|
I have some sympathy for the OP.
Echolocation isn't a problem spell, as pretty much everyone in this thread has agreed.
Barbarians and Bloodragers however are the absolute kings of damage in 3.5e and Pathfinder. Next to other options, except for perhaps dedicated archery and the blockbuster blaster wizard, they come out on top by a long distance. High STR, plus Rage, and either a two handed weapon or natural attacks, and you will "outshine" the rest of your party in terms of damage. I had a player in my 3.5 campaign bring a Barbarian/Frostrager, and absolutely stun all my old-school long-time players with his damage output because they'd never seen a raging barbarian in action before. I run a melee alchemist in PFS who hits just as hard as OP's bloodrager (I really need to read the Medium class).
If there's a problem here it is the relative difference in optimisation level of the players. But there are multiple solutions in my view. OP could rein it in a bit. Other players could learn to build stronger characters. Or, the best solution I think, accept different specialisations in the adventuring party. The Barb/Bloodrager will always do the most melee damage. But he'll never the the skill monkey, the knowledge guy, the controller. The druid can do melee very well, but has no strong ranged attack, only a few skills, and can't be controlling the battlefield if he's going in to melee. The druid can, on the other hand, buff other party members very well.
So far I have had many positive comments about my melee alchemist from fellow players, who have enjoyed having him at the table, and nobody has suggested that he's overshadowed or trivialised encounters. Mostly I think players are glad to have a tank around that can deal damage. I am careful to ensure that he can't be dominated (ioun stone plus wayfinder combo was an early purchase).
I figure that at the level where the druid has access to echolocation other people in the party will have some sort of plan for dealing with people who are invisible or otherwise obscured.That's normally my assumption, but it's not necessarily a safe one in PFS.
But, unhelpful though it may be, the proper response at this point might be "L2P, n00b!"
Echolocation is very powerful when combined with spells like Sleetstorm
In PFS, it also tends to shut down the rest of the party.
As an example : human barbarian 4 with power attack, reckless rage and reckless abandon. starting with 19 str at 1 with the increase at 4 and belt.
Attack : sword+1furious(+3), bab+4, abandon+2, Str+8, -3 power attack.
Damage : Sword+1furious(+3), Str+12, power attack+9
Sword: 8350gp. Belt: 4000gp. WBL at 4th level: 6000gp.
Yeah, I see the problem.
|
|
As a GM for him, I can explain. In the examples given here, I believe I GMed the second instance. Echolocation really isn't the problem, as other people have said before. It's a basic survival trick. It didn't break the encounter. By this level, people are expected to deal with it.
What some people at my lodge (including myself sometimes) are annoyed with is the fact that this guy trivialises entire combats. Okay, some people at our lodge don't build optimal characters, but I have seen people stop doing things in combat because OP deals more than double their damage and they feel useless in comparison. Combats that are supposed to be very challenging just end after one round, maybe two, once OP can full attack. Yes, combats break when OP is around, but I have no idea why he thinks Echolocation is the culprit. His damage output is way more than encounters can handle. As seen in his example above, his damage output on level 4 lies around 30 (24 static, roughly 7 from average dice). I referred to the Bench-Pressing table for comparison. His damage output is roughly that of a level 5.5 character. For comparison, my...
I get why you have this point of view, but you also have to understand that this is how bloodragers and barbarians work: they hit hard, take hits and maybe have perception and one other skill.
The level 4 Barbarian/fighter hits as hard as a lvl 5.5 character of any other class that is not entirely focused on being a beatstick/machinegun.I'm still not hitting as hard as the smiting paladin, I need to prepare to hit the flying opponent, our archer won initiative and just gunned down the encounter from 120 feet away from the other side of a lake before anyone else even got a turn in.
I can't outskill the bard, cant out-identify the occultist or outsocial the mesmerist.
Barbarians and by extension bloodragers hit hard.
the example I gave was not to say :'Oh look how high my damage is nanana'. It's to show how easy it is with the barbarian class because it's what they were designed to do.
Edit : also thanks for the bench pressing table but looking at it, things like my druid are pretty avarage except for 1 save.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As others have said, this seems to be problem that's arising due to different levels of system mastery and character optimization. I know this can be very frustrating for the players with the unoptimized builds. But I also know that a lot of the enjoyment some people get out of the game is crafting highly optimized builds.
@Richter Harding: One natural thought is to craft a highly optimized character focused on support. (E.g., a bard, or an oradin, or one of those crazy Aid Another-based builds.) If you're turning unoptimized martials into machines of destruction, unoptimized skill monkeys into skill gods, and keeping everyone alive, then the game is still fun for the other players (if not a lot more fun). And the game can still be a lot of fun for you because you get to flex your optimization skills, and you're still contributing to (if not outright carrying) the party.
Do you think something like that might help relieve the tensions you feel arising at the table?
I get why you have this point of view, but you also have to understand that this is how bloodragers and barbarians work: they hit hard, take hits and maybe have perception and one other skill.
The level 4 Barbarian/fighter hits as hard as a lvl 5.5 character of any other class that is not entirely focused on being a beatstick/machinegun.
I think you're misinterpreting the chart. Blue denotes those things that are as good as they reasonably could be against an AMCREL. This is as good as it gets, and might be considered ‘optimal’. Attack rolls are blue if they can only fail on a Natural 1 against AMCREL’s AC.
That blue number means the optimal expected amount of damage at that level from someone whose main job it is to deal damage. You're way past that (EDIT: also due to level dipping purely for numerical bonuses, rather than for any real synergy. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's an example). We're not asking you to identify items, that's indeed someone else's job. But you literally count for two when it comes to melee. For example, the archer you mentioned said he had underestimated how powerful he was, and he's taken sub-optimal feats since then to do other stuff and let other people shine. Sometimes he doesn't full attack to let other people make the killing blow. He also doesn't want to play another archer, because he's now bored with it. Meanwhile, you build Bloodrager after Bloodrager with essentially the same build and charge forward without thinking of the rest of the party. I'm not asking you to get out of your comfort zone, but I am asking you to consider other people more. You're not really a team player right now, we're all just an audience to the Richter show.EDIT: Also, I've taken a look at the Bench-Pressing article, and it supposes some things that might not be true for our lodge. There's always this talk of how the culture in America always tends to be "kill things as fast as you can," (whether that's true I'll leave unanswered), and I do notice that article is geared very much towards that sort of optimisation. Even my most powerful builds don't even reach blue status in most areas, and I'd say they're pretty good at what they do. I'd dare say most of our lodge falls in orange category, while you shoot way up near blue. That inherently creates frictions. It's not necessarily your fault, but maybe something to keep in the back of your mind.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why isn't everyone making characters as powerful as Richter's? Isn't he using the same rules as everyone else? Is he? Is he buying more rulebooks? If he's paying more to play, then he should be having more fun: he's paying for it. Maybe some effort should be made to make sure Richter explains to the whole table how he builds his characters. If other people want competitive builds, there is no reason why they shouldn't let him be the one who changes the way to play the game. If no one wants to emulate him, they should understand they made their choices, and live with it, and let Richter know that he is imitable.
As for the other players, there are some players who like to make strong builds, but most of us aren't as laser-focused on damage output and are more well-rounded. I misspoke in my last post, in bench-pressing terms most of us are green, not orange. Most of us have had a high-damage output, but have moved past that. Some of us are building in very niche areas, so minmaxing isn't unheard of, but it's less dominant. While our builds don't sacrifice usefulness for flavour, we do try to stick to theme. Richter didn't really have flavour, or lost it along the way. His Druid started as a calm and kooky type of guy, then dipped Monk, and then Bloodrager. His Bloodrager's theme was that he's some sort of escaped experiment, then he dipped Medium for more damage output. Monk would have fit his Druid, but both the Bloodrager and Medium dip are purely to see numbers go up, and Richter is well known for his damage output fetish.
I get the argument of "he paid for it, he should be able to use it," but there's a consideration to be made here. If he one-rounds an entire encounter, is the rest having fun? No one can shine if he's around.
To give him credit, he recently played a level 6 Bloodrager at a tier 3-4 table because he didn't have anything in tier, and I asked him to rein it in a bit. And he did. He didn't rage and tried to reason with encounters. He still did a lot of damage, but that's what you get for a level 6 character. He also said he made a miscalculation in his damage output, so it should be more manageable.
I don't want to stain Richter's reputation too much, but he's made a lot of progress. When he first came to our lodge, we practically had to tie him down because he was so restless. Dice flew across (and from) the table and he stormed off to initiate combat when the rest was still talking tactics. He's still impulsive, but he listens to others more.
Again, I didn't mean to hurt you by typing this (and I'm sorry if I did), but I would like to give an accurate representation of the other side of the argument. We've had a good talk a few days ago, and I hope we can continue this trend. Don't be afraid to fight back if you think you're unfairly accused of something, because I've been doing the same here.
|
@Scott: I think it's a bit naive to think that if one player is outshining others that the others must be under-optimized. Let me assure you that we have a lot of high-functioning powergamers in our lodge :P
What we're talking about here is the difference between "stronger than needed in PFS by a comfortable margin" and "insane".
I would like to suggest that this forum is not the place to air your grievances against any particular player. Either talk it out IRL, or get a trusted third party to do dispute resolution between the two of you.
My intention wasn't to point fingers and say "you suck and you should feel bad," but it kinda snuck in when explaining the situation. >_> But you're right.
And I agree with Ascalaphus, my builds (and lots of others in our lodge) tend to be strong, but, I guess reasonably okay. Richter's squeezing every possible bonus out of (into?) his character, and that's what causes the conflict.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like a bunch of crybabies to me. I would love to adventure alongside powerful dudes. It increases my character's chances of survival and gets him to the higher levels more easily.
As has been said, unless he's cheating, it doesnt sound like the problem is with the powerful character, but with the weaker characters.
Maybe the former would be willing to share his knowledge with the latter?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not that we're crybabies, it's just that most of us don't really wish to roflstomp scenarios completely. It's already kinda easy to do that on accident, let alone when you're actually aiming for it. It's not that we don't know how to be powerful, we just accept that there's no challenge left if you do so. I've rarely felt scenarios were too hard, even in high tier.
Trust me, there's a difference between being well-prepared(/built) and being over-prepared(/built).
It's not that we're crybabies, it's just that most of us don't really wish to roflstomp scenarios completely. It's already kinda easy to do that on accident, let alone when you're actually aiming for it. It's not that we don't know how to be powerful, we just accept that there's no challenge left if you do so. I've rarely felt scenarios were too hard, even in high tier.
Trust me, there's a difference between being well-prepared(/built) and being over-prepared(/built).
So it's a play style issue then. That's unfortunate.
The problem is, neither one of you are doing it "wrong" (there is no such a thing in the case of play styles). However, asking someone to change their play style preference is not only extremely rude it is highly unlikely to work. You will only end up ruining his fun as much as you claim he is ruining yours.
If you can't beat him, join him. Ask him for character-optimization advice. Go full Monty haul. See if it's any fun. Even if you end up not enjoying it, he might appreciate the effort you made and turn around and try out your play style in turn.
Maybe in the doing, you'll wind up in some middle ground.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree on there not being a "wrong," and that asking to change is not done, but joining in is the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm playing in a highly optimised Rappan Athuk game, and while I like feeling like I can take on the world, that setting's made for it. PFS is a much lower power level, and I feel like the term "measured response" is applicable here.
I've mentioned this repeatedly, and if you still don't get it now, I guess we're simply too far opposed to see a middle ground.
Better to err on the side of "everyone being too powerful and surviving" over "the party turned out to be too weak and everyone died."
I guess it's sort of a combination of OOC and IC problems that clash, and sort of feed off each other. We have more powerbuilds, but a hard to deal with personality makes it worse, even if unintentionally. And the other way around, a hard to deal with person would be more tolerable if he weren't cheesing things together.
I still maintain he's more powerful than most people, but that it isn't the main issue here.
And yeah, about those aggressive weaknesses: true. His Druid somehow managed to unintentionally circumvent most of those (dipping Monk for Flurry coincidentally gave him a lot more AC and Evasion, for instance, while I don't think that was the main goal of that dip), but his other characters do have that problem. He made his Bloodrager incredibly strong, but very weak against AC and Will saves.
But mostly I'm glad we're agreeing on stuff and (mostly) not being toxic to each other anymore. :)
|
|
Scaling everyone else up to the same level of optimization is not such an ideal solution in PFS where the GM isn't allowed to scale up the difficulty of the scenario to still provide an interesting challenge.
Put differently: if one PC is so strong that he can do a scenario by himself, it doesn't make things better if the other five players also make PCs that strong.
As for people being unprepared for things: it's the nature of PFS that you play with different people. We have longtime veterans and very new people in the lodge. When you get a table with people experiencing level 7 content for the first time, Echolocation looks like a huge deal. Me, I don't see Echolocation as being a big deal. It's (for PFS) a relatively high-level spell slot, and on only few spell lists. But it makes up for that by working against both darkness, fog and invisibility so it's a nice one size fits all.
See Invisibility/Glitterdust, Scent/Faerie Fire and Daylight are IMO more powerful in most cases, because they "switch on" the whole party instead of a single PC. And if you can't beat the enemy's visibility trick, dragging him down to your level with Obscuring Mist can also help. After all, NPCs are almost never Unchained Rogues so mist-based concealment stops their oh-so-surprising sneak-attack cold.
Addendum: I should note I had a great time GMing for the OP during Cosmic Captive when I actually picked him for the high-tier heavy-hitting table. That scenario does give the GM handholds for selecting the most enjoyable difficulty for the players.