DM interns to kill my char

[Swampy]

So I realize this is metagaming a bit but my DM has unfairly put my level 9 factotum, Level 1 exemplar up against a level 20 blood magus by himself in a closed space. We're playing 3.5

Any recommendations on how to survive this?

[The Kool]

Well, if you're already stuck in this situation... you're probably screwed. We'd have to see your character sheet to be able to help. If you know this is coming but have time to prepare, that blood magus is in for a world of hurt, because the Playground will find something.

The real question is, do you trust your DM? If he's giving you a fair challenge, or a difficult challenge, then you have a respectable shot at coming out of this alive, though you may not see the path just yet. If your DM really is trying to kill you, then they've probably made sure you don't have a way out and you might as well shrug and roll up a new character for a different table.

[Calthropstu]

Grovel to the lvl 20 blood magus and offer to work for him. Diplomacy will win the day here. Otherwise, you're probably screwed.

[zlefin]

So I realize this is metagaming a bit but my DM has unfairly put my level 9 factotum, Level 1 exemplar up against a level 20 blood magus by himself in a closed space. We're playing 3.5

Any recommendations on how to survive this?


wait to see what the DM's plan is. they probably have a plan for letting you live.

Did your char get in trouble through something obviously/reaosnably reckless? (i.e. something for which one could reasonably consider it his own fault to have gotten into the mess) if not, you should be fine.

[Eldariel]

Your best bet is probably to just go for Shivering Touch on them and hope that it paralyses them. You have fairly good Initiative and such so you should have a decent shot at pulling it off. Of course, if it fails you're pretty screwed as you have no real way to follow up.

[Swampy]

Well let's see

Whisper gnome, 9 factotum, 1 exemplar
Gnomish quick Razor,
Str 13
Dex 18
Con 14
Int 20
Wis 14
Cha 16

Took two flaws so feats :
W. Finesse
Knowledge devotion
Combat reflexes
Item familiar
Mercurial strike
Acrobatic strike

Also have collector of stories and acrobatic backstab skill tricks

Iaijitsu is maxed as well as high tumble, jump, hide and move silent.

The main thing in worried about is that awaken blood ability. He can't bloodwalk into me because I'm small and he's medium.

My spells available are luminous armor and alter self.

And I have no idea where my party is. We're doing undermountain and I sat on a chair which apparently teleported me one level down.

I already got away once from this thing by sleight of handing my immovable rod into his robe and running like hell.

We left off the night with him bloodwalking out of an orc that was running past me (hiding like a mofo) about ten feet away from me.

[Swampy]

He's Drow so luminous armor would blind him for a - 5 on his touch attacks but takes away my ability to hide.

I've thought about alter self into something that could burrow into the rock and just escape that way. Hmmm that's a thought. A xorn? Just borrow straight up since I know I'm one level below my party.

Gah nevermind its solid rock

[tyckspoon]

The main thing in worried about is that awaken blood ability...

There are soooo much worse things he could do to you if you let a minimum level 13 (level 5 to qualify for Blood Magus and 8/10 advancement) caster touch you :smalltongue: Should be thankful if he wants to use an ability that is probably not even going to disable you.

[Swampy]

Haven't figured out quotse here yet but...

I trust him to a point. He does not fudge rolls however after seeing what I can do with a factotum he's decided to ban factotums in the future. He also banned warblade because of me. Archivist banned, artificer banned, basically any class I play soon gets banned. Yes wizards are banned in his campaign. Lol

[The Kool]

Haven't figured out quotse here yet but...

I trust him to a point. He does not fudge rolls however after seeing what I can do with a factotum he's decided to ban factotums in the future. He also banned warblade because of me. Archivist banned, artificer banned, basically any class I play soon gets banned. Yes wizards are banned in his campaign. Lol

Sounds like you and your DM have different optimization expectations. Might want to talk that one over. Either he should up his expectations, or you should lower yours... unless you enjoy bouncing around to new things like this.

Also, to quote: look at the bottom right of someone's post. The left button takes you straight to a reply with their quote. The right button can be used to mark multiple posts, which will all be quoted when you click the reply button.

[Psychoalpha]

A DM banning a base class from the PHB outside of Campaign elements is a bad sign to begin with, irregardless of the reason. o.O

[The Kool]

A DM banning a base class from the PHB outside of Campaign elements is a bad sign to begin with, irregardless of the reason. o.O

It's a sign that they realize they can't meet the power levels presented and still have an interesting game, but they lack the fine-tuning skills to remove or close up specific issues, or they've been faced with so many that it's not worth their time and easier to just lock the whole class. If every single wizard in your game breaks the game and makes it unplayable... yeah I don't blame him. You do need to find a compromise, though.

[Swampy]

See that's the thing we literally just redid the character together the week before. It was part warblade and I realize it was breaking the game and offered to remove the warblade. We also took out that feat that gives more inspiration points.

I have extra characters at the ready at all times because to me the fun is creating chars but I've grown rather attached to this little guy.

Just can't think of a way out of this short of continue to hide and bolt if I get the chance.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

He's Drow so luminous armor would blind him for a - 5 on his touch attacks but takes away my ability to hide.

I've thought about alter self into something that could burrow into the rock and just escape that way. Hmmm that's a thought. A xorn? Just borrow straight up since I know I'm one level below my party.

Gah nevermind its solid rock

Thoquaa can tunnel through solid rock

[Calthropstu]

If you're worried about the dm interns killing your character, get a more permanent dm then?

[Angrith]

Hm, in your place, I would see how this goes. If the DM is gunning for your character because they think it's too OP, then a chat needs to happen. You two seem willing to work together based on rebuilding the character once already. Maybe you could help them learn how to handle optimized characters?

[Cliff Sedge]

Well let's see
...
We're doing undermountain ...

You poor bastard.

It depends on if Halaster is alive or not and if alive, if he feels like playing with his food.

[Jarmen4u]

I'd love to hear how your DM thinks you were "breaking the game" with your warblade... Outside of WRT or Iron Heart Surge, I can't think of anything that would make the class banworthy.

[Malphegor]

Do you have time to prep?

Okay so the blood magus has 6 spells as scars on their body, so make your spot checks to see how many obvious scars they have as you fight.

If he's playing a blood magus well, he's probably got lots of concentration spells as blood magi can ignore some damage for their concentration checks. So I'd say it's not worth bothering futzing with anti-concentration methods.

If you fall below 0 hp, it can use Death Knell on you once. I advise bringing puppies or something disposable but determined so the blood magus hopefully uses this ability early. Maybe not.

Keep an eye out for its homunculus! If you kill the baby-sized golem the blood magus can make (it has 6HD max), you deal an immediate 2d10 damage to the blood magus! Note too that it is always within 1500 feet of its master, and will try to remain in that range at all times. (note- the homunculus can poison you and make you go to sleep. Avoid getting hit.)



Keep a decent distance...

Wait, factotum? Nice, you get to pick your spells each day. Okay, so 4 castings of 3rd level spells or lower are your max right? He's higher level so I wouldn't bother with save or dies because saves blegh

Whatever happens, the blood magus' health is absolutely below 120hp, whatever classes it took to qualify to be a blood magus.



Factotum's caster level equals their factotum level so fireballs are doing 9d6 if the enemy doesn't save... 54 damage...


Assuming he doesn't make his reflex saves and has no fire immunity or healing options, you could probably take the blood magus out with 3-4 lucky damage roll'd castings of fireball. If he does save, 4 will bring him close but not enough.You'll also be low on inspiration at this point probably.

(I need to check, it looks like fireball does more damage than scorching ray but I'm told ScorchRay is good so I don't know)

Then after that you'll have to get your weapon and stabbity I guess, which isn't great as it looks like blood magus' creepiest bits are mostly touch attacks?

Okay, so fireball, keep away, fireball, keep away, fireball, keep away, fireball, then find the homunculus and wail on it to hopefully take this guy down.

I would suggest various fleeing options, fly, turn into a thoqqa, but honestly there's something more satisfying about beating it. A 'you think this is OP? LET'S SEE HOW OP THIS CAN BE!' final hour moment.

[Telonius]

I'd love to hear how your DM thinks you were "breaking the game" with your warblade... Outside of WRT or Iron Heart Surge, I can't think of anything that would make the class banworthy.

I've seen a few DMs concerned about this. I think the issue is mainly one of "high floor, low ceiling." They're very hard to screw up, and come out of the gate a lot more powerful than Fighter. (It's even more pronounced for Crusader, but Warblade gets it too). If a group is spending most of its time on low-ish levels, I can see how a DM who's not used to it could think "OP."

[ExLibrisMortis]

Blood Magus isn't that interesting. The only thing to worry about is that 10d10 touch attack, which is no worse than a typical touch spell anyway. The real problem is that you're up against 9th-level spells (or so I assume, since a 20th-level Blood Magus should have 18 levels of spellcasting advancement), which is a battle you can't win. That said, your DM apparently doesn't optimize much, and you already got away from this magus once, so there is some hope, still.

Assuming a not-very-optimized Blood Magus, you need to do about 150 damage to kill them, which means about five Iaijutsu strikes (of around 1d3+5+7d6 damage each, average 31.5), maybe less if I'm missing some damage boosts, maybe more if your Iaijutsu Focus isn't boosted by your Item Familiar. Since it's a quickrazor, you can attack twice on a full attack and then use Cunning Surge to get a third attack, which gets you a good chunk of the way there. The only problem is that you need to get the magus flat-footed, and that you need a second round to get the kill, though a bunch of AoOs will also work (casting provokes, but Awaken Blood does not).

If you can, Hide > full attack > Hide > full attack > Cunning Surge will theoretically do it, but it's a slim chance.

[Mike Miller]

@malphegor he can only fireball once as a factotum. Each spell can only be used one time per day as you may not prepare one spell multiple times.

[Arbane]

Come in to the next session with multiple characters already prepared. Make them all level 1 Commoners, that ought to be about right for his desired power level. :smallamused:

Semi-seriously, cast Fog Cloud and run for it? I'd say just keep on running.

[Stelio Kontos]

The obvious play seems to be to make a stupidly optimized blood magus as your backup character.

(This seems like more of a Dm vs player problem than a character issue to me.)