I established rules to prevent weak characters in the first place. I basically allow my players to put an 18 in any one ability that they roll, and I generally allow them to mulligan a roll if they roll like a 7 or lower (unless they wanna play that off, which I'm all for).
However, this wasn't enough to save our witches. There have been two, and it sadly left me with an impression that witches were pretty weak, what with the complicated and expensive way they need to use to learn new spells. The first one kept using her claws (she was a changeling) and lipstitch. The second one was basically "f&&$ it, I'm going to make him a pure healer instead", which as we all know pure healers in D20 systems are... well, they tend not to be able to keep up with the massive amounts of damage that are doled out. It was fortunate for that second instance that my alchemist and my fellow player's pistolero were powerhouses, so we managed to get through that nastiness.
No matter how many ability points you give them or even if you give them their character made with a everything noted to make everything easier. If they want to play the character in a useless way they'll get them to be completely useless.
The Fighter who always took a bow because he didn't want to die had a fairly good melee build (I had guided him on his choices) and the player didn't want to pick archery feats or become an archer, he wanted to be a melee fighter... but then he didn't dare to go into melee.
I feel like witches offensively are like one of theasiest classes in the game they're like the caster version of giving a barb a great sword, you use misfortune/evil eye/slumber and profit.
You really have to not play to their strengths to make them meh.
They didn't. T'was a frustrating thing, and it made me think that witches were weak for a while... at least until I made witches of my own and well, they proved to be ridiculous.
Witches seem to have more difficulty defensively when I try to build them
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The biggest concern as I've leveled a few characters is I hold back sometimes when I'm told I should be 'going to town'.
"Why are you fighting defensively, it's not like they're hitting you!"
"If you were going all-out, that crit would have still confirmed! Fight normally!"
Seems familiar to me.
Also not using Power Attack against enemies with high DR because they don't want to miss their last iterative attack and being unable to deal more than 1-2 points of damage per hit.
The biggest concern as I've leveled a few characters is I hold back sometimes when I'm told I should be 'going to town'."Why are you fighting defensively, it's not like they're hitting you!"
"If you were going all-out, that crit would have still confirmed! Fight normally!"
Wait, did an enemy crit you, or did you crit an enemy?
Seems familiar to me.
Also not using Power Attack against enemies with high DR because they don't want to miss their last iterative attack and being unable to deal more than 1-2 points of damage per hit.
I once had a 3.0/3.5 Vow of Poverty Monk that got to use 2-handed Power Attack against earth elementals (DR 10/-) with his simple walking stick (quarterstaff). I WAS doing 1-2 points of damage per hit, but it was way better than the 0 damage everyone else was doing! :-P
This was also in a campaign with Critical Fumble Tables and Critical Hit Tables, and once there was this crazy random circumstance where someone got a critical hit, which allowed a bonus attack, which was a critical fumble, which tripped an ally, which provoked a critical hit, which critical fumbled the confirmation, and so on and so on and almost killed the original someone who got the critical hit.
It seriously involved 4 or 5 PCs and NPCs took close to half an hour to resolve.
I hate Crit Tables.
Wait, did an enemy crit you, or did you crit an enemy?
Enemy crit and confirmed (somehow) on the iterative. The other blows would have hit any other member in the party (fighting defensively or not) but did not hit my character.
The biggest concern as I've leveled a few characters is I hold back sometimes when I'm told I should be 'going to town'."Why are you fighting defensively, it's not like they're hitting you!"
"If you were going all-out, that crit would have still confirmed! Fight normally!"
Fighting defensively is a trap. Maybe if you just need to hold the monster off for a round while the party finishes off the other foes.