Author Topic: Re: Is the role of Stealthy Dude a viable role in a party of non-stealthers?  (Read 1050 times)

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Sunic_Flames

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I think all Sunic has proven is that in Tier 2 to Tier 1 game environments stealth characters, such as The Scout, er Corpse, are utterly pointless. In Tier 3 games, which it seems like most people here prefer, I would argue that Scout characters are much more viable.
This may be contradicted by further replies, but I don't think that holds at all. 

I think the examples, to the extent they are convincing, demonstrate that you would need to be a Tier 1 level scout/stealth character.  That might require some work, significant magical support, etc. to make you sufficiently sneaky, have sufficiently hardened defenses, and so on.  But, so does being a Tier 1 wizard, we're just all very familiar w/ that.  It's possible in a Tier 1/2 that "scouting" in a mundane sense is supplanted by something else like consistent powerful divination or earthgliding ninjas or something.  I wouldn't necessarily concede that, though it's a possibility. 

But that by no means implies that it's pointless.  If by "scout" one means "rogue w/out any magic items" then well yeah, scouting is totally pointless.  But that's neither a Tier 1 character, nor one optimized to the level of the rest of the table (including the DM if we are citing Sunic's gelugon case).

Nah, even a tier 1 stealth character would fail, as it's still too easy to be detected, and you're still a single character taking on an encounter meant for the whole party. Even something like the Hi Welcome build is likely to fail under such conditions.

Also, why the fuck do people still keep claiming the Ice Devil is some super optimized thing? Fuck, it's barely optimized at all.

Since this has been popping up several times, is
Factorum
some sort of pun or a product of the T key being next to the R key?

The class sucks too badly to spell correctly.

Tangent:  First off, Unholy Aura is nearly  useless in the devil's paranoid home environment.  The number of good creatures it meets are relatively few.  EDIT:  unless the other benefits of its Pro. Good apply to creatures who aren't just good.  They probably do, so ok, maybe it's useful to it.  Although I'm probably going to houserule that for my next game. 

Wrong.

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First, each warded creature gains a +4 deflection bonus to AC and a +4 resistance bonus on saves. Unlike the effect of protection from good, this benefit applies against all attacks, not just against attacks by good creatures.

Second, a warded creature gains spell resistance 25 against good spells and spells cast by good creatures.

Third, the abjuration blocks possession and mental influence, just as protection from good does.

Finally, if a good creature succeeds on a melee attack against a warded creature, the offending attacker takes 1d6 points of temporary Strength damage (Fortitude negates).

The primary benefit, namely increasing all AC and saves by 4 applies regardless. The second thing does exactly nothing, as it has SR 25 ANYWAYS. The third effect, blocking possession and mental influence also always works. The fourth effect does not work. But that also isn't the main reason to cast the spell.

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Second, and more importantly, I always go back and forth on these things.  If the monster has a SP at will, that is different from having it "always on."  It involves some effort to activate, otherwise it wouldn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and there are creatures w/ "always on" abilities that are called out as such in the rules. 

That's why SLAs can be activated under any number of conditions, and they only require active effort to keep up when some fool is hitting you in the face or trying to hit you in the face right?

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# Outsiders breathe, but do not need to eat or sleep (although they can do so if they wish). Native outsiders breathe, eat, and sleep.

Outsiders do not need to sleep. This, among other things means they are tireless machines of their alignments, which in this case means [Law] and [Evil]. So even if you want to pull some handwaving fluff about it getting tired, it's very clearly stated that Outsiders do not tire. The reason why it is different from abilities described specifically as always on is that it can be Dispelled, at which point the creature loses it. That's about it really.

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My usual rule of thumb is that if the ability has a long duration, then I treat it as always on.  A power that lasts an hour and is usable at will is effectively constant.  But, every 10ish rounds ... I don't know.  I mean, imagine you were walking and every minute you had to stop and tie your shoes.  You'd probably get sick of it pretty soon, especially after the nigh infinite amount of time a gelugon would be dealing w/ it. 

This is true even in life or death situations:  e.g., the thompson machineguns that US Army troops used in WWII did not come w/ the drum magazines, which would be strictly superior given the larger number of rounds and the rate of fire of a thompson, b/c they were uncomfortable to carry on a shoulder strap, which is what soldiers spend the vast majority of their time doing. 

Less of your houserules, more of my DMs.

I'm sorry, where is he getting all of these huge bonuses to everything? For his stats I assumed Str 22, Dex 14, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 8, but let's just buy him some gear. Assuming the game played with standard point buy his starting stats are something like Str 16, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8. At 10th level he's got 49,000gp. So, he puts both his level points into Str and obviously has a Belt of Giant's Strength. Current wealth:  33,000gp. Let's say he's got a +3 Greatsword now. Current Wealth: 15,000gp. Now let's give him a Cloak of Resistance +2, +1 Mithral Breastplate, and a +1 Longbow. Current Wealth: ~0gp. So, with +6 from his Strength, +3 from his weapon, and +10 from BAB that's actually 1 less than the +20 I arbitrarily decided he had. Oh, and those stats I assumed he had? Not even close. So that's 40 less hp than I thought. What am I missing here?

Learn to play? Seriously, you're making some gimpy beatstick with a +20 to hit, or less, a number that would be barely acceptable if all of his attacks were touch attacks, you're assuming a Con of TWELVE on anyone, especially a beatstick. He doesn't fail because he's a Warblade. He fails because he's a garbage build, inferior to a fucking ANIMAL COMPANION.

Seriously. Here's a random animal companion's auto attack sequence:

Pounce, so reliable full attacks.

+19/+19/+19/+14/+18/+18 for 1d8+12/1d8+12/1d8+12/2d6+7/1d8+7/1d8+7. Those numbers do not include charge bonuses.

I expect gimps like Fighters to get CAPed by an Animal Companion, but a fucking Warblade should be doing a lot better.

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Oh, okay, so you say that scouting fails no matter what because there's no way that the scout can spot anything at all relevant, but the Cleric in your game auto-spotted the Ice Devil and would have still done so if he for any reason decided to scout ahead. So the PC who isn't even trying to scout could have easily scouted and not succumbed to AADS to provide the party with intel, but a character designed to do that scouting, no, no he would have died. Instantly and without any consideration needed. :rollseyes

Well yes, because you see, he was also auto spotted. The difference of course is that while the Cleric is a Cleric, and his friends are all right there, the gimp is a gimp, and all alone. So in both cases, the party becomes aware there is something there, and the Ice Devil becomes aware of the precise nature of those coming. In both cases the Ice Devil has some time to prepare, as knowing something is there isn't the same as knowing there is something hostile there. In both cases the Ice Devil then jumps out and attacks people. The difference, of course is that the Cleric, and his party can do shit about it, and the gimp can't.

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Um, the PCs don't have a 50% chance to do jack shit. The Warblade barely has a 50% to hit with one attack. The spellcasters have close to a 25% chance to even get to attempt to force the Devil to make a saving throw which he has about a 60% chance to succeed on. Unless, like my Warblade example above, I'm missing some crazy way to get amazing bonuses to their save DCs and spell penetration checks outside their normal wealth by level stuff.

Trivializing SR is easy, but not for the lower tier casters. It does have high saves though, and high AC, and high touch AC.

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Also, I know the whole ubercharge build is really common on boards, but how often does it actually show up in games? I've never played it because it's been my experience that a PC that has a 50% or better chance to automatically kill anything so long as he can hit it, well, DMs don't generally like this.

Shows up pretty often, since DPS is the only way beatsticks can be relevant, and that's how they get it. It in no way changes the fact he only hits on a 20 though. So really, Shock Trooper doesn't even help. Also, charging is easily shut down. Like here, if he can't fly, he can't charge.

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It just seems like Sunic and camp are conveniently ignoring the numbers when they make arguments for why Scouts blow, and then coming back with really optimized numbers when they want to make arguments for why Team Monster is awesome. This seems especially true given my above Warblade and Sunic's offhanded comment that some random Cleric not even specced to scout auto-spotted the Ice Devil with something in the area of +45 to Hide...

Yes, because as stated Lifesight is an ability that comes from race (undead) and not class. As the undead Cleric both has Lifesight, and is a real class, and is with his party, the result is auto detection of both the Cleric and the Ice Devil by each other, except the Cleric is a real class with backup, so it will go a lot better. And lol? Really optimized numbers? There are any number of things that Ice Devil can do, besides take Mindsight that would qualify it as really optimized. While it has done some of those things, it has not done all. Fact of the matter is Ice Devil who actually uses its abilities, and therefore always has Unholy Aura, and that has a mundane Mithril Chain Shirt has AC 40. The gimpy Warblade only hits on a 20 (and also has to deal with two save or loses - one on the AoO, one on the fear aura). That's all it takes. That's not ignoring the numbers, that's considering them.

Nah, he claimed random Warblade 20 vampires would be running around. Outside. In broad daylight. In Eberron.

What?  No I didn't.  I have no idea what you're talking about.

Yes, yes you fucking did. I screenshotted it so you can't delete it.



Hi Welcome

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You had a creature set up in a snow bank who just happens to be in the trail of the party, buried up to his head, with his feats shifted towards detection (without which he's completely worthless).  +1 CR for giving the monster a MUCH better feat than what the standard CR version had, +1 for the fact that it's a planned out ambush (at the very least), which is CR 15 at the very least.  Usually stuff like "lolz, it's buried up to its head in snow for extra hide bonuses in terrain it uses best" increases the CR, even though that means when detected this devil gets stomped HARD due to having to waste actions to get out.

ITT: Jaron thinks it's perfectly acceptable to throw out super optimized characters doing all sorts of crazy ass tactics, but then tries to nerf encounters by making them count as higher level when they use the most basic of tactics, such as hiding in goddamned snow, or taking feats actually worth a damn. Now claiming the Ice Devil gets +2 CR for acting in a manner remotely approximating its 22 Int is somewhat less retarded than whining and flailing about CR +5 ICE DEVILS AND SPARKLY VAMPIRES but the fact of the matter is it is still a retarded idea, and he is still retarded for having it.

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Also, I didn't realize it had Unholy Aura up.  If that's so, this scenario makes even less sense, as any half decent scout in a game of this nature would have gotten Permanent Arcane Sight ASAP (buy it in town if you must, it's permanent).  As such, the scout not only sees a glowing beacon in the snowbank (lifesight), he also sees that it has spells up (and even knows a few important details about this glowing magic beacon).  He can do this from outside the devil's detection range.  So why is he getting stomped again?  Seems to me he calls the whole party and this buried idiot gets DESTROYED by held actions when it starts to dig its way out.

It doesn't dig its way out, it busts out.

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Arcane sight    11th    1,500 XP

As the level of the game is 10, you do not have, and cannot get Permanent Arcane Sight. And even if you did, somehow get it, such as from some random level 11 caster in Eberron (yeah fucking right) it will cost, at minimum 8,160 gold, and anything with a CL of 11 or better (see: almost any caster you face now, and every caster you face a bit later) can, when throwing random Dispels to remove other buffs completely destroy it without any extra actions or foresight on their part.

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And to be perfectly clear, I HAVE played stealthers at higher levels before.  It worked great, and they were very effective, with their primary role being forward intelligence gathering (at least in the stealth aspect, they were also decent at hitting enemies).  It totally worked.  But you have to play them smart.  You don't just blunder blindly through snowbanks or get so far away from the party that you can't retreat back in case of surprise.  You have things like Counter Charge, Shadow Jaunt, and Moment of Perfect Mind ready to go in case of emergencies if at all possible.  You have a variety of detection methods available to you while simultaneously making yourself immune to as many methods as at all possible.  You make sure you have multiple movement modes available (flight should be standard, burrowing is great if possible, climbing can be handy at times, teleporting is wonderful).  You have Hide and Move Silently at as high levels as you can get while keeping at least Spot up to a solid level.  It's just what you do.  Just because Sunic doesn't know how doesn't mean it's impossible... even in games with lots of casters (though you're going to have to pump the optimization level up a lot).

Mostly because you play with coddling DMs, who think enemies using the most basic of tactics, and being remotely competent is worth massive boosts to CR. In a real game, with a real DM you'd be slaughtered over and over and over again. Despite what certain fuckwits claim, I am not the DM vs Player type, but I'd take great pleasure in slaughtering whatever gimp you fielded for one, simple reason.

Jaron is a lying sack of fail.

The evidence of this can be seen everywhere. Starting with his attempting to deny SPARKLY VAMPIRES when in fact he did claim such a thing, and there is picture proof right there. But this goes beyond his compulsive lying streak.

For you see, the problem with Jaron is multifaceted.

First, he faps off to skills way too fucking hard. Skills of course are irrelevant past low levels, either because the skill never did anything you cared about at any level, because it got CAPed by a low level ability, or because you stop benefiting past the low levels. Second, Jaron is very much holding to a double standard. It's perfectly acceptable for him to do all kinds of crazy shit, but not acceptable for others to do so. You can see this in him breaking out some super one trick pony for stealth, and then whining and flailing when it gets negated by a single, common sense feat (Mindsight), you can see this in him bringing up the mount rules, up to and including things like Magebred T-Rexes, but when someone throws his exact argument back in his face it is suddenly not acceptable. You can see it in him whining about fluff based rarity of abilities, in regards to Mindsight when one of his other favorite things to fap to is the fucking Tooth of Lejare. Now for those of you that don't know, that item is one of the Tooth of Delvar Nar. It is in the Tome of Magic, and it grants 1/day GMW at CL 20. Being as it is both priced cheaper than a +5 weapon, especially after considering special properties, and is priced such that you can get it sooner than your casters can get CL 20, it does have obvious practical value. It's also described in the fluff as a UNIQUE item, aka there's only one ever. Yet, that has never, even once stopped him from claiming some random Orc Commoner has the only one in the entire fucking world. It has also never stopped him from fapping off to builds that use multiple one of a kind items at the same time. Now on this last point, fluff based rarity has never really stopped anyone here. After all, there are only 13 Jade Phoenix Mages in the entire world, and everyone just assumes they can make a goddamn JPM and be an extra special snowflake. It's unlikely they've even considered, or acknowledged the fluff based rarity. However the point of this is not ignoring flavor text.

The point of this is he completely, and drastically changes his argument, moving the goalposts all over the fucking place whenever it supports his argument.

So random Orc Commoners have unique items, and some builds even have multiple one of a kind items, and he can run around with cheap super powered mounts (unless his enemy also intends to have one, then it's suddenly not ok), but highly intelligent and powerful Evil Outsiders can't get a basic feat, and basic tactics make enemies twice as hard (literally, +2 CR is double difficulty), and in general, he expects the enemies to be bigger mouth breathing fuckwits than he is, which is quite the accomplishment by the way, and will whine and flail constantly if they are not.

Jaron.



But back to the main topic at hand here. Jaron bans high tier classes, as if it were some kind of badge of honor because he knows real classes will CAP his ass faster than a crazed gunman. They do not support his argument you see. If he were an actually competent player, or DM he would not need to do this. In fact he could play a game in which everyone was a tier 1 and 2, and anything lower was banned instead of the reverse. He is not competent, however. On top of this, he stays in the kiddie pool because he knows he can't swim in the deep end, with the big boys for much the same reason. Now this would be reasonable, except that exactly like Aelryinth he whines, flails, and tries to ban anything better than his fail style. No, Jaelbabble was not a coincidence. I really did mean Jaron is acting just like Aelryinth. On top of the whining, flailing, and banning everything better than shitty turtle builds skill builds though he spams the boards everywhere, trying to defend his CAP bait toons. This, of course simply provokes his betters (read: just about anyone) to bust a CAP in his ass, thereby smiting the imbecile. However, said Imbecile is a Ferrous Cranus, so enemies that are played remotely competently will continue to slaughter him, and thereby make him continue to babble on incoherently about CR +5 SPARKLY VAMPIRES.

Though, he is actually worse than Aelryinth in some ways. While Aelryinth regularly tried to defend Turtle Fail by nerfing the fuck out of the actually good beatsticks, he didn't assume the enemies were quite this incompetent. Incompetent to be sure, and incredibly stupid, but not to nearly the same extent.

Jaron, you Fael harder than Faelryinth.

Check out the modifiers to spot and listen.  Is a guard distracted because he's supposed to be watching lots of other people or the Rogue has bothered to actually be clever and make a distraction?  That's a +5 to his DC.  Are you sneaking 50 feet away from the guard (perhaps you're scaling a wall, darting past an outpost, whatever), instead of trying run right past him?  That's a +5.  For normal campaigns, a Halfling Rogue with a Dex of 16 and 5 ranks of hide and move silently at level 2, with no other gear factored in (like Masterwork items or Silent Shoes or whatever) has a base +12 Hide and +10 Move Silently.  So if he takes 10 when hiding from the guard, the guard has to beat a 32 to spot the halfling, or a 30 to hear him.  On a second level guard, who's generally supposed to be a Fighter (no ranks).  Yeah, that's hard.  Even without the distance modifier this just isn't happening.

Herp derp, I need to get a DM pity +5 bonus just to sneak past a fuckwit guard and a common dog. Just like a Monk defender. Just like Aelryinth.

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Right here is part of your obvious problem... you're assuming it's a solo encounter.  You're assuming the scout is so far ahead that he can't be with his party within one round.  But if he stays 95' ahead of the party (so he can still communicate with them) and 95' away from enemies (his detection abilities range from 100-120' in general) then the enemies have a -19 to spot checks to see the party, leaving said party rather safe.  And yet, said party is one run action from the scout, or if they bothered to have decent speed (like, and I know you'll hate this, they went with the TO option of getting horses or something) they're likely within charge range of anything that might attack the scout.  If this ambushing monster would have killed the scout in a single round, then it would have ambushed and killed a party member in one round without scouting anyway, so scouting was your only hope. If not, then the scout's just fine (and scouts of all people should have ablative defenses like Counter Charge and Moment of Perfect Mind, because they are mostly likely to need such things).  So this idea of it being all solo is silly.  And where is the Druid getting Mindsight, which you seem to think is critical for detection?

That's because they are out of range. Also, mounts die in one hit from anything at anywhere near these levels. But even if that does work, PCs take 2 rounds to catch up. They find a slaughtered scout, and an amused Ice Devil. Meanwhile competent characters, who stay with the fucking party do not get solo one rounded.

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Why was this Cleric able to do so when the Factotum couldn't?  And if the Factotum knew about the creature ahead (he obviously did, the thing was pinging magic auras and glowing like a light bulb) and knew the Cleric had super auto detection, why didn't he bring the Cleric in to check? 

Easy. He got close. Which your gimp midget would also have to do, due to that visibility thing I mentioned. That of course resulted in the Cleric (or your gimp) being detected in turn. Difference is, solo gimp is fucked, group Cleric says "Hey, there's something there."
Smiting Imbeciles since 1985.

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There is no greater contribution than Hi Welcome.

Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.

IP proofing and avoiding being CAPed OR - how to make characters relevant in the long term.

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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]