Some players like to have highly specialised characters that are really strong in one area like an unusually high DC on a particular spell, untouchable AC or incredibly high diplomacy skill. Sometimes this can trivialise an encounter or have the opposite effect and expose a glass cannon.
How do you deal with hyper specialisation at your table?
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Echoing Rysky's statement, make sure to mix it up. Not everything works every time; for example, some situations just can't be solved by smashing the Diplomacy button. If their trick has a general vulnerability, use opponents or situations that make it more challenging without negating their ability. If you do negate them specifically, try to have a reason (the cleric used divinations or spies to determine your mastery of that spell and prepared spell immunity!) and do so only rarely. And conversely, make sure you occasionally give them opportunities to shine.
Combat wise? Use other things than what they're specialized against. Don't completely get rid of what they specialized against, since that's what they spent all their stuff on, but it's not that hard to get around specializations.
Sounds like good advice to me. Let's build on that. Imagine the situation is more complicated and you have an entire party of hyper specialised characters, each with different areas of expertise. Sure I can send a mindless undead against the intimidation guy but then the DPR specialist destroys it in one round. Now what do I do?
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Combat wise? Use other things than what they're specialized against. Don't completely get rid of what they specialized against, since that's what they spent all their stuff on, but it's not that hard to get around specializations.Sounds like good advice to me. Let's build on that. Imagine the situation is more complicated and you have an entire party of hyper specialised characters, each with different areas of expertise. Sure I can send a mindless undead against the intimidation guy but then the DPR specialist destroys it in one round. Now what do I do?
Don't use just one enemy per fight?
If they keep the same extreme specialization the whole game, then by high level when they are well known it would almost take willing suspension of disbelief not to have any enemy technically capable of doing so specifically prep against it.
If you were going to use this idea what CR would you go with relative to the party?
Don't use just one enemy per fight?Combat wise? Use other things than what they're specialized against. Don't completely get rid of what they specialized against, since that's what they spent all their stuff on, but it's not that hard to get around specializations.Sounds like good advice to me. Let's build on that. Imagine the situation is more complicated and you have an entire party of hyper specialised characters, each with different areas of expertise. Sure I can send a mindless undead against the intimidation guy but then the DPR specialist destroys it in one round. Now what do I do?
Do you mean more of the same? So higher CR. Or higher number of weaker enemies? Or something else?
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Do you mean more of the same? So higher CR. Or higher number of weaker enemies? Or something else?Don't use just one enemy per fight?Combat wise? Use other things than what they're specialized against. Don't completely get rid of what they specialized against, since that's what they spent all their stuff on, but it's not that hard to get around specializations.Sounds like good advice to me. Let's build on that. Imagine the situation is more complicated and you have an entire party of hyper specialised characters, each with different areas of expertise. Sure I can send a mindless undead against the intimidation guy but then the DPR specialist destroys it in one round. Now what do I do?
All of the above and them some, but be careful with just using one really strong enemy to deal with a single high DPR/high AC character, as those tend to easily murderize everyone else in the party.
Hard to say with Ut knowing the specialization, but don't you think it would be more unbelievable that people would know that this guy is an absolute master of mind affecting spells and then not use all available resources to guard against this before combating him or her?
Of course!
If they keep the same extreme specialization the whole game, then by high level when they are well known it would almost take willing suspension of disbelief not to have any enemy technically capable of doing so specifically prep against it.
This is certainly true of intelligent enemies who have a chance to hear about the characters. Something from another plane is most unlikely to know unless it is conjured to fight the party and the conjurer tells it. A slime won't make intelligent preparation.
A GM it can be tempting to use optimal strategies, even where the enemies has no means of knowing what they are. Having enemies act dumb is one extreme, having them always act as though they have inspected the players character sheets is the other.
There are specialised sorcerer builds out there to do damage with fire and to enchant opponents. They are much better at those things than arcane casters generally, at the cost of being good at fewer things. The right thing to do is have a goodly number of situations that won't be solved by a fireball or charm spell.
But if every important enemy turns out to have fire resistance or immunity, or be something you can't enchant, players will feel cheated. And they will be right.
A GM it can be tempting to use optimal strategies, even where the enemies has no means of knowing what they are. Having enemies act dumb is one extreme, having them always act as though they have inspected the players character sheets is the other.
I play with a guy who tends to do this and it is annoying. I had a character get the step-and-strike feat chain. As soon as I could follow 5ft steps, all the opponents stopped 5ft stepping.
I am curious what are the pcs hyperspec in?
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Thinking of it, the following might help to make well-prepared foes more believable: They encounter the party once, don't accomplish much (due to the specialized player), retreat quickly, rework their tactics, go for the party again.
This way the specialized player gets a feeling of success first and a challenge later.
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I believe that the best way to deal with hyper specialized characters is the exact opposite: variety. The character that can deal out the massive damage to one foe gets surrounded by hordes of summoned skeletons. The character that can pass any save gets attacked by the ranged units. The character with the high AC gets spell chucked at them. A single encounter should have more than just one type of foe. And if the players cry foul and that you are cheating by "knowing their character sheets", nobody said you had to stand there and take it. Move, adapt, overcome. That's what my baddies do to them. If my bodyguard is having trouble hitting someone, the boss will use magic. If I see someone that is walking through my skeleton horde, I'll command my bodyguard to shift over and engage that character.
The beauty of this is that if the players use their brains instead of relying on their character's brawn, they will capitalize on their advantages in combat. There is no way a cleric with extra channelings and pumped up turn undead feats wouldn't charge into the middle of a skeleton horde. It's my job to provide the horde, not tell the player to run in there and deal with it.
I think there are 2 strategy basics, a DM should always remember:
- action economy
if you are sending in your BBEG alone, he won't stand a chance, 4vs1... simple math
make this 4 players vs 1 BBEG + 2 lieutnant + 5 mooks and that fight looks a lot better
another important thing is surprise rounds
- magic is part of the world
while not all humanoids might know how to throw fireballs themselves, most of them will know the average radius of an average AoE spell... that is general battle tactics 1-0-1, even goblins/kobolds/you-name-it will know that huddling up is a great way to tempt a wizard into "burning hands" this nice little "pack"
even wolves in real life always try to surround their prey, and they are not "smart" by roleplaying standards (animal intelligence), so why can't a simple tribe of golbins not do the same
as the existence of magic is common knowledge, so is the fact that armor hinders arcane magic and divine magic requires a holy symbol/focus of some kind...
a cloth-wearing humanoid is probably vulnerable to fortitude spells (rogueish or wizardish), a metal-wearing humanoid is probably vulnerable to reflex spells (clericish or fighterish, wearing heavy armor usually indicates low dex, too)
Physical attributes (str, dex, con) should be visible (even under the armor): guy has large shoulders, there's a good chance he's strong, moves with grace of a feline, probably high dex, rosy cheeky and looks "tough" indicates high constitution. People who have seen their fair share of fights should notice such things in the blink of an eye.
Now if your players then decide to mix their armor up to confuse their foes, that's a clever way to disguise, reward them for outsmarting their enemies :-)
My opinion: as long as everybody get some time to shine with their specialty I don't see a problem. We actually had a DM with my regular group that got voted to not DM any more: he felt like it was necessary that every encounter ends with the players near 0 hitpoints and he often "cheated" encounters just because he thought it would be more challenging... for us players it was actually less fun and more tedious because we didn't feel like we got rewarded for clever planning and we ended up near death all the time, no matter how smart or stupid we acted (when we acted stupid as a result, that DM would cheat the encounter to save us from death-by-stupidity, making these games even less fun). Smart teamwork should be rewarded, not punished.
So my big question to you: are your players having fun or do they think all encounters are too easy no matter what? are you unhappy because you never ever get a single encounter that seems to be partially challenging?
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Now if your players then decide to mix their armor up to confuse their foes, that's a clever way to disguise, reward them for outsmarting their enemies :-)
Yep - my drunken master monk wears a robe & pointy hat with moons & stars all over them for just that reason. Plus he opens most fights with Scorching Ray.
And since he has a STR of 7 he's pretty scrawny.
I have one person in my group who's insisting that "feinting is bull$#!@" because it allowed the rogues the party was fighting to seriously injure his swashbuckler with sneak attacks despite the swashbuckler having improved uncanny dodge, and those sneak attacks contributed to his death later in the fight.
Granted, I may have gone a little overboard with the rogues' feinting ability because I'd gotten tired of how obnoxious he was being about how his character was untouchable...
Sooo... you changed an encounter because you were mad and got the player's character killed? that's kinda sad....?
If he was so untouchable (armor class?)... how hard was he hitting? how good were his will saves?And why not just tell him OOC that his obnoxious behavior is killing your fun of DMing this group? After all we are all playing/DMing to have fun with friends and nice people?
Cheating on monster saves or having more monsters pop up out of the blue just to drive home the point that you are the all-powerful DM, is a surefire way to annoy your players. A DM, by definition is all-powerful because (s)he is _the DM_.
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Just play the game as if it was an average normal party and see where the dice fall. Don't cater to what specifically your party has, just make an average adventure and see how the players do. If the player is perfect he gets to enjoy is specialized build. If none of the players can succeed at X then they are penalized for their builds. But with experienced book readers you're going to see specialized builds.
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He was wrecking almost everything he touched. Swashbucklers tend to do that when they're adding their level to each attack's damage.
Ummm... if you think that Swashbucklers have crazy damage, you haven't run into true DPR builds. They get that damage/level to make sword & board without TWF solid. Heck, at level 7+ samurai basically get the same (with Chain Challenge) only it's not precision damage, can be multiplied on a crit, and can be used with any combat style. (They can churn out pretty crazy damage with TWF.)
Swashbucklers are fun (when they don't run into saving throws which wreck their day) but they're hardly OP.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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In a competently-made adventure, there will be a wide variety of obstacles with varying degrees of difficulty, varying levels of reward, and varying assortments of valid techniques for overcoming them. No single technique solves every problem.
In a competently-made RPG, the techniques for overcoming obstacles will have scaling levels of consistency depending on how much you invest in them, and that investment will come from the same resource pool with which you could instead invest more shallowly in a broader array of techniques. This creates for each player a choice between investing deeply or broadly.
In a competently-run game, the intersection of the above two points will be allowed to play out naturally, resulting in the players getting to see a legitimate correlation between their choices and their results: those who invested deeply into a given technique but very little in others get to see themselves consistently succeed against certain types of obstacles but struggle against others; meanwhile, players who made a mediocre investment in each of myriad techniques will get to have a decent shot at overcoming any of a wide variety of obstacles, but in turn don't get to encounter obstacles where they can rest assured that they will almost certainly succeed.
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Less players means the PCs will have a harder time if they specialize.
Combat has many different defenses, easy to get around or shore up for a combat with out getting repetitive.
High DCs can be gotten around by subterfuge, illusions, immunity, working in groups.
Having multiple enemies at different locations encourages large groups to split up. Either hit and run tactics or other time sensitive situations.
Social and skill based events work as well, letting the specialists shine. Defuse a bomb/convince the powerful npc to help or not interfere while bandits attack (or whatever).
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You can't have a party that specializes in everything. You can only have as many specializations as you have party members, and there's no way you can have enough party members to cover all the possible specializations.
Numbers are usually your best ally. The fewer creatures you try to use to give a challenge to a number of super optimized specialists, the more likely you are to end up with wildly unpredictable results (monster wins ini, rolls some crits, kills one or two PCs the first round, the proceeds to a total party wipe; or opposite, he acts last, doesn't get to activate any self-buffs or hostile debuffs, get pretty much killed in the first round before he even acts).
PCs with huge damage per hit are usually countered by having large numbers of creatures where the overkill is wasted, or creatures that can avoid hits outright with concealment, incorporeality, and the like.
PCs with huge numbers of attacks are usually countered by appropriate DR and high AC.
PCs that use magic are usually countered by creatures with SR and high saves. Different immunities will intervene against specific spells.
PCs with very high AC are countered with creatures that target saves, such as AoEs or enchantments.
PCs that rely greatly on a specific item (weapon, holy symbol) are countered by removing that item or one's ability to wield it.
Etc. Etc. Specific advice can only be given if a specific party composition is given. The type of enemies used is but one factor among others. The frequency of encounters per day, the number of enemies per encounter, and the nature of the terrain on which they fight can change the outcome of battles drastically. Clever use of stonecall + wall of stone can force the PCs to adopt tactics that are far from being as optimal as those they'd use in plain open terrain. Walls of stone (or ice or force or anything) can be broken, but PCs will have to think twice about it if they are flanked by multiple creatures when doing so.
But negating everyone's specialization in every single fight shouldn't be your goal either.
You can't have a party that specializes in everything. You can only have as many specializations as you have party members, and there's no way you can have enough party members to cover all the possible specializations.
Numbers are usually your best ally. The fewer creatures you try to use to give a challenge to a number of super optimized specialists, the more likely you are to end up with wildly unpredictable results (monster wins ini, rolls some crits, kills one or two PCs the first round, the proceeds to a total party wipe; or opposite, he acts last, doesn't get to activate any self-buffs or hostile debuffs, get pretty much killed in the first round before he even acts).
PCs with huge damage per hit are usually countered by having large numbers of creatures where the overkill is wasted, or creatures that can avoid hits outright with concealment, incorporeality, and the like.
PCs with huge numbers of attacks are usually countered by appropriate DR and high AC.
PCs that use magic are usually countered by creatures with SR and high saves. Different immunities will intervene against specific spells.
PCs with very high AC are countered with creatures that target saves, such as AoEs or enchantments.
PCs that rely greatly on a specific item (weapon, holy symbol) are countered by removing that item or one's ability to wield it.
Etc. Etc. Specific advice can only be given if a specific party composition is given. The type of enemies used is but one factor among others. The frequency of encounters per day, the number of enemies per encounter, and the nature of the terrain on which they fight can change the outcome of battles drastically. Clever use of stonecall + wall of stone can force the PCs to adopt tactics that are far from being as optimal as those they'd use in plain open terrain. Walls of stone (or ice or force or anything) can be broken, but PCs will have to think twice about it if they are flanked by multiple creatures when doing so.
But negating everyone's specialization in every...
I disagree. 4 people is plenty to specialize in most important areas of PF. Bards themselves take up a massive amount with Pageant of the Peacock which lets them be the best in Social skills aswell as in Knowledge,Spellcraft, Craft, Linguistics, and Appraise aswell as some others if they find a way to make those intel based aswell(usually traits). Give him path of the shooting star and he is even a melee threat. Could just as easily multiclass out if you dont like the class as a 1level dip is bard is actually pretty strong. Unchained rogues are also very powerful now with Dex to damage, Flensing Strike, Twist Away, Debilitating Injury, and some impressive archetypes. Alot of the stronger classes get both high AC and high DPS through the same stat now so really only need 1 character for both. Arcanist or Summoners can cover almost all utility you need as far as spells go while also having extremely strong combat presence and battlefield control(which imo is far superior to Blasting or Disabling). 4th member can be whoever you want but i prefer Oracles as they becomes a secondary in one of the other classes fail and having Misfortune, Flash of Insight, Time Hop or Pilfering Hand can greatly influence any part of the game (Combat or Not). While this is not a perfect team They are all powerful spot fillers that strongly cover and imo specialize in a multitude of very important and influential skills.
And both I and a couple of other people in our main group have talked to him about his tendencies to min-max and hog the spotlight all the time, it didn't do much good.
That and not specialised build seem to be more the problem.
However, if you are going to tell players "build a real person to role play, don't just min max" you have to enforce it consistently.
I have heard that sort of talk from GMs. The first couple of times I did as I was told and started a new character or quit the campaign because my character was pathetic. Since then I have pretty much ignored it.
He was wrecking almost everything he touched. Swashbucklers tend to do that when they're adding their level to each attack's damage.Ummm... if you think that Swashbucklers have crazy damage, you haven't run into true DPR builds. They get that damage/level to make sword & board without TWF solid. Heck, at level 7+ samurai basically get the same (with Chain Challenge) only it's not precision damage, can be multiplied on a crit, and can be used with any combat style. (They can churn out pretty crazy damage with TWF.)
Swashbucklers are fun (when they don't run into saving throws which wreck their day) but they're hardly OP.
I have to agree with Charon's here... get a Magus in your group using a rapier. Then wait for the keen rapier to critical (on a 15-20 roll, thats almost every 3rd hit) with shocking grasp: 2d6 + 10d6 ... with intensified metamagic shenanigans? 2d6 + 20d6... that's the damage of a magus at level 5!
Also, what will you say when you get a witch in your party putting nearly everything not immune to mind-stuff asleep with a super-hard will save (no HD limits for the witch hex)?
However:
Players that take away the fun of the group should probably be left out of some game nights to help them realize how un-fun it is to be left out.
Also unless I'm mistaking, much of the Swashbuckler damage is precision damage? so most elementals and constructs are immune to it? Hogging the spotlight should mean that foes prepare for his tactics as they'll know about him and what to expect from him.
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Also, what will you say when you get a witch in your party putting nearly everything not immune to mind-stuff asleep with a super-hard will save (no HD limits for the witch hex)?
I will say - that one's effectiveness seems to be overstated. If the GM doesn't do the single foe encounters, a mook can come over and wake them up without any problems.
Still handy since you knocked them down, and used up actions of both the target and a mook, but unless you have an ally who is already next to them and ready to CDG who is next in the initiative, it's rarely deadly.
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I came across this problem with a ranged inquisitor. He would spin up like a gattling gun, casting spells the first round, and finishing off with his class specific buffs. By third round he was laying down holy retribution at everything in sight, doing massive amounts of damage from a safe distance. I countered this by letting the enemy use more hit and run tactics as well as BBEG using wind wall like effects. DR also helped, but not much when the magic damage gets tallied up. You just have to be creative and find a way past their specialization, while still allowing everyone to have fun.
Those same people who hyper specialize also love to have their egos stroked. If the BBEG negates their speciality, throw in the BBEG's notes on the character. Show why he had all these tricks prepared. It makes them feel like they are a threat even to the super baddies while also making it a bit more balanced.
Also, what will you say when you get a witch in your party putting nearly everything not immune to mind-stuff asleep with a super-hard will save (no HD limits for the witch hex)?I will say - that one's effectiveness seems to be overstated. If the GM doesn't do the single foe encounters, a mook can come over and wake them up without any problems.
Still handy since you knocked them down, and used up actions of both the target and a mook, but unless you have an ally who is already next to them and ready to CDG who is next in the initiative, it's rarely deadly.
You killed a full round of actions for the bbeg and the mook... the other party members just got 2 rounds to mop the floor with those 2 guys. Action economy is everything in pathfinder: We once had a group with a divination wizard and most of the group had the "Lookout" teamwork feat... give 2 of the "lookout" people decent perception and the DM will dread surprise rounds. HRHR
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You killed a full round of actions for the bbeg and the mook... the other party members just got 2 rounds to mop the floor with those 2 guys. Action economy is everything in pathfinder: We once had a group with a divination wizard and most of the group had the "Lookout" teamwork feat... give 2 of the "lookout" people decent perception and the DM will dread surprise rounds. HRHR
Also, what will you say when you get a witch in your party putting nearly everything not immune to mind-stuff asleep with a super-hard will save (no HD limits for the witch hex)?I will say - that one's effectiveness seems to be overstated. If the GM doesn't do the single foe encounters, a mook can come over and wake them up without any problems.
Still handy since you knocked them down, and used up actions of both the target and a mook, but unless you have an ally who is already next to them and ready to CDG who is next in the initiative, it's rarely deadly.
I'm not going to deny that it's effective - it is (if they fail their save). But many refer to it as basically instant death. (And your buddies only get 1 extra round - not 2.)
(And your buddies only get 1 extra round - not 2.)
normal round + extra round = 2 consecutive "party actions" while enemies are not attacking ;-)
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If they keep the same extreme specialization the whole game, then by high level when they are well known it would almost take willing suspension of disbelief not to have any enemy technically capable of doing so specifically prep against it.If you were going to use this idea what CR would you go with relative to the party?
CR can sometimes be subjective, especially when specialized focus is thrown into the mix. It's a good baseline to work with, but might challenge one party might not be much of a challenge to another. It might take some experimentation with a few encounters to get a feel for challenge balance.
Another approach is to provide encounters that aren't going to rely on straight-up combat. Include some other objective to achieve in the encounter, or maybe throw in an environmental aspect that has to be dealt with.
If they keep the same extreme specialization the whole game, then by high level when they are well known it would almost take willing suspension of disbelief not to have any enemy technically capable of doing so specifically prep against it.If you were going to use this idea what CR would you go with relative to the party?CR can sometimes be subjective, especially when specialized focus is thrown into the mix. It's a good baseline to work with, but might challenge one party might not be much of a challenge to another. It might take some experimentation with a few encounters to get a feel for challenge balance.
Another approach is to provide encounters that aren't going to rely on straight-up combat. Include some other objective to achieve in the encounter, or maybe throw in an environmental aspect that has to be dealt with.
A cr 5 swarm was invincible to a lv7 party. paladin, shaman, cleric, and brawler. Shaman and cleric didn't have any AOE damage spells prepared. The cr 8 demon went down quickly and then the party had to outlive and run from the swarm.
A cr 5 swarm was invincible to a lv7 party. paladin, shaman, cleric, and brawler. Shaman and cleric didn't have any AOE damage spells prepared. The cr 8 demon went down quickly and then the party had to outlive and run from the swarm.
And then one of the party members reveals their Kineticist cohort and you cry.
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A cr 5 swarm was invincible to a lv7 party. paladin, shaman, cleric, and brawler. Shaman and cleric didn't have any AOE damage spells prepared. The cr 8 demon went down quickly and then the party had to outlive and run from the swarm.
No torches? Unless they have fire resistance, when you have room to run you can just keep backing off and tossing torches at a swarm for 1 damage each. (Though by 7 they should have some alchemist fires & probably some acids for good measure.)
A cr 5 swarm was invincible to a lv7 party. paladin, shaman, cleric, and brawler. Shaman and cleric didn't have any AOE damage spells prepared. The cr 8 demon went down quickly and then the party had to outlive and run from the swarm.No torches? Unless they have fire resistance, when you have room to run you can just keep backing off and tossing torches at a swarm for 1 damage each. (Though by 7 they should have some alchemist fires & probably some acids for good measure.)
Where are you finding that torches do any damage to a swarm?
2) the swarm had fire resist, I'm not sure if it was 5 or 10, but enough that our alchemist's fires couldn't kill it.|
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Where are you finding that torches do any damage to a swarm?
A torch burns for 1 hour, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius and increasing the light level by one step for an additional 20 feet beyond that area (darkness becomes dim light and dim light becomes normal light). A torch does not increase the light level in normal light or bright light. If a torch is used in combat, treat it as a one-handed improvised weapon that deals bludgeoning damage equal to that of a gauntlet of its size, plus 1 point of fire damage.
A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage.
They're immune to the weapon damage, but not the fire damage from the torch. So using a torch on them deals 1 point of fire damage. If they have any fire resistance then that 1 damage is pretty worthless.
It's not a good tactic, but I've used it at level 1-2 before we have any good ways to deal with them.
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cool deal. I have seen some people mention torches but then usually retract as they couldn't find the rules that let it work. This is awesome. A large portion of swarms suddenly became a lot more killable.
Just play the game as if it was an average normal party and see where the dice fall. Don't cater to what specifically your party has, just make an average adventure and see how the players do. If the player is perfect he gets to enjoy is specialized build. If none of the players can succeed at X then they are penalized for their builds. But with experienced book readers you're going to see specialized builds.
I am inclined to go this way, unless someone has a better idea, if the party stomp their way through every encounter so be it.
The situation at my table is this: we have six players, four of whom have been playing Pathfinder since its inception and are really good at building characters. The other two are relative newbies but can rely on assistance from the experienced players to make effective builds. I have noticed over time that builds are becoming more specialised and characters take on clearly defined roles: scout, party face, tank etc. the usual stuff, which is fine except that nowadays the builds are hyper specialised so as a group the party is extremely strong, but as individuals they tend to be metaphorical glass cannons. For example the party tank is totally useless in social situations and the blaster sorcerer is useless in melee. I have about a year before it is my turn to GM again. I am thinking of running a homebrew Island sandbox set somewhere in Golarion. I am looking for general advice on how to design a sandbox for hyper specialised characters.
I disagree. 4 people is plenty to specialize in most important areas of PF. Bards themselves take up a massive amount with Pageant of the Peacock which lets them be the best in Social skills aswell as in Knowledge,Spellcraft, Craft, Linguistics, and Appraise aswell as some others if they find a way to make those intel based aswell(usually traits). Give him path of the shooting star and he is even a melee threat. Could just as easily multiclass out if you dont like the class as a 1level dip is bard is actually pretty strong. Unchained rogues are also very powerful now with Dex to damage, Flensing Strike, Twist Away, Debilitating Injury, and some impressive archetypes. Alot of the stronger classes get both high AC and high DPS through the same stat now so really only need 1 character for both. Arcanist or Summoners can cover almost all utility you need as far as spells go while also having extremely strong combat presence and battlefield control(which imo is far superior to Blasting or Disabling). 4th member can be whoever you want but i prefer Oracles as they becomes a secondary in one of the other classes fail and having Misfortune, Flash of Insight, Time Hop or Pilfering Hand can greatly influence any part of the game (Combat or Not). While this is not a perfect team They are all powerful spot fillers that strongly cover and imo specialize in a multitude of very important and influential skills.
That doesn't even sound like a group of specialists at all. "Being good at stuff" isn't being a specialist, otherwise you take all meaning away from the word and pretty much all non-optimized builds become specialists. "Being good at melee" isn't being a specialist, for example, but "doing the most insane damage per hit" would be. The difference is that this particular specialist will focus on dealing as much damage as quickly as possible, but will sacrifice other aspects (AC, HP, saves, non-melee attacks, etc.) to maximize his efficiency in his focus. Or like a spellcaster with spell perfection and all of his feats geared towards making that one spell unstoppable. Doesn't need to be all-out min-maxing, but in my mind a specialist does have to be able to perform better at his chosen specialization than all other non-specialists...
And if the problem is that you can't challenge a group of simply optimized well-balanced characters... they are hardly to blame for your own failings. Properly balancing encounters can be a challenge at first, but it's hardly an insurmountable challenge.
I am inclined to go this way, unless someone has a better idea, if the party stomp their way through every encounter so be it.
The situation at my table is this: we have six players, four of whom have been playing Pathfinder since its inception and are really good at building characters. The other two are relative newbies but can rely on assistance from the experienced players to make effective builds. I have noticed over time that builds are becoming more specialized and characters take on clearly defined roles: scout, party face, tank etc. the usual stuff, which is fine except that nowadays the builds are hyper specialised so as a group the party is extremely strong, but as individuals they tend to be metaphorical glass cannons. For example the party tank is totally useless in social situations and the blaster sorcerer is useless in melee. I have about a year before it is my turn to GM again. I am thinking of running a homebrew Island sandbox set somewhere in Golarion. I am looking for general advice on how to design a sandbox for hyper specialised characters.
Personally, I try to diversify my encounters, and rotate between the specializations. Eventually I'll add in rotating aspects about the weaknesses too, but at low levels they pretty much share the same. For example, if it's the AoE dude's turn to shine, I'll spawn a lot of mooks that session in tight formation, where his attacks are critical to preventing the PCs from being overrun. If it's the heavy-hitter's turn, I'll add obstacles that have lots of HP (and possibly DR or hardness). For the skill guy, I'll look up ways to make some of these pertinent. Every time, the idea is that the task is only barely achievable without the specialist (in case s@+! happens to him, while keeping the threat of defeat real), while also challenging if everyone does their best. I don't really see the PCs as opponents that I need to defeat and I'm happy to indulge them in their builds. I've had too many DMs in my youth that just didn't care for what the players made, and actively always negated useful abilities when some characters were good, I don't feel like replicating that. In my mind, if a player takes an ability (skill, feat, class, etc.), it's not to never get a chance to use it. But I also don't go out of my way to reward ridiculous min-maxing cheese and I think well-rounded characters gets a chance to shine more often than others.
specialist can mean 2 things.
1) I am a specialist because I am in the top 20% of people.
2) I sacrifice everything to be the number 1.
Thing is it's sounding like the first.
"unusually high DC on a particular spell, untouchable AC or incredibly high diplomacy skill"
All of those can be pretty easily reached WHILE still having a relatively balance character overall.
charisma based class, class skill, constant heroism, skill ranks, skill focus, circlet of persuasion and a class based bonus.
so an Infernal Bloodline half-elf sorcerer gets all that.
5+3+1+3 gives a +12 at lv1. At lv6 you could have herosim up a lot and the circlet giving a total +10 more for a +22 at lv5. Like there's probably not much more you can do to up this, and since you're a sorcerer you probably have all the spells that do. And to fulfill this "incredibly high diplomacy" you've invested maybe 2-3 spells known and are otherwise a normal sorcerer build.
a high DC is just high casting stat, spell focus and greater focus and a +2 from class, things a caster can have by lv 1 or 3.
The untouchable AC I feel is the hardest to reach and probably would limit your choices of class and reduce overall versatility.
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cool deal. I have seen some people mention torches but then usually retract as they couldn't find the rules that let it work. This is awesome. A large portion of swarms suddenly became a lot more killable.
In 3.5 torches were specifically called out as doing d3 damage to swarms. In Pathfinder it's a bit more just inherent to them rather than specifically called out.
