My group plays about once a week. So updates can be expected around that often (plus intervening discussion). If there's enough interest, I will continue.
Here's the basic info on the campaign:
It's an undetermined world so far (our encounters have been with fairly generic enemies... a goblin wartribe). We are using an E6 campaign system, meaning that our characters never level past 6, but just pick up new feats every 5000 experience after 6th level. Similar to other E6 rules, we start with a 32-point buy system. However, if we choose LA races, it instead affects our starting point-buy pools. I chose a Goliath, bringing my starting point-buy to 25 instead of 32. Here is the relevant information for my character:
Show
Cobb, the Goliath Fighter2/Warblade3 (level progression: Warblade 1/Fighter 2/Warblade 2)
Str 20 (15 start, +1 level-up, +4 racial)
Dex 10 (12 start, -2 racial)
Con 16 (14 start, +2 racial)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 10
HP: 77
AC: 18 (10 + 8 armor, +5 vs ranged attacks)
Movement: 20' (heavy armor penalty)
Saves: +9 fort, +1 reflex, +1 will
Feats: Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Knockback
Special Abilities:
Dungeon Crasher: +2 competence bonus on saves and AC vs traps, +5 str checks to break door, wall or similar. When I Bull Rush someone into a wall or solid object, I deal an additional 4d6+(2x strength bonus) bludgeoning damage
Mountain Movement: Standing Long Jumps and High Jumps as if they were running.
Accelerated Climbing without -5 penalty on check.
No penalties for altitude.
+2 to sense motive checks
Skills:
Concentration: 8 rank
Intimidate: 7 rank
Athletics: 2 rank
Acrobatics: 5 rank
Martial Lore: 5 rank
Maneuvers:
- Stonefoot Stance
- Moment of Perfect Mind
- Emerald Razor
- Steel Wind
- Stone Bones (not readied)
- Action Before Thought (not readied)
Gear:
Tunic of Steady Spellcasting (Conc +5)
Half-plate armor +1
Lesser Crystal of Arrow Deflection (+5 AC vs ranged attacks)
Troll-Gut Rope
1 Belt of Healing
Lesser Crystal of Illumination
Potion of Cure Serious Wounds
Handy Haversack
Str 20 (15 start, +1 level-up, +4 racial)
Dex 10 (12 start, -2 racial)
Con 16 (14 start, +2 racial)
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 10
HP: 77
AC: 18 (10 + 8 armor, +5 vs ranged attacks)
Movement: 20' (heavy armor penalty)
Saves: +9 fort, +1 reflex, +1 will
Feats: Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Knockback
Special Abilities:
Dungeon Crasher: +2 competence bonus on saves and AC vs traps, +5 str checks to break door, wall or similar. When I Bull Rush someone into a wall or solid object, I deal an additional 4d6+(2x strength bonus) bludgeoning damage
Mountain Movement: Standing Long Jumps and High Jumps as if they were running.
Accelerated Climbing without -5 penalty on check.
No penalties for altitude.
+2 to sense motive checks
Skills:
Concentration: 8 rank
Intimidate: 7 rank
Athletics: 2 rank
Acrobatics: 5 rank
Martial Lore: 5 rank
Maneuvers:
- Stonefoot Stance
- Moment of Perfect Mind
- Emerald Razor
- Steel Wind
- Stone Bones (not readied)
- Action Before Thought (not readied)
Gear:
Tunic of Steady Spellcasting (Conc +5)
Half-plate armor +1
Lesser Crystal of Arrow Deflection (+5 AC vs ranged attacks)
Troll-Gut Rope
1 Belt of Healing
Lesser Crystal of Illumination
Potion of Cure Serious Wounds
Handy Haversack
Quick things:
- Do you need a belt of healing with a Crusader/Cleric? I imagine a belt of battle would be more useful. (Maybe you’re to low level; I don’t remember how much those things cost
) - As for speed, just get some boots of striding and springing.
Second point: I'd buy those, but keep in mind that those boots cost 5500gp, and my current total wealth is only 8160 gp, which is high for a 4th level adventurer. Also, keep in mind the rules for magic items in an E6 campaign: Nothing that requires more than CL6.
--S
Cobb's current weaknesses are mostly to reflex saves and ranged attackers, and low movement (stupid armor...).
If you have access to Tome of Magic, get a Tooth of Savnok (I think that was the name), as it allows you to move at your normal speed regardless of armor.
If you have access to Tome of Magic, get a Tooth of Savnok (I think that was the name), as it allows you to move at your normal speed regardless of armor.
Nice find. It's 2000gp, but I may be able to make room in my budget for it.
--S
I like E6, because I might manage to get someone else to DM an E6 game...
Yay for CO Diaries.
I like E6, because I might manage to get someone else to DM an E6 game...
How come you do not have the Charging Minotaur manuver? It will make Dungeon Crashing much more effective...
Moment of Perfect Mind - because Glitterdust and other similar save-or-suck effects aren't fun, and my will save sucks (but my concentration check can be good).
Steel Wind - Because hitting more than one guy at a time with a power attack (and knockback) is good to clear the area around me.
Emerald Razor - Because power attacking for full BAB is a lot easier as a touch attack.
Charging Minotaur isn't a bad maneuver. I had considered it, along with Mountain Hammer. In retrospect, I might have taken Stone Bones too. However, the benefits of Knockback and Improved Bull Rush make Charging Minotaur obsolete. I don't provoke AoOs when I knockback because of Improved Bull Rush already. Knockback can be applied to every attack Cobb does, with or without a charge.
I had considered Mountain Hammer (ignore DR, bonus damage) instead of Emerald Razor, but decided on the razor instead (+8 Power Attack damage was a little higher than average bonus from Mountain Hammer, and it's also a lot easier to hit with a touch attack). Knockback also gets the power attack bonus damage, and Mountain Hammer doesn't, which means that with a BAB of +4 I can get a +8 bull rush bonus to my knockbacks.
I'll update with a post about my first couple of encounters with Cobb, fresh from creation, when I get home from work tonight.
--S
#1. The local church has several (low-level) priests, performing a ritual of some sort.
#2. The sheriff of the town needed to be warned to rally the townsfolk.
#3. There was a merchant caravan heading to town, bearing useful items that could be used to fend off the goblins.
#4. A druid in the nearby forest would probably aid the town against the goblins as well if we convinced him to help.
#5. The final battle against the goblin war horde.
This post will cover encounters #1-3.
The first battle was outside of a boarded-up church, in a pretty open field area. There were a few large rocks around, but the church itself was sufficient for my purposes of mayhem and destruction. An advance goblin party led by some gnolls and a Flind were attempting to set fire to the church, while the priests inside performed their ritual. I believe I was able to bash some of the worg riders off of their mounts, and I think I got a single blow (power attack for full BAB, emerald razor) on a gnoll for a combined 46 damage that battle. Low CR Goblins can't do *too* much to Cobb, but they can swarm him under due to lack of AoOs. The goblins were mostly melee, which meant that they didn't have much of a chance against our melee-heavy party.
The second and third battles were a bit more tactical. Our party rescued the town sheriff from a goblin scouting/sabotage party, and our Crusader was able to bull rush a scaffolding down, knocking down an archer and a spellcaster. At one point, Cobb was able to use Steel Wind to attack both a goblin Totemist and a goblin archer and knock them both into walls for a double dungeon crash. Furthermore, since there were so many, Cobb was able to take advantage of the 'if you are bull rushed into an occupied square, you fall prone'.
(Side note: A definite boost to this build would be Shock Trooper. The ability to make directed bull rushes would be a huge benefit. I fully intend on grabbing Shock Trooper at my earliest possible opportunity... level 6 probably)
The third battle showed me Cobb's biggest weakness (and the group's weakness as well). Our group assisted a merchant caravan stuck in a mud bog in the dead of night under attack by worg-mounted goblin archers. The problem? We didn't have much in terms of light sources, meaning we couldn't tell exactly where the arrows were coming from. At that point, Cobb had only 17 AC (Half-plate armor). Cobb spent most of his time following the archers he could see (a lot of double moves), but whenever he threatened them they would simply use the withdraw action and the others we could not see would pelt us with arrows. I think the DM eventually felt sorry for us, and let us kill them. Of our group, Cobb was the only one prepared with a light source (Everburning Torch), which made matters worse. The moral of the story: Spend that 100g for the everburning torch, or get a weapon crystal of illumination or something if your DM enforces visibility rules. It was kind of interesting and frustrating at the same time.
In retrospect, I should have attempted to dismount the archers. Once that happened, I could probably have kept up and squished the lot of them. Cobb does what he is designed for very well. If he has solid objects nearby, he can seriously put out the hurt on whatever he hits. Furthermore, with a good power attack critical hit, he can threaten to outright kill enemies from massive damage (Vera hits for x3 on a critical strike). However, ranged attackers are really his bane. I also learned (the hard way) that reflex saves are also pretty tough for him. More on that when I post again about encounters #4 and #5.
I definitely don't think that Cobb is overpowered. The archers we fought pretty much put me in my place. I heavily recommend to any DMs who think that Martial Adepts are somehow broken (especially at low levels) to just throw archers at them. In the dark. From long range.
--S
Continuing with the previous:
#4. Bunch of goblins tried to roll boulder traps at us. Reflex saves tend to suck against that sort of thing... can't wait till I get warblade 3... Nothing else of note; we charged after them and battered them senseless. Cobb's movement sucks, definitely need some way to increase it.
#5. Entangle sucks. Cobb can break out of the entangle, but with his low movement already, he has a tough time avoiding getting entangled again. We were unsure about the ruling on the spell, but since it says that it holds the target fast the DM ruled that it rooted its victims in place, as well as entangling them. Definitely need a better way to deal with it, even with a +7 to strength checks to break free.
--S
Furthermore, a Warblade 6 has an IL of 6, but Fighter2/Warblade4 has an IL of 5. I still get 3rd level maneuvers. Effectively, I am trading 1 maneuver known, 1 bonus feat (from a more restricted list), and improved uncanny dodge for 1 fighter feat and the dungeon crasher ability. The feats effectively cancel each other out, which means I'm trading 1 known maneuver and Improved Uncanny Dodge for the dungeon crash, which I can apply to all of my attacks in most locations.
The dungeon crasher/knockback build was the entire concept for the character.
--S
I always love the diaries, and yours will really get interesting when you get in the higher "levels" of E6, displaying the specificities of the system to those who, like me, never used it.
Could you post a quick stub of the other characters involved in this campaign ?
Keep it up !
Sir Tidly the Human: Cleric1/Crusader3. Will likely end up Cleric1/Crusader5. Currently favoring mounted combat, utilizing the various charge maneuvers.
Duff the Dwarf: Duskblade4. Planning on Duskblade5/Crusader1. Mostly sticks with the reach weapon + shocking grasp combination at this point.
Mizzet the Pseudodragon: Dragon Shaman1/Dragonfire Adept3. Going Dragon Shaman1/Dragonfire Adept5. No entangling breath as a conscious choice... makes pretty good use of sickening breath and fog cloud though.
Seril the Whisper Gnome: 4 levels in some custom homebrew incarnum-using class that seems to be a skill/trapmonkey + incarnum + roguish build but lacking sneak attack. I'm not really sure what to make of this. As far as I can tell, the guy spends a lot of time hiding and attacking with a reach weapon that deals cold damage and is a touch attack.
--S
The fighter 2 is for the dungeon crasher, as stated.
Furthermore, a Warblade 6 has an IL of 6, but Fighter2/Warblade4 has an IL of 5. I still get 3rd level maneuvers. Effectively, I am trading 1 maneuver known, 1 bonus feat (from a more restricted list), and improved uncanny dodge for 1 fighter feat and the dungeon crasher ability. The feats effectively cancel each other out, which means I'm trading 1 known maneuver and Improved Uncanny Dodge for the dungeon crash, which I can apply to all of my attacks in most locations.
The dungeon crasher/knockback build was the entire concept for the character.
--S
Exactly; with E6, it is optimal to mix an initiator class with two levels in something else, and fighter two for dungeoncrasher isn't bad for that at all.
Maneuvers and stances come as feats too, so the only thing that really matters is getting IL5.
After defeating the war horde's leader, the goblins retreated but are not gone. The druid told us about a cave nearby that the goblins were investigating. Cobb and company fought a scouting group outside of the cave.
Two ogres (morning star/shield wielders), 6 goblins with a shield wall (3 shield + sword gobs, 3 spear gobs) and reach weapons (CR2 only), a pair of goblin warlocks, a winter wolf and 2 worgs. The battle went pretty well, we held down the enemies with the pseudodragon's fog clouds. The dangerous part was when all six goblins closed in on Cobb. Cobb's 18 ac wasn't quite enough and the goblins rolled well enough to reduce him to 4 hp at one point (nearly surrounded by them, plus the winter wolf).
At one point, Cobb had to take a 5' step and use the healing belt (recovered 13 hp), despite being back to back with the crusader (and receiving 9 healing from him via Crusader Strike + Martial Stance). That sort of thing will be much easier once I get the Pearl of Black Doubt stance.
After defeating the party outside, we entered the cave... which appeared to be an entrance to some sort of underground facility built long ago, with many traps.
Dungeon Crashing, in addition to being able to bounce things off of walls, also comes in pretty handy when dealing with traps and saves. An extra +2 bonus is nice to have.
The final encounter we had was with a Cloaker... It was hiding on the ceiling and dropped onto us, after making its weird moan move. It nauseated our Duskblade and Crusader, while Cobb was able to shake off the effects. The thing engulfed our warblade, and Cobb joined the grapple. In the end, after grappling back and forth for several rounds and pinning the thing, Mizzet the pseudodragon was able to sting the thing and put it to sleep.
Let me tell you... a Coup de Grace from a power attacking 2d6 x3 weapon dungeon crasher is pretty scary. The DM actually added all of the damage together, which turned out to be 61 (critical hit) + 23 (dungeon crash) on the cloaker.
DC 94 fortitude save vs death. It didn't make it.
--S
There was a log-like weapon in one of the old 3.0 splats - the Wilderness one, I think. Your stats work better, though, since they give you reach (yay for reach!). What are your feats? Power Attack, Imp. BR, Knockback . . . that should leave for one more. EWP?
Ah the caber. Much fun with the returning enhancement.
Wasn't it reprinted? In Frostburn?
Yay for crashers!
There was a log-like weapon in one of the old 3.0 splats - the Wilderness one, I think. Your stats work better, though, since they give you reach (yay for reach!). What are your feats? Power Attack, Imp. BR, Knockback . . . that should leave for one more. EWP?
Cobb only has three feats total. 1st level, 3rd level and Fighter 1. Fighter 2's feat was traded for the dungeon crasher substitution.
--S
I didn't think it would be that big a deal, but the difference between fighting things outside in the trees and forests, compared to fighting things in close, cramped quarters is like night and day. I was able to dungeon crash on most battles, and each dungeon crash added around 17-20 damage (2d6+10).
In any normal battle, unless Cobb is working against somebody who is built to bull rush (we haven't met anyone like that yet), you're pretty much guaranteed at least 10-15' of knockback distance. In small, enclosed rooms like the ones that tend to occur in dungeons, this is pretty deadly.
We ended up fighting several kobold/crocodile hybrid weird things that used long spears. They had a paralyzing poison as well. Large numbers of them attacked us, but since they were limited by the various 5' wide tunnels leading to the room we were defending, we were able to kill them pretty handily.
The ultimate bad guys from the dungeon were several Chokers, with crusader levels. Holy cow, Chokers make ridiculously powerful martial adepts, esp. crusaders. Since crusaders don't need to reload maneuvers every turn, a Crusader Choker can actually do two maneuvers each turn without needing to regain them like a warblade or swordsage. They were so powerful that they were able to drop two of our party members in one round of attacks.
The only way that Cobb and his team avoided a TPK was by the DM cheating just a little (I think he overestimated the enemy for us). Cobb managed to catch both the boss and one of his underlings with a Steel Wind knockback, and the DM scooted him a little bit northward to crash into a pillar, rather than just get punted straight back, and not run into anything. The leader of the Chokers had 4 or 5 levels of crusader, allowing him a delay damage pool of 10, and some pretty painful maneuvers (I think the DM mentioned that he had 8 hit dice, so that puts him at 5 levels of crusader). Once Cobb gets Shock Trooper, he'll be able to do this without any cheating.
I'm not necessarily sure we would have lost that easily, except Cobb was plagued by horrendous dice rolls when it really counted - Emerald Razor (touch attack), Power Attack +4 , and rolling a 2 on the attack roll was painful, and it happened more than once. The enemies had really high attack bonuses as well; the group's AC values were 20-23, and they had almost no problems hitting us.
All in all, so far I am noticing that the dungeon crash ability is a definite wild card. The extra amounts of damage you can get from it can wildly affect an encounter at these levels. However, something tells me that it won't be quite as big a deal later on, when things get much more HP.
On a side note, I wholeheartedly believe that Chokers have a lot of real potential as optimizable martial adepts. Two standard actions per round and natural reach make my mind boggle. They aren't very smart (int 4), but Crusaders don't have to be. They have 3 monster HD, and come with a BAB of +2. That's really not that bad for what they get.
--S
Sir Tidly the Human: Cleric1/Crusader3. Will likely end up Cleric1/Crusader5. Currently favoring mounted combat, utilizing the various charge maneuvers.
Mizzet the Pseudodragon: Dragon Shaman1/Dragonfire Adept3. Going Dragon Shaman1/Dragonfire Adept5. No entangling breath as a conscious choice... makes pretty good use of sickening breath and fog cloud though.
What's with the crazy multiclassing? I mean... DS/DfA?For the cleric1/crusader3, I would assume it was to pick up devotion feats and to power divine feats.
For example, you can play a pixie but you dont GET any pointbuy, only 8's across the board and racial adjustments ontop of that.
In E6 your level adjustment is treated as a penalty to pointbuy.
For example, you can play a pixie but you dont GET any pointbuy, only 8's across the board and racial adjustments ontop of that.
This is true - however it doesn't apply to racial Hit Dice.
This is true - however it doesn't apply to racial Hit Dice.
I believe the DM allowed our pseudo-dragon player to skip the racial hit dice. I'm not positive about that, since I was not present for that part. However, rechecking the pseudodragon, it looks like they are shown as having a base 2 hit dice. I'm not sure, I can check on it.
By the by, Combat Reflexes is choice on a Crasher - it'd help out with your AC issues. Couple with an improved reach of some kind (Lords of Madness has some feats from this, and an Enlarge Person from a friend or potion is NEVER a bad move!) to help your movement issues as well.
Do you mean Combat Expertise? Combat Reflexes I skipped on purpose for one big reason: Dex 10. I don't *have* a dexterity bonus, so extra AoOs based on my dex bonus amount to zero. Someday I may raise it to dex 12 or 14 (dex item + dex feats), and then I may pick up combat reflexes... but currently, it's not an issue.
I also lack the requisite 13 intelligence for Combat Expertise (check first post for Cobb's stats).
The way I am looking at it now, the top priorities are:
Feats: Shock Trooper (directed bullrush, heedless charge)
Maneuvers: Action Before Thought (conc check instead of reflex save), Wall of Blades (Attack Roll replaces AC), Iron Heart Surge, Pearl of Black Doubt
Gear-wise, I want some armor that won't give me the movement penalty (or perhaps an item that can negate the movement penalty), and maybe a lesser crystal of arrow deflection (+5 AC vs missile attacks).
Thanks for the comments though. It's nice to see that people are still interested in the character
--S
I looked into the Tooth of Savnok, and it has a couple of caveats to it.
#1, Cobb cannot remove any defensive gear (armor) while the tooth is attached.
#2, the tooth requires being worn for at least 24 hours before its effect kicks in.
#3, Cobb wears heavy armor.
Therefore, based on #1 and #2, Cobb will have to sleep in his armor, making him fatigued all the time
. I'm discussing with the DM to possibly houserule the item to require Cobb to be touching (or stay close to) Vera instead of his armor. That would fit the flavor of the character better, as well as help when Cobb needs to use the toilet. The other option is to take the penalty for ignoring the influence of a vestige (-1 to attack rolls, saves, and checks).Another option would be a Restful Crystal (MIC) for 500gp. Though that doesn't really solve the toilet problem. Oh well. Cobb is heroic, and we all know that heroes don't poop
.Cobb only gets one new known maneuver, so he will pick up Action before Thought (Concentration Check instead of Reflex save). Then at 6th, Cobb will be poised to pick up Iron Heart Surge (prerequisite: Steel Wind) and Pearl of Black Doubt. He will give up the Adamantine Bones maneuver for Iron Heart Surge.
However, now that I look at it, maybe somebody can help me decipher how Iron Heart Surge actually works. It requires a standard action to initiate the maneuver. Does this mean that if Cobb is denied a standard action, Cobb cannot use it to overcome whatever conditions he may be in?
For example, the following conditions do not allow standard actions:
-Confused (pending dice rolls)
-Cowering
-Dazed
-Fascinated
-Nauseated
-Held/Paralyzed (Maneuvers require a player be able to move)
-Panicked
-Stunned
Pretty much all of the save-or-lose effects are still effective against Cobb, even with Iron Heart Surge. I guess that's why he still needs the saving throw replacements.
--S
PS. The pseudodragon dropped the racial hit dice and lost its innate spell resistance (19). That seemed to be a fair trade.
Thanks for the comments though. It's nice to see that people are still interested in the character
It's a cool character idea - every time you whack someone with your enormous club, they go flying. BOOM! It's cool.
I would like to play something similar myself sometime.However, now that I look at it, maybe somebody can help me decipher how Iron Heart Surge actually works.
Urg. This is a major bugbear with the maneuver - most of the things it should work on, it doesn't (eg, you can't use it to remove paralysis because the paralysis prevents you from using the standard action to initiate the maneuver). However, if you don't houerule it then it can do things like prematurely causing sunset. My vote? Talk to your DM and agree on something.
PS. The pseudodragon dropped the racial hit dice and lost its innate spell resistance (19). That seemed to be a fair trade.
Fair enough. I've got to say, taking a Pseudodragon and making it a Dragonfire Adept is just GENIUS. It's a miniature dragon! :D
Heavy armor is where you went wrong, man. It kills your mobility and is not worth the AC, really - other defenses work better (Combat Reflexes and a decent Dex go a loooong way towards keeping melee off your back!).
I didn't really have that much of a choice. Goliath as a race gets +4 str, +2 con and -2 dexterity, for LA+1 (which, in E6, turns out to lower it from 32 point buy to 25 point buy). I also didn't have the option of Combat Reflexes, because I just don't have that many feats. I need the powerful build to qualify for Knockback. I also need Improved Bull Rush and Power Attack to qualify for Knockback. I get a total of three feats, because of the second level fighter substitution.
I decided to go with higher strength than dexterity. I also realized that after taking the three feats I did to obtain the knockback feat, I wouldn't be able to take Combat Reflexes, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, or any other feat until 6th level. I don't have the money for faster movement, and light or medium armor would just get me killed.
What should I have taken out for Combat Reflexes? The only feat that I could possibly lose is Knockback, because both Improved Bull Rush and Power Attack are prerequisites. Would it be worth it to give up Knockback to get Combat Reflexes, assuming I had saved some dex? 14 base str instead of 15 str, 14 base dex, -2 for racial, for +1 AoO and +1 AC.
I'd say that the knockback feat being able to push people nearby out of melee range has been more useful than Combat Reflexes and an additional AoO or two would have been in these circumstances.
The only thing I probably could have done was start as a Human and use the Half-Minotaur template to qualify for Knockback instead. That would have granted me an extra feat (combat reflexes), some natural armor, and depends on the ruling for upgrading to a naturally large size. That doesn't seem quite likely though, and that's likely the only possible way to get enough feats to obtain it.
Is there any other solution to this problem? I understand the benefits of Combat Reflexes, but given the current item budget, the character concept, and the limitations on the number of feats, I don't think Combat Reflexes is feasible.
--S
Edit: Hahaha... I just had a thought. Couldn't I use Iron Heart Surge to end the armor movement penalty? And if I am fatigued from sleeping in armor, I could probably just Iron Heart Surge that too.
Another option would be a Restful Crystal (MIC) for 500gp.
That would be the best solution.
And come on, using the washroom? Who actually includes that in a DND game...
And to think the tailor called me crazy because I wanted him to sew a bag of holding into the back of my pants...
I think a certain cursed item would actually be more useful in this particular case. Somebody in some extraplanar area would probably be rather unhappy when it discovers where all that stuff's been going though...
--S
1. Everyone gets 3x max HP at first level. Con bonus apparently only applied once though. This, along with level 5, pushes Cobb to 77 hp.
2. Critical hits no longer require a confirmation roll, and do maximum damage instead. Weapons with an x3 modifier deal max damage +50%. This would be bad for Cobb due to his Warblade ability to add his int modifier to critical confirmations, except his int mod is +0, so no change unless/until he gets something to boost his int.
3. Death and Dying follows the new 4e rules somewhat. The death threshold is -10, or negative 1/4 of your total HP, whichever is greater (er... more negative). Cobb can go to -19 hp before dying outright. This also includes the 'roll whenever you are in that state... 3 rolls of 1-9 in a row = death. Roll of 10-19 is no change, do not lose 1 hp. Natural 20: Get better, stand up with 1/4 of your max hp). Also, healing while you are negative sets your HP to 0 + whatever you just healed.
4. Second Wind is available daily. Once per day, as a swift action, regain 1/4 of your maximum HP.
5. There is an 'extra second wind' feat, which allows an additional use of second wind daily. Second Wind can still only be used once per encounter.
6. A number of skills have been mashed together, for more ease of use. This will result in us having a lot more skill ranks available to distribute, since each of these skills are only 1 rank if any of the component skills are class skills.
The new skills:
Acrobatics (Balance + Tumble)
Alertness (Spot + Listen + Search)
Animal Handling (Animal Handling + Ride)
Arcana (Spellcraft + Use Magic Device)
Athletics (Swim + Climb + Jump)
Deception (Bluff + Disguise + Forgery)
Empathy (Sense Motive with broader uses)
Expression (Perform with broader uses)
Language (Speak Language + Decipher Script)
Larceny (Sleight of Hand + Escape Artist)
Mercantile (Appraise with broader uses)
Persuasion (Diplomacy + Gather Info)
Disable Device (Disable Device + Open Lock)
Stealth (Move Silently + Hide)
--S
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drarch/dd
There are also some of those preview books that detail some of the rules (though not a lot), if you want to buy the "propaganda" (as my friends call it).
Also, the skills being put together are more for streamlining the game. Rather than needing separate listen/spot checks, and hide/move silently checks, etc. etc. it's easier to just have one roll decide most of it for you.
--S
Since two of our players were unavailable this weekend, it was a smaller scale adventure. Cobb, Sir Tidly (Cleric1/Crusader4) and Mizzet (Pseudodragon Dragonfire Shaman4, retooled again to have 1 racial HD, still no spell resist, lost healing aura) banded together to chase down the fleeing goblins we had defeated at the village.
While the party was tracking them down, they ran across an ogre hauling a wagon full of poop. Literally. It smelled horrible. After some bantering with the ogre and some intimidating, the contents of the wagon spewed forth some hungry looking mushrooms with fangs and a couple of carrion crawlers. The ogre seemed oddly protective of the mushrooms, and killing the shrooms sent him into a rage. This was, again, in the middle of a forest, meaning that there weren't many solid objects to bounce people off of. The mushrooms attempted to attach themselves to our heroes, and apply a small amount (1d4) constitution damage while attached.
The pseudodragon dragonfire adept proved probably most useful at this point, being able to use his fire breath to roast the mushrooms for us, as well as put the hurt on the carrion crawlers. Sir Tidly was pretty much able to keep himself perfectly fine with his delayed damage pool and crusader strike + martial stance to keep himself healed. Cobb wasn't really able to do too much on his own; for some reason the rolls went pretty badly for him that day. However, he did manage to kill the ogre with a well placed dungeon crash - Emerald Razor the ogre directly into the cart itself, with a 17 rolled for the bull rush attempt. The strike not only killed the ogre, it smashed the cart as well. "The fan hit the sh!t". So to speak.
18 AC vs melee seems pretty low. Cobb spent his gold to get the Lesser Crystal of Arrow Deflection (+5 AC vs ranged attacks). Maybe he needs some more +hit equipment, those low dice rolls in keeping the bad guys out of range are not doing so hot.
Our second encounter was us catching up to a clump of goblins at a series of bridges across a river. We tried to taunt them across the bridge to come fight us, and they had their own ambush set up against us on their end, so they just threw javelins at us (3x range increment, -6 to hit). Cobb didn't have much trouble with this since he was fighting defensively that turn (+2 dodge to AC, bringing his ranged AC to 25). For sake of funny, Cobb picked one of the thrown javelins up and threw it back. He managed a natural 20 on the roll, so the DM declared one of the goblins dead for reasons of awesome. Fun stuff.
Eventually, we took the bait rather than them, and advanced. There were some ogres waiting to drop a large bunch of rocks on us as we passed. The damage roll was pretty low though, and Cobb made his save (4d6 damage... rolled an 8, half for 4). Then we advanced into the goblins along with their two ogre friends.
The ogres used spring attack and reach weapons. They each had a level or two of something that added skirmish damage. However, well-placed fog clouds by our pie in the sky were able to minimize their effectiveness early. Said pie then proceeded to barbecue most of the goblins with his breath attack. The ogres were the toughest part, since they are large with reach weapons. Tidly was able to handle one of them, while Cobb was able to take advantage of the terrain. Note: The various charge maneuvers are excellent, *excellent* maneuvers to avoid the reach tricks. Using Battle Leader's Charge not only adds a hefty +10 to damage, but also disallows AoOs when done, so even if you miss the charge, you're still up in the guy's face without him getting the chance to stop you, where you want to be.
Note to all: This is why Shock Trooper is the frickin' best feat for your dungeon crasher *ever*. There's so much battlefield control you can do with it, it's ridiculous. Cobb managed to get into a position against one of the ogres on the bridge, and bashed him right off the bridge into the river. Add in things like slowing breath from the dragonfire adept, and perhaps some other stuff in the future (perhaps some help with ranged attacks) and you have a very potent method of controlling space. I'm lucky that so far Cobb's been able to manage good counter-positioning with his lousy 20' movement rate (yes yes, Tooth of Savnok is next on the to-purchase list!). It's more than just damage. Being able to place enemies exactly where you want them has a huge benefit to controlling the battle. The main benefits to this include:
#1. Forcing an enemy to provoke attacks of opportunity from your teammates
#2. Forcing an enemy into an environmental hazard, where they must spend several rounds extricating themselves from it, possibly taking damage (into a pit trap, off of a bridge, over a cliff, etc.)
#3. Dungeon Crash (naturally)
#4. With shock trooper, free tripping attempts by directing enemies into each other.
The ogres were fairly tough customers for a head on battle (large creature with reach... yuck), and hit pretty hard. Cobb was forced to burn his Second Wind (see previous post on new rules) to stay up, and eventually ended the battle with 10 hp (after recovering 19 from Second Wind). However, we were indeed victorious (mostly because of the benefits of the judiciously placed fog clouds).
In a proper advancing build, I'd actually recommend to others building similar characters to actually use this as a pretty reasonable alternative to a tripping build. Rather than locking them down where they stand, you can actually help your teammates out more by dictating where they go. By maintaining a good enough threatened area and a good number of AoOs, you can actively keep out melee threats and place them exactly where you want them. This means you stop them from flanking (something tripping does not do), as well as provides potential AoOs for your teammates, *and* trip them to boot (with shock trooper).
--S
Looks interesting. What I'm curious about is where to find the rules for E6.
Here you go!
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=206323
UPD: Ninja-ed...
:bounce: It's been a while since my last post. My play group had a bit of a scheduling dilemma (one of our members got married) recently, but I've had another two play sessions, so I'm posting the summary of one here and another one will be forthcoming soon.
After giving chase to the goblins, we actually managed to sneak up on two goblin representatives who were in a conference with some gnolls and hobgoblins. Evidently, the hobgoblins were attempting to entice the gnolls (led by a fiendish gnoll with wings) and the goblin representatives (some shaman types if memory serves). The layout of the land was actually a raised plateau area on the west, a raised plateau area (with some large rocks) on the east, and a narrow gorge between them. The group decided the gathering of creatures was probably bad for the nearby town, so we decided to ambush them.
Sir Tidly went in as the bait. He issued a taunting of the bad guys, who sent their foot troops in after us (worgs, hobgoblins, some gnolls). Cobb, taking a cue from the ogres that he had fought earlier, rolled the boulders down at the clumped up attackers and buried most of them in the rubble (reflex save or be stuck in place, needed a strength check to get out, 4d6 damage). Tidly was able to strike down the others, while Mizzet the DFA applied fog cloud and fire breath to the caster types. Our homebrew stealthy incarnum guy snuck up to fight the casters, but was plagued by some bad dice rolls and ended up mostly just keeping them busy by providing them something to stick their weapons into.
Cobb leaped down (Hulk-style!) and was able to play whack-a-mole with the hapless monsters half-buried in the rock. He also rolled very well for a bull rush attempt; the current record for a single knockback (medium sized creature) is 45 feet.
At the end, the only remaining foe was the fiendish Gnoll who had tried to fly away from us. However, a good shot from a rod of viscous globs (MIC) entangled him midair and caused him to go splat on the floor.
General thoughts on the character:
Not really too much crashing when you're in the outdoors. Cobb managed to punt one guy pretty darn far though; that's always fun. There's more crashy action next session. However, the emphasis on strength (and I definitely think pushing for strength is a very good idea) puts a crasher in a good position to be useful in other ways, such as impromptu rolling large boulders at a clump of enemies.
--S
In the meantime, there were two play sessions, wherein I learned a valuable lesson in each.
In the first one, Cobb learned that if you don't have to worry about noise that much, Dungeon Crash can be an excellent method to take people out stealthfully. We managed to get a surprise round on the BBEG in a hobgoblin keep, by knocking on the door pretending to be a hobgoblin... he opened the door, got Vera in the face (into the wall), immediately followed by a charge into another smack to the face, falling like a sack of doorknobs.
In fact, Cobb and his friends pretty much proceeded to go from room to room and in massive alpha strikes, took out most of the hobgoblin forces before any alerts could be drawn. As a bit of fun, Cobb also was able to dungeon crash a huge Gelatinous Cube. It was the first time for Cobb to actually smash something that was significantly bigger than he was. The size of the rooms combined with the potentially massive damage spike (Power Attack +5 combined with dungeon crash) of 6d6+25 damage allowed for massive alpha strikes.
In our second encounter, Cobb learned that dungeon crashing and knockback are useful even without Vera. Cobb ended up stuck in a very bad position - a narrow hallway, in a web with multiple enemies nearby. The hallway itself was only 10 feet wide, and there were dire weasels about attempting to attach themselves to him and bleed him down via constitution damage. The worst part was that since Vera is a reach weapon, Cobb is unable to use her within the close quarters with the weasels who were happy to attach themselves to people. Thus, Cobb was forced to abandon Vera for the battle, and do his very best Monk impersonation - he fought the weasels bare-handed, slamming them directly into the nearby walls. Sure, he provoked attacks of opportunity by making unarmed strikes (Steel Wind + Unarmed Strike to squish two weasels at once), but since the weasels had low armor class when attached, he could easily bull rush them into the walls to make small weaselly shaped stains on the walls.
There was a bit of fighting involving some hobgoblin casters and a sorceress, but since Cobb was stuck in the hallway with the weasels, he was unable to take part in that. Instead, our more mobile party members (roguish incarnum guy + DFA) took them out while Cobb and Duff the Dwarf played with the weasels and melee guys.
The best news though... Cobb is now level 6. Yes... it is now time to come into the full power of this build!
At level 6, Cobb obtains:
- Shock Trooper. No longer just playing baseball, Cobb is now going to play Croquet with the enemies. Directed Bull Rush and the ability to trip enemies by knocking them into each other. The possibilities are too delicious. Cobb is definitely looking forward to being more controlled.
- Iron Heart Surge. This combined with the gold and booty earned from the last encounter will allow Cobb to finally purchase the Tooth of Savnok mentioned previously in this thread, and use Iron Heart Surge to flex his mighty muscles each morning and avoid fatigue altogether. I got into a debate with my DM about whether Cobb can actually flex his muscles to stop from being dead (since death is also a condition), but I don't think he bought it. We'll see.
Iron Heart Surge is a hallmark defensive ability for any martial adept. It stops Cobb from having to deal with the save or suck effects as long as he has a standard action to use. He just needs an easy way to ready Action Before Thought to avoid the reflex saves and he'll pretty much be a juggernaut. It also allows Cobb to skip buying the restful armor crystal, and simply muscle flex away his fatigue from sleeping in armor each morning, and gain back his missing movement speed.
I'm looking forward to seeing Cobb perform in the next adventure.
--S
Edit: Cobb also has a stance to learn at this level too. Any suggestions for stances? Cobb has been using Stonefoot Stance (+2 to strength checks, cannot move more than 5' or lose the effects of the stance). Stances can be any warblade stance, as long as it is level 3 or lower.
Which stance to get?
- Pearl of Black Doubt (stacking +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb is missed in melee combat)
- Absolute Steel (+10' enhancement movement bonus, +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb moves more than 10')
Which maneuvers to ready? Cobb currently gets 4 readied maneuvers. I need to choose from these 5:
- Iron Heart Surge (std action to immediately end any condition affecting Cobb)
- Steel Wind (attack two different enemies within reach)
- Emerald Razor (resolve an attack as a touch attack)
- Moment of Perfect Mind (Concentration Check instead of Will Save)
- Action Before Thought (Concentration Check instead of Reflex Save)
Cobb's reflex save is still only +2. Cobb has already purchased the Tooth of Savnok to raise his movement speed to 30'. Absolute Steel would allow him to move at 40', which is one of the reasons I am leaning toward it.
Whichever maneuver Cobb does not ready, he will probably end up either picking up via feat (Extra Readied Maneuver) or through gold expenditure (novice ring of diamond mind). Suggestions?
--S
I'd like to get some advice since 6th is the final (and most important) level for Cobb. More specifically, I'm trying to figure it out:
Which stance to get?
- Pearl of Black Doubt (stacking +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb is missed in melee combat)
- Absolute Steel (+10' enhancement movement bonus, +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb moves more than 10')
Which maneuvers to ready? Cobb currently gets 4 readied maneuvers. I need to choose from these 5:
- Iron Heart Surge (std action to immediately end any condition affecting Cobb)
- Steel Wind (attack two different enemies within reach)
- Emerald Razor (resolve an attack as a touch attack)
- Moment of Perfect Mind (Concentration Check instead of Will Save)
- Action Before Thought (Concentration Check instead of Reflex Save)
Cobb's reflex save is still only +2. Cobb has already purchased the Tooth of Savnok to raise his movement speed to 30'. Absolute Steel would allow him to move at 40', which is one of the reasons I am leaning toward it.
Whichever maneuver Cobb does not ready, he will probably end up either picking up via feat (Extra Readied Maneuver) or through gold expenditure (novice ring of diamond mind). Suggestions?
--S
For maneuvers, either Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought or IHS.
I don't know the name, but there is a Stone Dragon stance that allows your weapon to deal damage as if it were a size larger than it really is (or something like that....AFB right now). This one would be nice, as well as Absolute Steel. Personally I would go with the Stone Dragon stance.
Nice diary! Good luck from now on! :D
For maneuvers, either Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought or IHS.
I don't know the name, but there is a Stone Dragon stance that allows your weapon to deal damage as if it were a size larger than it really is (or something like that....AFB right now). This one would be nice, as well as Absolute Steel. Personally I would go with the Stone Dragon stance.
Nice diary! Good luck from now on! :D
The stance you are talking about is Giant's Stance, which is a 5th level stone dragon maneuver. Since Cobb can never reach an IL that high, he's out of luck. The only stone dragon stance Cobb has available at third level is Roots of the Mountain (+10 vs bull rush/trip/etc., 2/- DR, move and lose the stance's effects). Also, Cobb's current AC is 18 vs melee, 23 vs ranged.
My personal guess at this point would be IHS, Will save, Steel Wind and Emerald Razor, since reflex saves tend to be save or damage, while will tends to be save or suck.
--S
The stance you are talking about is Giant's Stance, which is a 5th level stone dragon maneuver.
--S
Ops.... then just forget about it, ok?
Which stance to get?
- Pearl of Black Doubt (stacking +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb is missed in melee combat)
- Absolute Steel (+10' enhancement movement bonus, +2 dodge bonus to AC whenever Cobb moves more than 10')
I'd go for Absolute Steel. Pearl of Black Doubt needs your AC to be just in the right place. Too high, and there's no point in raising it even more, since the enemies will never touch you anyway. Too low, and the enemies will never fail, and then it'll never activate. Besides, the bonus speed would help you get within charging range, and the +2 to AC would counter the charge penalty to AC.
Which maneuvers to ready? Cobb currently gets 4 readied maneuvers. I need to choose from these 5:
- Iron Heart Surge (std action to immediately end any condition affecting Cobb)
- Steel Wind (attack two different enemies within reach)
- Emerald Razor (resolve an attack as a touch attack)
- Moment of Perfect Mind (Concentration Check instead of Will Save)
- Action Before Thought (Concentration Check instead of Reflex Save)
I'd go for IHS (a must have in my book), Steel Wind (for Dungeon Crashing two enemies at once), Emerald Razor (for those hard to hit enemies) and Moment of Perfect Mind (for those save or suck). If you find yourself wearing down from direct damage too fast (you're still at a level where DD is a good option), change Steel Wind for Action Before Thought. Emerald Razor is nice because it allows you to sell more To Hit to fuel Power Attac.
--S
There were actually two combats, one against an 'elite' Cloaker. Using 4th edition 'elite' rules (or something), our DM essentially beefed up this cloaker and gave it certain bonus abilities, to make it a challenge for a group. The way these abilities work:
- Cloaker had about 5x normal HP
- Cloaker could melee attack twice per round
- Cloaker got a free action to moan once per round, but each type of moan was on a random recharge... the DM rolled a 1d6 to see if the ability had recharged yet (recharges on a 1). However, rather than let the effects last the entire time, we were allowed a save at the end of each of our turns.
- Cloaker was able to cast Mirror Image on itself (recharge 1 on 1d6).
The Cloaker was also huge size (15'x15'), which made bull rushing him somewhat problematic. Cobb also provoked attacks of opportunity from charging, since the Cloaker had a reach of 15'. Shock Trooper's directed bull rush came handy here. Using a Heedless Charge to maximize hit chance allowed Cobb to force the Cloaker to provoke at least 3 attacks of opportunity from Duff the Dwarf. However (sadly) Duff was unable to capitalize on it very much due to some lousy dice rolls. And the Cloaker once was able to completely resist Cobb's bull rush. Cobb was a sad panda after that
.Our second encounter was with a malevolent Ghost who also had some at-will abilities too. He had some sort of ranged area damage attack where he seemed to hit all targets within a 10' radius (reflex save for half), and a melee-range attack that dazed its target. The 4th edition rules for incorporeal state that, rather than a 50% miss chance, we just reduce all damage by 50% (roll fewer dice, smooth things out). It was here that Cobb met his first challenge... something he could not bull rush (incorporeal creatures are immune
). It was rather frustrating for certain, and Mizzet dropped a fog cloud to try to keep the ranged attacks to a minimum. Duff stayed in melee range inside of the fog cloud to attempt to kill the thing, but a couple of bad rolls had him dazed and right next to the ghost (who continued to touch him in a bad way).Cobb, frustrated by being unable to swat the ghost around, did something a little crazy to save Duff... he charged and bull rushed the dazed dwarf right out of harm's way. In the end, Cobb and friends were able to deal enough damage to make the ghost dissipate, but as with the Terminator, he'll be back.
Various notes from this particular play session:
- Bull Rush can be useful to move your friends as well as enemies. Very handy if your friends are in grave danger and unable to move under their own power.
- Ghost touch weapons require a Caster Level of 9th, and therefore are unavailable. Incorporeal enemies will, therefore, always be a pain in the butt to Cobb.
- Directed Bull Rush is great if you can set it up properly. If Tidly was around, it would have been more useful, since Cobb could have set up two attacks of opportunity instead of one.
As always, hope you enjoyed it.
--S
There were actually two combats, one against an 'elite' Cloaker. Using 4th edition 'elite' rules (or something), our DM essentially beefed up this cloaker and gave it certain bonus abilities, to make it a challenge for a group. The way these abilities work:
- Cloaker was able to cast Mirror Image on itself (recharge 1 on 1d6).
FYI, all cloakers can use Mirror Image in shadowy areas. Usually there's no recharge, though.
Shadow Shift (Su)
A cloaker can manipulate shadows. This ability is effective only in shadowy areas and has three possible effects.
Obscure Vision
The cloaker gains concealment (20% miss chance) for 1d4 rounds.
Dancing Images
This effect duplicates a mirror image spell (caster level 6th).
Silent Image
This effect duplicates a silent image spell (DC 15, caster level 6th). The save DC is Charisma-based.
2) If you're worried about not being able to go to the bathroom...Ring of Sustenance. No need to eat, drink, and need only 2 hours/sleep a night...perfect night watchman. One of the best low level items EVAR.
3) Incorps. The True Death Augment crystal for a weapon grants ghost touch in its minor form.
Note that an alternative to consider is picking up Thicket of Blades stance via Martial Stance, and a Devoted Spirit strike to qualify (probably Foehammer). Now everyone in your reach threatens, which combined with your directed Knockback should get plenty interesting, even with only one AoO. BTW, Combat Reflexes will grant you at least one AoO on top of your normal one.
===Aelryinth
3) Incorps. The True Death Augment crystal for a weapon grants ghost touch in its minor form.
I had a similar idea, but you are incorrect. The Least True Death augment crystal only grants +1d6 damage to undead. The Lesser True Death augment crystal grants ghost touch, but requires a caster level of 9 which makes it invalid for an E6 campaign.
Note that an alternative to consider is picking up Thicket of Blades stance via Martial Stance, and a Devoted Spirit strike to qualify (probably Foehammer). Now everyone in your reach threatens, which combined with your directed Knockback should get plenty interesting, even with only one AoO. BTW, Combat Reflexes will grant you at least one AoO on top of your normal one.
===Aelryinth
Hm... that sounds like a good idea; I will think about picking those up as I get additional feats and money.
--S
It also made me really interested in doing an E6 campaign on my own. Just need some co-players. Will probably have bad luck on that, though.