In conclusion, I think an all-caster party would have a hard time surviving the low levels in my games, unless I fudged or pulled punches terribly.
Honestly, the level at which casters become as good or better as non-casters drops as the players get better.
I'm about to the point where I consider levels 1-2 a little rougher for the caster party -- but not that much, since the spread of all possible characters' base attacks are 1 at that point, even if a character built to be a fighter will have a much higher strength and some useful feats -- and by level 3-4 they're doing just as well.
If you feel like your players have a pretty good grasp on the mechanics of the game, give it a try sometime. Their first run at the low levels of an all-caster party will probably be a little bit rough, because they'll still be in the mindset of how you have to play cleric if you're the only cleric in the party, vs. how you play cleric when everyone's full caster. Once you get the hang of it, it really is not as bad as you think it is.
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The SpCom is not core - there is no living supported 3.5 D&D -it's a dead system and it isn't core for PF.
3.5 is a heavily broken game, but it doesn't take much to amend this caster only nonsense + other stupidity.
- Dump stat boost items, gone. No stat boosts = No DC extremes on saves for spells and everything else.
If you want a DC which is closer tied to a level/CR then this needs to be the consideration. If you don't care about the imbalance created when a DC is 25%-40% out of whack to level then deal with the consequences.
- No 3.5 splat book nonsense, untested and broken garbage. SpCom: use at own risk.
- Some feats which affect casting should also affect casting time, ex: Spell penetration - full round casting to use. If melee types get to stand still while they pull their full round shtick, casters can do the same. You want to use Spell Focus or Spell Penetration, great - full round action. Metamagic spell - full round action, enjoy your 5ft step.
- Stat boost spells should still boost stats - damage, to hit, saves, Hp, skills but unless they are permanent they should not affect the DC of a spell or effect tied to the attribute. Since they are not permanent (see first point) they won't. The DC which would remain unmodified are not just spells, but any other class ability which creates a DC effect which needs to be overcome.
- Xp or risk cost (perm/temp loss of ability or spells) when it comes to magic item creation.
- Bring in line non-caster saves
Most of these things would be a reversion to older version(s), minor tweaks or omissions, and NO, you DO NOT NEED STAT BOOST ITEMS TO STAY IN LINE WITH THREATS.
Creatures and enemies progress using the same rules with the same restrictions - the "I needs the boosts to keep up" is a fallacy. If anything built in abilities or defenses that are too hard for PCs to overcome should be addressed from the creature side, not the PC side.
On the issue of SR - it should be at around 50-50 for a CR +3 creature, and that is already counting/assuming one +2 boost to overcome SR.
1. Dump stat boost items, gone.
2. No 3.5 splat book nonsense, untested and broken garbage. SpCom: use at own risk.
3. Some feats which affect casting should also affect casting time,
1. Ouch! This hurts fighters even more than it does casters.
2. Core is already broken. Splatbooks, for the most part, made casters slightly better and melee guys a lot better.3. Not just feats. All casting should be a full attack action, not a standard action.
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I would say that the Cr 11 Black dragon doesn't really have a good spell selection.
O-level - I would ditch message for Resistance now all saves are Fort +15, Ref +11 and Will +13
Also I would ditch Obscuring Mist or Alarm for Shield or Prot from Good. Could easily bring its touch AC up to 16 or 18. The dragon at this age can already constantly have a range of Darkness (concealment or total concealment depending on lighting) so the mist can go.
And it isn't just for this scenario - there are just way too many good damn touch spells, plus the last two would just boost up its AC vs. any conventional attacks bring it up (with Mage Armor) to 34 or 36 (or 38 if you do Mage arm, PrtGd and Shield). An AC of 28 is way too low for a CR 11 threat imo.
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1. Dump stat boost items, gone.
2. No 3.5 splat book nonsense, untested and broken garbage. SpCom: use at own risk.
3. Some feats which affect casting should also affect casting time,1. Ouch! This hurts fighters even more than it does casters.
2. Core is already broken. Splatbooks, for the most part, made casters slightly better and melee guys a lot better.
3. Not just feats. All casting should be a full attack action, not a standard action.
1. No it doesn't, see magic weapons (+1 to +5) and scaling feats for getting their work done as stat boosters. On saves, I already addressed that - check the link in the original post. Plus with what I posted a Fighter would get more out of a temporary stat boost than a caster.
2. Rule of thumb, nothing untested gets printed. If you can run the math, do the playtest and create some new options with interesting trade-offs then cool. If not, then no, don't print it.3. Probably, worked in older editions. I just wanted to give the caster he option to cast and move, or use special stunt/ability with a trade-off (no movement).
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His CR is partially set by the fact that his spell selection is suboptimal---although mage armor is a good choice. If he had a good spellbook, as it were, he'd be higher CR IMO.
I have to disagree here.
This isn't a goblin wizard, this is a dragon. I think he's going to have the best spells which money can buy -more so than another creature at it's CR. I'm not saying dump all the flavor or non-combat spells - ex. Alarm would be good for his lair, but couldn't that be served by a magic item which does the same thing?I think many of these creatures have been written up without touch or force effects in mind. Prt Good and Shield are good cheap defensive spells. Even if all his spells were "optimized" to be a party killer I don't think his CR should budge. Max out its HP -maybe, maybe 1/2 a CR. Raising sorc level, again -yeah. Giving it the best spells it could possibly know because every two leg out there wants to kill it? No, I wouldn't raise the CR.
Lots more interesting stuff to back up his all-casters group
Agree to some extent with your general contention on magic marts. Only brought it up because the specific example we were discussing relied on a specific magic item to boost CON in order for your casters to haev the HP to shrug off the dragon breath. I also find it a bit curious that, with the scorn you heap on damage-dealing as a valid combat tactic, that you put so much effort into pumping up your hit points. Seems logically inconsistent. I would think you would be pumping up Will and Reflex saves, if that's where the only true danger lies.
Your response on the stats is indicative of your extreme combat focus. As we've already established, you think D&D is nothing but a combat game. My games aren't. There are a lot of non-combat skill checks that are absolutely vital. Everybody at our table has to roleplay - face can't do all the talking. And Ray of Enfeeblement is a great spell against wizards :), particularly low Dex wizards like yours.
Your final section about not starting at level 1 is your most revealing. You're a group that likes to play all casters, so you skip the levels that are most dangerous for you. Nothing wrong with that if it's fun for you, but it will certainly skew your perceptions. My assumption is almost the opposite - I give more weight to the lower levels because that's where all our campaigns start, and many of them never get beyond that. I give progressively lower and lower weight to the higher levels, as many of our campaigns never get there, culminating with 15-20, which we rarely reach (last time was Age of Worms, and we didn't finish that) and epic levels, which we don't use at all. And I disagree with your contention that the lower levels are randomly deadly for all and would be just as deadly for a balanced party as an all-casters party.
Your proposed spell combo is a pretty good choice, and close to what my group's low-level casters are doing now in Kingmaker. Color Spray's only drawback is it's very limited range, meaning those bad guys with the metal pointy things are uncomfortably close to you before you can use it. Entangle is a great spell, even though it was nerfed considerably in PF, with entangled creatures still being able to fight and getting checks to break free every round. Command I'm less enthralled with, but certainly not a bad choice out of the limited variety of offensive spells clerics have at first level. The drawback of all of them is that if the target(s) make the save, they do absolutely nothing. Granted, in many encounters they may only have a 25% chance of making the save or less, but it's still no sure thing. And back to our initiative/not being surprised thing. At low levels it's going to happen sometimes, and the all-caster group is in TPK land pretty quick if the bad guys get tight before they can get spells off.
Granted, in many encounters they may only have a 25% chance of making the save or less, but it's still no sure thing.
It may not even get as high as 25%, honestly.
Imagine a sorcerer cranked out to have a DC 20 Sleep save at first level. Granted, full round cast, but also huge range for a 1st level spell. You're not going to see much at that level that has +5 Will -- a bigger danger is stuff like skeletons that are just immune, so you need a plan B for them.
I'm playing a character very similar to that through a Kingmaker game that recently started and I haven't seen a save made yet. Granted, also, that well is going to go dry pretty soon, and that spell will have to be swapped out down the road, but it's not a bad way to survive the first few levels.
In conclusion, I think an all-caster party would have a hard time surviving the low levels in my games, unless I fudged or pulled punches terribly.Honestly, the level at which casters become as good or better as non-casters drops as the players get better.
I'm about to the point where I consider levels 1-2 a little rougher for the caster party -- but not that much, since the spread of all possible characters' base attacks are 1 at that point, even if a character built to be a fighter will have a much higher strength and some useful feats -- and by level 3-4 they're doing just as well.
If you feel like your players have a pretty good grasp on the mechanics of the game, give it a try sometime. Their first run at the low levels of an all-caster party will probably be a little bit rough, because they'll still be in the mindset of how you have to play cleric if you're the only cleric in the party, vs. how you play cleric when everyone's full caster. Once you get the hang of it, it really is not as bad as you think it is.
I would like to try it some time, for curiousity's sake, if nothing else. I don't like to force things on my players, though. Some of them love to play casters and others don't.
How do you get to DC20? INT20, spell focus (enchantment) gives you a 16. Where are the other 4 DC coming from?
Human sorcerer, fey bloodline, 20 charisma, feats are spell focus and greater spell focus.
10 + 5 (casting mod) + 1 (spell level) + 1 (spell focus) + 1 (greater spell focus) + 2 (bloodline arcana, +2 DC for compulsions, which sleep is.) = 20.
Granted, now you're a character with 20 charisma, almost certainly the most useless stat in the game, but there it is.
Granted, in many encounters they may only have a 25% chance of making the save or less, but it's still no sure thing.It may not even get as high as 25%, honestly.
Imagine a sorcerer cranked out to have a DC 20 Sleep save at first level. Granted, full round cast, but also huge range for a 1st level spell. You're not going to see much at that level that has +5 Will -- a bigger danger is stuff like skeletons that are just immune, so you need a plan B for them.
I'm playing a character very similar to that through a Kingmaker game that recently started and I haven't seen a save made yet. Granted, also, that well is going to go dry pretty soon, and that spell will have to be swapped out down the road, but it's not a bad way to survive the first few levels.
Sure, I can imagine it. I've seen it, actually. My daughter is playing a Sorcerer with a 20 Charisma and is spamming sleep spells rigth now, which those poor bandits with -1 on their Will saves have no answer for. But how many feats does this guy have? I've already seen reference to Improved Initiative and Spell Penetration, and I'm assuming Spell Focus as well. Somewhere, choices have to be made, just as with spells. A caster could have anything, he can't have everything.
But how many feats does this guy have? I've already seen reference to Improved Initiative and Spell Penetration, and I'm assuming Spell Focus as well. Somewhere, choices have to be made, just as with spells. A caster could have anything, he can't have everything.
Oh, sure. I assume Mr. Green wouldn't touch fey enchantment-based sorcerer with the eleven foot pole he uses to replace rogues -- wizard is clearly better.
I'm just giving one example of what I would consider a decidedly non-optimal (if not exactly weak) full-caster character that doesn't struggle all that much to be very effective at low levels.
And, actually, one of the strengths of the caster-heavy party is that you can specialize in ways that wouldn't be smart if you were the only caster.
Ah, I hadn't noticed that bloodline. Could you always take GSF at 1st level or is that a Pathfinder thing?
You always could, if you had two feats to burn -- so, basically, if you were human.
At least SF/GSF aren't +2 apiece as they were in 3.0. I played with a 20 int wizard in LG with both feats at 3rd level a few times -- blindness with permanent duration, a will save, and DC 21? Ouch if you're any kind of melee monster.
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And, actually, one of the strengths of the caster-heavy party is that you can specialize in ways that wouldn't be smart if you were the only caster.
Again, part of the problem with that is design of the threats.
Most low level creatures rarely use spells - they are just beef with poor saves. If you had more creatures with effects and abilities (similar to spells) you would need an even party.
Brian made a good point earlier
"I also find it a bit curious that, with the scorn you heap on damage-dealing as a valid combat tactic, that you put so much effort into pumping up your hit points. Seems logically inconsistent. I would think you would be pumping up Will and Reflex saves, if that's where the only true danger lies."
It makes perfect sense if the SODs and area effect (reflex) are not being flung back. If a monsters primary focus is to do damage all you have to do is survive that damage. If you using heavy battlefield control most of that damage never gets out of the gate. What does get out is diminished until the fight is over.
Having a mixed fighting group (assuming the above paradigm) is a liability now since non-casters are exchanging hp while the other half (casters) are having to target specific foes or trying to pull off battlefield control - but there are less casters in a mixed party. So if the fighters can't help in shutting down the fight immediately, they become a liability and a slot which could have been taken up by a caster. The best way to look at it is you are splitting your resources and fighting on two fronts.
In a mixed party it is 1/2 damage and 1/2 shutdown/SOD, in an all caster party the focus is all on shutdown. Who cares about hp once the battle is effectively won?
Basically an exploit in creature design combined with shut downs, debuffs and the inflatable DC system.
If you address these issues you bring the game back down to level playing field.
Take a look at all the 1/8 through CR 2 creatures - how many have area effect Fort or Reflex save related abilities? Out of 98, only a few have Fort or Reflex related abilities: Troglodyte, Dretch (stinking cloud), Shocker lizard and the Yellow Musk Creeper - so why would you need to pump those up? Win initiative - shut down fight.
That style would not have worked if 3.0/3.5 was actually playtested.
Create monsters and foes with these considerations plus the same defenses for non-casters (better saves, deflated DCs, etc) and you have yourself a game.
Do you really prefer rooting everyone to the ground over letting everyone move?
Actually, I let the melee guys trade iterative attacks for 10-ft. steps... and added some pounce class features as well (one barbarian rage power, and an advanced fighter talent). I forgot for a minute that no one else does stuff like that. Either way, I see the lack of ability to move + attack as the key issue, after which mobility (or lack thereof) for casters is a secondary priority.
That style would not have worked if 3.0/3.5 was actually playtested.
I know those games were internally playtested at WotC; I think the problem was, they had the typical designer's tunnel vision of understanding how the game is "supposed" to be played and didn't have the perspective to approach it from another angle.
For 3.0, I think that's pretty understandable -- it's a very different game than 2.0.
3.5 was pretty mind-boggling in a lot of ways, though. For example, supposedly, no one at WotC really liked to play druids, so they thought they needed to make it better. Ugh.
So I think you're right, something like Pathfinder's open beta probably would have helped them out a lot -- or even being smart enough to pay closer attention to 3.0 as it was being played in Living Greyhawk etc. and learn from that.
Post your situation and then state whether you'd fudge on a scale of 0-5, with 0 being "Hell No!" and 5 being "You damn skippy!". Feel free to place your reason in a spoiler block that follows. Also feel free to weigh in on other's situations.
Situation: A PC casts a spell that would effectively end an epic battle during the 1st round/surprise round. The BBEG is entitled to a save. You, as the DM roll the save, and realize that the BBEG has failed and the Epic battle is going to end before it even starts. Do you fudge the save and have the BBEG stay in the fight?
Fudge rating:
0 (pres man)
Situation: A pair of monsters are attacking the party. At range they are not very dangerous but in melee they are brutal. Half the party reacts dumbly and charges into melee with them. Half the party drop, but one monster is almost unconscious, if the last hit had done 4 more points it would have knocked the foe out. If both creatures are still up, the remaining party members might have a bit of a struggle, but with one still standing they have a fair chance. Do you fudge the first creature's hit points and have it drop on the last attack?
Fudge rating:
4 (pres man)
Lastly, Ray of Enfeeblement lowers Str, not Dex.
Presumably the implication is that a low-dex wizard has an abysmal touch AC. Which it does, for as much as it matters.
If the all caster group has enemies close they... take a 5 foot step back and look unamused.
There's all kinds of reasons why taking a 5 foot step back might not be all that helpful. Granted, most of those reasons probably are not going to be encountered by a level 1 party.
When being used against the party it is considerably more effective as enemies do more damage than unoptimized melee PCs and PCs have fewer HP than monsters.
... as I learned much to my chagrin in "Wormcrawl Fissure."
Post your situation and then state whether you'd fudge on a scale of 0-5, with 0 being "Hell No!" and 5 being "You damn skippy!".
You did that on purpose, making my scale's 6 a 0 on your scale, and my 1 a 5. Now I've got to subtract and calculate and stuff, to come up with a "2 with caveats" (viz. transparency, limitations, and plater input).
The ones not solved with a 5 foot step back can be solved with a 5 foot step forward. Reach weapons are funny like that.
Reach monsters aren't, though. Or people with enlarge. Or Step Up.
Not that there aren't countertactics to those as well, but they're not free.
Of course any other spell would do the same in fewer iterations.
I was still learning my way around 3.0/3.5. It was obvious that boosting Fort saves was good policy for a wizard, and given hp bloat ("What! I get full HD and Con bonuses after 10th level? Are you serious?!") it seemed like evocations weren't worth worrying about anymore. I think Jacobs designed that encounter exactly with people like me in mind.
The ones not solved with a 5 foot step back can be solved with a 5 foot step forward. Reach weapons are funny like that.
Difficult terrain? Surrounded? Standing on a Grease spell? There's any number of things that can make movement impossible or painful.
This is the problem, of course, with discussing hypotheticals. There's always a solution to every problem when you've got a hypothetical character to respond to a single aspect of an example.
Actual characters in actual situations tend to have significantly fewer options.
That said, this discussion really is going nowhere. Despite the game having 'never' supported a stereotypical party, I've seen them played to good effect, to high level, for 4.75 editions of the game.
What is 'good' in a campaign is 100% dependent upon the DM. It is trivial for a DM to make a campaign where fighters and rogues outshine full casters.
We really should make a thread on playstyles instead of jacking this fudging thread, though. While ultra-optimizers tend to hate fudging and ultra-casuals tend to not care, I've seen exceptions to both of those extremes.
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The first two you're dead on about. The third is exactly backwards. Everyone can move around the field and still contribute except the full attackers. Do you really prefer rooting everyone to the ground over letting everyone move?There's a reason any serious melee build packs Pounce. It's full attack and move.
I would prefer locking them to the ground if they used a spell enhancement/metamagic feat. If they are given the option to raise a DC by 1 but only get a 5 ft step or they can standard cast and half move that actually makes more sense - welcome to the world of the fighter.
Or Hell, just like Kirth suggested - just locking them to the ground if they cast. Might even be a better fix.
From a DM’s perspective I could give two s%!~s about how this makes caster players feel. I'd rather lock them up than free the fighter. Actually helps fighters more - that way a locked up wizard can stand still while the melee types run over to chop his head off. Plus at this point the game doesn't work very well – so I wouldn't worry too much about players crying about a fix that is LONG overdue.
Ok. I don't think Shield boosts touch AC. Protection from good would also be ineffective against the optimized party. It might or might not work on the weak party.
Right on that, same with Mage Armor (stupid for both) just incorporeal touch attacks, the Pt. from Good would add, but that would only bring its touch AC up to 12, +2 on saves but is aligned (deflection bonuses count to touch AC) so that's very hit or miss.
You're right that the spell list could use some improvement, and changing first level spells around isn't going to help it much... except against melees, as the AC 34-38 demonstrates.
Well, it can still spam darkness on itself at will, so depending on the lighting conditions you would also be dealing with concealment/total concealment.
But yeah, the dragon is perfect example of what I was talking about with regard 1-dimensional design considerations - SR bypass, touch AC, skewed DC boosts beyond appropriate level/CR.
And to pres' situations: 0 and 0.
The first is zero because the players won, and I won't take that away from them. The second is zero because bad choices have harsh consequences. Half the party charged and got taken out. But the other half didn't. And if one really only has 4 HP left, the group should have no trouble taking it out from range before it can cause any more harm. So why mess with it?
Economy of action.
Basically the characters still in the fight at the point had been "pulled" forward by the morons as they tried to back them up (think LeeRoy Jenkins here). By the point the morons had dropped, the other characters were no longer in nice range distance, but instead in charge distance or almost charge distance. While the remaining characters would have been better off to just have stayed back at the beginning and then as you say, could have pick off the foes at basically leisure. There is some social dynamics that would make that ... undesirable.
And Marshal is right. The conversation is going nowhere when he thinks it's 'trivial' to make one dimensional HP attackers outclass those who regularly extort sexual favors from the universe.
I wouldn't say it's exactly trivial, but it's clear that
A) Left unchecked, casters are the best characters and
B) Monsters etc. are not typically built as though this were true. Which goes back to Aux's playtesting point. (I'm kind of surprised that Pathfinder's Bestiary doesn't do more to correct this, but maybe that's backwards compatability again.)
Correcting (B) isn't extremely hard, and while, yeah, in the end the guy who can cast wish beats the guy who can't cast wish, it brings the classes a lot closer and makes having a 'balanced' party seem less stupid.
And Marshal is right. The conversation is going nowhere when he thinks it's 'trivial' to make one dimensional HP attackers outclass those who regularly extort sexual favors from the universe.If you believe that, I have some nice beachfront property to sell you in Arizona.
Trivial: Meaning, 'easy' for a DM to do so.
Here's a few ways I've *had it happen to me*
Entire adventures being run inside an AMF.
The most common enemies of an adventure having significant Magic Resistance/Spell Resistance.
Heavily limit access to new spells (no 'free' spells, the only spells you can learn are ones the DM gives you).
The entire world loses magical/divine power and all spell casters just lost their primary class feature.
Allow spells to be trivially interrupted by ranged touch attacks (The commoner picks up a rock. As you start to cast, he hits you in the head with it.)
Encounters with massive amounts of Dispel Magic available.
Mass-combat scenarios against huge numbers of low-CR opponents... the spells are flashy, but they run out, and siege engines (run by fighters) are flashy too.
Non spell-casters run across artifact-quality swords and armor early in the campaign.
One might argue that if any of these happen 'you aren't playing real D&D', but I'd point out that in all of those campaigns, we had fun despite (and in many cases because) our magic got turned off or was limited in effect.
Mistah Green, your playstyle is a very well-honed hammer, that turns nearly any problem into a nail... but a good DM can throw some screws your way if he wants to.
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SR is only a joke because it hasn't been spec'd out in the proper fashion.
The numbers should be -
At CR 25% chance of failure
At CR +3 75% chance of failure
And those percentages in a game with considerations (and assumptions) that Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration are already in play.
I don't believe in pulling the "Dick DM" moves just to cope - the game does need some fixing though, just from a core design point.
Instead of going into the realm of bizarro imbalance me vs. you fighting the whole thing could be addressed with some minor tweaks, and dumping a lot of splat garbage.
Example -
a simple change (say to address touch AC) would be to convert 1/4 of the natural AC to a deflection bonus for any kind of monster with magical or mythical qualities. So Dire Bear -no, but Wyvern -yes. Nothing earth shattering, just some number shifts.
AC stays the same -so in our CR 11 Black Dragon example instead of +18 natural, now it has +13 Natural and + 5 deflection - giving it a touch AC of 15 before any other spells or buffs. Move the creature design away from 1-dimension to two or three dimensions. There still should be super beef/dummy encounters, and their still should be creatures slide towards resisting spells on the other end but design/retrofit creatures with the whole game in consideration on average. Not really that hard.
So no AMF or zones, or every creature with SR, etc, just make SR work when it’s supposed to. Some simple tweaks and fixes and no, not Tome fixes - those actually don't address the problems they just add things to the current system without addressing the actual problems.
If you take the time most of this stuff can be fixed, and a lot of it on the fly (if you have the code/rules written out). As long as everyone knows what they are getting into I think it's something that can be pulled off.
I dont see it in just two lights. I am not against the players, but I don't just hand XP over either. Anything with a 14 int will be played as such, and anything with a 5 will be played as such, even if it means provoking attacks of opportunity. It is very much possible to help the players without having the bad guys lay down for them.I'm not sure what style of game you run, but here's a question for you.
Your four friends say 'Hey, we want you to DM!'
then they show you their concepts: Blaster Mage, Healbot Cleric, Big-Stupid-Sowrd-and-Board Fighter, Archer Rogue.
The fighter says "I want to slay dragons in hand to hand combat!"
The rogue says "I want to shoot arrows like Legolas! And dance through traps like the Grey Mouser!"
etc..
Do you look at them and go 'No. If you want to kill dragons, you need to be a full caster. And no one dances through traps, you just tank them with summoned monsters. We're not playing some stupid fantasy game, we're going to play real D&D, or you'll all just die to the first CR-appropriate intelligent foe at mid-level. Up to you.'
Maybe you do, if you want to run one style of game, and not the other.
But for the players and DMs who like trope-filled fantasy romps, it is silly to say 'D&D/PF don't support that style of play'. It is up to the DM to create a game where the players get to play the game they want to play, with the characters they want to play, against the monsters they want to fight...
I don't tell my guys want to play. It is possible to play basically any trope, but you(the player) has to come up with the build to and know how to make it work. They should just realize that some builds are better than others, and a lesser build will have more problems. The paladin, as an example is something people play, even though they know it handicaps them. If their build is sub-par I suggest changes to make it viable, but still keep the basic concept. If they just insist on bringing something weak to the table I let them know they have been warned. That is really all I can do without holding their hand.