Re: Smiting Cat owns your souls, bitches.


Ug, huge posts, half the newsgroup. Sorry all.

smitingcat wrote:
tussock wrote:
/I/ said fights against the expected CRs in the expected numbers
made the grunts look better in comparison to the casters, and using
more fights with larger numbers of relatively low CRs is best for that.
I'm glad you proved your strawman wrong, but it's not helping you
overcome that learning difficulty.

Preserving Bizarro Fail for posterity. Also, you're still horrifically
wrong. More below.

You used three CR 13-14 opponents (EL 16-17) against a five man L17
party. That's /supposed/ to be a fight of no great threat that uses a few
resources, and it was. Four or five of that CR is more like a standard
encounter, and /one/ encounter isn't the point anyway.


I don't think you understand what "quoting" means.

I retyped the entire discussion. Including listing quotes as references
instead of retyping everything.

I really can't work out what you mean when you represent a previous
conversation with "Me: *quoting player 1* [...]". If you said it, you're
not quoting player 1. If player 1 said it, why "Me:"?.


Is that /Mental Pinnacle/ again? Because if it is, that might tell
you something.

Any Will based save or die/lose would have worked just as well. They had
absolutely horrible will saves, single digits in fact. [...]

So you made a soft encounter with a flaw that the players exploited.
Regular monsters tend to have pretty good saves, especially will saves
(almost all have high HD, or good Will, or SR).

Resource cost:
<snip: read, thankyou>
Your note that perfectly optimal play would use less resources is
meaningless, it never happens.

If for some reason there were more encounters just like that, they
could sit there and fight them again, and again, and again and by the
time the party was actually low on resources they'd have enough XP in
the bank to gain multiple levels.

You used some high level healing, that's not going to last long. Even
if it does, two CR 13's and a CR 14 is 670 XP each for five at 17th
level, you'd have to take out 26 on end to gain one level, and another 38
to gain the next. The game /expects/ you to handle 8 of those in a day,
and you think you'd do 64?

[...] the party would be happy to keep fighting them.

Happy players are always good. 8]


Average party level accounts for greater than average numbers, as
evidenced by the fact none of the party is higher than 17, thus a 17.8
party would be impossible otherwise.

Where /are/ you getting that number from? Anyway, if your characters
are mostly level 17, use CR 10-17, in more numbers.

Also, anything below 14 is just free XP and loot to farm.

You still haven't tried it.

Note use of snark.

We show irony here with smileys.


<snip: suggestions>
Of course, you need it all explained.

Nightwings have absolutely no relevant attack forms. Very low to hit so
they can't beatstick, and very low spell DCs so they can't cast either.

Telepathy, Invisibility, and Haste for surprise and mobility, 50% on
Greater Dispel (as a resource cost, 3/day), Deeper Darkness to help stay
at range and keep the area Dispel game going with coordinated team
casting (all geniuses), and can open with a Finger of Death each when
they've got your resistances worn down.
They should be good resource eaters on a heavily buffed party.

Hell, they really can't do anything except be Sundertards, which is
literally a fate worse than death. I'm all for hard encounters. However,
douchebaggery is something I flat out refuse to touch.

The item drain's reversable, you just need the counter. Their normal
attacks should work fine once they've got your defences down. SR 27, a
tough DR 15, and undead immunities will keep them safe in the meantime.

Dread Wraiths are amusingly better, [...]

Really? They're just a con drainer, no threat without an accompanying
damage output, unless a pack gets a run of crits and a cheap kill thereby.

Iron Golems are utterly laughable,

A bit, once everyone's got adamant, but having one of them instructed
to smash any weapons in hand can play on that. They just need a bit of
fire buffing (traditionally by environment, trap, or allied monster or
caster) and obviously a fairly constricted space.

Pyro hydras are also utterly laughable,

He's just there to buff the golems. They've got instructions to
ignore him, he's learnt that they produce carrion for him, or something.

Cornugons are the only decent enemies you've mentioned so far. However,
the others can do absolutely nothing relevant, so they might as well not
even be there.

The Gelugons have a crowd control effect, the Hamatula are classic
anoyance monsters with an improved grab, automatic damage when attacked,
and enough defence to make a good flanker for the others (or just
costantly use Scorching Ray if not).

See free XP and loot.

Hamatula are about 80XP per character, if they do a tiny fraction of
what the others do or assist them in any way they're worth it.

Beholders are a total joke enemy.

Genius creatures can handle coordinated teamwork, positioning, and
covering a chokepoint so as not to nerf their own abilities. At your
level the /worst/ the six of them could do is throw three save or die
effects each, so one or two characters are out each round, at will.



What did you actually try, out of interest? One fight? Against
what?

Those refer to specific minions of the necromancer I used. The wand
wielder was an Artificer 13, and his thing was 8 save or loses a round
(without the save part) so that he was [...]

using melee type scuffs on a caster heavy squad who don't much care.
Fine, shit happens.

The chain guy was a Duskblade 14. His thing was Arcane Strike +
Channeling + some other stuff to do some decent beatsticking, teleport
people around (including out of Forcecages) and so forth.

Sounds good, did he really need the defence the articifer provided
though?

The archer was a power dipped build, [...]

Cool, should've supported the Duskblade well, though there could have
been two of them (have them use different elements to make a show of it).

In other words, barring some relatively high end optimization to make
them punch above their weight, mooks are irrelevant.

You can tweak the common monsters with the new feats and spells
pretty easy; what's good for the PCs is good for the monsters and all.


If you meant this most recent battle, Chimeras. [...]

NB: /still/ no numbers. /Not/ doing as suggested.

Had I instead played them intelligently, [...].

Why not act to optimise the build's abilities? I don't get what that
has to do with anything I or anyone else has said here.


<snip>
So what the hell are you talking about?

The bit where you insist someone here told you to waste actions. WTF?

--
tussock

U'm iuel p jyx yn chycyipwlaf kyd blvlr ebyg ghpw kyd'rl sdbbp slw.
.

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