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Old 02-20-2011, 08:24 PM   Top  -  End  -  #1
douglas
Titan in the Playground
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Default Team Solars (Archiving)

It seems the OOC forum automatically purges threads over 1 year old, and that finally caught up with a certain thread linked in my sig and occasionally referred to, so I'm creating a copy of all the important contents of the thread here before google flushes its cached copy.

My group of characters is finally ready to go. It will still take some time to pretty them up for official viewing, but the work of actually building them is done.

Each team member is Shapechanged into a Solar, and has used the Solar's Change Shape ability to return to his or her normal size and appearance.

One character is ready for the public in the spoiler block below. I'll put one more character per post after this when they're ready. The full list of buffs, complete with sources and bonuses, etc. will go in a final post.

Vesran Rynash, the Master of Nine
Spoiler


And here's the cleric of the group.

Loratai Estran, the wanderer
Spoiler


Now for the group's incantatrix, who makes all-day buffing so much easier.

Zamek Awd
Spoiler


Following the example set by a previous attempt, there is one genuine Solar in the group, summoned by a Candle of Invocation and promised a group of new deific allies for his patron if they are successful. He has his standard greatsword and bow for his own personal use, plus some equipment donated from the party.

Harachel, the Solar.
Spoiler


Zamek Awd routinely produces two groups of six clones using Body Outside Body each day. The first group uses their Cooperative Metamagic and Metamagic Effect abilities to assist with buffing, and are then dismissed. The second group is included as recipients of buffing and stay all day as durable but expendable scouts. Their participation in combat is usually limited to using White Raven Tactics if they get better initiative than everyone else. Otherwise they try to use their 3" size to avoid notice as tiny passengers on real party members.

Zamek Awd clone
Spoiler
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Old 02-20-2011, 08:25 PM   Top  -  End  -  #2
douglas
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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Default Re: Team Solars (Archiving)

Now for the first of the two wizards. They are twin brothers and share spellbooks freely. Combined with the Elven Generalist Wizard substitution level from Races of the Wild, this gives them a total of 6 free spells known at each level (each one gets 3, then copies the other's 3). They have also both visited the Frog God's Fane location from Complete Scoundrel, thereby gaining Skill Focus (Knowledge Religion) as a bonus feat. This ability is given a gold value of 2000 gp in that book, and I have counted it as part of their wealth by level at that value, once for each of them.

Cergar Morech, retired Spellguard and Archmage of the Arcane Order
Spoiler


Wizard number 2.

Vordano Morech, retired Spellguard and Archmage of the Arcane Order
Spoiler


Now the druid. Just the animal companion left after this, plus double checking equipment and posting the buff list.

Nyeron Endas, old druid.
Spoiler


For the animal companion, Nyeron has a Dire Polar Bear. The base stats for it are in Frostburn, and PHBII added it to the list of animal companion possibilities with a -15 penalty for effective druid level. I assumed that Shapechanging as required for my buffing procedure is a valid trick to teach him, possibly only after buffing his intelligence. Boosting the bear's intelligence to low human levels does not require doing the Shapechange first, so I think this is reasonable. He does not Shapechange into a Solar afterwards like the rest of the party, however - the Dire Polar Bear's natural stats are high enough that wouldn't be quite such a boost as for everyone else. He is instead buffed with Reduce Animal to help him fit into possible tight spaces.

Lorch, the Dire Polar Bear
Spoiler
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Old 02-20-2011, 08:26 PM   Top  -  End  -  #3
douglas
Titan in the Playground
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Default Re: Team Solars (Archiving)

Ok, equipment:
The "Mundane gear pack" each person has consists of the following:
Spoiler


I haven't actually bothered to total up the cost of it, but it's all cheap mundane stuff and I had over 500 gp per person available to spend on it.

The day or two prior to entering the Grinder, the Morech Brothers went out to some mountains and cast Shrink Item on a whole lot of rocks and stuffed them all into the bag of holding. This is so I have a ready supply whenever I need to throw something at a barrier to test it, or need some rocks to anchor a Wall of Stone.

The two wizards and the wu jen have all used a Tome of Clear Thoughts +4 each. The cleric used a Tome of Understanding +4, and the druid used a Tome of Understanding +5 (he's taken advantage of Timeless Body to get +3 wisdom from age for no penalty, which combined with the extra +1 gives an even number).

That's 577500 spent on inherent ability score bonuses
Each party member's primary weapon is +1 Swarmstrike (Dungeonscape) Transmuting (MIC) Adamantine, a +4 equivalent with a 3000 gp material cost that includes masterwork. That's 35000 plus base cost for each, x6 = 210000 plus small change.

Major Ring of Spell Storing (200000)
Ring of Spell Storing (50000)
Ring of Telekinesis (75000)
Bag of Holding type II (5000)
Monk's Belt x7 (13000 x7 = 91000)
Boccob's Blessed Book x3 (12500 x3 = 37500)
Candle of Invocation (8400)
Gauntlets of Rust x7 (11500 x7 = 80500)
Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting (MIC) added to Gauntlets of Rust x7 (4000 x7 x1.5 = 42000)
Gauntlet of Infinite Blades (MIC) added to Gauntlets of Rust (6500 x1.5 = 9750)
Heward's Handy Haversack x7 (2000 x7 = 14000)
Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone x7 (30000 x7 = 210000)
Orange Prism Ioun Stone (30000)
Necklace of Adaptation x7 (9000 x7 = 63000)
Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments x5 (4000 x5 = 20000)
Strand of Prayer Beads x6 (25800 x6 = 154800)
Ankh of Ascension (MIC) (9000)
Ring of Spell-Battle (MIC) x5 (12000 x5 = 60000)
Steadfast Boots (MIC) x7 (1400 x7 = 9800)
Spool of Endless Rope (MIC) x7 (1400 x7 = 9800)
Ring of Enduring Arcana (Complete Mage) x6 (6000 x6 = 36000)
Bonus Skill Focus feat from Frog God's Fane (Complete Scoundrel) x2 (2000 x2 = 4000)
Decanter of Endless Water (9000)
Bottle of Endless Sand (Sandstorm) (21600)
Universal Solvent x10 (50 x10 = 500)
14 luck blades (22060 x14 = 308840)
Portable Hole (20000)
Crystal Mask of Detection (MIC) x2 (10000 x2 = 20000)
Third Eye Sense (MIC) (24000)
Cube of Force x2 (62000 x2 = 124000)
Immovable Rod x2 (5000 x2 = 10000)
Ring of the Diamond Mind (scholar) (Tome of Battle) (15000)
Ring of the Diamond Mind (novice) (Tome of Battle) (3000)
Desert Wind Cloak (novice) (Tome of Battle) (3000)
Spellbook containing Focusing Chant, Harmonic Chorus, Lightfoot, Inner Beauty, Hymn of Praise, and Wounding Whispers (2115)

Spell components:
250 gp for Stalwart Pact
1000 gp for Death Pact
500 gp for Renewal Pact
1500 focus for Analyze Dweomer
50 for two foci for Augury
100 for two foci for Legend Lore
15 focus for Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion
1500 focus for Shapechange
100 focus for Ironguard
500 focus for Inner Beauty
1000 mirror for scrying

Daily components:
250 gp ruby for Suffer the Flesh
50 gp statuette for Chasing Perfection
250 ointment for True Seeing
100 inks for Create Magic Tattoo
500 deep blue spinel for Undermaster
20 pixie dust for Starmantle
6000 for 10 Guardinal Feathers (Complete Champion)
2875 for 5 Horn of Gorgon (Complete Champion)
370 for a Talon of Ehlonna (Complete Champion)

10415 gp per day for expensive material components
5 days supply = 52075 gp

One day's worth will be used before going in. Each of Loratai, Cergar, Vordano, and Nyeron will have one day's worth in their packs.

On demand expensive components:
2500 gp incense for Augury, Divination, and Legend Lore
5 1000 gp diamonds
15 pinches of Primal Essence (Complete Mage, 15x150 = 2250)

Total equipment:
577500 + 210000 + 200000 + 50000 + 75000 + 5000 + 91000 + 37500 + 8400 + 80500 + 42000 + 9750 + 14000 + 210000 + 30000 + 63000 + 20000 + 154800 + 9000 + 60000 + 9800 + 9800 + 36000 + 4000 + 9000 + 21600 + 500 + 308840 + 20000 + 20000 + 24000 + 124000 + 10000 + 15000 + 3000 + 3000 + 2115 + 250 + 1000 + 500 + 1500 + 50 + 100 + 15 + 1500 + 100 + 500 + 1000 + 52075 + 2500 + 5000 + 2250 = 2636445
Available funds: 440000 x6 = 2640000
Spare funds: 3555, which I'm fairly sure is enough to cover the base cost of weapons and the mundane pack.

Buffing:

The Spellguard ability of the Morech brothers changes the range of all personal "defensive" spells they cast to touch. Shapechange fits the definition of defensive given for the ability. Arcane Reach then changes it to 30', which makes it eligible for Chain Spell. With the aid of a Divine Insight spell cast via the Ring of Spell Storing and Fox's Cunning, Zamek's clones are able to meet the DC to apply both Chain and Persist to this with Cooperative Metamagic by taking 10. So, the entire party gets Chained Persisted Shapechange.

The party then goes through the following procedure once for each caster with buffs to cast:
1) Everyone but the caster Shapechanges into a Psychic Sinew (Fiend Folio) and attaches to the caster.
2) The caster casts all his buffs on himself, with Zamek's clones making them all Persistent. The Share Spells ability of Psychic Sinew (and other symbionts, this is just the one I picked) copies each spell to all party members automatically.
3) The party separates. Repeat with the next caster.

End result: Every single buff the entire party has available is cast on every party member regardless of personal range restrictions, and with only one casting of each required for the entire party.

All casters use the Bead of Karma on their strand of prayer beads to increase caster level while going through their buff list. The arcane casters use Use Magic Device to emulate the divine casting class feature requirement (DC 20).

Special note: Nature's Avatar and Nature's Favor require the target to have the Animal type. Nyeron achieves this by casting Aspect of the Wolf before casting these two spells. This gives him the animal type, making him eligible for those two buffs, and the Share Spells ability explicitly ignores such targeting restrictions. He then dismisses Aspect of the Wolf afterwards. The Talon of Ehlonna is also used for Nature's Avatar, giving that spell +2 caster level.

Nyeron's normal caster level for buffing is 31. This is raised to 40 for Owl's Insight by means of Spell Enhancer (cast via the Ring of Spell Storing), Mystic Surge (cast by a clone via the Major Ring of Spell Storing), Harmonic Chorus (cast by a clone via the Major Ring of Spell Storing), and activating the Ankh of Ascension.

The bonuses and what buffs they come from:
Spoiler


The buffs and books they're from, and caster level:
Spoiler


Silly me, I forgot to maximize Stormrage and Glorious Master of the Elements. It doesn't seem worth the effort to go back and edit each post just for this, so I'll just note here that the 10d6 at will energy attacks do 60 damage every time.

Non-stacking is already accounted for - lines with a // in front are superseded by greater bonuses of the same type and are not included in the totals I calculated for each character.

The extra +2 for things like Chasing Perfection is from, as noted in the parentheses, the feat Ability Enhancer. I already asked in PM, this feat is approved but only applies to enhancement bonuses. Strength bonuses also got an extra +2 each from the Horn of Gorgon optional material component, and AC boosters got an extra +2 each from Guardinal Feathers. Both of those optional material components are from Complete Champion.

For example, Vesran's 121 AC is broken down as follows:
10 base
13 dex
21 natural armor
9 enhancement to natural armor
4 insight
8 armor
6 shield
11 deflection
15 monk's belt
3 morale
8 circumstance
3 dodge
4 luck
6 sacred
Total: 121

And an additional +1 dodge when flying

None of those bonuses are the same type except dodge, and dodge bonuses do stack.

His strength is:
28 base
+20 enhancement
+6 untyped
+6 sacred
+6 untyped
+4 morale
Total: 70

There are a few smaller enhancement bonuses also in effect, but they are redundant and not included in my math. The two untyped bonuses are from different sources, so they stack.
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Old 02-17-2012, 09:16 PM   Top  -  End  -  #4
Fellfire
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Default Re: Team Solars (Archiving)

What is a Swarmstrike weapon? Source?
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Old 02-17-2012, 10:33 PM   Top  -  End  -  #5
douglas
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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Default Re: Team Solars (Archiving)

Swarmstrike is a weapon special ability from Dungeonscape, page 40. The primary benefit of it is that the weapon deals full damage to swarms no matter what size the swarm's component creatures are and no matter what type of damage the weapon deals.

The swarm subtype is one of the very small number of ways to have outright immunity to weapon damage, and Swarmstrike negates that.
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Old 03-21-2013, 05:40 AM   Top  -  End  -  #6
Janine02
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Default Re: Team Solars (Archiving)

hi douglas!
nice post.
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