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So, if anyone remembers my last topic about the power-gaming DM and trying to find a good build for an Artificer I don't have to do too much back story. Lets just say he's gotten worse, and is house-ruling named bonuses stacking (mage armor stacking with normal armor for armor bonuses) and found the "joys" of psionics.

Anyway, he wants to do an "epic" battle by animating a castle (yes, a castle) to fight out group of three 12th level characters. A castle with 3,336 HP, +78 to attack, 24, 24, 36 saves and is three steps above colossal. Oh, but his solution is to hand us hideously borked psionic items (intended to give one character an AC of 75) and a bunch of his own created characters. Ah, hah ... hah. Fuck.

Aside from this rant I'm curious about some good construct dominating/destroying spells, preferably ones that don't allow saves. Or if Dispel Magic works on Animate Object. Or if it's worth blowing 5,000 XP on a limited wish and using some 9th level spell, instead.

Lead the Mecha Castle on a chase that lands it in marshy lands. Large castle + middle of a swamp = drowned castle.

Maybe.

I'm having trouble trying to out munchkin that.

The thread title is what I think every time someone makes a thread about DnD.

Just invent house rules to accompdate the munchkinism. Man, I should write a book.

Ye-ah, inventing rules on the fly is sort of what Artificers do.

Sort of.

Are you non-Chaotic Evil? (rhetorical question)
y
Call in Pazuzu (its a DC 25 knowledge religion Check). He'll happilly kick that castles ass for you as you move 1 step closer to CE.

Frankly, if you are an artificer and have the time and money, just throw out a maximized time stop from a wand, then Quicken and Twin Celerity from your other wand. Take 3 standard actions a round for 4 rounds to shoot a ludicrous number of empowered, maximized, twinned spells from dual wielded wands. 144 scorching rays like that does 5184 damage. The DM might get mad about you killing his castle in one round. But this kinds of dick powergaming deserves you utilizing an artificer to its max.

I'd quit the campaign. That's ridiculous.

Dark Hellion wrote:Are you non-Chaotic Evil? (rhetorical question)
y
Call in Pazuzu (its a DC 25 knowledge religion Check). He'll happilly kick that castles ass for you as you move 1 step closer to CE.

Frankly, if you are an artificer and have the time and money, just throw out a maximized time stop from a wand, then Quicken and Twin Celerity from your other wand. Take 3 standard actions a round for 4 rounds to shoot a ludicrous number of empowered, maximized, twinned spells from dual wielded wands. 144 scorching rays like that does 5184 damage. The DM might get mad about you killing his castle in one round. But this kinds of dick powergaming deserves you utilizing an artificer to its max.

Erm, Time Stop from a wand? Besides, I'm only 12th level, not 15th. Plus I don't have Quicken or Twin Celerity. I've only got twin, empower and one other meta-magic feat. Like I said in my previous thread (shoulda linked it) I'm having to basically make up for what the rest of the party lacks. We've got a melee crit-monkey that's multi-classed all to Hell and back and a 7th level half-fey forest gnome. Yeah ...

Oh, yeah, and he locked out the outer planes. There aren't any gods to help out.

I'd quit the campaign, Rogue, but there are times when it's amusing. On one of the previous playing sessions we dropped a whale on a town, destroying it. But, yeah, it's getting stupidly annoying more than fun.

EDIT: Oh, there was one thing I thought of. Slaying Arrow says in it's description that non-living targets are instantly killed. He declared his castle a non-living construct when he was telling me about it. Think I can get away with instantly killing it?

I made up the plan in all of 5 seconds using my Dashboard calculator. Guess it doesn't pan out.

Really, the DM sounds like a loser. If he was actually smart and competent he could easily challenge you guys with enemies with 100 hp and 11-14 hit dice. I am not sure why he is bringing in a 100 or so HD castle (assuming from the BAB and HP). It just reeks of him having a very small penis.

Well, he does have his Beguiler, Psion and some weird multi-classer that he says can take on the party. They're all supposed to be either our level or lower. He says he builds characters and, instead of killing us, toys with us. Yeah, you know, the more I think about it the less fun I can see having with this game.

Erik von Nein wrote:Well, he does have his Beguiler, Psion and some weird multi-classer that he says can take on the party. They're all supposed to be either our level or lower. He says he builds characters and, instead of killing us, toys with us. Yeah, you know, the more I think about it the less fun I can see having with this game.

This entire game seems to be simultaneously a way for him to wank by creating ludicrous characters, and gain self-assurance because if other people are playing, hey, his ideas must be good.

This sort of shit is what inspired me to say "oh, fuck it" and learn how to GM properly myself.

Yeah, it sounds like it. He's been running through all the rules looking for the best exploits ... er, combinations he can find to make wonky characters. That's without him either misinterpreting certain rules, spell/power descriptions or out-and-out house ruling some stuff he doesn't like. (the aforementioned named bonuses). Christ, his 9th level psion who I managed to paralyze and coup-de-grace-to-death DIDN'T STAY DEAD. Neither did his stupid character before stay dead. That one WAS a higher level than us, as well!

He really doesn't know what GMing is actually about.

Maybe I should crank out scrolls of Geas and claim that, since activating a scroll is a standard action using Geas through one is as well? Heh.

You need a new GM ASAP.

Yeah, I'm hoping to wrap this up soon. That's why I was wondering if Slaying Arrow (Artificer Infusion, 5th level) would work. That'd make that battle short as Hell, sort of like how Hellion suggested, only with one shot instead of many.

I need to look up the artificer rules again to figure the machine gun out. Nothing says screw you to the DM like hundreds of scorching rays killing his shitters while time stands still.

Scorching ray doesn't work during Time Stop. Delayed Blast Fireball, however, does.

Seriously, just... quit. Screw the DM. He sucks.

Slaying Arrow wouldn't do much good, as you'd need one keyed specifically to constructs, and it's a DC 20 Fort save. Hell, even a Greater Slaying Arrow only has a DC of 23, so if the modifier is 24 like you said, he could roll a 1 and still make the save with room to spare.

If the campaign's gone sour, trying to pour more into it to put it back on track won't really help. If the DM's just using his screen as an excuse to be what amounts to the biggest munchkin and powergamer ever, call him on it; if he's all about collecting numbers instead of the story you're trying to lead, then you might want to give him a phonebook as a parting gift.

Executor32 wrote:Slaying Arrow wouldn't do much good, as you'd need one keyed specifically to constructs, and it's a DC 20 Fort save. Hell, even a Greater Slaying Arrow only has a DC of 23, so if the modifier is 24 like you said, he could roll a 1 and still make the save with room to spare.

1's are always automatic failures on a saving throw. So unless the DM houserules that (He might have?) then there's always the 5% chance of success.

Are you people crazy? This is the most awesome idea ever!

It would be, PeZook, were it not for the whole thing about the party being completely unable to handle it.

I was in another game that had an idea similar to this. A giant construct rampaging through a city. The difference there was that we were able to do something to do (with only two party members, no less) whereas in this case it's completely beyond our party. 3300 HP? 20+ saves? 70+ to hit? Out of his whole "give the party lots of broken items" my character's probably the only one who can do anything.

It wouldn't be so bad, but most of the time it just feels like the worst kind of rail-roading. He claims there's "at least three ways" out of every situation he gives us, but he pre-generated it all and never modified it for the party.

I suppose I'm just ranting now.

Yeah, I was reading Slaying Arrow incorrectly. Guess we'll just get rail-roaded by the DM.

Erik von Nein wrote:It would be, PeZook, were it not for the whole thing about the party being completely unable to handle it.

Well, yeah, I just read the rest of your post in detail. So his way out of this is to give your party lots of overpowered items? What?

One could build a truly epic campaign with this thing. It just needs a proper villain, a ticking clock and a hefty dose of desperation. Why would a GM want to immediately give the party the means to kill the construct?

Well, the items more help us survive, I suppose. One of them giving a 70+ bonus to AC for one character, and another giving ungodly amounts of speed to the flying guy. It's weird. I'm kind of interested to see how this works Sunday.

I was honestly tempted to totally destroy the game at one point. There was this mechanism of magic that was supposed to lock off the world from the outer planes. He said any tampering would cause it to explode and blow up half the continent. Heh. I totally should have.

Argue for the inclusion of the Nuke spell from Munchkin D20.

That would kill the campaign PDQ (1000000D6 damage to everything in a mile radius, rolled individually.)

There are so many ways a good DM could make use of an enemy that is a fucking living castle aside from "lulz epic boss fight." You don't even need to have heard of Shadow of the Colossus to come up with good ideas for making that sort of enemy interesting. Making a giant fucking thing that requires DM-created items to fight is just taking the fun away from the players.

Peptuck wrote:There are so many ways a good DM could make use of an enemy that is a fucking living castle aside from "lulz epic boss fight." You don't even need to have heard of Shadow of the Colossus to come up with good ideas for making that sort of enemy interesting. Making a giant fucking thing that requires DM-created items to fight is just taking the fun away from the players.

Think of the possibilities that would arise if you allow players to enter the place. From horror to through melodrama to action-adventure, you could do all sorts of stuff. Villains playing mind-games with our intrepid party! Living rooms actively obstructing progress! The inhabitants fused with the castle's living walls and directing their anger and anguish at the lord of the realm who wronged them in the past!

Or make the castle have a mind of its own, malevolent or resembling that of a child. A demon from another plane, perhaps? An unwanted child who was walled inside the castle by his father and wants revenge, even if he has to destroy a city along the way? Nah, let's have five hours of dicerolling and fighting what is essentially a giant gameboss.