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

[sunshadow21]

At the cost of spell level slots I don't currently have, and really never will. Metamagic ranks right up there with buff spells as far I'm concerned. Too much cost for the benefit.

 

[perrinmiller]

If Ausk hadn't turned down using that +1 Longspear, Magic Weapon would not have been needed. 15ft reach with that while Garnet, Pari, & Tag protect your front would make a huge difference.

I know a few 3.5ed powergamers that pride themselves on min-maxing things and making great melee builds. Then I shake my head when they think that is the key to winning in tactical combat as they don't use their noggins in the middle of the fight.

Granted I did not understand what Ausk's build was all about initially, but when he took the barbarian level, I saw better. Even now, properly used he can be effective when you play to his strengths and mitigate the weaknesses.

Same can be said with for pretty much everyone. You guys has many good powers and abilities, but after 5 encounters together you are still figuring out how to work together.

Re: Ausk rebuild. I hope that if you do retire Ausk, you are planning to build your replacement to fill his slot in this group. With DMC you can level the replacement enough to be on par.

 

[sunshadow21]

I haven't decided yet, but I think I'll probably finish the adventure and sideline him until Ultimate Combat can be approved. Armored Hulk plus refocusing him on being a second string fighter might be enough to make raging prophet work. It also doesn't help that until last night I forgot he isn't slowed down by encumbrance.

 

[perrinmiller]

This adventure is really just getting started. You have two plot lines at the moment and at least 4-5 encounters ahead of you before part 3 begins.

 

[sunshadow21]

At any rate, we need to get through this fight before worrying about what comes after. Regardless of what was done up to this point or what we might want to do in the future, the situation in front of us deserves our attention right now.

 

[perrinmiller]

FYI,
There will be a few days over the next week and a half that I will not have time to update from my computer, only reading along via my phone.

 

[Scott DeWar]

As long as your fon battery lasts anyway!

 

[mfloyd3]

Since we're on the subject of tactics, I'm not sure we've actually discussed at player level how to integrate the group into a team. I'm going to write a bit about how it might actually work, including suggesting some things about other peoples' characters. If I say something that seems inappropriate, or if you simply don't want to play your character as I'm suggesting, by all means tell me where to go. But we need at least to have this discussion so please take this as a starting point.

Garnet is an obvious melee build, but designed around taking punishment rather than dishing it out. PM made a good point that having her front and giving Ausk a reach weapon (whether he's giant-sized or not) would be very effective. But if sunshadow does not want to play Ausk with a reach weapon, that should be his choice (though Garnet would cheerfully part with the spear, which is group property).

Pari and Tagaiwi are a well-designed team (Tagawai was eating the enemies alive this encounter) who as Mowgli pointed out could use their teamwork feats in close quarters better. Pari also seems able to pinch-hit, attacking either at range or in close quarters.

On the casters, Heinrich's bread-and-butter attack is Flame Jet, which means he needs to be within 20' of the enemy (preferably closer to one so he can angle and get two). Likewise, even though Maia's shooting stars attack is long-ranged, her Color Spray spell is close-ranged and if she's going to use her crossbow she probably wants to be at close range to take advantage of Point Blank Shot.

So, if I were going to sound all war-gamey here, I'd say one useful approach would be to have 2 melee stacks and a caster stack. The likely choices for the melee stacks would be Pari/Tagawai and Garnet/Ausk. At any given time, we would want to use one of the melee stacks to screen the casters, and the other to be doing whatever seems most productive, either hitting enemy heavies or trying to get to their casters.

The casters, for their part, need to be close to the action to make best use of their abilities as noted above. So we need to make better use of terrain and choke points to make it easy for the screening stack to cover them. In situations where we can't do that, the next best thing is to make sure someone in the screening stack has a reach weapon and can make the enemy pay with AoOs to get to the casters. A reach weapon also means the wielder can hit someone beating on the casters without having to move back, meaning they can hold a position between the enemy and the casters.

Final point: I really think Maia should hold the Cure stick in future fights. Pari's fighter levels mean it's better if he's hitting/tripping/shooting rather than curing. And while Maia is pretty effective with the crossbow and Divine Favor, I think it might be more effective if she used her spell slots for things the rest of the party can't do. She did some good damage with her crossbow, but if she had used the same spell slot for Color Spray and managed to hit 2 goblins, she would have done quite a bit of damage mitigation for the team over the course of the fight. And she'd have had the spare actions for Curing or for firing unenhanced crossbow bolts.

This is not intended as a criticism of anyone -- If anyone messed up, it was me for having Garnet give instructions at the beginning of the fight that scattered everyone around the room instead of trying to organize things more systematically. And I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts. I certainly don't want to force anything down anyone's throat.

 

[sunshadow21]

The problem with Ausk and reach weapons is that now I've actually played him, they are obviously a good choice, but he was not built with them in mind, so the weapon focus feat that helps him actually hit is with the flail. As of right now, I am thinking change the barbarian archetype to armored hulk from UC (when we get UC approved), picking up heavy armor, and serving as a second string fighter that can block both the caster and the assist the front line fighters at the same time. Also some rearranging of the feats, traits, skills, and weapon choices will occur at that time to better synergize with his needs. Encumbrance isn't a concern speed wise and armored hulk would cover the armor speed until the curse covers it, so I'd consistently be at 20 feet movement. I've never played a barbarian before and only very rarely play martial types, so I suppose I should be glad it isn't any more screwed up.

 

[perrinmiller]

<via iPhone>
Good discussion. The better you guys get, the less I need to pull punches.

Though I have not been involved in the discussions on archetypes, they are getting approved much faster. I just got UC and I don't see why you cannot get that approved timely enough.

I wonder if you can retrain one feat every time you level up under normal circumstances?

Also if anyone is planning on using DMC, let me know.