Effectiveness issues in my campaign

[Alberic Strein]

Hi, I've joined my first Pathfinder campaign not too long ago with this (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=214215) character, and have been having pretty consistent issues with him.

My roles are as follow:
First and foremost: Be the trapguy
Secondary but still appreciable: Deal damage.

Issues consist of, but are not limited to:
1)Consistently failing to meet the perception DC for traps
2)Consistently failing to meet the disable device DC for traps
3)Consistently going down. Seriously my team needs to get me back up every other round or something. My character cannot avoid a hit to save his life, literally.
4)Consistently failing to reach the enemy's AC
5)Consistently failing to deal meaningful damage. We're half a dozen sessions in and I have yet to drop anybody. That is, besides dropping one of my allies thanks to a spell from an enemy wizard.

The creation rules were quite in our favor, starting at level 3 with 3*maximum starting wealth, and many, many points for stats. I also stumbled upon a cursed book which had the beneficial effect of raising my dexterity and constitution by 2 each, plus a couple of feats (bonus feats are not exactly relevant and are unmarked on the sheet). We also stumbled upon a blacksmith who accepted to actually gift us masterwork weaponry (marked on sheet) as long as it's only made of metal.

While I'm at it describing the specificities of the campaign, the flow of time is screwed, so we can go for sessions without regenerating spells, or regenerate them all during a 15 minute rest.

Also, if you have any advice on taking on a sorcerer flinging two spells a turn, not triggering aoo when casting, teleporting as a free actions a few turns in a row before it goes on cooldown, having flinged two 6d6 fireballs and keeping at it without slowing down. Also, he steals half of our positive energy healing and an army of giant spiders is slowly amassing itself at the edge of the map.

I am also on fire.

Edit:

Bandit Lars[/URL]
Male Chaotic Neutral Human Stygian Slayer, Level 1, Init 5, HP 12/12, DR 0, Speed 30
AC 16, Touch 13, Flat-footed 13, CMD 18, Fort 4, Ref 5, Will 0, CMB +5, Base Attack Bonus 1
Greatsword +5 (2d6+6, 19/20 *2)
Shortspear (8) +5 (thrown: +4) (1d6+4, *2)
Dagger (3) +5 (thrown: +4) (1d4+4, 19/20 *2)
Masterwork Studded leather (+3 Armor, +3 Dex)
Abilities Str 18, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8
Feats/Special abilities : Power attack -1+2 / Furious focus : first attack: ignore power attack malus / Track (Ex) A slayer adds 1/2 his level (minimum 1) to Survival skill checks made to follow tracks. / Studied Target (Ex) : One opponent Slayer can see, Move action, +1 att, dmg, knowledge, bluff, perception sense motive and DC. / Slayer talent : Trapfinding :The slayer gains Disable Device as a class skill. The slayer also gains the trapfinding and trap sense rogue abilities, using his slayer level as his effective rogue level. / Trapfinding 1/2 level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). Can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps. / Trap Sense (Ex) +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps. These bonuses rise by 1 every 3 levels (+2 at level 6, +3 at lvl9, etc... +6 at level 18)Trap sense bonuses gained from multiple classes stack. / Sneak attack : 1d6 per 3levels, starting at level 3
Skills : Stealth (+10) / Perception (+6) / Knowledge (Dungeoneering) (+7) / Disable Device (+10) / Survival (+6) / Climb (+12) / Acrobatics (+10) / Intimidate (+6)
Notable possessions : Masterwork Thieves' Tools / MW Climbing kit
Traits : Viking Blood : +1 Intimidate
Battle Veteran (Gorum) : +1 Init, quick draw during the surprise round.
Armor Expert : -1 to Armor Check Penalty.
Flaws : Umbral Unmasking : Evil looking shadow Percep DC15 to notice
Condition None

[Elric VIII]

Well, the first red flag I see is a sorcerer fighting a level 3 party while doing level 10+ things. This is either a case of DM power-tripping or he just doesn't like you.

Is the DM just telling you that "you miss" or "you fail the check?" If he is, pay attention to what other players roll and see if they succeed with the same numbers that caused you to fail.

The character seems straightforward and built in a competent fashion. I don't personally like Furious Focus, but it is a valid feat choice.

[Mystral]

How are your rolls? If you fail to roll over 5, there's not a lot that can be done, except change to a buffing wizard or something.

If you roll well and never succeed, and everyone else does better, your DM propably hates you, and you should talk to him or leave the campaign.

[VexingFool]

Yeah it sounds like the DM is playing a little fast and loose with the rules and game balance.

Anyways like Elric said the character looks like it is fairly well built but I can give some suggestions. Also I can't see the Mythweavers sheet only what you posted and that seems to be a hybrid level-1 and level-3 sheet. You only have HP's, BAB and Saves for Lvl-1 but have Skills and class features of level-3. Also you seem to be missing a feat, you should have 3.

If you have a feat floating around or if your DM will allow you to rebuild a bit I would consider taking the Focused Study Alternate racial trait for human. Take perception as your first skill focus then take disable or possible intimidate if you are going for a cornugon smash type build at 8th level. Remember that skill focus in pathfinder goes from a +3 bonus to +6 when you have 10 ranks in a skill, so Focused study can give you +6 to 3 different skills for the cost of your bonus feat.

Another skill to consider would be combat reflexes and get yourself a reach weapon this will help to deal damage while its not your turn. Plus DM's tend to try not to trigger the AoO's so it acts as a bit of defense as well.

Your AC is a bit low for level-3 but there is not much you can do about it until you get access to better items. So try not to go out on your own and work in tandem with your group as much as possible. Get Flanking bonus's as much as you can. Don't forget to use your Studied Target. With flanking and studied target you should be at +10 to hit (+11 with a MW weapon). Pick up a composite Strength bow to use in those times when its too dangerous to get in close. You've got a good Strength and Dex so you should adopt a switch hitter type mentality.

Take 10 and Take 20. If you think know a trap is near Take 20. If you still miss the DC then there was no way you were going to find it anyways. If you locate a trap Take 10 to disable it and don't forget to add the bonus for your MW tools. You have a bonus of +12 to DD so if you take 10 that gives you a DC of 22. IF the DC is 23-26 you can retry because you only failed by 4 or less, so then you can try and roll if you want to chance it. If the DC was 27+ then you only had a 25% chance or less of disabling it on a roll and were probably going to spring it with a failed roll anyways.

On the fight with the Sorcerer maybe try to readied actions to disrupt his spellcasting. He may be able to ignore AoO but does he need to make concentration checks for taking damage? Probably best to use a ranged weapon for the ready action on the turns when his teleport is not on cooldown.

[marphod]

Don't forget you have an additional +3 from trapfinding and masterwork tools for your searches and disable checks.

if you are primarily a sneaky/skill guy, why an 18th strength? Some wisdom would help perception checks, some con would help keep you alive.

As you have Sneak Attack, you really should make sure you are flanking when you attack. So that's +2 to attack and +1d6 to damage.

Why Stygian Slayer? The gains seem worse than the losses. Invisibility once a day, a tiny spell list, and a mist form. Put ranks in UMD, get wands of Invisibility and Gaseous Form, and you are better off. Plus you can use a shield.

[Alberic Strein]

Thanks for the replies!

Is the DM just telling you that "you miss" or "you fail the check?" If he is, pay attention to what other players roll and see if they succeed with the same numbers that caused you to fail.
Nah, we really do roll the dice and I didn't notice any issue like those you cited. It's just that rolling less than in the 15s or upper 15s just doesn't cut it for pretty much any test. It's quite literally that his numbers are bigger than ours on a situation-by-situation basis.

The character seems straightforward and built in a competent fashion. I don't personally like Furious Focus, but it is a valid feat choice.

Well, thanks a lot! Knowing that it's not just that I failed at everything is quite a load off my back honestly.


How are your rolls? If you fail to roll over 5, there's not a lot that can be done, except change to a buffing wizard or something.
Well, as the team is fond of saying "if it's for my sake I will roll horribly, if it's to help/save an ally, I'll roll extremely well." We're rolling dice with roll20 and god does their rng hate me. The issue, or what's more of an issue anyway, is twofold. First, our GM kinda has a tendency to mitigate our extremely good rolls, while letting us fail spectacularly when getting bad rolls. I haven't seen this behaviour last game, so he may be trying to correct himself. He is not a bad guy. Secondly, we can't afford to wait for me to get good rolls. Between chain lightining traps with four exit points, and rebounding lightning for more damage, sorcerers who destroy us with two spells a turn, and insta-kill monsters, my rolls which don't reach 15 have a tendency to prove themselves horribly lethal.

If you roll well and never succeed, and everyone else does better, your DM propably hates you, and you should talk to him or leave the campaign.
Now this is the tricky part. I know for a fact that he doesn't hate me, two groups are playing this campaign, he's got more than enough players, and he already kicked players from the other team. So if he had a grudge against me, well, I wouldn't be having any issues, would I? Kicked, banned, and free from all doubts considering my character building. However, it IS true that at least some of us are succeeding better than I am under his watch. Because they don't have to roll dice and are not bound by logic. As said precedently, our GM has (or had, hopefully) a tendency to mitigate successes from roll and from a logical standpoint. It doesn't matter that in Pathfinder a character that is not flanked has neither sides nor back, if I want to ready an action, I can't survey all around me, I need to pick one special direction my character is facing, and if we're not attacked from here, it's a wasted action. And this is but one example. Another would be that the masterwork weapon upgrade cost double for my greatsword, because it's heavy and metal. So mages, who don't have to roll dice, and who have set effects that cannot be limited by logic (It's magic, I don't have to explain ANYTHING!) have it better. Much, much better. But it's not singling me out personally.


Anyways like Elric said the character looks like it is fairly well built but I can give some suggestions. Also I can't see the Mythweavers sheet only what you posted and that seems to be a hybrid level-1 and level-3 sheet. You only have HP's, BAB and Saves for Lvl-1 but have Skills and class features of level-3. Also you seem to be missing a feat, you should have 3.
Thanks, and yeah, it's my fault. I whipped up the text-based character sheet real quick when I couldn't do a simple copy/paste, so it's not exactly correct, I got everything a level 3 is supposed to have, even if it's not showing.

If you have a feat floating around or if your DM will allow you to rebuild a bit I would consider taking the Focused Study Alternate racial trait for human. Take perception as your first skill focus then take disable or possible intimidate if you are going for a cornugon smash type build at 8th level. Remember that skill focus in pathfinder goes from a +3 bonus to +6 when you have 10 ranks in a skill, so Focused study can give you +6 to 3 different skills for the cost of your bonus feat.
Definitely going for Cornugon Smash, and definitively should have done that. A rebuild is unlikely, but hey, you never know. And if my character dying doesn't mean that I'm kicked out of the campaign, I'll be using it for the next one, thanks.

Another skill to consider would be combat reflexes and get yourself a reach weapon this will help to deal damage while its not your turn. Plus DM's tend to try not to trigger the AoO's so it acts as a bit of defense as well.
I... Honestly can't see that working with this DM. I think that in all the hours I played with him, the aoo's that I got can be counted on one hand Combat Reflexes is awesome for high-dex characters so I probably should strongly consider it though.

Your AC is a bit low for level-3 but there is not much you can do about it until you get access to better items. So try not to go out on your own and work in tandem with your group as much as possible. Get Flanking bonus's as much as you can. Don't forget to use your Studied Target. With flanking and studied target you should be at +10 to hit (+11 with a MW weapon). Pick up a composite Strength bow to use in those times when its too dangerous to get in close. You've got a good Strength and Dex so you should adopt a switch hitter type mentality.
Already bagged myself a Masterwork strength+4 composite longbow, but since we don't have access to wood, no arrows yet. I do have masterwork arrowheads though.
I am also guilty of forgetting my bonuses at least once (to my discharge, I was thrust into the sorcerer fight the instant I logged in, so I didn't have time to compose myself and remember all my bonuses, also, the situation was hell)

Take 10 and Take 20. If you think know a trap is near Take 20. If you still miss the DC then there was no way you were going to find it anyways. If you locate a trap Take 10 to disable it and don't forget to add the bonus for your MW tools. You have a bonus of +12 to DD so if you take 10 that gives you a DC of 22. IF the DC is 23-26 you can retry because you only failed by 4 or less, so then you can try and roll if you want to chance it. If the DC was 27+ then you only had a 25% chance or less of disabling it on a roll and were probably going to spring it with a failed roll anyways.
Will remember, and will try. I'm afraid logic will be my worst enemy there, though. But yeah, DCs in the mid twenties, that's what I usually have to beat.

I'll be doing the sorceror advice and the "GM on a frigging power trip" here, since they are recurent points.

Sorceror:
1)Disrupting his spellcasting is impossible. He is protected by a weapon that keeps fencing with us as he casts, so (as VexingFool noted) no aoo's ever. Also, since he teleports, and I'm the only one really dealing damage to him, I really can't afford to bet my attack as a readied action before we figured out his short range teleportation mechanic. It's a free action and doesn't trigger nothing, it may be a magical item, or some invisible enemy doing it for him, so it is entirely possible that my GM may have him teleport right in front of my readied attack without me doing anyting. He is on his last legs, but so are we, myself clocking in at 4hp, and at least once he had an immediate interrupt attack that almost dropped me, siphoned part of my hp, and would have canceled my attack if I had gone down. For ranged attacks, right now I only have my shortspears for that, and they would lower my odds to hit and damage, so if I can't get a charge I will, but that's a lot riskier, since we're all ready to drop at the top of a hat. And we can't heal, because he would siphon half of our healing. Silver lining, one of us got into a very good strategic positions and siphons half of his healing, including half of what he siphons out from our healings.
2)Sorceror being ungodly strong. Yes. Yes he is. I have no idea how we're supposed to drop him. The GM was expecting at least a few of us to die during the latest game night. But really, that's hardly surprising, looking at what else we had to deal with.

What I stupidly failed to pick up on as I subscribed to this campaign, was that while it was a Pathfinder game, it was mostly a "Stargate meets Elder Gods" adventure. We're looking for our lost king, an astronomer who wished to walk among the stars... And pretty much succeeded. Except that there are Elder Gods among the stars. This went really wrong really quick, and we are trapped here for a full month, with no (humane) way to replenish our food, and fighting horrors beyond comprehension.

During the very first game our kineticist (or something) saw something she shouldn't have, and is now possessed by a demon everytime she falls asleep, trying to kill us all by opening extremely deadly portals.

Speaking of which, our first fight was against plague zombies and demonic toilets (yeah... You don't want to know) which went fairly well, besides my character almost dropping because of enemy explosions. The fighting area was very narrow, so no tactics could be used.

The second one was against half-ogres women with little regard to our consent, all the frontliners had to deal with one on their own, and at least one non-frontliner had to too. Again, no way to set up a flanking attack without exposing the rest of the team. Also, they regenerated almost faster than I dealt damage. Cute. We managed to make them flee without taking one of us, the other group (from the US) wasn't so lucky. They eventually rescued their teammate, but way too late.

The third fight... Oh the third fight. It was beautiful, almost like poetry. There were two foes, one which got out of the mirrors in the room, did a driveby attack, and went back to the safety of mirrors at the end of his turn. It was against him that our GM decreed that readied attack could not encompass "any enemy entering my threatened area". Oh yeah, no aoo's either, as far as I remember. The second one was one giant butterfly, whose only attack was a flyby grapple to raise us up all the way to its nest to, ah, impregnate us. Bonus points, merely looking at it (to attack it) demanded a charisma-based willpower saving throw of at least 16+. So yeah, no way in hell I could attack it. Luckily the chain lightning trap was here to eventually give me some things to do, after dropping me. And then I got dropped again by another trap that I failed to disarm, and then I was almost finished off by a spell from one of my companions, which promptly one-shotted the mirrorshadesomething who also, I forgot to add, had displacement/mirror image (one of the two, or both, I think it was mirror image), which cancelled even confirmed critical hits. This is the one game that first gave me the idea to start this thread.

The fourth, mister sorceror, was triggered by our members stealing his sandwich. Which prompted the onslaught of fireballs, agony spells, teleports, and such, and such...

So yeah, if I can't very reliably hit the 20+, I'm not succeeding at anything, detecting/disarming traps, overcoming the sorceror's AC, or meaningfully damaging the half-ogres. Meaning that yes, the GM may be on a powertrip.

But I think it's more that he is uncomfortable with the system (his first pathfinder campaign, I reckon) and unused to GMing for players who are not his longtime friends. Which very closely led me to quitting the campaign a few games back, when stumbling upon a treasure room with an eerie feeling and filled TO THE BRIM with magical items and supplies, my first words were "Let's not take anything from here" and when everyone else started to look for things, I half-jokingly asked if there was a "magical book of erotic poetry in skald" since it was in character. Visibly, asking this question meant "I look for the book, find the book, open the book, start reading the book, get cursed, and start turning into a woman".

I took it... Badly, but accepted it, after all, this was in bad taste, I strongly disliked it, and it wasn't fun. The GM then proceeded to reassure me: It wasn't fun. To me. The rest of them found it hilarious.

He, of course, didn't think anything ill by it. He was just... Treading new waters.

I can definitely see him having GM'd freeform before this, which would explain a lot, including his being "a little fast and loose with the rules and game balance" both to screw us over, and when giving boons to us. Seriously, a +4 raise in ability scores and two feats from reading one book? Of erotic poetry?

Edit:

Don't forget you have an additional +3 from trapfinding and masterwork tools for your searches and disable checks.
I'm positive I'll never ever manage to have my GM accept the +2 from MW tools to the perception test to detect traps. For the rest, will do. Actually, the one ability I tend to forget is trapsense, I usually take good care to keep my disable device updated.

if you are primarily a sneaky/skill guy, why an 18th strength? Some wisdom would help perception checks, some con would help keep you alive.
It has to do with how the character was created. As we built up our group, we had a perception expert, so there was less impetus for me to invest enormously into that skill, and since we were supposed to start at level 1 (the GM actually raised the starting level of the campaign when he saw me and another player ripping out our hair to cram as many skills that the party would need as possible) I didn't have trapfinding yet when I did my ability scores, so my main contribution (at that time) was damage, damage, damage, hence a very damage oriented build with highish strength, and three combat feats. Also, it makes more sense to me. The slayer class seems to be built around damage, starting with an overpowering charge adding both sneak attack and studied target, and then following up with a full attack starting next turn, hopefully at a high initiative and with a flanking bonus, taking down, or at least shutting down a dangerous target and thus indirectly mitigating the damage the group would take; So I tried maximizing that part as much as possible. Objectiviley, 3 to 6 more HP wouldn't have changed a lot during the encounters I played, and settling for a lowish strength in exchange for a better wisdom would have definitely been useful, but would have locked me into the "trapguy" role even in combat and even where there are no traps around, making me unable to contribute meaningfully in combat. Since combat takes a long-ass time to get resolved, I wanted to avoid that. Lastly, a lowish strength would have locked me into a ranged character role, since 18 dex and 14 str lend themselves more easily to archery, and I couldn't have that. Out of 6 players, we were, me comprised, only 2 frontliners, so I really needed to be able to contribute in melee. This has now changed, however.

As you have Sneak Attack, you really should make sure you are flanking when you attack. So that's +2 to attack and +1d6 to damage.
Yeah, I really have to invest the time to do that, but we couldn't in our previous fights, and now it's a bit difficult. We got a 3rd frontliner, but the other frontliner beside me started being less able to attend games, so unless we got a surprise round (we NEVER get a surprise round) or there is but one enemy we can focus upon (very circumstantial, but actually the case right now) I just can't sneak attack.

Why Stygian Slayer? The gains seem worse than the losses. Invisibility once a day, a tiny spell list, and a mist form. Put ranks in UMD, get wands of Invisibility and Gaseous Form, and you are better off. Plus you can use a shield.
Well, it was cool. It was also a nice combination with my not-quite-human character and really inspired me to create the background. More mechanically, I wanted a guy with a two-handed sword, so the loss of the shield didn't hurt me. I was also supposed to be the scout (too bad there is no scouting to be done where we are) so a malus to sneaking was inconceivable. Which meant the loss of medium armor proficiency didn't hurt me either, and I'll still be able to get a mithril breastplate later on, which should suit my needs fully. So I traded things I didn't really care about, for some flavorful options which I find extremely interesting. Also, that spell list frees me the need to invest in UMD which, looking at just how many skills I already need to field, was quite a boon.

[Geddy2112]

mitigate our extremely good rolls, while letting us fail spectacularly when getting bad rolls. He is not a bad guy.

However, it IS true that at least some of us are succeeding better than I am under his watch. Because they don't have to roll dice and are not bound by logic. As said precedently, our GM has (or had, hopefully) a tendency to mitigate successes from roll and from a logical standpoint. It doesn't matter that in Pathfinder a character that is not flanked has neither sides nor back, if I want to ready an action, I can't survey all around me, I need to pick one special direction my character is facing, and if we're not attacked from here, it's a wasted action. And this is but one example. Another would be that the masterwork weapon upgrade cost double for my greatsword, because it's heavy and metal. So mages, who don't have to roll dice, and who have set effects that cannot be limited by logic (It's magic, I don't have to explain ANYTHING!) have it better. Much, much better. But it's not singling me out personally.


I... Honestly can't see that working with this DM. I think that in all the hours I played with him, the aoo's that I got can be counted on one hand Combat Reflexes is awesome for high-dex characters so I probably should strongly consider it though.
. I'm afraid logic will be my worst enemy there, though. But yeah, DCs in the mid twenties, that's what I usually have to beat.
Yeah, I am certain your DM is playing fast and loose with the rules and is not even trying to be balancing. Having a tough DM is one thing, if it is also fair, but this is just murderously difficult with little chance to win. Killer DM's are one thing, but the killer DM's I have had were pretty by the book. The ad-hoc when the party gets spells back is pretty BS, as you have no ability to plan on rests. The whole "its realistic and logical" is at best just terrible to break game balance, at worse, it is a thin veil for the DM to be a jerk.

As others have stated, your build is fairly solid. Its not god tier optimized through the roof, but it should be viable, particularly at lower levels when melee is more effective than magic. Your AC is low, but it is not THAT low. I would probably stick to switch hitting by throwing spears and staying back, getting up close with the greatsword. Also, with attack modifiers like that you should be hitting at least half the time unless you are just rolling utter garbage.

Also, you are not fighting a sorcerer, you are fighting an arcanist. They have an exploit that allows 10ft of teleportation as a free action, but it does use points that are not unlimited. They can eat spell slots to get these points back, but still not unlimited. The spell the arcanist is using to not provoke AoO's is warding weapon, a 2nd level slot. The only way I know to steal healing at this level is healing theif, a 3rd level spell that requires a touch attack, lasts 1/rnd per level and only works on one person per casting. So unless an invisible familiar touched all of you without you knowing that is straight broken. Based on the fireball, it is a level 6 arcanist. For a 4 man party of 3 this is a pretty tough fight. Having a quickened fireball at this level is not possible as far as I know, so that is probably a fast and loose thing(not that that is inherently wrong). An arcanist should also only have 2 3rd level slots+bonus from intelligence,so unless they are packing scrolls they will run out soon. If they are casting 2 spells a turn on the reg this pushes into some seriously high level play. You are probably screwed, and your character is not ineffective because you are playing badly. You are in a high mortality game, and if elder gods are involved you are basically going into Call of Cthulhu levels of PC death.

However, none of what I said above is the real issue. The issue is that the DM is a jerk on a power trip making the game unfun. DM forcing your character to undergo a magical sex change, particularly when you openly expressed how this was unfun. DM seems to get some sick jollies from screwing with the players and their characters. Being killed by powerful beings is one thing. Having rules be ad-hoc thrown to the wayside to mechanically screw over players is one thing. Being impregnated by magic butterflies, forced sex changes, demonic toilets, no way to eat without going full Donner Party or murderhobo,female half-ogres that don't care about consent(I assume consent in this case means sexual)? That is where it goes straight to hell. Your DM is running F.A.T.A.L.; get out while you still can.

[Alberic Strein]

Nah, Geddy, you're overreact-
...
...
This is awesome.

No really, this is impressive how the GM managed to pull that one over us without us even noticing.
Anyway, after today's game, I decided to stay in the campaign. Sure it's fatal in all but name (and horribly contrived mathematics) but I want to see where this trainwreck will go.

Also, the GM displayed something really nice this game: His willingness to let us play with his toys. Basically his arcanist something was so damn ungodly powerful because he was filled to the brim with completely overpowered magic items and because he was in a room which could grant permanency to spells by walking through circles (which also unfortunately summoned an army of spiders). And through wading in the circles, we got those abilities too. Right now my character has at will invisibility, death knell, and TRUE STRIKE. How awesome is that? Our Oracle got the best out of it and gives haste in a 20ft radius, steals half of healing done in his presence, no need to do a touch attack like it should, augury, and +4 to charisma.

Anyway, time for some updates on our affairs.
Well, it started horribly, with the drow arcanist teleporting something like 4 times in a row in a single turn, going through three of the permanency circles and getting three free permanent spells before finishing down one of our downed allies. Yet, I finally got my first kill! Luckily, the arcanist didn't target me, so I was able to whittle away at his HP until he finally went down. Only to reappear 2 minutes later, naked, as a halfling and not a drow, before getting quickly slaughtered once more. As it turns out, without his dimension boots, and his permanent warding weapon, destroying us through spells was slightly more difficult. We scrammed through a portal before he came back, unable to steal more than his boots (his robes were cursed and we didn't have enough time to deal with them). We arrived in a room with a giant dragon heart. There were two exits, one labelled "labyrinth" and the other shining with direct, real, sunlight. Augury noted that attacking the heart would be both extremely beneficial and extremely bad for us. We decided to evacuate the room through the portal shining with sunlight, taking the corpses of our friends with us, and as the last one in the room, I would try to destroy the still beating heart. The Oracle was the last to leave before me and Augury warned him too late that leaving through here would be terribad. We had to go through here in order not to split the party. So he did, and I tried to destroy the heart. My strike barely scratched it and it summoned two vipers and a wolf to defend itself, the vipers got a hit in each, I failed my fortitude save, and would have died of consitution damage if I hadn't immediately called it quits, tumbled through their threatened spaces (the wolf still getting an attack, but I only rolled a total of 16, so it was actually quite nice of our GM) and went through the portal.

And just like that, we got home. I got fixed, appointed a knight, the Oracle was made lord of someplace (we erneastly competed with a dice roll, he won) and I will have the freedom to get rid of the boobs through a remove curse spell and some other idiotic thing that I don't even care to remember. Basically, the cursed, me and another, will have less money than the rest and that's it.
Which gives me a new issue: We got enough exp to raise ourselves to level 8, 9 after the next game, and we have the time to fully retrain ourselves. I also got 10 000GP to spend on gear.

Also, the next dungeon is going to be 3 times (at best) or 5 times more difficult than this one.

I'll try to see what I can come up with. Any idea?

More information on the party:
I am in a bit of a bastard role. I am the trap/scoutguy, but also the only one dealing some melee damage. I should be a support frontliner, but I am mainly a frontliner, in that last situation "the" frontliner even. So while I still need to do my scout/trapguy job properly, I also need to kick some serious ass in the combat compartment.

[noob]

You are playing a non T1 caster?
There is a cure you can do a full cleric and be a trap guy without needing to cast spells for disarming traps:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?425657-The-Cleric-Now-it-s-every-class
It is just a joke I wanted to do since a so long time.

[Lorddenorstrus]

It sounds like your DM literally does not have DCs. He's doing percentages based off your rolls. His "I want this to be hard.. DC.. meh screw it they fail unless they roll 15 or higher." Is a horridly idiotic line of thinking but I have seen so many bad DMs do it. You buy an item to boost your skill check a bit? Not relevant they don't care about your skill bonus. They want % chance to succeed to make things more "interesting." I recently had to have a hard talk to one of my current DMs about this exact bs. Spending chunks of your WBL on making skills you find important more likely to succeed should help you succeed more. Hence the bloody importance of actually setting DCs for stuff.

[Alberic Strein]

Does it really qualify as a joke when it's the truth?

Anyway, was I dreaming the fact that merciless butchery allowed using coup de grace as a swift action? Double checked it and it's now a standard action on the OGL... What

So, just throwing ideas out there but:
Is it just me or does the slayer feat line of Intimidating Prowess > Killing Flourish > Gruesome Slaughter look quite underwhelming? Sure Gruesome slaughter allows for the sickened condition to last for an entire minute, but a +1 cruel weapon does that, without save, for one round.

Anyway, since I was aiming for Cornugon smash, Hurtful seems a classic to take with it.

The rest of the intimidate build may not be worth it actually, I may as well cut my losses and just go with combat reflexes...

edit: I feel you, Lorddenorstrus... Though I am not certain my GM is actually ad libing his DCs, he seems to be quite serious on getting his system written down to the last detail.

Also, I have no idea how I should spend my money.

[Geddy2112]

LOLOMGWTFBBQ
Well, that is a sign of fairness right there. There is no problem with putting enough magical swag on an NPC, monster, enemy or labyrinth to up and disjunctionstopfleshtoplanarimprisonmentwishmirica le the party at will. The fact that he let you use the swag(even if it was lol gotcha cursed swag) means he is not all that bad. If that fight was a narrow victory, and he had not a copper on him that is easily grounds to throw the core book at his face. I agree it is worth staying, even if you were duped into playing F.A.T.A.L. And F.A.T.A.L. with elder gods!



Which gives me a new issue: We got enough exp to raise ourselves to level 8, 9 after the next game, and we have the time to fully retrain ourselves. I also got 10 000GP to spend on gear.

Also, the next dungeon is going to be 3 times (at best) or 5 times more difficult than this one.
I'll try to see what I can come up with. Any idea?

You could become a shameless tier 1 godcaster. Druidzilla, Clericzilla, what have you. With a little archtype fannagling, traits and at worst, a dip, you can still get nice perception, disable device and trapfinding. As far as gear, you want to buy a cloak of resistance and ring of protection, and anything else to push your DC's and saves through the roof. I recommend a divine caster so you can get a nice WIS and will save. Failing a reflex save and falling into a spike pit is small potatoes to being convinced to get to second base with Hasteur behind a pizza parlor. :smallwink:

[noob]

You know variant channeling?
There is one for making you a better trap finder/ annihilator.

[Spore]

Been there, done that, my friend. In my case I was a 25 pt buy Rogue with a Legendary Chainmail boosting my Perception and infiltration skills but to no avail.

1) I never hit meaningful, and when I hit, I didn't do damage thanks to Str 10 TWFing.
2) I could crack each Disable Device DC easily but I never found the traps due to the fallacy of "you never said you were looking for traps" and my desire not to slow down narrative.
3) My saves were abyssmal. Gladly the DM didn't target us with Save of Die spells or else I would have died. I once even jumped through a Blade Barrier and was flabbergasted as our Paladin made his save (Dex 10, Ref +2) but I did not (Dex 20, Ref +5)

My reactions in the following:
1) A rebuild. My Dex was too high, my strength too low. I dipped into fighter (which honestly isn't needed for a slayer since you're a full BAB class anyhow)
2) Improved tactics: Flanking is very important up to 12th level or so. Buffs are doubly so (if you do have a caster, ask him for Heroism before disabling a trap?) Remember that each party member increases the difficulty of your fights and endangers your sorry butt in the front row so they should do something in order to keep you alive and in fighting condition.
3) New dice. I am no friend of superstition but modern plastic dice are cast with imperfections. As long as you don't have casino grade dice it is very very possible that your dice are slightly biased. Learning how to correctly roll a dice to get a random number rather than rerolling the 1 you rolled before is also a thing. Get a dice cup maybe. Online rollers are also an option.
4) Other character: Say you dont enjoy being the trap guy. That this game isnt fun with your personal character. The DM might be frustrated but I think a good DM can relate.

[Lapsed Pacifist]

3) New dice. I am no friend of superstition but modern plastic dice are cast with imperfections. As long as you don't have casino grade dice it is very very possible that your dice are slightly biased. Learning how to correctly roll a dice to get a random number rather than rerolling the 1 you rolled before is also a thing. Get a dice cup maybe. Online rollers are also an option.


They're playing with Roll20.

This game sounds both bizarre and awful. I would leave.