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fireinthedust
2007-01-13, 07:45 PM
I'm doing upan arena with some friends right now before I go to England for few months!

It's 12th level Gestalt, with the PCs getting 12th level gold AND bonus items of their choice: either any 3 non-artifacts of their choice (preferably from published sources); or any 1 artifact.

the PCs are going to either fight each othe or work together, but it's set in a "Battle-Mat"-sized canyon with a Fortress the PCs have to defend from an army led by a lich Wiz//Sor, a Young Adult red dragon, a Hydra, Fire Giants, 100 minotaurs, some gargoyles, and a whack of skeletons. also I want a few monsters with class levels in there.
The fort has a dungeonlevel below it, so even after they slay my NPCs they'll have to deal with what's in there (I've got some cool ideas that should trip these guys up).

Any suggestions? I have virtually every major book out there; the lich is made with Libris Mortis feats (corpsecrafter tree! The dead minotars and gnolls are going to rise again as killer skeletons). The Dragon is with Dragonomicon.

The Players are all VERY experienced power gamers, so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to crush them.

Bears With Lasers
2007-01-13, 07:52 PM
Frankly, they're 12th level; just make the lich a high-enough level spellcaster, and that's all you'll really need--especially with a dragon running melee interference.

Douglas
2007-01-13, 07:54 PM
Giving them artifacts of their choice or even non-artifact items without limits is just asking for trouble. Just off the top of my head, a Ring of Universal Elemental Immunity, Ring of Sequestering, and Rod of Invulnerability fit the guidelines you've given and would make the character who picked them vastly overpowered. They're in the epic section of the SRD. So, forget player-chosen artifacts and put some concrete limits on non-artifact items.

fireinthedust
2007-01-13, 10:48 PM
iiiiiinteresting. I'm not sure they'll pick epic items. If they do, tho, I should be able to handle it.

First, they only get one artifact each. That said, they'll likely not pick something granting immunity to poisons, or drowning, or what have you. It's like Mutants and masterminds: pick what they're not immune to and go with it!

That said, my plan is to have the minotaurs charge the doors repeatedly; 100 of them will eventually break down the door (doing enough damage to the wood with their charging gore attacks), and the rest will file into the keep's inner courtyard. Combat will ensue, all the minotaurs will die (leaving conveniently positioned corpses for animation later! :smallbiggrin: ).
At the same time the Gargoyles will be flying high overhead, dropping barrels of special oil all over the fort. This is set up for the next wave.

wave 2: I like Hydras, so I'll have a 12 headed one charge forward and eat anyone in its way. This may be overkill, however, so I might just skip it for wave 3. Still, if it's a Pyrohydra, they'll waste good cold spells on it; although that would overkill the theme of fire monsters, and that's boring.

Wave 3: The dragon and the fire giants move forward, the red hovering in the air and breathing fire every few rounds. I may even have the fire giants throw a volley of flaming boulders over first, tho. Either way this will ignite the oil all over the keep, creating hazardous terrain for the combat; this will not, of course, be an issue for the Fire giants or the red!
The gargoyles may even continue dropping barrels of oil during the combat.

Wave 4: The lich is going to zip in and animate EVERYTHING the PCs have killed. Sorcerer and Wizard levels and a specially constructed staff of Undeath (moo-hoo-hah-haaa) with 80 charges in it and Create Undead/animate dead as the spells in it.
After it has enough super-minions running around (dealing a burst of negative energy whenever they're killed), it'll just cast cloudkill and then hide somewhere. After that I'm going to throw out whatever evocations it's staff of evocation can throw out, that sort of thing.

This should be enough for the night; these are experienced players who're being told to power game. If they can't take out all the creatures with area effect spells, or some other way that destroys my army without even challenging them, shame on them (or me)!

If they do, however: there's the dungeon level below the keep. I've got some insideous traps that should entertain and excite! There are two parts of it, also: one area leads to the prison of an advanced Chaos Beast with a template from a Green Ronin book (advanced bestiary, I think it's called) making collosal versions of regular monsters. The other side of the vault is the trap-laden path to a helm that would control the beast. the Lich knows about the helm, and wants to control the monster. If they release the monster without finding the helm first, well... TPK, I guess. Or they could win (especially if they beat the Lich outside first and then rest). If they get the helm, that's the game.


What do you think of the strategy? I know one of them is going to be a monk/fighter, and he knows how to build insti-kills with power attack (we had a debate).

Should I throw in a vampire?

Rigeld2
2007-01-13, 10:54 PM
I know one of them is going to be a monk/fighter, and he knows how to build insti-kills with power attack (we had a debate).
...

No, he doesnt. Especially not with a monk/fighter.

Zincorium
2007-01-14, 12:03 AM
...

No, he doesnt. Especially not with a monk/fighter.

Actually, somebody came up with some interestingly flavored cheese a while back involving Decisive Strike, power attack, and a quarterstaff, but it was fairly fragrant.

Rigeld2
2007-01-14, 12:29 AM
I dont see any way for that to be an insta-kill. Forcing a DC 15 Fort save, sure. But thats not hard at all - hardly a challenge for "experienced powergamers".

bladesmith
2007-01-14, 12:53 AM
Huh. Now, I'm not a powergamer, and I'm not a DM, but that looks like enough of a problem for twelfth level players, powergaming gestalt characters or not. However, I would watch out for anyone taking the red dragon orb as their artifact. Probably not a big deal anyway, seeing as your red dragon still has about a half/half chance of being dominated. But that's just me, the inexperienced.

Jack_Simth
2007-01-14, 01:21 AM
Technically, a Rod of the Gold Wyrm is not an artifact....

The fun aspect of the item, of course, being that there's no limit on use (save the destruction of the +5 staff in normal form and the death of the Wyrm in dragon form).

Tack in a Universal Ring of Energy Immunity and a Rod of Invulnerability (all non-artifacts....) and make the base character a Kobold with one side being an Egoist-12 with Overchannel.....

PinkysBrain
2007-01-14, 02:15 AM
Undead have 2 banes ... turning and spells with fort saves (mainly disintegrate, few things ruin a lich's day like 2d6 per CL of damage). As it is your lich is probably going to fall quickly without some special protection. It doesn't help that you are building him only with arcane spell offense in mind ... neglecting defense in gestalt is never a good idea. There are only so many actions in a round, especially with the same spell list on both sides you really need to sacrifice some casting for defense.

You are going to have to rethink the animating of the corpses, you just don't have the time to put gems in corpses their eyes and get off spells from that staff. Heroes of Battle has the spell Animate Legion which would work well for you

PinkysBrain
2007-01-14, 02:25 AM
If you want to make those minotaurs really nasty you could throw in a martial adept NPC with a master crown of white ravens to get access to war master' charge ... you should reduce the number of minotaurs though in that case, a cumulative +2 to attack for each charger will end up with an instakill otherwise.

fireinthedust
2007-01-14, 08:38 AM
Master Crown of White Ravens?

I think for the rest of the Lich's items (he still gets to buy them with normal money; I might make the staff collection come out of gold and have the three items be a Rod of invulnerability, etc.) I'll work on protective items. Also, the wizard spells will be Buff spells, so he can focus casting repetitive spells on sorcerer levels.

I was also thinking of making several of his levels of a war mage of some sort; to expand his minions and fireballs.

The Power attack could do it: fighter//Monk (not ftr/monk; it's gestalt) gets +12 to play around with BEFORE strength and magic items kick in (one item is going to be a +5 greatsword (with several energy types), and he's going to pump the strength up as much as he can). That and Improved Critical mean he'll overwhelm most of my horde of minotaurs on any hit; that's just for fighter. The monk side is probably for evasion and Wis to AC. He also mentioned Hexblade, so he'll be using their cursing-thing, and Barbarian (trained as monk, then became a barbarian) so rageing (this is his plan so far).

Should I give the Dragon anything? It's got SR, which is harder for Gestalt, and it's not landing anytime soon, just hovering, dumping spells, and breathing. If the tank is engaged, it'll land and attack the spellcasters.

Is there an item or special ability that automatically animates corpses around a caster/lich? That way he can just walk around animating the dead minotaurs while lobbing fireballs. If there's an artifact, where is it? Maybe one item should be a Ring of Three wishes: wish that all corpses animate as ghouls or something. Or at least that they all have Onyx gems in their eyes when they die!

PinkysBrain
2007-01-14, 07:57 PM
Master Crown of White Ravens?
It's an item from Tome of Battle which allows you to add a single white raven manoeuvre to your manoeuvres known (slightly broken since it allows you to ignore level requirements since they are not part of the prerequisites ... but meh).

The Power attack could do it: fighter//Monk (not ftr/monk; it's gestalt) gets +12 to play around with BEFORE strength and magic items kick in (one item is going to be a +5 greatsword (with several energy types)
How does he flurry with a greatsword?

and he's going to pump the strength up as much as he can). That and Improved Critical mean he'll overwhelm most of my horde of minotaurs on any hit; that's just for fighter.
If he is smart he won't even get near them ... there is always a chance for natural 20s, and what is the point of loosing hitpoints when AoE spells can take them down faster?

Should I give the Dragon anything?Metabreath spells and feats are good. Magic items are also good ... he has 39K to spend.

Is there an item or special ability that automatically animates corpses around a caster/lich? That way he can just walk around animating the dead minotaurs while lobbing fireballs. If there's an artifact, where is it? Maybe one item should be a Ring of Three wishes: wish that all corpses animate as ghouls or something. Or at least that they all have Onyx gems in their eyes when they die!
What books do you have access to?

Collin152
2007-01-15, 12:18 AM
Undead have 2 banes ... turning and spells with fort saves (mainly disintegrate, few things ruin a lich's day like 2d6 per CL of damage). As it is your lich is probably going to fall quickly without some special protection. It doesn't help that you are building him only with arcane spell offense in mind ... neglecting defense in gestalt is never a good idea. There are only so many actions in a round, especially with the same spell list on both sides you really need to sacrifice some casting for defense.

You are going to have to rethink the animating of the corpses, you just don't have the time to put gems in corpses their eyes and get off spells from that staff. Heroes of Battle has the spell Animate Legion which would work well for you
I thought Liches were immune to disintegration, as well as shape-changing effects that they diddnt cast...

PinkysBrain
2007-01-15, 01:18 AM
I thought Liches were immune to disintegration, as well as shape-changing effects that they diddnt cast...Nope, just polymorphing and spells which have fort saves which don't work on objects (disintegrate does).

Ramza00
2007-01-15, 01:27 AM
Liches aren't immune, but they still get a fort save, but a fort save without con ;) Thus they still need to get things that improve there saves such as taking 2 lvls of paladin, 3 of hexblade, cloak of resistance, or avoiding it altogether by crafting anti-magic areas.

Turcano
2007-01-15, 02:55 AM
Liches aren't immune, but they still get a fort save, but a fort save without con ;) Thus they still need to get things that improve there saves such as taking 2 lvls of paladin, 3 of hexblade, cloak of resistance, or avoiding it altogether by crafting anti-magic areas.

Am I the only person who sees the problem with a lich taking paladin levels?

The_Snark
2007-01-15, 03:04 AM
Liches aren't immune, but they still get a fort save, but a fort save without con ;) Thus they still need to get things that improve there saves such as taking 2 lvls of paladin, 3 of hexblade, cloak of resistance, or avoiding it altogether by crafting anti-magic areas.

Or with a lich, whose body runs off extraplanar negative energy, creating an antimagic field? Though I think the rules actually do allow that; it just doesn't make sense flavor-wise.

Ramza00
2007-01-15, 03:20 AM
Am I the only person who sees the problem with a lich taking paladin levels?

Paladin of Tyranny or Slaughter, yes I shortened the name for it. You can also use blackguard.

If I recall though there are also good liches in the FR world so my point still stands.

PinkysBrain
2007-01-15, 11:30 AM
Liches aren't immune, but they still get a fort save, but a fort save without con ;) Thus they still need to get things that improve there saves such as taking 2 lvls of paladin, 3 of hexblade, cloak of resistance, or avoiding it altogether by crafting anti-magic areas.
Yeah I know ... that's why I warned Fireinthedust about ignoring defense, but he ignored me ;)

Ramza00
2007-01-15, 11:57 AM
Actually there is one more good way for a Lich to increase his fort save. Headband of Conscious Effort, Complete Adventurer. Make a concentration check instead of a fort save for a fort save. Usable 1/day, costs 4,000 gp. A lich can have multiple headbands such as this. Trying to remember if a item crafter can't apply multiple of the same enchantment to boost this to like 5/day, and just multiply the cost to like 20,000 gp?

fireinthedust
2007-01-15, 01:30 PM
Am I the only person who sees the problem with a lich taking paladin levels?

Obviously not! I do too: why waste caster levels, I say! ("but sir, I'm sure that's not what he--" "Silence, Alfred, I'm thinking!")

Pinkys: I didn't ignore! I'm totally aware of what you were saying...

Books that I have:

libris mortis
lords of madness
complete series
races series
eberron CS,
five nations,
explorers,
xen'drik,
sharn
FR CS,
waterdeep,
dragons of faerun,
lords of darkness,
moonsea,
underdark,
city of the spider queen,
magic of faerun,
monsters of faerun,
player's guide,
silver marches,
unapproachable east,
faiths and pantheons.
book of exalted deeds,
vile darkness
heroes of horror
heroes of battle
dragonlance CS
DL bestiary
dragonomicon

non-wotc:
creature collection revised
relics and rituals 2 (I'm a contributor!)
relics and rituals excalibur and olympus
advanced bestiary
Ravenloft CS (with a lich template giving extra and weird powers, but increasing the CR by a lot)
Ravenloft bestiary part 1
a whack of modules from necromancer games, troll lord, etc.

and a few more non-pertinent ones, various monster manuals, d20 modern collection.

PinkysBrain
2007-01-15, 03:32 PM
Hmmm PGtF, if you are willing to let go of the double arcanist idea and go for cleric on one side instead you make can make him an Initiate of Bane so he can cast undeath after death on his minions.

fireinthedust
2007-01-16, 01:45 PM
Update: the players voted to be 15th level. This means they've figured out some new teaky way to build a PC for extra damage. sigh.

update: I'm going to make some extra NPCs, one of whom I'll make a Cleric (to back my lich). The lich I'm going to have to beef up with the ravenloft rules (they've got this Undead Mastery and control thing, so he can have unlimited animation (tho not control) and attempted control HD (for skeletons, etc.)). I'll beef him up to 20th, and I may give him some sort of incorporeal-form magic item.

Others: How's this: minotaur barbarian/monster of legend?