Party Makeup

The Crew of the Queen Robyn is a player group operating on The Moonshaes, with plot centered on seafaring intrigue in the service of Queen Alicia Kendrick. The premise of the campaign is that all of the player characters are privateers, and joining the campaign involves being recruited to serve on The Queen Robyn.

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Zelknolf
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Party Makeup

Post by Zelknolf »

Who we currently have saying they'll play, for the reference of anyone trying to roll something new:
Chales -- Ranger
Damien -- Druid
Darius -- Fighter/ Rogue
Kolfinna* -- Wizard
Bahatur -- Cleric
Raven -- Sorcerer
Remmy -- Rogue/ Cleric
Vug -- Barbarian
Zova -- Monk
* shad0wfax's schedule is a bit difficult right now, so Kolla's presence shouldn't be relied on as a weekly thing yet.

So this is a group that isn't very strong at range (magic is their best way to reach out and touch someone, but there's a very finite supply of that), which is reliably a part of naval combat (namely, people tend to try to shoot you when you sail toward them with weapons). If we get an extra character, a bard or ranger focused on archery would probably fill a void in the current group.
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Adanu
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Adanu »

Damien uses a sling. Give him better bullets or a better sling and he can do some damage.

That being said, if this group survives to 8-10, Zyrus is a powerhouse melee or ranged.
First Character: Zyrus Meynolt, the serene Water Genasi berserker. "I am the embodiment of the oceans; serene until you summon the storm." Zyrus: http://tinyurl.com/9emdbnd

Second Character: Damien Collins, the atypical druid. "What? Being a stick in the mud is boring. No pun intended grins"

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t-ice
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by t-ice »

Also, I'm going to change my PC, after a fruitful discussion with Zelknolf about the campaign and her style. :)
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Zelknolf »

Got your new bio, T; first post is updated.


Sounds like we need to step back and talk about being powerful in different circumstances. Or we're going to end up with people dead and not knowing why. Which would suck. So, cards on the table.

If you want to be good in ranged combat, you need someone built for ranged combat. This means rapid shot, manyshot, investing in a bow as a primary/best/most-enchanted weapon and either high enough dex, good enough gear, feat selections, or all of the above to only miss on a primary attack on a roll below 5.

Should be thinking of builds like Berendil, Sywyn, or Talindra; some non-zero quantity of your enemies will be built like this, and this group should expect to expend a lot of their volatile resources (that is, spells, consumables, and hit points) into winning such a fight (even if we swapped Damien for Zyrus), if they fight at range. If they don't make such an investment and also fail to safely close the range, they should expect to take some casualties.
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orangetree
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by orangetree »

I know it's not much, but looking at my sorc halfling char I'm willing to put a level of rogue to increase the groups range power. I think this is my real only possibility after careful examination of my build. Without a severe xp penalty. I might be able to get a feat to improve this splash. (Suggestions welcome). I know sorc do not multiclass well.

Would something like this be useful?
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Adanu
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Adanu »

A sorceress taking rogue makes as much sense as a paladin taking blackguard for ranged power. They both use very different combat styles.
First Character: Zyrus Meynolt, the serene Water Genasi berserker. "I am the embodiment of the oceans; serene until you summon the storm." Zyrus: http://tinyurl.com/9emdbnd

Second Character: Damien Collins, the atypical druid. "What? Being a stick in the mud is boring. No pun intended grins"

Western Heartlands HDM: On break. PM for emergencies
Zelknolf
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Zelknolf »

Sorc/rog is a viable build that's common enough that the SRD explicitly enables it, and you should absolutely do it if it's what your character would do because comparing an arcane trickster to an intentionally-fallen paladin is complete bollocks, but this doesn't help ranged combat. Rogues are generally most effective at close range (specifically 0-10 meters), and generally struggle to get their attack bonus high without circumstantial benefits like flanking; arcane tricksters have this problem a little more severely, on account of their levels of low BAB progression as a wizard or sorcerer.

If you had a sorcerer who wanted to do better at range, the quick and dirty way to accomplish that would be low-level wands, which is a lot of what I meant by extra cost to succeed in the above posts. A shot of CL1 magic missile out of a wand costs 15 gold and reaches 30 meters (that is the same reach on all ranged weapons in NWN2). This is of course more costly than a mundane arrow shot from a +1 flaming bow, but it's probably how this group would survive a ranged fight against highly-skilled archers, whether or not you had levels in rogue.
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Adanu
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Adanu »

WhenI think arcane trickster, I think melee with magic, not ranged. WhenO think ranged powerhouse I think Ranger or fighter with archer build. If she were an elf, I'd say go for it for arcane archer, but she isn't.

If she has a build for archery, trickster might be viable for some versatility.
First Character: Zyrus Meynolt, the serene Water Genasi berserker. "I am the embodiment of the oceans; serene until you summon the storm." Zyrus: http://tinyurl.com/9emdbnd

Second Character: Damien Collins, the atypical druid. "What? Being a stick in the mud is boring. No pun intended grins"

Western Heartlands HDM: On break. PM for emergencies
Zelknolf
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Zelknolf »

Sigh.

Anyone keen on playing an arcane trickster, all of your powers prestige class powers work at up to 10 meters for a reason: that's the max range on your sneak attack. Melee is dangerous if you haven't built to tank, just as firefights are dangerous if you're not built to shoot. It can be done (if you focus your physical stats enough and press for regular fighting gear instead of spellcasting gear, you can gish with an AT), but it's not the default.



And it sounds like Kid made a ranger, so the group is pretty balanced. If we somehow acquire a tenth (!) character, a bard would be insanely good. They tend to get more useful the more friends they have.
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Rumple C »

Bards are great. Vug needs a song written about him. It's not easy being green.
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t-ice
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by t-ice »

At the risk of stretching a dead horse:

My knee-jerk reaction for melee/magic group under attack by archers would be to use the likes of Fog cloud or Obscuring mist. Should be much more cost-effective in thwarting archers (be it a company of low-levels or one highly skilled one) than direct-fire magic. But questions are:

- How prepared is the game (the engine / the DM) to allow using such tactics?
- If we're talking naval combat, we generally have two moving firing platforms. So cast on a ship, if the rules read that the fog is stationary relative to the water and not the ship, the tactic looks decidedly less attractive.
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by Zelknolf »

The game is totally not prepared for obscuring mist-- which is a lot of why it didn't ship with the default NWN2. We could probably manage it (concealment and blindness for everyone in the cloud), but we haven't yet.


And the notion of a "stationary" is always mediated by a frame of reference. After all, if your frame of reference is the center of the galaxy, you're moving 828,000km/h. But this is a message board on computers and thus you're probably in a chair, and every normal person would call you "stationary." -- if I have to interpret cloud-type spells in my campaign, I will manage them as "incapable of locomotion."

So, if you have some moving bowl-shaped thing that you fill with mist, then the mist goes with the bowl; if part of it is in the bowl, then part of the mist moves with the bowl and it leaves a trail of ineffective mist behind it that's now on clearance because Halloween was 11 days ago.

In the specific case of the Queen Robyn (or really any light warship), which has a big chunky forecastle/aftcastle, designed so a couple beefy dudes could stand at the ladders and hold the ground while archers take post near the helm and make life uncomfortable for boarders, would probaby quickly but not immediately leak an obscuring mist over a wide stretch of ocean and not benefit from the full duration of the spell if you cast it on the weather deck. If you cast it on any other deck, we'd expect that the mist would just sit there for the full duration.



// edit-- also, this sounds like using volatile resources. I think you're proving my point.
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by kiyoti »

Sweets had success using obscuring mist on the enemy's ship but cast it the round before boarding to provide cover while scaling the sides of the ship. I would have used it earlier but figured they would just sail right out of the cloud.
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by t-ice »

Technical point: obscuring mist always covers you, and is a lvl1 spell. Fog cloud covers where you want (either you, the enemy, or space in between), and is a lvl2 spell.

And the true power of the cloud is not even in (total) concealment (20% / 50% miss chance), but in "you can't use sight to target an enemy". Which means the archer is left guessing where to bombard, which in semi-enclosed quarters means hitting an enemy around one in every five to ten arrows. (Picking a tile with someone on it, plus total concealment)

So I read between the lines that our DM is willing to consider the "RP" use of mist/fog to reduce the time of bombardment before at hand-to-hand range. In practice meaning e.g. that on-engine running and violence could ensue closer to a ranged group of enemies, or that "ranged combat only" time between two ships before boarding is reduced (assuming the shooting is at crews, not the ships themselves).
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kid
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Re: Party Makeup

Post by kid »

Chales will shoot anyone casting any cloud spells.
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