Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

[Zilrax]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Synergist is actually weaker than the standard summoner. The summoner is stronger than the Wizard in fact. The Master Summoner is arguably even better than the normal Summoner. The Synergist just suffers from poor rules clarity, but they're a single target to shut down, rather than a dozen targets.

Unchained Summoner is more balanced, but they kinda threw the baby out with the bathwater on it. They really only needed to change the spell list. Instead they also screwed the Eidolon down which is the Summoners weakest class feature. It needed an evolution pool cost adjustment, cus it heavily overvalued anything non melee combat and heavily undervalued melee combat (pounce is a 1 point evolution?!?!). It didn't need stripping out most of the interesting creative options and half the evo points and forcing the eidolon to be an existing outsider.

I'm not fully set on Summoner either way. I do have the sheet done already but I have a few I've been going through.

Psionics is honestly more balanced and, in my opinion, more fun than Vancian casting. Balance wise, the psion trades free scaling for more versatility in ability. It costs them way more to be on par with vancian casters.

But unlike Vancian casters, they can undercast things, meaning you always have something to do with a Psion. Spamming their version of Grease for 1 pp is a completely valid and effective tactic at any level for many encounters.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Am considering a witch of some type or a kitsune jiwexhu (spelling?) Shaman. Not sure yet.

 

[Pervy]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Synergist negates the summoners one weakness. The summoner.

 

[Diagasvesle]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Hmmm are we suppose to be making characters or just character concepts? Either way, slowly reading my way through the Vitalist class stuff.

 

[Pervy]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Character creation is up: http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/showthread.php?p=897906#post897906

For sample characters just check out my other campaign, I lazily copied most of the design over, because.. why not.

Open to any questions, preferably ask them here, as others may have them too.

Note: Plan is to have you all moderatly aquainted already, though that doesn't necessarily mean you be BFFs.

 

[Diagasvesle]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Woohoo! Time to pester Zilrax for teh helps and push the experienced zilrax to LEDUR position cause lazy.

 

[Zilrax]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

In exchange for being weaker overall than his counterparts. The cost is he can't use his best class feature, the summon monster while doing it. Same as all summoners really, but most summoners have means to circumvent the problem. Synthesists cannot do so.

And then there's the action economy issue. With an eidolon, I can get two characters worth of actions, not to mention ride it around and such. I can use the eidolon as cover even before shield ally and such. The Synthesist has only one set of actions to use.

Ultimately, what he pays for reliable actions is paid for in what makes the Summoner truly powerful. There's a reason the Master Summoner is arguably the strongest Summoner, and he has half the eidolon of either of them.

Also, the Summoner is far from vulnerable on his own. He's roughly on the Bard level of combat for awhile, and at mid level quickly becomes superior to even martials.

As I said, I'm not sold on using it just because I know how derp strong they are.

 

[Pervy]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

I'm aware of the action economy issue. Its worth the price. A smart enemy and DM takes out a summoner, not the Eidolon, Synthesist removes that weakness, thats why it got banned/readjusted. Master summoner is stronger in casual play, but if you play high end srs D&d.. yeah theres folks that do that, not my thing either, the security of synthesist with full Eidolon focus is too valuable. You don't want a Synthesist half elf that knows what they are doing pouncing your spawns to death if you can help it.

Then again, I've only personally done Synthesist so might be a bit too much of a fan.. its just fun to roleplay out. Honestly, I'd rather be a broodmaster and have silly fun than be srs..

.. well now you got -me- thinking about builds again. Any D&D campaigns on here still active?

 

[Zilrax]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

No games to my knowledge I'm afraid. If there were I'd likely be in them if I could be. One day I'll be able to use that damn Taninim rawr!

Taking out Summoners isn't very easy. Between armor proficiency, Shield, Barkskin, Invisibility, Haste, Fly, getting past the summons, called outsiders, summoned eidolons, Resist energy... And all that is before Aspect and Greater Aspect come online.

You have to basically ambush them and kill them before they can do anything. But that works on most classes. And only if they haven't taken to calling outsiders with divinations to start predicting for ambushes. And they aren't sending critters to scout ahead of them.

I'd argue taking the Summoner is harder than the Synthesist simply because taking him down doesn't take down Summons, only the Eidolon. If you ignore the Adds you will get chipped to hell. And by level 10 the Summoner is as nasty as the Synthesist.

Also, the reason Master Summoner works in high skill games is because there's not much you can do about it. If he starts deploying a fleet of Lantern Archons, things are going to die. Especially if they have any sort of support, like a bard, or more likely, a Lillend. At high level you can use Sweeps to deal with them, but at the level the archons come up, there's not many answers. And the Master Summoner still is equal to a normal summoner in a fight.

Course, the Synthesist's suit get's sweeped by the exact same moves and he can't just use Summon Eidolon spells to get it back.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Urgh, putting that char together took way too much time. Gonna post it tomorrow.

 

[Diagasvesle]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

If I am reading Vitalist right. . .

My most needed stats are in order from left to right.
Int | Wis | Con | Dex | Cha | Str.

That look right?

 

[Zilrax]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

You are incorrect. Your needed stats are Wis, Con, Dex, Int, Str, Cha. Wisdom is your casting, the next two are survival, int is skills, and the last two aren't needed at all.

First you need to decide if you want to be a Lifeleech or not. Life Leeches lose some support ability in exchange for more offensive power, being able to drain life from enemies at a distant, or reallocate debuffs. But you can't sense others hp so much and lose anything related to your touch move.

Next, you almost certainly will want the Expanded Collective feat. Your abilities rely on having your allies in the Collective, which means 3 will be insufficient as there's more of us than 3. The feat will let you have 5. There's another to expand the range but that is optional.

To take moves from other classes psilists, you need Expanded Knowledge. You'll get a few as bonus feats but you can take more.

Note the Vitalist is a wizard, not a sorceror. He may swap out any spell he knows for others when he regains psi points. This does not apply to psi powers taken via Expanded Knowledge. Those are set.

 

[Diagasvesle]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Alright. Will get my character sheet completed sometime weekend.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Sheet is finished minus background, fetishes and image. I will get that out later. Let me know if everything else checks out.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Tenta, did you roll your stats? I'm pretty sure we're doing 25 point buy.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Was it point buy? I guess I thought were doing it just like under dark. But if its point buy I'll fix it whenever I get to where I can get back on my laptop.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Underdark was point buy too.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Yeah it was. And I did point buy for that. What I got all fucked up was I was doing it (rolling) for a game diaga is doing for me and I got confuzzled between my games. Sorry. Like I said once I get to where I can set down with my Computron I'll fix my stats to where there correct. My bad.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

Fair enough. No damage was done, really, at least nothing that can't be easily fixed.

 

[Zilrax]

Re: Overquest - What if the good guys had already lost?

I was a derp and forgot the +1 ability score point for leveling you get, Blue. Add 1 to one of your ability scores. I'd say Dex or Cha, though you could do Wisdom if you want as well to get it to a +2 modified.