# From Zero to Hero



## CPXB (Apr 14, 2004)

In the rules forum I recently said how last game session my monk felt ridiculously underpowered compared to the party druid.  Me and my DM instituted some "fixes" -- primarily giving monks a fighter's BAB, so a monk can be as useful in a throw-down fist fight as a "primary melee character."  It worked.  The monk now feels as powerful as a paladin or ranger in a fight.

The game we were in had two fights -- the characters were all sixth level: a monk, a druid, a bard and a sorcerer -- and the first one we got jumped by a half-fire elemental hag who on surprise surrounded us with a wall of flame whilst we were in a swamp.  Rashad -- under the hypothesis that forture favors the bold -- burst through the wall of flame and while he could not attack the hag he did manage to pin her against a tree so she could not step out of his zone of control without taking an AOO.  She used weakening touch on him, zapping two of his strength.  Then she was candy.

Flurry of blows, first stunning.  She was stunned, and since Rashad did more than 10 points of damage and he has the Knockdown feat he executed an improved trip on her, she fell, he hit her again for a free attack, and then hit her *again* with the other blow of the flurry.  Stunned her, too.  Stunned and prone, he just polished her off the next round.

Very cool.

The other fight was with a li'l six eye stalked beholder-kin and two ettercaps.  The beholder-kin had this gaze stun attack so was low enough to use that -- hovering fifteen feet above the ground.  Sorcerer whacks the beholder-kin with a fireball, but it makes its save.  During the normal round -- eyebeam central.   Another scorching ray that sends the druid packing, the ettercaps use net-webbing stuff to pin down the sorcerer and animal companion, much stunning all around.  Worry sets in.  The sorcerer, webbed even, manages to fire off another scorching ray at the beholder-kin, doing some more damage.

Then, Rashad ninjas up and hits the beholder-kin, barely reaching it (he jumped eight feet up, is six feet tall and has a three foot reach, just getting it and only barely hitting it) -- aberrations, bad fort saves.  STUNNED!  On the ground.  The beholder-kin was candy.  Flurry of blows, no more beholder kin.  EXCELLENT.

Then we cleaned up the ettercaps.  One of them kept chewing on the sorcerer while the animal companion, now free, came to flank Rashad and they tore apart their ettercap.  Rashad got bit for a few points of damage and lost 4 Dex, suckage.  The others finished the other off, tho' by the end of it the sorcerer was down to Dex 6 from all the poison.  He lucked out and made all his secondary damage saves, hehe.  Rashad made his secondary damage save from the poison.

VICTORY WAS OURS!

In general, the whole feel of the fight was different.  Certainly part of it was that my character was simply more powerful -- that +2 to hit and additional attack made a fairly large difference.  It was, a couple of attacks, the difference between a hit and a miss (including the nigh critical attack against the beholder-kin -- I got precisely what I needed no more).  Certainly another big change was the fact not everything had incredibly good fort saves.  More than a little luck was involved.  I think my lowest to-hit roll of the night was a 12.  I did pretty poor on some of my other rolls -- including a 1 on my init -- but overall the dice favored me tonight. 

Also, quite frankly, tonight my style of play ("fortune favors the bold") payed off.  The druid, tonight, in the actual chaos of attacks HITTING HER, hehe, played very conservatively.  And even though the sorcerer did a fairly large amount of damage, there was no sense of him utterly dominating the party like there had been with the druid before all of this.  I just feel really upbeat about the changes and their effects on the game.  Indeed, now I am wondering whether the changes we made to he monk were overpowered because he was the superhero of the evening.  But since the DM would rather err on the favor fo the PCs, we'll play a bit more to see how it works out.


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