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Started by Decrepitdan, June 20, 2010, 11:15:59 PM

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Vergil1989

Non Gestalt since I'm just starting out and all.  I only have my main cleric class and my prestige when I actually get it when I hit level 6 and all lol.
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Kate


fallensaviour

i could go either way but for now i'm voting non gestalt

avorae

Life is a hard game but the rewards are sweet if you know where to look.

WyzardWhately

Look!  I have an ons and offs list now!  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=13580.0
It's still really sketchy, though.
Here are my dice rolls: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/player/WyzardWhately/

Kate


NicciKotor

I'll be making a new thread for my three players:  Hunter, WyzardWhately, and avorae. Still level 6 and I shall be applying a one rogue in the party restriction and your classes you all 3 pick should be a well and good spread between yourselves.

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=72943.0

Enjoy.
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ff

Quote from: NicciKotor on June 22, 2010, 12:53:22 PM
I'll be making a new thread for my three players:  Hunter, WyzardWhately, and avorae. Still level 6 and I shall be applying a one rogue in the party restriction and your classes you all 3 pick should be a well and good spread between yourselves.

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=72943.0

Enjoy.

(I'm not in the gestalt game, so I'm just curious for my own knowledge in case I ever DM a game at E:) what's the one rogue restriction for? Is there some uber tactic when you have 2 rogues in a party, like helping each other Flank for mutual Sneak Attack bonuses, or is it something specific about gestalt that makes rogues 'too good' (like the rogue-warlock thing suggested above)?

And if I did ever DM w/ this restriction, and 2 players wanted to play rogues, how would I decide who gets to?


NicciKotor

In my live gestalt game I have a rogue/battledancer at level 8. He can do upwards of 70+ damage with just a full attack, using two attacks and double sneak attack. He could take out the rest of the party if he wanted too. I make things fair on my end by providing baddies that he cannot reach or sneak attack, so things even out for the most part.
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ff

Decrep - I have a stat sheet mostly done for Ansalia. A few questions, and it's fine if you haven't decided yet:

- How are we doing ability scores (32 point buy, etc.), HP (default is max of the hit die at first level, 1/2 at each subsequent level, plus LevelxCon as usual, but since some DMs do other things I thought I'd ask), and starting wealth (again something that is often customized DMs; I can go look up the DMG default for 6th level PCs if you're using it and don't happen to have it handy, IIRC it's one of the few 'core' things not be on the SRD site.)

- Some DMs basically ignore the 'social skills' (diplomacy, bluff, etc.). The char I designed so far is a fairly low-strength-but-charisma-oriented paladin (with high Sense Motive and Diplomacy, and feats and synergy bonuses for the latter). But, if you don't use Diplomacy and Sense Motive, then I ought to put the skill points elsewhere. When DMs don't use them, the reasoning they usually give is they prefer to 'roleplay' it rather than 'rollplay' it. What I did the last time I DMed was used the skills, and applied circumstance modifiers based on my perceived effectiveness of how the layer chose their PC's speech and such, so that roleplaying was encouraged but the skills were still used (i.e. I literally added the two aspects). But there's a lot of variety in what DMs do this area, and paladins happen to be a common 'face' character, so I thought I'd ask.

ff

Quote from: NicciKotor on June 22, 2010, 02:29:17 PM
In my live gestalt game I have a rogue/battledancer at level 8. He can do upwards of 70+ damage with just a full attack, using two attacks and double sneak attack. He could take out the rest of the party if he wanted too. I make things fair on my end by providing baddies that he cannot reach or sneak attack, so things even out for the most part.

Ah I see, so the issue is that he gestalted 2 classes that both have Sneak Attack? I'm not familiar with the Battledancer but I'm guessing that's what you mean by 'double sneak attack'. Or maybe you were just referring to two-weapon fighting, but the Battledancer has some abilities that enhance sneak attack or let him use it more often.

I can see how that would be powerful. If gestalt is basically 'forced multiclass since we happen to think that single-class is more powerful normally' as people in the thread have said, then gestalting 2 very similar chars could sort of give you a 'gestalt single class'. (Although extreme multiclasses benefit more in gestalt from taking the 'max' of the BAB and HD and saves - i.e. paladin-sorcerer will be just as high BAB and HP as paladin-bard, with better spells, whereas normally there's more of a trade-off etc.)

NicciKotor

At level 8 he has a two attack BAB, that is what I meant. So an effective 8d6 sneak attack bonus if he hits twice with his full attack rounds. I taught him a lesson about being too aggressive with his attacks by having a umberhulk fall on him.

The best thing we have experienced so far with that game was the debate between the pally and the rogue over motivations and how he was a backstabbing asshole. The pally proceeded to get 3 20s in a row and managed to not only get a uncanny knack of how the rogue thinks, but now the rogue is convinced that the pally is telepathic. He is banned from using that die from here on out.
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Kunoichi

Quote from: ff on June 22, 2010, 02:39:05 PM
Ah I see, so the issue is that he gestalted 2 classes that both have Sneak Attack? I'm not familiar with the Battledancer but I'm guessing that's what you mean by 'double sneak attack'. Or maybe you were just referring to two-weapon fighting, but the Battledancer has some abilities that enhance sneak attack or let him use it more often.

Battledancer, if it's the class I'm thinking off, is basically just a charisma-based Monk with full BAB and class features that get more use out of the Tumble skill.  It's somewhat more synergistic with Rogue than the Monk would be, (Tumble definitely helps when moving into flanking positions, especially since by that level the character can Tumble at full speed without penalty,) but aside from having an easier time flanking it doesn't have any extra ways to get Sneak Attack.

And the problem with getting a full-attack Sneak Attack off is that you're usually still in range for the enemy to return the favor, and monsters usually have a lot more hit points than players...

ff

Thanks Kunoichi, that makes sense. Full BAB combined with Sneak Attack is indeed very powerful

...especially b/c it means the -2 from TWF then has a lower proportionate effect on chance to hit, say 50% to 40% rather than 40% to 30% in a L8 case where a regular rogue is 2 points of BAB behind a fighter.

It seems to me that that's the 'trick' at optimizing around gestalt rules: since some things stack, and some things 'max' (take the better of the two, but not the sum'), the trick is to choose things that stack, or things where the max is a big lift.

For example, a gestalt fighter/rogue just gets 'duplicate' full BABs, whereas a fighter/rogue gets the BAB plus the sneak attack. A regular rogue essentially trades away full BAB for Sneak Attack, and a half half fighter/rogue has about 7/8ths the BAB of a fighter/ranger. (Similarly, a fighter/druid gets more magic than a fighter/ranger, without losing BAB, ditto a paladin/sorcerer vs a paladin/bard, etc.)

btw I'm not trying to discourage anyone from gestalt (and some combos are better than others in regular rules too) - I just enjoy thinking about these things, and how to think if I ever did do a gestalt campaign. I actually think deprec's proposal to do one campiagn each one is very clever, as it helps sort out the types of players.

Kunoichi

Quote from: ff on June 22, 2010, 04:26:05 PM
btw I'm not trying to discourage anyone from gestalt (and some combos are better than others in regular rules too) - I just enjoy thinking about these things, and how to think if I ever did do a gestalt campaign. I actually think deprec's proposal to do one campiagn each one is very clever, as it helps sort out the types of players.

Yeah, gestalt can definitely be quite fun. ^^ That said, as far as getting powerful combos in gestalt goes, the main thing to remember is that, while you level up in two classes at once in gestalt, you don't get twice as many actions as normal.  So what you want is to get one side of the combo that gets a lot of 'passive' class features, or class features that don't take up any actions, (Monk, Warlock, Incarnum classes, and so on,) and one 'active' side, with class features that do take up actions (spellcasting, Tome of Battle, etc...).

Monk and Druid, for example, basically gets you a bunch of passive AC bonuses and speed increases, (from the Monk,) and then since you spend most of your time as a Druid in Wild Shape anyway, you don't have to worry about the crippling lack of armor.  It's a pretty good combo.  Almost entirely reliant on your Wisdom score, too, which is definitely a bonus.

But yeah, figuring out those little bits of synergy can be a fun little exercise all in its own. ;D

ff

Quote from: Kunoichi on June 22, 2010, 06:59:31 PM
Yeah, gestalt can definitely be quite fun. ^^ That said, as far as getting powerful combos in gestalt goes, the main thing to remember is that, while you level up in two classes at once in gestalt, you don't get twice as many actions as normal.  So what you want is to get one side of the combo that gets a lot of 'passive' class features, or class features that don't take up any actions, (Monk, Warlock, Incarnum classes, and so on,) and one 'active' side, with class features that do take up actions (spellcasting, Tome of Battle, etc...).

Mmm, that's a really good insight. I figured paladin-sorcerer would work pretty well that way too since the paladin has some passives (like divine grace for great Cha synergy) if you choose spells that augment her combat and-or are normally balanced around the caster having low BAB (like those with touch or ranged touch instead of saving throws). Big downside is heavy armor vs no armor. Maybe Duelist-Wizard would be better since she gets the Int AC bonus and is expected to wear no armor and have a hand free anyway (for casting).

The various 'Swift action' spells in the Complete series would be good too (swift haste, etc.) to get around the 'competing sets of actions' issue.

The trap I see with a lot of mage-fighter builds (whether 2e or 3e) is they try to go flashy and direct attack in every way (i..e evocation and physical attacks), which sounds cool, but since you can't do both at once, it's better to have one of the good that's

Quote
Monk and Druid, for example, basically gets you a bunch of passive AC bonuses and speed increases, (from the Monk,) and then since you spend most of your time as a Druid in Wild Shape anyway, you don't have to worry about the crippling lack of armor.  It's a pretty good combo.  Almost entirely reliant on your Wisdom score, too, which is definitely a bonus.

That's a neat one. Especially b/c it sounds so useful despite the fact that the two classes have the same HD and BAB (which is why I was thinking about warrior-mage combos above.) Another good synergy to that one is he can presumably used unarmed attacks in wild shape.

Quote
But yeah, figuring out those little bits of synergy can be a fun little exercise all in its own. ;D

Indeed. You seem to have some interesting insights too.

Kunoichi

As far as Paladin-Sorceror goes, for your AC there's Mage Armor, Greater Mage Armor, and Shield.  Or you can forget about AC altogether and layer on miss chances.  Blink, Displacement, and so on can certainly help out as far as not getting hit in combat is concerned, often even better than a high AC at your level would.

Hmm.  Of course, you could take Arcane Preparation in order to qualify for Sanctified spells from Book of Exalted Deeds, then learn Luminous Armor and Greater Luminous Armor, and go into the Abjurant Champion prestige class...  Of course, you'd still need to have a good Constitution score, and you'd want at least a decent Strength score in order to hit things often...  Well, that or Wraithstrike, anyway.

Heh.  We should probably move this conversation to PMs. ^^;

NicciKotor

One good combo I want to try out eventually is Warmage/Duskblade. Both classes have the armored mage ability which is a huge boost. The arcane channeling would work with the warmages touch spells in addition, on top of the duskblades good BAB progression and d8 hit die. Both are intelligence based spellcasters as well.
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Kunoichi

Warmages are Charisma-based, actually.  They do get the ability to add their intelligence bonus to any spells that deal damage, however.

I've always thought Scout and Warmage would make a nice combination, myself.  A Warmage is basically an archer anyway, just with spells instead of arrows, so why not add Skirmish damage on, too?  Then multiclass the Scout side with Ranger and take the Swift Hunter feat, and it gets to be even more useful. ^^

NicciKotor

The combo still works nicely because of that boost in dmg from the intelligence. Warmages only have d6 if I recall correctly, and a average BAB.
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ff

Quote from: Kunoichi on June 22, 2010, 09:50:39 PM
Warmages are Charisma-based, actually.  They do get the ability to add their intelligence bonus to any spells that deal damage, however.

I've always thought Scout and Warmage would make a nice combination, myself.  A Warmage is basically an archer anyway, just with spells instead of arrows, so why not add Skirmish damage on, too?  Then multiclass the Scout side with Ranger and take the Swift Hunter feat, and it gets to be even more useful. ^^

lol. A Ranger-19 Scout-1 or Ranger-1 Scout-19 is hysterical...one feat to give yourself 20 levels' worth of Favored Enemies or Skirmish!

Chreestafer

has anyone tried to branch off into psionics? cause i was thinking of jumping in as a psionic/ranger
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The Doctor: I threw it in a supernova.
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The Doctor: Because I disagreed with it! Now stop talking to me when I'm cross!”
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Kunoichi

Quote from: ff on June 22, 2010, 10:06:24 PM
lol. A Ranger-19 Scout-1 or Ranger-1 Scout-19 is hysterical...one feat to give yourself 20 levels' worth of Favored Enemies or Skirmish!

Actually, the general idea is Scout 4/Ranger 16.  Just take a few Ranger levels before hitting that fourth level of Scout and you can pick up Swift Hunter as the bonus feat you get at that level.  You'll need at least 3 Scout levels to qualify for Swift Hunter anyway, so...

And then, as mentioned, you're basically adding Skirmish damage onto your ranged touch attack spells, and you've got 19 total BAB and can get Skirmish damage even against enemies that are immune to it, so long as they're on your Favored Enemies list. ^^ And voila, a mobile, skirmishing, blow-stuff-up mage/archer.