Ayedi_Star
2014-02-20, 02:23 PM
Hello to the playground!
Firstly, as is custom;
If you recognize my name as someone who GMs you, please kindly look elsewhere.
For the TL;DR among you, please check the spoiler tags for each minion for information and comment back as you desire, I try to be concise but i find it hard to strike a balance most times.
Now!
I'm designing a new campaign for three other people, and I've got most of the technical parts all worked out and functioning. I trust my ability to challenge and make the game fun for these people, but I'd like to cross-reference one facet of my notes with the community to spot things I've missed or may want to either include or remove.
As a GM I do occasionally use breaks in the rules, both for my player's enjoyment and for challenging them, but I will state where this is the case 90% of the time, or it should be obvious.
For reference, the players are running gestalt with these builds at level 4 / 3 and two flaws; the minions outlined below won't show up until at least level 10.)
Crusader/Bard, going dragonfire inspiration [Force] and otherwise being a supporter role; he's used to playing Warlock / Dragonfire Adept Tibbits (and a Kender Gunslinger, but no pathfinder this time), He's an LA+0 Aasimar.
Human unarmed Swordsage // Fighter, as I've priced the Scorpion Kama's unarmed transference ability as a Priced ability of 4,000 GP, he's planning on using that on a sword-bow so that he can attack at range to lure enemies close and then instantly switch to a sword and break out the maneuvers or his planned usage of Robilar's Gambit tactics.
The new player has never ran a game before so I talked with him about capabilities and how things worked before he and I talked and came up with this;
Goliath (LA bought off) Warblade // Binder, eventually going fully into both Eternal Blade and Sacred Knight of the Seal (Savnok).
I've waived racial restrictions on feats and prestige classes, so this is his 'break' from the rules; he's going for a two-handed warblade charger who binds Savnok as his primary vestige and is essentially playing him as a bit of a crazy glory-seeker, a dash of Conan and an excess of Savnok being in his head. (going to be his spirit guide for the Eternal Blade PRC).
Yes, the fact that they are taking all three adept classes was intentionally set up on their part once they talked about what they wanted to do.
Knowing this, what would I like you to look over and suggest alternatives or further development on?
My named NPCs, including the BBEG. Let's start from the bottom.
Swordsage // Sorcerer / Arcane Duellist.
Yayoi is going to be an NPC character that will join them either temporarily or as one of their cohorts if they like her. Her theme is to lean more towards the Desert Wind discipline, magical buffs and the arcane duelist's flurry of swords ability along with arcane strike as her show-stopper, but her build isn't final yet.
What do I want from you regarding her? pretty much anything that'll help me make her a viable NPC; keeping the theme of fire and the Arcane Duelist prestige class intact. she's also royalty, so class is important.
The construct-themed minion, Astor is meant to be a sentient construct that runs a space station performing fairly weak artillery or intelligence for other minions; I've no idea what to make him, but I want it to basically be the entire room attacking them, much like the danger room.
I'm currently thinking an incarnate construct artificer // ranger war shaper and basically go for a transforming T-Rex on them while constructs take ranged pot-shots.
Jack is a Dark-templated anthromorphic wolf, warblade // arcane caster / Swiftblade, built to be able to use a katana, iaijutsu focus and grab as much speed and action economy abuse as he could legally get away with. he's meant to be relatively easy to beat, if at least give them all several good knocks first.
I'd like build advice more than anything, the only stipulation is the action economy / speed theme and keeping iaijutsu focus, as he'll give them training that counts as skill focus (and making it a class skill) if they do the right things.
Vampire Lord dread necromancer // bard,
meant to command an army of various undead, this is about as far in as I've gotten with her, the casting and the undead army at her back alone should let me make the fight challenging enough, but feedback is welcome.
Drow were-spider, druid / vermin lord, possibly a hive mind.
I've no idea on the other side of the gestalt, probably just something to Up his survivability, options, generally "as he is, but more!"
Despite the name literally being a rough translation of "giant cow"...
Minotaur psychic warrior // Fighter going into War Hulk and if she survives long enough, adding hulking hurler on top of it. she is meant to be a straight-up beat stick so probably an urber-charging dungeon crasher.
A thoon elder brain with a small mindflayer army backing it up; no current build other than as a straight monster set meant to throw psionic abilities at them and grant plenty of opportunity for the "wonderful" alien / aberration theme of them enslaving or eating people.
Qouri-flavored outsiders all the way for this minion, I'm thinking an upgraded hashlaq spy or assassin that tears at their hopes, dreams and loved ones, maybe similar to doppelganger tactics meets the Outsider trait.. Or a Kalaraq.
This is possibly a build that just doesn't work, I admit that, so my only question on this is how to make sure it's legal at the end.
Force Dragon HD // Totemist with the Wyrm of War archetype.
Yes, I did just write that, and it's not even the BBEG. I'd love to make this a force dragon -just- to have one minion specifically made to laugh at the bard's dragonfire and then wade in with overwhelming natural attacks and the odd Tiger Claw maneuver just to mix it up.
My problem is, I have not been able to find or work out an appropriate (Hah, I jest!) LA to begin scaling back her number of RHD to a suitable level; I doubt one exists, as this IS an epic-level dragon varient, but I'd hope it could be reverse engineered or made another way.
Whether you jumped ahead or worked through all of them, the BBEG's build is ... unconventional. breaks multiple rules and tropes, and will make at least a decent portion of optimizers twitch, I suspect.
Solar HD // Truenamer 20 // unknown / Nar Demonbinder / FiendBinder.
Yes, I just threw truenamer of all things on a monster. almost entirely for the Gate and capstone ability; this is why no minion will ever reveal who they work for. because he'll Know. And he can go there.
the Nar demonbinder's the part I am most okay with losing, the fiendbinder I want, as his entire theme is that while he's got gobs of personal power, his method of fighting is to summon or command demons and devils that are under his thumb, lock and key.
What do I want for responses to this guy? I'm not sure on this one. Certainly, suggestions for the "unknown" section of the build, but beyond that I don't know.
And yes, his racial alignment and his actual alignment differ severely. I'm tempted with the idea of making him a play on Shogo Makishima of Psycho-Pass, being that his alignment is clearly chaotic evil, but all magic and class abilities mark him as lawful good to abilities that count that. (like the crusader's alignment-based strikes...)
Thanks in advance just for reading however much of this you could bring yourself to scan through; As I said in the beginning, I've tried to be concise, but Find the balance between too much and too little difficult. some of these are fairly well planned out, some I need general ideas on. you're welcome to comment on just one or two or the whole group in general, depending on your patience.
Firstly, as is custom;
If you recognize my name as someone who GMs you, please kindly look elsewhere.
For the TL;DR among you, please check the spoiler tags for each minion for information and comment back as you desire, I try to be concise but i find it hard to strike a balance most times.
Now!
I'm designing a new campaign for three other people, and I've got most of the technical parts all worked out and functioning. I trust my ability to challenge and make the game fun for these people, but I'd like to cross-reference one facet of my notes with the community to spot things I've missed or may want to either include or remove.
As a GM I do occasionally use breaks in the rules, both for my player's enjoyment and for challenging them, but I will state where this is the case 90% of the time, or it should be obvious.
For reference, the players are running gestalt with these builds at level 4 / 3 and two flaws; the minions outlined below won't show up until at least level 10.)
Crusader/Bard, going dragonfire inspiration [Force] and otherwise being a supporter role; he's used to playing Warlock / Dragonfire Adept Tibbits (and a Kender Gunslinger, but no pathfinder this time), He's an LA+0 Aasimar.
Human unarmed Swordsage // Fighter, as I've priced the Scorpion Kama's unarmed transference ability as a Priced ability of 4,000 GP, he's planning on using that on a sword-bow so that he can attack at range to lure enemies close and then instantly switch to a sword and break out the maneuvers or his planned usage of Robilar's Gambit tactics.
The new player has never ran a game before so I talked with him about capabilities and how things worked before he and I talked and came up with this;
Goliath (LA bought off) Warblade // Binder, eventually going fully into both Eternal Blade and Sacred Knight of the Seal (Savnok).
I've waived racial restrictions on feats and prestige classes, so this is his 'break' from the rules; he's going for a two-handed warblade charger who binds Savnok as his primary vestige and is essentially playing him as a bit of a crazy glory-seeker, a dash of Conan and an excess of Savnok being in his head. (going to be his spirit guide for the Eternal Blade PRC).
Yes, the fact that they are taking all three adept classes was intentionally set up on their part once they talked about what they wanted to do.
Knowing this, what would I like you to look over and suggest alternatives or further development on?
My named NPCs, including the BBEG. Let's start from the bottom.
Swordsage // Sorcerer / Arcane Duellist.
Yayoi is going to be an NPC character that will join them either temporarily or as one of their cohorts if they like her. Her theme is to lean more towards the Desert Wind discipline, magical buffs and the arcane duelist's flurry of swords ability along with arcane strike as her show-stopper, but her build isn't final yet.
What do I want from you regarding her? pretty much anything that'll help me make her a viable NPC; keeping the theme of fire and the Arcane Duelist prestige class intact. she's also royalty, so class is important.
The construct-themed minion, Astor is meant to be a sentient construct that runs a space station performing fairly weak artillery or intelligence for other minions; I've no idea what to make him, but I want it to basically be the entire room attacking them, much like the danger room.
I'm currently thinking an incarnate construct artificer // ranger war shaper and basically go for a transforming T-Rex on them while constructs take ranged pot-shots.
Jack is a Dark-templated anthromorphic wolf, warblade // arcane caster / Swiftblade, built to be able to use a katana, iaijutsu focus and grab as much speed and action economy abuse as he could legally get away with. he's meant to be relatively easy to beat, if at least give them all several good knocks first.
I'd like build advice more than anything, the only stipulation is the action economy / speed theme and keeping iaijutsu focus, as he'll give them training that counts as skill focus (and making it a class skill) if they do the right things.
Vampire Lord dread necromancer // bard,
meant to command an army of various undead, this is about as far in as I've gotten with her, the casting and the undead army at her back alone should let me make the fight challenging enough, but feedback is welcome.
Drow were-spider, druid / vermin lord, possibly a hive mind.
I've no idea on the other side of the gestalt, probably just something to Up his survivability, options, generally "as he is, but more!"
Despite the name literally being a rough translation of "giant cow"...
Minotaur psychic warrior // Fighter going into War Hulk and if she survives long enough, adding hulking hurler on top of it. she is meant to be a straight-up beat stick so probably an urber-charging dungeon crasher.
A thoon elder brain with a small mindflayer army backing it up; no current build other than as a straight monster set meant to throw psionic abilities at them and grant plenty of opportunity for the "wonderful" alien / aberration theme of them enslaving or eating people.
Qouri-flavored outsiders all the way for this minion, I'm thinking an upgraded hashlaq spy or assassin that tears at their hopes, dreams and loved ones, maybe similar to doppelganger tactics meets the Outsider trait.. Or a Kalaraq.
This is possibly a build that just doesn't work, I admit that, so my only question on this is how to make sure it's legal at the end.
Force Dragon HD // Totemist with the Wyrm of War archetype.
Yes, I did just write that, and it's not even the BBEG. I'd love to make this a force dragon -just- to have one minion specifically made to laugh at the bard's dragonfire and then wade in with overwhelming natural attacks and the odd Tiger Claw maneuver just to mix it up.
My problem is, I have not been able to find or work out an appropriate (Hah, I jest!) LA to begin scaling back her number of RHD to a suitable level; I doubt one exists, as this IS an epic-level dragon varient, but I'd hope it could be reverse engineered or made another way.
Whether you jumped ahead or worked through all of them, the BBEG's build is ... unconventional. breaks multiple rules and tropes, and will make at least a decent portion of optimizers twitch, I suspect.
Solar HD // Truenamer 20 // unknown / Nar Demonbinder / FiendBinder.
Yes, I just threw truenamer of all things on a monster. almost entirely for the Gate and capstone ability; this is why no minion will ever reveal who they work for. because he'll Know. And he can go there.
the Nar demonbinder's the part I am most okay with losing, the fiendbinder I want, as his entire theme is that while he's got gobs of personal power, his method of fighting is to summon or command demons and devils that are under his thumb, lock and key.
What do I want for responses to this guy? I'm not sure on this one. Certainly, suggestions for the "unknown" section of the build, but beyond that I don't know.
And yes, his racial alignment and his actual alignment differ severely. I'm tempted with the idea of making him a play on Shogo Makishima of Psycho-Pass, being that his alignment is clearly chaotic evil, but all magic and class abilities mark him as lawful good to abilities that count that. (like the crusader's alignment-based strikes...)
Thanks in advance just for reading however much of this you could bring yourself to scan through; As I said in the beginning, I've tried to be concise, but Find the balance between too much and too little difficult. some of these are fairly well planned out, some I need general ideas on. you're welcome to comment on just one or two or the whole group in general, depending on your patience.