Author Topic: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).  (Read 2070 times)

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juton

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Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« on: October 06, 2009, 11:52:32 PM »

Hello Min-Max it! I'm glad to report for the first time in about 4+ years gaming I've actually finished a campaign path, I'd like to think I've learned a bit about character optimization, I want to share that with you. We played the Legacy of Fire campaign path from level 1 to level 14, we defeated the end boss a little early.

The lower levels

The original party was made up of a Cleric of magic, a Swordsage, and a Transmuter. We dealt with most of the first book fairly easily. However nearer the end we started running into real problems. At level 3 the Wizard had multiclassed so poorly she had one Wizard level, one level of level adjustment and a Rogue level. When you have a small party and one player gimps themselves so utterly it's really an unfair imposition to the other player. Needless to say we had a pseudo TPK, it was against a Dire Vulture, the DM only needed two lucky hits to down the party. The DM was lenient and let the Wizard play trick the vulture into a situation where he could kill it. We also had another proper TPK around level 3 against a low level demon. I more than instead the rest of the party change or upgrade their characters.

Lessons Learned:
You need to talk to your friends about party compisition, the sooner the better. Ideally you should plan your builds together, Dungeon crawling is a team sport after all.

Stabbing people in the face works really well, at least at the lower levels. If you stab hard enough. So at low levels you should have at least half the party be good at it. That may mean having Druids or Clerics about, or if someone wants to go into Eldritch Knight they take that fighter level first.

Because facial stabulation works so well early on, people tend to think fighters are balanced in general. The Initiator classes are better than a fighter from level one, so people think they are unbalanced. If this happens in your group ask if you can start as a fighter, then multiclass into an initiator around level 5, they should see them as more balanced.

juton

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2009, 11:53:08 PM »
Mid levels

The new party:
Cleric/Ordained Champion (of magic) - Focused on long term buffs to fight in melee. Spell domain, Divine Magician ACF, War domain through Ordained Champion.

Swordsage - The player had to be talked into taking the Shadow Blade feat, other than that a pretty standard Swordsage.

Sorcerer - Focused initially on touch spells. As we progressed focused more on Battlefield control, buffs and debuffs.

Fighter/Rogue - Had two very non standard abilities from a 3rd party book that made him very powerful (for mook-slaying). Every opponent who missed him in melee provoked AoO from him, which really upped his damage output. He also had a feat a feat that made all his attacks provoke AoOs, so his enemy's attack could then provoke. Also Dex-mod times per day he could avoid getting hit by making a DC 20 reflex check.

From levels 4-10 we really didn't run into much trouble. I should mention our group doesn't like a 15 minute day, so we try to clear out as much of a dungeon as possible at once, but we're not dumb about it. Battles during this level fell into 3 categories, mooks, tough mooks and bosses. A properly constructed party shouldn't have any trouble with mooks, a CoDzilla should be able to breeze past with just a few buff spells cast in the morning. The Fighters should get a chance to shine, Casters only need to cast if they feel bored. Tough mooks, encounters that are greater or equal to your CR may call for some battlefield control early on and an extra charge from the lesser vigour wand latter. I actually found these levels pretty boring.  Melee characters aren't really necessary, but the ones in our party didn't feel like a hinderance and they pulled their weight in combat.

Some of why I found these levels boring runs counter to some CO logic. The Fighter and the Cleric both used shields, but where built in such a way as to do adequate damage without power attack, this was done with third party material. Because of this and defensive buffs and items in place both of their ACs where in the mid 30s by level 10. AC does matter, if you have enough of it. The Cleric had adamantine fullplate, a greater ironward crystal and could give himself armour specialization for DR 10/- in total. DR is usually not thought to be worth the trouble, but the Cleric's DR reduced the damage he took by between a half and a third. DR also seems to be worth it, if you have enough of it and it's not DR/Magic. The Cleric also began buffing with Conviction and Greater resistance, which gave him the best saves in the group. Even the boss characters had a tough time hurting the party.

Lessons learned:
AC can matter
DR can matter

juton

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2009, 11:53:37 PM »
High levels
Things picked up from around level 11 to 14. Enemies started getting more interesting, they started to fly, or turn invisible or incorporeal. Hitpoints started to shoot up at this level, I don't know if it was the modules or the DM giving his bad guys more longevity.

Once you get past level 10 then the average fighter needs casters to function at all, casters are alternatively even more powerful with their ability to screw over the opposition with just one spell. That said some enemies just have really high saves, beatsticks can still have a place in the party if they can stab faces even harder than before. Tome of Battle classes are a nice middle ground, still capable of high HP damage but being much more adaptable.

The final module saw my first attempt at Scry & Die. I was actually pleasantly surprised that they made the final boss's lair protected by mage's private sanctum. His lair was actually a dungeon we cleared between level 4-6. The designers where not so clever as to stop Contact other Plane from giving us his location to within three rooms. Since we didn't have the exact location, we made the Swordsage silent and invisible. The BBeG actually had a perception check high enough to hear
a silenced person sneaking, which was a funny surprise.

Lessons learned:

Scry and die. It works, but it's easy to guard against, I guess.

Contact other plane. This is a dangerous spell. Not just for your enemies, it's quite possible to loss Int/Cha during the middle levels so take every precaution you can. Also be careful of lying responses.

Get a Really high perception check. I'm not sure how to get it high enough to deal with invisibility, but it would be nice to have.

Craft Contingent spell. Really expensive when you first get it. To put a Revivify and a Heal on yourself it costs about 6K of a WBL 66K. The security is nice but I've got to wonder if the money couldn't be better spent.

Cleric spell list. Really boring at lower levels. While a Wizard is shooting lasers out his eyes your giving yourself +3 on all saves. Debatable which is better, one definitely has the better visuals though. It gets better when you start getting 3rd-4th level spells. I mention it now because no one ever seems to bring it up.

Figthers with potions. I've never seen a fighter played intelligently with respect to magic items. Think about it, your charging shock trooper friend could be starting the next encounter invisible if he is willing to use a potion. Conversely every fighter should have at least a potion of see invisibility on them, but they never seem to. Which leads me to:

Buff your beatstick. Because he won't do it himself.

You only have to out-optimize the DM/adventure. Our DM prefered fighters, so most of the encounters with spellcasters we got where unedited. Which meant they where a cake walk. So while I could have take a GOD/Incantrix build, even a Warblade or possibly a Barbarian could have done just as well.

Questions left unaswered.

Pathfinder CMB system : Weal or Woe? It's a lot easier to use, so at points where a direct approach wasn't working we'd try sunders, disarms or trips where before we just would have attacked again. I haven't seen any builds yet based on exploiting it in play.

Pathfinder Spell nerfage. I'm paranoid, I really wish that contact other plane had been toned down because I can't defend against it. Pathfinder did nerf a bunch of  previously 'I win' spells like Solid Fog and Glitterdust. It's annoying when your side can outcast the other's but it throws a bone to Fighters everywhere. Lets be honest, not everyplay is cut out to play a caster.

Is it better to buff the beatstick or do it yourself? Say you have a 5th level slot, what's the best way to use it? You could debuff/BC and win a fight, but a good fighter buff could win a few fights if go through the dungeon swat style.

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2009, 05:18:51 PM »
You didn't take ten when casting Contact Otger Plane?
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Akalsaris

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2009, 05:25:13 PM »
Thanks for the info and feedback!  I just started Legacy of Fire in a PBP game, so we'll be done with it sometime this decade =P

juton

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2009, 06:07:59 PM »
One thing I will spoil is:

[spoiler]
Like the title of the adventure path suggests, you will be fighting LOTS of things with the [Fire] descriptor and weakness to cold. I would guess in the last 3 adventures ~50% of creatures where weak to cold. Conversely if you have any ability that does fire damage get rid of it.
[/spoiler]

Akalsaris

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2009, 02:05:33 AM »
Heh, no worries on that end - I'm going barbarian/fighter.

Hmn Barbarian 4/Ftr 2/Barbarian +4

Feats:
1st hmn: Power Attack
1st char: Extra Rage
2nd barbarian ability: Bite
3rd char: Multiattack
4th barbarian ability: Knockback
5th ftr: Bull Rush
5th char: Combat Reflexes
6th ftr: Improved Bull Rush
7th char: Lunge
8th barbarian: Surprise Attack
9th char: Step Up

Plan: 
1st: Nothing special!
2nd: Now can bite on a full attack, whee good times!
3rd: The bite is now more effective!
4th: Now every time he uses the bite, can knock an opponent back a bit.  Start using a reach weapon and potions of enlarge person to fuel AOO's
5th: Now the bull rush is a bit better and he can do a normal bull rush as well, and he can use AOO's a few more times/round
6th: Each attack, use the melee weapon to hit, then use the bite attack as a knockback attempt.  The knockback attempt will provoke AOO's from allies!
7th: Now can hit from a longer range at -2 to hit if I want to keep opponents away.
8th: Now I can get a free AOO once per fight just from somebody coming close or 5-foot stepping :D
9th: Just to build on the control a bit!

juton

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Re: Legacy of Fire After-Action report (spoiler free).
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2009, 04:33:21 PM »
That should work well, I'm a fan of Lunge + Combat reflexes. Lots of things in this adventure have lots of iterative attacks. If you can end your turn 10`+ out of their reach you significantly cut down the damage you'll take. Knockback lets you do that.