Sunic I don't get your point. A CR 11 Ice Devil who is ready for the PCs and has set up an ambush can defeat a level 6 Factotum? Uh, duh? Or is the point that a character designed for hiding isn't a character designed for perception? Wouldn't the Whisper Gnome have Lifesight anyways? But this is all pedantic. What's your stance in the argument? The scout's job is information gathering. It's utterly dwarfed by Divination but Quadratic Wizards blah blah. At low levels(1-4, maybe 5-6) it will work often but not perfectly. The gnome won't necessarily be able to spot all ambushes but it will probably be able to say "hey there 6 guards up there" or "there's two trolls in this room," do you not agree? And a smart scout has countermeasures to run away if things get hairy, right? Like a high initiative or good enough defenses to be able to survive one round. Or maybe even some neato immediate actions.
No one cares about your house rules about WBL or banning Factotums or made up Hide bonuses. We're playing 3.5e not Sunic's RPG. That's just as stupid as people saying CoP doesn't work because the deity will get mad at you.
Hi Welcome
Ice Devil is CR 13, not 15 or 11. The Factorum in that example is 10, not 6. Try to follow along.
Even if the thing about Hide bonuses is wrong, the Ice Devil auto spots you at 100 feet. Meanwhile it has 1d20+18 Hide +10 from the snow +10 for distance = 1d20+38, therefore it still has no trouble getting results in the 40s and 50s, therefore I am still right.
Since the scout only has 1d20+13 for Spot, he auto loses. No need to even pick up the dice. Hell, the Ice Devil could be right in front of him, and 1d20+28 vs 1d20+13 still means he fails the vast majority of the time, and needs an auto win button just to have a chance. Assuming the enemy let him that close of course.
As it happens, he does have an auto win button, which I have already addressed. The following sequence of events takes place, assuming that the Ice Devil did not detect him normally:
Ice Devil and CAP Victim get to within 100 feet of each other.
CAP Victim learns there is something alive in that snowbank. He has no idea what it is. He has no idea if it's hostile. It could be some guy who got buried, or snowed in, or some burrowing animal, or any number of things that are not a hidden ambusher.
Ice Devil learns there is an Undead over there, of Int x, where x is likely an above average number due to that whole Intelligence based class thing.
Advantage: Team Monster.
Now, with even a cursory familiarity with the party the Ice Devil will know such things as "Oh yeah, one of them is a rather smart undead that likes sneaking around." He then notices that there is, indeed a highly intelligent undead over there, even if he cannot see it with his eyes, and being as he has Int 22 and Wis 22, and is therefore both smarter and wiser than the smartest and wisest people on Earth it is beyond trivial for him to determine that this is likely the same person. Since it obviously has such familiarity, to go hide in a snowbank along the party's path this is well within the bounds of reason to assume.
The CAP Victim suspects something is wrong, but has no proof. The Ice Devil knows exactly what's going down, and can fuck with the CAP Victim in any number of ways. Conjuring up some Bone Devils for lockdown is perhaps the most effective that does not expose it. Bursting out and Empowered (yay planar traits) Cone of Cold the fool is even better, but does expose it.
Likely the CAP Victim is only sure something is wrong when he sees more lights appear around him (if he wins Init) or gets Dimensional Anchored and Wall of Iced (if he does not) by formerly invisible foes. Since Ice Devils only have +5, and Bone Devils only +9, they have a decent chance to go first, but not a good one.
And I was corrected two posts later. However, you're still assuming a 17 point swing when all you get is a 10 point from improved cover. Missing that 7 is enough to drop you below 40 except on a very high roll.
Already addressed.
Who said anything about this being the first thing in the campaign? Now you're making up shit to try and hold onto your pre-concieved notion that Mundane=Lose. Oh, and now we're down to level 7? At least when the party was level 10, there's a shot at beating an Ice Devil. Yeah, you're really making yourself look good...
Hi Welcome
1: These are actual examples from an actual game, as I stated before. In that instance, it is indeed the first fight of the campaign, so you do in fact have the same XP total that you started with.
2: Know how I said there were two different examples, from two different games, and the level 6 or 7 thing was the first and the Ice Devil thing was clearly stated to be the second, and level 10? Try to follow along. It's not hard at all.
3: The details are already defined, being as these are things that already happened, past tense. Again, Hi Welcome
No. You are either all advancing together, and thus wasting no time, or you wait a few hours becuase it's idiotic to send one person ahead with everyone else hiding in an item in broad daylight on a snowfield, especially when you suspect there's someone or something keeping a lookout. What's this? Non-casters can play things smart? Blasphemy!
Except that you're waiting until night, so you are wasting time. Respect the time limit. That is the most important thing. Oh and I really like how you're fapping off to the whole "rest of the party hides in an extradimensional space, with limited air" thing. I expect that kind of borderline TO tripe from Jaron, but I have higher standards for you. You disappoint me.
Factotums? No, but virtually all other classes I would consider scouting with, yes.
Ok, so 1 or 38 HP left after one blast, and Dimensional Anchor, so the only viable means of escape is blocked. Yeah, you're fucked. Though, speaking of house rules as mentioned before HP are rounded up. Which means by RAW you would have 70.5 HP, and not 75 HP, therefore it is quite literally a save or die, as undead are instantly destroyed at 0 HP.
Oh, so you're bringing a niche case that is set up specifically to be obscenely difficult to sneak past as the common encounter? A monster that's a CR6 above the party level as a gaurd? I wouldn't want to play in that game, not since I'm being told from the very first encounter that we're all fucked.
3 higher. And not a common guard. It is however in the way. Also, in the second game this is not the first encounter, though you still have not gained any levels, so as stated the hypothetical scout in this instance would be level 10 as well.
Note, though:Ice Devils don't have accesss to True Seeing. Not even Pit Fiends do.
Ok, but still has Mindsight.
Also, being a Scout means maxing perception skills. Interestingly, you don't need that high of an Intelligence score because classes suited for scouting have plety of skill points. The exception is a Factotum, but all the others can afford a lower INT to have a higher Wisdom. A Factotum can afford a lower Dex and have a higher Wisdom. I really don't see your point.
Uh huh. And I assumed 13 ranks. The problem is adding stuff to that 13, since you don't have all that much Wis. Even if it is a few points higher, it's still well short of 1d20+38. And besides, it has an auto win ability, so why does it care?
By the way, Outsiders are not very good at ambushing. Skills are a factor of HD, and Outsiders only have about 1 HD/CR. Other creature types would be far superior at it. Unless you are claiming that an end modifier of +18 is good vs a level 10 party?