of course I rolled my best Ice Burst ever, and was very happy, until I saw in the corner of my eye that he rolled a very low Reflex save. So this other guy who only plays about half the time started laughing, and asked Kartanikos how many hps he had left. Then it dawned on all of us that he was dead (-11, actually), and everyone (except Kartanikos) started laughing. I know it sounds cruel, but the situation was completely unreal.About the shadows: This all started when our rogue/transmuter scouted in an ominous room. Now this room had kind of a bowl which filled with water when he entered, and I think he had to make a Will save. There was also a statue which fired a volley of Magic Missiles each round. And last but not least a sarcophagus with an imp warning us that the one in the sarcophagus was an important character. To me this reeks of powerful undead, and when they wanted to open it I said we should instead get out of there. We were not at full hps, I had some Magic Missiles and an Ice Burst memorized, and the rogue would be useless against an undead (because he didn't have Evocation spells or a magic weapon). The cleric had also used many of his spells and was only 7th level, I think. So if this had been an 8th-level vampire or similar, we would have lost. The others thought this very cowardly, so they wanted me to go alone into the next crypt and plunder the sarcophagi there. I didn't really want to, so I asked if the cleric would come with me, as I knew he would have a better chance of turning several lesser undead. After some cajoling he agreed, and the rogue (who was waiting outside the room) and I cast Invisibility on ourselves. Then we both entered while the rogue waited outside. The moment I started opening a sarcophagus several spectres and shadows came through the floor. Since I was invisible they all attacked Kartanikos and drained him to level 0 in one round. All I could do was to Dimension Door away with the body while the rogue snuck away. So I quickly looted his equipment for his next character, and he turned into a spectre and flew away.And the small matter of the triangulation was not me staying 1000 ft. behind the party and casting fireball while they were getting butchered. I intended to Disintegrate the Lightning Bolt towers, and knew that these towers would LB me if I came within range (as they had done several times already). The others were already out of range of the LBs, so I don't really consider this very cowardly. And BTW, I made that +2 Cloak of Resistance (and nearly fell for the temptation to make it with pink polka dots). Last but not least, you forgot to mention all the times I saved your hide (and the others') with Wall of Force and Dimension Door.As for me being "a Min/Maxer if there ever was one", my wizard isn't a halfling, gnome or dwarf. I didn't take a toad familiar, I don't have Greater Spell Focus, and I placed my highest stats in this order: Int and Dex tied, Cha, Con, and Str and Wis tied. Now I believe a Min/Maxer would place them like this: Int and Con tied, Dex, Wis, and Str and Cha tied. Also, I may have the best AC and hps a few rounds into an encounter, but that helps very little when I have AC 20 (sometimes 27 with Shield) and rougly 50 hps (the last few sessions more as I now have Endurance) during a surprise round and when I lose initiative. A cleric or warrior-type is simply better equipped to survive those first rounds of combat. I would really like to know if the wizard/sorcerer walks first in other people's adventuring parties. Let me know, people, and maybe, just maybe I'll change my cowardly ways a little <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.</blockquote>

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