Now, I am of the impression that you are as a DM supposed to deliver an epic tale of "awesomeness" and cinematic as well as climactic fights to the players. It is all about them and how they experience the game.
That said there has been times where some players feel they are too narrow in what they can do or feel completely useless at times as well. I have looked through the books I have at my disposal and come up lacking. It bothers me that some of the players don't feel as "cool" as they'd like.
Now, to start from the beginning, I should tell you what everyone is playing:
--------------------
"Mistfold" - "The Best Thief in Cormyr"
(CN Dark* Human Beguiler 5/Noctumancer 1/Beguiler 2)
Ashrak - "Devoted Warlock to Bhaal"
(NE Human Warlock 2/Cloisterd Cleric 3/Eldritch Disciple 3)
Casus - "Priest of Kelemvor, Blessed by Mystra"
(N Human Cleric 8)
Kikai - "The frozen Lotus"
(CG Human Dragonblooded Battle Sorcerer 7)
Azariah - "The Seeker"
(CN Moon Elf Swashbuckler 2/Fighter 4/Swashbuckler 1)
* Template
---------------------
Here are my dilemmas:
Mistfold: Feels pretty useless since the main force of the encounters so far has been immune to anything he could do up until just recently when he got Shadow Conjuration and even that is hard to do.
He wants to still be as he himself puts it: "The Best Thief in Cormyr" but does not want to give on being able to cast spells. He feels that a big deal about Dungeons & Dragons and a fantasy setting is about magic and I agree. So my question is, how do I/we keep the concept intact and still make him a bit more useful to the group.
Casus: As most straight level clerics feel, he sees himself as a bit bland and colorless (ability-wise). He is looking for something to bring a bit more color to his character sheet. He does enough chracter portrayal-wise to fill that part. I've been looking and since he has to fulfill both the requirements of Mystra and Kelemvor if he wants to keep his "Spellfire" feat then he can't stray from True Neutral Alignment.
The players are allowed to rebuild their characters from the ground and up as long as they stay within the same concept that they had before the rebuild. I am very lenient towards them as it is really about letting them as well as me have a bit of fun really
Anyways, I waited a long time before posting this since i didn't want to come to you guys who is a lot more experienced than I am without actually having tried this myself first. And below is a list of the books that we own among ourselves. If there is one book that could solve one of our problems, dont hesitate to reccomend it and we'll see about getting it.
Players Handbook I
Players Handbook II
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Champion
Complete Divine
Complete Mage
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior
Forgotten Realms - Campaign Setting
Forgotten Realms - Champions of Valor
Forgotten Realms - Faiths and Pantheons
Forgotten Realms - Players Guide to Faerûn
Forgotten Realms - Races of Faerûn
Forgotten Realms - Shining South
Forgotten Realms - Unapproachable East
Forgotten Realms - Underdark
Magic Item Compendium
Spell Compendium
Unearthed Arcana
And thank you all so very much for the time and consideration you put into this. I appreciate all the help I can get at this point. If there is anything I forgot to add, don't hesitate to ask. I will try my best to be of more assistance.
//Peter
"Carpe DM"
Help the cleric remake his character into death incarnate?
Make the rogue into someone who as a free action can strip a person of all his visible goods?
Party mechanics adapt to the players more easily than other way around, so it would be easier to fit a class to a role than just make it more exciting or easier to play
So you have 2 players with low/mid range level characters and you would like us to do what?
Help the cleric remake his character into death incarnate?
Make the rogue into someone who as a free action can strip a person of all his visible goods?
I am sorry that my original post apparantly offended you in some way. If this was the wrong forum, or if I was out of line posting something that was not to your personal liking all you had to do was to tell me that in a collected and calm way. There was no sarcasm needed in your reply and none asked for.
Not everything about optimization has to be with crunching the numbers to the max and wreaking the most havoc in the least amount of time. If you do not like a post, there is no need to berate the original poster or to try and get a few laughs on his or her expense.
Party mechanics adapt to the players more easily than other way around, so it would be easier to fit a class to a role than just make it more exciting or easier to play
I was looking for some help to make what two of my players thought was a pretty bland and colorless characters a bit more interesting. Neither I nor my players is looking for the best party mechanics, they and I are looking for interesting and rewarding characters to play in a setting that is very High Fantasy. I came here and asked because I admire a lot of what I read here. Some of the old foxes here are amazing at what they do and I turned to those who I admire.
I suspect the thread is perhaps located in the wrong area then. Could anyone please direct me to the proper forum to ask this question?
//Peter
"Carpe DM"
That Beguiler should take 2 more levels of Shadowcraft Mage and Earth Spell. Using Silent Image to duplicate any Evocation or Conjuration spell will make him feel significantly more powerful.
As for the Cleric, its all about the feats. Use the Divine feats in Complete Divine to really amp up his capability. Just don't allow Divine Metamagic Persistant Spell, as it'll unbalance your game.
for more flavor:
Bland / flavorless is a bit tougher... You can use grafts to weird up characters, and templates, too. Phrenic is an awesome template for the Beguiler if you allow LA Buyoff (Unearthed Arcana). The Fey/Fiendish Heritage line of feats from CMage are also pretty fun and flavorful.
My recomendation is to allow the players to take Leadership, though, and have the option to play something they would like instead. I don't think you can really do anything about the way they feel about their characters: if they don't want to play the Cleric/Beguiler there's little you can do about it.
You might suggest tactics, though. The Beguiler can Sleight of Hand enemies as a free action (though it requires getting into melee range, and its at a huge penalty, though if he's invisible it'll be easier). The Cleric should just try doing something other than healing, maybe even taking something like Explosive Spell or something like that.
Good luck!
If the player wants DMM Persist, just talk it over with them and explain that you may have to ask them to change what spell(s) they are persisting. The options are staggering, so just not allowing one thing gives the player a chance to broaden their horizons.
A lot of the things you can do with DMM Persist are not game-breaking. It really only breaks the game when you are able to persist 3+ spells each day, and even then the player can easily mitigate this by picking spells of varying effects (offensive, defensive, group buffs, etc).
Sorry about the rant, but I thought it warranted saying.
That Beguiler should take 2 more levels of Shadowcraft Mage and Earth Spell. Using Silent Image to duplicate any Evocation or Conjuration spell will make him feel significantly more powerful.
It is actually an errata now that you shift my focus to what levels he has. The correct build should be:
"Mistfold" - "The Best Thief in Cormyr"
(CN Dark* Human Beguiler 5/Noctumancer 1/Beguiler 2)
You do however have a point when it comes to the Shadowcraft Mage. He is a human so he can't just take it of the top unless I adapt it somehow. He has the "Penumbra Bloodline" Feat from Dragon Compendium and he does have the Dark Template so I guess that should be enough to substitute the racial prerequisits.
As for the Cleric, its all about the feats. Use the Divine feats in Complete Divine to really amp up his capability. Just don't allow Divine Metamagic Persistant Spell, as it'll unbalance your game.
I will take another look at the Feats in Complete Divine and see what we can come up with. All in all, I think what the players of the Cleric wants is to just get a Prestige Class since straight Cleric tends to leave out a lot of "nifty" stuff. I should check the Cleric Handbook again.
My recomendation is to allow the players to take Leadership, though, and have the option to play something they would like instead. I don't think you can really do anything about the way they feel about their characters: if they don't want to play the Cleric/Beguiler there's little you can do about it.
Leadership has a tendency to disrupt the balance more than a bit imho and I have decided against using it in my campaign. Both of the players really like their characters, it's just that game mechanics makes them a bit one-sided and they were asking me for advice on how to fix that without making them any less of what they are really.
The Cleric should just try doing something other than healing, maybe even taking something like Explosive Spell or something like that.
Healing is the least of what he does. Up until recently (when the Swashy joined) he was the groups "tank" so to speak seeing as everyone else is not very high on using a lot of armor. I will look into what could widen his usefulness.
Good luck!
Thank you very much. I appreciate your reply.
//Peter
"Carpe DM"
Beguilers ARE strong and a flavorful class, just make sure that you aren't throwing things that are immune to mental control at them.. Isn't Shadowcraft Mage a gnome-only thing? The Dark Creature template, that can be achieved with a magic item... I would rework things so that EVERYONE has *8* CLASS levels. Mindbender would be a good dip class, as well.
As far as the Warlock goes, I would do the whole Incarnate-dipped Hellfire Warlock, focusing doing damage and battlefield control. No need for Cleric.
For the Cleric, maybe make him a cleric of Mystra, do a DMM:Quicken build, and make a slightly-powered-down Cheater of Mystra just do some of the basic concepts, don't go all out with the miracle-all-the-time thing, but the whole Magic/Spell/Rune/Knowledge domains are good, and a Cloistered Cleric might be a good idea...). Also, Sage ruled that Nightsticks should only be usable 1/day, even if you have multiple ones, so that will help keep things from getting too overpowered... But yea, a DMM:Quicken Cleric type does a quickened spell, and then wades into melee..
The Sorcerer shouldn't be a *battle sorcerer*, if he wants to do a Gish build, there are better ways to do it... look in this forum for "Arcane Gish" for ideas. Some Tome of Battle might help for the melee side. And there are plenty of ways to have some dragon-connections other than dragonblood.
As far as the Swashbuckler goes, one of my favorite Swashbuckler/Rogue/Fighter builds comes into it's own at level 8 (Ftr2/Swash3/Rog3 with daring outlaw), or you could do a Tome of Battle Swordsage/Swashbuckler type.
Regular Beguilers, imo, are the ultimate save or suck specialists. They either are absolutely awesome or absolutely worthless against opponents. Nothing in between, really. Dread Necromancers at least can summon, and they both can have minions, but Beguilers usually don't have many options outside of forcing saves.
There's an item in Complete Mage called the Staff of Shadowblending around 9k gp. 3/day, use it to convert Minor Image into Shadow Conjuration, or Major Image into Shadow Evocation. Its quite an awesome item! I'd get him that ASAP.
One thing I'm doing with my Beguiler now is taking Acquire Familiar (CArcane) and later Improved Familiar. Your Familiar shares your skill ranks, and the only thing better than the ultimate thief in faerun is TWO ultimate thieves! I recomend it. I'm also taking those Fey Heritage feats: not only does it give some abilities that really scale well, but it also boosts Enchantment DCs.
He'd benefit from going into Shadow Adept, too (PGtF). Those bonus feats are great, and the minor abilities seem to have the flavor he's looking for.
I've got nothing that hasn't been said for the Cleric.
As for the Cleric, its all about the feats. Use the Divine feats in Complete Divine to really amp up his capability. Just don't allow Divine Metamagic Persistant Spell, as it'll unbalance your game.
for more flavor:
You might suggest tactics, though. The Beguiler can Sleight of Hand enemies as a free action (though it requires getting into melee range, and its at a huge penalty, though if he's invisible it'll be easier). The Cleric should just try doing something other than healing, maybe even taking something like Explosive Spell or something like that.
Agreed on these two points. Issues I see: your players are already playing things that appear optimized beyond what I normally see. Optimizing them, while it has its benefits, isn't going to solve their problems. They are also more complex(and thus more mechanically interesting) than most characters I see as well. If they aren't interesting now, I doubt adding strangeness is going to make it more so: the problem is deeper.
So my strongest view is with jameswilliamogle's last point: tactics. It's amazing what a fresh or different perspective on your character's potential can do. My favorite example: playing God, Treantmonk style. When I read Treantmonklvl20's Wizard guide, it gave me a renewed enthusiasm for arcane play, and made encounters more fun for me. If your players don't already frequent these boards, it's worth finding, as jwo said, tactical styles here to suggest to them.
In the past, when I have been dissatisfied with my contributions to a campaign, it often was because I didn't know how to strategically fit my character into the whole of the group. My contributions, while useful, were not unique: if I'm playing a different character from the others, I expect my contribution to be different, and thus to stand out as such. Take a close look at the play of each of your players who is unhappy, and see if they perhaps don't know how their unique character can fill his unique role to best advantage. I don't mean to simply suggest some basic tactics(though that can do a world of good if it opens the player's eyes to new possibilities), but to help them formulate sort of a 'mission statement' that lets them come up with tactics on their own.
Again, to take the example from Treantmonklvl20's guide:
In order to be an effective battlefield controller - you should consider your primary goal to line up your enemies flanked by your Glass Cannon and Big Stupid Fighter one at a time and backwards, all while standing on their heads. This will make the BSF and the GC win the combat with little damage to themselves - and they will feel like "they" won. That's the point - you're God after all, let the mortals have their victory.
I've never seen it put better: when your player has a vision for what the character wants to contribute to an encounter, it's a lot easier for him to shape his abilities into tactics to meet that. Even if I never read the rest of Treantmonk's guide, a mission statement like that would enable me to produce a lot of effective tactics that I otherwise never would have, and improve my game greatly. I strive to produce a mission statement like that for every one of my characters, even the non-casters.
So, that turned out to be a longer rant than I thought. I hope it's useful.
Noctumancer is interesting... but what is he advancing w/ the shadow magic advancement? Doesn't make a lot of sense...
You are completely right, it does not. I have no idea how that happened but we're reworking it right now.
The way the Beguiler looks right now is more like many of the builds you see here on the forums.
= Current =
1: Beguiler (Spell Focus (Illusion), Hightened Spell)
2: Beguiler
3: Beguiler (Penumbra Bloodline)
4: Beguiler
5: Beguiler
6: Shadow Adept (Shadow Weave Magic)
7: Beguiler
8: Beguiler
= Future =
9: Shadowcraft Mage ()
10: Shadowcraft Mage
11: Shadowcraft Mage
12: Shadowcraft Mage ()
13: Shadowcraft Mage
14: Beguiler
15: Beguiler ()
16: Beguiler
17: Beguiler
18: Beguiler ()
19: Beguiler
20: Beguiler
I know that you need to be a Gnome to qualify into Shadowcraft Mage but under the Adaptation section it opens up for other options instead of using the racial one. So instead I went with him having a partial Dark Template (From the Adventure "Cormyr the Tearing of the Weave") and also having the Feat "Penumbra Bloodline" and I felt those two was in line with what the PrC is all about.
There's an item in Complete Mage called the Staff of Shadowblending around 9k gp. 3/day, use it to convert Minor Image into Shadow Conjuration, or Major Image into Shadow Evocation. Its quite an awesome item! I'd get him that ASAP.
That does indeed sound awesome and just in line with what he would like. It has to fit into the adventure but I think it will work. Thank you for bringing that one to my attention.
One thing I'm doing with my Beguiler now is taking Acquire Familiar (CArcane) and later Improved Familiar. Your Familiar shares your skill ranks, and the only thing better than the ultimate thief in faerun is TWO ultimate thieves! I recomend it. I'm also taking those Fey Heritage feats: not only does it give some abilities that really scale well, but it also boosts Enchantment DCs.
Seeing as he'll have quite a few Feats available the coming levels, I am sure he'll be happy to invest in both of them. I know for a fact that he's expressed a longing for a familiar
Have the cleric take levels of Contemplative (CDiv) after 10th level. Its cleric +1, which is nice. It doesn't advance turning, but at that level, its not super useful outside of powering divine feats. Contemplative gives some neat stuff like bonus domains, SR, Divine Health (like a paladin), and a handful of other abilities. The RP requirement to Conteplative is easy for you to fulfil as a DM, and the diety can appear to the PC in any form you choose, from dreams to planar visits to full blown avatar manifestation. This also gives you as a DM a bit of plot fodder, since a dieties direct influence on the prime shouldn't be a minor event in any case.
That there is some pretty good advice and it works great in the adventure they're playing. Seeing as some of the Gods are directly intervening here and there. I am sure he will appreciate that Prestige Class very much. Thank you.
So, that turned out to be a longer rant than I thought. I hope it's useful.
Indeed it was and is. I do my best to make them feel as if they are all pushing the limits of what their characters can do but what you and Treantmonklvl20 wrote is something I could focus more on. Very good advice there. Thank you.
I would rework things so that EVERYONE has *8* CLASS levels. Mindbender would be a good dip class, as well.
Seeing as it is a running campaign it's not just possible to get everyone at the same level. Some die, some get ressurected and die again. Things happen and experience points are lost
As far as the Warlock goes, I would do the whole Incarnate-dipped Hellfire Warlock, focusing doing damage and battlefield control. No need for Cleric.
I have an ongoing plot where the Warlock has gotten his hands on an Artifact created by a cabal of Heretic Bhaal worshippers who believed him not to be destructive and evil but rather an instrument of fate. Kill someone here, murder someone there and voilá! you get a better future
It's a plot where the Warlock has taken the "Heretic of the Faith" and "Servant of the Fallen" feats to worship the dead god Bhaal, hopefully thereby ressurecting him after the third book (around level 19+). But who knows?
For the Cleric, maybe make him a cleric of Mystra, do a DMM:Quicken build, and make a slightly-powered-down Cheater of Mystra just do some of the basic concepts, don't go all out with the miracle-all-the-time thing, but the whole Magic/Spell/Rune/Knowledge domains are good, and a Cloistered Cleric might be a good idea...). Also, Sage ruled that Nightsticks should only be usable 1/day, even if you have multiple ones, so that will help keep things from getting too overpowered... But yea, a DMM:Quicken Cleric type does a quickened spell, and then wades into melee..
The Sorcerer shouldn't be a *battle sorcerer*, if he wants to do a Gish build, there are better ways to do it... look in this forum for "Arcane Gish" for ideas. Some Tome of Battle might help for the melee side. And there are plenty of ways to have some dragon-connections other than dragonblood.
Tome of Battle isn't a book we have access to. She kind of like the Battle Sorcerer but I am open to suggestions that isn't too complicated since she's a new player to D&D and there are pretty much for her to handle as it is
Thank you all for your replies. Appreciate them.
//Peter
"Carpe DM"
Complete Divine has a number of good feats for clerics, but the most widely used is Divine metamagic.
This can be combined with some of the many great Metamagic feats in Complete Arcane.
Quicken is great for versatility.
Persist is amazing for buffs.
*truncated*
Thank you.