Runa
2008-02-23, 06:00 PM
This situation is a little weird, but that request in the headline is 100% accurate. Here's the skinny:
*The campaign is GESTALT.
*Rob is DMing. Rob fully informed us -and we played this campaign fully knowing - that he would "try to kill us" at every chance he got - which is not entirely true, as he's given us a few breaks, but the threat of character death is always there, and the difficulty level is intended to be high, to the point where we literally have "continue tokens" in case we want an extra life (the whole campaign is somewhat Mario-themed, heh). Actually, two. We met a god and he liked us. Anyway, so, suffice it to say I KNEW my character could die at any time if I wasn't careful.:smallfrown: :smallfrown: :smallfrown: :smallfrown:
*Campaign's party is made up entirely of epic-level characters of monster races. Yes, the entire party. The idea being that the usual role is a reversed, with intelligent monsters being normal people and humans being often evil. Rob initially described the campaign as giving us a boss who's going to be something like a level 38 wizard. I chose Doppelganger for my race, as it had a not entirely horrible level adjustment (+4, but the party includes some with like a +8 adjustment), and the abilities and such were kind of cool.
*Most of the party went with casters or Paladins and such, so I went with Rogue//Swashbuckler, figuring a mix of "sneaky" and "sneaky melee" and "skill monkey" might be handy in a party that had no or few Rogues. Plus, it just kind of fit, character-wise somehow. I figured this would not be a problem much, since it is a HUGE party (like 8 PCs - we miscalculated, and then it seemed rude to turn them away...), and we're epic and all.
HOWEVER...
The party includes a Gold Dragon sorcerer, a druid//barbarian a neutral-aligned Chain Demon, and a Paladin of somethingerorther that's basically a slayer of evil dragons, and a satyr Bard//Fighter, just to give you a taste of the kinds of stuff it can do. And then?
The first two adventures have seen us pitted against dragons! Rob fudged a few numbers so it didn't go as horrifically badly (or longly) as it could have, but we're still fighting dragons. While most of us are woefully underequipped for a our level. My weapons, for instance, consist entirely of a normal rapier and five daggers, only one of which is enchanted and then only as a dagger of returning. My armor is normal, unenchanted leather, and though I was lucky enough to be able to get a Bag of Holding so I'm not encumbered, my equipment beyond that is mostly basic stuff. Because I thought the boss was going to be some sort of intelligent humanoid wizard, I put a lot of ranks into things like Diplomacy and Knowledge (Arcana), and not a lot into things we actually ended up needing to use, such as Jump, Climb and Tumble (you try fighting a red dragon on the ground in a forest with 7 other PCs without resorting to those... ain't easy!).
And, of course, with the kinds of adventures we've been doing, I can't do jack except go around hoping not to get stomped on or breathed on or whatnot. I spent most of the first adventure hiding in the trees. My treasure for the first night of the campaign was some gold and a "Vestament of Hiding" (something the DM apparently made up, so you probably won't find it in the DMG, but it basically just gives +5 to Hide), and I think a ring of protection but I honestly wished it was a freakin' crossbow, because I can't hit any dragon with a dagger and do any kind of real damage, and I'm far too squishy to get close.
My feats are an odd mix, but they include some of the luck feats from Complete Scoundrel, including two that allow replacing a natural 1 with a "natural 20" (the one that applies to your saves, and one other one, I believe applied to attack or damage rolls, possibly both, not looking at it at the moment because I don't have the book or my character sheet in front of me), since I tend to get a lot of unfortunate rolls from time to time. I'll have more details in a little while, when I can get access to my character sheet again (right now, I'm at work), but I figured I'd throw this up now and see if anybody could point out some blindingly obvious thing I should have done. :smalltongue:
Here's some of the stats I currently have, though:
Monster Levels: 4 (Doppelganger), Rogue 14 // Swashbuckler 14, ECL 22.
DEX: +5, STR: +2, CON +2, WIS +3, INT +4 CHA +3.
Any advice?
-Runa
*The campaign is GESTALT.
*Rob is DMing. Rob fully informed us -and we played this campaign fully knowing - that he would "try to kill us" at every chance he got - which is not entirely true, as he's given us a few breaks, but the threat of character death is always there, and the difficulty level is intended to be high, to the point where we literally have "continue tokens" in case we want an extra life (the whole campaign is somewhat Mario-themed, heh). Actually, two. We met a god and he liked us. Anyway, so, suffice it to say I KNEW my character could die at any time if I wasn't careful.:smallfrown: :smallfrown: :smallfrown: :smallfrown:
*Campaign's party is made up entirely of epic-level characters of monster races. Yes, the entire party. The idea being that the usual role is a reversed, with intelligent monsters being normal people and humans being often evil. Rob initially described the campaign as giving us a boss who's going to be something like a level 38 wizard. I chose Doppelganger for my race, as it had a not entirely horrible level adjustment (+4, but the party includes some with like a +8 adjustment), and the abilities and such were kind of cool.
*Most of the party went with casters or Paladins and such, so I went with Rogue//Swashbuckler, figuring a mix of "sneaky" and "sneaky melee" and "skill monkey" might be handy in a party that had no or few Rogues. Plus, it just kind of fit, character-wise somehow. I figured this would not be a problem much, since it is a HUGE party (like 8 PCs - we miscalculated, and then it seemed rude to turn them away...), and we're epic and all.
HOWEVER...
The party includes a Gold Dragon sorcerer, a druid//barbarian a neutral-aligned Chain Demon, and a Paladin of somethingerorther that's basically a slayer of evil dragons, and a satyr Bard//Fighter, just to give you a taste of the kinds of stuff it can do. And then?
The first two adventures have seen us pitted against dragons! Rob fudged a few numbers so it didn't go as horrifically badly (or longly) as it could have, but we're still fighting dragons. While most of us are woefully underequipped for a our level. My weapons, for instance, consist entirely of a normal rapier and five daggers, only one of which is enchanted and then only as a dagger of returning. My armor is normal, unenchanted leather, and though I was lucky enough to be able to get a Bag of Holding so I'm not encumbered, my equipment beyond that is mostly basic stuff. Because I thought the boss was going to be some sort of intelligent humanoid wizard, I put a lot of ranks into things like Diplomacy and Knowledge (Arcana), and not a lot into things we actually ended up needing to use, such as Jump, Climb and Tumble (you try fighting a red dragon on the ground in a forest with 7 other PCs without resorting to those... ain't easy!).
And, of course, with the kinds of adventures we've been doing, I can't do jack except go around hoping not to get stomped on or breathed on or whatnot. I spent most of the first adventure hiding in the trees. My treasure for the first night of the campaign was some gold and a "Vestament of Hiding" (something the DM apparently made up, so you probably won't find it in the DMG, but it basically just gives +5 to Hide), and I think a ring of protection but I honestly wished it was a freakin' crossbow, because I can't hit any dragon with a dagger and do any kind of real damage, and I'm far too squishy to get close.
My feats are an odd mix, but they include some of the luck feats from Complete Scoundrel, including two that allow replacing a natural 1 with a "natural 20" (the one that applies to your saves, and one other one, I believe applied to attack or damage rolls, possibly both, not looking at it at the moment because I don't have the book or my character sheet in front of me), since I tend to get a lot of unfortunate rolls from time to time. I'll have more details in a little while, when I can get access to my character sheet again (right now, I'm at work), but I figured I'd throw this up now and see if anybody could point out some blindingly obvious thing I should have done. :smalltongue:
Here's some of the stats I currently have, though:
Monster Levels: 4 (Doppelganger), Rogue 14 // Swashbuckler 14, ECL 22.
DEX: +5, STR: +2, CON +2, WIS +3, INT +4 CHA +3.
Any advice?
-Runa