High Powered Gestalt Rise of the Runelords

[CGNefarious]

So in a couple weeks I will be running a relatively high powered Rise of the Runelords campaign. The group is gestalt, with the only stipulation being that if one side of your PC has 9th level casting, the other side can only have 4th, and that no dual progression PrCs can be taken. They were given the choice of a stat array (18, 17, 16, 16, 14, 12) or rolling 4d6 drop the lowest rerolling 1s and 2s, have double max hitpoints at first level, and start with 500gp. Right now the players are talking about making a Summoner//Cavalier, an Oracle//Paladin, and a Druid//Summoner (with Summoner casting reduced to Ranger progression). In June a fourth player is joining and is talking about a Warder//Psion.

I've already decided that I'm going to rebuild all the "bosses" using the same character creation method that the players had. The question I have is what I should do for the mobs, like the goblins you fight during the Swallowtail Festival. I don't want to make every battle as difficult as the boss battles, because what is the point of a high powered campaign like this if you don't feel high powered? But I also don't want most of the battles to be so easy that they are boring. Currently I'm thinking of giving the mobs max hp and +1 to attack and AC.

Would this be enough? Would it be too much? Should I even do anything at all?

[Vhaidara]

As someone who is just finishing up Burnt Offerings under a high power gestalt ruleset (27 point buy, Spheres of Power/DSP, 5 players, plus giving people fun toys), you don't need to do anything.

The only fights I touched were the Quasit in the Cathedral, the trio of mercs at Thistletop (just conversion into PoW archetypes/spherecasting), and Nualia herself. Other than that, I just maxed HP on everything. My party has had its fair share of close calls, because dice are HELL at low levels. Like, the dice matter SO much more than what they can do at those levels.

They would have still lost 3 members if I didn't have a rule in place to protect characters except in the event of a wipe.

[Occasional Sage]

Since there's one encounter you ask about particularly, what about,

using the little terrorists to do more terrorizing? If goblins have taken hostages and a couple have held actions to CdG innocents while a couple others block the PCs, things get a lot more interesting than when I played through the scene.

[CGNefarious]

As someone who is just finishing up Burnt Offerings under a high power gestalt ruleset (27 point buy, Spheres of Power/DSP, 5 players, plus giving people fun toys), you don't need to do anything.

The only fights I touched were the Quasit in the Cathedral, the trio of mercs at Thistletop (just conversion into PoW archetypes/spherecasting), and Nualia herself. Other than that, I just maxed HP on everything. My party has had its fair share of close calls, because dice are HELL at low levels. Like, the dice matter SO much more than what they can do at those levels.

They would have still lost 3 members if I didn't have a rule in place to protect characters except in the event of a wipe.

I'll take your advice then and not do anything to the standard mobs.


Since there's one encounter you ask about particularly, what about,

using the little terrorists to do more terrorizing? If goblins have taken hostages and a couple have held actions to CdG innocents while a couple others block the PCs, things get a lot more interesting than when I played through the scene.

That's actually a pretty interesting idea. I may make use of that.

Right now, up until the end of the first book, these are the characters I'm planning on rebuilding.

Tsuto as a Monk//Slayer using Broken Blade and Steel Serpent.
Three armed goblin in the Catacombs of Wrath, though probably not as a gestalt. A friend of mine is doing this one and is looking at a Brawler I believe.
The aforementioned Quasit as a Witch//Harbinger that focuses on Cursed Razor and Shattered Mirror.
Grogmurt (Goblin Druid), probably just rebuilding as a single class Druid.
Warchief Ripnugget as a Warlord//Cavalier (also being built by my friend) focusing on Golden Lion and Scarlet Throne.
Nualia's henchmen but probably as single classes and some Path of War upgrades where appropriate.
Nualia, but I'm still debating on direction. I am currently thinking Abyssal Bloodrager//Zweihander Sentinel Warder with a focus on Black Seraph and some other discipline. I haven't put that much thought into it yet. Maybe I should stick to the Cleric aspect or even go Antipaladin. I don't know.

Actually, now that I think about it, Fiendbound Marauder might work pretty well for her, if I fluff the fiend's grip as her demonic hand. I'll have to look into that.

Part of me fears that this is going to be a bit too much, but these players are pretty competent and almost always find a way to get through a challenge. And I do want it to be challenging for them. Just not impossible.

The other concern I have is how much extra work this makes for me. It takes quite a bit of time to rebuild characters like this, and it will only get worse at higher levels.

[Nibbens]

Advanced templates are always useful, and pretty easy to add on the fly as well. Maybe adding those to the trash mobs will make things more scaleable.

[Vhaidara]

My advice

DO NOT UPGRADE THE GOBLIN CHIEF.

He's a mounted combatant. He will have the ability to do insane amounts of damage, so long as he gets a charge in. That's how my group almost lost a member.

As far as how I rebuilt
Quasit became an Incanter (Spheres' Build your own caster), with a focus on Conjuration (demon minion) and debuffing
Henchmen got their PoW archetypes/became an Incanter
Nualia became a Warlord//Incanter, focusing exclusively on buff spells. I expect at least one party member to get dropped here, since she had more than enough time and warning to throw down 9 buffs.

[Kymme]

Interesting suggestion:

You could try and rebuild Nualia as a Summoner/superfightyclass. Her eidolon could be the child she miscarried, morphed by Lamashtu into the SANDPOINT DEVIL! (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ltpf?Nualia-as-a-summoner#6)

[Nibbens]

Interesting suggestion:

You could try and rebuild Nualia as a Summoner/superfightyclass. Her eidolon could be the child she miscarried, morphed by Lamashtu into the SANDPOINT DEVIL! (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ltpf?Nualia-as-a-summoner#6)

... This is horrendous. lol.

[CGNefarious]

Interesting suggestion:

You could try and rebuild Nualia as a Summoner/superfightyclass. Her eidolon could be the child she miscarried, morphed by Lamashtu into the SANDPOINT DEVIL! (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ltpf?Nualia-as-a-summoner#6)

I'm... not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that. But

Gestalting her with summoner seems particularly mean. I'm trying to challenge the party, not TPK them.

And on Ripnugget, the party I ran through this with earlier this year (who were not gestalt but dont play any more) defeated the scenario pretty handily. One well placed color spray got rid of the mount and half the mobs. Maybe I just suck at mounted combat, but the room they fight in isn't super accommodating towards a mounted charge build. If the party is to die, I'm assuming it'll be at Tsuto or Nualia. Maybe the Quasit, though they should have enough spellcasting to help them deal with her particular difficulties.

[Kymme]

... This is horrendous. lol.


I'm... not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.

It was just a suggestion, feel free to burn it with fire or something. I'm well aware of how morbid and disturbing the idea is but in all honestly, RotRL is a horror campaign. Might as well introduce them to the terror early, and often.

[CGNefarious]

I get it. I generally go pretty dark when I run it (this will be my third attempt), but I'm not sure if that's more disturbing or ridiculous. Reminds me of abortion clinic in South Park Stick of Truth. I don't know if I could pull that off while maintaining a serious tone.

Speaking of dark, I really like the goblin in the closet scene. There is much that can be done with it, I'm almost surprised they put it in a published adventure. I guess Paizo isn't afraid to go dark either.

[CGNefarious]

We are about to start book 2 this Sunday and I figured I'd just update this thread than clutter the forums with a new one. So I'm rebuilding several of the enemies they will fight, since it was so successful for book one, and I'm kind of stuck on what to do build wise.

So far I've got this.


Grayst Sevilla Barbarian 4
The Skinsaw Man Harbinger//Barbarian (Lords of the Night Undead Archetype) 7
Justice Ironbriar Cleric//Stalker (Soul Hunter) 8?


I'm not sure if I'm sticking with that for Ironbriar, and I'm considering possibly leaving Xanesha as a straight Rogue, but unchaining her and possible gestalting with another class. I'm not sure how hard the fight is normally though. I also want to revamp the Skinsaw Cultists, because they seem super weak in their current state. Especially compared to my overpowered players. I just have no idea what to do with them. Part of my wants to make them Brutal Slayer Stalkers, mainly because I really want to try the archetype, and then gestalting them with 3 or 4 different classes so there is some variety. Maybe Bloodrager, or Cleric, or Rogue, or Harbinger. I'm really unsure and just throwing out ideas at this point. It'll be a while before we get to them, so there's no rush, but I always like to prepare things far in advance.

So what do you guys think about the classes I've chosen? And do you have any suggestions on builds for Xanesha or the Cultists?

[Kymme]

Skinsaw Cultists work FANTASTIC as Inquisitors, as it improves both their hit die, attack bonus, and fuses skillful combat and divine casting together into a workable whole.

BTW, make sure to milk Xanesha's mask for all it is worth. Turning people to stone is hilarious. In my RotRL game the party's Psion got medusa'd, but just so happened to have a shield other type deal with the main DPR (Broken Blade+Everything that makes unarmed strike damage go up makes me weep) and just barely managed to keep her alive as an inert stone statue.

I also redid Alden as a Dullahan (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/dullahan) with rogue levels. The fight was absolutely brutal.

[CGNefarious]

Inquisitors. I can dig that. Probably Gestalt with Stalker since they're Wisdom based. Great idea.

I'm away from my book right now, but I'll look into the mask when I get the chance. How difficult is that fight by default? I'm thinking of bumping her up to a third level Rogue (or maybe Stalker, since I seem to be obsessed with DSP) but I don't want to auto TPK my party. They're very strong, but they did struggle a bit against my revamped Nualia and flailed fruitlessly against Erylium for a while.