OK, we just finished our 4th session if this campaign, and as game master i've come across a little problem. For the most part, the PCs enjoy the game, but in combat, everyone finds it kind of annoying. One of the players has completely min-maxed his character. He is a Fighter/Barbarian, wields a large-sized bastard sword, and carries around a stache of potions of enlarge potion. In one of the last fights, as a 3rd lvl character, he pretty much soloed an ankleosaurus, a CR 6 creature. The rest of the PCs are frustrated because they dont have any fun because they feel inferior. I as GM feel frustrated because my PCs aren't having fun, and the challenging encounters are being cut through in an instant.
What do I do about this player? I dont want him to feel like im being a jerk by not leting him play what he wants, but i have to do something because the rest of the players arent having fun. Any suggestions?
use a larger variety of opponents. He won't be strong against everything.
OK, we just finished our 4th session if this campaign, and as game master i've come across a little problem. For the most part, the PCs enjoy the game, but in combat, everyone finds it kind of annoying. One of the players has completely min-maxed his character. He is a Fighter/Barbarian, wields a large-sized bastard sword, and carries around a stache of potions of enlarge potion. In one of the last fights, as a 3rd lvl character, he pretty much soloed an ankleosaurus, a CR 6 creature. The rest of the PCs are frustrated because they dont have any fun because they feel inferior. I as GM feel frustrated because my PCs aren't having fun, and the challenging encounters are being cut through in an instant.
What do I do about this player? I dont want him to feel like im being a jerk by not leting him play what he wants, but i have to do something because the rest of the players arent having fun. Any suggestions?
Can't say much unless we know the actual build, to be honest.
Edit: But I can tell you this - he's going to have terrifyingly bad reflex and will saves! ;D
Or you know, you could simply TALK to him. He might not realize that his character is out of lines for what you have. He might think the party is relying on him being so strong and front lines because "that's his job".
You could simply pull him off to the side and say something like, "Hey man, I realize your character is really good at beating stuff up, and I'm glad you like him -- you did a great job: But the other players are getting a bit bored with you having the spotlight all the time. Do you think we could remake your character a little to back him down some when it comes to combat? Maybe stick to a greatsword instead of the large bastard sword, and possibly sticking with straight fighter? I'm not trying to kill anyone off here or to stop anyone from having fun, but I'm going to have trouble challenging this character and not killing off everyone else without it feeling like I'm specifically targeting your character, and I don't want to do that."
Just letting him know there is a problem could go a long way to fixing it.
Beyond that, flying foes are difficult for melee characters, and a couple of magic users could really rock his world too. Don't always present monsters that simply line up and go toe to toe with the characters -- that way lies boredom and not good madness.
Sleep + Coup De Grace. 'Nuf said.
Damn post monster, I'm not writing all that again!!
Specialized enemies, or encounters that neutralize advantages of large bastard sword and enlarged character. Encounters requiring spells or ranged weapons would be good. As for the specialized enemy, I created a 2E kobold lair champion (Ftr levels with 2 wp fighting) with 2 shortswords, and pumped with a speed potion, giant strength potion, good AC and hp to deal with a minotaur fighter. Let's say 2 round later the PC's dragged the unconscious minotaur from the lair.
Again I recommend instead of passive aggressively beating him into the ground for being good at building what he wanted, talking to him about your problem.
It could be that simple to fix and prevents him from (rightfully if you use this childish passive aggressive BS people are spouting) thinking you are punishing him for being good at something.
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Again I recommend instead of passive aggressively beating him into the ground for being good at building what he wanted, talking to him about your problem.
It could be that simple to fix and prevents him from (rightfully if you use this childish passive aggressive BS people are spouting) thinking you are punishing him for being good at something.
talk is for elves... I say TASER his A$$
lost of stuff about talking to the player and ways to do it.
What Abraham said. Should that fail, start putting in more encounters not solved by violence or strength alone, and/or what others have suggested about "removing" the character.
lost of stuff about talking to the player and ways to do it.What Abraham said. Should that fail, start putting in more encounters not solved by violence or strength alone, and/or what others have suggested about "removing" the character.
Honestly, the main reason I ask for the build?
A barbarian/fighter who hits things very hard...erm, can't really do a lot.
Yes, in fights where the only thing that matters is running up and smacking something over the head, he'll probably be rather good. But once you encounter anything else - and I don't just mean fighting other things, but ANY type of encounter where flat brute strength doesn't win - and he's not that hot after all.
I'm not advocating you purposefully screw him over, but stop playing directly to his strength all the time.
And, for that matter, I am curious to see this level 3 build that effortlessly smashed a level 6 encounter by himself ;p.
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I'm not recommending punishment. I don't even think he needs to be talked to yet. He is good at what he is designed to do. That's fine, but to give the rest of the party a turn they all need to be put in a situation where his specialty is not the solution. I know I suggested a few combat situations that target his weak spots or shut down his strength in my last post. Let me add that the game might also need a wider variety of encounters besides just combat. Some traps puzzles and RP encounters might be the way to give the rest of the party something to do, without asking this guy to nerf his character, or punish him in game for an efficient build. Conan was good at splitting skulls. Let Conan split skulls. You also need to let Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery, Indiana Jones recover the artifact, and MacGuyver build the gadget that saves the day.
I was playing a pure fighter in Second Darkness. We rolled for our stats at the start, and i rolled some nice stats, dont remember them now, nut i had 2 highish ones. I was also fighting a with a large bastard sword, but was later simply told that a large bastard sword is impossible to wield two handed, even with the feat to wield a medium bastard sword in one hand (which i had). You can do that as well.
Come to think of it, i still wanted an official ruling on that...
Later i was also asked to remake my character on 15 point buy. Character eventually died, because of misunderstandings on how the environment was laid out.
Jumped into a pool with an orca, and not knowing that i could climb out in one round. i tried swimming across with orca munching on me. Beign an Ulfen fighter i didnt have any ranks in swim.
Again I recommend instead of passive aggressively beating him into the ground for being good at building what he wanted, talking to him about your problem.
It's possible there isn't a problem as long as the DM plays more varied and natural (organic?) encounters.
Playing a single, low intelligence, bag of hitpoints encounter will be playing to his strength.
If his build is legit, and not specifically doing the job of another person in the group (specifically overshadowing someone in their own job), then this probably shouldn't be a big issue.
Run a barbarian/fighter this way through an adventure path, and you'll find that he won't dominate every encounter... just the ones that are a nail to his hammer.
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I think the best approach would be to make note of what the other players are playing, and make sure you aren't writing encounters that are ignoring their strengths.
Or, just play the encounters naturally. Unless you are running a dungeon crawl what basically amounts to a giant antfarm, they should be running into enemies with more varied levels of intelligence, numbers, tactics, etc.
A single person, no matter how min-maxed, cannot handle everything at once. More importantly, they still only have the same amount of actions per round as anyone else... they can't do everything.
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Now if this is a situation where two players have built the same type of character concept, and one is blowing the other out of the water, then I agree that this would be a situation who's only respectful solution would be by talking to the players and coming to some kind of compromise that makes everyone happy...
... as long as the players themselves aren't dicks.
talk is for elves... I say TASER his A$$
"Don't tase me, bro! DON'T TASE ME!!!! ARRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!"
--some poor fool in a courthouse after virtually causing a riot, and refusing to listen to a judge, bailiffs, etc. {can be substituted for your PC's reaction when you hit him with the GM hammer}On a serious note - plan for both, IMO. Talk to the PC (if he's genuinely clueless that no one else is enjoying this), AND modify the encounters.
OF COURSE a fighter/Barbarian at low levels can/will dominate combat encounters and/or anything dominated by combat. Mostly fighter = feats, armor training, wpn focus/specialization/training, and even 1 level of barbarian = +4 to str and con plus all the rest of it - this is kind of crucial for lower level types of encounters, IMO.
So, campaign wise, change things up a bit - throw out situation where it's not just "run in and kill it!" and the "scene time" will of necessity shift away from this PC.
OK, we just finished our 4th session if this campaign, and as game master i've come across a little problem. For the most part, the PCs enjoy the game, but in combat, everyone finds it kind of annoying. One of the players has completely min-maxed his character. He is a Fighter/Barbarian, wields a large-sized bastard sword, and carries around a stache of potions of enlarge potion. In one of the last fights, as a 3rd lvl character, he pretty much soloed an ankleosaurus, a CR 6 creature. The rest of the PCs are frustrated because they dont have any fun because they feel inferior. I as GM feel frustrated because my PCs aren't having fun, and the challenging encounters are being cut through in an instant.
What do I do about this player? I dont want him to feel like im being a jerk by not leting him play what he wants, but i have to do something because the rest of the players arent having fun. Any suggestions?
So people are complaining because someone has built a fighter PC who can fight effectivly and dish out the damage?
And these player's are feeling inferior?Is the problem the player who min/maxed and carved himself an effective niche who won't nearly be as good in a social situation?
Or is the problem the other players who have created fantastic "do everything but do it badly" PCs?
Why get on a player's back because he has an effective PC?
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Start by verifying the character build. A lot of times players will take feats or skills and just assume they know what they're doing. I have a "grapple monster" PC in my group who made a lot of assumptions (like using flurry of blow in combination with grappling) and when I looked at the sheet in detail I found a whole bunch of stuff that was calculated wrong. That PC is no longer the one-man-show that he used to be and he now fits in much better with the power level of the rest of the party. (One poster mentioned how your PC can't wield a large sword without penalties. That's just one example, I'd be willing to bet there are more.)
And second, vary the encounters. It's easy as GM to put melee brutes against the party, but try some encounters will less common place beasties. Pixies are always fun. And stirges. ;) Add encounters with swarms where brute strength is not the right approach. Or add an encounter where using enlarge person looks great at the beginning, until one of the bad guys (kobold?) runs away to get reinforcements and the PC can't follow because he's too big to even *squeeze* into the passage...
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To a point, I agree with Spacelard,
Having said that, the issue isn't that he's "effective". The issue is that he's more effective than other people. It's fine to build a marine close-weapons expert, if everybody else is playing a combat specialist and you're playing "Aliens". It's not so good when everybody else is playing random people on a city bus and you're playing "Dawn of the Dead". There's no correct way to play Pathfinder, and if he's built a perfectly reasonable combat guy and nobody else at the table is having fun, he's doing it wrong.
My concerns: (1) Barbarians have a limited number of rounds per day during which they rage and shine. The fourth or fifth encounter of the day is going to leave him substantially exhausted. During the seventh or eighth encounter of the day, he will look a lot like a fighter with fewer feats.
If the party rests as soon as he blows through his rage points, that may be one problem.
2) Every time he swigs a potion of enlarge person, that costs him at least fifty gold. Five or six fights a day, and that's got to be cutting into his share of the loot. And that tells me that damage is important to him. (The Pathfinder version of enlarge person has much weaker game effects than the D&D version of the spell. Is he using the correct mechanics?)
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If you don't want it to look like you're only targeting him(as mentioned above), end one game with the PC's entering a room and seeing mirrors immediately... then ask that every has a copy of their character sheet made up by next game, since the mirrors of opposition are going to make it an interestting fight indeed.
Or take the easy way out and talk to him, but where's the fun in that? ;)
OK, we just finished our 4th session if this campaign, and as game master i've come across a little problem. For the most part, the PCs enjoy the game, but in combat, everyone finds it kind of annoying. One of the players has completely min-maxed his character. He is a Fighter/Barbarian, wields a large-sized bastard sword, and carries around a stache of potions of enlarge potion. In one of the last fights, as a 3rd lvl character, he pretty much soloed an ankleosaurus, a CR 6 creature. The rest of the PCs are frustrated because they dont have any fun because they feel inferior. I as GM feel frustrated because my PCs aren't having fun, and the challenging encounters are being cut through in an instant.
What do I do about this player? I dont want him to feel like im being a jerk by not leting him play what he wants, but i have to do something because the rest of the players arent having fun. Any suggestions?
I would just outlow fighters and barbarians they're all overpowered.
The only playable class is rogue and as such noone can flank or sneak attack eachother, then we're all balanced. Just kidding :)Really a lot of good points have been brought up. Is he playing the character by the right rules? Is he taking a -2 to hit for wielding the wrong size weapon? He is really good at killing a big bad monster it sounds like, and overpowering the battle. How about 20 kobolds maybe with sleep arrows? The rest of the group can take out their share of the enemies and he can feel awesome about slaughtering the little child sized reptiles. Also he is going to have a lower AC being a barbarian and raging or give up his improved movement to use heavier armor. He also loses 2 more for using enlarge person. Reduce person can dispel enlarge if he's facing an enemy spellcaster.
Why are you letting him buy all these potions? Last I checked he should be going through you to buy them, otherwise he's cheating.
Unless your Ankylosaurus rolled badly, he shouldn't have taken it. I took out a 5th level fighter with a druid just wildshaped into one of those. Remember that the dino is huge and has a 15 foot reach. Assuming he charges (-2 to AC) he eats a guaranteed 15-30 damage and has to make a DC 23 Fort save or be stunned for 1 round. Basically the Dino gets a free hit and on a 16+ die roll I doubt he missed a 3rd level guy. The 75 damage thing I could see. But I call either shenanigans or you misreading the stun ability. The same fighter I mentioned is enlarged nearly every fight and he does dominate but that's with no barbarian factor. If I had used an ankylosaurus on him at 3rd level he would have been dead. He's a lucky guy, too, I counted at least one crit every fight. Still just no. The penalty to AC from Rage and Enlarge is too much. He gets hit, he gets stunned, lather rinse repeat until dead character.
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So people are complaining because someone has built a fighter PC who can fight effectivly and dish out the damage?
And these player's are feeling inferior?Is the problem the player who min/maxed and carved himself an effective niche who won't nearly be as good in a social situation?
Or is the problem the other players who have created fantastic "do everything but do it badly" PCs?Why get on a player's back because he has an effective PC?
+1. If this player is doing everything by the book, then setting him up to die adds no value to the game and will, in fact, alienate him. Talking to him is a more diplomatic approach, but I can't agree with verbally forcing him to tone down his character; the guy figured out a way to win big for himself, why all the hating?
Because the other players aren't having fun? Maybe you can ask them to think of ways for themselves to win big. One thing to realize is that not every build can compete with the damage output of a large fighter/barbarian + large bastard sword. If the definition of fun = doing the most damage, then your other players will always feel inferior; it's the way the classes are designed.
I agree with comments on having scenarios where non-violent skills come into play so the other players can feel important. I also agree with posters who point out the fighter barbarian's weak points; now you can structure encounters in which he can't solo. But killing him outright/handicap him in a nonsensical fashion ("u can no longer buy potions of enlarge person, they cease to exist") is nothing but a cheap, easy way out.
In addition to talking with the one optimized PC's player (maybe he could tone it down just a bit), have you thought about offering to help the other players do a bit of rework on their PC's? Maybe if the one brute tones his down and the others come up a bit, there won't be such a gap.
Then run more varied encounters so others in the group have a time to shine. Enjoy!
As has been mentioned, ask the Player in question if he's aware he's hogging the limelight. If he is, and he'll work with you, well and good, but if he's not, rather than just getting a Titan to walk into the campaign for the sole purpose of getting a Fighter/Barbarian-shaped stain on the soles of his sandals, start making encounters so that this character becomes decidedly less vital to the party's victories.
I think we've all dealt with the sort of player who will happily run into the room decapitating everything left and right after you've planned an encounter where diplomacy would have worked better than a full attack, and if this Fighter/Barbarian Player has that sort of attitude, remember that the campaign world has its own laws and social taboos. One-shotting 'monsters' is one thing, but what if the next Goblin he coup-de-grace's is actually one of the Kingdom's spies functioning under the effects of a potent transmutation spell to gather information on an up-coming invasion of Hobgoblins from the south? Suddenly the Player is dealing up to his eyeballs in intrigue, dragging his companions who are possibly more talented at this sort of thing, as the Kingdom starts asking some very, very pointed questions on exactly how the Party is going to resolve this issue.
On the other hand, perhaps all that is needed to 'solve' the Player's issue is to throw enemies at him that he cannot destroy. Ghosts, Swarms, creatures like Blink Dogs and other creatures that are murder for the strait-up Melee classes to actually hit, and therefore damage are an excellent method of telling such a player 'don't get cocky'. Again, as has been mentioned, punishing the player will simply lead to bad will, but in a few incidents I have encountered players such as this that either exploit a gap in my own design or a loophole in the RAW, and try to munchkin.
Now I don't think anyone minds a Munchkin so long as they try to support the rest of the party with their shenanigans, but a Munchkin who ignores the party to wallow in their own glory ruins the game for everyone else. A simple method for the Munchkin is, easily enough, come at them from the flanks with the sort of encounter they cannot survive without the rest of the party.
Don't kill their character, but humiliate them, make the player uncomfortably aware that their character can be even more easily felled than a non-Munchie, and a quiet word that, if they don't stop taking the fun out of the game for everyone else, the abuse will continue. I've only had to do this three times and thankfully, only once has the player started to get aggro over the deal.
Talk to the player first, but also really look at all the character sheets and give everybody their time in the spotlight. Reiterate the expectation that the game has to be fun for everybody, not just one player.
The Linear Warrior's "power band" is really geared toward low-levels, so the notion that an optimized two-handed fighter type is dominating combat now is not surprising. I've got a very similar PC in a game I DM (Fighter 5 w/ Str 20 and large greatsword that power attacks for 3d6+17 or something like that). The party hasn't really had much of a problem dealing with APL+2 encounters so far. I'm hesitant to regulate the PC in question because I know that come 7th or 8th level the game changes. His low Will save becomes a crippling liability and the rest of the party is going to have to step up. Similarly, this PC often has little to do when not in combat. His perception and social skills are quite poor, and he's often twiddling his thumbs when we have an all-RP session.
My point is that players "make their beds" when their PCs specialize in one particular facet of the game to the exclusion of others. Let it play out.
Zo
The issue here has nothing to do with a "min/maxer" or that the others aren't.
You have to deal with this out of game, out of character. Killing Bob the Optimized Barbarian will just make him reroll as Jim the Optimized Rogue and do it all over again.
You need to take the fellow aside, explain that he's min/maxing when no one else is, and ask him to tone the character down. He needs to be on the same general power level as everyone else.
If he can't or won't do that, then he needs to find a new game.
First and foremost, I apologize for taking so long to respond to you guys. I had a busy weekend, and this is the first chance I got to post.
For anyone who wanted to know how the fight actually went, here it is:
bard went first, playing his inspire courage song. Second, cleric fires a firebolt (fire domain power) and does 6 damage. Sorcerer goes next, firing an acidic ray doing 5 damage. Paladin moves forward, taking AoO from anklyosaurus (who missed), and he also misses. Fighter/Barbarian attacks, crits, does 60 damage. Dino attacks, hitting F/B, doing a little damage, and next round is killed by cleric.
For his actual build, i dont have his char sheet in front of me, so i can't give exact numbers. But when he rages and is large, i think he has 24 Str. And of course, he has power attack and other feats like that.
First and foremost, I apologize for taking so long to respond to you guys. I had a busy weekend, and this is the first chance I got to post.
For anyone who wanted to know how the fight actually went, here it is:
bard went first, playing his inspire courage song. Second, cleric fires a firebolt (fire domain power) and does 6 damage. Sorcerer goes next, firing an acidic ray doing 5 damage. Paladin moves forward, taking AoO from anklyosaurus (who missed), and he also misses. Fighter/Barbarian attacks, crits, does 60 damage. Dino attacks, hitting F/B, doing a little damage, and next round is killed by cleric.For his actual build, i dont have his char sheet in front of me, so i can't give exact numbers. But when he rages and is large, i think he has 24 Str. And of course, he has power attack and other feats like that.
Ah, that changes things a little. If the crit multiply on his weapon is X3, then this sounds more like a lucky hit rather than a real problem.
If it's only X2, then you might have a problem, but it could be pretty easy to deal with if it is.Perhaps setup some encounters more range oriented to let the other players have a chance to shine. That or as others have suggested, a few RP based encounters. That way, the fighter can get his charge in and smash fights in, while your other players can still be useful in other situations. Also you should talk to the player if you fear his character will cause issues. Politely asking him to save gold by not buying potions of enlarge potion would be the first place I'd go.
Also, be sure to make sure your using the right power attack. It got changed in pathfinder, so it's not as painful as before.
How did he get large size and a strength of 24 at level 3? If he got those through buffs from another party member, then there's no problem. If it's from something else, that might be a bit of a problem.
Base of 16, +2 racial, +4 rage and another +2 from potion of enlarge person is my guess. If he had an 18, and was orc, a str of 28 would be compleatly possable in this situation. 32 if you add bull's strenth from one of the casters.
The character didn't beat a CR6 monster, the dice did.
Also why are your casters using cantrips and wimpy domain powers instead of actual spells?
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First and foremost, I apologize for taking so long to respond to you guys. I had a busy weekend, and this is the first chance I got to post.
For anyone who wanted to know how the fight actually went, here it is:
bard went first, playing his inspire courage song. Second, cleric fires a firebolt (fire domain power) and does 6 damage. Sorcerer goes next, firing an acidic ray doing 5 damage. Paladin moves forward, taking AoO from anklyosaurus (who missed), and he also misses. Fighter/Barbarian attacks, crits, does 60 damage. Dino attacks, hitting F/B, doing a little damage, and next round is killed by cleric.For his actual build, i dont have his char sheet in front of me, so i can't give exact numbers. But when he rages and is large, i think he has 24 Str. And of course, he has power attack and other feats like that.
So your casters were dumb and used their wimpy at will abilities instead of actual spells. Your paladin got unlucky. Your ¨problem¨ player gets lucky and does what a crit does when your a damage dealer. I get the feeling that had the ¨problem¨ player not been there, the party would have died due to spell caster ineptitude. You don´t have a problem player...you have 2...and it isn´t the barbarian/fighter.
I retract my earlier statement: Guy's done nothing wrong. He's building his character well and getting lucky. Just to clarify this isn't 3.5 anymore. Melee is useful in Pathfinder. Know it. Plan for it. Love it.
That Ankylosaurus would've decimated the party. If I knew the guy playing the fighter/barb I would tell him that personally and get the rest of the party to thank him, maybe buy him a few drinks at the tavern for saving them. Maybe it's the rest of your players being the problem here.
I agree, in this specific example, he got lucky as far as the crit goes, but even when he doesn't crit, he's doing an average of about 25 damage. Now, that may not kill everything that they come across in one hit, but it'll take out a good chunk of its HP. Using an Ankyosaurus as an example, it's got 75 HP. 3 hits from this lvl 3 character and the CR 6 monster is dead. Obviously it would take a little more because of it's stun ability, but you see my point.
A similar thing happened earlier in the night, too. A lvl. 5 hobgoblin fighter with 2 hobgoblin guards. The PCs managed to talk the guards out of the room, so they only had to deal with big hobgoblin, which is great. Once the fight actually started, one hit from Bar/Fight had him over half dead.
Me and a few other people have all checke out his math and char sheet to make sure everything is right, and it checks out. I understand that there will always be someone who makes a character like this. The thing that bugs me the most isn't taht he can kill anything, but that he doesn't role-play the 7 or 8 Int and Cha that he took to get a high Str. Sure, his skills take a penalty, but he barely has any skills, and none that depend on those stats.
Me and a few other people have all checke out his math and char sheet to make sure everything is right, and it checks out. I understand that there will always be someone who makes a character like this. The thing that bugs me the most isn't taht he can kill anything, but that he doesn't role-play the 7 or 8 Int and Cha that he took to get a high Str. Sure, his skills take a penalty, but he barely has any skills, and none that depend on those stats.
Then, put him in situations that require rolls in stats and skills he isn't good at. Sometimes, no matter what the character says, he still has to make the rolls.
And teach those casters how to play.
That is where you as the DM have to step in. I had a player like this and whenever he contributed more than grunts to planning, I disallowed the groups plan.
1. Effen (halfling barbarian) makes comments and helps with tactical plan.
2. Me (DM) "Effin is too stupid to think of that, so you can not do that"
3. Players "but..."
4. Me "he has a 7 int. Deal with it."
Eventually Effen left the group, since the player wanted to be more involved than just sitting on his butt and whacking stuff with his small greataxe.
-- david
Papa.DRB
The thing that bugs me the most isn't taht he can kill anything, but that he doesn't role-play the 7 or 8 Int and Cha that he took to get a high Str. Sure, his skills take a penalty, but he barely has any skills, and none that depend on those stats.
I agree with some other posters- you have to redesign encounters to challenge him. That' the DMS job- adjust encounters to the party, not the other way round. Add HP to close combat critters, give intelligent enemies magic items usable only by their species (oh does that piss off players :)), use ranged combat, teams of warriors with tower hields and long spears, not to mention everything a spell caster can do. GEt creative, and the rest of your oparty may step up too.
I agree with Papa-DRB. Pathfinder (D&D) is first and foremost a ROLE PLAYING GAME, not just hack and slash. Players need to learn to role play properly, and Papa-DRB is in his right as DM to do what he did. A player can't have good attacks and be smart with an INT of 7. He needs to play his int, that's part of being a seasoned Roleplayer, same with being able to ignore personal knowledge about monsters that a Player knows but his character doesn't.
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Players need to learn to role play properly, and Papa-DRB is in his right as DM to do what he did. A player can't have good attacks and be smart with an INT of 7.
I'm going to disagree here on specifics, while concurring with the general principle.
The bulk of the issue here rests with the definition of the mental attributes. As a DM, I don't want to take away a player's control over his character.
If someone playing a bookish wizard with a very high Intelligence wants to help plan an attack, I don't want to overrule her, either arguing that her character's studious background makes him naive about military planning, or that his great intellect would keep him from making strategic errors.
I interpret a character's game statistics, including Intelligence and Wisdom, to represent things the player can't bring to the table, which makes those attributes narrower in scope than the role they play at Papa-DRB's table. It's the player who contributes wiliness and planning. The PC's Intelligence doesn't touch that. Instead, it measures how easily the character memorizes and recalls information. Wisdom represents keen senses and willpower, rather than common sense. (Common sense comes from the player.)
A barbarian with a low Charisma has a hard time effectively projecting his personality. That doesn't interfere with the player effectively convincing his friends about a plan.
(And really, folks, 7 or 8 isn't that low. It's 25th percentile. Out of 40 people waiting in line at the market, ten of them are going to be Intelligence 7 or below.)
I agree, in this specific example, he got lucky as far as the crit goes, but even when he doesn't crit, he's doing an average of about 25 damage. Now, that may not kill everything that they come across in one hit, but it'll take out a good chunk of its HP. Using an Ankyosaurus as an example, it's got 75 HP. 3 hits from this lvl 3 character and the CR 6 monster is dead. Obviously it would take a little more because of it's stun ability, but you see my point.
A similar thing happened earlier in the night, too. A lvl. 5 hobgoblin fighter with 2 hobgoblin guards. The PCs managed to talk the guards out of the room, so they only had to deal with big hobgoblin, which is great. Once the fight actually started, one hit from Bar/Fight had him over half dead.
Me and a few other people have all checke out his math and char sheet to make sure everything is right, and it checks out. I understand that there will always be someone who makes a character like this. The thing that bugs me the most isn't taht he can kill anything, but that he doesn't role-play the 7 or 8 Int and Cha that he took to get a high Str. Sure, his skills take a penalty, but he barely has any skills, and none that depend on those stats.
So he min/maxed so the PC has a high strength and low INT and CHA. As a GM I would have no problem with this.
Don't punish the player for doing what he does well, that is unfair.
So he has a low CHA, the PC is living up to that by pi$$ing everyone off.
Low INT...What as a GM are you doing about this? Clearly the player isn't so it down to you as the GM to "help".
Complicated tactics? Nah, you're too dumb. A good plan for him would be run in and bash.
Buying potions? Sure but maybe a grifter has heard of the dumba$$ fighter who spends his shinies on potions and sells him a whole bunch of fake potions. I assume he doesn't bother using Detect magic to verify?
Yea, Ug bash! So run a few encounters where violence would be a bad thing. Ug will be a liability (and live up to his low CHA).
As a GM I'm responsible for making the world come to life. If every NPC is plain crisp flavoured that is my fault. If allow player's to ignore low stats that's my fault as a GM. Like-wise for a high INT PC as a GM I will give out a hint that as a player they might not recognise but as a 20 INT PC would.
Edit: To provide helpful advice. Design encounters where ranged combat is key, or with tons of minions (1-5 HP things).
Kobolds! Kobold crossbow users! From memory...
Kobold Fighter4 CR2 (? maybe 3)
HP: 4d10+4 (26)
AC: 19 (10 +1size +1nat +3stud +4dex)
Attack: +10 (+4BaB +1size +4dex +1point +1focus +1mwk -2deadly) 1d6+5 (19-20/x2)
Feats: 1-Rapid Reload, b-Point Blank Shot, b-Precise Shot, 3-Deadly Aim, b-Weapon Focus (light crossbow)
Stats: Str 8 (12 -4racial), Dex 18 (15 +2racial +1lvl), Con 11 (13 -2racial)...
Now, use a dozen or so...