Author Topic: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss  (Read 2227 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Andy

  • Monkey bussiness
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • Email
A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« on: April 17, 2009, 02:45:24 PM »
Okay, so, first post. Hi Guys!

Me (The Player) and my friend (The DM), were bored one day, and it was declared that I should build a character of level 23 based upon an old villain from one of aforementioned DM's long-running campaigns, who was in turn, based upon a character I played in an adhoc oneshot. Throughout the campaign I added to the character keeping him as a relatively worthy adversary to the party, but due to time constraints he never got to meet his end.

There are a few house-rule thingies going on. Firstly, due to previous fluff I get an Adult White Dragon friend/steed, reared by the character and fully loyal to him (non-linear time trait planes FTW). Which is cool frankly. Also, various forms of leadership stack for cohorts. So, Leadership, Undead Leadership and the Bonus cohort from pale master give me a 21st level Living cohort, and two 21st level undead cohorts, I'm ignoring followers mainly, though I think undead followers will have to be Karrnathi Skeletons and Zombies if they ever happen to matter in the proceedings.

Basically any book is avaliable, third party is discouraged, as is Dragon Magazine. Also, the Dm has allowed me to make strong use of re-training (PHBII), and I'll be making heavy use of it in some of the builds.

Simon the Sorcerer: A Human sorcerer, discovered a love for controlling and commanding the legions of the undead at an early level (Level 1 in the oneshot), since then he has grown to be one of the most powerful necromancers in the campaign setting. He has decided to take a journey to the Abyss to see if he can find himself some more power.

Build:
Human Paragon 1/Sorcerer 2/Human Paragon 2+3/Pale Master 10/Fate Spinner 5/Mind Bender 1/Sand Shaper 2 Then retraining one of the sorcerer levels for Sand Shaper 3.

Maybe drop Mind Bender for Sand Shaper 4, I'm not sure I kind've like the idea of having 100ft Telepathy.

Feats:
1 + Human: Able learner, Practised Spellcaster
3 Skill Focus (Know(Religion))
4 (Human paragon bonus) Eschew Materials
6 Leadership
9 Undead Leadership
12 Corpse Crafter
15 Touchstone (City of the Dead)
18 Open Feat
21 Open Feat

The human paragon and Able learner make it easy for me to make the skill requirements, the two flavours of leadership and the pale master give me the rest of my party. The Sand Shaper is there for the added spells known, and for fluff reasons, Mind Bender is there for the telepathy, and just because, but it leads me to consider the Mind-Sight feat from LoM, but otherwise I'm not sure what to fill the remaining feat slots with, any guidance would be helpful. He's a bit of a mix up of stuff frankly, but he should be quite good at what he does, which is making stuff (un)dead.

Simon will have a few grafts including the devil wings from the Fiend Folio, and the skeletal arm from the Pale Master class.

-----

I'm at a complete loss for what feats to give to the white dragon It does however need to be large enough to act as a Steed for Simon, so at most I'd be able to lose 3 HD and give it three Class levels.

Currently requires 7 interesting and useful Feats.

-----

The Living cohort is quite a simple build. Fluffwise he is a fallen paladin of the same god that one of the Main characters from the long-term campaign, he also adds some physical power to the party. He doesn't use any retraining, and I'm considering arming him with either a lance, or some form of polearm.

Human: Paladin 5/Bone Knight 10/Black Guard 6

Feats:
1+ Human  Power attack + Open Feat
3 Cleave
6 Improved Sunder
9 Necromantic Presence
12 Necromantic Might
15 Open Feat
18 Open Feat
21 Open Feat

-----

Undead Cohort 1: Caliban
Not sure which race he should come from. Something deserty I think.

This guy was found in the desert when Simon was visiting that area, which was about three months of game time.

Unknown Race:Cleric 5/Ur-priest 3/Walker in the Waste 10/Evolved Undead template/Ur-priest 2, then retrain the 5 cleric levels to Ur-priest, giving Ur-Priest 10 in total.

Feats:
1 Open Feat
3 Spell Focus Evil
6 Necromantic Presence
9 Necromantic Might
12 Practised Spellcaster
15 Open Feat
18 Open Feat
21 Open Feat

To get the Iron will required for Ur-Priest he'll have spent a few weeks trapped in an Otuyurgh Hole (or however it is spelt) as I dislike wasting feats on Iron Will etc, Especially when there is such a simple method of getting it otherwise. Also, the Dry Lich template, being a class feature is getting its LA ignored, which is cool IMHO, though it wouldn't be too crippling if it wasn't ignored He just wouldn't get some of the more powerful Ur-Priest class features.

-----

Undead Cohort 2: Liana
Elf (Possibly Snow Elf (frostburn))

Another Ur-Priest with retraining. Hopefully I'd like her to have control of a small retinue of undead, possibly Vampire spawn, and I'm considering swapping the Evolved Undead template for Master Vampire 3 to allow a more powerful Spawn to accompany her.

Cleric 1/Vampire (8)/Evolved Undead (1)/Master Vampire 2/Cleric 3/Ur-Priest 6. Then retrain all 4 cleric levels to give Ur-Priest 10.

Feats:
1 Practiced Spellcaster
3 Spell Focus (Evil)
6 Open Feat
9 Open Feat
12 Open Feat

Again with the Otuyurgh Hole for Iron Will. She is obviously the weakest in the party, and she hails from the Frozen wastes that the campaign visited briefly, including a drop in visit from simon and his dragon.

All undead will Have been raised in an area of desecration, and will probably benefit from Simon's corpsecrafter feat as well.

Any suggestions for adjustments to the builds, selection of feats and Race for the first Undead cohort would be of use.


Thank you gameologists for your assistance, and for the wonderful collection of resources that have been ammased on the site.

awaken DM golem

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 3294
  • PAO'd my Avatar
Re: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2009, 05:41:58 PM »
Some minor points:

(1) ... You seem to need not much help at all on your builds.
(2) ... Epic Spellcasting is where it's at in epic, period.
(3) ... with all those cohorts (etc) running around, it'll be bookwork crazy

So suggestions ...
maybe do a gestalt build on your main character, with Ur-priest on it.
Big White Dragon + iirc Dragons of Eberron, will let in more casting with Cleric Domains.
If you don't have it, just let 2 domains be added to any spell casting the Dragon has.
Easy enough and not quite as good as DoE.
Instead of really complicated undead builds, just go Vampire/Ghost/Lich + one class/prc.
That'd be 3 character you'd have running around.

At these levels, you should trounce any normal patrols,
you should slowly trounce any boosted patrols,
a special strike force designed to feel you out, might do some damage to you,
and only a Demon Lord type encounter would really challenge you.
Fun all the way though.

Rebel7284

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1585
Re: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2009, 04:17:44 AM »
Fatespinner 5 is bad, perhaps stop at Fatespinner 4?
Negative level on a chicken would make it a wight the next day.  Chicken the other wight meat. -borg286

Brainpiercing

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1475
  • Thread Killer
    • Email
Re: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2009, 04:56:25 AM »
How many of the feat choices are fluff choices? You see, the builds seem a bit unfocused to me.

For the main character:
Some metamagic + cost reducers is usually mandatory in Epic, likewise Epic Spellcasting. Necromancers is where Epic Spellcasting is at, since you can do have lots of contributed spellslots as mitigating factors. That way, 0 DC and cost spells are quite possible, barring any house rules (and it MAKES sense to house rule this!)

The melee guy: Decide on mounted charger vs. unmounted charger. Needs FEATS for that. Improved Bullrush and Shock trooper for unmounted, some mounted combat feats for mounted. Mounted combat rules are iffy and you can't do a lot of things you can do unmounted, but it's still nice, what with the 2x damage on a lance charge.

The Dragon: Give him a Mouthpick weapon from LoM and some charging feats, and Multiattack. Flyby attack is a given, too. The damage output should be nice, and hey, it's a dragon.

Andy

  • Monkey bussiness
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • Email
Re: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2009, 10:20:07 AM »
Thanks for the assistance guys. I've reworked afew of the characters.

The bone knight lost the blackguard levels for fighter levels, and focussed on mounted combat, effectively becoming the head of a cavalry column (he also has that epic feat that raises his ability to control udnead from 4x level to 10x level allowing for quite a good cavalry unit).

With the sorcerer, I'm still considering sandshaper 1 just for the added spells known, but he's definitely getting epic spellcasting, I completely forgot about that.

The walker in the wastes is getting an entourage of sand golems as well.

With the way the party is shaping up, I might just have to convince the DM to run a unit-based game (like the one in the miniatures handbook). Otherwise I'll probably just have to run the groups seperately, making a 4 pronged attack on where-ever is my current target, with only the four named characters above meeting for the final fight.

DavidWL

  • Bi-Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 505
    • Email
Re: A Rainy Day Parade Through The Infinite Layers of The Abyss
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2009, 05:47:38 AM »
Random Thoughts:

- You need epic leadership to have a cohort over 17th level (who knows how it works for undead leadership, dragon cohort, cohort from pale master ...)

- For your main character - I agree that it would be better to have a tighter focus.  For example, I don't think the levels in sand shaper are worth it.  While you get some extra spells, in epic, the extra spel selection isn't worth as much as having the _right_ spells.  For example, it would be nice to have access to Miracle.  (Wyrm Weaver, Recaster, etc.) and the extra feat

- I *feel* like your main build could be more focused, but I don't know how.  Fate Spinner, Mind Bender, Sand Shaper, Human Paragon.  All of these are fillers. 

I almost suspect you want something like this:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=625656

For your cohort:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=9813778#post9813778

For the walker in the waste - I like what you have, but also look at this, to get some extra ideas:
http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-693624

Best,
David
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
DavidWL's Random Build Archive