Stone Skin and Fire Shields on your NPC's? Enemies get extra HP and your barbarian takes damage every time he hits them.
Force Cage him for the battle? Use Heightened 'Pit' spells on him? Hit him with Tanglefoot bags and then put a spike stones field in front of him (or any placed AOE spell that will force him to take extra damage from moving through it or take longer to get into melee by moving around it).
This ability is the same as Robilar's Gambit in 3.5 and is (IMO) as broken as that was. Not to mention it slows game play (especially at high level).
But as has been stated, hit andrun, bow/ranged tactics are a great way to pound on such characters.
Also, if your using 3.5 Materials there is a spell/curse in either the Spell Compendium or Players Handbook II that does a D6 untyped damage to the recipient every time they take any sort of hostile action against another (attack, cast a spell to harm or hinder them, etc). It has no save and no SR. So every attack he takes would hit him/her for 1D6 bypassing DR. Sadly I cannot remember the spell's name off hand, but it was great at ripping up anything with a large amount of attacks, ESPECIALLY the dual wielding rogue using Robilar's Gambit in our high level game.
When you get hit for 4d6 for full attacking and then another 8d6 from attacking against 8 attacks every round, it adds up fast. Not to mention the damage being taken from the attacks that hit at a bonus.
I once had 30 goblins in some trees. Fireball took care of that.Then either your DM was an idiot, or he didn't understand how fireball works. 30 goblins spread out in trees should never fall to a fireball. A couple maybe, not all 30. You couldn't fit 30 in a fireball's area unless you tied them all up and stacked them up like cordwood.
That's it MDT! Go straight for the insult! Makes you look smart!
It was actually 2 or 3. Point is, your "wonderful" tactic didn't mean squat in a party with a caster.
I once had 30 goblins in some trees. Fireball took care of that.Then either your DM was an idiot, or he didn't understand how fireball works. 30 goblins spread out in trees should never fall to a fireball. A couple maybe, not all 30. You couldn't fit 30 in a fireball's area unless you tied them all up and stacked them up like cordwood.
Of course, factually, Fireball covers 64 5' squares and trees are not known to be large, spread out rooms of free space.
I once had 30 goblins in some trees. Fireball took care of that.Then either your DM was an idiot, or he didn't understand how fireball works. 30 goblins spread out in trees should never fall to a fireball. A couple maybe, not all 30. You couldn't fit 30 in a fireball's area unless you tied them all up and stacked them up like cordwood.That's it MDT! Go straight for the insult! Makes you look smart!
It was actually 2 or 3. Point is, your "wonderful" tactic didn't mean squat in a party with a caster.
Hmmm,
Let's see. If we assume the trees are 15 feet apart (any closer and nobody can fire an arrow in it), and the goblins are anywhere from 15 to 50 feet up in the tree (no, they aren't stupid enough to all be at 20 feet up), then...Fireball, which has a 20 ft radius, can catch, if you are lucky, up to 4 inside the 40 ft diameter sphere. It's very unlikely you could get that many, more likely, only 1 or 2.
Either way, you're now spending 3rd level spells to kill 1 or 2 goblins. At level 10, you have what, 4 3rd level spells as a wizard, a couple of more as a sorcerer? Absolutely a "wonderful" use of fireball.
Now, if we go back to my original suggestion, which was 30 goblins spread out in an open area, all running around and evading, we have an even worse scenario. None of them are more closer than 30 feet to another, so maybe you get two or so. Plus, the first time you cast a spell, you become target numero uno.
So, you're spending 4 to 6 actions to kill 4 to 12 of the 30 goblins burning all your daily allotment of spells. If you're a wizard, that assumes you spent all your slots on fireball. If you're a sorcerer, it means you spent all your spells for the day for 3rd level. What a "wonderful" use of resources on your part.
For you to kill 30 goblins with 2-3 fireballs required your GM to lump them all into nice little batches within 20 feet of each other. Again, an idiot or someone who things fireball makes pine trees burst into flames on contact and starts raging forest fires.
As a BBEG, if I can make you spend every 3rd level spell you have for the day with 30 goblins wearing rags and using crappy bows and arrows, and do some damage to you in the meantime, to soften you up, all for the price of 10 or 15 goblins (since you won't kill all of them), then that's a super double plus win in my evil day planner. Plus the idea of watching via scry as you run around roaring and smashing goblins in frustration makes my toes curl. :)
"In my made up scenario from your game, your idea was stupid!"
"In my made up scenario from your game, your idea was stupid!"
LOL. Does seem somewhat contrived, doesn't it?
LOL. Does seem somewhat contrived, doesn't it?
Not nearly as contrived as your 'I killed 500 people with one set of spells' thread you kept trying to start up. 30 goblins cost maybe 2000 gp if you outfit them yourself, or less if they have their own equipment when you hire them. About the cost of a single +1 weapon.
I've done that in games before, hired dozens of low level grunts to distract and soften up enemies. In fact, it's pretty much a trope of the game to hire a bunch of grunts to give the enemy trouble and make nuisances of themselves. Unlike your GM, I just don't play them as fighting in large fireball shaped groups (again, taken from your 'I killed 500 people with fireballs' thread).
I play a barb who just hit 12, and I need to decide before next session if I take CAGM. My one determining factor is how much of the party healing I will end up using. It would seem if you make a slightly longer 'encounter day' it would cause the Barb to think twice about always using CAGM. Though I built for some AC on my barb too, and am not assuming every attack hits. I didn't take reckless abandon. If he has garbage AC it might be a no brainer, though mooks would help him worry about his AC and the damage he is taking.
So now we have straw men fighting straw men. Great.
The question here is how many strawmen can be defeated by a single fireball if cast by a strawman in a tree.
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The question here is how many strawmen can be defeated by a single fireball if cast by a strawman in a tree.So now we have straw men fighting straw men. Great.
In a tree? That's a little confusing. Mind if we replace the tree with another straw man, just to keep it simple?
By the way, as long as the caster has the Straw Man Bane power (available in a third party product, theoretically), the answer is aleph-1d6.
LOL. Does seem somewhat contrived, doesn't it?Not nearly as contrived as your 'I killed 500 people with one set of spells' thread you kept trying to start up. 30 goblins cost maybe 2000 gp if you outfit them yourself, or less if they have their own equipment when you hire them. About the cost of a single +1 weapon.
I've done that in games before, hired dozens of low level grunts to distract and soften up enemies. In fact, it's pretty much a trope of the game to hire a bunch of grunts to give the enemy trouble and make nuisances of themselves. Unlike your GM, I just don't play them as fighting in large fireball shaped groups (again, taken from your 'I killed 500 people with fireballs' thread).
Those 500 were really spread out. I had to start off with battlefield control spells in order to force them to clump together before I could use black tentacles and fireballs effectively.
Did you not even read my thread?
I play a barb who just hit 12, and I need to decide before next session if I take CAGM. My one determining factor is how much of the party healing I will end up using. It would seem if you make a slightly longer 'encounter day' it would cause the Barb to think twice about always using CAGM. Though I built for some AC on my barb too, and am not assuming every attack hits. I didn't take reckless abandon. If he has garbage AC it might be a no brainer, though mooks would help him worry about his AC and the damage he is taking.Two questions to ask yourself:
1) Do I have a decent Dex bonus?
2) Do I have combat reflexes?If the answer to both of these is yes, then I think you should take it. CaGM works off of AoO, you need to have a bunch of these a round (4?) to make it worth that -4AC penalty. An enemy at 1hp does full damage while a dead enemy does no damage. The quicker you can kill them the quicker the encounter ends and the sooner you can bust out a cheap wand of clw and have the healer heal you up.
I was saying that making an enemy better able to hit and damage can result in increased depletion of resources, you somehow managed to read that as me asking a question. That's odd.
I was suggesting that giving an enemy a possible 20% greater chance to hit you may cause you to burn through your CLW wands a lot faster. If money and loot flows freely, simply cutting down the time between fights can limit the use of CAGM, a minute spent using a CLW wand only heals 10d8+10, which to a Barbarian isn't that much. Of course this is all based on having a decent AC, if you went for a loin cloth Barbarian then CAGM is a no brainer.
I've never gotten a group that high yet, but planning for the future... dot!
Without getting into details, his AVERAGE damage, when he gets to make all of those attacks, is OVER 500 points a round. Granted, the iterative attacks (3 of the 12) may not hit but odds are the other 9 will. He has a scimitar-type of weapon so he'll be critting on 15-20 so I'm figuring every 4th attack is a crit. Anyway, this post isn't to argue about his damage, just how to game around it, with it, through it, etc.
There is nothing in melee that can compete with that!
Incorrect.
Ancient Red Dragon.
Melee bite +29 (4d6+39/19–20) with Power Attack.
With Greater Vital Strike, that's an extra 12d6 hovering from 20 ft.
That's 100.3 average damage (factoring crits) that unless the barbarian has the Strike Back feat, he can't do anything about.
Flying barbarian? Welcome to the wonderful world of Antimagic Field.
I think in general just start targeting him with spells. A pit spell could ruin his day. Or slow, ouch.
Really at that level most things you fight should be flying or casting spells if not both.
Separate him with a wall of force? Ray of Exhaustion, followed by a quickened one?
Ray of Exhaustion, followed by a quickened one?Not a bad way to take the fight out of him. Although it can be countered with a lvl 1 potion of invigorate. Still, exhaustion is not a bad strategy and it doesn't rely on a failed save to work.
I think walling him off is a pretty good idea to. Just set him to the side and focus on his support.
Much better ideas than trying to get him to fail any kind of save.
There you go, just "cap" him with a hemisphere Wall of Ice.
Wall of ice can allow a save, and has 3 hp per caster level so its not really gonna slow down a guy who hits hard, if he even fails the save.
And antimagic field wont work with an ancient red dragon, they are a 20 by 20 square, and antimagic field is a 10 radius centered on the caster. Also the red dragon has a 20% per turn of falling from the sky if it hovers.
Add terrain dangers to the encounters. Example: Iron golems and permanent wall of flame spells.
Lava.
He dies, no save !
You beat me to it. Universal Lava Rules. No save. Dead. Next!
I had a similiar problem in a 3.5 game I ran, the barbarian was ridiculous.
You know what's funny? Displacement, Mirror Image, and all the other illusion based spells that make the caster look like there's a hundred of him.
I don't think Pathfinder has this, but 3.5 had this nasty thing called a Retributive Amulet. So you throw something at him with literally double his hitpoints, and when he drops it in one round, he drops himself and learns a valuable lesson. Especially as the amulet is swiped by another enemy npc before someone else gets it.
(Retributive Amulet made the attacker take half the damage, no save)
I had a high-level (17 or so? He eventually hit epic levels) axiomatic elven kensai (custom class modeled off the old 2e Kensai fighter kit) do precisely that. He was fighting a couple of evil clerics and a pit fiend, along with various mooks. He obliterated one of the evil clerics in a single round, and obliterated himself in the process.
Of course, he was also sitting on a favor from a deity and used it to true-resurrect himself after the elven clerics wouldn't (resurrection is frowned upon by a lot of religions on that campaign world).
When he sat up and summoned his ancestral katana back to his hand on his funeral bed, it was quite a shock to the others present!
Will Saves are your friend.Amen... and the scourge of the rest of the party as he becomes the agent of their destruction...
Go with the Controller enchantment school subspecialization from APG. At level 20, the Force of Will capstone is flat-out amazing when combined with the spell Overwhelming Presence (from UM). One round of guaranteed helplessness for anything not flat-out immune to compulsions, and they take Wisdom drain if they fail the save and then succeed on a subsequent one, making it more likely they fail further Will saves.
And even if you don't use Overwhelming Presence, it's a good way to guarantee that he ends up spending some of his time dominated (and killing his allies), even if he succeeds on his save.
Note that Aldori Swordlords (fighter archetype) get the exact same ability WITHOUT AN AC PENALTY OR INCREASED DAMAGE. make up an Aldori swordlord and tear him apart. that +4 TH/Dmg against him is going to be key.
And tend to have a scaling AC, too.
I would note that a big creature with Greater Vital Strike is easily going to be ahead of him on the damage curve. Especially if you allow Spring Attack to work with it.
Another extremely cruel ability if you use the Book of Nine Swords is a Covering Strike, from White Raven. Opponents aren't allowed to take AoO's once they are hit by it, completely shutting his trick down.
Remember, his ability is NOT UNIQUE. If you use 3.5 stuff, he's basically using Robilar's Gambit, available to ANY 12th level Melee. Aldori Swordlords get it a level earlier...and it's better! The trick has been around a very long time, and will it shines inside it's shtick, it has definite weaknesses.
I personally have a 3.5 Fighter design called Lockdown that uses this tactic combined with Stand Still. At level 16, Fighters get Overpowering Strike as an option...give up full attack to do double dmg with all attacks, including all AoO's.
First, you locked them in place with a dc60ish Reflex save. Then, if they attacked you, you hit them back twice as hard as they hit you. generally speaking, you could kill anything that bothered to hit you.
And if they didn't hit you, but couldn't move, Defensive Sweep meant you hit them at least once.
It was called Lockdown for a reason, but Mind Blank took care of the Will Save problem that Paizo leaves open.
==Aelryinth
Throw a group of Greater Shadows at them. This will negate the critical hits due to being incorporeal, will cause even his normal hits to be lessened by 50% unless he has some way to get around that, and on top of all that the barbarian will be taking 1d8+4 strength damage every time it gets hit with the creatures touch attack. Since the damage is rolled this bonus applies here, as it does not state otherwise like some other abilities.
This is how our DM makes the melee powerhouses twitch, nothing inspires awe like an orc barbarian running down the hallway yelling "RUN! GHOSTS!"
I'd be careful with this tactic though, incorporeals can be extremely nasty... attacking through the floor, attacking while sharing a space with a PC, etc.
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Another tactic someone mentioned was 'Disarm'... Make a 'Disarm Fighter' (purely for feats/BaB) and be sure he has Improved Unarmed Strike. Snatch said offending weapon, commence beating on the PC with his own weapon.
My DM gave my 3.5E 'Trip/Chain Fighter' a bit of humility by doing this, not to mention the bad guy then got teleported away... with MY spiked chain! It was an evil party geared towards exploiting our individual weaknesses. (Ex: Chain Fighter + No chain = Sucks to be you!) It inspired us to work more as a team and less as individuals.
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To all my fellow GMs out there, I have a challenge.
.
(pssst.... Venomblade, you can stop reading right here! everyone else, continue on)
.I am running a high-level game. All the PCs just hit level 16. One of them, a barbarian of great strength, has just taken the "come and get me" rage power.
How do I compete with this? It is unbelievably good. At level 16 he has four attacks a round. With combat reflexes and a high dexterity modifier this engine of destruction will have 12 attacks around. Nine of these will be at his highest attack bonus for the AoOs!!!
Without getting into details, his AVERAGE damage, when he gets to make all of those attacks, is OVER 500 points a round. Granted, the iterative attacks (3 of the 12) may not hit but odds are the other 9 will. He has a scimitar-type of weapon so he'll be critting on 15-20 so I'm figuring every 4th attack is a crit. Anyway, this post isn't to argue about his damage, just how to game around it, with it, through it, etc.
There is nothing in melee that can compete with that!
I seek suggestions on how to challenge this player. He will clearly mow through most fights but I'd like to challenge him every once in a while.
Suggestions please!
Right now I'm thinking something that does dex damage or strength damage but that sucks if that's my only weapon against him. That should be used rarely, besides his fortitude save is sky high.
-Bloodwort
Come and Get Me (Ex): While raging, as a free action the barbarian may leave herself open to attack while preparing devastating counterattacks. Enemies gain a +4 bonus on attack and damage rolls against the barbarian until the beginning of her next turn, but every attack against the barbarian provokes an attack of opportunity from her, which is resolved prior to resolving each enemy attack. A barbarian must be at least 12th level to select this rage power.
A 15th level NPC wizard can pretty much entirely ignore him, while casting spells without fail while ethereal and pretty much immune to the barbarian's reprisal. Not really much the barbarian can do without some cleverly anticipated magic trinkets.
Or like everyone else said, just don't play to the Barbarian's strengths. Use a different tactic. If "hit his weapon with my face" is your default tactic, then you will assuredly fail (unless you're a monk, in which case you'll fail while dealing 2d10 points of face damage).
EDIT: And if you just want to be cruel (I know I've done this), have a caster use a targeted dispel magic on his weapon, followed by shatter or quickened shatter. One biffed will save later and his favorite +5 flaming holy greataxe of demonbane just became slivers.
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Wall of ice can allow a save, and has 3 hp per caster level so its not really gonna slow down a guy who hits hard, if he even fails the save.
And antimagic field wont work with an ancient red dragon, they are a 20 by 20 square, and antimagic field is a 10 radius centered on the caster. Also the red dragon has a 20% per turn of falling from the sky if it hovers.
Surely 'centered on the caster' means the field radiates out from the dragon? So it's 10 ft. of anti-magic field on every side of the 20 ft. dragon cube. As for the Fly thing, give it Skill Focus (Fly) in place of one of its feats (probably Improved Iron Will, I don't see that it needs that). Gets its Fly skil to +17, automatic success on hover.
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This is settled pretty easily: 'Come and Get Me' does not work as you (and your player) think it does. If you'll check your core rulebook on the rules for AoOs, you will find that he can only take one AoO against a particular opponent, no matter how many times they provoke. So he's still only getting one extra attack per opponent.
Incorrect; the core rules are superseded by the description of the power itself, which reads;
'While raging, as a free action the barbarian may leave herself open to attack while preparing devastating counterattacks. Enemies gain a +4 bonus on attack and damage rolls against the barbarian until the beginning of her next turn, but every attack against the barbarian provokes an attack of opportunity from her, which is resolved prior to resolving each enemy attack.'
It's never been one AoO per enemy....it's always been one AoO per opportunity. CAGM and Robilar's are triggered by individual melee attacks, not by attack/full attack actions.
===Aelryinth
LOL. Does seem somewhat contrived, doesn't it?Not nearly as contrived as your 'I killed 500 people with one set of spells' thread you kept trying to start up. 30 goblins cost maybe 2000 gp if you outfit them yourself, or less if they have their own equipment when you hire them. About the cost of a single +1 weapon.
I've done that in games before, hired dozens of low level grunts to distract and soften up enemies. In fact, it's pretty much a trope of the game to hire a bunch of grunts to give the enemy trouble and make nuisances of themselves. Unlike your GM, I just don't play them as fighting in large fireball shaped groups (again, taken from your 'I killed 500 people with fireballs' thread).
Your 2000 gp versus 500 for circle of death. Rod of Widen Spell for extra fun
to everyone who keeps focusing on will saves... and saying not to offer him anything on saving throws... A I said, Calcific Touch. I t will do 1d4 dex damage, and the saving through on the spell does not effect the Dex damage. You ruin his number of AoOs, and slowly (or quickly) turn him to stone, especially if you reach spell it.
Use spells like Calm. Remove the rage and he is just a half-naked guy looking foolish.
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To all my fellow GMs out there, I have a challenge.
.
(pssst.... Venomblade, you can stop reading right here! everyone else, continue on)
.I am running a high-level game. All the PCs just hit level 16. One of them, a barbarian of great strength, has just taken the "come and get me" rage power.
How do I compete with this? It is unbelievably good. At level 16 he has four attacks a round. With combat reflexes and a high dexterity modifier this engine of destruction will have 12 attacks around. Nine of these will be at his highest attack bonus for the AoOs!!!
Without getting into details, his AVERAGE damage, when he gets to make all of those attacks, is OVER 500 points a round. Granted, the iterative attacks (3 of the 12) may not hit but odds are the other 9 will. He has a scimitar-type of weapon so he'll be critting on 15-20 so I'm figuring every 4th attack is a crit. Anyway, this post isn't to argue about his damage, just how to game around it, with it, through it, etc.
There is nothing in melee that can compete with that!
I seek suggestions on how to challenge this player. He will clearly mow through most fights but I'd like to challenge him every once in a while.
Suggestions please!
Right now I'm thinking something that does dex damage or strength damage but that sucks if that's my only weapon against him. That should be used rarely, besides his fortitude save is sky high.
-Bloodwort
Come and Get Me (Ex): While raging, as a free action the barbarian may leave herself open to attack while preparing devastating counterattacks. Enemies gain a +4 bonus on attack and damage rolls against the barbarian until the beginning of her next turn, but every attack against the barbarian provokes an attack of opportunity from her, which is resolved prior to resolving each enemy attack. A barbarian must be at least 12th level to select this rage power.
had a similer problem with a barbarian elf with a 36 str....the stone giant necromancer in the rise of the rune lords took him out in 2 rounds with his wand of enervation
Ok. From another thread on Barbarian awesomeness, we came up with an effective but expensive solution to Come and Get Me.
Give your evil boss a Cloak of major displacement or the spell displacement. 50% miss chance and he does not provoke AoO. Therefor, no Come and Get Me. At their lvl it can be countered (true seeing, anti-magic field) but it gets them all thinking and adjusting to new tactics.
Concealment negates AoO's. Miss chance by itself does not. Cloak of major/minor displacement grants the wearer a miss chance, not concealment. It would be way overpowered otherwise.
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Note that Aldori Swordlords (fighter archetype) get the exact same ability WITHOUT AN AC PENALTY OR INCREASED DAMAGE. make up an Aldori swordlord and tear him apart. that +4 TH/Dmg against him is going to be key.
they only get one a round. its an AoO as an immediate action. so only 1 a round, and now swift action next round
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Concealment negates AoO's. Miss chance by itself does not. Cloak of major/minor displacement grants the wearer a miss chance, not concealment. It would be way overpowered otherwise.Ok. From another thread on Barbarian awesomeness, we came up with an effective but expensive solution to Come and Get Me.
Give your evil boss a Cloak of major displacement or the spell displacement. 50% miss chance and he does not provoke AoO. Therefor, no Come and Get Me. At their lvl it can be countered (true seeing, anti-magic field) but it gets them all thinking and adjusting to new tactics.
Very true, that's why you use a small pebble with the 2nd level Darkness spell cast on it in your belt pouch. All creatures within the area get 20% concealment so no AoO's for anyone.
On your turn when you want to attack simply close the bag.
(and no that won't provoke either since the AoO is resolved before the action that provokes it)
Otto's Irresistible Dance, two trebuchets, and an eight ton vat of peanut butter.
Wand of faerie fire, eight ancient gold dragons, and a duck.