So things got a little broken...

[Namedoesntfi]

As the title suggests, my party is in some deep trouble right now. In an interesting and unfortunate turn of events, the party has split into two factions - one who sided with a lich, and about 4 others who sided with a celestial (and one undecided as of the end of the last session) and all hell has broken loose. Now this normally wouldn't be a problem - the side with more people kills the measely one opposing player (it sucks, but what are you gonna do?), but the catch is that the four of us who sided with the celestials are a few level 9-11s, and the one who sided with the lich and tried to kill us is what is effectively an ECL 20 vampire cleric. She just came insanely close to insta-killing two of us (our bard took over 200 damage and was resurrected by the celestial while I, a wizard, managed to barely survive with 2 hp by slapping down a wall and some will saves) with two spells. I now have a spectral knight that moves 120 ft/round and deals 1d8+1 force damage/3 CLs chasing me down as a were-tiger carries me to safety at 40 ft/round (or tries to). If the knight can't immediately find me, she'll scry me and use reveal the way to finish me off (I've known the cleric for a long time, so the will DC against the scry is like ~30). My question is, and pardon my french, how in the flying hell do we deal with this? The cleric can instantly kill most, if not all, of our party and an epic celestial with one chained spell while I'm probably the only one who can barely even scratch her through her DR with force spells (her HD are insane). I'm at a complete loss.

Edited it so that it said ECL, not just level. Whoopsies.

[Thealtruistorc]

Now this normally wouldn't be a problem - the side with more people kills the measely one opposing player (it sucks, but what are you gonna do?), but the catch is that the four of us who sided with the celestials are a few level 9-11s, and the one who sided with the lich and tried to kill us is what is effectively a level 20 vampire cleric. She just came insanely close to insta-killing two of us (our bard took over 200 damage and was resurrected by the celestial while I, a wizard, managed to barely survive with 2 hp by slapping down a wall and some will saves) with two spells.

How on earth did it wind up like this? One ECL 28 character and 4 9-11 chars is crazy no matter how you slice it.

Also, what cleric build nets that sort of damage?

[Doctor Awkward]

I'd need some more details before I could offer help.

What, specifically is the celestial? Is it a specific monster (solar/planetar/astral deva)? Or is it something with the Celestial template.

If it is a Solar, one option is to have it simply cast Miracle to extricate the party from the current situation. It's a little over the top but there isn't much another cleric could do to prevent it.

What level is the rest of the party, and what are their classes?

As an 11th level wizard you have no real hope of defeating a 20th level cleric in combat. The vampire part is largely irrelevant, as the celestial could possibly just cast Mass Death Ward, and Protection from Evil will hedge out the Dominating Gaze.
If hiding is your only concern, you can ask the celestial to (hopefully) cast mind blank. You can try nondetection, but the caster level check is probably trivial.
When you do get somewhere safe, Private Sanctum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesPrivateSanctum.htm) will keep you hidden from scrying for a full 24 hours.

[Toilet Cobra]

The dm should retire the vampire cleric psycho and make him the new archvillain npc. The rest of the campaign will be spent trying to defeat him, as he naturally usurps and destroys the lich after he gets bored playing the henchman role.

[jaydubs]

Now this normally wouldn't be a problem - the side with more people kills the measely one opposing player (it sucks, but what are you gonna do?), but the catch is that the four of us who sided with the celestials are a few level 9-11s, and the one who sided with the lich and tried to kill us is what is effectively a level 20 vampire cleric.

...

My question is, and pardon my french, how in the flying hell do we deal with this? The cleric can instantly kill most, if not all, of our party and an epic celestial with one chained spell while I'm probably the only one who can barely even scratch her through her DR with force spells (her HD are insane). I'm at a complete loss.

My answer to both questions - avoid games that are heavy into PvP, as well as games that include massive differences in level between players. (I kid, I kid! Play whatever you like!) :smalltongue:

On a more serious note, I'm quite curious as to how sessions work, as well as what lead to the situation of having 1 player at level 20, and the others at level 9-11. It's not one of those dreaded "DM gave girlfriend a super-powerful vampire character" situations, is it?

[Namedoesntfi]

I'd need some more details before I could offer help.

What, specifically is the celestial? Is it a specific monster (solar/planetar/astral deva)? Or is it something with the Celestial template.

If it is a Solar, one option is to have it simply cast Miracle to extricate the party from the current situation. It's a little over the top but there isn't much another cleric could do to prevent it.

What level is the rest of the party, and what are their classes?

As an 11th level wizard you have no real hope of defeating a 20th level cleric in combat. The vampire part is largely irrelevant, as the celestial could possibly just cast Mass Death Ward, and Protection from Evil will hedge out the Dominating Gaze.
If hiding is your only concern, you can ask the celestial to (hopefully) cast mind blank. You can try nondetection, but the caster level check is probably trivial.
When you do get somewhere safe, Private Sanctum (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesPrivateSanctum.htm) will keep you hidden from scrying for a full 24 hours.

So the celestial is an epic PC from a previous game in the same world. I'm sketchy on the exact details but I believe he is a scaled-up epic druid with the celestial template thrown on. As for the rest of the party, we have a Bard, myself, a were-tiger (unknown class as of now but probably some kind of fighter/melee combatant), a Whisper Gnome rogue, and a psionic who is undecided as to who to join. Those of us against the vampire are all about ECL 9-11, possibly all 11 (we did some exp redistribution a while ago to catch up people who were sorely lagging behind for one reason or another). Additionally, asking the celestial for mind blank is out of the question (the were saw me almost go down and just grabbed me and booked it) and I don't have private sanctum learned.

Also, I misspoke. The vampire's ECL is 20 (or 21, I don't have the sheets in front of me), not CL.

[Namedoesntfi]

My answer to both questions - avoid games that are heavy into PvP, as well as games that include massive differences in level between players. (I kid, I kid! Play whatever you like!) :smalltongue:

On a more serious note, I'm quite curious as to how sessions work, as well as what lead to the situation of having 1 player at level 20, and the others at level 9-11. It's not one of those dreaded "DM gave girlfriend a super-powerful vampire character" situations, is it?

I don't think it was intentional even though the vampire is the DM's son - the DM is fairly new (I think) and the son just knows how to min/max his class and knows the rules very well (much better than the DM), and he is using that to his advantage to avoid nerfing. As I said in another post, I misspoke about the level, the cleric's ECL (not CL) is about 20-21 after the level adjustment from being a vampire. She was, however, way ahead of us before a bit of exp fudging due to a few high level encounters that none of us were there for/survived.

[Namedoesntfi]

How on earth did it wind up like this? One ECL 28 character and 4 9-11 chars is crazy no matter how you slice it.

Also, what cleric build nets that sort of damage?

Sorry, the ECL is 20 or 21 (can't remember exactly), but we did only catch up to the cleric because of some DM-approved number fudging (I elaborated in another reply). I don't know the cleric build aside from that she's a hunger domain cleric who can chain some ridiculous inflict wound spells. Your guess is as good as mine as to how that much damage was dealt, I was skyping in so I couldn't see the actual rolls and it was difficult to hear what was happening aside from us getting our butts handed to us.

The cleric got way ahead because of a few encounters that none of us survived/were present for (an iron golem and powerleveling in the shadow plane) and was still ahead after fudging.

[Doctor Awkward]

Oh, that's much better.

An ECL 20 Vampire cleric would be a 12th level cleric.
Nondetection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) will probably keep you safe, as the cleric would have to roll a 14 or higher to find you.
EDIT: And then you still get to save against scrying after that. A 20 auto-succeeds.
You don't actually have to know any of these spells. Just teleport back to town, find a shop that sells wizard scrolls, purchase them quickly (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0976.html), and cast either of them directly from the scroll.

If you don't have teleport prepared, well, it was probably time to reroll anyway. :smalltongue:

Is there a reason the epic druid doesn't stomp the vampire into the dirt? They don't really like undead. At all.

[Thealtruistorc]

So the celestial is an epic PC from a previous game in the same world. I'm sketchy on the exact details but I believe he is a scaled-up epic druid with the celestial template thrown on.

Also, I misspoke. The vampire's ECL is 20 (or 21, I don't have the sheets in front of me), not CL.

This makes things so much easier to handle.

ALRIGHT BOYS, LET'S BREAK AN EPIC DRUID!

[IZ42]

This makes things so much easier to handle.

ALRIGHT BOYS, LET'S BREAK AN EPIC DRUID Moar!

FTFY. In all seriousness though, why has this druid not face smashed the puny cleric yet? It should be easier than clipping their nails at this point.

[Namedoesntfi]

Oh, that's much better.

An ECL 20 Vampire cleric would be a 12th level cleric.
Nondetection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) will probably keep you safe, as the cleric would have to roll a 14 or higher to find you.
EDIT: And then you still get to save against scrying after that. A 20 auto-succeeds.
You don't actually have to know any of these spells. Just teleport back to town, find a shop that sells wizard scrolls, purchase them quickly (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0976.html), and cast either of them directly from the scroll.

If you don't have teleport prepared, well, it was probably time to reroll anyway. :smalltongue:

Is there a reason the epic druid doesn't stomp the vampire into the dirt? They don't really like undead. At all.

Probably just that the druid has to protect all four of us as we scatter like headless chickens, and the DM at least wants the vampire to have a chance (Ha). I think the introduction of the druid was a spur of the moment deus-ex-machina to prevent a TPK. The vampire ran away for now, so we only have to deal with the minion chasing me down...

[atemu1234]

This makes things so much easier to handle.

ALRIGHT BOYS, LET'S BREAK AN EPIC DRUID!

Heck, no breaking necessary. Wild shapshape into a spellcasting T. Rex.

[aspekt]

I don't think it was intentional even though the vampire is the DM's son

Ya...you're done with this game.

1. You're skyping so there's a whole layer of separation from consequences for the DM and the son.

2. It's his son. His. Son. If he's new he's probly just trying to connect with his kid. Trust me if he doesn't know you personally you will always be on the short end of the stick here. Even if it's just unconscious. I mean did you know that powerful templates like vampire were even available at character creation? And if not, why not?

I'm not saying he's a bad guy but these kinds of social situations are always awkward at best in navigating them.

If you want to stay then you should find some way to get use of that Epic Druid Solar, or whatever it is.

If you enjoy the challenge then take the advice given above to heart and start finding imaginative ways of putting it into practice.

[Namedoesntfi]

So a little follow-up on this, the trail of brokeness continues and it seems like the campaign is a bust since these new revelations are probably going to cause players to walk from the table (including myself). The DM allowed flaws, and the cleric took a flaw called vow of silence yet can still cast spells and speak thru illusions and yet rules-lawyers everyone else's flaws to a T. The cleric also appears to have been casting spells not available to a pure 3.5e cleric without us knowing (because we don't know the spell lists for classes that aren't our own that well) - these spells were homebrew while no one else was allowed to use homebrew classes/spells/feats/etc without first declaring them as homebrew and being heartily nerfed.

So it looks like this is a huge campaign breaker and we can't just retcon 90% of the story. Thanks for the tips and help for those who did help though.

[Karl Aegis]

It's an undead cleric. Of course it's going to break a campaign. With just Haunt Shift it can become immune to being targeted without someone taking 10 rounds to exorcise it (which a cleric will kill you before you can do that).

[Namedoesntfi]

It's an undead cleric. Of course it's going to break a campaign. With just Haunt Shift it can become immune to being targeted without someone taking 10 rounds to exorcise it (which a cleric will kill you before you can do that).

As terrifying as that seems at first, haunt shift can only affect creatures with up to 9 HD and this cleric exceeds that amount. You scared me for a minute there.