Strength Kensai magus with AC 22, 121 hit points with no Shocking Grasp or Frostbite tricks. He will use shocking grasp as a damaging spell but it is not optimized (straight 5d6 only). With Samsaran cheese he has dimension door as a third level spell and with the dimensional line of feats will try to do the Nightcrawler bouncing teleport attack thing on them.
What I need to know is if you think the party will have a chance against him or not. This is the largest group I have GM'd for and I'm a little out of my element. I am aiming for a challenging fight without killing anyone (that doesn't do something stupid anyway).
If the players know he is coming it should be a walk in the park a 12th level magus saves +8 fort +4 reflex + 8 will assuming not to optimized saves will each be about +10 divine and arcade caster's with various will targeting witch sleep cleric hold etc will allow melee coup De grace as there will be no telephone. If he is able to ambush and pick off one at a time the party will be devastated, hope they roll god initiative.
|
That sounds like a really unoptimized build. Does he have any ways to increase that AC like, say, Shield? Or Mirror Image to help? If he does, he'll murder the PCs (barring weak saves), they can't do much about a 26 AC at 5th, though I suppose they might have enough attacks to get through Mirror Image.
If he doesn't...why in the world did you make him 12th level?
What are his saves, attack, and damage like? Those are at least as relevant as AC and HP.
Single foes are really tricky to balance. Technically, as a party of 9 their APL is 7th, and that makes a default 12th level magus a reasonable threat at CR 11...but single enemies that much higher either tend to have unbeatable stats or go down in a round due to action economy, with no in between.
You'd likely be better served by two 10th level characters supporting each other, or four 8th level ones, or even eight 6th level ones. Or a mix (one 10th level character based on this guy, plus his four 6th level minions).
Saves are Fort 13, Ref 9, Will 11. With haste and arcane pool going and spell strike he'll have 4 attacks at 16/16/16/11 for 1d8+7 damage or 1d8+10 on later rounds with spell strike. The spell strike attack will be have another 5d6 damage from shocking grasp. The attack bonuses above aren't including any negatives he might take in order to improve a concentration check.
The battle will likely take place on a deserted night time city street or possibly a roof top (depending on what the players do). Assuming the battle is in the street he will use the dimension dervish feet to attack 4 separate PCs and use the remaining movement to teleport either to a roof top or inside a building. He can do this 3 times before running out of dimension door spells. During one of his roof top excursions he will use Vomit Twin (and thus be able to jump back up there if he gets into trouble).
The party and the magus will start aware of each other (will probably talk first) before the fight begins. He has the shield spell but will probably only use it if they start magic missile-ing him while he is on a roof top. The AC above does not include haste which will bump it up to 23, 27 with shield. There are two fighters in the party and I know one of them can hit the 27 on a nine without buffs.
They don't have to kill him to defeat him, if they can get him down to half hit points or more he will teleport away.
The party consists of two fighters, an alchemist, an oracle, two rogues, a witch, a wizard and a bard. Armor class is all over the place (from 10 all the way up to 21) but at least three of them have an AC of 17. Three of them have hit points in the mid 30's the rest are in the mid to high 40's.
One more thing, he will be using a +1 Keen Katana....crit range of 15 or higher. If he gets that off on any of them with the spell strike it is unlikely they will survive (32 damage minimum). Just kind of realized that. Might change the weapon due to that.
It is my opinion that a single enemy encounter is not a good idea with a group or 5 or more players. And nine is a lot of players - they'll action economy him to death!
My suggestion - Optimize this guy a bit more, hold off until your PCs hit level 7, and then throw the two (twin) brothers at them. Alternatively, you could wait until 8th level and send out 3 of these guys, or 2 of them plus 4 8th level minions.
Just my 2 cp.
Single boss sux , nine PC's 2 bosses and eight minions sux worse, each round would take half an hour!
Strength Kensai magus with AC 22, 121 hit points with no Shocking Grasp or Frostbite tricks. He will use shocking grasp as a damaging spell but it is not optimized (straight 5d6 only). With Samsaran cheese he has dimension door as a third level spell and with the dimensional line of feats will try to do the Nightcrawler bouncing teleport attack thing on them.
What I need to know is if you think the party will have a chance against him or not. This is the largest group I have GM'd for and I'm a little out of my element. I am aiming for a challenging fight without killing anyone (that doesn't do something stupid anyway).
9 players against one enemy is a bad idea. It is better to use a larger number of lower CR creatures.
What I do is split the party in two. Make an encounter for each half, and then combine them back into one encounter, if I have 7 or more players.
Well that is how I used to do it, and it normally worked out.
I would use a CR 8 and a CR 9 encounter but split the XP up to have a least 5 bad guys.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
You basically need to intentionally, blatantly, anti-optimize this NPC just to make it viable.
I honestly am not sure if there's a WORSE choice of class for such a level disparity. A Magus's whole schtick is super high single target, single hit damage (or super nasty single target debuffs, like with Frigid Touch's staggered for a whole minute). A Magus with more than double the party's level *will* kill someone, if not multiple people, before falling. And it will happen suddenly, to people who until that moment were at full health and had no cause to be concerned. And it *will* look like you targeted them for insta-jibbing. A huge party will overwhelm the magus after a few rounds and defeat him, but there will be a few unfortunates as casualties, largely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It will reek of unfairness, and the players will be justified in thinking such.
Seriously, even a super high level wizard would be more "fair," because at least then he's killing the entire party instead of just a few people in it chosen by you the DM.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
First round:
"Sorry Jake and Chris, Magus targets you, you die. Roll new characters."
Second round:
Players swarm Magus, Magus dies. Victory?
First round:
"Sorry Jake and Chris, Magus targets you, you die. Roll new characters."
Second round:
Players swarm Magus, Magus dies. Victory?
Heh, that's a pretty good TL;DR version of my post. :D
Unless this magus is utterly tactically inept, or the PCs are incredibly stupidly lucky, he will wipe the floor with them. He can just fly out of melee range and pelt them with Fireballs.
Well, the witch could get in a lucky Slumber or one of the other casters some other lucky save or lose and end the fight early. From what the OP's said, it doesn't sound like the Magus has much of an edge in Init, any stereotypical "first strike" caster built with save-or-lose stuff and high init has some chance of turning it into a joke, as with any solo boss fight.
Well, the witch could get in a lucky Slumber or one of the other casters some other lucky save or lose and end the fight early.
Which would also be a sucky ending.
Dealing with more than 4 players standard challenge rating just doesn't work. Adding more monsters should work (if there was 2 =cr guys should be as difficult as 1 =cr guy would have been for a 4 player team). But adjusting their cr just doesn't work as well.
There are a few things you need to consider when making an encounter:
1)Attack vs Armor.
If a player focuses on something (such as armor) he should be good at it. For this reason a baseline for AC needs to be set and you need to help players find a way to reach it. For example set it that the target armor for 50% hit is level +14. This means at level 1 standard armor is 15, at 5 it's 19. For each point higher he will avoid a hit 5% more often and each point lower he will get hit 5% more. High AC characters will not get hit as often and they shouldn't.
Match this with attack. At level 5 you want a 50% chance to hit 19 armor so normal attack is +10. That doesn't mean that you need all your guys to be +10. Your boss fight should hit 15-20% more often and random goons should hit ~10% less often. So, your boss should have around +14 attack, while your goons only have +8.
2)Damage vs health:
A group of 9 guys has over double the health of a group of 4 guys the same level, but you can not simply make the bad guys hit twice as hard because the single characters still have the same health. I suggest using some sort of splash damage instead of increasing the same of a single hit. Instead of hitting one guy for 32 hit 4 guys for 8 damage or hit one guy for 16 and 2 guys for 8.
For your magus example I would make the 5d6 damage spread out (fireball strike at 3d6 reflex half?) and take each of his 4 swings against different opponents. While this doesn't make strategic sense it will make game play more fun and players wont feel instagibbed or picked on.
3)Action economy:
With 4 players action econ already sucks vs 1 bad guy. Each round the bad guy gets 1 turn while the players get 4. This means you need to do more on your turn. Add in another 5 players/turns and you are in real trouble. Agile template has helped with this letting the boss take an extra turn. I suggest giving him 3 turns each round in your case (maybe 4) to balance things out.
It may feel like you are hogging the spotlight when you do this, but that's not entirely the case. Each time you attack/damage a player, they are defending/reducing the damage and thus they get extra spotlight time as well (another reason to spread attacks around).
4)Boss health vs damage
Players are going to front load a metric crapton of damage on your guy, esp if he is a solo target. Ac is not the way to mitigate this damage as it make players feel like they aren't contributing. I strongly suggest other ways of dealing with this to make the fight last a few rounds. Extra health, extra minions to soak some hits, damage reduction, and regeneration/healing are all good options. Another option is someone behind the scenes casting shield other on him (taking half his damage).
|
Give him Greater Invisibility, Shield, Enchanted Haramaki, and Protection from Good, from Consumables with Shield/Protection from Good, and from a normal spell with GI, and from normal gear with the Haramaki. It will make his AC decent, make him difficult to target, and increase his saves and protect him from summons. The party will still beat him, but it will make him at least resemble a challenge.
with the dimensional line of feats will try to do the Nightcrawler bouncing teleport attack thing on them.
So you're going to take a line of feats that allow you to dimension door and make a full attack? You mean exactly what spell combat was already doing for you? Spell combat already allows you to dimension door & full attack. I realize you'd be able to divide up your attacks, but it doesn't make it a good choice. If you're into wasting feats just give him toughness and improve his saves instead.
|
|
with the dimensional line of feats will try to do the Nightcrawler bouncing teleport attack thing on them.So you're going to take a line of feats that allow you to dimension door and make a full attack? You mean exactly what spell combat was already doing for you? Spell combat already allows you to dimension door & full attack. I realize you'd be able to divide up your attacks, but it doesn't make it a good choice. If you're into wasting feats just give him toughness and improve his saves instead.
Uh...with the Dimensional Dervish Feat line you can act after using Dimension Door (not normally an option) and can cast Dimension Door as a Swift action, which allows you to teleport in and then also Spell Combat and Shocking Grasp with your scimitar right in someone's face...
Spell combat combines the spell with the full attack action, which trumps the "your turn is over" clause in dimension door (according to the stuff I've read from the devs).
A regular magus would just quicken a shocking grasp, spell combat his dimension door, arrive at the location to deliver the free attack+full attack as per usual.
EDIT: Unless you have some special free way of quickening DD via some ability I'm not aware of, I can't see how quickening the higher level spell is better.
Spell combat combines the spell with the full attack action, which trumps the "your turn is over" clause in dimension door (according to the stuff I've read from the devs).
A regular magus would just quicken a shocking grasp, spell combat his dimension door, arrive at the location to deliver the free attack+full attack as per usual.
I have never seen any dev say that in an FAQ or unofficial statement. Do you have a link to the quote or at least the name of the dev making the statement?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have never seen any dev say that in an FAQ or unofficial statement. Do you have a link to the quote or at least the name of the dev making the statement?Spell combat combines the spell with the full attack action, which trumps the "your turn is over" clause in dimension door (according to the stuff I've read from the devs).
A regular magus would just quicken a shocking grasp, spell combat his dimension door, arrive at the location to deliver the free attack+full attack as per usual.
Seconded, I've never seen a statement to that effect either.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seconded, I've never seen a statement to that effect either.I have never seen any dev say that in an FAQ or unofficial statement. Do you have a link to the quote or at least the name of the dev making the statement?Spell combat combines the spell with the full attack action, which trumps the "your turn is over" clause in dimension door (according to the stuff I've read from the devs).
A regular magus would just quicken a shocking grasp, spell combat his dimension door, arrive at the location to deliver the free attack+full attack as per usual.
Thirded. You could spell combat and use Dimension Door as your spell at the end of the attack sequence...but at the beginning? It'd lose you the rest of your actions as per normal, IMO.
Now I have to decide whether or not I want to waste the time it will take to find this post and present it, or to let it pass. I'm choosing to let it pass, but the summation of the point was that spell combat makes the full attack and the casting of the spell one action, and your turn is over after the action is done.
EDIT: Ah there it is, it's the wording of Dimension Door stating "After using this spell, you can't take any other actions until your next turn."
Well, that's great, because it's all one action as far as the mechanics are concerned. You just finish that action (it didn't say it interrupts your action) and you're done.
|
|
Now I have to decide whether or not I want to waste the time it will take to find this post and present it, or to let it pass. I'm choosing to let it pass, but the summation of the point was that spell combat makes the full attack and the casting of the spell one action, and your turn is over after the action is done.
Even if this is true, you can't Swift Action after that (since that would be a separate action), leaving you sans Shocking Grasp and a lot of your damage. Making the Feat line still not a bad call, IMO.
Now I have to decide whether or not I want to waste the time it will take to find this post and present it, or to let it pass. I'm choosing to let it pass, but the summation of the point was that spell combat makes the full attack and the casting of the spell one action, and your turn is over after the action is done.
I will check and return in a few minutes. My search-fu is normally good.
no no, you swift BEFORE and charge up your shocking grasp, letting you deliver it for free anytime that round, and specifically to be included with your spellcombat action, as part of it. It specifically states it combined all of the actions into a full attack action.
|
|
no no, you swift BEFORE and charge up your shocking grasp, letting you deliver it for free anytime that round, and specifically to be included with your spellcombat action, as part of it. It specifically states it combined all of the actions into a full attack action.
I suppose that works. I'm still not convinced of your basic premise, though.
What part? That spell combat specifically combines everything into one action or that dimension door only says you can take no further actions?
Jason Bulmahn has no post on the topic at all.
Stephan Radney has no post on the topic at all.
For SKR I expanded it to "dimension door + magus" to make sure I did not miss anything, and he had nothing on the topic either.
That combined with myself and the previous posters being on here a lot, but none of us seeing it means that statement was misremembered most likely.
Yes, it's likely I researched that myself when I first rolled my magus and drew that conclusion based on all that wording already. This was my refresher. I knew it worked by RAW, I just didn't remember the justification until I had to justify my actions again.
As a side note, dimension door likely prevents you from taking an immediate action, something I just noticed.
|
|
What part? That spell combat specifically combines everything into one action or that dimension door only says you can take no further actions?
Full attacks are interesting things. If you make one attack and kill a foe, you can then abort the rest of the full attack for a move action. By the same logic, if you Dimension Door at the beginning of a full attack, I'd say it auto-aborts the rest of it.
Now...I'm not positive if that's RAW or RAI, it's a weird corner case, but barring an explicit Dev ruling otherwise, I certainly wouldn't let it fly sans Feats at my table.
That's fine, but there's no other way to read it from my end. You're only barred from taking further actions, not from finishing the action you're on. Also, don't obfuscate by calling full attack actions anything other than what they are, an action. Just because you can abort an action part way through (I only moved 10'! IT'S NOT A MOVE ACTION!) doesn't mean it's not an action.
Another way to look at this is a wizard casts dimension door with echoing spell, using a 7th level slot.
DM: HAH! You arrive at your destination and you don't get the spell back as you should because your turn is over!
Player: But it was all part of the spell I cast!
Exactly this. It's all part of spell, more specifically it's all part of the action encompassed in casting the spell (the full attack action). It's not divisible.
If I start to run, and a pit appears in front of me I don't get to keep running just because I started running. That pit will make sure I fall.
Another way to look at this is a wizard casts dimension door with echoing spell, using a 7th level slot.
DM: HAH! You arrive at your destination and you don't get the spell back as you should because your turn is over!
Player: But it was all part of the spell I cast!
Exactly this. It's all part of spell, more specifically it's all part of the action encompassed in casting the spell (the full attack action). It's not divisible.
1. IIRC the ability is full round action, but it behaves like a full attack for the purpose of haste<----Not really a major point, but it should be noted.
2. No action(game term or dictionary version) is needed to get the spell back again so DD has no way to stop it from coming back.
"Also the echoing spell analogy doesn't hold since the additional casting doesn't take an action to do"
Thank you, I'm glad we agree. For the same reason, the spell combat action can complete also.
"Also the echoing spell analogy doesn't hold since the additional casting doesn't take an action to do"
Thank you, I'm glad we agree. For the same reason, the spell combat action can complete also.
That is not the same thing. A metamagic spell is completed and you then get the benefit. The benefit of echoing spell does not require anything extra.
To get the benefit of the magus ability does require you to continue to do things after DD so that analogy is not even close.
If you can't see the difference between "I must actively do things" and" this other thing is automatic with no effort at all" then I question your ability to understand any rule.
I return, hat in hand:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=492?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here#24583
It appears JJ disagrees. I'd have to concede the point even though I completely disagree and there's nothing stating you interrupt your current action in Dimension Door.
"Also the echoing spell analogy doesn't hold since the additional casting doesn't take an action to do"
Thank you, I'm glad we agree. For the same reason, the spell combat action can complete also.
That is not the same thing. A metamagic spell is completed and you then get the benefit. The benefit of echoing spell does not require anything extra.
To get the benefit of the magus ability does require you to continue to do things after DD so that analogy is not even close.
If you can't see the difference between "I must actively do things" and" this other thing is automatic with no effort at all" then I question your ability to understand any rule.
Frankly your inability to adhere to the logic of "no further actions" is astounding me. The magus would take no move action, no free action, no standard action nor any other action, not even a free action after the spell casting action completes. What action is the magus performing after the spell is cast? By RAW you'd need to cite the action the magus is taking which violates the rule, but you can't because any attacks are within the same action he cast the spell with, occurring simultaneously.
DD ends your turn period.
...unless you have feats that specifically state otherwise.
Actually DD prevents you from performing any additional actions until your next turn. Not the same exact wording you used.