SynesthesiaAddict's page

we have sat down and the power player has helped the beginner and the flavor player optimize a little, while the scaling back a little of his character has balanced the party so CR14 encounters are more their speed around level 12, loot and buffs all accounted for. maybe it was the luck of the dice, but the last game went very well. skill challenges that roped in the other two let them shine while the summoner still tore up the battle field, but not so much as to dwarf everybody else. we're still a little lopsided if you ask me, but the optimization helped. i'm glad we were able to talk it out outside game and i didn't have to do something drastic in-game. he got a little butt-hurt at first, but he was glad to be of help in the end.

to stop this from happening in the future, i was thinking of printing off a sheet of guidelines for players to keep in mind when building characters...nothing too restricting, but a reminder that maximum damage isn't the goal here

SynesthesiaAddict wrote:

Stop scaling encounters up to challenge the strongest of them, and the others will do fine. In fact, if he isn't challenged, he'll probably feel more comfortable spending his resources on non-combat options.

this approach combined with the utilitarian use of evolution points sound good.

the other two aren't power gamers. one is a beginner and the other enjoys flavor characters more than number output. i try to cater to all three of them accordingly.

being a GM requires a lot of juggling, and i've never run into this much of a problem before on this level. we'll see how this next game goes and i'll post the results.

all excellent suggestions folks. i've had to compensate by cranking out some pretty crazy loot and it balanced it for a while, but then my broken character leveled and unbalanced everything all over again!

talking with the player has proven a mixed bag. he plays a synthesis summoner, and claims that all i would have to do is cast dismissal and he's vulnerable. but that would make the character not only weak, but utterly useless in every regard, so much so that the tables would be flipped -- anything i would throw at them would squash the dismissed summoner for a whole six rounds, by which time the battle would be over. we are heavy roleplayers, and the character is tied up in some plot knots, so sending the character off in lieu of a new one would put a lot of strain on the story.

sliding scale xp sounds plausible, as we have mixed experienced gamers at the table.

he's agreed to spend his evolution points in a more utilitarian style, but i don't feel comfortable keeping my thumb on my players like this, it doesn't seem fair. then again, how fair is it to other players to sit back and let this player hog all the glory, right? you see my predicament...

for the record: home brew world, pathfinder 3.5 mix, three players. we have a kitsune gunslinger, a (homebrew) fey mighty godling and a shabti synthesis summoner. just hit level 12 but these guys are taking on CR16-17 encounters because of the unbalance factor. which of course means they're leveling too fast.

environmental factors sound like a great idea, i like that one.

alternate victory condition encounters? go!

I have a problem. One of my players has created a "broken" character, that is to say that she is ridiculously powerful. in order to challenge this character i would have to throw something at the party that would squash the other players, and it's taking the fun out of the game. i've scoured over the numbers and corrected some of the loopholes but she is still topping out over 90 damage a round at level 10 easy.

to get around this i have started to create encounters that have alternate victory conditions, like time limits, get from point A to point B without this or that happening, take no damage, escort missions and the like but i'm running out of ideas.

halp!