My character is causing a schism within my gaming group

So one of the guys in my weekly group decided that he wanted to run a brief mini-campaign. The hook was that it was for 18th-level characters; naturally, we were all quite excited, as the highest this group has ever gotten has been about 12th level.

Some necessary background here: the GM for this is a fellow who has only run a game twice before, both of which were short campaigns that got mixed reviews from us. He has a good grasp of the rules, but (like most of the group) treats gaming as a pastime rather than a hobby, which meant that he had only passing familiarity with some of the game-breaking shenanigans that can happen at high-level play.

As such, while I was eager to make a level 18 wizard, I was also nervous about the impact such a character would have. This was especially true since he said we could use all first-party materials, buy ability scores with a 25-point buy, could spend our WBL on any item we wanted (including custom items), and had 11 RP to build a custom race if we wanted.

I voiced my concerns, and this prompted a long discussion within our group about what should and shouldn't be allowed. In the end, he chose to ban a few things (e.g. no use of blood money, no adjusting wealth by level if you have item creation feats, etc.), but for the most part said that he was very confident he could handle whatever we came up with.

The major limitation he invoked on my character, and that I was fine with, was that I couldn't use more than one instance of planar binding, though he was fine with my using other spells that brought in outside help. However, he was fine with my taking Leadership and having my cohort be an intelligent magic item, which I made a level 16 psychic. I also decided that I wasn't going to try and exploit every loophole that I possibly could (e.g. no carrying around a 5-foot section of wall with a permanent shrink item on it that was covered in permanent symbol spells).

We spent a few weeks making characters (if that sounds like a long time, it was because a lot of the group only did work on their characters during our weekly get-togethers). In the end our group looked like so:

• Three players made level 18 antipaladins (this caught me by surprise; apparently it was in partially in protest to the fact that the GM wanted to include a GMPC with our party. He capitulated when he heard about this, but the other players kept their antipaladins anyway). They mentioned all having glabrezu companions, though only one person actually had that on the board.
  
• A level 18 cleric with a necromantic focus (he wanted to make full use of animated dead for minions, but by the time we started had only made a single pit fiend bloody skeleton).
  
• A sorcerer 8/dragon disciple 10 (built with a focus on getting into melee).
  
• My wizard (conjurer) 18...and company.

More specifically, I sat down at the table with my wizard, his intelligent item psychic cohort (my followers from Leadership were back in my private demiplane where I was astral projecting from...and in my other private demiplane tending to my clone), the solar angel that I'd called via greater planar binding (utilizing Augmented Calling and Spell Perfection), a bythos aeon that my cohort had brought via greater planar ally (via the Faith psychic discipline), and a Gargantuan animated object (animated and made permanent by the solar angel). This rose to eight characters when I had my psychic cohort use monster summoning VII to bring in three (I rolled high) celestial triceratops in the first round of our first combat. (I should note that I'd mentioned all of these to the GM before we sat down to play, and he signed off on all of them.)

Our first combat lasted two rounds, and took us an hour to get through. What caught me by surprise was that, at the end of it, the entire group was upset...at me.

I don't just mean that they were a little ticked off; they were pissed, to the point where two guys said that if I sat down with this character next week, they weren't going to bother showing up. When I asked what was going on, they made it clear that they had two complaints:

1) I was taking too much time. Each turn it was taking me about 8-10 minutes to resolve what all of my characters were doing. This wasn't because I was looking stuff up (I knew to do that during everyone else's turns), but simply because it took that long to move minis around, roll attacks, damage, saves, spell penetration, etc. Still, this one struck me as a legitimate complaint, even if there was little that I could do about it.

2) I was overshadowing everyone else. They made it clear that they felt completely superfluous compared to what was essentially my own adventuring party.

It culminated with the GM pulling me aside and telling me that I had to make a new character by next week, because my current one was too disruptive. I tried to point out that he'd given me the okay for everything that I was doing, and he admitted that he hadn't realized just what effect all of that would have. I likewise pointed out that, with only 95 hit points (I'd had some bad Hit Dice rolls) and an AC that was in the mid-20's, that I'd essentially need to redo my entire character, since just getting into direct combat would pretty much be the end of my character.

His reply went something along the lines of, "I feel like I have a worthwhile story to tell, and your character's distracting from that."

Needless to say, the entire thing has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I quite like my character, and want to keep running him, but at the same time I'm quite ticked at having had the gauntlet thrown down. I have no idea what to do before next week's game, and time is running out...

One reason I always ban leadership.

Maybe if you offered to only have one summon at a time? If you tend to build more powerful characters, then offer to help the others tweak theirs. From the sound of things, while the group could have handled their frustrations better, you could also have done more to be a more responsible summoner. I would also suggest trying to get together outside of the game to talk things over. Good luck sorting things out and smoothing things over.

Breaking News, high level caster causes balance problems. More at 11.

The fact that your group is entirely casual should have been your first clue to tone things down. This DM clearly has bigger eyes than his stomach if he thinks he can handle an 18th+ campaign.

Make a new character, or don't show up. If the GM says you can't keep it, you can't.
When you are playing as part of a group it could be seen as impolite to play an army. You recognize that the other players were unhappy with your monopolizing the playtime. Do you feel your character is more valuable to you than your friends?

Adding:
Some builds of high level casters are unbalancing, but using the Leadership line, ANY class can be just as disruptive. There is more to life than C/M D.

Give control of your summons/minions/henchmen to other players. They probably would know more about combat tactics(being martials) than a wizard would either way.

maybe just rebuild so you're not controlling 8 different units a turn and keep the character? Just limit yourself to 1-3 units to keep the game rolling fast.

Hell, use a timer if you need.

Addendum to my previous post:

Basically, your main problem isn't even that your character is slow, it's that it overshadows the rest of the party. Wizards tend to do that. That can be solved in a variety of ways, but usual recommendations are to focus on crowd control, buffs and debuffs, instead of direct damage(in your case, through proxy minions). You are playing a GOD class, so behave like a GOD-control the battlefield while letting plebeians(in the form of various martials) have their fun finishing enemies you have set up in front of them on a silver platter.

You already have 3 minions in the form of other party members. Use them instead of summoning more.

Addendum to my previous post:

Basically, your main problem isn't even that your character is slow, it's that it overshadows the rest of the party. Wizards tend to do that. That can be solved in a variety of ways, but usual recommendations are to focus on crowd control, buffs and debuffs, instead of direct damage(in your case, through proxy minions). You are playing a GOD class, so behave like a GOD-control the battlefield while letting plebeians(in the form of various martials) have their fun finishing enemies you have set up in front of them on a silver platter.

You already have 3 minions in the form of other party members. Use them instead of summoning more.

One suggestion for this is to switch to the Teleportation subschool. This will let you put the pieces where you need them and keep you out of harm's reach.

Many of the suggestions here are good. Never have more than 3 summoned or called creatures on the board. There are a lot of different things you can do, but that is the problem with an 18th level conjurer. But mix up what you do, don't completely wreck the action economy,

I don't know how you can start saying you were worried about balance issues and end by saying you were playing a conjuration wizard with leadership.

Those are like, completely contradictory statements. You went into a game playing arguably the strongest specialization of arguably the strongest class in the game and took arguably the strongest feat along with it and then flooded the bored with powerful minions.

I don't want to be rude, but I really don't understand how you can do that and not expect exactly what happened to have happened.

Like if I was building a character for the specific purpose of ruining game balance and pissing everyone off to prove a point to a GM I would probably play the exact character you made.

OK, the entire idea of an 25pt buy 18th level mini campaign with custom this and that is a BAD IDEA from the start. The 3 "protest" anti-paladins are a HUGE red flag that people are not starting in good faith. Bringing a core monk or rogue would probably be more then this GM (and honestly most gm's) can handle.

I hate to tell you this but:
18th level wizard - cheese
conjuration school - cheese
leadership - cheese
intelligent item psychic cohort - cheese
create demiplane - cheese
clone - cheese
solar angel - cheese
Spell Perfection - cheese
greater planar binding - cheese
greater planar ally - cheese
There are probably some other things as well...

Yeah, your GM let you have all the tools to break his game, but it was your choice to actually break it... Honestly, that character is the Pathfinder version of PunPun, and should never be brought into an actual game.

I would recommend just skipping this campaign. If you really, really want to take part, make an actual "character" not just a collection of the most broken crap in the game.

Thanks to everyone that has responded so far! Several replies that I wanted to answer specifically:

Maybe if you offered to only have one summon at a time?

Technically, I only had the one summon spell active; the rest where two calling spells, a cohort, and a permanent animated object...but I understand what you're saying. ;)

If you tend to build more powerful characters, then offer to help the others tweak theirs.

It's interesting that you brought this up, because just before the game started that seemed to be where things were going. The guy playing the necromantic cleric pretty much asked me to build his pit fiend bloody skeleton for him, and one of the antipaladins was picking my brain for information about intelligent items as Leadership cohorts.

Unfortunately, that was about a half-hour before the game got started, so there wasn't enough time to keep going on that particular track before everything was derailed.

The fact that your group is entirely casual should have been your first clue to tone things down.

Please tell me more about not going over the top, O DominusMegadeus. ;)

But seriously though, I think part of the problem was that I thought that this was toned down, at least compared to what I could have done (e.g. I didn't use my solar angel's 3/day permanency SLA to do anything except make a single animated object, and a second demiplane, permanent, etc., let alone it's 1/day wish SLA).

You recognize that the other players were unhappy with your monopolizing the playtime. Do you feel your character is more valuable to you than your friends?

I'm trying to figure out how this got to a question of "you need to make a choice" and walk it back. My objection is largely based around feeling blindsided, with a side-helping of feeling punished for being too good at what I did.

Give control of your summons/minions/henchmen to other players.

This is something I've tried to do when I was the one GMing; I'd ask other players - especially if their PC was unconscious or absent - to run NPCs. But for whatever reason, it's always gone over like a lead balloon. I'm honestly not sure why, but no one else seems to want to run a character besides their PC. Between that, and the current tension, I suspect that asking them to run my minions would go badly.

You are playing a GOD class, so behave like a GOD-control the battlefield while letting plebeians(in the form of various martials) have their fun finishing enemies you have set up in front of them on a silver platter.

I didn't mention this in my original post, but I was sort of trying to split the difference between that and summoning. Most of my conjurer's spells were focused around battlefield control; I went with the conjuration school largely so that I could get summoning spells as bonus spell slots, rather than a focus. Heck, even the initial summons that brought three more characters to the field was cast by my cohort. (Rather ironically, other than some pre-battle buffs, my actual wizard character didn't cast any spells at all.)

...that said, I recognize that that's not really a useful distinction, at this point.

I don't know how you can start saying you were worried about balance issues and end by saying you were playing a conjuration wizard with leadership.

Those are like, completely contradictory statements.

I thought I explained this in my original post, but I'll say it again here: the reason I went with this character even after being worried about balance issues was because I brought it up with the GM - repeatedly, and sometimes in front of (at least some of) the group - and nobody said a thing. Quite the opposite, after those few restrictions, the GM expressed total confidence that what I was doing wasn't going to be a problem.

For me to do that, and then to have everyone else suddenly have a problem after we started actual play, caught me completely off-guard.

Yeah, your GM let you walk all over his game, but it was your choice to bring all this stuff... Honestly what do you think would happen?

Not this, mostly because I kept getting the go-ahead when I brought these up. I trusted that when the GM said that what I was making was alright - and that the other players didn't say anything when I voiced some of what I was doing in front of them - that things really would be alright, not that they simply hadn't thought things through.

I don't know how you can start saying you were worried about balance issues and end by saying you were playing a conjuration wizard with leadership.

Those are like, completely contradictory statements. You went into a game playing arguably the strongest specialization of arguably the strongest class in the game and took arguably the strongest feat along with it and then flooded the bored with powerful minions.

I don't want to be rude, but I really don't understand how you can do that and not expect exactly what happened to have happened.

OP voiced his concerns, which led to a group discussion and somethings being banned - and, OP, good work getting your GM to ban the ridiculous Blood Money spell. The group has then, theoretically, agreed that anything not banned is OK.

OP ran his character past the GM, who gave the OK for his build - only to later admit he'd given that OK without understanding the impact.

There is no way this GM should be running an 18th level campaign, certainly with that wide a range of allowed resources. No wonder it went off the rails.

***

OP, if everyone was OK with your concept, and the GM was fine with the build initially, only for everyone to wig out once you get chance to use it, I'd walk away until the mini-campaign has finished. I suspect it is only going to form more of a car crash as the game goes on.

Alas, don't expect your GM to know all the answers and how everything will actually roll in game - as you've said it yourself - he's never ran a high level campaign.

Repeat with me, this should be a mantra: the less creatures on the board, the more fun for everyone.

Yes, even for the guy who wants to play master conjurer or necromancer, because they are going to get a ton of flak from the rest of the party otherwise.

The same conjurer or necromancer could still have as much effectiveness and still a lot of impact by spending resources on increasing their personal capabilities over their power to spread out.

Sure, action economy advantages (i.e. basic summoning) is the ultimate weapon in this game. But winning battles and keeping your character alive should not be your priority.

Your priority should be fun - if you just want the thrill of success, non-roleplaying games are probably a better venue.

Ok so my opinion on this :

First your pals made a team, and you come with your own team (seriously 8 characters to control ?). You are not the only one to blame, any sane DM would have limited you to your PC and his cohort (plus eventual short summons).

Second, all your group has no experience of high level games. I can garanty you that combats get longer & longer when you arrive at very high levels. And as it was alreaddy said, casters are really dominant at this level, so it's no wonder that you outshine your party. And the thing is worse if your party is mainly casual players, maybe you should avoid minmaxing your PC.

I think the best thing you could do is to return to mid levels and try one long term campaign to learn how to play high levels gradually.

When you know the rules and how to abuse the system much better than the GM and the other players, you have to rein yourself in. You can't rely on the GM to do it for you, because he doesn't understand the consequences of what you're asking him.

You did understand. You should have known where this was going.

When you know the rules and how to abuse the system much better than the GM and the other players, you have to rein yourself in. You can't rely on the GM to do it for you, because he doesn't understand the consequences of what you're asking him.

You did understand. You should have known where this was going.

I agree 100%, but I think in this case, there is a large amount of GM hubris to blame as well.

I think dysartes essentially nailed it- this campaign is a car speeding towards a cliff. If you don't want to ride it into a fiery crash, get out now!

thejeff wrote:

When you know the rules and how to abuse the system much better than the GM and the other players, you have to rein yourself in. You can't rely on the GM to do it for you, because he doesn't understand the consequences of what you're asking him.

You did understand. You should have known where this was going.

I agree 100%, but I think in this case, there is a large amount of GM hubris to blame as well. Starting 6 levels above where you have every played before? Six characters, AND the GM wants a GMPC also!? 25pt buy with custom races? I think at a certain point, the GM really needs to have some sense of what is going on, especially if players are bringing up balance issues and you keep going, "yeah, I got this". If you go over this stuff, ban blood money and added value from crafting (neither of which is [i]that[i/i] broken really), but allow all this other stuff... It just shows a delusional faith in his GM skills, (or he is a GM GOD!)

Oh sure, the GM is in way over his head. That is the root of the problem.

But still, if you're the experienced, serious player here, the one who knows the rules, knows high level play and all the exploits that come with it, you should recognize that and not rely on the GM who doesn't to hold you back.

I get that no one likes unpleasant surprises, and no one likes being told that something is permissible and then being told later that it's not. Those are valid complaints. I understand why that annoys you and you have a right to be annoyed.

However, that doesn't change the fact that you monopolized the spotlight and used your knowledge of the game to build a character that was significantly more powerful than the other characters.

To be honest, given your group's complete lack of experience with high level play (and the GMs especially) you should have made a character that didn't include all of the most powerful combinations of options you could find. Playing an 18th level wizard is a powerful enough option without adding all the bells and whistles. Think about it from the other side of the screen, you had a character who was taking multiple actions a turn and wasn't even present to be actually attacked. Come on man, right there that alone is uncool.

Making a character is a solo activity. Playing RPGs is a group activity. Don't let your enjoyment of the solo activity interfere with everyone's enjoyment of the group activity. And when I say everyone, I mean you too. Was having everyone involved complain about the character you made fun for you?

The fact that you don't think their complaints were valid doesn't really change that. They are telling you that you are making the game less fun for them and that should be what matters.

Needless to say, the entire thing has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I quite like my character, and want to keep running him, but at the same time I'm quite ticked at having had the gauntlet thrown down. I have no idea what to do before next week's game, and time is running out...

What should you do? Make a different character or don't play.

Question, OP, to deal with an assumption that keeps cropping up - you mentioned in your original post that this group hasn't had a campaign go past 12th level before. Have you had previous experience with high-level play outside of this group?

Sounds like a completely typical high level wizard to me. Honestly, you picked a good combination of mechanics, but the stuff you've listed is stuff that literally any high level arcane caster could do (and in my experience, usually do)

If I had to guess, I'd say a lot of the issues come from you and your gaming group not knowing how to calibrate their expectations. The difference between a 12th level game and an 18th level game is pretty extreme. Combat rounds take a long time. Some spell effects can make them take much longer, or end fights all together. Frankly, after 12th level the mechanics of the game begin to break down under the weight of the numbers and the array of options available. By 15th level, the game feels ponderous. By 18th it takes a lot of skill and concious effort on everyone's part to keep the game from feeling frustrating.

Summoners, necromancers, animal companions, Leadership, Planar Binding and other minion-y abilities only exacerbate the problems, and at that level pretty much everyone has some way of having a minion. Every single caster and half the martial classes have easy access to minions.

As a group, you need to discuss the minion situation out of game.

And as for everyone talking about Cheese, ignore them. Crafting intelligent items, casting planar binding and create demiplane, making Clones, using Astral Projection, these are all things that Wizards are designed to do. They can all do those things, and it is smart to do them. These features are a high level wizard's class abilities. It takes zero investment of character design choices to do those things. Frankly, there's no in-game reason not to. The only out of game reason not to is because those abilities have a tendency to overshadow other players. If your fellow players feel overshadowed the best solution would be to ban full casters in high level play, because they can all do this stuff. It's what they are designed to do, and asking them not to is like asking a martial character not to use power attack, or a Druid not to Wildshape. Asking people not to use their class features really just makes people not want to play those classes.

If you are playing a high level game and allowing full casters, this is the kind if stuff that should be expected, discussed beforehand, and possibly banned from play altogether if people don't like the effects that high level spells have on the game.

If you guys want to play at this level, maybe you'd better off with CR 18 creatures instead of level 18 PCs. They don't need hours of customization (unless templates are allowed), are (supposedly) more balanced than level 18 PCs and offer an unique playstyle.

Building an overpowered character isn't nearly as bad as building a character that brings its own adventuring party. If you had gone full munchkin without bringing cohorts and the such along, I think everyone would have been fine with it.

Basically, issue was you are pure caster they are 1/2th casters.

You even had cohort casters.

If you made your cohort a melee, it would have been better.
Then you went planar binding for more casting.

Casting is cheese. Usually excepted cheese, but cheese in Pathfinder. You had too much.

So tear back the cheese. Remember, you know your allies are just meleers.

Pick 2:
-OP has concerns about being too overpowered
-GM limits Planar Binding to creature
-OP uses leadership to get a cohort to bind a second creature(which than creates an animated object)

I would give advice but I got the impression this might be a troll thread. Lots of other weird stuff going like 3 Antipladins in one group.

If not: Just avoid the obviously broken stuff, OP.

Keep your character for another day (one where the GM and players all know whats going on and you can have a reasoned discussion about the best way to use him) and make another.

If you are the most experienced at high level play, it's up to you to reign yourself in; don't use tricks you would ban others from using and try building a useful character that won't dominate. The other players obviously value your expertise if they were asking you for tips. There are plenty of fun options available that can make a meaningful contribution without dominating. Sit back and have a good think about what your group needs. If it's still an Arcane of some kind, build one that's different; don't go for a wizard or Master summoner as you will immediately be suspected of trying the same thing by the back door, try a sorcerer or arcanist who concentrates on buffs and battlefield control. If you decide they really need some kind of buffer, build a bard, etc.

Above all, avoid Leadership. You will be able to plumb it for all it's worth and end up dominating again. If you need additional bodies on the board, get an Animal Companion or a Familiar, but if you build it right you shouldn't need it. Sometimes optimal choices mean you will dominate and end up being hated.

If you are way more experienced than the other players, why not try out a deliberately sub-optimal build such as a blaster caster? Sure, they're not the best use of your spells, but it can be fun to one-shot the mooks while the other members of the party are going toe to toe with the BBEG (or should that be Big Bad Good Guy with your party?). There are lots of fun options that an experienced player can make work without dominating the party. There are lots of sub-optimal choices that you would not play with an experienced group but which would fit right in with your group. Think of it as the chance to try out that build that makes sense RP-Wise but just wouldn't cut it with an experienced group. Maybe find a theme that you can pull together which gives you memorable flavour but makes you sub-optimal. One of the most memorable characters I ever played was a healer who couldn't fight, couldn't heal and just got in the way all the time. I'm not saying you need to go that far, but you should know what works with your group and what doesn't.

The fact that you kept going back to the GM for approval suggests that you already knew this character would be disruptive; make one you don't feel you should get approval for and you know you've got a balanced character.

If you then go ahead and help your fellow players to optimise their characters and find that now your character no longer makes the cut, then you can go to the GM and ask to swap for a more viable character.

When I play a cleric who has used "Animate Dead", I often assign some of the resulting creatures to be directed by my fellow players. This makes it more fun for them, and it can be more effective too (since a rogue might need a flanking partner, for instance).

Perhaps you could cede control of some followers in a similar manner?

OP, you began with the statement that the GM is more casual and not a hobbyist like you.

So are the players.

However, even if it were a hobby, something that people took very seriously, let me ask a simple question. Is it appropriate to take 12 minutes to do a turn while everyone waits to play? Do you think that is fun for a hobby player or a casual player to wait that long? Not for their turn to come up, but for one player to do their action?

I can't see this as anything but boring. They are pissed because you sapped the fun out of the room. They were right to speak up.

You're playing a game with people. You need to realize that it's supposed to be fun for everyone. Not just one person. Remake the character.

Everyone else posting that have suggestions on how to alter it should realize the players have outright stated they don't want to keep playing with this wizard. Maybe something more ideal for the party to get along with. It may help assuage some anger at the table if you did.

I'm not sure what you're asking OP. You created a character to break the game and you broke the game. What was the expected result?

As others have suggested, dial down the optimization - like tenfold. The game at that level is already nigh unplayable, overly effective characters certainly don't help.

If playing anything that's less than 100% optimized isn't fun for you, maybe this campaign isn't a good fit for you and you should just take a break. It sounds like these guys are your friends. Souring a friendship over one campaign doesn't seem like a great idea.

If you as the GM wouldn't let a player do it, don't do it yourself. You indicated that were you the GM, you would have restricted stuff more. You knew better, and took advantage of a GM who you admit couldn't have known what he was getting into. Don't be that guy.

I thought I explained this in my original post, but I'll say it again here: the reason I went with this character even after being worried about balance issues was because I brought it up with the GM - repeatedly, and sometimes in front of (at least some of) the group - and nobody said a thing. Quite the opposite, after those few restrictions, the GM expressed total confidence that what I was doing wasn't going to be a problem.

A GM that you yourself described as not particularly experienced or well versed in the nuances of the system.

OP voiced his concerns, which led to a group discussion and somethings being banned - and, OP, good work getting your GM to ban the ridiculous Blood Money spell. The group has then, theoretically, agreed that anything not banned is OK.

Not really. The group has agreed that certain things are potentially problematic. That doesn't necessarily mean 'ruin the game as long as you don't ruin it in this specific way'.

Nevermind that the OP built his character with the specific ability to circumvent some of those very restrictions.

OP ran his character past the GM, who gave the OK for his build

Again, a GM the OP described as someone that didn't have strong system mastery.

There is no way this GM should be running an 18th level campaign, certainly with that wide a range of allowed resources. No wonder it went off the rails.

The thing is it doesn't actually sound like it's gone off the rails, at least not yet.

One particular player has caused significant problems by dramatically out-optimizing anyone else, but that's less the game 'going off the rails' and more one player being problematic.

I mean, yeah, the GM could have probably taken more care to review things ahead of time, but that doesn't excuse the OP for preying on the GM's inexperience either. It's still on the OP for breaking that bond of trust in the first place, even if the GM apparently shouldn't have put that much faith in him.

Honestly, that character is the Pathfinder version of PunPun, and should never be brought into an actual game.

Wait wait wait.

You're suggesting that a Core Class, using standard options available to it in main line books, is somehow the PunPun [as in, an obscure monster trick available in an obscure book utilizing an npc race] of Pathfinder?

Fergie wrote:

Honestly, that character is the Pathfinder version of PunPun, and should never be brought into an actual game.

Wait wait wait.

You're suggesting that a Core Class, using standard options available to it in main line books, is somehow the PunPun [as in, an obscure monster trick available in an obscure book utilizing an npc race] of Pathfinder?

Almost like a class everyone refers to as God is somehow a little broken!

@OP: It seems you tried to make a powerful wizard succeeded, and went overboard. To correct this, I suggest using "God Wizardry" which is about buffing, debuffing, and controlling the field so that your party (which has 4 beatsticks) have more fun because they succeed more often. Treantmonk's guide explains this well. Don't bring in cohorts, animated objects, and bound creatures as they are an inefficient way of spending gold, your party serves their role just fine and saves you a feat and a nice chunk of gold.

Summon as a way to buff melee by giving flank, applying debuffs (grapple), and granting effective temp HP (every attack against summons don't damage anything important). They don't need to do much damage. Use walls, clouds, and force hands to restrict enemy movement. Shoot haste up for the party and debuff the enemy into next week. If the rest of the party gets to do 90% of the damage they will be more happy even if you allowed 90% of that to go through.

Prepare summons ahead of time (index cards are a beautiful invention) and don't do it if you also lay down heavy control in a fight. These things help streamline your turns so you don't do too much. And apologize to the group next time for unintentionally spoiling everyone's fun.

Thanks for the continued responses everyone. I appreciate all of the feedback on this situation.

As a minor note, I misremembered two points from my original post. These weren't anything major, and certainly don't change any of what happened, but I'll note them anyway:

• I said before that we played two combat rounds in one hour. Looking back, it was actually closer to four combat rounds in two hours.
  
• Rather than three antipaladins, it was actually two antipaladins and a barbarian.

You can't rely on the GM to do it for you, because he doesn't understand the consequences of what you're asking him.

This is a point that a lot of people in this thread have noted, and they (and you) aren't wrong to do so. Looking back, there were a lot of red flags regarding the GM's level of understanding about what would happen (some of which I haven't mentioned so far), and I probably should have realized that and reined myself in more than I did.

I really don't have any excuse for that, beyond that I honestly wanted to believe that he'd stepped his game up. This level 18 mini-campaign was one that he'd been talking about for two months before we got started (this includes my voicing my initial round of concerns), and then we had two game sessions of building and talking about what we were doing before we got started (plus half a session before we started play).

I mention that because, whenever I brought up a point of concern and he brushed it aside, I wanted to believe that he knew what he was doing, even when signs pointed the other way. As a friend, I genuinely wanted to think "wow, he's stepped his game up, and now has a couple of aces up his sleeve," rather than "oh my god, he has no idea what he's doing." Obviously I'm using some hyperbole there, but it reflects the fact that I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Question, OP, to deal with an assumption that keeps cropping up - you mentioned in your original post that this group hasn't had a campaign go past 12th level before. Have you had previous experience with high-level play outside of this group?

Yes, as part of an old 3.0 campaign that I GM'd shortly after those rules came out. That was my first time running anything that took longer than a couple of sessions, and we were all making mistakes left and right, so the entire campaign was about as stable as a rickety rollercoaster, but I learned a great deal from it all the same (that was the first and last time I had an open-door policy on anything first-party, for instance).

Perhaps you could cede control of some followers in a similar manner?

I mentioned this before, but I'd honestly be surprised if they went for that. Simply put, I've tried this on previous occasions with this group when I was GMing, and I'm still stumped about how utterly uninterested they were in this idea. Given the tension present now, I'm exceptionally nervous about proposing that they run my minions.

Is it appropriate to take 12 minutes to do a turn while everyone waits to play? Do you think that is fun for a hobby player or a casual player to wait that long? Not for their turn to come up, but for one player to do their action?

I'll absolutely cop to the idea that time-management was a problem (in fact, I did that in my first post). Ideally I'd like to figure out how to reduce that without changing anything, but I suspect that that's a pipe dream since, 1) that seems to be almost unavoidable for having that many characters at that level, and 2) that's only part of the issue at this point.

I'm not sure what you're asking OP. You created a character to break the game and you broke the game. What was the expected result?

You indicated that were you the GM, you would have restricted stuff more. You knew better, and took advantage of a GM who you admit couldn't have known what he was getting into. Don't be that guy.

A GM that you yourself described as not particularly experienced or well versed in the nuances of the system.

I want to reiterate that my issue isn't that the rest of the group has a problem with how things have turned out; I'm not at all unsympathetic to the points they raised. Rather, I'm upset because I feel like I had the rug pulled out from under me with regards to getting the thumbs-up multiple times only to then have the entire group suddenly turn on me.

I know that's not what happened, but that's how it feels. You could say that's entirely my fault for having too much faith in the GM, undeservedly so, and you'd be right...but at the same time, I didn't want to be that guy who was certain that he knew better than everyone else. I wanted to work with the GM, rather than thinking that he was out of his depth.

More specifically, I sat down at the table with my wizard, his intelligent item psychic cohort (my followers from Leadership were back in my private demiplane where I was astral projecting from...and in my other private demiplane tending to my clone), the solar angel that I'd called via greater planar binding (utilizing Augmented Calling and Spell Perfection), a bythos aeon that my cohort had brought via greater planar ally (via the Faith psychic discipline), and a Gargantuan animated object (animated and made permanent by the solar angel). This rose to eight characters when I had my psychic cohort use monster summoning VII to bring in three (I rolled high) celestial triceratops in the first round of our first combat. (I should note that I'd mentioned all of these to the GM before we sat down to play, and he signed off on all of them.)

You obviously knew what you were doing, even if the DM didn't know what you were doing. When you have that level of system mastery, with that much freedom, you should be able to edit yourself to not ruin anyone else's experience at the table.

Check yourself before your wreck the game.

I'm pretty sure being powerful isn't the problem here. Hogging the spotlight by having extra long turns is the problem here.

I probably should have realized that and reined myself in more than I did.

This is the part that cracks me up.

You didn't rein yourself in at all, you made a summoning wizard, which is already quite powerful, but then you took it a step further and asked for a wildly overpowered minion-magic item.

That's like the opposite of reining it in. :-D

You didn't do anything 'wrong' but the rest of the group's fun suffered anyways. Just be a good sport and make a different character. Maybe two of the anti paladins should do the same. Egos got hurt. Don't worry. You'll get over it. So will your group.

This is the part that cracks me up.

You didn't rein yourself in at all

Oh no, trust me, there were quite a few ways that I could have gone further (I mentioned previously not taking gratuitous advantage of the solar angel's 3/day permanency and 1/day wish SLA's, for example). Several minor points about my character weren't focused on optimization (e.g. spending a feat slot on Toughness, despite that only bumping my hit points up from an anemic 77 to a pretty-much-just-as-bad 95).

That said, the consensus seems to be that I'd already gone too far, and that "not having made it even worse" isn't really a mitigating factor.

Honestly, I'm surprised the party composition didn't leave a bad taste in your mouth.
3 Antipaladins, a Sorcerer who's doing the impractical, and a Undead Lord Cleric.

Where's the class diversity? I wouldn't have joined that campaign. With what you built, and with what the Cleric is spec'ed to do, someone is going to screw the action economy over and turn it into an action sodomy.

I understand that you feel thrown under the bus. Though, you could have also been more considerate of your party.
Yes, you have access to your own army. *slow clap* Do you need to bring everything out for a small fight? Nope. Save it for the big bad.

If you want to keep with the character, limit what/how many things you control at a time.
I also like the idea of letting a different character control one of the summons

Or build a new character to fill the void of skill-monkey.

Wait, Alzrius? You wouldn't happen to be this Alzrius, would you?

Wait, Alzrius? You wouldn't happen to be this Alzrius, would you?

Yep, that's me. :)

Hi Vutava!

Fergie wrote:

Honestly, that character is the Pathfinder version of PunPun, and should never be brought into an actual game.

Wait wait wait.

You're suggesting that a Core Class, using standard options available to it in main line books, is somehow the PunPun [as in, an obscure monster trick available in an obscure book utilizing an npc race] of Pathfinder?

OK, I'll be the first to admit that it is a poor analogy. And you are totally right that while PunPun is some obscure rules twisting and jumping through bizarre hoops, most things mentioned were core. I was attempting to point out that what was being done was essentially stacking optimization to levels that passed from a powerful character, into theoretical optimization cheese levels.

For example, take the strongest class - Wizard, the strongest school specialization - conjuration, the strongest (debatable) tactic - adding minions/summoning, the strongest summon - solar. and then add in a few feats that juice it even more, and it is a fairly ridiculous string of choices for anything other then a "Break the game" contest. Adding clones, Leadership, and your planar allies summoned creatures, puts it into farcical territory. That is is almost all legal and core does not mean it isn't kind of ridiculous. It just shows that the game is easily broken.

But really the kicker, and this is where the GM just seems... delusional, is that YOU ALREADY HAVE SIX PLAYERS! Six characters are a handful! But then you have a cleric who is supposed to have a bunch of undead, a couple of players who have pet demons, Leadership, and you allow juiced up planar ally, and clones, and summoning, and a freaking construct and more? THIS IS CRAZY! You should not allow that at 8th level, much less 18th!

"One Pet Per Person, Parrots Preferred!" - Yellowbeard

** spoiler omitted **

I don't think that's the trolls revenge. Troll's revenge would be something like showing up, plopping 3 overstuffed binders on the table, then slowly start unloading as many miniatures as you can muster, preferably from several different storage containers. Maybe "forgetting" a couple in the car, and having to go run and get them. When the players ask what you're doing, just explain that you've decided to remake the character, and guess what, he doesn't even cast magic anymore. He is however a noble scion, who happens to have minion built exactly like him, who happens to have a minion built exactly like him, who happens to..... and so on, etcetera.

Best part is, those 3 binders, just 1000 photocopies of the same character sheet.

Now that's how you troll a table, just don't expect these people to ever talk to you again.

Level 18 has more than enough wealth.

Bring a level 18 Expert specced in UMD to do the same s&@! [for a finite number of adventures] while also having plenty of skill points to be the knowledge monkey the party expects.

As someone playing a minion happy necromancer in a fairly heavy online game the main thing any minion-master needs to learn to do at a table is to know when to step back and have their character find a wall to prop up and have a smoke behind.

Look up the term Godzilla Threshold on TVTropes, basically you only break out your minions when you've reached this point and before that you maybe goof about a bit and let others be more in the spotlight than you.