Arimadios
2014-07-06, 08:24 PM
'Ello there! I'm Arimadios, I'm Dming a campaign that's basically thus:
The World Ended. Yes, all caps there, cuz it's the necessaries. When it did, I had some player characters there who saw the big bad guy do it. All the gods died. All that's left? One wasteland of a world with a single speck sized zone of life (That's mostly populated with deathless warriors and experts that just plain refused to die.) It's the last refuge of life. Epic level monsters dwell in forgetten cities and wonder the remaining planes freely, the upper planes got nuked, and the new gods made from the remains of the old are uncaring, calculating, distant, and general A-holes. From Orra, a lawful good clockwork dragon god of time and war, who generally seeks to just plain destroy the corrupted nasty crap the bbeg left over from dying, to Daeth, who is basically a huge tentacle monster of plagues rape and demons, the chaotic evil deity, This world just plain hit the suck hole.
Enter my players.
Bear in mind: This party Vaped a Ha-Naga in one round. At level 12. With Maximized hitpoints. I reinterate: This party of level 12 dudes KILLED AN EPIC CREATURE.
I have a rules lawyer of staggering awesomehood. (He's been playing longer than I've been alive.) He keeps me on track, but also respects that my rule 0 is RULE OF FUN/AWESOME!!! So he just plain enjoys himself. He's such a good player, that basically, he forced himself to make an unoptimized character.... And he still slaughters everything I throw at him. Awesomely. (I had to undo a house rule I loved because of his Psion. It makes sense for AOE spells to hurt monsters occupying more than one five foot square to be hit by every square of deathly hurt, if every square was filled with mooks, they would each be vaped. Seemed legit. Nope. Kineticist dragons breath = no more encounters. ever.) (This character also directly caused our party cleric (Played by me, as need dictated.) to drop to an epic level encounter at level 15.)
Then I have the character switcher. Every week, a new character concept. Every week, A new, compelling argument. Every week.... Guh. I love the guy to death. But his scout is flippin B-A. It runs at FIFTY-NINE MILES PER HOUR. He's also got mobility, and sexified armor, so... yeah. AoOs? Nawp. He did a Centaur monk once. It Flurried with a tree sized quarterstaff. I cried. It was beautiful. He had twinklehooves and Spidershoes (Horseshoes of spider climb. He wrote down spidershoes. It was hilarious.) Now? He wants to run a Summoner Ace. Crap. More statblocks for me to draw up.
Then I have my friendly attention hog. He comes up with great, story driven, and compelling ideas. I reward that, because the story is important. So, I give him things. Nothing O-P, I stress this. I Balance and balance and BALANCE his stuff. He's not OP, by any means. I like him. He can still put out over 100 damage a round without breaking a sweat, but I still uberbalance all his stuff. He still hasn't got to use his Prestige class (Found it on D&D Wiki, Arcane Warrior, He was psyched, so I said yes. He's loving it.) Abilities much, but when he does? GG Batman wizard.
Then there's my character. A thousand years of death and near death and deathlessness tends to breed some very smart guys who figured out how to kill stuff at a range. So, I introduced magitech to the campaign. My players basically demanded the cleric I run be more uh... bad-a. so? Dual Magitech Revolver Wielding Cleric Drow. I hit like a truck, permabuff, aaaaaaannnnd then got one shot by a lavawight. Anti-climactic, right?
Kind of. THe rules lawyer (Using his psion.) pulled some... very, very interesting shenanegains. (I Ruled that if sound is an element, then so is acid. Yeaaahhhh. First time playing the game, and i'm the dang DM.) He had used Schism last round on a contringency Temporal Accelration. Yeah. That was naaaasty. Then? He pulls some crap that I just... I had to allow on factor of awesome.
It goes like this... Temporal Acceleration twice(One from each mind.) = 4 powers.
TA 4 times = 16 powers.
Kinecticist breath = 16 acid dragon breaths at 15d6.
= 906 damage, dead lavawight.
Something like 2 or 3 hundred power points burnt. Yeah. Soiled my nickers. (Though, to be fair, story wise, His psion enjoyed mind-crewing my cleric (Childhood friends, and hopelessly unable to be romantic. Was hilarious.) and was uberpissed Finn died.)
After this, my Psion playing rules lawyer decided to nerf himself by going half-pyroclastic dragon Harsif with levels in monk to dervish and monkey-grip. Didn't optimize for kill speed. Is now effectively unkillable. (He has a 41 touch AC.) Can't hit in melee for anything, but, uh, Yeah. Breath is death. Pyroclastic clouds.
Well, Ressurection is gone in this campaign (Because I hate the rules.) And if you die once, you get one more chance as a deathless. Fun Flavor.
Now? I have to roll up a backup character.
So, what am I to do? I don't like spell-casting myself, so, I decide to roll up a tanky fighter type. I do some research. Looks like a spiked chain tripper will do...
And then my min-max player side kicks in, and I begin to OPTIMIZE.
Half-Bronze Dragon Dragonborn (Wings Aspect) Water Orc.
It's +12 Str, +6 Con, and +2 dex for -2 charisma and 3 LA, which has been bought off almost completely at this point.
Then I min-max further. Ape Totem Barbarian 1, Wolf totem Barbarian 2, Spirit Lion Barbarian 3 (Because Pounce requires 3 levels of barbarian, l2read, yall.) Wildshape Ranger 1 (Regaining Fast Movement.) Wildshape Ranger 2, Horizon Walker. Spiked chain? Yes. Improved trip? Yes. Power attack? Yes. Cleave/Great Cleave? Yes. Going shock-Trooper? Yes. Valorous Spiked Chain? Yes. Skill points in Jump? Yes. Wings give me dive attacks? Yes.
Basically? I've got 50 strength, A x4(or is it 5?) Damage Charge (Jump into flight, Dive.) with almost infinite trip attempts? Uhhh... yeah.
Then I was cruising, and saw a gem. Shield Sling.
I nearly wet myself in anticipation. I can't recall it now, but there's an MIC shield enchantment, that basically turns a shield into Captain America's Shield. Then I found Lion's Shield. I Drooled.
Basically, I have a new Idea for a guy, A shield slinging, surly fighter, who's entire purpose in life is just to kill the corruption (Which is neither good, evil, law, or chaos, and is a new type of 'moral' alignment that is counterposed by purity, weather good or evil.) And I just cant find any datas on how to build him into an effective arse-stomp-hole-maker. (I thought about lion's shield with returning, Which would be interesting, as it would basically be a ranged full attack that trips with every attack.) And Quick-draw with throwing hammers (Enchanted to act like Raptor Arrows.) With Brutal Throw and Weapon specs.
So. Now you know the situations.
Here's my question.
Given this environment, knowing that I'm one set of good rolls away from our party losing our cleric, for goodies, and knowing that it will leave our party without a healer, what would you do? Play the Captain Am-Rhael? or The Trip-cleave-charger of death?
PS. The Campaign ends up with a player sacrificing himself to get that selfsame cleric to the end of the final dungeon to throw him into the heart of the corruption and end it, allowing the universe to recover from the end-war.
So, Anyway. Tips, Advice?
The World Ended. Yes, all caps there, cuz it's the necessaries. When it did, I had some player characters there who saw the big bad guy do it. All the gods died. All that's left? One wasteland of a world with a single speck sized zone of life (That's mostly populated with deathless warriors and experts that just plain refused to die.) It's the last refuge of life. Epic level monsters dwell in forgetten cities and wonder the remaining planes freely, the upper planes got nuked, and the new gods made from the remains of the old are uncaring, calculating, distant, and general A-holes. From Orra, a lawful good clockwork dragon god of time and war, who generally seeks to just plain destroy the corrupted nasty crap the bbeg left over from dying, to Daeth, who is basically a huge tentacle monster of plagues rape and demons, the chaotic evil deity, This world just plain hit the suck hole.
Enter my players.
Bear in mind: This party Vaped a Ha-Naga in one round. At level 12. With Maximized hitpoints. I reinterate: This party of level 12 dudes KILLED AN EPIC CREATURE.
I have a rules lawyer of staggering awesomehood. (He's been playing longer than I've been alive.) He keeps me on track, but also respects that my rule 0 is RULE OF FUN/AWESOME!!! So he just plain enjoys himself. He's such a good player, that basically, he forced himself to make an unoptimized character.... And he still slaughters everything I throw at him. Awesomely. (I had to undo a house rule I loved because of his Psion. It makes sense for AOE spells to hurt monsters occupying more than one five foot square to be hit by every square of deathly hurt, if every square was filled with mooks, they would each be vaped. Seemed legit. Nope. Kineticist dragons breath = no more encounters. ever.) (This character also directly caused our party cleric (Played by me, as need dictated.) to drop to an epic level encounter at level 15.)
Then I have the character switcher. Every week, a new character concept. Every week, A new, compelling argument. Every week.... Guh. I love the guy to death. But his scout is flippin B-A. It runs at FIFTY-NINE MILES PER HOUR. He's also got mobility, and sexified armor, so... yeah. AoOs? Nawp. He did a Centaur monk once. It Flurried with a tree sized quarterstaff. I cried. It was beautiful. He had twinklehooves and Spidershoes (Horseshoes of spider climb. He wrote down spidershoes. It was hilarious.) Now? He wants to run a Summoner Ace. Crap. More statblocks for me to draw up.
Then I have my friendly attention hog. He comes up with great, story driven, and compelling ideas. I reward that, because the story is important. So, I give him things. Nothing O-P, I stress this. I Balance and balance and BALANCE his stuff. He's not OP, by any means. I like him. He can still put out over 100 damage a round without breaking a sweat, but I still uberbalance all his stuff. He still hasn't got to use his Prestige class (Found it on D&D Wiki, Arcane Warrior, He was psyched, so I said yes. He's loving it.) Abilities much, but when he does? GG Batman wizard.
Then there's my character. A thousand years of death and near death and deathlessness tends to breed some very smart guys who figured out how to kill stuff at a range. So, I introduced magitech to the campaign. My players basically demanded the cleric I run be more uh... bad-a. so? Dual Magitech Revolver Wielding Cleric Drow. I hit like a truck, permabuff, aaaaaaannnnd then got one shot by a lavawight. Anti-climactic, right?
Kind of. THe rules lawyer (Using his psion.) pulled some... very, very interesting shenanegains. (I Ruled that if sound is an element, then so is acid. Yeaaahhhh. First time playing the game, and i'm the dang DM.) He had used Schism last round on a contringency Temporal Accelration. Yeah. That was naaaasty. Then? He pulls some crap that I just... I had to allow on factor of awesome.
It goes like this... Temporal Acceleration twice(One from each mind.) = 4 powers.
TA 4 times = 16 powers.
Kinecticist breath = 16 acid dragon breaths at 15d6.
= 906 damage, dead lavawight.
Something like 2 or 3 hundred power points burnt. Yeah. Soiled my nickers. (Though, to be fair, story wise, His psion enjoyed mind-crewing my cleric (Childhood friends, and hopelessly unable to be romantic. Was hilarious.) and was uberpissed Finn died.)
After this, my Psion playing rules lawyer decided to nerf himself by going half-pyroclastic dragon Harsif with levels in monk to dervish and monkey-grip. Didn't optimize for kill speed. Is now effectively unkillable. (He has a 41 touch AC.) Can't hit in melee for anything, but, uh, Yeah. Breath is death. Pyroclastic clouds.
Well, Ressurection is gone in this campaign (Because I hate the rules.) And if you die once, you get one more chance as a deathless. Fun Flavor.
Now? I have to roll up a backup character.
So, what am I to do? I don't like spell-casting myself, so, I decide to roll up a tanky fighter type. I do some research. Looks like a spiked chain tripper will do...
And then my min-max player side kicks in, and I begin to OPTIMIZE.
Half-Bronze Dragon Dragonborn (Wings Aspect) Water Orc.
It's +12 Str, +6 Con, and +2 dex for -2 charisma and 3 LA, which has been bought off almost completely at this point.
Then I min-max further. Ape Totem Barbarian 1, Wolf totem Barbarian 2, Spirit Lion Barbarian 3 (Because Pounce requires 3 levels of barbarian, l2read, yall.) Wildshape Ranger 1 (Regaining Fast Movement.) Wildshape Ranger 2, Horizon Walker. Spiked chain? Yes. Improved trip? Yes. Power attack? Yes. Cleave/Great Cleave? Yes. Going shock-Trooper? Yes. Valorous Spiked Chain? Yes. Skill points in Jump? Yes. Wings give me dive attacks? Yes.
Basically? I've got 50 strength, A x4(or is it 5?) Damage Charge (Jump into flight, Dive.) with almost infinite trip attempts? Uhhh... yeah.
Then I was cruising, and saw a gem. Shield Sling.
I nearly wet myself in anticipation. I can't recall it now, but there's an MIC shield enchantment, that basically turns a shield into Captain America's Shield. Then I found Lion's Shield. I Drooled.
Basically, I have a new Idea for a guy, A shield slinging, surly fighter, who's entire purpose in life is just to kill the corruption (Which is neither good, evil, law, or chaos, and is a new type of 'moral' alignment that is counterposed by purity, weather good or evil.) And I just cant find any datas on how to build him into an effective arse-stomp-hole-maker. (I thought about lion's shield with returning, Which would be interesting, as it would basically be a ranged full attack that trips with every attack.) And Quick-draw with throwing hammers (Enchanted to act like Raptor Arrows.) With Brutal Throw and Weapon specs.
So. Now you know the situations.
Here's my question.
Given this environment, knowing that I'm one set of good rolls away from our party losing our cleric, for goodies, and knowing that it will leave our party without a healer, what would you do? Play the Captain Am-Rhael? or The Trip-cleave-charger of death?
PS. The Campaign ends up with a player sacrificing himself to get that selfsame cleric to the end of the final dungeon to throw him into the heart of the corruption and end it, allowing the universe to recover from the end-war.
So, Anyway. Tips, Advice?