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View Full Version : Am I making a terrible mistake? (Now with a story update)



Adumbration
2008-02-27, 01:33 PM
This Sunday, I'm starting the "Dark and Stormy Knight" adventure with slight modifications. I have 3 players, gestalt goblins with high-ish rolling methods. A Soulknife/NINJA, a Rogue/Monk and a Cleric/Warlock (the last one hasn't really decided yet, that was the last one on the line. Previous to that was a Cleric/Monk.).

Are they utterly overpowered, or will the get killed? They'll be facing with mostly CR 1 encounters, with one CR 2 thrown into the mix. I don't want to spoil anything in case one of my players is reading this.

Tengu
2008-02-27, 01:36 PM
Does your group read Goblins (http://goblinscomic.com/)?

And I'm not familiar with this adventure, but three Gestalt adventurers with rather subpar classes on one of the sides each (not a single one of them has full BAB!) should do roughly like the standard group of 4 people.

ZeroNumerous
2008-02-27, 01:39 PM
The Monk/Soulknife is.. Well, pretty screwed. Unless you fix soulknife and monk. The rogue/monk is less screwed, but he's definitely weighted down by the suck of monk and the lack of full BAB. The cleric is basically going to become a box of bandaids to keep the other two characters from biting it all the time.

Is it a mistake? No. 'Cause you can roleplay whatever.

But the big question is: Is it going to be fun?

And that depends on your players.

Zincorium
2008-02-27, 01:39 PM
Honestly, it doesn't look like they'll be all that overpowered considering it's a gestalt game.

The monk, warlock, and soulknife classes are not all that devastating in non-gestalt games, but in a gestalt game where some of their weaknesses can be covered, they make for good characters.

The Cleric/warlock has a powerful ingredient (cleric), but while it meshes decently with warlock due to the combination of vancian casting and infinite per-day effects, there's not much synergy and the cleric is deprived of heavy armor to use the warlock invocations.

The main one to be careful with is the soulknife monk. Their psychic blades are not monk weapons and cannot be used with a flurry, and he's not going to have full BAB. There's a very real possibility for the player to feel screwed by his choices.

Adumbration
2008-02-27, 01:45 PM
The problem is that the Soulknife fellow is our regular DM, and this is my first shot at DMing. :smallbiggrin:

We'll see how it plays out.

EDIT: Oh, and his character also wants to become a paladin later in the game.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-27, 01:48 PM
Yeah.. I would tell the Soulknife player that he may want to rethink his concept a little, or heavily houserule it. I think he would be much happier as a Fighter/Soulknife.

SoD
2008-02-27, 02:02 PM
Heh, you can tell the soulknife guy yourself! Soulknife guy at your service!

Heh, yeah, it may not be the best combination, but for the record: Soulknife//ninja. Not monk. Ninja.

Still nobody with full BAB, but hey!

Adumbration
2008-02-27, 02:05 PM
Jeah, my bad. I got monk and ninja mixed up somewhere along the line. I remembered that there were two monks, and there you are.

SoD
2008-02-27, 02:08 PM
Well, both are unarmoured, both add wisdom bonus (if any) to AC, no harm done.

ZeroNumerous
2008-02-27, 02:25 PM
The Cleric/warlock has a powerful ingredient (cleric), but while it meshes decently with warlock due to the combination of vancian casting and infinite per-day effects, there's not much synergy and the cleric is deprived of heavy armor to use the warlock invocations.

Most of the worthwhile invocations are 24hr buffs which can be attempted multiple times until the character passes his arcane spell failure. The combat invocations are rather overshadowed by blast-shape invocations when it comes to dealing damage. And even then, the combat invocations are easily overshadowed by the cleric's own buff spells. It's alot stronger than you're giving it credit for, if both classes are played to their strength.

Of course, none of that is meaningful if he has to keep fixing the other horribly maimed characters.

SoD: Soulknife//Ninja isn't that much better.. Though I guess you can double up on the WIS to AC by picking up a monk's belt(or the ascetic ninja feat later).

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-02-27, 03:17 PM
Actually, Soulknife//Ninja isn't all that bad, depending on which Ninja you use. If it's the one from OA with full BAB and rogue SA progression, you've just covered all of the Soulknive's weakpoints: BAB and damage. Variant Fighter who gets SA instead of Feats might be a strong choice as well.

As a suggestion for a PrC later on, Pyrokeneticist. You've got power points, you're sounding like you're very chaotic. It's extra damage and cool abilities.

Rogue//Monk... way too much overlap of stuff. They both get evasion, 3/4 BAB, Monk only gives a D8 hit die, and the whole Flurry thing really isn't all that good. Unarmed damage progression really won't shine until much higher levels. It's not a very optimal gestalt combination. Ideally, you want one side with full BAB and higher HD if possible. What are you trying to do here?

Cleric//Warlock... nasty. Pick your Invocations well, and you could have a seriously obnoxious character here. This is one time when not having a full BAB isn't crippling. When in doubt, Eldrich Blast. The healing makes him an invaluable party member. I'd say this is by far the most powerful of the characters.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-27, 03:23 PM
Cleric//Warlock... nasty. Pick your Invocations well, and you could have a seriously obnoxious character here. This is one time when not having a full BAB isn't crippling. When in doubt, Eldrich Blast. The healing makes him an invaluable party member. I'd say this is by far the most powerful of the characters.

What I'd do is take off armor/before put on armor in morning:
cast my invocation buffs:
Stuff like see Invisibility, fell flight, entropic warding, dark one's luck, etc.

Human Paragon 3
2008-02-27, 03:36 PM
Soul Knife is not optimal, but not as bad as some claim. Depending on your style of play, the soul knife//ninja could be great: play to his strengths.

At low levels (and you ARE at low levels) the Soul Knife is functionally identical to the fighter's attack bonus thanks to free weapon focus. You'll be dealing a fair amount of bonus damage thanks to sudden strike and psychic strike combined.

But what IS the soul knife//ninja? It's an unstoppable assassin, who can never be disarmed, and never appears armed. Quick draw lets you sudden strike at a moment's notice. The ninja's ki abillities give you better mobillity.

If your setting is shorter on magical weapons, the Soul Knife's class features suddenly become a lot better. In fact, with Monk/Rogue, Soul Knife/Ninja, and Warlock/Cleric you have a party that never NEEDS magical weapons, it's all supplied, and the soul knife actually comes out ahead. This campaign will do best with little to no magical gear and enemies who are low on damage production and high on HP.


That being said, sneak attack fighter will be stronger.

hawkboy772042
2008-02-27, 04:01 PM
I would say so considering that it's designed for 4 1st level characters, but I could easily see 3 of them getting through without breaking a sweat. Heck, most the challenges can be overcome by any class. I've ran it with just a solo gnome sorcerer once. He had a little trouble with the zombie, but that was about it.

Then again, from personal experience DM'ing, the most powerful characters in my group were far from optimized. It was merely because the players developed superior tactics to me.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-02-27, 04:44 PM
What I'd do is take off armor/before put on armor in morning:
cast my invocation buffs:
Stuff like see Invisibility, fell flight, entropic warding, dark one's luck, etc.

Keep in mind, ASF applies to Eldrich Blast as well...

Atelm
2008-02-28, 12:59 PM
Rogue//Monk... *snip*
What are you trying to do here?


My basic idea for the character: "I kill you. I kill you with my bald head!" :smalltongue:

I'm more for roleplaying rather than trying to make the character as powerful as possible. This was an idea I had not tried before.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-28, 03:09 PM
Keep in mind, ASF applies to Eldrich Blast as well...

Than don't use it. What? It only deals 1d6 +1d6/2.5 level (Max 9d6)

dyslexicfaser
2008-02-28, 03:22 PM
Soulknife/monk isn't terrible, either. The feats Stunning Master and Flowing Blade let you flurry and use Stunning Fist with your mindblade. Go with the soulknife variant that gives you psionic feats instead of that d8 strike.

It's still not optimized, but it has some redeeming qualities.

SoD
2008-03-01, 04:06 AM
OK: The final Gestalt Classes:

Myself: Goblin Ninja//Soulknife
Atelm: Goblin Monk//Rogue
Teemy: Goblin Cleric//Fighter

I'm planning on a backup in case I die: Swashbuckler//Warmage.

All of us prefur having fun, a nice challenge and roleplaying to having the most insanely powerful class combinations you can acheive (as you can probably tell).

Oh, and Atelm: Congrats on posting :tongue:

JimmyDPawn
2008-03-01, 03:59 PM
Rogue//Monk... way too much overlap of stuff. They both get evasion, 3/4 BAB, Monk only gives a D8 hit die, and the whole Flurry thing really isn't all that good. Unarmed damage progression really won't shine until much higher levels. It's not a very optimal gestalt combination. Ideally, you want one side with full BAB and higher HD if possible. What are you trying to do here?

Personally, I'd see that as improving the rogue rather than the monk.

Flurry = Extra sneak attacks while flanking, and the +2 for flank does cancel out the -2 for flurry early on.

Zincorium
2008-03-01, 04:04 PM
The only problem I can forsee is that you've got two characters who use stealth (one of which is almost entirely dependent on it) to kill things and then one character who almost certainly will be clanking around in heavy armor.

Yeah, ninjas are just not designed for grouping with tanks. Rogues are a bit better.

DementedFellow
2008-03-01, 04:35 PM
Does your group read Goblins (http://goblinscomic.com/)?

And I'm not familiar with this adventure, but three Gestalt adventurers with rather subpar classes on one of the sides each (not a single one of them has full BAB!) should do roughly like the standard group of 4 people.I would like to thank you for showing me this webcomic. I am very anxious to see the ending. You have added to my list of webcomics that I read. Thank you a lot.

AmberVael
2008-03-01, 04:45 PM
I would like to thank you for showing me this webcomic. I am very anxious to see the ending. You have added to my list of webcomics that I read. Thank you a lot.

You won't be saying that when you see just how fast it updates. :smalltongue:
It's like watching a turtle slog through molasses before it has had its coffee... in bullet time.

In other news- overpowered? No. Ninja//Soulknife will have a buttload of minor abilities to put to use, and perhaps psychic strike + sneak attack will be kind of a nasty kick on the weapon every once in a while, but that's not a lot of synergy there.
Rogue//Monk really has the same situation, but they're more mundane.
Now the Cleric//Fighter... um... not really sure what to say about that. They have buffs and feats. They can kill people in combat pretty nice, I suppose... but he'll be pretty busy helping the other two as well, so perhaps fighter wasn't the best choice. I'd have gone with something like... dragon shaman or marshal. Or perhaps just get another sneaky class in there so they won't be bumbling around hitting things while the others creep silently and unseen.

Closet_Skeleton
2008-03-01, 05:13 PM
If it's the one from OA with full BAB and rogue SA progression, you've just covered all of the Soulknive's weakpoints: BAB and damage.

That's from the Rokugan campaign setting, a third party sourcebook, not from OA, which is a Wizards of the Coast sourcebook with a Ninja Spy Prc but no base class.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-03-01, 06:32 PM
My basic idea for the character: "I kill you. I kill you with my bald head!" :smalltongue:

I'm more for roleplaying rather than trying to make the character as powerful as possible. This was an idea I had not tried before.

In that case, some suggestions:

Your party has almost no arcane backup at all. UMD is going to make you very useful when the situation requires magic. Keep a scroll of Knock handy in case you can't pick the lock. Later on, pick up a Wand of Invisibility.

In the meanwhile, don't skimp on the Tumble skill. Tumbling into flanking position is going to be required for you to get your sneak attacks off. Fortunately, with your Monk levels, you'll have enough move to do it. I would suggest Spring Attack. Jump into flanking position, sneak attack, fade away.

Cleric//Fighter. So, pretty much, a CoDZilla without the DMM cheeze. Rock on. You're going to be the tank and the healbot of the party. Make sure you memorise battlefield control spells, you're gonna need it with this party. Hold Person will be your best 2nd level spell. You're gonna be the lynchpin of this party. Support your two buddies as they bounce around making the bad guys look like morons. Don't let 'em get too far from you, heal spells are touch spells. And remember, you are the ONLY member of the party who can afford to literally wade into combat and come out the other end with any hope in hell of being alive. Abuse this. You see one of your buddies get mobbed, charge in swinging.

Ninja//Soulknife. Okay, I like the synergy and the concept and the flavor. Ninja covers most of the Soulknife's weak points, and Soulknife gives Ninja the perfect concealable weapon. Just remember, you are not a tank, you are an assassin. As a certain red-headed rogue once said "I perfer to be the flanker, not the flankee". You get into melee, you better make sure you have some support or you will go down fast. Remember, strike first, strike last. If you can't one-round it with sudden strike + psychic strike, you don't need to be closing to melee with it. Even more than the rogue//monk, spring attack is your friend. Even better, though, would be some psionic feats. Up The Walls is both fun and flavorful, entirely suiting a ninja. Pyrokeneticist is a fun PrC you can get into as well. How about a 15' flame whip, or adding +2d6 fire damage to your mind blades?

SoD
2008-03-02, 12:11 PM
NOTE: THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS FOR THE ADVENTURE 'A DARK AND STORMY KNIGHT' IN THIS POST.

Well, let's see, an update on how we went...

Presession: At the last moment, I decided, on a whim, to go a swashbuckler//warmage instead of ninja//soulknife, which meant we had an arcanist (I also put ranks into UMD, for a few feats I want to pick up later). It was going to be a suprise for the others about my change in class...but someone grabbed my character sheet to peek at my wisdom score. We also breifly went around and gave a breif discription of our characters.

Rogue//Monk: a wandering goblin monk, who joined up with us. LN (I personally hold the lawful alignment under question).
Cleric (Kord)//Fighter: NG goblin. Out because he like to kill. Upon questioning (from me) about the fact he was neuatral good, that changed to: enjoys overcoming challenges and is out for that reason.
Swashbuckler//Warmage: LG goblin, and wants to become a paladin (there are no paladin goblins in the village), and has to learn from an existing paladin. His name is Thudruk, but upon gaining a level in paladin, he will take on the name 'Prator' after one of the most powerful paladins who ever lived. He, someday, wants to recover the Sheild of Prator (major artifact, DMG). If able to reach paladinhood, he will go up in Paladin instead of Swashbuckler (I want to at least hit Swashbuckler 3 for the int to damage). Oh, it'll be non-spell casting paladin (can you say 6 wisdom?!).

Begining: We were playing 'A Dark and Stormy Knight' (slightly modified). After going in and setting up, and failing to opon the doors, our cleric bull rushed one...and it fell in on him. The 8 rats swarmed out at us, I ran up to them, but didn't have enough to attack or cast a spell, 2 went for the cleric, 2 went for the monk, I got the first kill. Burning Hands scorched three of them at once (all killed), then a forth provoked an AoO when going for the monk, which I killed it with. The cleric dealt with his two, and the monk managed to flurry the other two in one round, up until that, he hadn't hit a single one!

The first doorway: The other two enter, and the vargoulle (whatever) screams and attacks. I hear the scream, and rush up. Cleric casts 'cause fear' and it fails its save. Then I ran in and magic missled it to death in one shot (total of 8 damage [4 on d4, +1 for magic missle damage, +3 int for warmage edge]). We grab the loot and XP.

The second doorway: I see the chest, run up, opon it, and get hit in the face with a dart fullisade. We grab loot and leave.

The third doorway: We enter, and see an elf standing there. He says 'storm peace' and then fires at us. We deal with him easily, but I refuse to let the monk kill him. There is a rope tied to the top of a chute, leading to the surface. I start climbing it. Conversation: 'Where are you going?' 'I'm getting the rope for us!' 'What?' 'Simple, I climb up, cut the rope with my handaxe, then climb down.' '...seriously?' 'Yup.' 'How are you going to climb back down?' 'Down the rope.' '...' '...oh.' Luckily, Mr. Drow had his own rope, so I tied him up with that. They continue on, I stay to tie up Mr. Drow.

The final encounter: They find a bugbear zombie, which knocks out the monk with a javelin, then a hit from its morningstar (I know zombies can't move and attack in one round...does that include five foot steps?). The cleric ran down a small passageway, and it follows him. Then I get there, and block the zombies exit. Cleric turns undead, it runs away...but I'm in the way, so it cowers in front of me. I then start throwing disrupt undeads at it, then, when I was out of spells, hack away with my handaxe. After the turning wears off, it gets up, the cleric aproaches and we flank and hack away at it. It knocks me unconcious, the cleric runs away...fails his spot checks, both to see the spider, and to see the spiders web...and gets stuck. The spider comes down, and bites him (bad roll, thank god). Zombie aproaches and takes a swing at the spider. Spider, seeing it as more of a threat, then tries to bite it instead...scores a critical hit...bypasses the DR...and kills it. The zombie that nearly TPK'd us, knocked two of us out, and made the third run off was killed by a spider. Cleric escapes and kills the spider. Heals the pair of us, I take off the spider to give it a decent burial.

Afterwards: The drow has a map! I interogate him, convince him to help us (although he's leading us into a trap, but I don't know that), and bribe the monk into not killing him (I had to give away my headband! I needed that +1 to will saves! and it ends as we lead off to the drows stronghold.

Oh, and the cleric leveled up...and we didn't...grr.

Adumbration
2008-03-02, 01:11 PM
More details: I was the DM. Just a couple of things that SoD failed to mention. :smallwink:



NOTE: THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS FOR THE ADVENTURE 'A DARK AND STORMY KNIGHT' IN THIS POST.

The first doorway: The other two enter, and the vargoulle (whatever) screams and attacks. I hear the scream, and rush up. Cleric casts 'cause fear' and it fails its save. Then I ran in and magic missled it to death in one shot (total of 8 damage [4 on d4, +1 for magic missle damage, +3 int for warmage edge]). We grab the loot and XP.


Lesser Vargouille, actually. It tried to go back into pretending it was just a part of the statue. :smallbiggrin:


The second doorway: I see the chest, run up, opon it, and get hit in the face with a dart fullisade. We grab loot and leave.

The third doorway: We enter, and see an elf standing there. He says 'storm peace' and then fires at us. We deal with him easily, but I refuse to let the monk kill him. There is a rope tied to the top of a chute, leading to the surface. I start climbing it. Conversation: 'Where are you going?' 'I'm getting the rope for us!' 'What?' 'Simple, I climb up, cut the rope with my handaxe, then climb down.' '...seriously?' 'Yup.' 'How are you going to climb back down?' 'Down the rope.' '...' '...oh.' Luckily, Mr. Drow had his own rope, so I tied him up with that. They continue on, I stay to tie up Mr. Drow.

The drow managed to fail his listen check on the incoming adventurers, but managed to get a surprise round by pretending to be an elf wanting storm peace. Rolled like crap on attack rolls, which was a pity, since I had been kinda counting on the knock-out poison to give some slack.

The monk/rogue went murderous on him, and tried to kill him in his sleep. He wasn't really sleeping, but again, managed to fail his listen AND his spot checks. The only reason he survived was the lucky stabilization roll and the kind warmage/swashbuckler.


The final encounter: They find a bugbear zombie, which knocks out the monk with a javelin, then a hit from its morningstar (I know zombies can't move and attack in one round...does that include five foot steps?). The cleric ran down a small passageway, and it follows him. Then I get there, and block the zombies exit. Cleric turns undead, it runs away...but I'm in the way, so it cowers in front of me. I then start throwing disrupt undeads at it, then, when I was out of spells, hack away with my handaxe. After the turning wears off, it gets up, the cleric aproaches and we flank and hack away at it. It knocks me unconcious, the cleric runs away...fails his spot checks, both to see the spider, and to see the spiders web...and gets stuck. The spider comes down, and bites him (bad roll, thank god). Zombie aproaches and takes a swing at the spider. Spider, seeing it as more of a threat, then tries to bite it instead...scores a critical hit...bypasses the DR...and kills it. The zombie that nearly TPK'd us, knocked two of us out, and made the third run off was killed by a spider. Cleric escapes and kills the spider. Heals the pair of us, I take off the spider to give it a decent burial.


I had fun with that. It was definitely NOT the way I pictured it would go, I was afraid they might kill it too easily. I was that close to adding another weaker zombie into the mix after I saw how easy the drow was.


Afterwards: The drow has a map! I interogate him, convince him to help us (although he's leading us into a trap, but I don't know that), and bribe the monk into not killing him (I had to give away my headband! I needed that +1 to will saves! and it ends as we lead off to the drows stronghold.

Oh, and the cleric leveled up...and we didn't...grr.

Surprised? He got 900 xp for defeating the spider AND the zombie. In a manner of speaking. The two of you went unconcious and got only 100 xp each.

Oh, and I added some extra to the mix. Storm elementals like to play in the area - aptly named Stormfunnel - and there were couple Elder elementals out there at the time. Some kind of overlap of elemental plane, I should say. There also some plot hooks there I shan't reveal here.

They got attacked by a small-sized one - CR 2 - once they got out of the tor. That was where the session ended - I had nothing more prepared. Next time, it's Underdark time! :smallamused: