Massive AC problem


Advice

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What I do when I have a player that is nigh invulnerable is not have any monsters actually attack it. I mean short of antagonize this isn't WoW where tanks have good ways of holding aggro or anything (well there is a few things you can do, but unlikely given the build). Tank characters will learn pretty quickly that if you can't actually hold threat it doesn't matter how invulnerable to damage you are. His job is to protect the party, if what he is doing actually means that the enemy is more likely to ignore him then his armor actually puts the party at risk. By throwing harder stuff at him you are playing into what he wants, he wants to be the guy who protects the party against dangerous threats.

Also, I'm not afraid to kill PCs at all. If he fails a save or die spell like flesh to stone, I have no issue with the enemy (particularly a smart one who plans ahead and has an escape route) trying to shatter it. I'm not a killer GM, but I generally try have my monster at least try their hardest (within fair encounter levels)to kill a PC. I'm running a group through Legacy of Fire and I've only managed one PC death so far out of 11 levels of play, but a very large number of close calls (5 or so PCs into deep negatives). Almost all of the player near deaths have been by monsters attacking the tank (AC focused oracle), realizing they have softer targets nearby, and shifting aggro. PCs have learned that just because the tank is near doesn't mean they are safe. As a result he has toned down his guy, and shifted towards a HP style tank and actually uses the spell that lets him take half the damage another PC takes (usually the monk, since its a low AC build monk).


Terrain and Combat Maneuvers can help a lot. I recently ran a dungeon and the players largely stomped through everything until they found a lake. Granted, they were at 1/3 spell capacity, but tried to cross it anyway. A water elemental capsized their boat, then entered a vortex. Then the black dragon started grappling/drowning them. Non of the characters had invested in swim, so things got very hairy and 2 people died. However, be careful if running a similar scenario as it can be very frustrating. The archer couldn't shoot into the water and have any chance of actually hitting, nor could he actually see the creatures underwater to even hit them. The bard couldn't buff/aid anyone as they were out of her range, the oracle had no spells and largely pouted because water is one situation where casting fireballs over and over has almost no effect, the gnome duelist tried to help but almost drowned himself...

Combat isn't always about hitting the enemy and dealing damage, it's about defeating them. I played a monk yesterday in a group of 3rd-4th level. I had the highest AC at 20, and fairly decent to hit bonus. But I excelled at grappling (not playing tetori). My GM got a little frustrated to me because my tactic was always grapple + pin, while the rogue sneak attacked and the others fought other creatures. At one point, we had a random encounter with a bullette, and I was thinking, "Aw *expletive deleted* it," rolled a natural 20 and grappled the bullete. My character was standing in front of his mouth, holding it open and keeping it there and was all like, "It's cool guys, I got this".

The final encounter of the day was 5 gargoyles swooping down and my Monk is the only one with magical weapons. We're playing Legacy of Fire and my character gained a special Monk Wrap that my GM ruled acted like an Amulet of Mighty Fist called Tempest. In addition to that, I have Ki strike and so I was the only one that could overcome DR. But I realized myself doing 1d6+2 points of damage per round isn't as good as pinning, which denies the gargoyles their dex and gives a -4 to their AC, which allowed for the rogue to do 3d6+2+2 bleed, which is a lot more effective than my attack. However, once I have pinned a gargoyle, I then started dealing damage on following rounds equal to my unarmed strike.

Don't think you must always attack with a sword in order to defeat someone.


Snow Crash wrote:

Hey guys thanks for advice.

High AC comes from magical armour and shield with a defending longsword and ring of protection. Also has stalwart defender and when possible smites (paladin). 10th level character and when his is properly buffed etc gets his AC over the 40 without breaking too much of a sweat.

Grappling etc is out of the option as he has a ring of freedom of movement. Spells etc are difficult as he has massive saves due to Very high Cha Paladin and cloak of resistance.

Swarms have worked in the past very well. And I successfully turned him to stone when he rolled a 1 on his save vs a basilisk the other day.

His character is designed to rush up and engage in Melee while the spell caster and Archer hang back and unload from range. He is also backed up in Melee by a combat Druid and a Cleric of Gorum. So manouvering past them to get at the squishies is difficult.

As I said I have to bump up the attack rolls on most bad guys just to be even able to have a chance of hitting him. The end result is if any other players stand beside him in melee they almost automatically get hit (reducing their fun obviously)

Smiting and rust monster etc seem like quite good ideas. Although I feel a little bad at the idea of destroying an expensive suit of magical armour on him. Spell casters generally try to remove him from combat by surrounding him in a wall of stone or ice etc.

Giving a 10th level Character a lot of wealth and then come back crying? His Ring alone is 40.000gp. Add in a (probably) +3 Weapon and +3 Armour & Shield and we already are over his wealth. Add in the Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance and his inevitable stat boosters it is even crazier. I mean has he like 120k wealth?

Also his Ring of Protection and his Smite Evil DO NOT STACK.

Can you give us a quick roundup of all his magic items?


Snow Crash wrote:


I either have to bump up npcs attack rolls, which means that l the other pcs pretty much get auto hit or i need to roll 20s to hit the one pc.

I think that increasing the attack bonus of enemies is among the worse things you can do as that will only escalate the issue. If one build a character to be hard to hit the reaction to being hit allot is to get more armour, so if things will hit him regularly it will only produce strong incentives to get even more AC.

Kingmaker is a campaign that is largely outdoors, use that and set up encounters with packs of mobile enemies (that manoeuvre to attack from all directions), the tank function becomes quite inefficient if there is plenty of space to get around the tank.


http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/shadow

See that guy right there?

He's all touch attacks and drains strength. A few bad touches from one of these guys will set him straight.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/shadow/shadow-grea ter

They even have higher CR versions of this concept.

If they're higher than level 8, then have some boss monster summon 3 or 4 of these and have them all focus the Armor guy.

That'll show 'em to play in YOUR campaign!


Grapple, Trip, Disarm (his shield), Sunder.

His high AC is almost certainly due to Armor and shield, am I right? So go straight for his CMD.

Play it realisticly though, have enemies attack once or twice in their usual tactics before switching to something different.


StreamOfTheSky wrote:
I can't believe people are suggesting rust monster/ sunder / other means of destroying his stuff as a serious means of handling the problem... If the OP comes on here next week saying that a new PC wizard ended an encounter one the first round with baleful polymorph, the mature means of dealing with it will be, "have an NPC steal his spell book!"

It's about getting into character. If he's fighting a giant who can't get through his AC after a couple of rounds - then sunder should be a perfectly acceptable option.

Rumors get around about a heavily armored paladin is virtually impregnable - some local boss obtains a rust monster as a deterrent.

I would agree that just springing that stuff on the PC to take him down a peg would be bad for the relationship between the DM and the players, but in-character reactions to events developing in the campaign? Entirely fair game.


Kingmaker is outdoors? Perhaps it's time for Mr. Paladin to meet a horde of cavalry archers. :)


There are a lot of good ideas and some bad ones. Some players want to go into God Mode like in a video game and don't want to be challenged. They don't care what the rest of the group thinks, just thier personal belief in dominating. You can't tell me that it takes a lot of skill, time, and talent to make a tank. I don't reward or punish players that want to go into God mode, but I don't make it easy either. When there is one character that making the game inbalanced, you as a GM are going to have to think way in advance about every encounter before they happen.

One character can make things unbalanced, but there are ways to counter him and not in every battle and don't try to kill him. The GM's have to make the game fun for every character in every game session. I use things that require high dexterity checks and or saves. Once in a while I will throw in an ooze, ranged touch attacks, magic missles, and distribute them amongst the group. Killing characters sucks for the players if they are emotionally attached to them. I had the same issue you are going through and learned to balance my encounters out. If you are using a pre-made adventure just throw in different things to help you out. Of course, this will take a lot time and planning on your part. Hope that helps!


Some of the solutions given like sunder and other combat maneuvers sound good in theory, but in practice most monsters appropriate for the level probably won't be all that great against a full BAB character built for tanking. Especially considering that the rest of the party at 10th level should make the encounter pretty quick. In my experience combats rarely last long enough for a sunder character to hack through magic armor and actually get to threaten the PC directly. Since at decent levels PCs have access to repair spells, though there are limits to make whole and mending, all you end up doing is lowering the parties treasure if all you do is force relatively cheap repairs.

If I gave a NPC this level of gear at that level I would have to adjust the CR. Your paladin is better than he should be because there has been some issues with treasure. This is kingmaker, while that module is relatively generous with treasure, there is a reason for that. The treasure is supposed to go to managing your kingdom, converted into build points and armies. So for the paladin to have so much wealth means that he is basically robbing the treasury. Considering the hazards that threaten the kingdoms existence I think denying the land of gold that could go towards to defense of the people for vanity levels of AC could be an alignment violation. I know for certain that it would be in older versions of D&D.


notabot wrote:


If I gave a NPC this level of gear at that level I would have to adjust the CR. Your paladin is better than he should be because there has been some issues with treasure. This is kingmaker, while that module is relatively generous with treasure, there is a reason for that. The treasure is supposed to go to managing your kingdom, converted into build points and armies. So for the paladin to have so much wealth means that he is basically robbing the treasury. Considering the hazards that threaten the kingdoms existence I think denying the land of gold that could go towards to defense of the people for vanity levels of AC could be an alignment violation. I know for certain that it would be in older versions of D&D.

I think you are overlooking the fact that it is a party of characters; most of the time wealth is not distributed perfectly among the members of the party. So one must look at the wealth of the gear the party have in total to be able to make any arguments about “robbing her charge”.

If the GM has boosted the to-hit for monsters this gets more pronounced, as it makes average-good AC functionally the same as very bad AC. Hence a strong incentive for the party to concentrate all AC-boost in a single character as it would otherwise be pointless.

Liberty's Edge

Don't forget he's probably not sleeping in that armor. Kingmaker involves a good amount of exploring and camping out in the wilderness. Unless he happens to be on watch when a nighttime encounter takes place, his AC should be much more reasonable.

Sovereign Court

Sunder their stuff.


We are going through that in a game I'm in actually. For my cleric, I'm about half battle cleirc, half support. My cleric is pretty tough to hit and spends a lot of the battle dropping buffs after buffs while Sanctuaried, then laying a smackdown thanks to my domain powers. He'd have trouble hitting me unless it was touch, while some of the other, newer members didn't have the best character options. So he asked me to sell my equipment and buy worse magic equipment. I was not pleased. So instead of making myself worse, I offered to make everyone around me better. I'm currently helping the rogue retake some feats and get some better weapons than a dagger (he's new so assumed that daggers were an iconic choice). Same with the wizard in our party. Now everyone is having fun and doing well because now the GM can throw somewhat harder things at us without making it a TPK. Obirandiath speaks the truth in his post.

It may be easier to ruin one person's fun for the 'good of the game' but it's a lot better to just bring everyone up. To me (and please take no offense to this, this isn't directed at anyone here), having to nerf a character down because you cannot handle changing up encounters is a sign of a inexperienced GM.

There are way around everything as long as you don't constantly throw them at him. Making his AC useless every encounter is unnecessarily punishing a player for doing well. Spellcasters with reflex save spells or ranged touch spells are a good example. Shadows and wraiths are scary as well. I actually fought a wraith last night and it wrecked almost everyone because our touch ACs were around 10-12. Changing environment you fight in is also a smart idea. Things like fighting in a flooded fortress, total darkness, or a volcanic cavern force a player to fight differently. Terrain is probably the biggest encounter changer, moreso than monsters themselves. A fight against a devilfish on land is a cakewalk, but if it's suddenly underwater, then it is much more difficult.

There are a lot of good ideas in this topic so definitely read them all and hopefully things will get better.


Korpen wrote:


I think you are overlooking the fact that it is a party of characters; most of the time wealth is not distributed perfectly among the members of the party. So one must look at the wealth of the gear the party have in total to be able to make any arguments about “robbing her charge”.

If the GM has boosted the to-hit for monsters this gets more pronounced, as it makes average-good AC functionally the same as very bad AC. Hence a strong incentive for the party to concentrate all AC-boost in a single character as it would otherwise be pointless.

Sure its a party of characters, and they are justified in pooling their wealth if they think its needed. If this is the case then perhaps the GM is falling into the must attack the fighter mode of gameplay, and this is the endgame of that.

This is a problem I've encountered, players who are constantly being attacked will buff up, and the party will help them if needed. Since they don't need to spend on their own defense this is feasible.

This is one of the reasons why I tend to spread out my attacks over the campaign, sometimes its right for the fighter to be attacked, sometimes the casters or damage monkeys(rogue,ninja,alchemist,magus,aka glass cannon) need to be focused on. The player characters will take risks to reach critical enemies, so I treat the enemies in a similar manner.

Sometimes however the players just don't allow an opening and the tank does his job well of holding threat. Good play means they get the reward of a safer combat (note safer, not easy).


Have monsters get smarter and start disarming the pally of his defender and then ignoring him. Sunder will take multiple hits. Disarm only needs to work once. Dirty tricks are good too. He'll start focusing more on damage output than defense if he realizes that 150 hp monsters can and will just walk around him and take the AoO to get at the glass cannons. The ranger and wizard if played correctly are probably way outkilling the pally. He'll need to react and modify his build to be considered a relevant threat to the enemies in future levels.

As a flavor based upgrade to the encounters, you could make a few lower level generic stat block NPCs. I would make a generic 3-6 level kobold rogue, archer, and sorcerer (and maybe an alchemist). toss a few of these npc kobolds into a lot of the kingmaker combats and say that there is a large kobold mercenary group in the area that any other intelligent monster is probably now trying to hire for protection. This gives you a plot device to get some more easy to use NPCs to add to the encounters. Have them play smart using CMB's etc. Have them disarm and steal if possible, and have them retreat after the first few rounds when it's apparent that the pcs are going to win. Make this group the bane of the party. Heck, tracking them down and trying to clear them out of the region could make for entire side adventures (of the tucker's kobolds variety muah hah hah hah).

Then the increase of CMBs, touch attacks, traps, and ambushes you're throwing at the party will make sense thematically.

Sovereign Court

This happened to my group at right about that level also.

Fallout: The PC playing the wizard had an overly gamist over-reaction, and decided to switch character. I wish I had known this was one of the causes. He felt overwhelmed by the enemies which were perfectly balanced for my group of six players, yet he wasn't having as much fun.

While I cannot relate to this personally, since I tend to enjoy everything regardless of techincal AC stuff or build-discussions, I DO understand this now, and will use some of the advice provided in this thread.

Chiefly, I'll need to look more closely to the characters, what they receive in quests, and also have open discussions more often when these types of things arise. Thx.

Pax


Tactically, if you don't want it to seem like the enemies are ignoring the heavy guy, consider using large numbers of weaker enemys, such as goblins or the smaller elementals, any vermin type.

Sure, the fighter will love tanking a dozen enemies, but it should very clearly demonstrate the issue to the party as a whole when everyone is getting swarmed by 40ish goblins.


A couple people mentioned that sundering isn't a worthwhile tactic, and it's honestly not that hard. For instance, give a fighter an adamantine longsword, and he automatically overcomes any hardness of less than 20, so 19 and less. A non-magical, heavy steel shield has hardness 10 and 20 hit points, and once reduced to 0, the shield is destroyed. Each +1 increased the hardness by 2 and the hp by 10. So a +3 heavy steel shield has hardness 16 (which is ignored by the adamantine longsword) and 50 hp. With a full attack action, you can use sunder in place of all your attacks, so it would be perfectly feasible to see a monster forgo all his attacks to sunder an item multiiple times, and destroy it.


I skimmed through some of the responses, so apologies if this has been covered already. I am playing a paladin/stalwart defender in a different game, so thought I'd let you in on how the class combo works in case you're not completely familiar with it.

First, someone pointed out that the Ring of Protection and Smite Evil do not stack. This is true; they both provide deflection bonuses, so make sure he's not stacking those. Also remember that Smite Evil only affects one target...someone in one of our games recently thought that the AC bonus granted from Smite Evil works against ALL evil targets, but it's only against the target of the Smite.

Second, when he is in Defensive Stance, he CAN'T MOVE without breaking his stance. So just have NPCs move around him and out of his reach! And whoever said that is metagaming, is full of it. You see a dude covered in shiny armor carrying a big shield, and you see an archer and a wizard with little to no armor behind him...hmm...yeah, which one is going to be harder to hit, let me think? Even if you don't want to have that be the case, after just ONE NPC tries to hit the tank, the others will realize how hard he is to hit. So have one or two NPCs engage him in melee, and the rest either stand back and shoot ranged attacks at the rest of the party, or go around the tank to get to the squishies.

Third...since he is paladin/stalwart defender...I am assuming one of his Mercies is to cure fatigue. That is my build. Therefore, if I go into Defensive Stance and then end it (thus being fatigued) I can Lay on Hands myself to remove the fatigue. But keep in mind, he HAS TO HAVE A FREE HAND to Lay on Hands. What kind of shield does he have? Tower Shields and Large Shields are too large to be able to do anything else with that hand, so if he has a tower/large shield in one hand and his weapon in the other, he can't LoH without sheathing or dropping one of them. If he has a light shield or buckler, he can pass his weapon over to his shield hand (or use his shield hand, if it's a buckler) but in my game if I do this, my GM has ruled that in either case, I lose me shield bonus to AC for that round since my shield had is doing something else (either using Lay on Hands, or holding my weapon.)

Fourth, with the defending long sword, keep in mind he has to make an attack roll with the weapon in order to get the defending bonus. And he has to announce whether he wants the bonus to be applied to his attack roll or his AC. If he has a +3 Defending Long Sword and he wants all +3 to go to his AC, he first has to announce that, and then take a swing with the sword at an enemy. Just having the sword in his hand doesn't give him a bonus to AC.

Anyway...I hope this helps some. My biggest suggestion would be to engage him with one or two NPCs, wait for him to drop into Defensive Stance, then have other NPCs walk around him to get to the rest of the party. Also, as others have said, swarms, touch attacks, spells without saves or with partial saves, etc...a witch with some hexes like Evil Eye and Misfortune could be great. (speaking of which, a 9th+ level Witch with Quickened Ill Omen plus some kind of nasty debuff...Bestow Curse, or Dominate Person, or the Slumber Hex...could take him out of a fight early on.)


Tels wrote:
A couple people mentioned that sundering isn't a worthwhile tactic, and it's honestly not that hard. For instance, give a fighter an adamantine longsword, and he automatically overcomes any hardness of less than 20, so 19 and less. A non-magical, heavy steel shield has hardness 10 and 20 hit points, and once reduced to 0, the shield is destroyed. Each +1 increased the hardness by 2 and the hp by 10. So a +3 heavy steel shield has hardness 16 (which is ignored by the adamantine longsword) and 50 hp. With a full attack action, you can use sunder in place of all your attacks, so it would be perfectly feasible to see a monster forgo all his attacks to sunder an item multiiple times, and destroy it.

While adamantine weapons are quite effective at sundering, most GMs don't like to give NPCs such expensive weapons due to the balance of the NPC (give to much gear, have to raise CR) and that the NPC gear will soon become PC gear. Using video game conventions only named NPC's should have adamantine weapons, or very high level mooks (like party is 14, mooks are 11).

Also if the party has good DPR (damage per round) that guy who decides to sunder won't live long. In my play group of 11th level guys over half of the party has crossed the 50 HP in a round mark, and 2 or 3 of them have dealt 3 digit damage. (Legacy of Fire, in the 5th book at the moment, so its actually kinda needed given the enemies)


Oh, I understand, but even without the adamantine weapon, it wouldn't be too hard to sunder a shield, especially in the case of raging barbarians or giants, or other monsters that are strong. That same sunderer could easily sunder the weapon instead and remove the DPR from the game and take his time cracking the proverbial lobster. The average longsword, for instance, has hardness 10 and 5 hp. Against someone who is trained in sundering, that sword will go away pretty quickly and now you've got a turtle with no bite.


Here are the absolute worst ideas people are coming up with, that will all create the feeling that the player is being "punished" by the DM for no good reason.

- Destroying his equipment with Sunder or Rust monsters.

- Ignore him in combat.

- Using only touch attacks on him from then on.


Well I have to disagree with the ignore in combat part. If a wizard invests in being invulnerable he is usually pretty happy if he gets ignored as a result of his protections. Creating a character that can't be harmed as a martial generates the same effect. Monsters should logically seek to fight things they can harm, and if they get a chance incapacitate things they can't. If it takes a swing to "sell" this then thats fine, but if a creature sees somebody all decked up to be untouchable, has a reputation as such, and uses tactics that reinforce this theme, its pretty logical that enemies are going to not futility waste their actions trying for a 5% chance to do damage to a class that can easily heal itself.

Sczarni

How about a few noncombat encounters? Roleplaying and riddles and all that? I know you can't really rely on that-- your players will expect there to be combat, but the occasional noncombat encounter should give the group a nice change-up.

In combat, I don't think you need to resort to anything that looks like metagaming. Stalwart Defenders can't willingly move out of their square while in a defensive stance, so anything with high mobility or long range should be great-- it won't be able to hit the defender, but the defender won't be able to hit it either.

Really, when a player focuses his character's build like this, he's casting a vote on the kind of game he wants to play. It'd be pretty frustrating for him to do all that work and never get any payoff, so let the guy be untouchable now and again. Give him his moment.

Once that moment has passed, put him up against an enemy with different tactics so he'll have to adapt. As long as you're not throwing your party against encounters that all look dreadfully similar, then it shouldn't matter too much that one of them has ferocious AC.


notabot wrote:
If it takes a swing to "sell" this then thats fine, but if a creature sees somebody all decked up to be untouchable, has a reputation as such, and uses tactics that reinforce this theme, its pretty logical that enemies are going to not futility waste their actions trying for a 5% chance to do damage to a class that can easily heal itself.

Okay, then why would they even stick around on the same battlefield? If they think to themselves "Oh wow, that guy is really powerful, better not fight him" why don't they just run away?

This sort of "logic" is pointless. Monsters would not engage in the first place if they didn't think they could win. If Mr. Untouchable here makes it seem futile to fight him, why isn't it futile to fight the rest of the party as well? They're all allies after all.

What happens if the Paladin here thinks to himself he needs a Keen reach weapon to compensate? Then its just back to square one since he can threaten an 8 hex diameter.

Silver Crusade

CommandoDude wrote:

Here are the absolute worst ideas people are coming up with, that will all create the feeling that the player is being "punished" by the DM for no good reason.

- Destroying his equipment with Sunder or Rust monsters.

- Ignore him in combat.

- Using only touch attacks on him from then on.

And why are those the worst ideas? Sunder is only in the game for Play Characters to use I suppose? An enemy would never think to utilize this tactic?

As for ignoring him... why not? If you can't hit the big tin can why would you continue to swing at him while his buddies are killing you when you may have a chance of killing them instead? That isn't mean, it's common sense.

Lastly, if available to you, why would you not use touch attacks on the guy in full plate? I'm quite certain it's exactly what the players do, right?

This isn't an mmo, you can yell and scream and curse the bad guys mother but that doesn't mean you are going to "keep agro". If you want to tank for the group then get yourself into a narrow hall way where they can only come at you one at a time. If you are in an open area expect the bad guys to move around said area and, you know, try to kill you. If they can't hit the big bad warrior/paladin/etc in full plate you better be damn ready for them to come after the less armored indaviduals.

That is not metagaming. If I see a guy in full plate and a guy in a leather tunic which one do I think my club is going to have a better chance of hitting?

/shrug


CommandoDude wrote:
notabot wrote:
If it takes a swing to "sell" this then thats fine, but if a creature sees somebody all decked up to be untouchable, has a reputation as such, and uses tactics that reinforce this theme, its pretty logical that enemies are going to not futility waste their actions trying for a 5% chance to do damage to a class that can easily heal itself.

Okay, then why would they even stick around on the same battlefield? If they think to themselves "Oh wow, that guy is really powerful, better not fight him" why don't they just run away?

This sort of "logic" is pointless. Monsters would not engage in the first place if they didn't think they could win. If Mr. Untouchable here makes it seem futile to fight him, why isn't it futile to fight the rest of the party as well? They're all allies after all.

What happens if the Paladin here thinks to himself he needs a Keen reach weapon to compensate? Then its just back to square one since he can threaten an 8 hex diameter.

Because you don't always get to choose your combats? Running isn't an option? Maybe if I can bring the enemy down I can get that scary guy to yield?

Not really sure what point you were trying to make with the keen reach weapon. Not really applicable to the particular build, since its going to be a 2H weapon, for a guy who is going max AC, his existing character is going to sacrifice that for battlefield control and damage ability (thus being more rounded and probably more useful for the party).

Dark Archive

CommandoDude wrote:
notabot wrote:
If it takes a swing to "sell" this then thats fine, but if a creature sees somebody all decked up to be untouchable, has a reputation as such, and uses tactics that reinforce this theme, its pretty logical that enemies are going to not futility waste their actions trying for a 5% chance to do damage to a class that can easily heal itself.

Okay, then why would they even stick around on the same battlefield? If they think to themselves "Oh wow, that guy is really powerful, better not fight him" why don't they just run away?

This sort of "logic" is pointless. Monsters would not engage in the first place if they didn't think they could win. If Mr. Untouchable here makes it seem futile to fight him, why isn't it futile to fight the rest of the party as well? They're all allies after all.

What happens if the Paladin here thinks to himself he needs a Keen reach weapon to compensate? Then its just back to square one since he can threaten an 8 hex diameter.

The logic goes: "Let's take out the easy targets first, and then all of us will gang up on the hard-to-hit guy!"

I'm sure someone has already mentioned Aid Another, but that move gets my votes. Ten mooks all aiding and some of them flanking will help the big guy land a hit.


Always forget aid another. The only limit is how many guys can actually fit right? So 7 mooks aid, 1 guy swing with flanking bonus and +14 aid bonus? A BAB of 10 and a modest Str of 16 makes that +29 to hit? Yeah, need to roll slightly above average to hit AC40.

Use aid another on grapples. Nothing funnier than a tied up tank.


Instead of having everything offense based which highlights the strong suits of the one player, have some creatures with higher AC and HP to engage the more offensive side of the group.

Bumping up attack or damage to focus on the one player is just going to make his strong suits more apparent.

Even if the creatures are having a tough time hitting him, if they themselves can't be hit by him or have lots of hitpoints the other players become more important because that is their strong suit.


Regarding the AC tank I agree with using terrain (esp in something like kingmaker) as a major equalizer. However, something else to consider is using smaller creatures to attack the party. By applying the 'Young Creature' template you can debuff the creatures enough where you can add another creature to the encounter. It should take about 5minutes to do it with the quick rules. An example: 3 Dire Bears (a CR10 encounter) can be changed to 4 'young' dire bears (a CR10 encounter). While the bears will still not be able to touch the paladin there are more now to attack the rest of the party while the paladin is dealing with 1 or 2.

I also agree with the logic that intelligent monsters will look to take out the biggest threat (which is not necessarily the man in the can) while unintelligent monsters might avoid the man in the can as 'not tasty'. Lastly, while an AC of 32 is perfectly in line with a level 10 man in a can (+1dex, +3plate, +3shield, +2Natural armor,+2deflection not including feats). Regarding the freedom of movement: that is reasonable if the item was made by someone in the group. Otherwise, it is too expensive for a level 10 PC.

greggem wrote:
Don't forget he's probably not sleeping in that armor. Kingmaker involves a good amount of exploring and camping out in the wilderness. Unless he happens to be on watch when a nighttime encounter takes place, his AC should be much more reasonable.

Character treasure should be in line with each other. I keep track of my player's approximate equipment and am rarely off by more than 2000gp and that is usually consumables. I also do an equipment check every few levels. While a DM may not have that time it shouldnt be difficult to ask the players to come up with the number's themselves every few levels. Then its a simple matter to customize the next few treasures to the players that are lacking. Overall party treasure shouldnt be affected.

Liberty's Edge

As to the treasure. Yes the arcane caster is making a lot of the magic items. It is kingmaker and they have all the time in the world.

I like a lot if what I hear and will be putting some of it to great use.

I agree that for some encounters he should be able to feel untouchable due to his high AC.
What I was looking for was some advice on how to mix things up a bit so he still feels vulnerable sometimes without overpowering other members of the group

Yes they also have plenty of Roleplaying encounters as well.

They are also about to raid the stronghold of a strong enemy who used to be a member if their council for many years. So he knows just about everything there is to know about him and wil be planning his defenses accordingly.

Thank you for all your advice.

On a side note The treasure I have been handing out has been the treasure that comes with the module ( I have even been toning down on that's well) plus what they have crafted for themselves. .

Liberty's Edge

Alienfreak wrote:

Giving a 10th level Character a lot of wealth and then come back crying? His Ring alone is 40.000gp. Add in a (probably) +3 Weapon and +3 Armour & Shield and we already are over his wealth. Add in the Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance and his inevitable stat boosters it is even crazier. I mean has he like 120k wealth?

Also his Ring of Protection and his Smite Evil DO NOT STACK.

Can you give us a quick roundup of all his magic items?

treasur info:
Haha just checked and the Ring is handed out as standard treasure at about 7th level in the kingmaker AP.

All treasure is pretty much the standard stuff found in the AP.

He has +2 Armour, +2 shield. +2 Ring of Prot, +2 defending longsword, +2 Cloak Resist, +4 Headband of Cha, Ring of Freedom of Movement Some of this stuff was made by the PC caster. Plus obviously various potions etc and a bag of holding. Armour might be +3 dont have character in front of me.

But I have not been pumping up the treasure. If anything I tone back on what is handed out as standard in the AP

Liberty's Edge

greggem wrote:
Don't forget he's probably not sleeping in that armor. Kingmaker involves a good amount of exploring and camping out in the wilderness. Unless he happens to be on watch when a nighttime encounter takes place, his AC should be much more reasonable.

Yes but this is a very specific encounter as oposed to the vast majority of combats which I needed a liitle advice on.

Plus they go to great magical lengths to conceal their campsight at nightime. I figure if they are going to burn a bunch of spells concealing and protecting the campsight then I need to reward them a little for that. I reduce the chance of wandering encounter to about 5% and then it literally is a wandering moster stumbling across their campsite by accident.

Liberty's Edge

It might be time to start looking at increasing the APL. If he's turning aside hits that should at least be challenging him, and his archer companion is annhilating things while he stands there, boost the APL a bit by adding 1, and adjust encounters accordingly.

Also, in Kingmaker, you're often dealing with the same enemy force, have some guys escape the PCs when a combat turns bad. They'll report back to the boss on what they saw of the PC's tactics, and the tactics of further encounters with the group begin to adjust.

Not all the enemies make themselves known right off, they hide in the shadows and wait for an opportunity to get into the back ranks and harry the ranged folk. Start swapping out combat gear for one shot type things to increase accuracy, that they only use to swing at the Paladin.

Ambushes are a great way to achieve the first idea, since the PCs will start the combat believing they're looking at all the combatants, but in reality, 2 of the sneak types are lurking around the back waiting for the right moment to strike.

At first blush, these things seem devious and almost unfair to your players, and they can be if overused. Let your guys have their moments in the sun. They are the heroes after all, but every once in a while, bring 'em back down to earth. A quick ambush, a big brute who simply doesn't care about the AoOs he's taking moving around, a fight in the swamps(which are aplenty in Kingmaker) where the big heavy armor is a huge hinderance, can all make the heroes realize they aren't invincible.

Dark Archive

To add, consider countering the ranged folk from time to time as well, heavy rain, dense foiliage, darkness(if they don't have easy access to a light source, though at level 10, that's doubtful, so you'd have to use magical darkness) all make ranged combat difficult.


Snow Crash wrote:
Alienfreak wrote:

Giving a 10th level Character a lot of wealth and then come back crying? His Ring alone is 40.000gp. Add in a (probably) +3 Weapon and +3 Armour & Shield and we already are over his wealth. Add in the Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance and his inevitable stat boosters it is even crazier. I mean has he like 120k wealth?

Also his Ring of Protection and his Smite Evil DO NOT STACK.

Can you give us a quick roundup of all his magic items?

** spoiler omitted **

All treasure is pretty much the standard stuff found in the AP.

He has +2 Armour, +2 shield. +2 Ring of Prot, +2 defending longsword, +2 Cloak Resist, +4 Headband of Cha, Ring of Freedom of Movement Some of this stuff was made by the PC caster. Plus obviously various potions etc and a bag of holding. Armour might be +3 dont have character in front of me.

But I have not been pumping up the treasure. If anything I tone back on what is handed out as standard in the AP

So we are looking at

10.5k
4k
8k
18k
4k
16k
40k

That alone is 100.5k! Lvl 10 is supposed to have 62k and lvl 11 82k.
So he is, even without the bag of holding and his other misc stuff, about 80-100% overwealth!

THIS is where your problem is!
Its like saying: I give my players a 50 point buy and suddenly all the AP encounter are a cakewalk for them!

Item crafting is no get out of character wealth free card. Its your job as DM to get their treasure in line or just bump all the enemies without increasing their CR, because how is something a CHALLENGING encounter for them if they are a lot more powerful?
Either take away their fancy stuff or make all enemies two times simple advanced without doing anything on their CR or treasure. That means all saves +4, AC +4, to hit +4, damage +4, HPs +4/HD, +4 skillpoints/HD (but that is mostly optional to use).

.
.
.
.

AND KEEP AN EYE THAT HIS RING OF PROT DOESN'T STACK WITH HIS SMITE! Most players seem to ignore that rule based on my personal empirical data ;)

Shadow Lodge

Snow Crash, I've read your initial post, and the responses in this thread with interest. I am currently running the last part of Council of Thieves AP for my group of players and some of them have high ACs so this is a very familiar situation to me.

There are really a number of ways you can go about this, and many of them have been touched on in this thread. The decision to use any of them though depend on what you and your players want from the game; what you call consider to be fun. If your players differ from you then the current situation, and any solution you attempt, will lead to frustration by you or them.

For example:

If your players get fun from beating the challenge, and you get fun from creating the challenge, then the fun is had from that confrontation.
If on the other hand both you and the players have fun through collaborative story-telling then it's never about the challenge in a fight, it's more about how that fight adds to the overarching story.
Of course if you have fun from story-telling and they have fun from confrontation (ie combat) then there needs to be a compromise somewhere.

They are pretty much extremes, most of us are somewhere in the middle. In my own group one of my players is all about the story and another is all about building the best character. As GM I have to engage them in different ways.

Recently I got really frustrated because my players were trouncing my monsters. It really felt that the challenge had gone and the fights were almost mere distractions. I was in the mindset of 'I MUST challenge the PCs, I must threaten death, I must make them sweat'. Then noticed that they were actually having a load of fun! And these are mature gamers that have been playing many many years..

I changed my view of the game a bit and started to play up to it. In the last fight I ran (just this last weekend), they were storming a house protected by a load of guardsman. The guards had little or no chance of hitting the 2 melee PCs, so I just had fun with it, describing the guards increasing frustration, then desperation as the PCs cut them down, and they couldn't retaliate. Of course when they found the BBEG things changed a little because she used touch attacks and AOE spells..

So... (apologies for my long-winded response), in your position I would firstly ask the Paladin player if he's enjoying the game - recognising that his AC is making some of the fights easy for him? If he is, then don't change anything! Just have fun and don't feel the need to make every fight a challenge.
If he's bored because he likes the challenge of the confrontation, then definitely consider some of the ideas in this thread (personally I'd go with having the badguys go 'damn it! I can't hit this guy - let's kill that really annoying ranger that keeps firing arrows at us!'). Force him to move around, make some decisions - especially as he's a Paladin (my friends are under attack but those badguys are about to lynch that girl! Charge!!)

What I had to relearn recently (I've been roleplaying for nearly 30 years) is that if everyone is having fun (including you!) then we're going about it right, it doesn't matter if it appears to be too easy.

Hope that helps. :)


Why not just add+10 to the bad guys attack when he rolls to hi the Paladin? or a more subtle +5
they dotn know the stats I would just wing it if your busy, and it seems like you are.

Dark Archive

Alienfreak wrote:


THIS is where your problem is!
Its like saying: I give my players a 50 point buy and suddenly all the AP encounter are a cakewalk for them!

In fairness, it is more like saying: I handed out the treasure in the AP as written, and used the magic item crafting rules from the core rulebook, and suddenly all the AP encounters are not challenging one member of the party.

Seems to me this could happen to anyone, and I won't be allowing PCs to craft permanent magic items if I ever run this AP.


amethal wrote:
Alienfreak wrote:


THIS is where your problem is!
Its like saying: I give my players a 50 point buy and suddenly all the AP encounter are a cakewalk for them!

In fairness, it is more like saying: I handed out the treasure in the AP as written, and used the magic item crafting rules from the core rulebook, and suddenly all the AP encounters are not challenging one member of the party.

Seems to me this could happen to anyone, and I won't be allowing PCs to craft permanent magic items if I ever run this AP.

That Paizo completely failed as a developer on fixing magic item creation is no secret.

They took the old system removed 1/5 of the cost to craft items (if you consider their old rule 5gp per xp) and made it easier to craft items. You can now substitute crafting prerequirements, craft faster and craft while not even having to sit down in a quiet lab for it.

And now it is up to the DMs to fix it.


Lobolusk wrote:

Why not just add+10 to the bad guys attack when he rolls to hi the Paladin? or a more subtle +5

they dotn know the stats I would just wing it if your busy, and it seems like you are.

Like I said:

advance any enemy two times. Gives +4 on everything.


This adventure path is pretty well known for not really being balanced for crafting. With very little time pressure and very easy crafting rules there isn't much stopping a party from converting most of their gold pieces into magic items (you don't get a net gain if you sell items then craft new ones, or by cycling build points).

At this points the damage is done, and you can't really go back on what has been made or the expectations that the crafter now has. One way to reduce the problem is put them on tighter timetables, and give them a sense of urgency. Trigger some time sensitive side quests, move up the main plot points, and get the module done in game time faster. Time and gold are the main limits on crafting, and the PCs are already wealthy. Deprive them of so much free time is pretty much the best long term solution.

The PCs also have a high wealth to CR rating, so they could be one of those "wealth beyond the means to protect it" situations. Like a rich kid having his lunch money stolen. While stealing from the PCs isn't an ideal situation, its certainly possible and can make for an interesting side plot as they track down the thieves and try to get back some of what they lost (not all, fences can move fast).


Consider having the occasional encounter where the party is not running around in their full gear: at a royal ball (where weapons and armor are of course not allowed); in the middle of sleep (where many heavy armor users wear a silk nighty); in the depths of the sea; etc


I am currently DMing Council of Thieves and the treasure the AP hands out is nearly double what a group of that level should have. I have toned it down to what they should have. Some of the APs have way too much treasure and need to be adjusted. As a result this is the situation that is facing you. As notabot stated there are ways to deal with this. One easy way is to pare down the treasure they will be getting until they are closer to what they are supposed to have. - Gauss


LoreKeeper wrote:

Consider having the occasional encounter where the party is not running around in their full gear: at a royal ball (where weapons and armor are of course not allowed); in the middle of sleep (where many heavy armor users wear a silk nighty); in the depths of the sea; etc

At a certain level you can expect people to have glamered armor of comfort ;)


I still believe you're looking at this the wrong way. You see that this one player has invested everything into being untouchable, but you aren't looking at what that player gave up: offensive capabilities. If being untouchable is where this player excels, then by solely designing enocounters that aim to destroy this one player's area of expertise, you risk ruining the game for the rest of the players.

There is only one paladin, but there are other players; use multiple monsters, have some that have a high ac or hp that rely on a player who is more focused in offense, have some monsters that require magic.

The player who is focused on defense should not be an issue to unless he is the end all to all problems, can he kill many monsters at once? Does he destroy any and all large monsters you send forth? Is he the face and the skill monkey? Does he provide the answers to all the puzzles?

I understand you want to provide a challenging game, but you don't challenge individuals, you challenge a party.

Use terrain, use mobility, use numbers. Don't just focus on offense, have some creatures with high ac and high saves along with the creatures that have high attack and/or damage. Mix and match creatures and characters so that they can overcome each other's if you want to provide a true challenge. Make it a party against an actual group.

The second most important thing is to remember that there are more challenges than just staying alive. Your paladin is exceptionally good at staying alive, but how good is he in a hostage situation, or an infiltration situation where you have to steal away information, or a diplomatic situation, or where the situation is a natural disaster such as a fire or a flood? Experiment.

Learn the true meaning of challenge. Pathfinder is more than just a fantasy wargame simulator, that's an important thing to remember when challenging your players.

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