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Inactive Let's Play: Way of the Wicked - CURRENTLY ON SESSION #19, Book 4: Of Dragons and Princesses

Grunker

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Basically, the Synthethist summoner archetype mechanically functions the way the Druid should have done. Tone down that archetype's massive OP-ness and you're done. In fact that exactly why Jakob now plays a Synthethist instead of a Druid :)
 

Havoc

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The archetypes are a real treat. I still remember finding the Skulking Slayer (Rogue archetype for half-orcs). "You Backstab while you Cleave? Whaaaa..."
 

Grunker

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Haha, yep. What Pathfinder does right is realizing that the fun of 3.5 is not in super-balance or clarity but in customization, customization, customization.
 

Night Goat

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The "problem" with Druid in 3.5 was that it was roughly as strong a fighter as the fighter and as great a caster as the cleric or wizard. Hence the joke "Hi, I'm a druid. I have class features more powerful than your entire class." Add to this an insane amount of flexibility with the ability to shape form into any sort of creature with insanely specific counters to suit any situation.

The Pathfinder Druid was nerfed, of course, as it should have, but in my opinion the PF team messed up here. What they did is they restricted the shapechanging to be subpar to a fighter and the casting to be subpar to a devoted caster while keeping both aspects of the class seperate. That last bit means that at any time, the Druid can choose to be a subpar melee combatant or a subpar caster. What they should have done is merged these two styles so that they completemented each other.
3.5 druids weren't roughly as strong a fighter as the fighter. They were much stronger than a fighter, and had a pet that was also stronger than the fighter. And even after the nerfs, you and your animal companion might still be stronger than the fighter, because fighters are really bad. Plus you've got full casting with some good control spells and spontaneous summons, and even if you're the worst of the full casters you're still better than everyone who isn't one.
 

Grunker

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even after the nerfs, you and your animal companion might still be stronger than the fighter

That's not even close to true. While fighters are not exactly level 15 power houses, no amount of PF shapeshifting will bring a non-feat specced shifted druid close to going toe-to-toe with a greatweapon fighter. And if the druid is feat specced for that kind of fighting, why is it playing a druid instead of a fighter?

The power of the 3.5 druid came from not even needing those feats.

Plus you've got full casting with some good control spells and spontaneous summons

If you doing that, why not just play a cleric or wizard?

This could quickly turn into a longwinded discussion. You're welcome to agree, but at least through my many years of Pathfinder discussion and forum dwelling, Druid weakness seems a pretty commonly agreed upon fact.
 

Havoc

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Finally go to play with my group. We started November and got only 4 sessions in, but finished the first book. I've changed a lot, because I wanted to set the game in Cormyr (Faerun, Forgotten Realms), just after the death of Azoun IV and the end of the Goblin Wars, so it's an ideal moment for a "evil plot" to happen in a weakened country. Almost everything stayed. I used NPCs from the first and later books to set the heroes that captured the villians and rolled with it. After setting everything up, we started. Everything went smoothly, no deaths, but I got two "rule munchers", who can search for many aides in the form of spells, infernal rituals (Book of Vile Darkness) and stuff, and also are pretty smart, so there's that.

The team is compromised of:
Two twins - Oracle and Wizard (specialist, Teleporter). Humans. Both STR 6.
A fighter with the archetype of Archer. Fetchling (planartouched Shadow Plane). WIS 6.
Magus. Always wanting to fight. Human. CHA 6.
Rouge, soon to be assassin. Human, cannibal. CON 6.
A merry party of villians. Especially that the twins were servants of a small Asmodean cult in Arabel.

Our forth session ended similar to Grunker's, the guys did everything there was, so the bugbears had no opposition. They had to stay in the vault for a week, since they made a lot of noise and death in the town, but where too soon to fire the flare. The faces were priceless - they were planning the attack, how it will go and all in one go, I suddenly ask "Wait... you know you have at least 7 days before you can shoot the rocket", "... what?" It couldn't be my fault since I was saying that since the start of the 4th session, that they have time, over and over.

The ending was the shortest. They used the rules in the Book of Vile Darkness about rituals. Took the innkeeper's wife and two dwarfs, sacrificed them in the tunnels and got a 44 on the test, so it was a Wish. They asked for help in their siege, anything magical. So the devil said he will teleport them straight to the paladin, to his room where he was sitting next to the cleric. Fight ended in the first turn, before the heroes could act. They used silence to do everything next quickly. Killed guards that wanted to check and their assassin fell one level down. How? Remember that item at the start of the game? The veil? That gives you a certain power? Making a hole? Yes. They used that to make a hole in the ground and get to the mage in an instant. Three major NPCs dead in less than 20 seconds. The paladin was raised as undead and his armor changed to the devilish one. I proposed to make him a death knight (template in Pathfinder), if the Oracle takes the Leadership feat and makes him his cohort.

The game ended good, so if we don't continue the campaign, I can call it "a short, but good campaign." I want to check if the 2nd 7th Sea will work with this group, since I want to try it out as soon as the first draft will show up for backers.

BTW. I tried to do the dwarf campaign from the other books from the author. Throne of Night. This might work for drow, but the Underdark campaign... I don't know... it didn't feel dwarven, at least the first book (which I didn't finish).
 

Grunker

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Sounds like you had a grand old time! Don't really mind PCs having an easy time if they prepared really well, and it sounds like your guys did exactly that.
 

Havoc

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There was one close call. Varning was coming back from the patrol, not knowing that Mott and Eddarly already had their duel (Eddarly died, Mott later in the siege), so he came home to change boots. Inside the assassin and magus (which had a vendetta against Varning for capturing him and killing his brother) were waiting, they almost failed. Magus jumped out, casted invisibility and ran, wanting to be seen later on a horse for phase two of their plan to kill the scouts. Assassin had some nice stealth rolls, so he wasn't caught and took some meat from the dead captain (yeah, the assassin is a cannibal).
The chase ensued. Again, the plan almost didn't succeed, because the scouts had good rolls on perception to see the ambush, but one didn't. He got caught on an invisible rope and a undead Eddarly got teleported and killed him. The rest tried to run, but the wizard had a spike pit spell ready and the archer had some good rolls. The scouts didn't survive the trip.

I almost made the assassin kill the Oracle. A mix of couple things:
- The assassin went to the blacksmith to check if he had something nice. He did, so the assassin bought some daggers. Problem was the Disguise Self spell and getting touched by other people. Natural 20. The blacksmith saw throu the disguise and saw the face of one the guys from the wanted posters (their bounty was already on notice boards, 1000 gp per head). The assassin exited knowing that the blacksmith recognized him and tried to hide it. He almost failed HORRIBLY. He went inside, disguised as Eddarly (this was before the duel). I thought he came up with some nice ruse to silence the blacksmith, but it was far worse. He started screaming something about swords, that the blacksmith made a shit job and killed him... this wouldn't fly anywhere, since Eddarly was at the castle when the murder would happen. We had a laugh and I told him we can rewind a little, because he caught everybody off guard and almost made the whole endevour a failure. He thought a little and made the ruse about that the captains know about the fugitives, but he can't start telling everybody, because they won't get caught. The player got caught again... the blacksmith wanted to thank the captain for everything and he touched his hands... again. I was too goodhearted that time.
- This of course made the assassin want to kill the blacksmith when the time comes. After Eddarly and Mott had their duel and Eddarly died, the blacksmith could start to squeal. The assassin went inside the house at night and choked the blacksmith, made everything look like suicide. The party on the other had needed some zombies and weapons for them, so they went to kill the blacksmith themselves. Found the blacksmith dead, knew it was a staged suicide, but couldn't pinpoint it to the assassin since "he is a cannibal, he left the body alone". Both parties NEVER talked to the assassin about the blacksmith stuff. The assassin never told he had some beef with the him nor that he killed him and the twins (Oracle and Wizard, because they were stealing stuff and making zombies, the archer helped to move the body into a safe place to be raised) never told them what they found nor what they did with the body. The official story was the blacksmith went to the forest for some wood, in the middle of the night. High bluff there.
- So having all that information. We go forward in time. The assassin comes back to the tavern, after eating some captain Varning, and disguised himself as a drunkard beggar. Sees that the blacksmith returned with three armed guys. He stopped drinking and I started egging him on about the situation. Too bad everything was going on at the same table. The assassin went to greet the "blacksmith" and succeeded the Will roll, so he saw throu the disguise and vice versa. The dagger was already drawn. So close, but yet so far.
 

Havoc

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They kinda dropped the ball on the planning department, when it come to the "final plan." If I didn't remind them about certain stuff like "Okay, but what do you do about the aviary?" "Didn't we seal the entrance with acid at the start?" "Lol, no? The plan changed! You were teleported to the paladin's room!" "Oh... right." But in the end they started walking disguised as the main leaders of the keep and started killing everybody on watch, which wasn't hard. They used the arsenic on the stew, Varning and Eddarly were dead, Mott was in prison, the city had problems with undead and murders and some other stuff, so it made the soldiers do 1.5 of their duties, waiting for reinforcements. Which if you read the book, will not come since a different group made sure that nodoby will help or hear the keeps calls for help. Just like I said, if we never continue this game, then it's fine, since we finished on a "good note."

But if we continue, I'm going to drop a lot of stuff from the next books. The second's book plot* will be used, but differently, so from here on out, the group will work on my improvisation.

*Which I already hinted at. The cannibal assassin had a dream of Arabel, which everybody went sick and a certain demon appeared.
 

Havoc

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Most of the time I don't, but this was one of the moment of "this won't make a big difference." I was silent during their plan to kill Varning and the scouts, only hearing their actions out and telling what is happening.
 

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