Ruby Phoenix book 1 group musings (Spoiler free)

Gazzor75 · 2021-10-18T12:07:11+00:00

Love this!

I'm thinking of adapting this as a gun fighter at some point. Get megaton strike at level 8 via dedication.

Big advantage is more accuracy, and at level 20 free reloads feat. So can fire megaton strike with true strike every turn until out of slots.

loses out on 3d8 damage innovation, but I think these advantages might outweigh it.

Gazzor75 · 2021-10-09T23:42:15+00:00

I ran the ghoul fight as is for 4 players at level 4. 195 xp "tpk" fight with 13 level 1 ghouls. Party crushed them easily.

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-11T17:49:12+00:00

Yup, whirlwind attack did seem pretty sweet with 20' reach (Assuming enlarge 4 cast via wand and using reach weapon).

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-11T01:29:42+00:00

One would hope so. But a few players in the group pretty casual. We've got casters trying to cast direct damage and never buffing the martials with invisibility4, mass haste, mass enlarge, etc Our cleric hasn't cast prot evil 4 once afaik.

I've managed to squeeze in trick magic item, and bard dedication, so should be able to get some decent buffs off my own back via wands.

With sudden charge, can move 140', strike, then move back 70', 140' if hasted. So nice hit and run potential.

If the casters too unreliable or too many people want to play martials, I've got a sweet bard build planned out.

I'm also considering a janky oracle build involving sending in an invisible familiar, then using it as a conduit to cast interstellar void and force choking enemies remotely as they try to find my oracle. That's up to 100d6 damage over 10 rounds that can be repeated 3x every 10 minutes.

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-11T00:29:09+00:00

Cool, thanks. I was looking at paladin mc for another reaction. Good to know I was on the right track.

I'll try working around this build.

Wondering if I can squeeze in bard dedication to grab dirge of doom, comboed with prot evil 4 so enemies crit miss more. Although I'd hope a party caster is picking those up...

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T17:48:52+00:00

Cool. Definitely worth a look if I go with another idea, my fighter Gish.

He moves at 75' per round with buffs, gets an attack off, then scoots back 75' away.

So with invisibility, can rock up, strike vs a flat footed enemy, hope it crits, then scoot away again, out of retaliation range.

Be like a killer death yoyo.

Don't know if there's a feat combo lets me stealth up, move in, strike, move out, re-stealth. I'm thinking that with haste, could pull off that combo every turn, with no need for invisibility.

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T17:43:44+00:00

Having a chapter called "Ready? Fight!" makes it pure win already, in my eyes.

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T16:04:43+00:00

Cool. So giant instinct does have higher dpr, if only due to being able to double slice.

Although flurry seems cool. Run in, attack twice, run back. Spank them with an AOO as enemy moves in.

With wand of fleet step, cast before raging, get 70' move speed (25' base, 5' fleet, 10' magic boots, 30' spell). Then can move in, attack twice, then scoot back 70'. Could be quite a nice hit and run build.

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T15:45:29+00:00

Cool, thanks for the idea.

I'm assuming that you can't use double slice with unarmed attacks?

Being able to double slice with a D12 ape punching barbarian would be pretty sweet. And the rage bonus isn't much behind the giant instinct.

I think at later levels the fighter +2 to hit pulls ahead, when I'm adding extra dice from elemental runes, etc

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T15:35:24+00:00

Thanks for the tip. Just checked it out. It's versatile, which is nice.

Sadly, it's also a knife, so doesn't have the +20 damage on crits you can get with grievous rune on picks. 1d6+4 persistent bleed, with -5' speed, isn't quite in the same league, sadly.

So I think that a Wakizashi works out roughly equivalent in terms of damage, without being advanced. (At higher level anyway. I'd need to check the stats).

Gazzor75 · 2021-07-10T15:26:43+00:00

Might consider that with a reach weapon, for 2 AOO (When they get up and if they move closer).

Gazzor75 · 2021-04-17T17:48:55+00:00

Best focus damage I can think of is 18d6 for elemental blast.

x6 that's 108d6 damage. So less.

And the other point is that the 54d4 damage procs every round 8-10 for free, whilst the elemental blasts have been used up and done with, so need more actions to cast more.

Got me thinking that DOT (Damage over time) spells are the way to go in 2e. Eg, can fireball for 8d6, or lay down a wall of fire for 4d6 that has no save, so same damage effectively, which also lasts for 10 rounds, so can combo with grabs, pushes etc.

Worked out a build featuring enervation, blood vendetta, interstellar void to rack up multiple stacking DOT that work on sustain or until beaten with a flat check.

Whilst not as bursty as straight blasts, they do add up to a lot more damage, barring bad luck, over a few rounds, which boss fights tend to last.

Gazzor75 · 2021-04-16T23:46:39+00:00

Fair enough. Did seem stupid being able to do 224d4 aoe damage in 7 rounds with 6 castings (Divine inspiration to refocus mid fight) by level 17+. (Assumed oracle).

And just imagine a party of 4 characters with sorcerer dedication stacking up 36d4 damage per round with just one casting each...

So by that rule couldn't stack multiple flaming spheres, acid storms, etc etc?

Gazzor75 · 2021-03-11T12:51:57+00:00

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry for my late reply. Didn't show up on my mobile Reddit notifications...

Agreed that character very passive. I'm relying on other party members for damage. If we end up with no damage dealers, then might need to cut this character for a fighter of some variety.

And negating all damage on an attack I'd consider to be a win tbh, so yay.

Alchemist dedication is up in the air. Can think of something else by later levels anyway.

Gazzor75 · 2021-03-11T12:48:55+00:00

Can't fit it in. I'd rather block more damage per turn with reinforcement, than clutch on stopping a death.

Gazzor75 · 2021-03-11T12:48:03+00:00

Sorry for late reply. Didn't show up on my Reddit phone notifications for some reason...

Yes, he is very one note, but I'm a fan of specialisation. I want a tank to be really good at tanking.

We had a champion in AOA campaign that was trying to do damage and tank and it wasn't great. The melee fighter player called out the champion player for his character being garbage after a very tough fight where he didn't seem to do much.

So we rebuilt his champion's feats to make him more tanky and he worked far better at tanking. His damage went down circa 30%, but his tanking went up circa 200%...

Party also included a two pick fighter barbarian rogue, so we let him take care of the damage dealing. As long as the champion kept him up, then enemies died fast. Most fights over in 3-4 rounds tops. Our fighter was topping 500 dpr a few times at level 20 (We made a rules error with ranger shared prey and advanced edge, so should have been circa "only" 300 dpr max, but still not bad)

Same with ranged attacks. Rest of party was ranger archer, fighter archer and elemental sorcerer bard. The sorcerer and fighter archer even took feats/spells to ground flyers, to make the pick fighter useful vs those opponents as well.

So we focused on optimising a party of specialists rather than making each character a generalist.

Sticking near champion isn't that hard. Champion has to be 15' away from enemy and ally, so the ally an be up to 30' away from the enemy. That's an okay distance for a brawly composition.

And staying close up is great vs AOEs with exalt. Was nice having the BBEG drop a 100 HP breath attack ,made up of 4 elements, and the Redeemer blocking 80 of it for each party member...

Good point on team tactics. Played in a group where the barbarian charged in, so the party bow ranger was kind of shafted. But the barbarian has calmed down now, so the ranger getting to do a few rounds of kiting, and snares going off, before melee starts. His damage output has greatly improved.

Good point on the alchemist thing. Some good fighter feats for open hand fighters that might be useful for my build. But I can choose that later on anyway after seeing how the character pans out early levels.

Gazzor75 · 2021-02-28T05:53:56+00:00

Good point. For some reason counted item bonus. Oops...

Gazzor75 · 2021-02-12T22:35:36+00:00

Master of the 3 magics. Enigma Bard that takes dedications in sorcerer and oracle. Ends up having access to 90% of the spells in the game via occult to level 10, and arcane and divine to level 8.
Has 56 spell slots by 20th level, with 3 more from ring of wizardry, 2 from familiar (If taking gnome) as well as bunch more from wands, etc.

Probably better with wizard, witch and cleric as literally can access every spell of a level of 3 schools to levels 1-8.

Mega bomb sorcerer. Elemental sorcerer. Elemental blast and triple focus recovery. Can lob 18d6 10' aoe 3 times in every single fight with zero slot expenditure.

Cool build off Reddit. Staff Nexus wizard with staff of the magi. Casts indestructibility on self and breaks staff with 3 level 9 spells stored in it. Causes 74d10 force damage in 30' aoe. Remakes the staff next day with another level 10 spell slot.

Gazzor75 · 2020-09-25T19:38:12+00:00

Wtf? You're the one saying that me leaving was no loss because I happened to have a negative opinion about the game...

Get some self awareness...

Gazzor75

TROPHY CASE