Races of War/Dungeonomicon in Action

[cthulhu]

I've just kicked off a campagin using Frank & K rules with a modified version fo the red hand of doom. starting levels 5, currently 7

The party was initially comprised of A) A slightly modified Sorceror using a custom race focusing exclusively on battlefield control (He has yet to cast anything other than Glitterdust, RAy of Enfeeblement and Stinking Cloud B) A Human Monk and C) A human assassin, who after session one was changed out for a samurai. Wands of cure light wounds abound.

The modified sorceror just got a 0 spells per day at 3rd 5th 7th etc levels and a single known spell.

The bad guys where using the warrior class for "grunts" who otherwise had the warrior class, and everyone else got either the warrior or samurai class depending of if they where a hobgolbin or not.

Observations:

The sorceror is a very good player, and the custom race makes him extremely hard to kill. I've probably made a balancing mistake here - the character has an invisability at will effect that was boning most of the monsters. This is making this character extremely dominatant, but I imaigne this will taper off as more guys get the mage slayer feats et al. This was illustrated when the party fought a small time dragon, and this guy was nearly killed, and they didn't efeat it (Driven off by ray od enfeeblement)

The guy playing the monk is having a blast, and the class itself is a well rounded character with a variety of tactical options. All in all I love the balance here. My favourite of the classes.

The Assassin sucked. The player playing the assassin was probably the weakest player tactically, but even so, the death attack is bloody hard to set up. I don't know if it was me, the player, or what, but not very good *at all*. I offered to switch to full bab to make this more playeable, but the player wanted to change. The problem here was, imho threefold

A) The player, not so hot

B) The lack of feats for this class, and I failed here by not engineering something to fill the gap

C) The death attack is awesomely powerful when it comes off, but awesomely hard to set up. I was playing the monsters hard, and the player didn't get a huge number of oppotunities.

Anyway, they wanted to switch to a samurai.

The Samurai is awesomely playable. I was worried that it would blur with the monk, and it has to an extent, but the Samurai as built has nothing like the durability or tactical verstility, but on the flipside, tore a chimera out of the air in one round at the end of the last session. Suffers from a bit of a glass cannon effect.

Overall the party has a severe weakness to flying monsters, but the sorc just picked up fly the spell at level 7, and they illustrated its effects by savagely beating down a chimera in short order.

I'll post a more indepth report later, but I like the way it is playing out at the moment. For those who know the 'Red Hand of Doom' They are at the end of part one, and the setting is pseduo japanese.

[MrWaeseL]

Isn't this just circumstantial evidence?

[cthulhu]

Probably

In the Races of War thread, K did ask if anyone had any stories about the material in actual gameplay, which is all I am providing.

The Sorc posts here and my drop by with some more material at some point.

[Immortius]

I'm the sorcerer.

1. My character's race has invisibility at will. This is probably overpowered early on. Perhaps the ability should have been spread over two actions (first round giving partial invisibility with 20% miss chance, second round giving total invisibility) and later advance to invisibility at will (probably 2 or 3 levels after the spell is available, so level 7 or 8). At any rate, while it helps keep me alive it doesn't really help win battles much.

2. Prior to the first game I tested my level 5 character against CR 5 monsters. In general they couldn't kill me and I couldn't really kill them. Amusingly we ended up fighting one of the monsters, a hydra. The full party didn't do much better.

3. Flying monsters are a pain without fly. It might have been ok if the party had missile weapons other than shuriken. I had an excuse (no opposable thumbs), dunno what the other players were thinking. We had no chance against the Manticore in the first part of the game, and the best we could do with the Dragon was reduce it's strength to 1 and shove it off a cliff (although technically strength 1 shouldn't stop the dragon flying, but meh). The addition of fly let the Samurai and Monk go all out, which made the Chimera we encountered next a breeze.

4. Naked Ox Rush. Martial arts moves are cool.

5. I have cast other spells. Fly, obviously. Mage Armour too. I also have used Scorching Ray a couple of times, including to interrupt an enemy sorcerer casting Lightning Bolt at the party. I'm focusing on Rays when possible because I haven't played a spell caster with high dex (20) before, and the novelty of spells with no saves hasn't faded yet.

6. Feat-wise, I'm using Frank & K's Sniper and Lightning Reflexes, as well as Sudden Extend. Even with spellcaster BAB these feats are actually useful. Usually I find it tough to find anything I feel like spending/wasting a feat slot on.

7. The slight changes to the sorcerer class have been fine thus far, although obviously the onset of the lost spellcasting level has only been delayed. It probably has been delayed beyond the lifespan of the campaign though, so meh.

[Catharz]

Thanks for posting about this. I was entertained reading over Frank'n'K's books, but I don't think I'll play D&D again before summer, so it's good to hear how some playtesting worked out.

And, wow, if the Assassin has problems I don't know how anyone can play a Wotc Ninja.

[Username17]

Heh. Keith and I actually played through the Red Hand of Doom as players. We animated that Chimera and used it to fly the party around.

As for the Assassin, I think I see the problem: your team's lack of missile weaponry. You have a pretty hard core sorcerer - stinking cloud and glitterdust are the cornerstones of a well balanced diet. An Assassin should be able to stand back with a heavy crossbow and murder one fool who failed a save against glitterdust every other round. If the rest of the party is jumping the blind folks instead of concentrating on the enemies who still have a decent offense then your Assassin is going to be wasting his time studying enemies.

He can generate his own dex denial using his access to illusions, and he can sneak around with the best of them. In a stealth-based campaign like Red Hand of Doom, an Assassin probably should be making the other players feel small in the pants with crossbow antics. If that isn't happening there's a couple of things that I think might be going wrong:

1. The Assassin is intended to take advantage of advanced D&D actics. If that isn't happening, a lot of his cool shenanigans may be falling by the wayside.

2. The Assassin wants some assistance to be at his best. If people are avoiding spells to deny the enemy's dex bonus (suchg as glitterdust or grease), or even worse gang tackling the assassin's marked target - the assassin is goign to accomplish very little.

3. Enemies are very weak. This happens a couple of times during the Red Hand of Doom - where there's just a big pile of hobgoblin warriors. That's problematic for the Assassin because his big deal is doing a crap tonne of damage every other turn.

---

Still, with the unalerted Manticore, or the Green Dragon on the Bridge, the Assassin should have pulled his weight and more. I'm not really sure what was going on there, but it reminds me that we should have probably put a rating system on those classes (Barbarian functions best for new players, Fighters and Assassins function best for advanced players, Knights and Monks are in between).

-Username17

[User3]

I might as well chime in, as I'm playing an Assassin, using Weapon Finesse, Two Weapon Fighting, and Sniper. The campaign is actually focused on being Assassins, and I have a crazy high Hide and Move Silently which, along with Hide in Plain Sight and the DM not using the default screw-hiding rules, allows me to pretty much go where I please and rarely miss an opportunity to use Death Attack. Which means I kill someone every other round with a nice 40d6 extra damage (total).

My effectiveness has been enanced by the fact that the campaign is being played by just two players, and so we rarely face more than one or two enemies. The campaign also plays very well to my strengths, which are sneaking up on people and stabbing them in the kidneys. Sneaking up on people and shooting them in also substitutes for times when I don't need a full two-weapon fighting attack.

The only problem is that you haven't written the [Skill] feats yet, and so I'm quickly running out of feats to take.

[User3]

I'm not surprised that someone had difficulty with the Assassin class. It really is made for doing certain things and not others, and if you are somehow not able to do those certain things, you are not going to be happy.

-- For example, it has immunities to poison and Poison Use. If there is a stronger way to say "use poison," I don't know it. Sure, most poisons aren't that great if you buy them or make as per the crafting rules. They are, however, pretty neat when you UMD a Wand of Minor Creation to make them by the barrel.

--It has Hide in Plain Sight and its death attack requires it to spend a round observing someone. If no one else in the party is a worthy or willing guerilla fighter, then these abilities don't shine.

But in Red Hand of Doom, I don't know how that works. Many encounters really are "go to location X and kill a man/men." By scouting ahead of your friends with your extreme stealth (possibly improved by Invisibility, which you can learn to cast), you can execute NPCs for two or three rounds while your compatriots burst from their Hiding places and run to join the fray.

--It’s a spellcaster. Some people look at that and say "hey, that something extra I do" instead of saying "hey, that’s something that synergizes really well with my other stuff." Illusion spells can deny a person their dex bonus for several rounds after you cast/concentrate on them (think most Image spells or Color Spray), and Necromancy spells can do the same with spells like Blindness or fear spells (since a guy is running, he loses his dex bonus). Heck, even Silent Image makes a perfect hunter's blind from which to ambush people with a surprise round

If you use any supplements at all, the spellcasting gets even wilder. Imagine seeing someone at extreme range, and then as they spend several rounds running at you, you death attack them at maximum long range using Guided Shot from Complete Arcane. How about a Spell Storing crossbow bolt with a Maximized Greater Shivering Touch from Frostburn for 18 points of no save Dex damage (a 7th level app for the Assassin, assuming he takes Sudden Maximize and loads his bolts with the spell in his free time)?

-------
Mostly, the problem is that its an "expert level" class. You have to be good at tactics, magic, and DnD in general or you are not going to be very effective. People see "assassin" and think "kills stuff in a hardcore and not fair manner", but that really could be any DnD character. My conception of the Assassin is "guy who can murder in a magical world where beholders and demons exist by avoiding situations where they rock" (like a multi-person melee). Any character can slip a knife in someone's back or fight an epic battle, but this Assassin uses deception and magic and skill to kill in a world where getting the drop on someone is not enough to ensure a victory.

[cthulhu]

The more you mention altenative tactics for the assassin, the more I agree the problem lay with the player and me facing off - they are not a tactical genius, but I'm moderately reasonable. They didn't exploit the majority of the synergies you mention - my only note is that the game really sucks with rules for making and managing poisons in a sort of manageable way. With hindsight, I might just make the assassins attacks automatically enhanced with some sort of level apprioate posion for some minor cost. Yor last paragraph sums it up - the player isn't good at tactics, magic or DnD in general (their first game for quite a while (ie 4? years) so maybe not a jumping in point

That and it was jst pointed out to me I totally forgot about hide in plain sight at a critical moment. Maybe you need an expert DM to! My first game running in about 2 years

The other problem was the lack of exploited Synergy with the rest of the party. However, now they are playing a Samurai so bygones are by gones.

The Samurai is much more their speed, and seemingly plays quite nicely. I'll post any more thoughts as they continue to progress.

[User3]

I've been lurking around here for awhile, and a lot of this stuff seems very cool and necessary. However, it seems like the damage potential of everyone has gotten so high, that everyone is going to get dropped in one round of fighting.

For example, two 8th level barbarians square off. Assume, orc barbarians, start with 16 STR and 14 CON. Go to 20 Str for Orc, and then 22 with two ability bumps. Add another 2 for enhancement bonus to str. This gives 24 str.

Raging 8th level Barbarian with a greataxe is doing 1d12+4d6+2(rage)+10 (str)+2 magic = avg 34.5

8th level barbarian has 12+7d12+16 = avg 73.5 hp.

So with just a hint above average damage, the 8th level barbarian can drop his equivalent foe in one round if he hits twice.

Now admittedly, there are no con bonuses here, barbarians get some DR, etc. . . but the damage output on this example is also on the very conservative side - no bonus damage from feats, etc. . .

Is everyone supposed to be able drop a copy of themselves in one round? This doesn't only apply to barbarians. An 8th level TWF assassin (with full death attack) who studies someone for a round is going to unload 4 attacks at +10d6 for each attack. 40d6+4x weapon damage/bonuses is a lot of damage to unleash on someone. Are the NPCs using all of these classes, or is it intended for the antagonists to be mostly monsters rather than full classed NPCs?

[User3]

I believe Barbarians and Assassins are supposed to be able to kill people really easily. And remember, the Barbarian only gets to Rage after he hits or gets hit, and both have DR 6/-, meaning they only take an average of 28.5 from a Rage hit. It would probably take 2 rounds to kill a mirror match, which shouldn't really be a problem since the Barbarian's only ability is "hit it really hard."

[User3]

By Neglecting CON bonus, you cut the barbarian's HP roughly in half. You also neglected DR.

I'd say this is lasting three , which is as long as a fight between offensive characters needs to take.

Seriously, it's not hard to kill someone in 18 seconds.

[MrWaeseL]

Seriously, it's not hard to kill someone in 18 seconds.

What the hell is this.

[Essence]

The truth?

[cthulhu]

1168368280[/unixtime]]

Is everyone supposed to be able drop a copy of themselves in one round? This doesn't only apply to barbarians. An 8th level TWF assassin (with full death attack) who studies someone for a round is going to unload 4 attacks at +10d6 for each attack. 40d6+4x weapon damage/bonuses is a lot of damage to unleash on someone. Are the NPCs using all of these classes, or is it intended for the antagonists to be mostly monsters rather than full classed NPCs?

You already had that with wizards. now some other classes do the same thing but actually the characters are themselves pretty tough - in the game I've outlined above, the players where not getting that that much due to the extremely high ACs.

I am seeing a bit of the effect you mention, I am intrested to see how it plays out.

[Catharz]

Assassins are definately supposed to be able to drop a copy of themselves in one round. That's the whole point.

[Eela6]

I've played a couple Frank/K classes in a one-shot or two and a game that didn't last that long- (using pre-ROW K rules - this means standard feats. I'm not so hot on ROW rules, I think they're a bit much.)

Most of this is based off gameplay experience and testing, some of it's extrapolation. Hope it's helpful.

I have to say that it performs remarkably well, but only after about level 7. At level 1-3, it's death attack is almost always fatal but insanely difficult to set up. From levels 4-6, it's easier, but is not instantly fatal - so whether it's worth the difficulty is a toss-up.

On the other hand, from level seven on...

Full Death attack is an amazing improvement to the Assassin (especially when combined with Rapid Shot and the ilk). At this point, you can start affording the good Hide/Move Silent boosters, [see boots of elvenkind/cloak of elvenkind or Shadow/Silent Moves armor] and casting Invisibility or getting a Wand is a every-combat endeavor. Against single enemies, you're completely murderous, able to take out 75% of enemies of your Challenge Rating. Against pairs, you function roughly as expected. Against hordes of Weenies, the assassin is not so hot - but on the other hand, he has a party for a reason, and a single Glitterdust or Black Tentacles is normally enough to end that sort of battle.

_

I've also played a Fiendish Brute [pre-ROW rules] (though it's not specifically a PC option), and I have to say it's holy-shit awesome. It doesn't have proficency with armor, but that's never stopped anyone - give it a mithral chain shirt and it's good to go. Since a good brute is going to start out with decent DEX or CON and just get better, the huge amount of natural armor is just icing on the cake - by level 8, it's seriously no big deal to be having an AC breakdown that looks like this:

10 (Base) - 1 (Size) + 4 (Shield) + 11 (Natural) + 3 (Barkskin) + 6 (Chain Shirt) + 2 (Deflection), which happens to be 35 and significantly more than that of a Purple Worm. You're also large size and have about twelve natural weapons and some spell that adds damage to everything from your buddy or an item, so you've got no worries. If you don't have a buddy (say, you're a lone NPC), drop some of your armor, you don't need it.

The sheer amount of feats it gets is pretty incredible. You're going to accumulate natural weapons at a frightening rate - take Product of Infernal Dalliance and Pincers, and you've got six of them starting from level one.

On the other hand, the True Fiend and Conduit of the Lower Planes are not so hot. The True Fiend has crazy-awesome DR, which is fun, but seriously lacks offensive punch. He's decent all the way through, but has a couple ackward levels where he's just too good (4, notably - nothing can hit through your DR, you just got a Sphere with something immensely awesome, like Deep Slumber, and you have full BAB and a Martial Weapon, which is still awesome).

The Conduit of the Lower Planes is just ackward. At low levels, he lacks any staying power whatsoever - ("Hi! I'm first level. I get Deep Slumber once a day. Hey, doesn't this remind you of the Shadowcaster? Oh, wait, Deep Slumber's actually useful. Still...")

He does get Martial Weapon proficencies, but he's a caster and you can't have casters putting a 12 into strength so they can actually use bows. As Frank and K said in the Dungeonomicon, you aren't supposed to save up power in interest-bearing accounts. If a conduit puts decent scores in Strength and Dex so he can survive levels 1-4, rather than Con and Cha and Int, which let you kick ass at high levels, you're going to kick yourself in the teeth when you really fucking needed that +1 DC on spells.

Speaking of which, Heighten Spell-like is too damn good - at least compared to any other pre-ROW feat. It's no big deal for stuff like Cone of Cold, which needs to have a competitive DC to remain standing. But Save-or-Sucks are going to remain competive at most every level, and most of the time with the Conduit, you get them really fucking early anyways. So it's frustrating.

Enchanced Sphere access is incredibly awesome and every True Fiend is going to dip two or three levels for it, but unfortunately it's not very helpful to the Conduit until he's already got three or four spell-likes.

In fact, the class isn't even worth playing until third level, at which point you can do more than sit around. At tenth level, he suddenly becomes one of the best casters ever, because he's basically a weaker full caster (on par with Wu Jen/Favored Soul/etc) with ten extra levels to play around with.

I'd actually switch him to gaining new spheres at even levels - since he gains new spell-likes at odds, there'd be a smoother progression.

There y'go.

[RandomCasualty]

1168409982[/unixtime]]
Full Death attack is an amazing improvement to the Assassin (especially when combined with Rapid Shot and the ilk). At this point, you can start affording the good Hide/Move Silent boosters, [see boots of elvenkind/cloak of elvenkind or Shadow/Silent Moves armor] and casting Invisibility or getting a Wand is a every-combat endeavor. Against single enemies, you're completely murderous, able to take out 75% of enemies of your Challenge Rating. Against pairs, you function roughly as expected. Against hordes of Weenies, the assassin is not so hot

Well against weenies I doubt the assassin would even care. He has hide in plain sight, which basically means that any guy who maxed out his hide and move silent with magic items is perfectly safe (how many weenies are going to beat a maxed hide check?)

And at that point you can pretty much snipe them or just walk by them at your whim.

[AlphaNerd]

And at that point you can pretty much snipe them or just walk by them at your whim.

Yes, if you were a party unto yourself, this would work ok. But if there are enough of them to challenge the whole party, you'll probably underperform. Your whole party can't do those things, and they'll have to be fighting in the meantime if you choose either course of action.

Of course, if you're scouting ahead, you could just snipe them for a while, until the guy with a see invisibility up and a wand of faerie fire spots you and makes you wish you hadn't tried that shit, at which point you call the party in to rescue you.

Of course, given the wording on faerie fire, maybe it doesn't help, but presumably something would.

[User3]

I'm surprised at the response to the Conduit of the Lower Planes, and the other demon classes. Since Spheres are based off of character level and not class level, I assumed that people would take a few levels in other classes before they entered the fiend classes. A 6th level Fighter that takes a level of Conduit of the Lower Planes and chooses the Carnage Sphere gains the 1st, 3rd, and 5th level domain powers once a day each, and thats not bad when you consider that he'll keep getting new powers even if he continues to take Fighter levels or other classes that don't add to Sphere access.

Even if they played only with a single fiend class from 1st on, you can do stuff like start with a Conduit with the Cold Sphere who has Cone of Cold, which has a huge area at 1st level. As they toss in even more Spheres , things get even nuttier. Heck, as a 3rd level Conduit with the Bone and Fire Spheres you can be running around at 3rd level with crazy zombie monsters and his own quite considerable blasting and necromancy abilities.

[Catharz]

1168667999[/unixtime]]I'm surprised at the response to the Conduit of the Lower Planes, and the other demon classes. Since Spheres are based off of character level and not class level, I assumed that people would take a few levels in other classes before they entered the fiend classes. A 6th level Fighter that takes a level of Conduit of the Lower Planes and chooses the Carnage Sphere gains the 1st, 3rd, and 5th level domain powers once a day each, and thats not bad when you consider that he'll keep getting new powers even if he continues to take Fighter levels or other classes that don't add to Sphere access.

Even if they played only with a single fiend class from 1st on, you can do stuff like start with a Conduit with the Cold Sphere who has Cone of Cold, which has a huge area at 1st level. As they toss in even more Spheres , things get even nuttier. Heck, as a 3rd level Conduit with the Bone and Fire Spheres you can be running around at 3rd level with crazy zombie monsters and his own quite considerable blasting and necromancy abilities.

The issue with the Conduit at very low levels is that you get one spell-like, and then start using the crossbow. This is about twice as bad as most spellcasters at that level.

Once you gain a level, you're up to twice per day, which is still worse than most spellcasters. If your one spell-like happens to be Command Undead and you never run into any...That sucks.

But as you say, from third level on the conduit tears things up. Not everyone can drop a fireball on himself (taking no damage) and watch all of the dead cannon fodder rise as zombies. So I guess I'm saying that I'm in complete agreement with you, excepting levels 1 & 2.

And even a first level Conduit is objective better than a first level bard.

[RandomCasualty]

1168549071[/unixtime]]
Yes, if you were a party unto yourself, this would work ok. But if there are enough of them to challenge the whole party, you'll probably underperform. Your whole party can't do those things, and they'll have to be fighting in the meantime if you choose either course of action.

Of course, if you're scouting ahead, you could just snipe them for a while, until the guy with a see invisibility up and a wand of faerie fire spots you and makes you wish you hadn't tried that shit, at which point you call the party in to rescue you.

Of course, given the wording on faerie fire, maybe it doesn't help, but presumably something would.

If you're just using your hide check, see invisibility wouldn't help him at all.

Faerie fire? How many creatures have access to druid magic? I can't remember the last session where we ever fought a druid.

The thing with the assassin is that you really are best sending him in alone. With hide in plain sight and maxed hide and move silent, he basically can do whatever he wants. The problem is that his abilities don't really synergize with everyone elses. He's at his best just going on a stealth mission and picking things off while hiding. Have him go in flying (to nullify tremorsense) and all he's worried about are creatures with blindsight/sense. Even then you just hand him a cloak of the mountebank or whatever for a quick getaway if he needs the rest of the party. Otherwise the party can just sit back while he wins 90% of the encounters without taking a point of damage.