[LPF] The Sword and the Fallen Angel [OOC]

[perrinmiller]

Sadly, I've never been very good with either character builds (if you define 'good' as building a really tough character) or tactics. My mind just doesn't seem to work that way, no matter how many threads I read, fights I look at, or characters I examine.

If I had it to do over, I'd start Pari & Tagaiwi closer together so that they could take advantage of their Precise Strike feat - though with my rolls that wouldn't have helped very much.

I'd say I'd give someone else the CLW wand as well, since Pari's a melee combatant, but this is the first round he's used it and he's not been much help in melee anyway. He bought the bow but that was neutralized in the first round - if he was going to use it he should have started farther back, I guess, and had Tagaiwi just in front of him to soak up the initial charge.

I suppose I should have put that comment here so we can discuss.

Once again you have been plagued by some bad luck, but some of that bad luck is also of the group's own making. However, there have not been many good luck rolls on the other side of the screen either.

It would appear that you all are not sure how to work together to compliment each other. Ausk has terrible AC, but good reach. If Garnet and Pari were in front of him to keep him from being picked on so easily, he could have probably been more effective.

In my opinion, concentrating on taking down the minion warriors who managed score zero hits on you while they were alive was one group mistake. Not concentrated on killing that cleric as soon as you knew she was there was another one.

Knowing this was a going to be a tough fight OOC, I was trying to give you ample opportunity to stock up cheap items from the equipment rack, like Alchemical Fire, Tangle foot bags, and the like to help deal with outsiders like that half-fiend from before. Even a potion of Bless would have been an inexpensive item to help make up for not having your own cleric. Just a few of these items would have helped significantly.

Notice I have not said anything about your builds. To each his own in that regards. Generally your shortfalls are all equipment based, I think.

 

[Shayuri]

It probably didn't help that I flaked on buying anything.

I will say this though...speaking for myself, I have a weird hate of consumable items. Potions. Scrolls. Even wands, to a lesser extent. Even if I had spent all my cash, I can almost promise you I wouldn't have bought any of that stuff. It just 'feels' like money down the drain, even though on a purely intellectual level, I know it's not.

In my defense though, there wasn't much I could do about that wolf right away, and I wasn't confident enough of it missing to just ignore it and shoot. Besides, there's some RP at work here. I don't see Maia as being battle-hardened eough to just let an attack wolf gnaw on her as she calmly shoots...nor is she really much of a tactician yet.

Things which perhaps made the fight harder than it needed to be, I suppose.

 

[Scott DeWar]

I meant to do other things, but i felt the need to help Maia first, then Ausk fell and saw the opportunity to help him immediately. yadda yadda.

 

[perrinmiller]

Oh, I understand generally why people are doing what they are doing.

I think Ausk should have used his AoO on the wolf in the very beginning rather than let it go by to attack Heinrich and Maia. If he had prevented that, those two would not have been pinned down back there.

But Sunshadow insisted that he was assuming Arzethel would provoke one as well, but that would not have happened if I had not made a mistake.

With my characters, I tend to not spend money on disposable items either, so I understand that reasoning. But I am finding too many situations where I wished I had bought a few for those circumstances where they are needed (i.e. a Blinking barghest that keeps running away.)

I think your characters should spend more time communicating IC during combat. That would help in coordinating actions and make up for some characters not being very tactical. It would give the controlling player the reason to do something they normally wouldn't.

 

[sunshadow21]

I personally am probably going to give Ausk one more fight to consider my thoughts, but right now, I'm seriously considering retiring him. It's just going to take too long to get him where he would need to be. Relying on the oracle's hp and BAB is just hurting him way too much, and he needs too many attibutes to be able to focus on anything. Equipment wise, he just needs too much of it, and he needed it 2 levels ago.

 

[Shayuri]

I'm surprised you don't buff Ausk more!

Enlarge is good...but where's your Divine Favor? That's +2 to hit and damage at this level...the equivalent of 4 Strength that stacks!

Just saying. Oracles are like clerics, even Battle Oracles. They need to spend some magic before they dominate.

 

[sunshadow21]

It already takes 2 rounds to get Ausk buffed the way to the point he would need to be to fight that leader. I don't consider even more time for buffing to be particularly a good strategy. I have never understood why people think that any build that requires more than one or two short term buffs is particularly powerful. If that is what it is going to take to make Ausk effective, he will be getting retired; too much work for a system that most fights are over by the time he's ready to play.

 

[Shayuri]

Hm! Sorry, I thought you were only using Enlarge Person. My bad.

 

[sunshadow21]

I would need magic weapon to be able to fully bypass his DR.

 

[Scott DeWar]

sounds like a need for some quicken metamagic!