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Author Topic: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: the end is nigh (3.5e)  (Read 98308 times)

The Fool

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #450 on: February 09, 2012, 09:07:18 am »

Just remember that you can always add more magic items to your character if they aren't doing enough damage. Add a several strength increasing items (I know 3 without digging into non-core books) and enchant your weapon further, and suddenly your character can't miss with an attack roll and they'll do more damage. If you really don't want to ever miss then take a level in cleric (easier than paladin at this point) and take the Law Devotion feat (which burns turning checks). I don't remember the specifics of it, but I had a character that had +21 to hit at level 5.

We all had bad rolls during the last session. Statistically I should have hit the dragon 50% of the time, but instead I hit him about 20% of the time. Add in the fact that I had to reload every two attacks and suddenly I'm kind of frustrated.
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SeriousConcentrate

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #451 on: February 09, 2012, 09:25:30 am »

Dwarmin, you know how stubborn I can be when I decide my character is worthless. :P But, yeah. When she's raging she does an additional +4 of damage. Still is just an argument of 2d6+3+8 conditionally vs 1d10+3+5+1 all the time, or a range of 13-23 vs 10-19. On crits that becomes 26-46 vs 40-72. Normally the ranges are 2d6+3+4 (9-19 and 18-38 crit) vs 1d10+3+5+1 (10-18 and 40-72). Then even out in normal combat (Toman has +1 more minimum but she has +1 more maximum, which is actually in his favor since he'll consistently do at least 10) and 3 base/4 max more when raging. That's not really enough to justify her lesser HP and AC, and this doesn't really take into account Toman's using a one-handed weapon as opposed to her two-hander so he gets even more AC from having a shield for only slightly less damage.

There's also the fact that I wasn't at +15/+10 to hit the dragon, I was at +13/+8 because of my next point: Rae's Will sucks, and most spells use Will. She blew her Will roll and was Shaken the entire fight, and I imagine I just barely squeaked by on Charm Person (probably wouldn't have if the Elf natural +2 against enchantments hadn't canceled out the -2 of Shaken). The small amount of extra damage she can do is a liability when there's a significant risk it'll be turned on the party instead of her enemies, and there's about thirty thousand spells out there, so I'm sure a significant number of them (like Hold Person) can be used to completely neutralize her. Toman's Will is +7 out of combat and +11 in it (due to Keep Focused) which means he has a significantly higher chance of being an asset throughout the fight rather than have an enemy spellcaster casually "Charm Person" and take him out of it. It's true her Fortitude save is about 3 points higher (but generally only poison, disease, and a few SoD spells roll against that) and she has 1 point in Reflex over him (and a few extra points when evading traps due to Trapsense) but I can make up for that with Cunning Dodge (Which would use his Int modifier for Reflex, increasing from +1 to +3 and almost equaling Rae's trapsense except at all times instead of conditionally).

@Ninja Fool: I can buy and put those items on Toman as well as Rae unless they're Elf specific, and Rae doesn't pick up another feat for two more levels, so it'll be awhile before I can do an OOC thing and turn her athiest self Cleric. :-\ Also that would cripple her leveling because neither Barbarian nor Cleric are a favored class of Elves. What source book is Law Devotion in? I checked both PHB, Complete Adventurer, Complete Divine, and Defenders of the Faith and didn't see it in their feat lists.
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The Fool

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #452 on: February 09, 2012, 10:20:46 am »

Complete Champion is where the devotion feats are. Clerics can serve a cause, and remain atheistic.

My word of advice? Even if you aren't a cleric, buy these, because your character isn't bad.

Spoiler: Items for Kanesrae (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately the Magic Item Compendium doesn't have more strength increasing items, other than the rules that allow you to add magic effects to common items. So you should be able to line yourself in strength increasing items if you wanted. You'll just have full magic item slots.
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Dwarmin

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #453 on: February 09, 2012, 10:45:11 am »

I'm not sure we are using favored class XP penalties, SC. Actually, from what all I've played in D&D NO one has used that.

Also, I'm sure Sky will let you redo your char. Let's take a look at your feat choices...

Atheletic
Alertness


Are pretty bad feats, since they only boost skills. You honestly made a mistake here, I believe. These should be switched out.

Power attack
Cleave
Reckless Rage


Are all fine.

My suggestions? Get Monkey Grip in place of one of those.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/monkey-grip--1978/

MG will allow you to wield a larger 3d6 Greatsword for only -1 to hit, balancing it out. Let's look at your damage now, into effect with the Reckless Rage Ability up there.

-Raged- (base+enchantment+STR+ex)

Kane 3d6+3+4+6 (16-31) vs Toman 1d10+3+5+1 (10-19)

-Normal-

Kane 3d6+3+4 (10-21) vs Toman 1d10+3+5+1 (10-19)

Now, if you do this, your average damage is roughly equal to his. Toman is trading AC for Kanes 50% damage when raging. I call that pretty balanced. Like I said-AC is great, but it's not going to win battles in the end. Killing power does that.

And there's nothing stopping Kanesrae from purchasing Heavy Armor Proficency and gearing up on that end. Or better yet, get rid of that weak will flaw you took in place of a bad feat. That's very bad for you.

As for crits, I can just tell you not to let them weigh your final decision too much. Crits don't happen alot. Case in point last night, I would have one shotted the Dragon on a double crit, sure. But the chances of that happening are very, very unlikely. If I had just used my Produce flames just like normla I would have done 60ish damage to him overall....lol.

Instead I blew 3 spells on an attack I knew, I knew wasn't going to work. Luck played a part, yes, but in hindsight I screwed up.

heh.

Now, As for Will power...here's how you fix that, though it will have to wait to level 12...argh, I know, but bare with me.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-v35--6/endurance--863/
http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-ii--80/steadfast-determination--2761/

Now, this is a bit tricky-you'll need to either cap on another flaw, or just replace one of the above bad feats with Endurance. Then, at 12 you get Steadfast, and you hopefully got rid of that flaw.

Your Willpower just went up 7 points, which is as good as your reflex save and perfectly average for your level, all things considered. Low Will is just something you deal with as a barbarian-just like as a Rogue, I have the same problem. And, with SD your Will save also gets boosted every time you rage by 4 (remember you'll have greater rage by level 11, which will put it up to 8 str/con boost). So, rage away when you think your about to mind controlled.

Just saying, if you want to put Kanesrae in the closet, it's your decision. I'm just laying out the facts as I see them-that, compared to Toman, she's perfectly viable, especially when she gets kitted up like Fool just outlined. You have to manage your rages and fatigue carefully, but that extra damage output is awesome-it's what makes your char worth it.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 10:49:30 am by Dwarmin »
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Criptfeind

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #454 on: February 09, 2012, 11:07:20 am »

Gauntlets of Ogre Strength (+2 Str, Hands slot, 4,000g)
Belt of Giant's Strength (+2 to +6 Str, Waist slot, 4,000g-36,000g)
Iuon Stone of Strength (+2 Str, No slot, 8,000g)

Rule number 3 of D&D. Bonuses of the same type to the same thing do not stack. None of the +str items you have there stack.
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The Fool

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #455 on: February 09, 2012, 11:12:59 am »

Rule number 3 of D&D. Bonuses of the same type to the same thing do not stack. Non of the +str items you have there stack.

Damn. You're right, they are enhancement bonuses. I never noticed. Sky may have to update her fighter then, because I recommended the strength increasing items.
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Criptfeind

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #456 on: February 09, 2012, 11:18:13 am »

You might need to update your guy soon as well if you were not aware of that. *cough* gloves and stone *cough*
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Shoruke

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #457 on: February 09, 2012, 11:19:42 am »

Gauntlets of Ogre Strength (+2 Str, Hands slot, 4,000g)
Belt of Giant's Strength (+2 to +6 Str, Waist slot, 4,000g-36,000g)
Iuon Stone of Strength (+2 Str, No slot, 8,000g)
Cloak of Resistance (+1 to +5 for all Saves, Shoulders slot, 1,000g-25,000g)
Boots of Speed (+1 attack on a full-attack, +1 to attack and damage, +30 ft/round, 10 non-consecutive rounds/day, Feet slot, 12,000g)

Um, those three strength-increasing items don't stack, they all give an enhancement bonus. Ninjas.
The Boots of Speed, however, make close-quarters combatants into a moving whirlwind of strikes.
If you manage to get a Belt of Battle from the Magic Item Compendium, you win fights by utterly breaking the action economy. It gives +2 to initiative, plus it has 3 charges per day that you can spend to get extra actions in a turn (1 charge for a move action, 2 for a standard, 3 for a full-round).

I would also recommend getting some Mithral full plate (which counts as medium armor in terms of proficiency). You would lose one point of dex bonus to AC, and gain 5 in armor bonus. More, if you go for some enchantment bonus. Basic Mithral full plate is 10,500 gp, +1 is 11,500, +2 is 14,500.
I would also sub out either Alertness or Athletic for a new feat if you can; Power attack is great with two-handed weapons (assuming you can still hit people when you forego your BAB to hit; there's ways to manage it, trust me). Cleave and Great Cleave are awesome for dispatching lots of mooks, or even for fighting a small squad of moderately tough opponents (just make sure you get the killing blow; then, completely free attack FTW).


Can you even use learn all of those, though?
Well, except for the one spell that I marked with a cleric level instead of a wizard level, the one that allows you to raise someone who died less than 6 seconds ago.
My Blessed Book has 1,000 pages to spells in, and allows me to scribe new spells into it (from scrolls or other wizards' spellbooks) with no cost, but it still takes me 8 hours time, so I haven't used it yet >.>
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 11:29:39 am by shoruke »
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The Fool

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #458 on: February 09, 2012, 11:28:28 am »

Alright. I removed the Iuon Stone, and added 8,000g back into my inventory. Thanks for the reminder.
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SeriousConcentrate

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #459 on: February 09, 2012, 11:42:55 am »

Atheletic
Alertness


Are pretty bad feats, since they only boost skills. You honestly made a mistake here, I believe. These should be switched out.

I know they are now, I didn't when I made the character.

My suggestions? Get Monkey Grip in place of one of those.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/monkey-grip--1978/

MG will allow you to wield a larger 3d6 Greatsword for only -1 to hit, balancing it out. Let's look at your damage now, into effect with the Reckless Rage Ability up there.

-Raged- (base+enchantment+STR+ex)

Kane 3d6+3+4+6 (16-31) vs Toman 1d10+3+5+1 (10-19)

-Normal-

Kane 3d6+3+4 (10-21) vs Toman 1d10+3+5+1 (10-19)

Now, if you do this, your average damage is roughly equal to his. Toman is trading AC for Kanes 50% damage when raging. I call that pretty balanced. Like I said-AC is great, but it's not going to win battles in the end. Killing power does that.

And there's nothing stopping Kanesrae from purchasing Heavy Armor Proficency and gearing up on that end. Or better yet, get rid of that weak will flaw you took in place of a bad feat. That's very bad for you.

As for crits, I can just tell you not to let them weigh your final decision too much. Crits don't happen alot. Case in point last night, I would have one shotted the Dragon on a double crit, sure. But the chances of that happening are very, very unlikely. If I had just used my Produce flames just like normla I would have done 60ish damage to him overall....lol.

Getting heavy armor annihilates her Dex bonus; right now she has the best armor she could possibly get and still retain her full dex. And I took Weak Will to get Reckless Rage. :P[/quibble] Anyway, yeah, a slightly larger greatsword might be nice, but there's still the fact that I'm going to turn Toman DD. In the end that +8 to str (ignoring the other stat and natural armor increases a DD gets, along with a good breath attack and the points I'm going to be dropping into str as I level along with getting a +6 str belt when I can) is going to make him a lot more powerful than her in the end. And there's nothing stopping me from grabbing Monkey Grip with him as well and scaling up his Dwarven Waraxe to 2d8, which is again almost equal to 3d6. (Which I might do now that I think about it. It would jump his damage to 2d8+3+5+1 (11-25, 44-100 on crit). Rae would still be only 10-25 normally, putting him a point ahead and not too far behind even when she's raging. And if I drop the shield/monkey grip combo in favor of using the large DW two-handed, it becomes 2d8+3+7+1 for a total of 13-27, 52-108 crit. Or I could drop the shield's 2 AC for Monkey Gripping a huge Dwarven Waraxe for 3d8+3+7+1, 16-35 and 64-140 crit, which would sacrifice a small amount of AC that DD would make up for to equal Rae's raging damage all the time with no time limit or fatigue penalties.)

Now, As for Will power...here's how you fix that, though it will have to wait to level 12...argh, I know, but bare with me.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-v35--6/endurance--863/
http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-ii--80/steadfast-determination--2761/

Now, this is a bit tricky-you'll need to either cap on another flaw, or just replace one of the above bad feats with Endurance. Then, at 12 you get Steadfast, and you hopefully got rid of that flaw.

Your Willpower just went up 7 points, which is as good as your reflex save and perfectly average for your level, all things considered. Low Will is just something you deal with as a barbarian-just like as a Rogue, I have the same problem. And, with SD your Will save also gets boosted every time you rage by 4 (remember you'll have greater rage by level 11, which will put it up to 8 str/con boost). So, rage away when you think your about to mind controlled.

Just saying, if you want to put Kanesrae in the closet, it's your decision. I'm just laying out the facts as I see them-that, compared to Toman, she's perfectly viable, especially when she gets kitted up like Fool just outlined. You have to manage your rages and fatigue carefully, but that extra damage output is awesome-it's what makes your char worth it.

Another flaw isn't worth it, I won't have two feats available to do that until Level 15 (Level 18 if I go Cleric and pick up Law Devotion), Fool's set-up doesn't work since Cript pointed out enhancements don't stack, and I've pretty much noted anything she can do Toman can do so much better it's not even funny (with the exception of ranged combat, but considering both characters are supposed to be on the frontlines of battle it's not really an issue and a +2 bow would solve his problem there anyway). She's not getting thrown out completely, just demoted to Alt.
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Dwarmin

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #460 on: February 09, 2012, 11:54:28 am »

All right, I can see you've made your decision, then.

I concede. Belatedly.

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SeriousConcentrate

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #461 on: February 09, 2012, 11:58:51 am »

Sorry man. If I'd had more experience with D&D or bothered to ask someone for advice she wouldn't be as useless as she is, so that's all on me. :\
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Dwarmin

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #462 on: February 09, 2012, 12:29:53 pm »

No problem. Like I mentioned before, I think Sky would allow you to redo your sheet if you asked...

For me, the reasons I wanted to keep her around were mostly RP reasons anyway. Playing Kanserae and Riawilde together is a lot of fun for me.
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SeriousConcentrate

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #463 on: February 09, 2012, 12:43:29 pm »

I never had a problem with her as a character, just with her inability to do the job she's supposed to. If Sky let me I would be willing to rebuild her from the ground up, although I don't know if I would stay Barbarian. Maybe I could try Sorcerer/Arcane Archer or something, I dunno... any ideas?

EDIT: What about Hexblade? Or Warlock? I would have to look up which book those are in first (I know I read about the Hexblade but I forgot which book it was in, and I only know of Warlock from NWN2 so I don't know if I actually have the book it's in) but they might be interesting classes. I mean I could keep her as a melee-type if necessary but Toman already does that so well that I'm loathe to dedicate both my characters to it, and Fool's alt is a Monk who can easily be the second front-line fighter in her place.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 01:00:55 pm by SeriousConcentrate »
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Shoruke

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Re: Trail's End: Semi-Trained Hero's Journey :: Join anytime (3.5e) Fridays+
« Reply #464 on: February 09, 2012, 02:22:43 pm »

Maybe Sky could use GM-fiat to reconstruct Rae's soul to justify the class changes >.>

But in terms of roleplaying, I think Kanesrae works better than Toman. If nothing else, it would be kinda weird for Rae to walk out on the group while Ria stays with us >.>
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