The DM grinned and said "actually, no. You can play a Dragonfire Adept, but I'm hijacking your backstory."
So, y'know--uh-oh. That aside, I rolled me some stats, and built the following level 3 Dragonfire Adept. I built him really fast, to join in on the first session, so not much care was taken.
Human (Dark Sun doesn't have any better-suited races except maybe dwarves, and they get a CHA penalty).
STR 10
DEX 12
CON 15 (now 16)
INT 14
WIS 12
CHA 14
Feats
H: Entangling Exhalation
1: Ability Focus(Breath Weapon)
3: Improved Initiative (I didn't really have any better ideas)
I've got a breath weapon, +2 NA, a breath effect, and two invocations from DFA.
I took the "sickening breath" invocation over Frost Breath, so that I could debuff better, since that's my focus.
For my invocations, I picked Endure Exposure (Endure Elements is highly useful in Dark Sun, and immunity to my breath weapon for my allies is gold) and Draconic Knowledge (+6 to all knowledges has been consistently useful, and my character concept is that of a seeker of ancient Athasian lore--I've got ranks in Knowledge: Ancient History, too).
For skills, I took Diplomacy, Knowledges (Local and Ancient History, with a few points scattered into other knowledge skills), Listen, Spot, and UMD, with 2 ranks in Literacy and a Skill Trick: Collector of Stories, to help with monster identification.
My equipment was bought hastily: a riding kank (Dark Sun insect, kinda a mule equivalent), a quarterstaff, an Amulet of Toxin Delay (MIC; Dark Sun has a *lot* of poisonous enemies), a bunch of Blessed Bandages, a Skill Shard(UMD) +3, a MW Tool(UMD), MW Chitin armor (chain shirt equivalent), a quarterstaff, an Adventurer's Kit with a bunch of generic equipment (like rope), and a Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (not a good buy, hasn't gotten any use so far), and a very shabby Healing Belt (since I knew that the game opened with being thrown into prison--so I could keep the belt :P).
I'm rolling HP (other choice was average-rounded-down; this should give a slightly better result overall) and have rolled above average so far.
The rest of the party consists of a halfling Telepath who is going to go into Thrallherd, a Maenad cleric of Rain (focusing on spellcasting rather than melee or archey--he's got Magic Devotion, and uses it and Light of Venya as his "lasers"), an Aaracokra Bard (DS version) who has at this point bought off his LA and gone into Swordsage and focuses heavily on poisons, an Aaracokra Scout archer going for Swift Hunter (who's also bought off his LA by now) and a human Warblade (who's got low-ish stats and ill luck with dice).
---
First session:
I joined the party by being stripped of most of my belongings and flung into the jail cell with the PCs and some other people. Turns out, they were doing gladiatorial combat. My character preferred that to the alternatives, demonstrated his ability to spew elemental flame from his eyes (reflavored breath), and was promptly signed on.
We were hustled into the arena, mounted on Crodlu (big riding birds, hard to control). Some of us took lances; I didn't.
Our opponent: a funky variant Thri-kreen, Large sized--a zik'somethingorother. It promptly used Greater Concealing Amorpha as a Psi-Like Ability. I entangled it with Entangling Exhalation; someone else hit it, it clawed them, and then the halfling decided to talk to it. I speak 'Kreen, too, so I helped; both of us rolled well on Diplomacy, and we came to an agreement with the 'kreen-thing: together, we could kill the guards and escape.
The large thri-kreen leaps into the crowd! Chaos ensues! We strike out! Spectators flee!
My first battle of the game (I came in a few sessions late) was against a whole bunch of humanoid guards. We were on the floor of an arena; there was a short wall around us. Other people got up with climb checks; I never bothered--I could hit guards with my "breath weapon" from the floor. I entangled them in groups of two or so--they were never clustered together better than that--for the most part, occasionally doing straight damage, which ranged from nice (10 points) to diappointing (3 halved to 1). The Entangling Exhalation DOT was killer, and the entangle effect made the battle a lot easier on my party members. We lost track of the 'kreen during the fight; it entered the compound. Our Healing Belts got a lot of use--those things save lives.
There were about ten or so guards that were vanquished. After a while, reinforcements showed up--another group, five plus a Mul leader (with barbed whips, a high AB, and tripping/disarming). I Entangled most of the guards with a high duration roll, then alternated between Sickening and Entangling the leader, the debuff helping the psion land a lucky Mind Thrust for 25ish damage. The cleric used scrolls of Gust of Wind to hold off some crossbowmen, while my Entangle made it hard for others to hit.
My AC is a tolerable 17, and I wound up getting a lot of attention towards the end of the first fight, as the guards saw what my flames and entangling were doing. I got hit with crossbow bolts a couple of times, but I survived. Expended a Healing Belt charge.
We levelled up at the end of the session. I got some more HP, dumped a point into CON, and got a +2 breath weapon DC increase. My breath DC is now 17: 10, +2 from level (4/2), + 3 from the newly-upgraded-to-16 CON, +2 from Ability Focus. I took another Skill Trick, Listen to This. The DC bump is good; aside from that, the level is unexciting.
The Aaracokras bought off their LA and managed to level again (it was a whole bunch of XP) a very short time into next session. The bard became a bard 2/Swordsage 1, taking Adaptive Style. The scout took a Ranger level (he's going to keep Scout and Ranger within a level of each other; neither are favored classes), selecting Favored Enemy: Humans.
---
Next session (the most recent), we looted the compound, got our stuff back plus some extra, set people free, set things on fire, and got the hell out before the powerful Templar running the place (he was away) got back. We found my kank in the stables and loaded the stuff up onto it--mostly a bunch of crossbows. My Draconic Knowledge came in handy, since I made Geography and Local checks for the region, and it was decided that we should head for the free city of Tyr, which is (unlike most places in Dark Sun) not ruled by a dragon sorcerer-king (the Dark Sun dragons are human psion/wizards who have become dragons through a terrible ceremony).
An aside about Dark Sun: in the world, wizards are deeply mistrusted and disliked... because they draw energy from the land around them to power their spells. There are preserver wizards and defiler wizards; preservers (my character preserves when he uses his SLAs) do so carefully, while Defilers do so without care, and so whenever they spellcast they leave browning patches of grass. It's a desert world--the oceans turned into seas of silt, a large red sun, and so on. Psionics is far more common than magic as a result, and wizards have to hide what they do--the general populace isn't exactly informed about preservers.
So, the party set out into the desert, my Endure Exposure invocation keeping us (and my kank) safe from the blazing sun. The Aaracokras flew (they're flying creatures, 90 ft (avg) speed) overhead, and we wound up spending the night peacefully--the halfling had a sand-worm of some kind leave some eggs in him overnight, but we cut them out (1d4 damage, no big deal)--we found this out when the Scout found small tracks in the morning.
A while later, we detected a big sandstorm coming, and sent the flyers out looking for shelter. The closest place was a small little green place--unusual out in the Dark Sun desert--with some grass and even a few trees. There was a none-too-friendly man there, and he agreed to let us stay if we'd do him a favor: he wanted some berries from a bush in a nearby valley.
"It's a trap!" our player senses screamed at us. So we were careful.
Webs in the valley alerted us to the presence of monstrous spiders, and I managed to identify (woo, Knowledges) the bush as a Zombie bush--the berries are addictive, and if you eat enough, it takes over your mind.
Right as we were discussing options, a pair of "dark warrior spiders"--thoroughly in the bush's thrall--moved in to attack.
The battle didn't take too long. I entangled them, but they managed to land some hits anyway; the bard/swordsage was probably the MVP here, using Wolf Fang Strike + Burning Blade to good effect. A few people were entangled in the webs they spat and so more or less sat the fight out. It wasn't too tough, but the bard/swordsage did take a little CON poison.
We plucked a pair of berries. The halfling psion failed a Will save and was compelled to eat one. I made my will saves and burned the zombie bush to an ashy crisp. By spewing fire. From my eyes. (FIRE EYES. That is way cooler than a stupid breath weapon.)
Berries in hand, we returned to the copse of trees, and handed the berries over. "Yup, no problems, here you go, no idea why you couldn't do it yourself." The man looked startled and unhappy. I should mention here he had a weird dog-like creature with him, with an energy-drain bite attack. He reluctantly agreed to let us stay, but said we had to do so in the little shed by the house--10x10, not enough room for us.
"Screw it," we decided, "he sent us off to die, and wants zombie bush berries for nefarious purposes, plus we need shelter. Let's jump him." But we weren't sure--I started to open up with Sickening Breath as a sort of warning, when a patch of grass under someone's feet withened and died. A couple of us identified a Nerveskitter spell with Spellcraft (Draconic Knowledge lets me use it untrained and gives me +6), and as soon as we realized he was a defiler, everyone was entirely on board with killing the hell out of him ASAP.
The battle began. I entangled the Defiler and his Improved Familiar; he cast Shield (he didn't fail a single concentration check from Entangle; still, the odds were on his side) and activated the Stoneskin effect of a Heart of Earth spell--we knew we were in trouble--as a swift action, sharing it with his improved familiar. Our warblade closed with the familiar, the bard failed to hit the wizard with a poison, the Scout shot him (next to no damage thanks to the Stoneskin), and the psion landed an Energy Stun that left him (but not his improved familiar) stun for a round. The cleric started summoning "sun monkeys", which can blind adjacent enemies for a round.
The next couple of rounds saw us beating on him, mostly ineffectually. The Bard was doing a little damage thanks to Burning Blade, pausing to regain it, I was doing fire damage, the Warblade was trading blows with the Improved Familiar, the psion failed to stun with his second Energy Stun, and the wizard cast an 8d6 (feat that gave +1 CL for some spells) Acid Breath that rolled real high and dropped me from 34 HP into the negatives and downed the Warblade, too. Our cleric used Close Wounds to get me up on my feet and a healing belt to get the Warblade back from the negatives. The monkeys appeared, blinding the Improved Familiar, which moved far enough from its master to lose its Shared Spells, making it much less of a threat, I sickened them, the Psion did a whole bunch of damage with a Mind Thrust, the others made melee or ranged attacks, and we wound up downing the Defiler before he could kill any of us. Before we did, though, a pair of zombies and a skeletal critter came out of the house. My Knowledge check got me that they were 2-HD zombies and a 6-HD skeleton. The cleric made the zombies go "poof" via Turn Undead, and we took down the skeleton after the Defiler went down.
Inside the house, we liberated a tied-up Psion. The zombies had been her sisters--the Defiler had animated them--and she was really angry at him and grateful to us, offering to sell us her normally-secret potion-fruits (we haven't bought anything yet, but we're still there). We got the defiler's loot, too, including a Headband of Intellect for the psion. Currently, we're waiting out the storm.
We levelled up again at the end of the session (thank you, encounter including a CR 7 enemy and other creatures). I'm now at 44 HP, with an AC of 17 (eh, soon it won't matter as much), Fort +7/Ref +2/Will +5 total saves.
I took, of course, the Slow Breath breath effect. Slow + Entangle is going to rock the house--slowed entangled creatures have a 5' speed (from 30') and can't charge! My damage went up to 3d6, but that's much less important at this point.
My skills: Diplomacy 8 ranks, Knowledge Local 8 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Spot 8 ranks, UMD 8 ranks, Knowledge Ancient History 5 ranks, Skill Tricks 4 ranks, Know Nature 2 ranks, Literacy 2 ranks, Know Arcana 1 rank, Know Religion 1 rank.
I have no equipment that I didn't start with yet, but that should change once we get to Tyr and sell and split the loot.
The psion took Expanded Knowledge: Energy Missile on my advice. That should be useful when Mind Thrust doesn't cut it and Energy Stun isn't worth bothering with--the damage on it can be pretty high.
---
So far, the DFA plays great. Entangle is a solid debuff, and Sicken stacks penalties on top of that. I must have saved the party a ton of damage and added a ton more through lowering enemy AC/AB/movement, and because it's spread out among all the characters it's a lot more tolerable than if I was doing it directly. We'll see how dominant Slow Breath will be.
Games are on Fridays. Here are my plans for the future (the game is going to run to about level 12-15):
6: take the Draconic Flight and Flyby Attack. This should keep me safe from most things--especially when coupled with Entangled, Slowed enemies. It'll also let me hit more ground enemies with a cone (cone from above = big spread on ground). I'm not taking Humanoid Shape because there are no flying humanoids availible--the Aaracokra are Monstrous Humanoids.
7: 4d6 breath
8: NA +2 -> +3; invocation: I'm going to be taking Frightful Presence--the DC should be OK since it's HD-based, and it adds to my Entangle-Sickend-Slow debuffing. Other options are Voracious Dispelling (but the Psion got Dispel Psionics, which works on spells since we're using transparency with a few minor differences) and Charm Monster-at-will (but, again--psion).
9: 5d6 breath; Extra Invocation feat: I'm not sure what'll fit here--we'll see by then. Possibly Darkness at will, possibly Darkvision/See Invisibility for me.
10: double breath weapon range; breath effect: Thunder Breath, so I can do damage that isn't fire and smash through objects
11: 6d6 breath; Chilling Fog invocation! Solid Fog at will is going to be beautiful.
12: either Enduring Breath or Sleeping Breath, not sure--the DM also made a custom "sandstorm" breath, which deals piercing damage as a weapon (so is affected by DR), which doesn't seem that great if I've got Thunder Breath; Extra Invocation feat for whichever Lesser Invocation I wanted that I didn't pick up.
13: NA +3 -> +4; Greater Invocation: probably Draconic Toughness (+ UMD - Wand of Shield Other).
14: 7d6 breath
15: Fivefold Breath effect (I'll make sure to slip from True Neutral to Neutral Evil if we get that far :P--if I don't, I'm taking Discorporating Breath, I guess), Extra Invocation feat (no other good ideas) for, uh, something.
DFA's have been virtually banned from our games because of my DFA's slow breath allowing us to nearly take out a large group of monsters of CR +4 that we were supposed to run away from.
--S
The Dragonfire Adept in my playgroup actually chose not to take Entangling Breath because he didn't want to make everyone else feel useless. I guess it's more acceptable in a dark sun campaign since everything in dark sun is pretty damn powerful though.
--S
Without Entangling Exhalation, a low-level DFA would be kinda lame, IMO. It didn't make everyone in my party feel useless; on the contrary, it saved a few lives and made them feel more useful (hitting more often, getting hit less &etc).
DFA: "I'll hold it ... you hit it."
Without Entangling Exhalation, a low-level DFA would be kinda lame, IMO. It didn't make everyone in my party feel useless; on the contrary, it saved a few lives and made them feel more useful (hitting more often, getting hit less &etc).
I've not seen the problems here. Maybe it's because my teammate is a pseudodragon, so he can also fly and position himself just about anywhere he wants with impunity. He's been able to do plenty of battlefield control with Fog Clouds, as well as fire breath and sickening breath.
And, while you may seem to think that it makes people feel more useful, that depends on what you feel is useful. I know that I certainly don't feel useful if my job is to simply beat down enemies that pose no threat whatsoever. I mean... is it fun to play 'cleanup crew'?
--S
Your third level feat could've been Draconic Aura: Energy: Fire, I guess, but seems like the DC wasn't ever a problem.
And you can guarantee a lockdown with slow breath. Breathe slow, they're auto-slowed for one round, during the recharge round you entangle, then repeat slow . . .
Entangle, slow, entangle, slow . . .
It's got a beat you can dance to.
I never even dreamed that something so awesome would be released in an excerpt...
Wow...
I've not seen the problems here. Maybe it's because my teammate is a pseudodragon, so he can also fly and position himself just about anywhere he wants with impunity. He's been able to do plenty of battlefield control with Fog Clouds, as well as fire breath and sickening breath.
And, while you may seem to think that it makes people feel more useful, that depends on what you feel is useful. I know that I certainly don't feel useful if my job is to simply beat down enemies that pose no threat whatsoever. I mean... is it fun to play 'cleanup crew'?
--S
Entangled enemies are FAR from helpless. Entangling Exhalation isn't Fear or Confusion or the wizard's other save-or-loses--it's just debuffing not "welp, done. Cleanup crew, mop'em up."
This made my day.
And you can guarantee a lockdown with slow breath. Breathe slow, they're auto-slowed for one round, during the recharge round you entangle, then repeat slow . . .
Entangle, slow, entangle, slow . . .
It's got a beat you can dance to.
During the recharge round you entangle, but once they're entangled they're not slowed anymore. I'd open with entangle and hope there's enough duration to work with the slow. It's going to be "can't move" every other round at best, though.
Nice rundown; wish someone around here would do a Dark Sun game.
Your third level feat could've been Draconic Aura: Energy: Fire, I guess, but seems like the DC wasn't ever a problem.
I guess I must've missed it--what's that do? Higher DCs are never bad; enemies were saving a lot of the time.
I guess I must've missed it--what's that do? Higher DCs are never bad; enemies were saving a lot of the time.
Energy attacks of the type of your energy (Fire in this case) get a boost to the DC equal to your aura bonus.
Energy attacks of the type of your energy (Fire in this case) get a boost to the DC equal to your aura bonus.
Aha. That wouldn't apply to my Slow or Sicken Breath--and Entangling doesn't have a DC; +1 DC to the save-for-half part of a half-damage entangle isn't a big deal.
I'm disappointed in you.
That said, any hint on what the DM is going to do to your backstory?
...LN, I see you reported the phrase "It's a Trap!" without the accompanying Admiral Ackbar image macro.
I'm disappointed in you.
Oh, man. I did, didn't I.
I guess I
.That said, any hint on what the DM is going to do to your backstory?
Nope! No clue. Something involving a sorcerer-king, probably. (He suggested he might be changing what Dragonkin gives a bonus to Diplomacy against, but he hasn't told me what.
We got to Tyr and had some downtime. I bought a bunch of scrolls to UMD.
We got a job (hire on as caravan guards from Tyr to Urik, spy on the caravan leader) in a couple of days.
We got jumped by some thugs in an alley, and between the psion wasting PP on energy missile (not thinking we'd need them), the Warblade, and the Bard/Swordsage, plus the cleric summoning a Magma Centipede, they got destroyed in short order. Energy Missile is hardcore.
In the middle of the night, our room became on fire. The rain cleric put it out, we left, the scout found some fresh tracks, we followed'em to a building.
Now my party wants to set the building on fire.
We did not do so. The next day, we left with the caravan. Chariots are approaching!
Rain Cleric: Sleet Storm. Dickings! Dickings for all! So, chariots on grease-like icy ground...
DM: ...crap. Okay, there are more chariots. And you get Xp for those.
Me: And you wanted to take Contagion instead of Sleet Storm.
We are in the caravan! More chariots approaching. Ssurans, with some kind of lizardy-cow-things pulling the chariots! Two chariots, four Ssurans each.
Apparently, the cleric can summon LASER BEES WTF. (Something Dark Sun--Sun Bees, they shoot light beams that blind.) He starts summoning.
The Aaracokra scout shoots and misses. The Aaracokra bard/swordsage moves and Wolf Fang Strike-Burning Blades. I use a scroll of Entangle! One of the cow-lizard-things fails and the chariot stops; the other moves but remains within the Entangle radius. A Ssuran claw-claw-bites the swordsage, missing; the three others jump down. One gets entangled.
The cleric's LASER BEES, WT*F*--four of them!--get summoned. Two Ssurans (non-entangled chariot) get blinded, three rounds each. The cow doesn't (ranged touch misses). Another Ssuran gets blinded. The scout shoots and misses. The swordsage moves to flank a blind Ssuran and uses Rabid Wolf Strike. Hits! 12 damage, 2 CON (large scorpion poison). My turn! Nothing on the ground gets entangled that wasn't; I do nothing--my breath and other scrolls can't reach. The chariots "move back" (most of us are on a moving caravan; the chariots that aren't moving forward effectively move back). AoOs are made. The swordsage pursues the entangled chariot.
Three more chariots show up! There's a drum-beating big guy on one of'em.
...apparently, the LASER BEES, WT**F**, freaking EXPLODE. 3 points of fire damage to everyone on one of the previously-present chariot.
The Scout shoots the drum-beater for 16 damage. The swordsage Shadow Blade Techniques a blind Ssuran, with poison. I make my DC 10 concentration (moving wagon) check with no skill points in it, and entangle the two farthest of the three new chariots. The Warblade jumps down off the wagon so he can maybe get involved here!
The swordsage takes some damage. A LASER BEE GODDAMMIT WHY takes some damage. The chariot moves, provokes from the bees. The Swordsage AoOs a blind guy. Oh, two of the bees have died due to using their stings on AoOs.
The nearest chariot's guys throw grappling hooks at the caravan wagon we're on! And, uh, miss. The bee actually finishes someone off with a fire aura. The drum guy points a wand at the Scout, who makes his save.
The Warblade uses Battle Leader's Charge, now that a chariot is actually in range! He hits! I jump down, fall, take two points of damage. One entangled cow-thing breaks freee! Another couple of chariots leave range, and the close one moves. Warblade takes an AoO, hits.
The dude with the drums uses Shadow Jaunt, WTF? and jumps onto the chariot close to us. Our halfling psion uses Energy Stun! Drum-Swordsage Ssuran is stunend. The chariot lands a grappling hook on our wagon! The bees are off the map. Cleric readies an action! Scout shoots and misses. I, standing on the lip of the wagon, use Entangling Exhalation, and hit all four guys in the chariot and the cow-lizard, duration 2 rounds. The swordsage, who recovered his maneuvers, charges one of the guys in the back of the chariot and drops him. The Warblade uses a swift action and charges to recover his maneuvers, attacking the stunned entangled Drummer-Swordsage.
The Psion energy-missiles and finishes off all the guys in the nearby chariot. DAMN, Energy Missile is ridiculous!
The chariot Drummer-Swordsage *was* on is no longer entangled, and has hit the back of the wagon with a grappling hook. The Scout captures the chariot with no one in it! I climb down off the wagon's lip and get on the chariot! (My Entangling Exhalation hits the cow-thing for three points. Oh noes.) The Swordsage moves to attack the Ssurans that are still in a chariot, and finishes one off. The psion severs the rope of the grappling hook of the chariot that the Scout and I are on. A Ssuran attacks our swordsage and warblade and misses.
I still haven't used slow breath, dammit.
The Cleric hits the Ssuran holding the enemy chariot's reins with a Command: Flee! The Scout fails his Handle Animal check; our chariot's cow-lizard-thing remains ornery and veers off to the side. I jump off our chariot and go towards the enemy chariot, and ready an action to cone them once they're in range. The Swordsage uses Wolf Fang Strike, the Warblade does something (I missed it), the psion uses augmented Psionic Charm Person to affect the cow-lizard, the Scout succeeds on his handle animal. I "move back" (not on the wagon), and my readied action goes off: slow breath! The cow-thing fails, the Commanded Ssuran succeeds (1 round). He tries to jump out of the chariot, since our swordsage/warblade are in the chariot blocking his path, falls, gets clipped by the wheel, and falls prone. He "moves back" (on the ground, not on the moving chariots or wagon). The Warblade jumps off the wagon, swift-action recovers, and throws a rock. The Swordsage moves in on the prone Ssuran with Rabid Wolf Strike and finishes him off.
The Psion energy-missiles the rope of the grappling hook connected to the chariot the Slowed cow-thing was on, so the chariot doesn't pull the cart connected to our wagon away.
The fight is finally over. It was thoroughly ridiculous. We get some loot, including a mostly-full Wand of Doom I'm gonna sell off.
We arive in Urik! The Aaracokra level to 5, thanks to having bought off their racial level adjustment. I didn't level, but I likely will next session I attend (it looks like I have to miss next Friday's); my plans have changed--instead of taking Flyby Attack, I want to take Extra Invocation (Call of the Beast). The DM is still not sure as to whether he'll allow that. It sure seems useful, though, and fits my character's knowledge-seeker flavor--an "I have learned the tongues of beasts and plumbed the secrets of the air" sort of thing.
I'd like recommendations for scrolls and power stones to buy--first-level, but of any class, although arcane stuff is harder to get.
During the recharge round you entangle, but once they're entangled they're not slowed anymore. I'd open with entangle and hope there's enough duration to work with the slow. It's going to be "can't move" every other round at best, though.
Um . . .
. . . no.
Slow can last 2 rounds, entangle up to 4. They stack just fine.
You're . . .
. . . what's that word? . . .
. . . wrong.
The combo is a nightmare for anything. Sorry, man - it's just my class - you know how it is - you get possessive!
What's more, you didn't need to roll Concentration for breathing from a moving wagon - your breath weapon is SUPERNATURAL, which means you can do it without making checks (in addition to never provoking Aoos).
Very interesting so far. I've never seen a DFA in action, nor wanted to play one, but now I get to be one vicariously! Rock on.
What's more, you didn't need to roll Concentration for breathing from a moving wagon - your breath weapon is SUPERNATURAL, which means you can do it without making checks (in addition to never provoking Aoos).
Although I agree with you, I can easily see how a DM would rule that you need a check:
"You must make a Concentration check whenever you might potentially be distracted (by taking damage, by harsh weather, and so on) while engaged in some action that requires your full attention. Such actions include casting a spell, concentrating on an active spell, directing a spell, using a spell-like ability, or using a skill that would provoke an attack of opportunity. In general, if an action wouldn’t normally provoke an attack of opportunity, you need not make a Concentration check to avoid being distracted...
DC 10: Vigorous motion (on a moving mount, taking a bouncy wagon ride, in a small boat in rough water, belowdecks in a stormtossed ship)."
One could easily misinterpret "using a skill" as being any ability, just not the literal subset of skills. LN you should definitely point that out next time it comes up.
You're . . .
. . . what's that word? . . .
. . . wrong.
In any case, I think that he understands that supernatural abilities never require Concentration checks. That particular check was made with no invested skill points, implying that he didn't believe he needed them on his main asset (the breath weapon).
Yes, but that's just typical of the kind of rules ignorance that many defend out of of some misguided sense of "RAI - 'cause I said so!" Nowhere does it say anything about supernatural abilities being affected (in fact, as I note in the guide, you can even breathe on enemies whilst PINNED!), and it is just as much the player's responsibility to know how a character works as it is the DM's. I didn't mean to sound harsh; the DFA is just close to my heart, and it seems there are bits that Logic is missing out on!
I was just defending the DM a bit, b/c it seems like a cool campaign (and a little rules misinterpretation << good gaming). :D
I was indeed UMDing scrolls of the Entangle spell when I was making my Concentration check, not using my breath weapon.
The stats on the freaking LASER BEES WTF are the Giant Bee, plus some kind of "Sun" template you can probably find at www.athas.org somewhere.
Edit: the DM is not pulling any "well, the rules kind of imply it if you squint and tilt your head, so I'm going to pretend they say it" crap. If he wants to house rule something, I trust him to flat-out do so.
It sounds awesome though ... I love DFAs ... they are awesome widget characters.
I'm playing a DFA in an Eberron game right now, level 6. Changeling. It's an interesting class, to be sure.
Most of the time I feel like I am missing out, though. I wonder if I should re pick my invocations, because I'm a one trick pony it seems. I'm using Draconic knowledge, Magical Insight, Endure Exposure, and Draconic Flight. I got Endure Exposure from the Extra Invocation feat at level 6.
Anyhow, I have a question for you DFA people: Using entangling exhalation, it says an extra 1d6 of damage per round. Does it mean Half normal damage plus an extra 1d6, or just... 1d6 for the secondary rounds? Feat is worded funny.
Energy Missile is hardcore.
DAMN, Energy Missile is ridiculous!
Huh...and I thought the appropriate reaction when a caster class does direct damage is to roll one's eyes, stifle a yawn, and say "Doing damage? That's for fighters."
:D
Huh...and I thought the appropriate reaction when a caster class does direct damage is to roll one's eyes, stifle a yawn, and say "Doing damage? That's for fighters."
:D
I've seen fights where the Warmage is the MVP.
No, that's when *wizards* do it. Psions are better at damage output (well, barring hardcore twinking of the wizard) and, more importantly, don't really have too many better options. Plus Energy Missile is notoriously overpowered for its level (we're not using the CPsi nerf). If it had been a wizard casting, I dunno, Scorching Ray or Fireball or something, the reaction would've been a lot milder.
What about entangling ectoplasm? Astral Construct? IMO energy ray isn't that great. Good, but not great.
What about entangling ectoplasm? Astral Construct? IMO energy ray isn't that great. Good, but not great.
Energy Missile is far better than Energy Ray.
Energy Missile is far better than Energy Ray.
Stupid illiteracy. Energy Missile is indeed good.
My group I have been playing with for almost 15 years decided to run Savage Tide as our last hurrah before 4e and I was initially going to play a Cleric/Crusader/RKV, mainly because I wanted to check out the ToB mechanics as they seem to be the direction 4e is headed.
Unfortunately, I live quite far from the rest of my group and work/grad school take up most of my free time so I cannot make it to all the sessions. My DM did not want to DMPC something as complicated as a TOB battefield controller when I was not around and asked me to pick something else. After lengthy discussion, we decided on either Dragon Shaman or DFA as a perfect 5th man for the party. The goal was to make a Debuffer/Walking party buffer that could lay down some serious aoe dubuff effects while making the rest of the party better. He also had to be easy to play if I was not around. We both thought the DS was fairly weak class and my DM agreed to allow Metabreath Feats without Power Surge or any other penalties for my DFA.
The rest of the party:
Beguiler ---> Ultimate Magus (skill monkey, blaster)
Cleric/Warlock ---> Eldritch Disciple
Druid ----> Ownage (Wildshape focus?)
Martial Adept mix---> Stormguard Warrior
My Build: Human Marshal 1/DFA 19
My Stats at 3rd:
Str 10
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 10
Cha 16
Side Note: While optimization is not discouraged, we have been trying to tone it down over the last few campaigns. We have all DM'd at one point or another and know how much work it is to make things challenging at upper levels with optimized characters. Excessive dipping is frowned upon at this point and my goal was to make a simple, playable character.
I started at 3rd level and managed to get to 4th during a 13 hour session this past weekend. While I dont have my build finalized, it will be mainly for debuffing with my breath weapon and passively buffing through auras. I also plan on maxing out diplomacy and UMD and playing the party face when i am around to do it. There is some nice synergy with my Chr between my focus skills, my marshal aura, and some potential Invocations.
I took one level of Marshal to get the minor aura Motivate Dexterity which is great at low levels, even with just a +3 bonus to my party. The martial adept and druid love it for tumbling/hiding and of course, the init. I hope to get it to +5 or +6 by 20th through gear. I have a feeling that a good init for me will be huge at higher levels so that I can get out ahead of the group and start debuffing before our melee closes with enemies.
For my first level feats I took Ability Focus: BW and Entangling Exhalation and despite the fact that I was lev 3 and everyone else was 4 or 5, I quickly became the superstar with these two feats. I wasnt outright blowing things away, but I was slowly but surely chipping away and debuffing while my comrades did their melee thing.
The power of Entangling Exhalation at lower levels is fairly ridiculous, but given its limitations at higher levels, my DM agreed not to nerf it. I love it as does my entire party.
At 3rd level I took Draconic Aura: Vigor which is absolutely incredible. Great synergy with the DFA class as it scales and it has already saved about 10 lives. At this point I also plan on taking another aura and Double Draconic Aura so that I can always be "broadcasting" three auras for my party, although I dont have the second aura finalized yet. (I could use a suggestion for that, but keep in mind I wont be focusing on damage)
I will likely take Enlarge and Shape Breath as Metabreath feats in the future to maximize my debuffing potential.
I now have Magic Insight (the warlock is jealous) and Endure Exposure for invocations and Endure Exposure is absolutely incredible. It makes being a DFA just that much easier: Ally in the way of your blast? No prob!
Marshal levels allow me to wear some heavier armor, so I bought some Mithril Breastplate and a Mithril Buckler +1 and currently have a spear, though I cant hit the broad side of a barn with it.
As for my own CO diary: We had a few minor encounters with Bullywugs and a pair of BBEGs (cleric summoner and melee) which went well, except that I could not hurt any of the fiendish summoned creatures with my breath. I did however keep them both entangled which was great especially on the summoner cleric(concentration checks and ongoing damage ftw)
We also had a 4 man side mission in which we had a 3rd level (me), two 4th level, and a 5th level group take on a Green Hag and three trolls. It was a hard fight, but with my breath weapons, we were able to kite and kill the trolls (yay for Flame Breath nixing thier regen) and my breath weapon was not subject to the Hags SR. This fight was pretty well past our group CR, but we managed well enough. We also managed to take on a fairly young black dragon not too long after the troll/hag encounter in which again, entangling exhalation and my breath weapons played a key role.
I cant think of a more intuitive class to play that gives me something fun at nearly every level and manages to remain fairly simple. I cant wait for next week and keep the updates coming Logic- I need to know what I have to look forward to!
I'd love to hear from others what thier mid to high level experiences have been with this class. Keep this thread alive.
Fiendish creatures are a weakness of the low-level DFA. Technically, you have to damage creatures with your breath to entangle them (so reducing all the damage to 0 with resistance means that they're not entangled)--it's why you can't entangle them with non-damage breaths, too. Ah, well, though, not that big a deal.
I had to miss my last session (I was out of town), but I will be running my DFA again Friday, so you can expect an update that night. I should be picking up the Draconic Flight invocation at the end of this session.
What were those fly-speed-increasing feats, again, and where were they found? I'm considering them as an option instead of either Flyby Attack or Extra Invocation (Call of the Wild/Beast, whichever it's called).
Edit: now I'm considering Draconic Aura: Vigor, too. Dammit. Maybe I can retrain Improved Initiative for it? Our party has a cleric with a Cure Light wand and, y'know, spells, so I don't know if it'll be worthwhile (especially once I'm flying around).
Edit 2: actually, never mind. I won't be taking Draconic Aura: Vigor. And looking up Wild Empathy, well, Call of the Beast ain't so great. We do encounter a lot of tough animals, but
So: EI(Call of the Beast)? EI(All-Seeing Eyes), for the +6 Spot and the Comprehend Languages (fits flavor-wise)? EI(Otherworldly Whispers) for yet another +6 on Arcane, Religion, and Planes knowledge checks? Flyby Attack? One of the improved speed feats? Somedraconic aura? Weigh in, folks.
Edit 3: for Extra Invocation, Magical Insight actually seems the most likely, for identifying things... except the MIC provides several ways of doing that with knowledge checks.
Flyby Attack: anyone want to make a point, from experience or otherwise, about the utility of this? I'm breathing from range; I don't know how much being able to move some after breathing will help.
Also, Draconic Auras can be used in place of the Marshal's Major Aura, but really, whats the point if you arent going straight marshal as there is no way to improve it and Lesser Auras scale with Chr. Also, who goes straight marshall? Ick.
As for the Vigor Aura's use... well, at low levels with minimum healing, it is used mostly for auto-stabalizing and and dare I say "resurrecting" nearly dead(-1 to -9) allies that can hopefully crawl away and heal themselves, not to mention some plink healing. At higher levels I may retrain it to another aura, but it is crazy useful for the time being.
@ Logic: Personally, I would agree with you on the importance of the Flyby Attack feat. The "Flyby" tree is quite feat intensive and unless you are focusing on mobility and BW damage, probably not worth the investment. I might think about it if I had skirmish, but I plan on standing stationary(er, flying) above the melee and using shaped/enlarged breath and using Chilling Fog to cripple my enemies from afar.
I dont know about dumping improved init. I think it is quite important for a DFA to act as soon as possible, or at least before opponents get to act. I have a built in improved init that will scale with my charisma due to the marshal level. If you can find a way to make up the bonus to init through gear, by all means, dump the feat.
I am AFB at the moment, but there are probably better options for increasing fly speed than burning feats. Spells (preferably in wand form) might be one option to explore. I havent really looked into it yet, but Greater Draconic Flight is not all that bad. Again, unless you are really going to focus on damage (as JJ has pointed out, is not a strength of the DFA at high levels) and mobility, I dont know that you will need to worry too much about crazy fly speed.
I just checked the draconic aura's, and there isN't vigor in it (it appears to be a dragon shaman only aura or something) unless someone can correct me (i would be glad for that, since my friend has a dragon familiar with a free feat in a game.)
Its a common enough houserule to allow it. It is kind of fuzzy, RAW, though.
Well the way I see it draconic aura: vigor, is something CRAZY good at the higher levels too, especially if it's gained throught a secondary medium, like, a familiar.
A dragon familiar, from draconomicon, can have the feat (right?) and just hang around with his master, using entangling exhalation from time to time to help, and just heal everyone who is bellow half hp 1 hp every round, auto stabilise everyone in a 30ft. radius, and make Out of Combat healing a breeze, because you just have to wait a few minutes for half hp, then you can get out the healing spells.
Let's say your big stupid fighter has humongous con and good rolls and d12 for hit points. he has 300 hp. Now he got downed in a battle agaisn't 4 devil's and is now at 16 hp only. Well due to your gold dragon familiar chilling around, he gains 2 (or 1 depending interpretation of is a dragon considered dragonblooded and is 7hd = to character level 7) per round until half hp, that's 132 hp, then the cleric can just cast heal on him and he's full, instead of 2 heals, or several charges from your wand of lesser vigor (28 in that case)
Does this all make sense?
I'm playing the swordsage (based on the Beshadowed Blade v2) and warlock/cleric of the party Diceboxisfull is describing and can definitely backup the usefulness of DoT type damage of Entangling Exhalation and the entangling debuff at our levels being quite awesome.
Also the Hag fight was very scary but we were able to do a lot of damage before she got to touching everyone and brought her down with an alchemist fire, no SR ftw.
More advice on DFA I can't offer.
The DM let me bump my character up to 7. I've taken Draconic Flight, and haven't settled on a feat yet (probably either Draconic Aura: Senses or Frightful Presence). At level 8, I'll be taking Frightful Presence.
Hopefully I'll have an actual diary entry this Friday.
I do like EI, esp. if you can get warlock I's (like otherworldly whispers). Improved Flight (draconomicon) increases your land AND air speed.
Magic Insight I wouldn't do - the artificer's monocle is cheap.
I do like EI, esp. if you can get warlock I's (like otherworldly whispers).
I already have major knowledge checks, and the ones Otherworldly Whispers gives bonuses on haven't been too important. I've been making Local and Nature checks more'n anything else, plus occasional Geography and History.
The Artificer's Monocle will be hard to find, and we definitely don't have WBL--especially me.
Improved Flight (draconomicon) increases your land AND air speed.
Improved Flight, that was it! Going from a 30' to a 60' fly speed is great. I'm going with that.
If you can retrain you can always get rid of Magic Insight later once you get something that can duplicate it.
Improved Speed ups speed, but you have to be a dragon.
You aren't a dragon. You may walk, talk, and quack like one, but you aren't.
Ergo, no Improved Speed.
Magic Insight is invaluable in many circumstances - constant Detect Magic plus the ability to dispel at will has made many of my DFAs better at trapfinding than rogues. If you can get ahold of items to sub in, that's fine, but it's still a solid invocation; it or Endure Exposure are my first level pair (I pick depending on party makeup).
Improved Flight ups maneuverability.
Improved Speed ups speed, but you have to be a dragon.
You aren't a dragon. You may walk, talk, and quack like one, but you aren't.
Ergo, no Improved Speed.
Magic Insight is invaluable in many circumstances - constant Detect Magic plus the ability to dispel at will has made many of my DFAs better at trapfinding than rogues. If you can get ahold of items to sub in, that's fine, but it's still a solid invocation; it or Endure Exposure are my first level pair (I pick depending on party makeup).
Don't I have the Dragon type for purposes of qualification for feats, from Dragontouched? I guess not. No Improved Speed, then.
EK(Magic Insight) it is, I guess.
Don't I have the Dragon type for purposes of qualification for feats, from Dragontouched? I guess not. No Improved Speed, then.
EK(Magic Insight) it is, I guess.
Dragontouched, AFAIK, only gives the Dragonblood subtype.
Dragons cound as Dragonblooded for everything. However, Dragonblooded subtype creatures do *not* count as Dragons.
Dragons cound as Dragonblooded for everything. However, Dragonblooded subtype creatures do *not* count as Dragons.
In general, no. However...dragonborn creatures, spellscales, and kobolds do count as dragons for the purpose of race. All three have this explicitly noted in their descriptions from Races of the Dragon; draconic creatures, however, do not. And neither do creatures from Dragon Magic.
In general, no. However...dragonborn creatures, spellscales, and kobolds do count as dragons for the purpose of race. All three have this explicitly noted in their descriptions from Races of the Dragon; draconic creatures, however, do not. And neither do creatures from Dragon Magic.
Yeah. What I meant was that just having the Dragonblood subtype is not enough to be considered a Dragon. As you say, those creatures explicitly note that they count as Dragons, otherwise they would not.
We're part of, basically, an attempt to prevent an EVIL guy from taking over a merchant house.
We followed him out to the desert.
He made a deal with some kreen.
The DM threw down a metric crapton of small D6es. "Those are thri-kreen."
Uh-oh.
Bard/Swordsage Shadow Garottes one. I breathe, killing three and damaging one. Scout kills one. Psion energy missiles five to death. Warblade guts one. A thri-kreen actually hits him for 6 points; a thrown weapon hits me. New rounds! Bard kills one, Warblade kills one, I breathe on a line of six and kill them ALL (bwahahahaha), scout kills one, cleric finishes casting a Dark Sun acid-storm-type spell and kills several, blocking off a 20' square, then casts Foundation of Stone.
I will skip the rest of the details of how we wade through a bunch of two-hit-die thri-kreen.
That ends (hilariously, the *module* talks about how we're "surrounded and hard-pressed" or something, when there's like eight 'kreen left) when an elven war party shows up and takes on the remaining 'kreen.
The people we're after--they're hardcore, we're all gonna die--draw their weapons. One of them is a fairly high-level Templar. Aww, sheee-its.
-A tall elf with facial tattoos
-A dark-skinned tattooed dwarf
-Vapek, the Templar
-An old guy
-A black woman
-Two mul, one with a red circle tatooed.
-Four or so others.
It starts poorly. Their meleers charge; I slow one for 1 round. Their soulknife manifested some stuff, some of their psions/casters went invisible, the swordsage managed to hit the (levitating) soulknife with paralysis poison, I got hit by a meleeing Mul, the psion landed a death urge on the Mul, the cleric DMM(Empowered) a Summon Monster IV for a total of 4 "sand howlers", athasian monsters (CON damage on hit) that hit the Templar for a total of 3 CON and some damage. Another of the psions manifested a *second* Energy Retort.
The old guy--whom we want to take alive--is cowering in the back.
Vapek charges--through the previously extant acid-stormlet--at the cleric! He provokes AoOs from all 3 summons around him (one is next to the Death Urged guy). Blessedly, he drops--he was going to unleash a stored spell. On a smiting lance charge. Whew.
And now it's time for the Death Urged guy to full-round himself! He dies. So hard! 89 points to himself on the first auto-crit. Ahhh, Power Attack + Death Urge.
I entangle another guy for 1 round. Meh. The Warblade rolls a 3, misses, uses Lightning recovery, rolls a 2, uses White Raven Tactics on the scout, who shoots the levitating paralyzed guy.
The psion uses Dispel Psionics! the levitating paralyzed psion (?)/soulknife drops to the ground and takes damage. An invisible guy loses a spell. The bard/swordsage moves back and Shadow Garottes the Energy Retort psion, being out of range of Energy Retort. 17 points of damage! Cleric's turn; a sand howler bites the Retort psion for some damage and 1 CON. E-e-e-e-energy retorts! Doesn't quite kill it. Next howler! Crits! He goes down.
Next one! Charges the formerly-levitating soulknife-ish-guy! Fourth howler 5-foots and full attacks the guy I entangled, hitting all three times, one a crit. 4 CON, bunch of damage. He hits it back.
The cleric drags the body of the Templar out of the Acid Storm so his valuable gear doesn't melt.
An invisible wizard pops out of invisibility by dropping an Ice Storm on our Psion/Thrallherd, his thrall, our bard, &etc.
We detect the invisible Psionic Assassin manifesting Psionic True Strike.
I breathe on a longblade-wielding elf, finishing him off, and roll 20 on Listen to pinpoint the assassin (total: 33), who gets a psionic Grease dropped on her by the Thrallherd's cohort.
I have to go away for a bit to take a call.
I come back, and just the assassin and wizard are left; the wizard gets dropped in short order while casting. The assassin gets out of the Grease and manifests another Psionic Invisibility. I move over and use Slow Breath; she fails the Fort save. 2 rounds, for once! The Warblade steps over and full attacks the square... and threatens a crit with one attack, the other missing duie to miss chance. Doesn't confirm, alas. 10 damage!
Psion Energy Stuns. This should be good. She rolls a 19 and succeeds, but takes 13 damage. Bard/Swordsage uses Fan the Flames, beats the miss chance, and crits with it, but rolls poorly--23 damage. Enough to kill her.
The module surrounds us with elves (who took on the "multitude" of EIGHT remaining kreen). Plot happens! We loot! We leave with our prisoner.
The prisoner is a CR 19 Aristocrat 8/Psion X. The Warblade says, "I beat him for, like, a hundred points of subdual." ...he takes the hundred points of subdual and is still conscious. In the middle of the night, he dominates the Warblade; the Psion makes his save. The Warblade drops the psion into the negatives. We've woken up, we restrain the Warblade and attack the prisoner; the cleric slaps a Protection from Evil onto the Warblade to negate the Dominate while we knock the psion prisoner unconscious, poison him until his physical stats go away, and then Ego Whip him into a coma the next morning, too.
Between the XP for the CR 19 guy, the fifty thri-kreen, the fight, quest XP... well, it's a lot. The DM decides to increase that ad-hoc to bump us up for the next part of the adventure.
Long story short, we're now level eleven... and even more under-wealthed because of it. We did get a bunch of loot, though, including a RIng of Protection +2, a Cloak of Charisma +2 (the Thrallherd took it; I'm sad), an Amulet of Health +2 for me, a psychoactive skin of +4 Natural Armor, some other stuff.
The Warblade is retiring his character and making a Druid. He's taking Natural Spell, so he should be juuuust fine.
I'm taking Frightful Presence for my other lesser invocation, and Chilling Fog (obviously!) for my Greater. Thunder Breath for my level 10 breath effect. For my level 9 feat... I don't know. Extra Invocation (See the Unseen), I guess, since we just fought a bunch of people who went invisible.
Actaully, Ability Focus (Frightful Presence), to up the lackluster DC, is my best bet, I think.
Nah, just a little goodnatured ribbing.
Cleric is a rock star, for happening to have and casting Protection from Evil at just the right time.
The DM gives you even MORE xp, in spite of the windfall you scooped in the module and by taking out the CR 19 prisoner? Did the prisoner not escaping somehow throw the plot three adventures forward?
How come the warblade didn't pound him for another hundred subdual after the first? It would've taken him down eventually. And if he just had arbitrarily large hp, then you could dominate him for the best trapspringer/dragonbait ever. Speaking of the warblade, was he retiring due to feeling ineffective in the party? He always read like a bit of a weak link. And a druid is, by my interpretation, a message that says "I WANT TO BE A MORE POWERFULER DOOD K???".
Also, I was disappointed by the lack of laser bees.
How come the warblade didn't pound him for another hundred subdual after the first? It would've taken him down eventually. And if he just had arbitrarily large hp, then you could dominate him for the best trapspringer/dragonbait ever. Speaking of the warblade, was he retiring due to feeling ineffective in the party? He always read like a bit of a weak link. And a druid is, by my interpretation, a message that says "I WANT TO BE A MORE POWERFULER DOOD K???".
Also, I was disappointed by the lack of laser bees.
Well a level 11 Warblade with level 5 gear versus CR 15+ monsters(from the way this seems to be playing) doesn't sound nearly as good for party survival than a level 11 Druid with level 5 wealth.
It seems, a little, like the scoutish role is a little weak. I'd do Extra Invocation: See the Unseen, and pick up the senses aura, I think.
First of all, as awesome as you are at CO, you suck at playing games. I mean, please, tell me that the call you had to take was like...a hospital, telling you that someone burned your grandma down for insurance money. And stole your car. And your cellphone. And was calling you from the hospital to tell you he drove your car off a cliff.
No, it was my girlfriend, who needed comforting. I can always take the time out for that.
Nah, just a little goodnatured ribbing.
Cleric is a rock star, for happening to have and casting Protection from Evil at just the right time.
Yes, yes he is.
The DM gives you even MORE xp, in spite of the windfall you scooped in the module and by taking out the CR 19 prisoner? Did the prisoner not escaping somehow throw the plot three adventures forward?
I think it's just going to be a different module now. I'm also not sure how much extra he gave us. I know that as a level 7 character, I wound up getting 36k+ Ex-Pees, and the level 8s got... 28k? Something like that? That could be right, from all the enemies we faced.
How come the warblade didn't pound him for another hundred subdual after the first? It would've taken him down eventually. And if he just had arbitrarily large hp, then you could dominate him for the best trapspringer/dragonbait ever. Speaking of the warblade, was he retiring due to feeling ineffective in the party? He always read like a bit of a weak link. And a druid is, by my interpretation, a message that says "I WANT TO BE A MORE POWERFULER DOOD K???".
The warblade didn't pound him for another hundred subdual because that was a half-joking comment. "I hit him for like a hundred." "OK, he takes it!" "Ha, ha." Only later did it turn out to be relevant. We didn't know he was that powerful a psion until later. He may also have been unconscious from a poison at the time? I don't recall the details.
Also, I was disappointed by the lack of laser bees.
We had to use Sand Howlers because the enemies were powerful. Given that we've levelled, I doubt we'll be seeing the laser bees again. Tragic, I know.
The Warblade was having occasional problems with his effectiveness, but they were due to his low stats and, often, poor rolling, not the class. The Druid thing might be to be more powerful. (I was considering a Druid if I died, too, honestly. That or an Unseen Seer.)
Well a level 11 Warblade with level 5 gear versus CR 15+ monsters(from the way this seems to be playing) doesn't sound nearly as good for party survival than a level 11 Druid with level 5 wealth.
We're doin' better than level 5 gear now, having gotten quest rewards and loot (including gold, which is worth 100 times the default on Athas--ceramic pieces are the equivalent of normal gold pieces). We'll see how much each person gets next session.
We don't really face CR 15+ monsters--we do face the very occasional CR 15+ NPC, but never really in a way that will totally cripple us and never really optimized.
agree w/ skydragonknight. LN, do you write these at the table? They seem very detailed!
It seems, a little, like the scoutish role is a little weak. I'd do Extra Invocation: See the Unseen, and pick up the senses aura, I think.
I did pick up the Senses aura, and bough Psychict Reformation to trade in Improved Initiative for Quick Reconnoiter (the free-action spot/listen, with my fairly high checks, are so worth trading in +2 init for).
I do, in fact, jot these down at the table, when it's not my turn (and I'm not being funny). That's why you get the surprise mixed in with the tedious details of who rolled what.
I missed last session so I don't know what happened, but we're in a zoo! There's a bunch of porcupine-things, some Tembo (dog-ish things) out of range, some kind of psionic dire bear, and a human waaaaaay out of range.
I drop a Chilling Fog on the porcupine things, people move up, our Druid wild shapes into an Athasian Sloth and gets down from his Huge mount, the Psion manifests a defense, his thrall, a Marshal, changes auras. The Swift Hunter aaracokra Flyby Attacks. Some stuff happens. I breathe on a couple of porcupinethings and Frightful Presence one. The Marshal thrall moves up and crits it.
The Psion uses Psionic Dimension Door to get over to where the distant humanoid is; the Aaracokra flies over. He tells us, "help me, I have a plan!" or something like that.
...I'm gonna do this in a little less detail from now on.
Animal Companion swallows a porcupine whole. People melee the bear. The cleric casts an electric-substituted Frost Breath on three porcupines.
I drop a Chiling Fog on some of the dog-things, removing the first one.
The humanoid psion has been opening various gates. Something Colossal... that a DC 34 Know: Nature check only gets the name of.... comes out, opening the gate with a bullrush that also throws him away.
The psibearthing has been Death Urged, and kills itself. Bwahahahaha.
More of the little creatures get ganked.
The Scout shoots the colossal thing and flybys way. I Thunder Breath a bunch of little creatures.
The Psion tries to dominate the Colossal thing, which we're calling Godzilla...
SUCCESS! Brilliant!
The guy that was opening the gates turns out to be a wizard. He spellcasts, trying to dispel the Dominate. Fails.
We mop up some minor creatures. The wizard tries to dispel the dominate again, and fails. Godzilla tail-slaps the wizard, who manages to survive.
More mop-up (stupid Greater Concealing Amorpha psi-like).
The wizard tries to cast, gets hit by readied actions. Makes his concentration checks, dammit,and successfully dispels the Dominate on Godzilla.
It kills him anyway.
I Chilling Fog it to keep it around for the Dominates.
The very first Dominate manifested works! Woooooo.
Time to head for the army we're apparently supposed to be opposing to send Godzilla into the middle of'em.
We march Godzilla through the streets! We see a patrol of Dray templars, four of them on some kind of spider mounts.
Cleric throws a DMM(Empowered) Elemental Strike. BOOOOOOOM. Three of the mounts die.
One of them dispels the Chilling Fog!
Psion Energy Missiles five of them for 47.
Druid uses Elemental Strike! Booom.
Godzilla destroys one.
Another patrol, this time with some of them on top of buildings. Apparently, our enemies do NOT like our Godzilla.
AW CRAP SPELLS! Defiling circiles! Chain Lightning nails those of us who aren't flyin.
Feeblemind! The swordsage saves.
I get hit by a javelin for six points, two psions Temporal Acceleration,
I throw a Chilling Fog to catch two arcanists and the javelineer.
I shrug off a Slow; the Swift Hunter doesn't.
The cleric drops another Elemental Strike on three, DMM(Empowered).
The psion manifests Energy Missile on the enemy psions; turns out they put Power Resistance up.
A wizard in the fog freaking Cone of Colds me for freaking 61 points of freaking damage oh god I'm at 31.
Godzilla destroys the fighter.
A psion manifests Forced Share Pain and (via Schism, apparently) Psionic Dominate. Both fail.
The other lands a Crisis of Breath on Godzilla (dammit) and Mind Thrusts me. Fortunately, I save.
I Chilling Fog the two psions, exposing the two wizards for my allies.
The Wild Shaped druid goes to grapple a wizard on a building... and succeeds. The wizard goes limp! Woooo.
The psion tries to dominate a wizard... fails.
The swordsage moves up and uses a maneuver... rolls a 1.
Godzilla tramples the cleric, RAAAAR! Annnnnd we roll a 1 for Crisis of Breath! Alas! Woe!
The Psions use Temporal Acceleration again, and get to the edge... taking Chilling Fog damage along the way, since they have rounds.
The enemy cleric stabs the crisis-of-breathed-to-0 Godzilla.
OUR cleric finishes summon a FLYING FOUR-ARMED RAIN APE WOOOO, because the Laser Bees of many sessions ago were not awesome enough. Bwahahaha. It flies over to the psion, hits him, grabs him, constricts! Woooo! (Also it forces a DC 12 Will save vs. 1d3 rounds of Confusion on hit. Did I mention it is a MADNESS-INDUCING FLYING FOUR-ARMED RAIN APE WOOOO?)
The Druid casts a Cure on Godzilla, who survived the cleric's attack.
The Druid's companion finally is within range of something and attacks the grappled companion. Hits! Grabs, and the ape hands the psion off!
The Psion dispels the Cleric... and, tragically, fails. The thrall Marshal uses his sling... crit threat! No confirm. 1 point of pathetic damage.
The swordsage quickdraws two poisoned dagges, and stabs the wizard twice! He goes down!
Swift Hunter manyshots the cleric, hitting.
The grappled enemy psion manifests ULTRABLAST! catching the Animal companion and the BWAHAHAHA RAIN APE WOO.
I move over and Thunder Breath cone down, for a measly 12 points of damage... that make him go limp. And the Rain Ape disappear.
The cleric full-rounds Godzilla, taking it below 0. The Druid steps over, full-rounds the cleric, drops him. Cleric comes over and heals Godzilla. We managed to win!
10,611 xp, for the freaking 13th-level manifesters (there was one in the group we dropped quickly with the empowered elemental strikes, too), the CR 12 Godzilla, etc etc.
Everyone levels but me. 389 xp away from +2 breath DCs and a feat, dammit. End of next session, it'll have to be.
Analysis: Cleric probably gets MVP, here, except for the Psion's dominate. My Chilling Fogs contributed a lot by managing the flow of combat, especially vs. spellcasters; on the downside, I still haven't really had an opportunity to use Slow Breath that much. Save that for big melee brutes, I guess. Sicken -> Frightful Presence is a pretty good combination, what with the -4 saves that result.
The Druid has been consistently good, but his good-but-not-totally-optimal spell selection kept him from really shining as much as he could've. He and the animal companion are both melee beasts.
Levelling: The Psion/Thrallherd gets 6th level powers; he's taking. Also, Expanded Knowledge: Psionic Teleport as his feat because we have no wizard.
The Swift Hunter, on my advice, is taking a cleric level, trading a domain for Travel Devotion, and taking Extra Turning. He'll wind up with 4 uses/day of Travel Devotion, which will let him full attack with Rapid Shot instead of Manyshotting (or Greater Manyshotting, which he could have taken this turn).
Cleric and Druid are sticking to their guns. Not sure about the feats. Swordsage/Bard finally took Weapon Finesse (a +3 difference at this point).
I don't quite level, but next one will have +2 breath DC (+1 CON, +1 from evening levels) and +1 Frightful Presence DC.
---
So, recommendations for my next level feat? I was thinking Extra Invocation now that I can take Lesser Invocations with it. Voidsense (would rarely have come in handy so far, and I have Quick Reconnoiter and good spot/listen, plus that skill trick for seeing invisible things for a round)? Walk Unseen (being invisible doesn't do me that much good)? Something else?
Also, the laser bees you've all been asking about are Giant Bees from the MM with the Sun something template applied from the Athas files. They gain a 1/day ray of blinding light (their laser) and radiate heat to cause damage (the exploding).
As bees, they also die whenever they sting something, so AoO's are bad.
They charge the barricade.
The Druid has cast Enrage Animal and casts Bite of the Werebear, and shares it with his Huge animal companion. It completely freaking destroys a mounted guy.
Some stuff happens. I use Thunder Breath for 28 points of damage, and all the guys I hit fail their saves. The cleric summons 1d3 SUN BEARS.
Digression:
SUN creatures, folks (as we established with the bees) shoot lasers.
We have bears. Bears that shoot laser beams out of their eyes. "Dude, that would so freakin' AWESOME!"
They FIRE THEIR LAZORS and blind some guys.
The scout (who activated Travel Devotion last round) moves and Rapid Shots for damage. Quite a bit of damage.
In short, we're mopping up some guys on spiders. The psion is low on power points, so he's sitting back.
Bite of the Werebear has officially been renamed. It is now Bite of the Raptor Jesus.
We mop up. Some castes show up, plus one that looks more important and two noncasters. I drop a Chilling Fog on three casters, the Swift Hunter shoots the important one, and the druid moves up, Power Attacks... CRITS. Woooo. One of the bears moves up and crits! I breathe a sonic Entangling Exhalation cone from above, getting two of the people in the fog and the important one. Some of them move partially out of the fog. The druid's companion's readied action goes OM NOM NOM. The Scout finishes murdering the important-looking caster.
Some more stuff happens. I breathe, bears maul, druid and companion maul harder, Swift Hunter shoots, and so on.
We win. Somewhere along the line, the Athasian Bard/Swordsage got dropped to the negatives; he's recovered, though.
A leader and more casters off in the distance! I UMD a scroll of Boneclaw's Cut we found, hitting a caster! (The spell sucks.) The psion spends most of the last of his PPs on a Dominate attempt and, tragically, fails.
I shrug off a Hold Person.
The Druid BALEFUL POLYMORPHS the leader into a freaking SQUIRREL. He rolls a 1. BWAHAHA.
The psion beside the
DM reads text. THE SUPREME LEADER IS DEFEATED. Also, a squirrel.
XP! Annnd I get JUST enough to get me to 13. I skip 12 entirely. I get to 78019 xp. Woo.
Now, I need an invocation (Draconic Toughness is my only good choice) and a feat--almost certainly Extra Invocation. Charm, maybe? Only problem is, it's language-dependent, and will have a DC of a mere 18. Walk Unseen? Voidsense? Suggestions?
Also, what breath effect do you guys recommend at 12th? Enduring Breath sees pretty lame since I have to use my fire breath with it. Cloud Breath might be worthwhile for when I'm surrounded, but still--meh. Weakening Breath seems good, but I already have more various debuffs than I can *use*. The DM has a custom Sandstorm Breath that deals piercing damage in a line; I'm tempted to get either that or Acid Breath just so I have a non-fire line choice (we're fighting a lot of Dray, who have Fire Resistance 10).
Sigh
I would love to be in that game.
Bears that shoot lazer beams from their eyes...
Somehow, LN, that no longer surprises me.
*insert LoL pic here*
Bears that shoot lazer beams from their eyes...
Sigh
I would love to be in that game.
It is pretty fun! The OOC chatter is hilarious.
lolwut?
That's one reference I prefer to skip, what with the racism and all.
Instead, think this:
This is, of course, super dumb, since it forces an arbitrary, out-of-game limit on how quickly you can level. It basically says you can't gain more than one level per session, no matter how lengthy that session might be. It's a really, really bad rule, and I'm surprised it even exists.
It's worth noting, LN, that one of my Monday game players (yeah, the newbies who apparently know the PHB better than I do) pointed out to me that you can't skip levels. That's right. If you get enough experience to go straight from 11 to 13, you don't. You stop at 1 XP below the amount needed to reach the next highest level.
This is, of course, super dumb, since it forces an arbitrary, out-of-game limit on how quickly you can level. It basically says you can't gain more than one level per session, no matter how lengthy that session might be. It's a really, really bad rule, and I'm surprised it even exists.
:'(
Only matters if your GM is using that rule. It's a pretty stupid rule.
I'm gonna talk to him, yeah.
It is pretty fun! The OOC chatter is hilarious.
That's one reference I prefer to skip, what with the racism and all.
A /b/tard... who doesn't like racism? What blasphemy is this?!
Also, you have the best campaign evar. I only wish my GM would allow awesome lazor-bear action, but sadly we get no templates on summoned creatures.
I'm gonna talk to him, yeah.
A half-way compromise is that you still get all the XP, but you don't gain more than one level per session - the second level-up is delayed until after the next game.
A /b/tard... who doesn't like racism? What blasphemy is this?!
I'm not a /b/tard. 4chan is Internet Hell and should be razed to the ground in a desperate attempt to save humanity.
Also, you have the best campaign evar. I only wish my GM would allow awesome lazor-bear action, but sadly we get no templates on summoned creatures.
Sure you do!
Fiendish and Celestial. :P
A half-way compromise is that you still get all the XP, but you don't gain more than one level per session - the second level-up is delayed until after the next game.
Don't know how much that would help; we sure seem to be gaining a level every session.
As has already been said, 1 level per session is stupid in its inflexibility.
Also, what breath effect do you guys recommend at 12th? Enduring Breath sees pretty lame since I have to use my fire breath with it. Cloud Breath might be worthwhile for when I'm surrounded, but still--meh. Weakening Breath seems good, but I already have more various debuffs than I can *use*. The DM has a custom Sandstorm Breath that deals piercing damage in a line; I'm tempted to get either that or Acid Breath just so I have a non-fire line choice (we're fighting a lot of Dray, who have Fire Resistance 10).
Line effects are certainly fun and a lot safer to use around your friends, but I'd go for the acid breath effect for three reasons. First, your resistance invocation won't protect your friends from your sand breath; it's unlikely that a line of damage would hit a party member, but always possible. Second, the Scout already does piercing damage and lots of it -- no need to worry about running into something with DR /piercing, and it won't help against anything else with DR. Third, the cruder materials of Athas, especially bone and chitin, would be a lot more vulnerable to acid. That'd give you some interesting options to disable equipment and melt objects outside of combat.
Weakening Breath is still very nice, though. You've got a ton of debuffs already, I know, but -6 to STR for two rounds on a successful save (if I'm reading this handbook right :P ) is quite tasty.
Line effects are certainly fun and a lot safer to use around your friends, but I'd go for the acid breath effect for three reasons. First, your resistance invocation won't protect your friends from your sand breath; it's unlikely that a line of damage would hit a party member, but always possible. Second, the Scout already does piercing damage and lots of it -- no need to worry about running into something with DR /piercing, and it won't help against anything else with DR. Third, the cruder materials of Athas, especially bone and chitin, would be a lot more vulnerable to acid. That'd give you some interesting options to disable equipment and melt objects outside of combat.
Acid breath won't actually melt people's gear unless they roll a 1 on the Reflex save. Plus the cleric has a spell for that.
Also, for smashing things out of combat, I have Thunder Breath (sonic damage). I'm just WAITING for there to be a door we need to go through. BOOM.
Weakening Breath is still very nice, though. You've got a ton of debuffs already, I know, but -6 to STR for two rounds on a successful save (if I'm reading this handbook right :P ) is quite tasty.
That's right, and it is tasty. But like I said--I already have to choose between Entangle->Slow and Sicken debuffing; Weakening Breath would get me another option that would rarely be used. It's good against melee stuff, but if we fight something melee-based, Entangle+Slow will be even better.
I suppose I could take Enduring Breath just for kicks, or the 20' spread one just so I can Thunder Breath all around me to look cool. --Just realized Enduring Breath would be fire-only. Which is a shame; the free damage was starting to be tempting.
Looks like I'm taking Acid Breath, just so I have a non-fire 60' line.
Edit: the Endure Exposure invocation would protect from the sand breath, actually. It explicitly protects from my breath weapon, period.
Insert Bears w/ Lasers in Mournland.
I don't remember the spell's name but I'm pretty sure there's a Wizard spell of around 6th level that has almost the same effect as the Sun Incarnation's blinding ray. I'm sure someone here will remember the name. Anyway, just give the bear that as an SLA and move on. :D
Sun-bears coming.
Well, just go to athas.org and check out the paraelemental templates.
Sun-bears coming.
Actually I think you want the Sun Incarnate template, IIRC that's the one that animals can get. Either way, it's one of those two templates.
Also, you have the best campaign evar. I only wish my GM would allow awesome lazor-bear action, but sadly we get no templates on summoned creatures.
LN was right about the Celestial & Fiendish Templates. Also, remember this key rule:
Once a creature with 0 intelligence (IE any vermin on your list) gains the Celestial or Fiendish template, its intelligence goes up to 3.
Creatures without intelligence gain no skills points or feats, so suddenly these bugs gain feats.
And that's how I killed a Barbed Devil with a Fiendish Huge Monstrous Centipede: it used its Snatch feat to throw the devil off the rooftop of Castle Ravenloft and deal 18d6 falling damage.
It's a creepy city where people are mindwiped--er, I mean, "harmonized".
Someone talks to us.
Dregoth, the undead dragon-king, apparently wants to become a god.
We need to find some shiny artifacts: the Scorcher, the Star of Badna, and the Pearl of the Sunrise Sea.
Our bard/swordsage drops his character and bring in an Unseen Seer.
We teleport to Tyr, buy stuff, teleport back to Raam, and start looking for the Star (which is in Badna).
We find some woman who seems to be Feebleminded and Heal here. Ding! Plot relevance. Plot info!
We wind up in an abandoned temple. The Unseen Seer scouts ahead. His Hide is, of course, ridiculous.
We find an undead thing with the Star in its chest! I use slow breath... and GODDAMIT. It's a Fort save. It doesn't affect objects. The undead is immune.
I did NOT think of that.
The thing claws at the druid... and fires a ray of what turns out to be TARGETED DISJUNCTION. Whatthehell. The psion loses a bunch of items, including the 16,000 gp Headband of Int +4 he just bought. He is not pleased.
The Druid hits it, the Swift Hunter shoots it and activates Travel Devotion, I use Thunder Breath with Flyby Attack (12th level feat) and roll low. The Unseen Seer cast Assay Resistance (shared with familiar); familiar casts Unluck, fails to beat SR, Unseen Seer casts Escalating Enfeeblement... fails to beat SR.
The undead unique creature uses its artifact to disjoin the druid, who loses buffs and armor. The cleric finishes summoning an EARTH SNAKE OF DEATH..... and drops an empowered lightning strike on it, which finishes it off.
The psion decides to retire his possessions-now-equal-to-under-1000-gp character and possibly bring something else in later.
Well.
That kinda sucked. They can't all be winners, I guess!
That's one reference I prefer to skip, what with the racism and all.
I am sorry, I never wanted to hurt anyone sensibility; I'll just remove it.
Good work with the CO diary by the way...
Edit: also, disjunction? Really? I thought no sane DM or player would use that spell...
Edit: also, disjunction? Really? I thought no sane DM or player would use that spell...
That's the consensus, but there are two alternate points.
Firstly, the module (which the DM warned us ahead of time could suck majorly) included the artifact which casts the targeted disjunction solely because we will be otherwise incapable of assaulting the very very epic Undead Sorcerer King. Because, seriously. A Sorcerer/Psion Dracolich, WTF.
Secondly, it's Dark Sun. We were considering going to someplace nicer once we find out how to Plane Shift out of this awful campaign setting.
And by someplace nicer, we were thinking Ravenloft.
And by someplace nicer, we were thinking Ravenloft.
When Ravenloft is starting to look like a good alternative to your campaign setting, I suspect it is time to get the frack out of there through whatever means necessary, up to and including ritual suicide.
With our luck we'd end up in Kaldinay. Dark Sun IN Ravenloft. The only way things could get significantly worse...
For those keeping score at home the Psion has indeed left the game but will be replaced by a Crusader/Master of Nine. Maybe human, maybe half-giant. We shall see.
The silt in the air causes 'the grey death', which gives us -2 to Spot, Initiative, Attack and Damage.
We dig down (well, I Thunder Breath from above), until we find a hole that leads into a passage. The Darkstalker-having Unseen Seer goes and peers into the room ahead... and sees stone golems. Four, plus one behind some kind of giant crossbow.
The Unseen Seer sneaks in and Orb of Acids the ballista. He moves back; his Familiar hastes us (Imbue Familiar with Cheese). Druid shares Bite of the Raptor Jesus with his animal companion
People move up, the golems move up, I sonic-cone four of the five and Entangle them for 3 rounds. The Unseen Seer Orbs them again (oh, he took Uncanny Forethought, the ****er. Cleric casts Acid Rain, I drop a Chilling Fog, a golem moves up and hits the companion, and the companion hits a golem and grapples it.
I's going to SWALLOW THE STONE GOLEM WHOLE. And the golem will have NO WAY of GETTING OUT. No piercing/slashing weapons. I make a Fort save. The cleric casts another acid rain.
The animal companion SWALLOWS THE STONE GOLEM WHOLE, HAIL RAPTOR JESUS!
Another golem attacks the companion, misses; the golem makes two Will saves, fails both, Haste gets negated and it gets slowed, I use a scroll of Resurgence, it remakes a save and makes it, and is no longer slowed or hasted. The Unseen Seer is acidic splattering, dots are dotting, we're cleaning house. I use Acid Breath for a Ref save. The companion goes OM NOM NOM.
Have I mentioned that druids are broken?
Next is some oozes. Also, our former Psion rejoins us as a Crusader/Fighter 1/Swordsage 1/Master of Nine 1. The oozes are mopped up very quickly.
Another room has a "cistern fiend" in a thing of water. The Unseen Seer damages it a bit, I fly over and try to drop a Chilling Fog under the water.
How does Athasian know what water is?! Chilling Fog, Solid Fog, Obscuring Mist... none of these WORK UNDER WATER G'DAMMIT. The cleric comes up and uses a breath spell that manages to daze it for a round. The Scout uses Travel Devotion and Manyshots it. It hits me for some damage. I use a line of fire to Entangle it and damage a little--2 round duration. The Unseen Seer and cleric do some damage. The Scout Rapid Shots for god freaking damn that's a lot. I Slow Breath it. The Unseen Seer hits it with Acidic Splatter. It manifests Hostile Empathic transfer and touches the cleric, who saves but takes 25.
...long story short, we kill it dead, and Travel Devotion makes Swift Hunters great.
The Unseen Seer and I bust down a locked set of doors, revealing a staircase. We all start going downstairs.
A GNOME AND HIS COMPANIONS ATTACK US. ATHAS' LAST GNOME.
WE ARE KILLING ATHAS' LAST GNOME OH GOD THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN
It has two elemental badger things with it. Our new Crusader/Mo9 goes first and hits a badger with full-power-attack Emerald Razor. I fly in, breathe on them all to entangle them... miss the gnome, it's incorporeal. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It's a ghost gnome! We're not killing Dark Sun's Last Gnome. MY HAPPINESS IS STOLEN. I WILL KILL WITH RAGE. Frightful Presence! I Shake a badger-thing. One badger moves and gets improved-grab-AoOed by the animal companion; another misses the Crusader thrice. The badgers get beaten on, the gnome goes into a corner and Blade Barriers for protection. I line-of-acid a badger and the gnome and Shake up the other badger with Frightful Presence. The animal companion keeps eating. The Unseen Seer uses some kind of Dark Sun staff to Dimension Door himself, the Crusader, and the Cleric (who is Readying a Heal spell) behind the Blade Barrier. Nat-1 on the Heal spell, so the charge is held. The Swift Hunter shoots, rolls miss chance... misses. The grappled badger fails to hurt the animal companion.
Gnome retreats into wall.
Comes out, readied actions... he casts Word of Chaos, most of us are stunned. The Chaotic Neutral cleric isn't... neither is the Swift Hunter, because he uses his Third Eye: Clarity, which I suggested he buy.
Cleric hits the Heal, does the damage, and his Spiritual Weapon finishes it off.
Plot happens.
Have a
~Bowen
An update on this week's game will go up tomorrow, but it mostly involves shooting your own party members who are in a grapple.
Sadly, due to the vagaries of RL, LogicNinja can no longer join us for the events of this Dark Sun game. However I will attempt to fill his shoes in some capacity to at least fill you all in on the STUPID STUPID STUPID things we are doing there.
An update on this week's game will go up tomorrow, but it mostly involves shooting your own party members who are in a grapple.
Indeed, I'll no longer be able to update this diary, and am indeed totally without tabletop for now. It's good to see that the thread will live on (although it'll be A Bunch Of Guys Without A Dragonfire Adept In Dark Sun) without me.
I may be back for one last game next Friday, though.
I'll post my thoughts on the DFA (in this game) as a whole later.
We go to a town looking for the next artifact. Bar brawl! We, uh, win. Also, the grapple rules are completely retarded.
I buy a curly mustache.
And then we go to find an NPC!
Turns out we have to go kill a Mysterious Beast that's got the artifact we want.
There's like twelve of them in a cave! They're sleeping!
Silence on the Crusader/Mo9. The Swift Hunter walks with him. We Coup de Grace them one by one. Two. Three... all of them.
Three more of the monsters, quite awake, become visible when the crusader climbs a ledge! Initiative! Attacks are exchanged. Slow breath! One fails. BAM, DMM(Empowered) flamestrike... 70 points. All three fail (one thanks to Slow). The Crusader jumps up and Rallying Strikes, healing the damaged druid. The Druid full-rounds, and his lizard starts climbing the slope. They are slowed, so they only get one attack each, but one crits the druid. The crusader is hit, makes a Ref save vs. having his armor destroyed, and makes it thanks to the cleric's Mass Conviction. The druid kills one. I Entangle them with fire and Shake them. The cleric's Elemental Strike kills another and damages the last (mmm, -4 to Ref saves from Entangle and Shaken). The Swift Hunter finishes the last.
We get an artifact sword! Victory music.
And th-th-th-that's all, folks.
:raincloud
Thanks for the awesome story LN.
HAIL RAPTOR JESUS!
Peace,
Burritoboy
Do not expect too much yet, but here is my DFA DIARY
Peace,
BB