(CO Diary) Healer/Warmage/Mystic Theurge in a Tier3 optimized campaign

[jenotus]

Dear playground members,

I just wanted to share a Diary entry from one of my recent campaigns as a player. I personally like reading CO Diaries and if sufficient interest exists, I will continue this one.

Purpose of the diary:
In a nutshell, many arguments were made that healing is sub-par towards battlefield control and that specifically during the mid-levels it is basically a wasted action. Whilst from a pure optimization perspective, there are many supporting arguments for this perspective, I wanted to offer you some first hand experience from my play-through as a healer in the current campaign.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. Again, the point of the diary is not to "proof" anything, but merely give you some play-tested experiences why healing might not be always sub-par.

Campaign world:
The setting is located in a homebrew world. So far we know about a central continent with three large factions working against each other.

I attached the link to the map (in case you are interested): http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=11293190946560619330

Two factions (respectively their capitals) are about to start war very soon. The group is deeply involved in the conflict and is standing firm on the side of one of these factions. Basically as hired muscles, the heros took the obligation to protect one of the ruling houses of the city in the upcoming siege.


Meet the party:
The current party consists of four members. Each of them are playing their characters for much longer (I recently joined the group). The system is dnd 3.5, all material is allowed, with a couple of house-rules. Basically all of the characters are Tier 3-4.

a) Warden (Dragonborn Warblade4/UA Swordsage1/WB+3/Crusader1):
http://i.imgur.com/Uha5043.png
Acts as the BSF, bases his build on an exotic weapon chain, uses trip alot and many different manoeuvres to provide a decent front-line including battlefield support. High Aoe damage and really high trip rolls plus AoO based build (currently 6 AoOs).

b) Zariel (Lesser Aasimar Soulknife (Soulbolt/Cutthroat/Spheres of Power)):
http://i.imgur.com/gGag3hL.png
Slightly modified Soulbolt variant (pushes it up from Tier5 to Tier4), specialized in ranged single target damage dealing. Has splashed in some utility into his build.

c) Tarssa (Kobolt Dragonfire Adept 10):
http://i.imgur.com/4WTK514.png
Deals magic/elemental damage, naturally uses various AoE shapes and uses her time in between her Breath Attacks for wondrous items and summoning.

d) vanHolstin (me) (Chaos-Gnome with Dark Template Healer 3/Warmage 1/MT 5):
http://i.imgur.com/2iEOPpE.png
My total character level is still 1,5 levels behind the party (due to LA buyoff). I used the Dragonlance Dynamic Priest feat to make the character SAD based on charisma. Also used the early entry for Warmage and the versatile spellcaster feat to provide some utility. Finally the remaining feats went into maximizing the healing.


What was the idea behind the build?
Obviously the party was missing caster support (as the Dragonfire Adept alone isn't strong enough in the battlefield control).
The defence of the build relies heavily on the hiding mechanics (hide-in-plain side) and the huge boni that the gnome and its size plus the template and the spell invisibility offers. In a nutshell the AC of the character is mediocre (26) and the HP (80ish) are also mediocre (given the levels of MT were only d4). However the hide mechanic (which is often overlooked), should make up for that shortcoming.


I wanted to combine two aspects to get first hand experience

a) I wanted to see how dual-progression classes end up if they are early-entry optimized

b) I wanted to gather some more concrete situations to see how healing in this mid-tier party was performing.

Currently the healing itself is "optimized" due to following effects:
- The healer class itself, which provides the +CHA as bonus healing
- The augment healing feat, +2hp/level of the spell
- Empower Spell + Easy Meta-magic (empower) to cover against spikes for only +1spell level
- (later to come) The day and night feat for some maximization


How is the current healing looking like (Snapshot level 9):

Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 15 (19.5 healing)
Cure Medium Wounds: 2d8 + 21 (30 healing)
Cure Serious Wounds: 3d8 + 23 (36.5 healing)
Close Wounds: 1d4 + 17 (19.5 healing)
Cure Light Wounds, Mass: 1d8 + 25 (29.5 healing)

Compared to the average hit points of the group (with reasonable high constitution scores and good hp rolls), it is usually possible to nearly top someone off with a combination of an empowered strong heal + a close wounds (effectively healing someone completely in one turn). Additionally, most of the area of effect damage (e.g. breath attacks) can be efficiently negated with the mass cure light wounds (and if we are prepared accordingly, a fitting energy protection never hurts as well).

Memorization:

Healer:
- 0th: 3x detect undead, 2x deathwatch, 1x detect poison
- 1st: Protection from evil x5, remove paralysis, remove fear
- 2nd: Close wounds x5, remove blindness/deafness, lesser restauration
- 3rd: empowered close wounds x3, celestial aspect, brilliant emanation
- 4th: Panacea, Death wardx4, Sunmantle (I would definitely have taken Freedom of Movement, but GM houseruled it to Level 5)

Warmage:
0: 6/day
1: 8/day
2: 7/day
3: 4/day

Spellbook contains (versitile spellcaster)
- 1: Benign Transposition, Blockage, Grease, Exp Retreat (Swift), Enlarge, Summon Monster I, Wall of Smoke
- 2: Invisibility, Rope Trick, Glitterdust, Baleful Transposition, Mirror Images, See Invisibility, Spymaster's Coin, Chain of Eye's
- 3: Haste

+Chaos Gnome Spell tricks (3x cantrips)


Itemization:
I used wealth per level – 1 in order to buy my items, currently I own following items (with a short explanation, why it might be interesting for your healer as well).

Anklet of Translocation (MIC) – my basic get out of jail for free card. Whether being caught in a grapple or suffering from bad positioning, this item is worth the swift round and 10 ft' repositioning significantly contributed to many situations in the past.

Banner of the Storms Eye(MIC) – A perfect item, if you have the means to pull it off correctly. The immunity to yourself is brilliant on its own. The real kicker however is, if you can position yourself in between your allies. 20Ft' aura is not as much as it might sound – read the encounter below to see how to put this item into effective use.

Skin of Ectoplasmic Amor (CP) – With a low dex, the requirement to wear a maximum of light armor and a bargin price of 3.000gp makes this an all around near perfect item.

Talisman of Undying For (MIC) – If used wisely (e.g. when not being invisibility, the undead immunities and the huge advantage to ignore any fort safe will bridge the gap between two invisibilities and make you very hard to CC.

Ring of Tears (MIC) – Mainly used pre-combat in case you are expecting to get hit (or at least partially get hit). You can never have too many hp's. With the existance of close wounds however, this item might be better placed on your BSF (to additionally use his swift actions to counter the massive damage).

Cloak of El. Res (Mini) – Versatile, cheap, usable, counters many elemental effects. I can only recommend this one.

Ring of nat Arm (DMG) – I had 1k leftover, lacked the AC, wanted something that I could trade with the BFS if needed. Not great by any means of the imagination, but fitted into the concept of the build.


Session 1-3 [Group ECL 10 vs. Encounter ECL 15-16]

Experience from Sessions so far
So I am going to skip the role-playing part. The general story is that we are engaged in a conflict between two rivalling empires. We are unfortunately in the capital, which is going to be under siege soon. As part of our duty, we signed up to investigate on leads for potential invasions - found a hidden teleporter, which would lead into the city and hence decided to pay the other side a visit.

What we knew:
We scouted with a summoned dire badger (thanks to versatile spellcasting) and the spy coin (again thanks to versatile spellcaster) and found out that the cave on the other side was lurking with empowered lizard-creatures, some of them remarkably strong, basically good fighters with the backup of a shaman-type. We also found out that a 2nd influencing force is probably there - the nimble wrights (constructs created as assassins from the opposing city).

What we did:
The pre-buffing, before going in of course, consisted of the usual routine (protection from evil, death-ward, enlarge person, bless). I sneaked in while being invisible plus a sacred spell, which allowed me to fly, and we used the teleportation mechanics of the soulbolt to teleport the whole party onto me, once I set up in a strategic position (observation here: the hiding and movement worked out brilliantly).

So far, no big news - Utility and Divination can win the day. (a huge recommendation to the versatile spellcaster feat btw.)

When things turned sour.
The party ported in, in a matter of seconds the fight emerged and the lizard tribe was ringing the alarm. Immediately after teleporting in, I hasted everyone.

We had approximately 30-40 opponents, ranging from normal lizard-folk (approx CR3) up to rather advanced versions (CR7-9). On top the nimble wrights from what we knew already were improved versions (so approx. CR 9-11 each). It became immanent that we will probably loose a straight fight, hence I used my battlefield control.

- Round 1:
- Standard: Wall of Smoke
- Swift: Blockade to seal them off.
- Movement: Move to the next wall and hide as part of movement.

Reaction: They went behind the wall and tried to surround it, while my party was focussing on one side. With basically only 2 entries (each of the sides of the wall of smoke) to go, I decided to shut down a whole section of the battlefield.

- Round 2:
- Standard: Sleet Storm
- Movement: to the ceiling in order to hide, also becoming visible since I targeted members of the lizard tribe directly.
- Swift: open for potential immediate reactions.

Thanks to my massive hide bonus, they did not spot me at the ceiling, but now were rather piling up to get out of the sleet storm, basically withdrawing, while the party was advancing. Everything looked perfectly fine.

- Round 3: So I decided to get some more vision, since I was visible anyway, I was flying over the Sleet storm and started casting a flaming sphere to get more than the 60ft. dark vision. I spotted multiple Nimble Wrights (little less did I know that they were advanced in CR at this stage, moving around the fog towards the party.
- Standard: Cast Flaming Sphere
- Movement: Move the FS onto a nimblewright
- Swift: Still open for reactions - I considered activating the Talisman of the undying fortitude, because I knew Crowd Control was about to income. (alternatively could have used ring of tears for 12 bonus HP)

- Reaction: The enemies were using the only left way to approach the party and some sort of a scene from 300 was repeated, their losses were many, while our front-line was standing fine. Life seemed good at this point.

And that is where **** was hitting the fen ;)
The Nimble wrights moved, covered significant ground and even casted on Warden (Warblade). Our tank failed his safes and got stunned for 9 rounds. Furthermore their caster started to use spirit jaws to grapple our dragonfire adept, basically removing him from combat. Worse even, our Soulbolt at this stage still was moving into position, so our ranks appeared shattered.

- Round 4: Not seeing the nimble wrights, but knowing that 3 more were approaching soon, I decided to use more of my Warmage spells. I used a blockage to reduce the corridor and an Ice Storm (since 14 targets were standing into the area). The more than 250 damage and many casualties were a good example of evocation not always sucking. Also I moved closer to the party, but I couldn't reach them so far.
- Standard: Ice Storm
- Movement: Move down towards party (didnt reach them so far), left Flaming Sphere untouched
- Swift: Blockage to reduce the path.

- Reaction: The opposition started to move out of the ice storm and started to storm our front ranks. With a tank still stunned (including his weapon on the ground) and the DFA being grappled, things looked dire. Opponents moved into position and started dealing damage. Tank was a 80% and DFA also at 80% at the end of the turn. Even Worse an AOE fear has hit the party, they would be starting to run next turn.

- Round 5: Firstly, I cast invisibility on myself, then I flew to the party, my banner of the storms eye suppressed the stun and the fear effect (thanks to that great item by the way). Also a close wounds spell topped up the tank again, who started to recover. Our DFA recovered and was able to dish out some damage.
- Standard: Invisibility
- Movement: 20 ft. above ground, hovering so my aura hit all other 3 party members
- Swift: Close wounds


-Reaction: The enemies relentlessly advanced. Many of them were now approaching the BSF in melee, starting to strategically position themselves and deal some damage. On top of which the next nimble wright came in and started to paralyse the tank (which would effectively render him helpless and victim to coup de grace). So things started to turn out sour again. Tank was at 60%

http://i.imgur.com/Hs5bqah.jpg


- Round 6: I was still invisible and needed to stay in 20' reach in order to suppress the fear and stun effects. Some more were also countered, until the enemy realized that obviously we were immune at this point. A cast of remove paralysis healed the last status effect on the Warblade. Furthermore I used close wounds to counter some of the damage that the tank was receiving. Tank was now back at 90%.
- Standard: Remove Paralysis
- Movement: Flaming Sphere closer to the party (not moved into enemies, because that would have cause me becoming visible again. If they however walk into it, I would have stayed invis - so it was a moving blockade so to speak)
- Swift: Close wounds
- Free: 5ft. step to get away from a nasty aura that one of the nimble wrights had running.


- Reaction. Now both sides were trading blows. Although some of the lizard men fell, a lot of nasty abilities started to be used likewise. An aura was hitting some of the party members, luckily resists and immunity to stun prevented worse. Furthermore the party got hit from a murderous mist spell, effectively dealing some AOE damage, but luckily not blinding someone. Finally the nimble wrights moved in and dealt some serious damage with their rapiers. At the end of the turn the tank was at 40%, the Soulbolt at 60% and the DFA also at 40%. On top, the whole group (excluding myself, because being hidden) was hit by a word of pain (dealing non-lethal damage over time each round to everyone.

- Round 7: The natural reaction to that dire situation was a Cure light wounds mass, which did some serious counter healing thanks to the feats and its level. Additionally the Tank received a close wounds to be topped up again. Tank 90%, Soulbolt 90%, DFA 70%.
- Standard: CLW, mass
- Move: Flaming Sphere blocking
- Swift: Close Wounds
- Free: 5ft. again avoiding the aura further


- Reaction: The enemy ranks were slimmed down. Many of the smaller ones were already fallen or fled. However still 3 large ones, an enemy caster and 4!! nimble wrights were happily hacking away on the group. The damage was merciless and some crits even made the situation worse. The DFA got grappled and pinned during the round, effectively making him prone for a full attack of many of the nimble wrights and we couldn't really down one of the enemies. At the end Tank was at 2%, Soulbolt at 60% and the DFA down to 20% - all of them still had the symbol of pain ticking on them. Plus the tank now received a many-jaws (just for good measure to add some more damage).

- Round 8: Haste was about to go down soon, so I decided that we need to do something. I benign transposition with the DFA, freeing him from grapple, then moving back to hit everyone with my banner. Finally I casted an empowered close wounds on the Warblade, just to ensure he wouldn't go down. Tank 20%, Soulbolt 60%, DFA 20%.
- Standard: Benign Transposition
- Movement: Move back up into standard position
- Swift: Close Wounds (emp)

- Reaction: The situation was so dire, but we had a golden move, the DFA was able to breath attack all of the nimble wrights, effectively stunning them for 2 rounds with his clinging breath. The rest of the party killed their caster (because he would have killed the DFA elsewise in his next turn) and used some white raven tactic shenanigangs to get rid of some more lizzards. Unfortunately still some large ones and the nimblewrights were standing.


- Round 9: Cure Light wounds mass, empowered Close wounds on the DFA. Tank was on 50% and healed himself to 70%. Soulbolt was full again. DFA was back to 80%. (observation: Since the party constantly took also non-lethal damage, the healing was even stronger. In many cases +10 hp on each of them per round)
- Standard: CLW, mass
- Movement: Flaming Sphere to block
- Swift: Close Wounds (emp)
- Free: Told them to ****ing do something, elsewise we will have a problem.

- Reaction: Not much happened, the tank was healing even more and some of the opponents dropped dead, not much damage incoming.

- Round 10: Re-hasting everyone (just in time) and Close wounds on the Tank. Tank was now back to 100%, Soulbolt at 95% and the DFA 80%.
- Standard: Haste
- Movement: Flaming Sphere
- Swift: Close Wounds
- Free: 5ft for better positioning

- Reaction: The nimble wrights were stunned for the last round, they party managed to down one of them, but 3 more are remaining and now ready for another round of action. My spell arsenal is approx 60% empty and I am looking to continue the encounter the next time. Everyone still took some decent damage from the symbol of pain, which kept ticking each round.

- Round 11: Stayed within the range of the party, still invisible, to suppress the status effects. Delayed activity until the nimblewrights could act.
- Delay

- Reaction: the NRs, after being stunned, took the weakest target, our Dragonfire Adept. Unfortunately for him, they used quiet a bit of their abilities to get to him. A charge and a flanked full-attack later he was lying prone on the floor with less than 20hp left. Also our Warblade got hit a couple of times, effectively dropping him to 50% hp again.

- Round 11 (continue): Since the party took some damage, I decided to counter-heal, CLW-mass plus a close-wounds later Tank 80%, Soulbolt 100%, DFA 70%.
- Standard: CLW, mass
- Swift: Close Wounds

- Reaction: The fun wouldnt last for too long, the nimblewrights now knew about our weak spot and exploited it. Unfortuately the DFA failed his concentration check to cast defensively and did not become invisble - even worse, he was still prone on his knees. Our Dragonfire Adept got swarmed and they are trying to hit him severely. One of them could be tripped by our Warblade, effectively still letting two of them continue to beat on the DFA. The result was a razor sharp 1% but still conscious, tripped, bleeding Dragonshaman.

http://i.imgur.com/0QcKTTX.jpg

- Round 12: I knew that the damage next round (including the debuffs) probably would have killed the DFA. Hence, I decided to benign transposition him out of there plus healing him with a close wounds, which brought back some of the HP (~25%).
- Standard: Benign Transposition (ex-post analysis: I could have been a smarty-pants by benign transpositioning the DFA for an unconscious, but not dead enemy as they are considered volunteering automatically. Lackluster on my part, learning effect for next time).
- Movement: Back to my flying position
- Swift: Close wounds

- Reaction: The DFA upped his game and caught 2 out of 3 NRs in his next clinging breath attack, effectively stunning them, but one of them was still running free. This one NR tried to reach the DFA in order to finish him off, but was tripped before doing anything stupid. The party's remaining characters started to focus one of the stunned NRs and slowly brought him down.

- Round 13: It was the last round of the symbol of pain, CLW,mass and a close wounds nearly topped up the party, so I can do a little more battle-field control in the next turn.
- Standard: CLW, mass
- Swift: Close wounds

- Reaction: The free NR tried again to reach the DFA, didn't succeed and instead went for the Warblade. No significant damage and the others were stunned.

- Round 14: I used the advantage of my invisibility, Threw a Lesser orb of fire onto the free NR, which stunned him, plus did some minor healing to an NPC (who was supposed to protect us, but sucked appearently and nearly got killed).
- Standard: Orb of lesser fire
- Movement: Moved flaming sphere onto him afterwards
- Swift: Close wounds onto our useless NPC (yes Leif the Factotum, I am looking at you)

- Reaction: At this stage all of them were stunned, no way to teleport out and our DFA kept perma-stun-locking them until we killed them 3 rounds later. (happy-times)

Observations so far
Spells:
- Many of the initial tactics were only possible due to battle field control.
- Healing provided to be much more efficient due to the usage of the respective feats
- Combination of status removal and healing countered even severe outnumbering and out gunning of the party

Tactic & character:
- The hiding tactic turned out to be golden, as I never was in danger myself
- Given that the healer is a tier5 (without reworked spell-list) and the warmage a tier4 class, their combination with the addition of an ealy entry worked very well in the so far tier3 optimized group.
- I would even go as far as saying that the battlefield control turned in combination with the status removal plus the healing turned out to be the MVP of the encounter so far


Conclusions so far:
vanHolstin was thinking about how to more efficiently work against them. Following conclusions arose so far.
- Their inate weakness to fire can be abused by noSR spells (e.g. flame arrows, orbs, etc.), which I will do more
- Their dedication to melee next time can be countered with flaming shields and walls of fire (might sound like a good use for otherwise under-valued spells)
- The invisibility turned out to be golden, vanHolstin will however remain nearer to his party to make sure that the banner of the storms eye is working (reduction of actions invested into removing status effects will become handy)


Please provide feedback if you liked the description, I will keep on writing then.


Jenotus

[jenotus]

[Session 4:]

Roleplay Content:
After beating the nimblewrights in the cave, the party started to interrogate the remaining Scum, just to find out that they are being used by the nimblewrights. The teleporter, which brought us here obviously was only a one-way teleporter, so there is no immanent danger to the city.

However, the cave contained another teleporter, which after analyzing it was a two way portal. It is still active and on the other side we observed that shadesteel golems are covering the entrance. After a short consultation with the NPC in our group, we came to the conclusion that probably the existance of the new portal is worthwhile to investigate further, but we will need more time and definitely a better preparation for the shadesteel golems.

So the party went back to town and bought a couple of items to better deal with the nimblewrights.


Preparation for the shadesteel-golems are in full progress:
- Death ward will provide the necessary cover against their AOE negative energy (done, it costed a lot of 4th level spells tho)
- Daylight spells will prevent them from sneaking and reduce their conceilment further (we decided against it, because the characters did not meet the knowledge arcana checks and we didnt want to metagame it)
- Still need to look for a spell to make the weapon of my tank into an adamantite one (unfortunately no adamantite was available, the City of Kalishar has used all of its reserves for a bomb, which they detonated near a central tunnel, which the opposing army was currently digging. Bad luck).
- NoSR spells will be golden for controlling them


[Session 5-6:]

Roleplay Content:
Indeed it was interested to see how everyone prepared for the golems. After the last interaction with the nimblewrights, we decided to equip our Tank (Warden) with a weapon gem, which could deal elemental fire damage. In case of a hit, that would at least imply a stun (and hopefully stunlock) for them.

Overall we bought following items:
- I invested into a chronocharm of the horizon walker (in fact it was part of the loot and instead of getting 250gp, I rather preferred to get a decent item)

- I bought a Third Eye of clarity (3.000gp) for vanHolstin (to negate daze, even after I would have been hit with it already)

- Finally I invested another 3.000gp for a lesser rod of sculpting (just because it helps so much to improve your Crowd Control abilities).

Also I managed to convince Tarsaa to buy an anklet of translocation (which she didn't have in the last encounter) and an amber amulet of vermin (Scorpion) for some nasty summoning, when her Breath Attack is down.

In terms of story, following important things went down:
The remaining Scums (which survived our last battle) were brought back to town, in a wishful attempt to befriend them and maybe engage them as our personal army in the furture (our payment for helping in this conflict is a piece of land with a small tower on it).
I convinced one of the Scums to join the Church of Heironimus, lets see if he is willing to shift his alignment and maybe I can even get a Padawan (just for the fun of it).

When the next day came closer, the group and myself prepared for the upcoming battle. We decided against light-spells, as we figured that a hasted golem is no fun at all. Following protection spells were cast upfront (before going into the portal):
- Everyone (except the useless NPC Leif of course) received following buffs:
A) Death ward (against the negative energy wave)
B) Protection from Chaos (the golems are neutral, but we suspect more nimblewrights to come soon)
- Further spells:
C) Enlarge Person (Warden)
D) See Invisibility (Warden)
E) Invisibility (vanHolstin, Tarsaa (DFA))

We entered the portal, came into a large, dark room, which we saw from the scouting. Upon our entrance two massive shade-steel golems started to move closer - IT WAS ON!
(before going into the combat, in hindsight the following encounter was probably one of the most challenging that I have played through so far. It was well tailored, so Kudos for our DM. Little less did we knew at that moment in time that we are fighting a highly modified 28HD Version of a shade-steel golem. Also we had some hard time - not going to spoiler here - to the degree that it was a fight on the edge at several moments. Enjoy the read).

From what I can tell after reverse engineering it, the golem was a 28 HD improved version of a shade-steel golem. It had a umbral collar for the dark-template, which astronomically pushed its hiding checks. It was having the option to haste itself, leaving it with not less than 8 attacks and a stunning 2d6+28 sneak attack (thanks for that craven). Just to round up the whole package, it was nearly immune to ranged attacks due to the improved catch arrow mechanism and had a wooping +30NA, leaving it with overall ~39-40 AC, which our melees had some hard time to hit.


Initiative: Of course I go second with +6 initiative, you cannot beat the +11 from the golem.

Party ECL 10 vs. Encounter ECL 15-16 (under-CR'ed *cuff*)
---------------------------------------
- Round 1: (Situation: vanHolstin and Tarssa are both hiding, flying a bit above ground, while Zariel (Soulbolt) and Warden (Tank) stand their ground)
- Enemy: moves up with flying, spots our tank and vanishes (both of them, obviously hiding too well. At that moment in time we were starting to wonder about its abilities.)
- Movement: Fly 15ft. upwards, so I can still touch the enlarged tank, but will be out of AoO range from the golems, I figured they were about to come (at that stage I believed we can still spot them). As part of the movement, I draw out my Rod of Sculpting.
- Swift Action: Activate Amulet of Tears (+12 temp hp, just in case)
- Standard Action: Haste on all (except Tarssa, who was too far away at that stage)

- Reaction: Rest of the group cuddled around the Warden (Tank), Tarssa readied the action, Zariel delayed.


- Round 2: (the experienced reader might have guessed it by now, this is the point in the fight where the **** usually hits the fan)
- Enemy: Comes out of hiding and hits like a boss. Sneak attack galore, additional attacks (4 overall if I remember correct), super strong burst and some proc-effects, which were either immidiately absorbed or resisted from Warden. For good measure a big nasty wave of negative energy was hitting the group (which at this stage everyone was immune to). Mental note to myself: Good idea that we left Leif behind, he wouldn't have been immune and probably near death at this stage already :)
Result: Warden 30% health, Tarssa 100%, Zariel 100%

- Standard: Empowered Cure moderate Wounds
- Swift: Close Wounds
- Movement : not needed
- Free Action: Told everyone to please gather around Warden
Result: Warden back to 100%

- Reaction: Tarssa used her breath, but the damage unfortunately was rather minimal, Zariel hit the golem for a good amount of damage and Warden used some maneuvers to make the hitting easier. We realized however that these guys have 35+AC, which was not fun.

http://i.imgur.com/Cz0pDv1.jpg

- Round 3:
- Enemy: The golem all of a sudden disappeared. Noone managed to see it (not even with the blind sight/blind fight combination)

- Movement: pulled out my Lesser Rod of Sculpting
- Standard: Casted a sculpted Glitterdust, using the 4x10'ft cube shape in the hope of applying a -40 hide penalty when hitting the golem. (Unfortunately the spell did not hit anything, leaving us clustered but without any clear target).
- Swift: Kept it for an immediate action if needed

- Rest of group: mostly fighting full defensively at that stage (Tarssa was still invisible and the two melee party members were trying to reduce the burst potential of the golem by increasing their AC. Warden changed his stance from iron guard glare (-4 to hit of all enemies to scent, just to find out that the golem has no smell).

http://i.imgur.com/AMMh5Au.jpg


- Round 4:
- Enemy: The golem popped out in the north of us, this time attacking Zariel (Soulbolt), the first attack still was hitting heavy (full sneak attack) but the remainder of the full attack was not hitting due to the high overall AC. Nevertheless he was down to 70% at that time.

- Standard: I casted a glitterdust, this time hitting him (but also loosing my invisibility in the progress).
- Movement: 5ft' in order to get line of sight to Zariel
- Swift: Empowered Close Wounds to counter heal his damage (Zariel back to 95%)

- Rest of the party: With the newly outlined golem both Zariel and Warden could start to attack it. Tarssa was using his blast globes (MIC) and preparing them for some non-resistible damage


- Round 5:
(mental note and first learning: The golem realized that we were immune against his negative energy burst, hence leaving us alone with it)
(mental note #2: Against high caliber enemies, it is just not enough to use hiding without the +40 from invisibility. Matter of fact the -20 from casting and sometimes the movement makes it hard to stay fully out of their perception range. I need to work on that and time better when to become aggressive / or get improved invisibility).

- Enemy: The golem started out with an initial sneak attack on Zariel, just to move a 5'ft step and hide in the progress. As a result Warden and myself (who were in his range) did fail the perception check, which led to the fact that he started to beat on both of us, using his advantage of a flat-footed opponent. He was hitting like a truck, blood spilled all over the place. Warden was at 70%, Zariel at 50% and I received my first damage in my so far (young) career, directly beating me down to 40% (including the full diminishing of my temporary 12 hp). It was a massacre. (Mental note: the iron guard glare stance at this time would have helped a lot)

http://i.imgur.com/17X0IEj.jpg

- Standard: Cure Light Wounds, mass
- Swift: Close Wounds on Warden
- Movement: to hide again, this time out of range for sure
- Free: Asking Warden to change his stances.
(Afterwards: VanHovard 80%, Warden 90%, Zariel 85%, Tarssa 100%)

- Group: Tarssa used his Blasting globe to damage the golem and move it a bit (due to the blast effect). Also she used her newly acquired amber amulet of vermin for a large scorpion. Zariel and Warden attacked the golem, it was flanked by the scorpion and Warden changed back to Iron Guard glare. At this moment it even looked a bit like if we could get an upper hand.
(Little less we knew).

http://i.imgur.com/1QR59H6.jpg


- Round 6:
- Enemy: Another one of the WTF moments occurred. The lights went out, VanHolstin correctly identified it as a deeper darkness spell of the 7th level, eliminating all light sources. Now all of the party members had dark-vision (with the exception of Warden, who only had blind fight, hence leaving him with not more than 5'ft of effective vision range).
The golem tested that. It moved (+tried to hide successfully), attacking Warden - and damaging him a bit with his sneak attack again- , who afterwards used his immediate action to teleport away. The golem unloaded his remaining attacks on the newly summoned scorpion - one shotting it :(
We also noted that the golem was slowly starting to regenerate (bad news).

- Standard: Cure Light Wounds, Mass (now this was debatable, but we had 3 injured party members, hence I was topping them up. At that moment in time it still looked as if we would win the fight soon)
- Swift: Cure Light wounds
- Movement: Fly up and hide
(Warden 100%, Zariel 100%, VanHolstin 100%, Tarssa 100%)
Van Holstin managed to hide against the golem, making it unaware of his presence. I then decided to become cocky (which was probably the first real tactical mistake in hindsight and a big learning). I knew from my knowledge check that the golem was deflecting, but I also knew that it could only do it, when it was aware of the existence of the attack.

- Rest of the party: Did their thing, mainly missing the golem due to its high AC and realizing for the first time that it seemed to be immune to ranged attacks from Zariel.
Now since Warden was about to refresh his full Crusader maneuvers in the next round, we decided to make use of his white raven tactics. So he gave me an additional turn.

- Standard: I wanted to empower a Lesser Orb of Fire (would have been around 30-50dmg). So I rolled the ranged attack (what could possibly happen, I only needed to hit 10AC) ... a natural 1. Dang. I spend Luck of the Gnomes (racial ability 1/day to re-roll, you need to take the new result). And there it was ... a natural 1. (sadface)
- Swift: Applying 12 temporary hit points (still under the assumptions that I will hide again, elsewise I should have activated the talisman of undying fortitude to make myself immune to sneak attacks).
- Movement: Hiding from the golem (unfortunately not good enough, it was a close call).

.


- [B]Round 7:
(and that is ladies and gentlemen, where vanHolstin started to hit the floor)
- Enemy: Golem teleported upwards, hiding as a part of it, launched his first sneak attack into me. Then moved 5ft' into the range of Warden again (who failed his spot, so no Iron Guard glare). 2nd Sneak attack. Then Warden reacted at the third attack and shield blocked (barely giving me enough AC). Two more attacks missed until finally attack #5 and #6 brought me into the negatives (-2hp). I fell onto warden, gliding to the floor. Warden himself ate the last two attacks.
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 0%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 100%)
Golem also used his free action to taunt/demotivate the group: (Robot voice) Eliminated your healer, morale of the group is shattered. Do you want to surrender?

http://i.imgur.com/T17riTP.jpg

Now due to my new initiative (from white raven tactics, the party was allowed to act prior to my action).
- Rest of the Group: Tarssa flew over to me, used her shirt of healing on me to bring me back into the positives. Zariel and Warden dished out some damage to the golem, yet again not hurting it much.

- Standard: Caasting invisibility on myself (needed to ensure that the party doesn't loose me)
- Movement: moved away into a better place to hide, bringing more than 15'ft between the golem and myself
- Swift: Empowered Close Wounds on myself.
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 45%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 100%)


- Round 8:
(If you are a fan of our group and don't want the golem to win, you will not like this)
- Enemy: Now let's talk about bad luck. The golem used a full movement action to hide again and appear next to Tarssa (who just saved me). It only had one attack, unfortunately hitting and critting (just BARELY confirming the critical strike, because warden with only 5'ft sight couldnt provide his iron guard glare). Furthermore, we had to realize that unfortunately CRAVEN - in contrast to normal sneak damage - is being multiplied with a sneak attack and with 28 HD, that ment bad news. Tarssa ate a -114hp crit, dropping to the floor, unconscious but not dead. (The roles have been open, so no fudging, she was at -4).
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 45%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 0%)

http://i.imgur.com/jm2fdXH.jpg

- Rest of the party: Zariel used his teleportation power to teleport the unconscious Tarssa out of the range of the golem, flanking it in return. Warden tried to attack with revitalizing strike (missing) and gave Zariel the White raven Tactics, who again used a full attack to deal some damage. Tarssa was unconscious.

- Movement: Going onto the other side, hiding from the golem, staying next to Tarssa
- Standard: Empowered Cure Light wounds (I was starting to run out of spells at that time)
- Swift: Close Wounds
- Free: Told her to feign death (which she successfully did with a bluff check *tongue out of the mouth face x.x*)
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 45%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 30%)

- Round 9:
- Enemy: The golem (which thought it had eliminated two members already) fiercelessly attacked into Zariel. But a clever combination of Action points and some defensive skills prevented worse from happening.

- In return the two melee's of our group started to full attack on the golem with limited success. Tarssa, who was awake again, healed herself as well. Its shell was starting to crack, but it was healing at the same time, so time was counting against us.

- Standard: Cure Light Wounds on Tarssa
- Movement: Repositioning
- Swift: Activation of Talisman of Tears (12 temp hp - kind of a mana shield) [saving spell slots at that time]

(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 45% + 10%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 60%)
http://i.imgur.com/J4sC8d8.jpg


- Round 9:
- Enemy: The golem (which thought it had eliminated two members already) fiercely attacked into Zariel. But a clever combination of Action points and some defensive skills prevented worse from happening. Afterwards it decided to change its tactics quiet a bit, therefore flying around and looking for a better opportunity (obviously aware that the glitterdust on itself was about to disappear soon - which by the way meant bad news).

- Rest of the party: starting to chaise the golem if possible. But with the lack of options both melee's decided to regain maneuvers and inner focus. Tarssa healed herself with her Helm and moved into a better position to chaise the golem with a rod of frost.

(Bad news continued however, haste had run of this round).

- Standard: Rehasting everyone
- Movement: Repositioning to not be in danger of getting charged - I used natural cover.
- Swift: Close Wounds on Tarssa.
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 45% + 10%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 80%)


- Round 10:
- Enemy: The golem disappeared into nothingness, fully vanishing. The time of the Glitterdust had run off - now we knew we are in trouble, because it kept regenerating.
- Rest of the Group: They tried to spot and ready their actions. Luckily for us Zariel spotted the golem and articulated the vague direction of it. (Since we don't meta-game, I had to kind'of find it out myself, just based on his description). Tarssa dealt some good damage to the golem with her breath attack.

- Standard: Sculpted (fireball shape 20'ft radius) Glitterdust [this was a tough call to make, I was about to become visible again without having full hp]
- Movement: Made full use of my hasted movement and used hiding at the other end of the room
- Swift: Activated Talisman of undying fortitude (at that stage I was almost sure I would be the next target again.
The Glitterdust hit the golem; -40hide for a pretty angry ancient shade-steel golem was the result.

http://i.imgur.com/W7Btpwx.jpg


- Round 11:
- Enemy: The golem disappeared nevertheless
- Rest of the Group: Was hugging closer together. Readying actions.

- Standard: Immediately casting Invisibility on myself (to make sure that I will stay hidden)
- Movement: Go back to the group and hide
- Swift: Close Wounds on myself
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 75% + 10%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 85%)

- Round 12:
- Enemy: (Ups he did it again), The golem appeared right infront of Tarssa, flurrying the hell out of her, hitting with 4 out of the 8 attacks, dropping her to the ground again.

(Now two things became clear at that stage:
a) we need to end the combat soon, because I was nearly running out of spells
b) the golem was >20% hit points, starting to break apart)

http://i.imgur.com/ddva7QO.jpg

- Rest of the Group: Warden dealt some good damage to it, so did Zariel, the Golem had to pay for the offensive move.

- Movement: To Tarssa but still outside the range of the golem. Hiding.
- Standard: Cure Light wounds (last one) on Tarssa. Now my Healer-side was out of spells.
- Swift: Used my Cloak of Elemental Resistance on myself (10 fire resist) (because we wanted to combo it off with a death-mark from Zariel, which would have dealt fire damage to the golem and me alike)
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 75% + 10%, Zariel 100%, Tarssa 15%)

- Rest of the Group#2: Warden delayed his action used his white raven tactics on Tarssa, who maximized fire breathed into the golem, dropping it low (but still intact). His newly used cooldown and the cooldown on all of her items meant that we was effectively out of the combat. Moving far enough away to only get a single attack (which, if not a crit, would meant that she will survive).


- Round 13:
(the final stand)
- Enemy: The golem evaluated its chances and figured out that Zariel expanded a lot of his energy during the last round, making him vulnerable. Now as a result it moved, hiding meanwhile, and full attacking Zariel. Who dropped to 30% in the progress.
(Warden 80%, VanHolstin 75% + 10%, Zariel 30%, Tarssa 15%)

- Rest of the Group: Tarssa was out of everything. Zariel full attacked and prepared to move away.

It was my turn:
- Standard: (now being out of all healing spells, except 0th level, there was only one way to end this - gun's blazing. Third try to become offensive, this time I applied the learning. I still had my talisman of undying fortitude running and I was invisible, so the golem couldn't react with his deflect range attacks). I used a Lesser orb of Fire and rolled very nice, barely hitting it and dealing nearly maximum damage - more than the whole group together in the last 4 turns (it was a lucky roll to be quiet honest as well).
- Movement: I moved away as far as I can, hiding in the process.
- Swift: Saved for an immediate action (could have casted +AC if needed)

- Rest of the Group#2: Warden used his last leaping maneuver to not only flank, but hit (with a natural 20) the golem, killing it in the process.

(and that is how we defeated it finally)

Lessons learned:
- Hiding mechanics and casting at the same time require you to have a really high buffer for the hide checks (I will use Invisibility more wisely)
- Will work on my timing not to go offensive, when I don't have a clear plan B afterwards (e.g. Talisman of undying fortitude or movement away)
- Will probably also go for improved invisibility, as it offers more flexibility in the combats (regarding switching from offensive to defensive without spending standard actions to regain invisibility)
- Golems require us as a group to get more appropriate equipment (Dark-vision for Warden, Damaging Crystals for the golems, Adamantite Weapons or Equipment which applies that property)
- I will probably research Delay Death next, because the sheer amount of burst damage requires for a more appropriate saving mechanism (will need to find out how to time it correctly tho, because currently I am already using my swift actions rather effectively).
- High AC is a real problem for our group so far (will suggest to them to use Wrathstrike and maybe support them with spells such as Targeting Ray and Bless, just to make sure more constant damage is applied).

Good News:
VanHolstin is now Level 10, officially got this 5th level Healer Spells: True Seeing, Cure Moderate Wounds, Mass, Freedom of Movement (houseruled to be 5th instead 4th), Break enchantment and Stone to Flesh just to name a few. Looking very much forward to use these bad boys.

(to be continued...)

[jenotus]

(first of all: sorry for being away for so long. I did not have the necessary time to update the Diary. I will keep the descriptions of the happenings in the meantime shorter and just go through highlights)

Session 7-13:

- Roleplaying content:
The overall setting of the campaign is still climaxing at the upcoming attack on the city. Our group was getting hired to defend against specific threads. As part of this, we investigated into a potential camp of spies from the enemies. It turned out that more nimblewrights were invading the city, basically undermining one of the houses. Needless to say that we needed to investigate and teach them a lesson.

Easier said than done, the nimblewrights had disguised as members of the house, so we had a longer discussion with the leader of the house that his "son" was long-dead. At the end, a combat broke loose, unfortunately none of our party members had weapons at hand.

- Combat:
The first rounds of the combat were basicallly trading back and forth crowd control. VanHolstin had a hard time to evade their perception as the leader of the nimblewrights appeared to have life-sense. The talisman of undying fortitude, which lets you turn into an undead for 3 rounds, provided invaluable.

After a couple of turns, we got our weapons, vanHolstin was then focussing more on healing, because the nimblewrights were trying to single out members and burst them down. My best bet was the usage of close wounds as well as the standard healing.

The fight itself dragged on for many more rounds, but their main focus was relying on enchantment spells and mind-affecting abilities. Due to various immunities (i.e. banner of the storms eye, natural immunity towards confusion as well as fear immunity), the enemy never could use their full potential. At the end, we could start to perma-stun them with fire damage and take them down 1by1.

- Conclusion:
Their damage was not so great, so the healing really overshadowed their ability to create kill preasure. In contrast I am getting even more convinced that immunities are helping us big time. The whole encounter was tailored around messing with your mind. The Healer class and its spells provided a nice "anti-battle-field-control" kit.


Session 14-18:

- Roleplay content:
After defeating the nimblewrights, we now needed to prepare for the real attack. The group discovered that the whole city and its magic is fueled by "guardians", which appeared to be high level spellcasters, which deliberately sacrifice their lifeforce in order to tie their fate to the fate of the city. One of these guardians has been taken down through a huge explosion, leaving the city itself rather vulnarable.

It was therefore no surprise that the forces of the enemy were starting to attack the city soon afterwards. The group was included into a "neural network", basically a larger version of Rary's Mnemotic Bound, which allowed to communicate via throughts with others. Attacks were reported from the south, additionally some further sightings appeared, which might require the attention of some heroes:

a) A dragon attack has been reported

b) An attack by a gruesome creature, a giant ape, has been reported

c) Death and demise from incorporal attackers was reported

d) Extraplanar attackers from the north have been reported

So the group decided to first tackle the forces in the south and afterwards go through the attacks in the order A B C D. Needless to say it wasn't that straightforward and included some discussion about priorities, at the end we agreed upon that strategy.



- Combat (in the south):
The sitution we found was an underground attack from the south. We found tracks of giant tunnels earlier, obviously the enemy army was using huge delvers to dig tunnels, followed by regiments of soldiers (we were mainly expecting constructs and maybe undeads - because we had encountered them ealier).

Hence, the group prepared several explosive runes in advance and tracked the already dug tunnels (which obviously prepared the later attack). Modified with a trigger to blow up these runes, we were using spy-coins again to have vision to the tunnels (overall three tunnels have been found). After waiting a couple of minutes, the armies started to approach - tunnel 1 and 3 were filled with warforged, while the middle tunnel was filled by undead wolfs - similar to the prior attack.

Tarsa, who was in charge with blowing up the tunnels, did exactly that, killing approx. 20 enemies per tunnel, unfortunately we were seeing enemies in the 100s. Before the group realized that we are fighting a loosing battle, we tried to close tunnel 1. VanHolstin was taking care about this, while the rest of the group tried to prevent the delvers, which now digged new exit tunnels.

Luckily, the size of the Delvers (20ft by 20ft) was perfectly fitting one of the new spells that vanHolstin received - Wall of fire. I personally havn't been a big fan of the spell so far, but if you have a long, straight tunnel, the 240ft. length combined the the option to place them vertically (they dont need an anchor), effectively meant that all of the enemies within the next 240ft., 4 medium warforged per row, were fully affected by the wall.

As an immediate counter, the warforged generals (which appearently have been psions) were using intellectual fortress and dampen magic to minimize the damage. Luckily, the wall of fire direct damage is still significant (2d6+casterlevel), so the majority of the damage was going through. Sidenote at this point, although evocation spells are usually inferior, the sheer amount of damage dealt was worth.

It was now, when I realized two things:
a) The group was getting a significant beating from the delvers. It was a combination of way too many Hit Points as well as the other two tunnels now starting to spawn additional forces (which climbed out of the tunnel and started to attack my teammates). So it became clear that they needed to retreat.

b) I read through the part of Wall of Fire dealing double damage to undead. That was the situation, when I realized that the Tunnel 2 (filled with undead wolfs) could be an even more beneficial application of this spell.


So, back to the scene at hand. After the first wall of fire in Tunnel 1 got dispelled in the subsequent round and my teammates started to route and fall back. VanHolstin casted one more wall of fire to finish off the warforged soldiers (I think I scored about 230 kills with that second wall of fire alone) - before proceeding to the Tunnel2, which was filled by undead. Luckily, my high hide-check combined with my improved invisibility worked out fine here.

Sidenote: I used the Talisman again, just in case some of the undeads had detect life. Additionally I used the chronocharm of the laughing Rogue to get to the tunnel even faster.

From the next round onwards, it was just me hidden alone behind enemy lines. A gnome on a mission - as they say. So I used the same trick with the wall of fire in the middle tunnel. It seemed as if the double damage was working out perfectly fine. VanHolstin was staying out of the range of the wolfs - after the wall of fire was cast, nearly 450 wolfs basically exploded. One of their abilities was the explosion with negative energy, so the couple of unlucky necromancers in between them did not only get hit by the wall of fire, but also received the full impact of all of the negative energy explosions. It was fair to say that the middle tunnel now was cleared :)

And that was the time, when I decided to get back to my group, the approaching army was just way to strong to handle for us alone, although we had dealt a significant blow to them.


- Conclusion:
Our preparation unfortunately focussed on the wrong part of the combat. We were trying to fight them in the south, which was their main army and hence, not very surprisingly, we simply got overrun.

Task #1 was to hold back as many spells as possible for the encounters to come, yet I got carried away a little bit too much by the unique opportunity to use wall of fire to such a great extend. Dealing more than 8.000 damage with a single cast starts to let evocation spells shine (it is a rare circumstance, but the warmage part of my character excelled at this fight).

Overall I am very happy with how the concept is turning out, since vanHolstin often can freely roam and even be a bane to an enemy army (I really liked the encounter although we needed to retreat).


Character Update:
VanHolstin is now level 11. I have selected Mystic Theurge 7 (not surprisingly), which raises the effective spells to Healer 10 (5th level) and Warmage 8 (4th level).

With the addition of the 4th level Spells, alot of options spring to mind (Polymorph, etc.). But I agreed with the DM that I am not going to push too heavily on the top-end Level 4 spells. Naturally the warmage alone (without the Wizard spellbook) already has two nice new additions: Wall of Fire (to be discussed and seen in the next encounter) and Evards Black Tentacles (phenomenal Battlefield Control).

So, we randomized a couple of the spells, which VanHolstin got as a reward for saving the noble house, noticable for Level 4 would be the Resilient Sphere (another powerhouse spell, which I like alot).

As a feat, I was taking Darkstalker, which effectively makes me near invisible for all senses (with the exception of sense life and touch-sight). The first one can be avoided with the amulet of undying fortitude, the latter one requires to break line of sight.

In terms of spells, I don't want to go too deep into the battle-field controlling area, as the core idea of the character is still to see how well optimized healing and evocation can perform. So far it worked out brilliantly and vanHolstin is surely pulling more than his own weight.


Observation on Healing:

In most of the combats, he was a significant reason, why the group survived or trivialized the encounter. Still, up to this date, his healing matches the incoming damage of the encounters (which are getting more optimized as well). At this point, most of the encounters were

In terms of raw numbers, many of the characters can be dropped to 20-50% in a single attack pattern from multiple enemies. However, with the combination of strong single target heals plus close wounds, vanHolstin is still capable to outheal this incoming damage.

Another interesting observation for you would be - if you are going to run this build, try to go for the practiced metamagic on empower, just like I did. It effectively increases the amount of effective healing by 20-30% mathematically for an equivalent slot. Hence, most of the times, I am empowering the healing spells.




Observation on Itemization of the Character:
Another point that I wanted to mention is the itemization of vanHolstin. The character is (as you know by now) heavily build around immunities and several high-power items. First, I would like to give you a precise description of the actual performance of some of my items during the campaign, afterwards I will give you an outlook over the next items on my purchasing list. Both should give you a differentiated perspective as of what you have to expect, if you play this build:


The items are ordered from "most useful" to "least useful"

Banner of the Storm's Eye (MIC, 15.000gp) - It was tough call between the best and the second best item. But the number of times that the immunity to fear, paralysis, confusion and the AURA to help your compenions was useful is just unrivaled. This item (in our campaign with this stealth build) is second to none - simply the best item that the character had. Many of the encounters would have been much more difficult, but the aura simply trivalizes many abilities and with the option to hide, you can avoid that enemies are going on a hunting mission for you. The synnergy is remarkable.

Talisman of the Undying Fortitude (MIC, 8.000gp) - Just a phenomenal item. I can highly recommend you to get this item, as it solves so many problems. In our fights it helped me to avoid detection from life-sense, attribute drain, damage, etc. as well as several spells, which required a fortitude save. The (2/day) charges always have been more than enough and the item itself and its powers is just all around strong.

Lesser Metamagic Rod of Sculpting (MIC, 3.000gp) - A great item as well, alot of the shapes are really improving the strength of my spells. With regard to Glitterdust and Grease, lower level spells with the right shape were just damned useful. In many cases a fire-ball sized Glitterdust helped us to deal with opponents and their stealth - so all on all it was a worthwhile purchase.

Skin of Ectoplasma (MIC, 6.000gp) - Very solid, good item. My armor class - although I got attacked only twice in 28 sessions - still provided a significant benefit during the times I needed it. I am not a big fan of the proposed "ignore armor, because it is becoming bad in the end-game"-mentality, enemies will often use Power Attack to significantly pump of the damage, which can be avoided by having a good AC. So yeah, I would certainly rebuy this item in the future.

Third eye of Clarity (MIC, 3.000gp) - Another good example of a niche item, immunity (ex-post) against daze, which just had not seen any usage so far. The matter of the fact is that most of the times, daze was just a non-topic, noone used it, the effect did not come up at all. It certainly is nice to know that you are prepared for it, but it simply does not happen often.

Anklet of Translocation (MIC, 1.400gp) - A power-house item, which really shines in many situations. For me personally, I think I have used it once in 28 sessions. It is still a very nice item to posess, but ultimatively I could have dealt without it. Specifically with the existance of Heart of Water (and its freedom of movement), I think that I will no longer use it.

Lesser Metamagic Rod of Silent Spell (MIC, 3.000gp) - This item is great, but it just did not find and uses so far. Probably it is suffering from the same effect as the Anklet, I originally bought it with the intention to be able to evade grapples and cast in silencing zones. The earlier part doesn't happen due to hiding and freedom of movement and the latter part simply did not happen - period. There might have been a scenario where this could have been useful, but since vanHolstin is preferring to counter-spell silencing spells before they even come into effect, this item hasn't seen much usage)

Ring of Tears (MIC, 3.000gp) - the original amulet of tears is really nice in the early levels. With the addition of heart of stone as a buff and the higher level campaign it is starting to loose its appeal. vanHolstin rarely, if ever, gets hit - so the item was a good purchase on paper, but just didn't deliever quiet as much as I was expecting.

Cloak of Energy Resistance (MIC, 1.000gp) - An item, which looks great on paper, until you realize that you need to use it very pro-actively (as a swift instead of an immediate action). All on all, this is probably the worst purchase that vanHolstin had done. The build that I am playing does offer enough protection against elements with Dragonskin (20 resist), the bloodline (10, 5, 5 to various resists) and the option to cast resist energy as a spell. In many cases vanHolstin just uses his Swift Action to pump out some healing with Close Wounds, so naturally this item - although normally good - gets prioratized less and less. If I would find a buyer for 1.000gp, I would sell it.

[jenotus]

Session 19-21:

- Roleplaying content:
After we needed to withdraw from their main force, we were heading back to our original plan to help with the little skirmishes that happened all over the city. Their main force was fighting in the lower parts of the city against the army of the city, which was trying to use terrain to their advantage.

So we decided to investigate the dragon attack first, hence flying to the east of the city. A regiment of soldiers has reported a fierce attack over here and therefore we were making haste to get to their location. It turned out that most of the initial soldiers were already dead and/or eaten. As we approached the scene, we found two dragons in full combat armor, who did not seem to back-up but instead prepare themselves.

It seemed as if they knew we were supposed to be a tougher fight, as they were starting to chuck down potions. Very soon we were about to realize their mobility and combat tactics. Both of them were red dragons and both of them had a LARGE size, basically fully equipped and ready for battle. Things were looking as if they would become interesting.

Little bit of lore before we start the combat part: We found out through their remarkable bracelets, which they were wearing, that they seemed to have agreed to some sort of a deal - appearently they are being on a quest, a journey of some sort.


- Combat:
(The group was receiving help from a new player, as the four-player-setup seemed to be problematic once a single player was missing. I am not going too much into detail of the new player, because after this dragon fight, he opted to leave the party as his real life commitments were shifting.
So for this fight there is a 5th player character on board, the group still consists of the core:
- Warden: Dragonborn (Crusader / Warblade) level 12
- Zariel: Human (Soulbolt / Spheres of Power) level 12
- Tarssa: Kobolt (Dragonfire Adept) level 12
- vanHolstin: the character that this diary is about (warmage/healaer/MT) level 11
- Leif (NPC): aka the guy, who is getting constantly murdered

and....
- Ullog: Half-Orc (Crusader/Cleric/RubyKnightVindicator) level 11

So, the new addition of Ullog provided another frontline character - so far, so good - but soon it would be shown that maybe he should have invested a little bit more into his defense - basically he was a walking death-wish.

Fight:
After buffing, the dragons startet to approach us. VanHolstin had prepared the group with Fire Resist 20 for everyone as well as haste and even helped the immobile members (Ullog and Leif) to fly. This utility was mainly aimed at having a proper defense, while still being able to dish out enough damage.

One of the dragons seemed to have specialized on breath attacks, using dispelling breath and enlarged breath to rain down fire with additional effects on us. While the other dragon was clearly focussing on melee. To provide the necessary advantage, he was popping a bottle of smoke to constantly create a vision disadvantage. He seemed to be fine fighting inside it.

Our melees of course took the bait and went in full force, while ignoring the other dragon. So the overall situation after the first rounds was that Warden and Ullog completely disappeared in the fog, following the cheap taunts of the melee (male) dragon. While Tarssa was focussing on summonings and Leif was ... well doing Leif stuff (such as self buffing and basically hiding - I guess at least he didn't get hit).

VanHolstin decided to take advantage of the low Reflex safes of these dragons and was popping an Ottyuk's Resilient Sphere on the (female) dragon with the breath attacks. Since the Sphere was just about large enough to contain the dragon and since it failed its reflex safe - very soon we just had to deal with one dragon. So far, the combat looked promissing.

Until ...
the male dragon started to move to Ullog with a swift action and unleashed a full attack onto his character. It was not unexpected at this point as they were already trading some blows in the fog - most of the attacks from Ullog were missing and the dragon just positioned himselve really well. Ullog had the chance to escape, but instead he preferred to power through, attacking fully, missing most of his attacks and then basically hovering in the mid of the fog with no backup whatsoever.


Some call it brave, some call it Ullog-stupid, it was a misplay, later being justified as "playing the character". Whatever.
The (male) red dragon full attacked and basically slaughtered Ullog within a couple of blows. He fell to the ground at -40hp, completely shreddered.

(Out of character explanation: VanHolstin was trying to warn him and even would have had an immediate action for a close wounds, but I did not have any line of sight - so no healing was possible)

(Out of character explanation #2: We are playing with an action point system, which allowed Ullog to cheat death at the permanent expense of some of his action points. He has choosen to do that and in-game a demon offered him a "deal" - the option for retribution and another chance to avenge the city at the mere cost of his soul - Ullog took the deal aka. two wrongs don't make a right).

So, we had our Ruby Knight Vindicator back in the game.

Meanwhile the dragons did not want to give up and vanHolstin learned that the dispelling breath could theoretically dispell the Resilient sphere. Fortunately the dragon failed its caster level check and hence we were continueing to fight against a single dragon for the remaining time.

VanHolstin proceeded to use group-healing and commanded everyone close to him for a rebuff and re-heal. Freshly buffed with haste, this time the (male) Dragon could no longer escape and a slow sealed his fate as he could no longer full atack and was soon beaten down.

After that, we prepared and readied our actions against the second dragon, who took a lot of damage in a single round, but managed to just use her flight speed advantage to barely escape (with less than 10 hit points). VanHolstin tried to slow again, but unfortunately without luck this time.



- Conclusion:
The fight was very intense, dragons always make up for an excellent enemy and our DM had prepared them well. They had a couple of one-time use maneuvers as well as some nice potions, which ended up giving them quiet an edge in the combat.

In all fairness the preparation of the combat already had sealed the deal, because one of their main sources of damage (their breath attack) was renedered nearly useless.

However, it was the first time that vanHolstin was not able to heal one of his team-mates. And that felt really bad. Basically the combination of stubborness and the lack of vision really played against me in this fight. I was reflecting whether I should have also moved in the fog and not CC'ed the second dragon, but that would probably have been a bad idea.


Thought-process on the character development

In terms of spells, I want to research following spells soon:
- Healing Darts (level 5), which is excellt, because you can use a healing dart with the full healing bonus of the build EVERY round as a free action. It is basically a free 25hit point healing on top of what I am currently already delivering.

- Delay Death (level 4): Just a very strong all around spell. Soon I will be level 12 - just a couple more encounters and that will net me the option for 6th level healer spells including the heal spell. Making someone immune to death from hitpoint damage for a period is just VERY strong in this combination.



Session 22-24:

- Roleplay content:
So, the group just defeated the two dragons, one effectively dead at our feet, the other one fleeing. Before we could start to loot the dragon, a programmed image appeared - a very very realistic illusion of an old red dragon. By his looks, our historical expert Warden (the BSF) could identify this being as one of the elder dragons on our realm. This illusion, as frightening as it was, told us to show merci with the dragon, as it is one of his off-spring and he wants to be the judge for his punishment.

Unfortunately, at this stage, the dragon was already dead and the following threats of the programmed image "if you kill it, I will find you and rip you into pieces" were no longer an threat, but rather a real forecast of what is eventually going to happen.

So, good days - we have made new enemies and were not even starting to clear most of the encounters. The group therefore decided that now it is time to proceed to the next skirmish, which was a fight in the northern jungle - where a very old, very large ape-like creature has been spotted. While we were travelling there, a full regiment of Hextor Clerics also went into the same direction.

Naturally, since vanHolstin is a firm believer in Heironimus, I was temped to start another "random encounter", but my DM has made it unmistakeably clear that this would not have been the intention and in the city that we are living, both cults are tolerated. Although I do personally not share his sentiments, I am experienced enough not to provoke a random fight, when real encounters are ahead.

So we moved on, just to see a gargantual ape - a rather hardcore version of the Julajimus (MM2, p.133). Our local expert Warden recognizes that he heard stories about this ancient being, which once it is awaken is going to destroy parts of the jungle and basically reak havok. He also shared tales of it being the sole reason, why many younglings of different races got kidnapped and or eaten alive.

Whether or not this was true, we had a true challenge ahead.


- Combat:
I think this combat gives a good example of how useful a buff routine can be, for clarification vanHolstin has following effects currently on him (maybe you want to take it for your own reference in your game):


Please keep in mind these buffs are on top of the Magic Items and immunities of the character, so if you are running a different setup of magic items, you might want to consider other buffs.

- Heart of Water (Level 3): for a better swim speed and the immediate effect to create freedom of movement in case I need it (effectively much longer than the normal FoM and therefore preferable)

- Heart of Stone (Level 4): For 20 additional free hit points as well as lots of nice boni if I am getting bull-rushed, tripped, etc. Also the option for a free stoneskin is very good. On-top you are ganing 25% crit immunity, which is nice.

- Dragonskin (Level 4): 20 Energy resistance (fire) and +6natural Armor helped to solve two of the issues of vanHolstin, without abusing polymorph or alter self for that natural armor

- Protection from evil (Level 2): immunity to most mind-effecting spells and +2AC and +2 to saves against evil creatures.

- Greater Resitance (Level 4): +3 to all saves for the whole day

- Invisibility (Level 2): To gain positional advantage, also the +40 to hiding helps to setup the combat

- Battlemagic Perception (Level 3): Absolut invaluable spell, which allows you to perceive psionic powers and even counter them as well as having the option to (on-top of an immediate action) counter one spell out of your turn. Just very very strong, highly recommended.

- Aspect of the Diety (Level 2, sanctified): I am using the wings quiet a lot as a cheap means of gaining a flight speed. Also it can be used on others. There are numerous ways to achieve this, the spell served me well so far.

- Reduce Person (Level 1): Overlooked spell, I personally like it alot. Another +4 to hide, +1AC, +1 to ranged touch attacks and as a tiny character you can hide behind characters of two size categories larger than yourself (in this case all of the other characters). So it is creating mobile cover for me to use my hiding skill.

(occasionally) Death Ward (Level 4): If needed, very strong protection against multiple nasty effects, mostly I am relying on my talisman of the undying fortitutde.

(occasionally) Neutralize Poison (Level 3): Complete immunity against poisons can be really strong and trivialize certain encounters - it also works great on your group in a single cast you can get multiple members.

(occasionally) Anticipate Teleport (Level 4): Great in situations, where your opponents constantly use teleporting items and spells to reposition. This effectively stops it. Be aware that is also influences your party - so it is kind of a double-edged sword.

(occasionally) Misdirection (level 1): which helps to direct the attention of certain divination spells away from me. Only used if needed.

(occasionally) Mirror Image, Greater (Level 3): One of the get out of jail cards, in case I am spotted, can be used as an immediate action.




Knowing that this combat might go bad, vanHolstin decided to buff up our group as we were approaching the Julajimus. Protection from Evil, Freedom of movement, flight, Armor buffs as well as Haste shortly before the encounter was about to start. The gargantual Julajimus was accopanied by ravenging, raging, completely mad apes, which started to tear everything into pieces. Also it appeared as if the huge ape was still busy chewing on the remains of the last regiment of brave adventurers, which they met.

My teammates, against my advice, started to hover over the ground, which gave the apes a good Chance to grapple them, because they seemed to have ridiculous jump-modifiers in the 40s. For our dedicated frontliner Warden with Freedom of Movement, this obviously has not been a problem, but for the poor Tarsa (our Dragonfire Adept) it ment that she was spending some time in grapples, nearly being killed by the damage.

VanHolstin spend his first turns making up for the bad positioning of his teammates, some fast heals and the utliizatino of benign transposition with unconscious creatures (they count always as willing, as opposed to corpses, which are invalid targets). This allowed Tarssa to escape the grapple and strangeling, but it also provoked the attention of the Julajimus.

VanHolstin continued to use the Wall of Fire to separate the battle field, it seemed to be very effective against the monkeys, as they were running around it and wasting time, but the Julajimus did not seem to care at all (I assume it just had a very high fire resistance). As a consequence, this gargantual ape was running towards the group - luckily this time they followed my orders and went up in the air.

VanHolstin, in bright daylight couldn't hide and therefore grabbedd the attention of the Julajimus. I was invisible at this time, so I already suspected that something fishy was going on. The Julajimus was creating massive energy projectiles and hurling them at vanHolstin. As a reaction, I used an immediate action or Greater Mirror Image, just to be informed that the creature seemed to have mage slayer, hence knows exactly where I am.
I also learned that crystals of arrow deflection let you snap projectiles, but not if they are of the size of siege weapons. Since this thing was gargantual, I needed to learn that it was just too big to be snatched.

As a result, for the first time in many many many sessions, vanHolstin was taking damage. The Julajimus rolled exceptionally well on his attack with the projectile, but the follow-up damage was not that great. Barely my temporary hitpoints had been hit and I could just move on. As an immediate learning, I knew that from now on we are playing hide and seek.

One of the nasty side-effects from the Julajimus was the constant aura of fear, which let Warden to run away with a hasted fly speed (stacking of fear effects just sucks sometimes). VanHolstin fortunately could catch up and bring him back thanks to the Storm's Eye Banner. Again I was feeling like someone, who was counter-battlefield-controlling most of the time.

Once the group was reformed, Tarssa (DFA) was focussing more on dealing with the smaller apes. With summonings and breath-weapons she was clustering them and afterwards softening them up (slowly, but surely).
Our main problem was however, that the Julajimus did not seem to take any damage. Warden could not approach it, even enlarged and with the spiked chain, his reach was just matching the reach of the Julajimus and it became quiet obvious that this thing would just tear him appart. Zariel in the meantime was trying to deal damage to it with mixed results, mainly because his flying capability did not allow him to use full attacks, therefore he spend a lot of his time moving up and then descending while full attacking. Ultimatively not really dealing damage. To make matters worse, the Julajimus was regenrating health and had taken feats to heal himself with his natural poison.

Therefore, I decided to change the strategy a little bit. Since the received damage was moderate, I went into the offense and started dealing damage with single target spells. Normally I would have relied on scorching ray and Orb spells, but due to the various resistances, I decided to go with a classical empowered Magic Missle, which was surprisingly effective. Combined with damage over time from the spiritual weapon that I summoned, the Julajimus was receiving approximately 50 damage per round and I was draining a minimum of my resources at the same time.

Tarssa and Warden managed to stay out of range, Zariel kept killing the smaller apes and vanHolstin was happily hammering away the Julajimus, life was good - until the battalion of Hextor arrived at the scene. Much to my displeasure, they interferred with the fight and started to "help" us, mainly killing the small apes, dealing 0 damage to the Julajimus but offering a couple of bodies for him to attack. The Clerics of Hextor seemed to have been accompanied by demons, namely a succubus and a bone devil, which also did not really help the case, other than prolonging the fight.

In the end vanHolstin had dealt a little over 450 hitpoints of damage to this thing before it finally collapsed. Of course, near its final death, Warden charged it and finished it (killstealer anyone?). But the joy for the overall victory overcompensated this little incedent.


- Conclusion:
vanHolstin really looks strong now. In the last three encounters, despite the very different nature of them, he could use his "anti-battlefield-control" role alot. It is satisfying to see that you help your teammates to not suck for the rest of the fight. That alone and basically annoying other battlefield controllers makes the build fun.

On top of that, the warmage side with the level 4 spells, the higher caster level and the ever-growing spell pool, starts to rival the healing part of the character. I am tempted to use both sides, the only limitation so far is the action economy (I wish I could cast more spells).

The current solution around it is, relying mostly on swift and immediate spells to use that second action every round. Although vanHolstin has close to 50 spells per day, the fights are challenging enough (+5ECL normally) that I am burning through quiet some spells. In a campaign, where your DM is not throwing everything at you in the first round but designing the encounters to last a couple of rounds, this build definitely seems like the way to go.

The downside so far is that I am overshadowing some of the other characters. The players themselves seem to be cool with it, because we also have a lot of roleplaying interaction, but the caster potency is significantly increasing, while the melees are subsequently falling behind. Not unexpected, but it is putting alot of the burden on my shoulders (if I suck in combat, we loose, if I do well, we win).

[jenotus]

Session 25-28:

- Roleplaying:

(overall observation)
We are still continueing the campaign. Personally, I am now a member of this great group for a little more than 8 month, still the story is unfolding, which is nice. It can be noticed that the DM is artifially reducing the experience gain, hence making it slower to level.

Out of character, the reasoning for this his disliking of the dnd-endgame and since level 6 and soon level 7 spells are entering the playing field, the power of the PCs is exponentially growing.

(content of the game)
So, after we defeated the Julajimus, the Terror of the Jungle, it started to vaporize and parts of its body liquified. We saw that this ancient evil spirit was taking a break, to reform itself. Something that we need to take care about later in the game.

We still had two more encounter areas to proceed to, so we decided to head for the undead spirits, which were haunting the east as well. On our way, we had a healthy discussion whether we still had sufficient resources for this battle. VanHolstin, the living spell battery, was still ok on the healing side, so we decided to press on.

We heard that another band of adventurers was trying to fight these spirits - when we arrived, we could only see their bodies, littering the floor. So I thought it was safe to assume that they failed. This time through, I wanted to make sure that we are properly prepared - hence, everyone received a death ward and protection from evil.

Not a second to early as the encounter was about to begin when black, thin shades were starting to appear everywhere.


- Combat:
The combat itself unfolded around these black shades, which turned out to be Allips. The group was aware of their abilty to drain Wisdom, so it was adviced to keep some distance.

The party mainly followed my suggestions, as Tarsa was summoning arch-hounds and used her amber amulet of vermin to get more targets onto the ground. Warden however wanted to check his melee capabilities and engaged in full blown combat.

A couple of learning from the Allips for you guys.

a) Their haunting appearently is not a mind affecting ability, hence the protection from evil doesn't help. And since they also were not summoned, they could touch us.

b) When you fight a large portion of them, the ability drain can stack up rather quickly and some of the usual combat maneuvers like wall of blades and shield block do not provide any effective means against them.

c) Probably most important - if you fight them be aware that Ability DRAIN is a bitch. Only very few spells are getting rid of it - restauration with 3 rounds casting time and a hefty 100gp component is one (luckily the healer gets it at level 3 instead of cleric level 4, so that was really good). Still, in combat it is difficult to deal with it.

VanHolstin did not have any problems at all, still had a 2 charges of my talisman of undying fortitude, which would have made me immune to all drain, but I never needed to use it.


Now, the good part. Allips also are pretty mindless and will attack whoever is standing in their way. Combined with the fact that they are undead, every heal spell makes a perfect attack spell against them. Out of my combat experience - a vanHolstin empowered cure light wounds, mass (level 5 overall) dealt about 40 damage to them, basically destroying most of them, while also healing our party (not that this would have been needed, but you get the point).

It was then, when another creature entered the battle, one which was likewisely sneaky and tried to use spells on us. It seemed demonic and necromantic in its nature and I am assuming that we fought a whisper demon, but I am not sure. The DM kept giving refereces to the void and an extraplanar creature, which this thing was worshipping.

As for the pure combat statistics, it was heavily relying on Use Magic Device and was casting away from scrolls. The bad part about it was that still some of the Allips were waiting under the ground, so we needed to cluster a bit. This worshipping demon used this opportunity to cast a fire storm (level 7) onto us. Everyone with the exception of vanHolstin was taking some serious damage. I made the saving throw and also had enough resistances.

(Sidenote: I tried at this time to mechanically outsmart the opponent. I was still under the impression that the enemy was an undead spell-caster due to the description of its outer form. So I was using an empowered close wounds on it, in the hopes to disrupt it. Just to realize that I healed it for 32 points of damage instead. Little blunder from my side, but I learned from it.)

As a reaction to this new situation, vanHolstin was adapting his tactic. Well knowing that the spells from the scrolls have a fixed caster level, his chance could rely in counter spelling. Hence, I healed up the party with another cure light wounds, mass - also killing some Allips and then waiting with my Battlemagic Perception.

During the turn of the demon, I used the battlemagic perception and countered his next spell, basically from there on it was rinse and repeat. I re-casted battlemagic perception in my turn, whenever it was not casting, I was hitting the areas with sculpt-spelled Glitterdust until I finally got him (-40 to hide, who is laughing now?).

So ultimatively the demon was discovered and most of its spells got interrupted on a regular basis. Bad news however was, that VanHolstin was running low on spells. Four 10+Round (CR= +5ECL) Encounters on a single day were proving to be even too much for this build. Mainly the intensive Buffing has taken its toll, but also the excessive use of spells.

I was quiet happy that 3 rounds later this demon vanished. As a climatic ending, it used a plane-shift, trying to take Warden with it into this chaos plane. Luckily he made his saving throw. As a conclusion, we found the living, but very tortured bodies of the prior adventurers, who got completely drained.


- Conclusion:
VanHolstin could perform pretty well in this combat. I am self-critical tho, I outsmarted myself with the immediate healing play, which in the end was costing one spell and I could have instead used battle-magic-perception. I learned form it and improved in the fight afterwards.

As for the role in combat, the healing was well on par with the incoming damage. In contrast to the Julajimus fight, where going into melee wouldn't have been an option at all, this time I could easily keep up with the encounter - despite its CR.

Lastly, the healing spells against undeads are just abnormously effective. Landing a group heal and punishing all undeads at the same time feels like taking full advantage of the the fact that they are undeads. It made the build even stronger, because the healing spells acted as optimized damage spells. Hence, with only two casts of cure light wounds, mass, the majority of the encounter was over.

I am seeing the tendency in the last encounters (the army approaching, the Julajimus and this encounter - so 3 out of 4) that vanHolstin is not only Battlefield-Controlling and Removing Debuffs, but also Healing and dealing the most damage at the same time. Parts of it has to do with the strength of the caster, but it is also related to the positioning and decision making that the group is taking once in a while.


Session 29-30:

- Roleplaying Content:
After we killed the Allips, vanHolstin was completely out of spells, still the conflict was ongoing. Hence, the group decided that we need to engage in the last encounter, but not without resources. Therefore we bought a magic bedroll, reducing the time to sleep to 2 hours, giving vanHolstin his well deserved rest.

After this refreshing sleep, we went to the North, where the last encounter was rumored to happen. All we found tho, was a summoning place, where many extraterestial creatures had been called and a lot of flesh and blood. Appearently the called demons were raising skeletons of the local townsfolk and afterwards disappeared. However it happened, we came to late.

So all the preparation and the hussle was not yielding results. The group decided to move to the center of the town, where the leaders of the army were supposed to be and found that most of the enemy forces had been driven back.

In a lengthy conversion it unfolded that the enemy city, consisting of a council of 7 mages, was plotting against our city. On closer inspection (we have had a clairvoince of the past, a recorded conversation that we saw), it seemed as if only one of the council members was behind that plot. A conjurer, who was known to experiment with constructs and undeads (it was fitting and explaining the whole attack much better).

Although the attack seemed over, the conversation was troubeling, as it indicated that maybe an even larger invasion could happen - and the invasion of one man alone had already caused significant damage.

So the next step was to look for the ruling authority of our city, who was rumored to live in the central palace, a sealed building in the middle of the central mountain. Noone had entered it for decades, but now seemed to be an appropriate time to do so. The main concern of the elders of our city was that the ruler might have gone missing, because in the defense, large parts of the shadesteel golem (one of which we accedently killed *cough*) were just inactive.

That is were we are investigating the inner realm at the momement.

(more to come soon)

Character conclusion so far:
VanHolstin in now level 12, hence I got the 6th level of healer spells, very much looking forward for i.e. Heal as a spell. This is probably going to be one of the major break-points, because from now on even the CO oppinion of healing is that it can be a worthwhile investment of actions. I will keep the diary ongoing nevertheless.

I need to look through the additional spells still, the level also offered some nice utility spells - specifically spells, which allow to gain services of celestial beings for a whole year. Cry of Ygard, Summon celestial Steed and the likes spring to mind.

Since the group is going to receive a big portion of land as a reward for their deeds, vanHolstin is already actively thinking about how these guardians could help us to defend our future territory. But more to come soon.

[jenotus]

Session 31-33:

We used the sessions to prepare for the upcoming battle. Within the campaign the cities of Isea and Kalishtar (the one we are with) are about to clash and these intermezzo's were barely the beginning. So it was soon understood that we are about to prepare for a large-scaled fight.

As part of this, both of the cities followed the tradition of open warfare and proceeded into the marshes, an ancient battleground, where a magic ritual was prepared from both sides. It was a good explanation why armies still retained their value in a scenario where both sides had access to high-level spellcasting. The ritual was call "the WEAVE" and it basically ment that most of the strong spellcasters where contributing outside of the combat in a battle of "wills". As part of this battle, they were spending spell-slots in order to overpower the other side and grant the soldiers benefits (i.e. regeneration, resistances, spells-resist, healing, movement, attack/defense boni). The list was quiet long and the scenario was well prepared.

As for our group, we were asked to act as skirmishers throughout the battlefield in order to eliminate certain persons within the opposing army and hence weaken the army (which - as you will soon see - we majorly ignored).

As for the composition of the armies, I am trying to recall the detailed stats:

Kalishtar (our side).
- 5.000 footsoldiers / archers
- A complete order of Hextor with summoned demons
- Two old silver dragons
- A druidic circle with various raging animals
- The church of St'Cufbert, which consisted mainly of Battle-Clerics
- Various golems (including an alchemistical golem)
- The house Brightflame (aka house Failflame, as you will see later), a renowed order of Paladins
- An order of casters of the 7 veils, who fought as a union
- (our party)

Isae (other side, not full information, as we never saw their army completely):
- 15.000 to 20.000 footsoldiers / archers
- multiple Regiments (500 each) of warforged soldiers with psionic swats in their ranks
- A full regiment of redspawns and various red-dragon typed creatues
- One old red dragon
- about 200 medium level casters of various sorts
- Combat - Mechs and other golemoids
- A multi-colour dragon-swat of various true dragonspawn
- A large multi-headed runehound creature
- A circle of highlevel archmage-casters (level 15+, one of them - an evocer- joining the combat personally)

The rules of the battle were clarified upfront, which included extensive upfront buffing and afterwards going into the battle, which would last a couple of minutes (so dozens of rounds). As part of the battle, high-level spells were not allowed in the WEAVE, which blocked everything above 5th level.

We decided to extensively buff up (I am going to spare you with the overall list, but I spend hours preparing it and we had more than 60 buffs running, when we entered the field). In expectation of what was supposed to be an epic battle .... and boy it was.



Session 33-45:
Now you might wonder, why I havn't updated the Diary in quiet some time, the reason is simple. We had one massive battle ongoing ... over dozens of rounds and unfortunately over nearly 4 month in real life. This kinda shows all the details about what is wrong with DnD 3.5 in the Endgame.


Our DM macroed all of the rolls of the oponents, often putting multiples of them together (as much as 200 archers)
We limited the scope of the battle only to the area, which was relevant for us (approx less than 10% of what was going on overall)
Many of the combat decisions were trivialized and at the later stages flat out ignored and instead averages were taken (i.e. how many archers die/low-level healing spells/hp of the archers)
Only noticable opponents were even considered in the Initiative count
No single action (in its planing) took longer than 30 seconds


Still, the time-sink was huge ... and I mean HUGE. Sometimes the sheer amount of interaction between spells was just too much to bare with it (its why I am saving you the description of the details of the combat - I assume just noone would read it). Having a dispel check, when several people try to counterspell / redirect a spell, then dodging certain areas of anti-magic (like dwemor matrix) and still hitting multiple enemies with 20+ buffs each to start and proceed with the dispel routing against various CLs of the original casters ..... **** like that happened. We were prepared, we had good book-keeping, we used averages, I was starting to co-DM in order to speed things up ... but still, it took 4 month and countless hours.

My learning: It was one of the most beasty battles that I have ever fought, but I am advising against running high level encounters with many participants UNLESS you are prepared to spend days on it.

With that being said, I still want to give you some impressions without going into the details (as explained above). I will first describe what was happening in a narritive and then we can look at some of my most favorite scenes.



It was a hot summer day, when vanHolstin looked at his companions, sweat upon their skins. Their eyes signaled readiness, but also fear - or maybe rather respect - about the upcoming confrontation. VanHolstin had been to war before, but his comerades, although very battle-worn, seem to never had that experience. The thrill and the intensity in the air, before the slaughter begins. And today it should begin.

He looks at Warden, his fellow companion, while slowly mumbling the words of power. The shape of the Dragonborn changes into the outline of a large gruesom beast - a war-troll. His muscles bend and his size doubles, he now exceeds the rest of the army by far. Others start to look at him and mumble in fear and respect. VanHolstin silently smiles and orders his comerades to march. It was time to seek out the enemies.

...

Moments pass slowly, it is almost as if time would be standing still. VanHolstin could feel the adrenalin in his veins as he hastly observes the battlefield. On the left, he sees how a battalion of riders charges into a a wall of metal. The warforged opposition with their giant mechs tries to unify their ranks, but is dispatched by the lances of the front-riders, which consist out of pure lightning.

Almost simulteneously vanHolstin hears screams behind him, when the blast wave of a giant fireball rushes over his hear as the small gnome intuitively ducks behind the tree that he uses as cover during this moment. The area, which was one covered by thick jungle plants is now barren and black earth indicates the enormous temperature of the explosion. For a moment the heart of the gnome seems to skip a beat, as an animalistic screem roars through the woods - somewhere from behind the enemy lines. Whatever it is, it seems to be approaching into our direction.

In a last second, while still mumbling the words of power, vanHolstin sees his friend Zariel - calmly flying in the air and producing mental, blue-shimmering bolts of energy, which he is throwing with distinct accuracy into the enemy lines. Each launching is accompanied by a shreek, an a moment of unhealthy silence afterwards. Zariels face is covered in his own blood, as a result of one of the many shots that he has taken from a sniper - somewhere far behind the enemy lines.

It is now when vanHolsin finally unleashes the energy of this words. It is almost as if these ancient rhymes were desperately waiting to be spoken. A gigantic wall of consuming fire appears in the middle of the enemy regiment of archers, swiftly followed by the brutal chorus of screems of dieing victims. The heat of the wall seemingly can be felt up to his position, maybe it is just his imagination - what is for sure is that the air is filled with the moist of burning flesh.

...

His comerade appears to be falling any second. VanHolstin realizes that Warden, the proud troll as well as a couple of the Paladins of House Brightflame are massively bleeding. The beast that they are trying to fight looks gruesome, an abomination of flesh, a large multiheaded runehound, tattoed with dozens of psionic, feintly shimmering blue inscriptions. Its mouth leaks a stench of death and its body as well as the area around it is covered in green, acidious blood, which burns away all life. Warden strikes again, his massive chain seperates one of the heads from the body and the creature beginns to stutter.

Its body transforms and instability seems to overcome the strong physique of the beast. VanHolstin is in the middle of a short prayer to his god, the great Heironimus, as he realizes that it is too late. Even a swift prayer will not help all of these souls. Infront of his eyes shimmers a brief moment of the future and vanHolstin sees how the runehound instabilizes and explodes into thousands of small pieces. In his vision, his comerade as well as the paladins near to him evaporade into dust, burned away by the acidic blood of the beast, leaving nothing but smoking piles of ashe.

This cannot happen. This shall not happen.

VanHolstin concentrates as time slows down. Future and presence merge into a brief moment of union. The small gnome takes a deep breath as the world around him slows down until it finally stands still. He draws a complex pattern in the air and a shell of translusive energy forms around the dying beast. A cage made out of pure force, a resilient sphere, which cannot be broken by physical might.

As time starts to flow naturally, the gnome sinks into a brief moment of blackness - every spell requires its price and great magic doesn't come cheap.



From a story perspective, the battle was intense. Our party ended up in a middle section of the whole jungle. The part that we could see contained something like 200 vs. 400 archers (in favor of the enemy), relatively sparse location of the trees and frontline on both sides.

While the enemies had warforged troups and a couple of mid-level casters, we were basically having the cavalery of the house brightflame (paladin order), which on paper would have looked cool due to their lightning lances and ****, but turned out to completely suck and at some point even start to just heal instead of do anything. Their main problem was simply the bad terrain as well as the massive amount of battlefield control.

Speaking about spells - the whole thing was a slugfest. Not far into the battle we had dozens of Glitterdusts, Greases, Stinking clouds, various energy walls, fogs of various categories, blizzards, walls, black tentacles - you name it - on the battlefield. Our group decided to stay back, just Warden (our Frontline-Troll moved in in order to beat them up).

In the next dozen of turns, we slowly advanced, Zariel our mageslayer Soulbolt basically killed of all of the medium level casters, while Tarssa (our Dragonfire Adept) was rapidly summoning creatures to throw them into the enemy). Warden got smacked pretty hard and I focussed on placing various walls killing over 400 enemies and thinning their ranks.

In mid combat, we had a couple of stronger enemies including the following: We fought an even level caster (sorcerer-type), a sniper who was focussing on single shot killing/hexing/spellcasting and a newly approached huge sized multi-headed rune-hound with psionic support. I am deliberately not mentioning the other 250 NPCs, which were just there but not posing a thread.

We focussed on the caster first and it was a pretty close fight, as Warden nearly dropped down. Interesting fun fact - Reciprocal Gyre (wiz/soc 5) - deals 1d12 damage per level of spell active on a target (up to 25d12, fort half). So you can imagine that Warden, who had way more buffs on him, was eating alot of damage throughout this spell. At one point he even dropped into the negatives, while the enemy caster needed to flee in order to not die. I stabilized him (even had delay death if he would have taken more damage) and we kinda resetted the situation (benign transposition with a random unconscious dude on our side, heal up and reapproach).

Since the sniper couldn't be seen, we decided to go for the rune-hound next, which was a good idea, as 4-headed giant rune hounds appearently are dealing some sick damage (especially with epic feats on them) and dozens of psionic tattoos. May it be however - Warden started to stand toe-to-toe with the beast and soon dropped it to really low amounts of health with his massive swings (he was hitting for 100-150hp per round, sometimes even more). The pinnacle of this situation was, when the runehound started to instabilize and I realized that Warden (again low on health) as well as dozens of "named" NPCs (unfortunately useless ones, but still) would die in vain if this explosion would run through. So I used Celerity and Otiluk's Resilient Sphere in order to prevent that - effectively trapping the beast while it was dieing and nullifying the whole explosion (28d8 wouldn't have been fun).

The battle afterwards intensified. We healed up and the lowbies from our side were a bit shocked, because the enemy army now threw everything they had into our direction. Incoming a regiment of red dragonspawns riding other red dragonspawns, another regiment of musketeers (pathfinder import with huge crits x4 and tough attacks), a huge red dragon and the Terror of this Battle - one of the council members of Issea - an Archmage Evocer named Herad Akmi. I almost pissed my pants and we had a discussion whether this time it is too much and we might just teleport out and call it a day.


The party decided to NOT do it (sometimes being in a democratic party sucks -.-)
Anyways, so we soon found ourselfs in an outgunned scenario. A heavy-heavy-heavy buffed archmage was approaching our territory, while the dragon plus the red dragonspawn crew were damaging our backline intensively. I tried to keep everyone in a 30ft radius, because we had resistanes (and with the exception of the archmage, who had searing spell and ignored the resistances), the breath-attacks and the occasional fireballs were largely prevented by these. The advantage of the tactic was that I could freely heal with empowered cure moderate wounds mass, hitting values of 80-90 damage healed on everyone per round (I am still amused about how counter-healing is a thing even in close encounters of ECL ~20).

Now some of you might wonder, which the archmage alone hasn't killed us ... it's a fair question.
The answer is two-fold: Firstly, also he was limited to the 5th level maximum spell rule as a circumstancial effect, which luckily for us, prevented his 6-8th level spells from going off. Secondly, the ongoing WEAVE also ment that both of us (archmage and myself) could counter the spells of the other person as a free action, which gave the whole scenario a completly different dynamic and a second layer.

We decided to ignore the archmage (yes I am serious, you might shake your heads, but the other targets were often one-shots, while the archmage was beefed up). So I was trying to counter-spell him as much as possible, effectively we were trading spell-slots like mad. With similar caster levels (I had magic Tattoo, some focusses, karma beats and other **** running to keep up with him), it was often a 50/50 whether spells would go off. I addiitionally used my ring of spell battle, my battlemagic perception and whatever else I had at my disposal, just to "mute" him for a 3-4 turns. I was reasonably successful and in the meantime my party started to kill most of the others. The reginment of musketeers was brought down to only 2 men standing, the redspawns were neutralized (funny enough the sniper deserted and joined us, with a cool background story - he was a former buddy of Warden, so we effectively had a little bit help). Also the red dragon was brought down by summonings, my dragon-skeleton (a former brother or named red dragon) and the help of the remaining party.

All in all these rounds were extremely intense and my party more often than not dropped very low ... VERY VERY low. Tarssa was multiple times in the negatives, Zariel was at single didgets and also Warden was close to being unconscious more than once.

You could think that with only the archmage left, all of this shouldnt be too much of a problem - but you would be wrong. The karma of the dice turned and with all of my usable items / skills gone (no Ring of spellbattle, Ring of counterspells, Battlemagic Perception, Luck of the Gnomes, Mantle of Second Chances, all gone). We were up for the fight of our lifes. It took us ages to bring down that mage, who was covered in as many spells as we were. Magics superiority never had been more obvious than in this fight. Warden was in his face and the only reason that he started to harm him was, because I buffed him so heavily that he was one-shotting nearly everything else. Zariel and Tarssa at this stage couldnt contribute really, because Herad was simply immune to whatever they did.

The most part of the battle it was an intensive back-and forth between me and Herad, he had a couple of rounds, where he was just winning many of the spell battles, then I got a few good punches. He couldnt see me, thanks to my 100+ hiding checks, but he was raging and unloading on warden. Warden in the meantime could only harm him, when he had enough hit points and each hit was triggering a backlash of energy, which harmed Warden quiet substantially. To make matters worse, I could only heal warden if I won the spell-battles and I ran into the risks that Akme could "steal" the spells if he exceeds me by too much in the opposed CL check.

So we had a nice stallmate, luckily for me, the Mystic Theurge is a power-house when it comes to spell-slots. Don't let anyone ever tell you different. In many campaigns you will never need that many slots, but in this circumstance, both Herad an myself were BURNING through our slots, magic was flying EVERYWHERE. Eventually we managed to bring him down to nearly negatives, Seed of life procced and brought him back up, we bring him back down again and his contingency triggers, casting a heal. I manage to heroically beat his CL check by enough to redirect the spell and fully heal Warden with it instead. Herad finally goes into negatives (unconscious). So we decide not to simply kill him, but trap his soul with a soul-drinking weapon, which we had found earlier in one of the encounters with the whisper-demon. So his clone did not go off and he instead vanishes into the weapon.

Long - EXHAUSTIVE battle is finally over. It is time for some roleplaying now and some character development, which we were desperately missing over the last few month.


Observations of vanHolstin:
Now I am nearing the point, where I actively think about retirning vanHolstin. He is now Level 13, nearly 14, I started him at level 8. The build is so much fun, it is hands down the best character that I have played so far - ever.

With that being said, a couple of problems start to shine through more and more (not with the character, but with the situation of CO endgame):
a) The power-level of the character is exponentially growing. In a buffed scenario, vanHolstin is now running 100AC, effective 540hp, has hiding checks of more than 120 and can dish out healing in the range single target 150-300 and group 1000-2000 healing per round - over MULTIPLE rounds, with little effort. I do have concrete plans of how to proceed and retire, probably around level 16ish, because then everything except EPIC content simply wouldnt be a challenge anymore.

b) The intra-group power level has shifted massively. When I started, vanHolstin was about 30% of the power level of the group combined, which was ok - given good tactical decisions and solid playing. Meanwhile vanHolstin is probably around 70% of the group power (and if you would account the effect of buffs on other also to him even more like 85-90%). My plamates are nice and pretty calm about the situation, because I like to give power to them and help solving encounters together. But it is undeniable that in the endgame, an experienced caster SIGNIFICANTLY (underscored, bold, highlighted) outshines a martial character.

c) My personal take on warmage, specifically if you extend the spell-list, is - that it is a class, which should belong to tier3. Very solid progression, 9th level spells, options to substitute and gain additional spells, super efficient with prestige classes, very good spell list on his own with battle-field control, solid hit points and saves). I read arguments in the forum, why it was not considered tier 3 and in my personal perspective, this was just a theoretical discussion by people, who undervalue evocation spells. In my gaming reality (in CO games with experienced players) the warmage can keep up with a beguiler and a dread-necro.
So whats the big deal you might ask? The whole idea of the build was to take two weak casters (tier 4+5) and make something useful. Having an effectively strong tier3 caster with the warmage effectively made the build even stronger. I can see this in hindsight.

d) The DnD Endgame. I love it from a perspective of complexity and variety. But the effective gaming is really really difficult. The last fight had shown it - we took 4 month to resolve like 30 rounds of in-game combat. In the meantime (just as a counter-example), we ran through 15 encounters in a different campaign (level 5-6) PLUS storyline PLUS character development. The DM of this campaign is like super dedicated, but its clearly observable that the game and the fights drags on into more complexity.
Just as a sign of this: I hand-crafted an Excel-Sheet for vanHolstin for buffing routines, which I attach for you guys:

d1) Example of how a spellbook ambominates
https://s28.postimg.org/9d6iak47v/Spell_Book.png

d2) Exampe of a buffing routine:
https://s28.postimg.org/3n3fz0di3/Buffs.png

I went as far as to implement dynamic PIVO tables in excel to track the different buff types more easy and get accurate effects when single spells are missing.

Long-story short: it totally exploded and in a few levels it will be exponentially worse.


Conslusion: vanHolstin will not vanish yet, but his dawn is coming sooner than later. I think that he might be around until level 16, upgrading his gear a bit and finding his spot in the world of the very powerful individuals. Then, previous to the EPIC endgame, the campaign will probably come to an end (after 3 years) and we will start with other heroes (maybe the apprentices).


(to be continued soon ...)

[jenotus]

Reserved for future adventures.

[jenotus]

Reserved for even more posts.

[jenotus]

One last reservation

[Gnaeus]

Purpose of the diary:
In a nutshell, many arguments were made that healing is sub-par towards battlefield control and that specifically during the mid-levels it is basically a wasted action. Whilst from a pure optimization perspective, there are many supporting arguments for this perspective, I wanted to offer you some first hand experience from my play-through as a healer in the current campaign.

Tactic & character:
- The hiding tactic turned out to be golden, as I never was in danger myself
- Given that the healer is a tier5 (without reworked spell-list) and the warmage a tier4 class, their combination with the addition of an early entry worked very well in the so far tier3 optimized group.
- I would even go as far as saying that the battlefield control turned in combination with the status removal plus the healing turned out to be the MVP of the encounter so far

Well, it is arguable that the addition of the sanctified spells make the healer not-a-tier 5. At the very least, it is a significant level of opti-fu (a rare splatbook, which happens to synergize very well with healer.) I've never heard anyone say anything bad about Dark, and early entry MT tricks are powerful for any caster. You say the others are "optimized" but I don't see anything that approaches that optimization level from the descriptions or the fight. I can't say that I am at all surprised that a prebuffed, flying, functionally perma-invisible Healer8/Warmage 6 can outperform a ToB chain tripper 10 and a DFA 10.

There is a very small, but vocal, minority that says combat healing is useless, and invocation is useless. The better statement is that invocation is a great school to drop because most of its spells can be duplicated by other schools, and that in most cases, casting spells to end fights will be preferable to dropping heals, and that if you had optimized as a battlefield control caster you could also have dominated this fight. Sure, you can build a strong healer with the right optimization tricks that will hold its weight. Its the same tier as a fighter, and fighters can be uberchargers. This was a fight that played to your strengths (lots of enemies to BFC/AOE, damage evenly spread among many party members, lots of room to use your good maneuverability).

[jenotus]

Well, it is arguable that the addition of the sanctified spells make the healer not-a-tier 5. At the very least, it is a significant level of opti-fu (a rare splatbook, which happens to synergize very well with healer.) I've never heard anyone say anything bad about Dark, and early entry MT tricks are powerful for any caster. You say the others are "optimized" but I don't see anything that approaches that optimization level from the descriptions or the fight. I can't say that I am at all surprised that a prebuffed, flying, functionally perma-invisible Healer8/Warmage 6 can outperform a ToB chain tripper 10 and a DFA 10.

There is a very small, but vocal, minority that says combat healing is useless, and invocation is useless. The better statement is that invocation is a great school to drop because most of its spells can be duplicated by other schools, and that in most cases, casting spells to end fights will be preferable to dropping heals, and that if you had optimized as a battlefield control caster you could also have dominated this fight. Sure, you can build a strong healer with the right optimization tricks that will hold its weight. Its the same tier as a fighter, and fighters can be uberchargers. This was a fight that played to your strengths (lots of enemies to BFC/AOE, damage evenly spread among many party members, lots of room to use your good maneuverability).


Hello mate,

thanks for pointing this out. I will need to write a few clarifications, once I have time.

a) The build of the others is not accurate, I will need to ask them in detail what they did to optimize their build (e.g. the soulbolt had splashed in spheres of power content for further utility and is using some nice ranged attack routine for steady attack damage).

b) I might have been unclear: the buffing was mainly for the others (so if anything, that would have helped them to perform better, each of them received the buffs, while I was just sticking with invis).

c) Your argument about the santified spells is valid, maybe in this case the healer is upper tier5, low tier4, the real kicker is the rework of the Spell Compendium list, which I am unfortunately not allowed to use.

d) with regard to the fight, let's wait for the next encounters and see if they are more challenging / will play more to my weaknesses.

e) Edit: Regarding the early entry - several opionions have been raised that even with it a dual class is not worth the effort and instead one should go for the PrC route. I wanted to playtest that myself, so that was the reason for including it as well.

Thanks for your input,
cheers,
Jeno

[Uncle Pine]

A detailed first hand narration of tactical combat is always worth a reading in my opinion, and this time I get to read it from chapter 1! :smallsmile:

I love how the NPC isn't mentioned until the 14th round when he suddenly appear just because he needs a hand: it conveys the "useless NPC is useless" feeling quite well.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

[jenotus]

A detailed first hand narration of tactical combat is always worth a reading in my opinion, and this time I get to read it from chapter 1! :smallsmile:

I love how the NPC isn't mentioned until the 14th round when he suddenly appear just because he needs a hand: it conveys the "useless NPC is useless" feeling quite well.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

Lol,

he indeed was. In fact we left him at the teleporter and told him to come in after 1 minute. After 10 rounds of combat (and us being fully involved in hand-to-hand skirmishes) he kinda came after us.

From his perspective it was a bit like

Round 11: I go in like a boss, need to help these whelps.

Round 12: I see the enemies, lets charge them. Ohh ****, now I get beaten up (he got critical hit from a charging longspear for x3 dmg).

Round 13ff.: I go invisible and start whining. Please heal.

;)

[Warrnan]

Fun to read that! It makes me want to play again soon!

I have often played the "combat medic" role.

See if you can finagle Delay Death onto your spell list somehow. Very useful immediate immunity to death for CL rounds. Close wounds is my favorite low level heal. Stock up on metamagic wands of repeat, quicken, and twin and you'll crank out some ridiculous healing. Maybe figure out a way to get Heal as a ranged touch and then chain it.

[ComaVision]

Are you using the Healer as a spontaneous caster or have you just used all your slots for healing spells?

[jenotus]

Are you using the Healer as a spontaneous caster or have you just used all your slots for healing spells?

Hi there,

I ideed started with the spontaneous healer feat (which so far I can recommend). I am usually memorizing a mixture of buffs, status removals and close wounds / empowered close wounds (just to maximize the action economy).

I took your question into account and decided to also note down the current memorization (just as a benchmark for people, who are interested).

best regards,
jeno

[Troacctid]

Spellbook contains (versitile spellcaster)
- 1: Benign Transposition, Blockage, Grease, Exp Retreat (Swift), Enlarge, Summon Monster I, Wall of Smoke
- 2: Invisibility, Rope Trick, Glitterdust, Baleful Transposition, Mirror Images, See Invisibility, Spymaster's Coin, Chain of Eye's
- 3: Haste

Wait, what? Since when does Versatile Spellcaster let you do this?

[jenotus]

Fun to read that! It makes me want to play again soon!

I have often played the "combat medic" role.

See if you can finagle Delay Death onto your spell list somehow. Very useful immediate immunity to death for CL rounds. Close wounds is my favorite low level heal. Stock up on metamagic wands of repeat, quicken, and twin and you'll crank out some ridiculous healing. Maybe figure out a way to get Heal as a ranged touch and then chain it.


Hi mate,

thanks for the hints.

I am speaking with the DM and trying to get the option to "spell research" as described in the PHB. One of my first spells would be delay death, because I fully agree, it is worth the effort.

With regard to close wounds and repeat/twin metamagic wands, I am not sure if it will be worth it:
- Quicken spell is counting against the swift/immidiate action, so effectively the close wounds spell is already doing this (with the mere cost of 1d4 instead of 1d8 as base healing)
- Repeat/twin Metamagic would (cost wise) only really be an option for the lesser variant. If I am not mistaken, that would be 27.000gp(for repeat, twin was even more), which I think I could invest more effectively by for instance buying more immunities (which soon will become really important).
And even if you look at repeat spell, all it does is that it repeats the same spell in the next round again (onto the same target). For Close wounds that seems wasted (as it heals around 18-19 hp). For a single target CLW/CMW/CSW there is even a spell, which I could use without the wand: Healing Spirit (SrC) - which with enough +healing is really a nice way for constant healing.


Heal as ranged attack is something I am actually planning (either via ranged spell (meta) or via buying enough unicorn horns - at this stage they are comparably cheap).

[jenotus]

Wait, what? Since when does Versatile Spellcaster let you do this?

Hi mate,

I link you some of the threats for the discussion about it. The basic idea is simple, you take arcane training as a feat at level 1, hence you get a spell book.
Based on this spell book (which allows you to put wizard/sorc spells in there) you can use the feat versatile spellcaster to change your slots (in this case warmage) for wiz spells.

My DM limited this by applying following houserules:
- My DC for the spells is not going up (thats why I am rather having utility in my list)
- I cannot exceed the maximum spell level that I could currently cast (in this cast level 3)


Here is the quote from another threat that will probably answer your question:


You can take the feat Magical Training in PGtF and get a spellbook with the ability to cast a few 0-level spells from it. Per the Rules Compendium's section on spellbooks, any character who prepares and casts spells from a spellbook is able to add more spells to it just as a Wizard does. So any spontaneous casting class, including Beguiler, Warmage, and Dread Necromancer, can use this with Versatile Spellcaster to gain access to the entire Wizard spell list.

here are the threats that I promised you:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361942-Versatile-Spellcaster-Alacritous-Cogitation-makes-Wizards-TO

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2816

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?259477-Arcane-Preparation-Versatile-Spellcaster-and-turning-wizard-into-a-1-level-dip

Have fun reading.
cheers,
jeno

[Antariuk]

Now this was an interesting read.

Since I've forgotten most of what I knew about 3.5, would you mind breaking down your action economy in more detail? I don't think I really understand how you pulled off most of your stunts :smallredface:

[jenotus]

Now this was an interesting read.

Since I've forgotten most of what I knew about 3.5, would you mind breaking down your action economy in more detail? I don't think I really understand how you pulled off most of your stunts :smallredface:

Hi mate,

will do, I have a train-ride infront of me, will edit the original post.

all the best,
jeno

[jenotus]

updated Session 5. More to come next week.

[gadren]

Hi mate,

I link you some of the threats for the discussion about it. The basic idea is simple, you take arcane training as a feat at level 1, hence you get a spell book.
Based on this spell book (which allows you to put wizard/sorc spells in there) you can use the feat versatile spellcaster to change your slots (in this case warmage) for wiz spells.

My DM limited this by applying following houserules:
- My DC for the spells is not going up (thats why I am rather having utility in my list)
- I cannot exceed the maximum spell level that I could currently cast (in this cast level 3)


Here is the quote from another threat that will probably answer your question:



here are the threats that I promised you:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?361942-Versatile-Spellcaster-Alacritous-Cogitation-makes-Wizards-TO

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2816

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?259477-Arcane-Preparation-Versatile-Spellcaster-and-turning-wizard-into-a-1-level-dip

Have fun reading.
cheers,
jeno

My gut reaction to this is that wizards don't have spells known, so versatile caster can't let you cast spells from a spell book, only allowing it to be used with spontaneous casting (as is clearly RAI).
But it's nice of your DM to let you do it.

[jenotus]

My gut reaction to this is that wizards don't have spells known, so versatile caster can't let you cast spells from a spell book, only allowing it to be used with spontaneous casting (as is clearly RAI).
But it's nice of your DM to let you do it.


Hi mate,

I don't want to claim the intellectual idea of using it that way. Matter of fact, I just re-used the initial idea. Hence, it is not "my GM" specifically that let's it fly this way, it is RAW and actually many GMs seem to be cool with it.

As for your question about spells known for the wizard: I think it was even mentioned in the threads that I linked you. Wizards know all the spells in their spell book. Therefore, whatever is written in them can be part of the versatile spellcaster combination (just read it up, there is even a link to the PHB text I think).

Best regards,
Jenotus

[gadren]

Hi mate,

I don't want to claim the intellectual idea of using it that way. Matter of fact, I just re-used the initial idea. Hence, it is not "my GM" specifically that let's it fly this way, it is RAW and actually many GMs seem to be cool with it.

As for your question about spells known for the wizard: I think it was even mentioned in the threads that I linked you. Wizards know all the spells in their spell book. Therefore, whatever is written in them can be part of the versatile spellcaster combination (just read it up, there is even a link to the PHB text I think).

Best regards,
Jenotus

Blegh. You're technically right. That's some serious Casu Marzu, but it is technically RAW thanks to the Rules Compendium.

I run a lot of high-op anything RAW goes games where I allow some pretty cheesy stuff, but I'd still be hesitant about that.

[Troacctid]

The reason it's not RAW is also in the Rules Compendium: there's a clause in there that says you can't spontaneously cast a spell from one class using slots from a different class. This is important, of course, because note the wording on the Warmage's spellcasting ability:

Unlike a cleric or a wizard, a warmage need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his spells per day for that spell level.
The trick relies on Versatile Spellcaster giving you the ability to cast "any spell you know" with it. But if you took that reading, then the feat would be unnecessary—you'd already be able to do that as a basic function of your class.

Of course, it doesn't really work that way, because, like, rules, or whatever. And this is on top of the fact that Magical Training doesn't give you a class spell list, just three cantrips cast as a Wizard, so you can't scribe any new spells into the spellbook it gives you (since a spell has to be on your class spell list to scribe it into your spellbook), making this specific trick even less rules-legal.

[jenotus]

The reason it's not RAW is also in the Rules Compendium: there's a clause in there that says you can't spontaneously cast a spell from one class using slots from a different class. This is important, of course, because note the wording on the Warmage's spellcasting ability:

The trick relies on Versatile Spellcaster giving you the ability to cast "any spell you know" with it. But if you took that reading, then the feat would be unnecessary—you'd already be able to do that as a basic function of your class.

Of course, it doesn't really work that way, because, like, rules, or whatever. And this is on top of the fact that Magical Training doesn't give you a class spell list, just three cantrips cast as a Wizard, so you can't scribe any new spells into the spellbook it gives you (since a spell has to be on your class spell list to scribe it into your spellbook), making this specific trick even less rules-legal.

Actually, whoever can cast Wizard spells (even 0th level) can also have a spell-book. Whoever owns a spell book, "knows" all the spells in the book, as of RAW.

Furthermore versatile casting states that you need to give up 2x "a slot" in order cast any spell known of a level slot+1 or lower.

Therefore it doesn't state the selected spell needs to be from your warmage list. It can be from the spells known (which regarding to the initial statement is every spell in your book). Therefore both talents together are required.

The same discussion that we are having is btw also done in the threads that I linked. With the conclusion that RAW it works. So feel free to read through it, it was an interesting argumentation.

best regards,
Jenotus

[Troacctid]

Actually, whoever can cast Wizard spells (even 0th level) can also have a spell-book. Whoever owns a spell book, "knows" all the spells in the book, as of RAW.
Technically, anyone can own a spellbook. You can buy a blank one for 15 gp. You just can't scribe spells into it unless you're a spellcaster who uses a spellbook. Magical Training lets you meet that requirement, but it doesn't override the other requirement, which is that, per RC p160, you can only copy a spell into your spellbook if it is on your class spell list. Magical Training gives you 0-level spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard list, but it does not make sorcerer/wizard spells class spells for you. Thus a Warmage with the Magical Training feat could scribe Fireball or Ice Storm into his spellbook, but not Charm Person or Dimension Door.

This is probably why in the threads you referenced, the trick they're discussing uses actual Wizard levels rather than the Magical Training feat. Of course, with Wizard levels, it's still subject to the usual rules on multiclass spellcasting, whatever you believe those are.


Furthermore versatile casting states that you need to give up 2x "a slot" in order cast any spell known of a level slot+1 or lower.

Therefore it doesn't state the selected spell needs to be from your warmage list. It can be from the spells known (which regarding to the initial statement is every spell in your book).
Sure, it says that, but standard Warmage casting already says the same thing, so if you take this interpretation, Versatile Spellcaster is unnecessary. You can just use your Warmage slots to cast any spell you know, without any special feat for it. The same is true for every other spontaneous spellcaster in the game, in fact. So if you believe the trick works, it follows that the trick should work without the feat investment.

[jenotus]

Technically, anyone can own a spellbook. You can buy a blank one for 15 gp. You just can't scribe spells into it unless you're a spellcaster who uses a spellbook. Magical Training lets you meet that requirement, but it doesn't override the other requirement, which is that, per RC p160, you can only copy a spell into your spellbook if it is on your class spell list. Magical Training gives you 0-level spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard list, but it does not make sorcerer/wizard spells class spells for you. Thus a Warmage with the Magical Training feat could scribe Fireball or Ice Storm into his spellbook, but not Charm Person or Dimension Door.

This is probably why in the threads you referenced, the trick they're discussing uses actual Wizard levels rather than the Magical Training feat. Of course, with Wizard levels, it's still subject to the usual rules on multiclass spellcasting, whatever you believe those are.


Sure, it says that, but standard Warmage casting already says the same thing, so if you take this interpretation, Versatile Spellcaster is unnecessary. You can just use your Warmage slots to cast any spell you know, without any special feat for it. The same is true for every other spontaneous spellcaster in the game, in fact. So if you believe the trick works, it follows that the trick should work without the feat investment.

Unfortunately you cannot. The class description says: " A warmage casts arcane spells (the same type of spells available to sorcerers and wizards), which are drawn from the warmage spell list given below." That's not the same as spells known.

While Versatile Spellcaster says:
"You can use two spell slots of the same level to cast a spell you know that is one level higher", which refers to all of the spells. I think that concludes the point quiet accurately.

best regards,
Jenotus

[LudicSavant]

@Jenotus: Thanks for taking the time to share your experience! :smallsmile:

[jenotus]

Reworked and Updated the Diary. More pictures, more tactics, more descriptions.


Have fun.

[Antariuk]

Still digging through the whole thing... Thanks for the effort! This is really interesting.

[jenotus]

Updated the diary (I have been away for quite some time). Added the next 10 Sessions and I will add the further sessions with the other encounters.

Still trying to keep the whole Diary up to date, so you can see the progress of the build.

[kkplx]

I need to read what my players do in my sessions some time when I find the time...
I'm sure it's mostly derisive comments towards Leif ;_;

[jenotus]

Updated the handbook. Had a large month-long battle. Will update the highlights and added some flavor-text.

Enjoy.


(for the CO Diary - check page 1 of this thread as I am updating it always there)



Teaser from the battle:
It was a hot summer day, when vanHolstin looked at his companions, sweat upon their skins. Their eyes signaled readiness, but also fear - or maybe rather respect - about the upcoming confrontation. VanHolstin had been to war before, but his comerades, although very battle-worn, seem to never had that experience. The thrill and the intensity in the air, before the slaughter begins. And today it should begin.

He looks at Warden, his fellow companion, while slowly mumbling the words of power. The shape of the Dragonborn changes into the outline of a large gruesom beast - a war-troll. His muscles bend and his size doubles, he now exceeds the rest of the army by far. Others start to look at him and mumble in fear and respect. VanHolstin silently smiles and orders his comerades to march. It was time to seek out the enemies.

...

Moments pass slowly, it is almost as if time would be standing still. VanHolstin could feel the adrenalin in his veins as he hastly observes the battlefield. On the left, he sees how a battalion of riders charges into a a wall of metal. The warforged opposition with their giant mechs tries to unify their ranks, but is dispatched by the lances of the front-riders, which consist out of pure lightning.

Almost simulteneously vanHolstin hears screams behind him, when the blast wave of a giant fireball rushes over his hear as the small gnome intuitively ducks behind the tree that he uses as cover during this moment. The area, which was one covered by thick jungle plants is now barren and black earth indicates the enormous temperature of the explosion. For a moment the heart of the gnome seems to skip a beat, as an animalistic screem roars through the woods - somewhere from behind the enemy lines. Whatever it is, it seems to be approaching into our direction.

In a last second, while still mumbling the words of power, vanHolstin sees his friend Zariel - calmly flying in the air and producing mental, blue-shimmering bolts of energy, which he is throwing with distinct accuracy into the enemy lines. Each launching is accompanied by a shreek, an a moment of unhealthy silence afterwards. Zariels face is covered in his own blood, as a result of one of the many shots that he has taken from a sniper - somewhere far behind the enemy lines.

It is now when vanHolsin finally unleashes the energy of this words. It is almost as if these ancient rhymes were desperately waiting to be spoken. A gigantic wall of consuming fire appears in the middle of the enemy regiment of archers, swiftly followed by the brutal chorus of screems of dieing victims. The heat of the wall seemingly can be felt up to his position, maybe it is just his imagination - what is for sure is that the air is filled with the moist of burning flesh.

...

His comerade appears to be falling any second. VanHolstin realizes that Warden, the proud troll as well as a couple of the Paladins of House Brightflame are massively bleeding. The beast that they are trying to fight looks gruesome, an abomination of flesh, a large multiheaded runehound, tattoed with dozens of psionic, feintly shimmering blue inscriptions. Its mouth leaks a stench of death and its body as well as the area around it is covered in green, acidious blood, which burns away all life. Warden strikes again, his massive chain seperates one of the heads from the body and the creature beginns to stutter.

Its body transforms and instability seems to overcome the strong physique of the beast. VanHolstin is in the middle of a short prayer to his god, the great Heironimus, as he realizes that it is too late. Even a swift prayer will not help all of these souls. Infront of his eyes shimmers a brief moment of the future and vanHolstin sees how the runehound instabilizes and explodes into thousands of small pieces. In his vision, his comerade as well as the paladins near to him evaporade into dust, burned away by the acidic blood of the beast, leaving nothing but smoking piles of ashe.

This cannot happen. This shall not happen.

VanHolstin concentrates as time slows down. Future and presence merge into a brief moment of union. The small gnome takes a deep breath as the world around him slows down until it finally stands still. He draws a complex pattern in the air and a shell of translusive energy forms around the dying beast. A cage made out of pure force, a resilient sphere, which cannot be broken by physical might.

As time starts to flow naturally, the gnome sinks into a brief moment of blackness - every spell requires its price and great magic doesn't come cheap.