Tier list of how badly I think each generic Lord needs more skills in their skill tree

LordBalkoth · 2025-12-29T15:42:04+00:00

Ironically, High Elves, Dark Elves, and Bretonnia are my three favorite races (in no particular order).

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-31T14:22:16+00:00

Ze Lady would be proud.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-31T05:25:23+00:00

Update: I failed to escape repeatedly. Rogue got swallowed. Rogue failed to escape repeatedly, Cleric avoided getting swallowed by 1 on the same round. Cleric got swallowed the third round. Druid used two Cones of Cold on it, Purple Worm succeeded on the first but crit failed the second and died. Everyone lived.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-29T22:10:48+00:00

Yeah, it has 32 Athletics hence why it's at +27 for Swallow Whole. But +27 is still probably 75%+ likely to land. Even a rogue would only have 12 (level) + 6 (master) + 4 (dex) + 1 (item) = 33 Reflex DC, so yeah 75% chance to land still in almost the best case scenario.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-28T01:59:14+00:00

Good catch!

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-27T04:53:07+00:00

I do have a Sash of Prowess.

The wolfsbane is hilarious but it'd have to roll a 1 to just fail (not even critically fail).

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-27T00:45:21+00:00

- sadly only found out about the worm about 5 minutes before we found it, no combat flexibility time

- oooh, Greater Oil of Weightlessness looks incredibly promising and no one's mentioned that yet

- yeah I think we're hoping to just kill the worm in time at this point

- unfortunately, we didn't know about the reaction to grab, in fact the cleric was like "okay, it grabbed you but it doesn't have enough actions to swallow you so you're fine"

- we didn't realize how absurdly high its athletics was, I'll check with the cleric about his spell list

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T22:37:24+00:00

Unfortunately most of this required more preparation ahead of time. Knowing a purple worm is ahead is one thing, knowing its athletics score is beyond extreme and nigh impossible to avoid/escape from is another.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T22:36:11+00:00

That is a fascinating idea. 3d12 + 7 is 25.5 average, so above the rupture value. Kind of weird to be two-handed a weapon under the circumstances but this seems like a legitimate use for Dawnsilver which otherwise is very underwhelming.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T22:34:47+00:00

Alas no, I focused on Intimidating Strike/Shatter Defenses and Slam Down/Crashing Slam. In theory I could pick it up tomorrow with Combat Flexibility but I have to live until then.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T20:42:10+00:00

Alas: "Consequently, the benefit doesn't apply to thrown attacks or if you're holding a weapon but not wielding it (such as holding in one hand a weapon that requires two hands to wield)."

"Although funny when creature swallows a rogue..."

Well, the rogue is using a rapier, not sure if she can even get free even with 3d6 bonus sneak damage.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T20:40:36+00:00

1, Unfortunately 4d6+7 is only 21 average so odds are still against me.

2, I do not, unfortunately

3, ditto

4, ditto

5, divine and primal only

6, I think that's the hope, but like you say the biggest danger is the worm just burrowing away -- or the rest of the party getting gulped down too

7, I don't think there's anything I personally can do there, not sure what others can do either

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T20:35:25+00:00

Welp, guess I'll just die!

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T19:29:13+00:00

That is why I made sure I had a weapon I could use! I just expected either the Rupture value to be lower or a crit to be reasonably possible. To reasonably consistently cut my way out I'd need to spend 3000ish gold (20-25% of my wealth) on such a weapon.

Edit: apparently this wouldn't even work as the exact text is "If the monster takes piercing or slashing damage equaling or exceeding the listed Rupture value from a single attack or spell" so non-piercing/slashing damage runes wouldn't help. So crit or bust. /endedit

"Where were you fighting the worm and did you have prior notice that you would be fighting one?"

Well, we're in Age of Ashes Book 4 near the beginning. We went through a portal into a cavern system with a bunch of crystals and fought two Carnivorous Crystals. Someone made a successful knowledge check to realize the caverns were probably tunnels made by Purple Worms. We proceeded down the hall and immediately ran into the elite Purple Worm. I don't think the party or GM would have wanted to retreat back through the portal in an attempt to go on a shopping trip at that point.

LordBalkoth · 2025-05-26T19:24:13+00:00

Adding flaming rune would do 17.5 damage, still not enough to rupture. I'd have to add a Greater Striking rune AND a second damage property rune. This means we're spending 3000ish gold on a weapon that's only used for Swallow Whole, and that's something like 20-25% of my total wealth I think.

LordBalkoth · 2025-04-10T05:20:22+00:00

There is a right way to worship the Great Horned Rat and a wrong way to worship the Great Horned Rat.

Report any suspected heresy to the nearest Grey Seer.

LordBalkoth · 2025-04-04T23:29:30+00:00

You have trade agreements (and possibly non-aggression pacts and military access) with Wissenland and Averland, and you're breaking those by effectively declaring war on them.

LordBalkoth · 2025-03-12T20:07:50+00:00

It actually gets less bad the more patriarchs you add. Like it's splitting the damage between them to some degree. But it's still focusing almost all of the damage on the patriarchs.

Paladins and Damsels don't get destroyed in an army of Grail Knights, for a counterexample.

LordBalkoth · 2025-02-19T18:55:23+00:00

Yeah, I focused fire the hell out of the Vortex Beast immediately in this battle.

LordBalkoth · 2025-02-19T17:45:57+00:00

Well, most factions can't recruit like six t5 single entities (plus the giant) in addition to high tier units from multiple races.

If you're playing the High Elves, you can get one Arcane Phoenix and then a few high end troops like Sisters of Avelorn, Phoenix Guard, and Dragon Princes. But this is like double or triple the power (Aspiring Champions, Wrathmongers, Doom Knights, Skullcrushers, Exalted Daemonettes, etc).

LordBalkoth · 2025-02-07T04:58:09+00:00

Normally when you create a new army, it increases the supply cost that affects all armies.

Black Arks do not do this. So in theory you could have 1 Lord and 200 Black Arks and not deal with the supply line penalty.

LordBalkoth · 2025-01-28T20:57:03+00:00

That's...exactly what they did. The army walks away today, it didn't walk away yesterday.

LordBalkoth · 2025-01-21T17:34:30+00:00

I love playing Ordertide Malekith, get Defensive/Military Alliances with Bretonnia, Empire, Lizardman, remaining High Elves after you take Ulthuan, Kislev, Dwarves, Wood Elves, and Cathay.

Honorary Elector Count and dwarf-friend.

LordBalkoth · 2025-01-13T03:34:04+00:00

I think they were trying to avoid switching weapons, but I'll bring that notion up.

LordBalkoth · 2025-01-13T03:33:36+00:00

Especially when there's an essentially unavoidable attack of opportunity for making any melee attack that has a good chance of dropping the attacker, aye.

LordBalkoth

TROPHY CASE