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Hey guys,
So I have a Paladin in my game who took the Sacred Shield archetype, and he is proving to be exceptionally frustrating to gm for. Currently the group found all of the masterwork gear in the basement and sold it with the paladin taking a majority of the gold and buying the masterwork suit of full plate that stands as a decoration in the Ravengro General Store. So currently his AC is above 20 at level 3, and with bastion of good running I pretty much cant hit him at all unless I am running the ghosts of the five prisoners in which case with bastion of good on his touch AC is a 19. It also doesn't help he took the antagonize feat, and has been playing since second edition. In other words I'm at my wits end. Its very hard to run a interesting session, let alone a creepy session when the paladin runs in bastions of good the scariest thing in the room, antagonizes it and then as a GM I'm scrambling to try and make a CR 5 encounter somewhat threatening.
I know that this is what his class is meant to do but I need just a little advice on how to at least keep things interesting for my other players.
/end rant
Hey guys,
So I have a Paladin in my game who took the Sacred Shield archetype, and he is proving to be exceptionally frustrating to gm for. Currently the group found all of the masterwork gear in the basement and sold it with the paladin taking a majority of the gold and buying the masterwork suit of full plate that stands as a decoration in the Ravengro General Store. So currently his AC is above 20 at level 3, and with bastion of good running I pretty much cant hit him at all unless I am running the ghosts of the five prisoners in which case with bastion of good on his touch AC is a 19. It also doesn't help he took the antagonize feat, and has been playing since second edition. In other words I'm at my wits end. Its very hard to run a interesting session, let alone a creepy session when the paladin runs in bastions of good the scariest thing in the room, antagonizes it and then as a GM I'm scrambling to try and make a CR 5 encounter somewhat threatening.
I know that this is what his class is meant to do but I need just a little advice on how to at least keep things interesting for my other players.
/end rant
Any defense oriented player can get high AC, and you will have trouble hitting them until later levels when the monster's attack bonuses explode.
He did take a paladin that brings up the party's defenses as well. If he had take the core paladin then you would have really headaches. Let him have his fun. It won't last forever.That antagonize feat sucks, and if the paladin keeps boosting his intimidate or diplomacy will probably cause more trouble than the AC. I banned it as soon as I read it. I don't like a feat that makes people do stupid things, but once you give a player something it is hard to take it away without hearing complaints.
With that said ask him would he mind dropping the feat.
I saw the errata, and it still sucks.
Antagonize
Whether with biting remarks or hurtful words, you are adept at making creatures angry with you.
Benefit: You can make Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to make creatures respond to you with hostility. No matter which skill you use, antagonizing a creature takes a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and has a DC equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier. You cannot make this check against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence score of 3 or lower. Before you make these checks, you may make a Sense Motive check (DC 20) as a swift action to gain an insight bonus on these Diplomacy or Intimidate checks equal to your Charisma bonus until the end of your next turn. The benefits you gain for this check depend on the skill you use. This is a mind-affecting effect.
Diplomacy: You fluster your enemy. For the next minute, the target takes a –2 penalty on all attacks rolls made against creatures other than you and has a 10% spell failure chance on all spells that do not target you or that have you within their area of effect.
Intimidate: The creature flies into a rage. On its next turn, the target must attempt to make a melee attack against you. The effect ends if the creature is prevented from reaching you or attempting to do so would harm it (for example, if you are on the other side of a chasm or a wall of fire). If it cannot reach you on its turn, you may make the check again as an immediate action to extend the effect for 1 round (but cannot extend it thereafter). The effect ends as soon as the creature makes a melee attack against you. Once you have targeted a creature with this ability, you cannot target it again for 1 day.
It is still a bit powerful at least in my opinion, although making it so that he can only do it to them once per day isn't so bad. Hmmm this needs deliberation on my part.
He only needs to do it once per day. If he does it to a caster then it is game over for that caster.
Pally:Come here you fool or are you afraid.
Squishy Caster:I will show you. I ain't 'fraid of no sword.
Pally:Haha you fell for my trap
Squishy Caster(if he is still alive on the next round):Oh crap. Why would I ever engage a martial character in melee.
I am sure that after being smited everyone else can just clean up on it. Now your paladin does not do smite damage like core paladins do, but getting the BBEG in range for the rest of the party to clean up is still really good. This is obviously hard to counter if someone maxes out diplomacy and intimidate. There is a very good chance of this almost always working.
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Is it not a mind-affecting ability*, that undead (and haunts) would be immune to?
*Not that it makes it any less silly vs regular opponents.
I second removing feats that force NPCs to react in suicidal ways. Especially when players are simply declaring themselves immune to any and all social skills.
Is it not a mind-affecting ability*, that undead (and haunts) would be immune to?
*Not that it makes it any less silly vs regular opponents.
I second removing feats that force NPCs to react in suicidal ways. Especially when players are simply declaring themselves immune to any and all social skills.
It is not listed as mind affecting. You just use the intimidate skill to trick someone is all, or the diplomacy skill.
I think an intelligent being's reactions should be determined by his demeanor and ability scores, not his HD when being set up for an obvious trap.
Antagonize
Whether with biting remarks or hurtful words, you are adept at making creatures angry with you.
Benefit: You can make Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to make creatures respond to you with hostility. No matter which skill you use, antagonizing a creature takes a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and has a DC equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier. You cannot make this check against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence score of 3 or lower. Before you make these checks, you may make a Sense Motive check (DC 20) as a swift action to gain an insight bonus on these Diplomacy or Intimidate checks equal to your Charisma bonus until the end of your next turn. The benefits you gain for this check depend on the skill you use. This is a mind-affecting effect.
It says in the description that it's mind-affecting. The paladin shouldn't be able to use this feat against undead, if I'm understanding the above-quoted description correctly.
It says in the description that it's mind-affecting. The paladin shouldn't be able to use this feat against undead, if I'm understanding the above-quoted description correctly.Antagonize
Whether with biting remarks or hurtful words, you are adept at making creatures angry with you.
Benefit: You can make Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to make creatures respond to you with hostility. No matter which skill you use, antagonizing a creature takes a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and has a DC equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier. You cannot make this check against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence score of 3 or lower. Before you make these checks, you may make a Sense Motive check (DC 20) as a swift action to gain an insight bonus on these Diplomacy or Intimidate checks equal to your Charisma bonus until the end of your next turn. The benefits you gain for this check depend on the skill you use. This is a mind-affecting effect.
I missed that, but I still don't like it.
1. I would never allow one to use this against a Haunt at all. Its a haunt, it is preprogrammed.
2. Its a mind-affecting effect. Seems pretty clear to me. Won't work on Undead.
3. As for living targets, you can only use it once against an opponent and the only ones where it is cheesy (spell casters etc) generally have high Will saves. And what about other NPCs. If you are fighting lets say a spell caster and his three melee friends ... play them smart. Would his 3 melee friends LET his spell caster buddy get up into melee? Have the spellcaster roll Acrobatics to tumble through his friends' threatened square ... if he fails, one of his friends is able to grapple him and prevent him from stupid-rushing the paladin?
4. Abilities like this I generally place into the ... let it be useful in dramatic situations where the player with such a feat will get a great deal of satisfaction from its use. But play the NPCs smart, and find ways to prevent them from doing stupid things. How many times have you, as a DM, used a charm or other similar ability against the PCs and his fellow PCs played smart and prevented the other one from doing something stupid? NPCs are no different.
I've always followed the rule of thumb that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" - ie. if the players can make use of it, so can the GM. Give Antagonize to an antagonist NPC sometime and let him loose on the PCs. I have had players actively beg me to ban broken Feats before for just this reason - as nasty they can make it, they know I can get a lot more evil with it, and for them, it just isn't worth the pain.
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Hey guys, thanks for the input its great to know that this doesn't work on undead. But I think I am going to go the ban route with this one. While I agree that it can be very dramatic in the right situations, knowing my player he's going to try to exploit this and its not worth the head ache. And as much fun as it could be to use it against them I would rather not get into an arms race with my player since its my first game that I am GMing for and this is his .... not even sure how many he has been in but certainly more than me. Banning seems the best move. Thanks for the input.
The opponent also has to a) understand the appropriate language, b) be within 30' (I assume this, based on the rules for demoralize), and c) be able to see and hear his antagonizer.
3. As for living targets, you can only use it once against an opponent and the only ones where it is cheesy (spell casters etc) generally have high Will saves.
There is no save against Antagonize, the character using it makes a skill check based on the HD and Wisdom of the target.
It should be DC 20 + HD + Will Save Mod.
Still possible for low level Skill Focused Inquisitors but barely...
Antagonize is broken, and it continues to be so even after what appears to be a second round of errata. Tell your Paladin that after discussion on these boards you realized this and tell him to get another feat.
You are the GM. Don't let powergamers walk all over you, or you will lose the joy of running the game and then everybody loses.
As for the archetype the guy is using, that's tough luck. He had to give up some good stuff to get it ( Smite Evil! ), so I think it is pretty balanced. The Paladin will look pretty normal in part two of the AP, where you get a lot of non-evil antagonists who hit like anvils.
If you as the DM/GM and the other players aren't having fun, asking him to get rid of the feat is the thing to do.
It is not very paladin like to call opponents names and to try to insult foes... In fact, I would say it is downright dishonorable.
Hold him to the standards of the class. Work up a code of honor for the paladin and make him hold to it.... or risk his paladin-hood.
Otherwise he is just a warrior with neat powers.
It is not very paladin like to call opponents names and to try to insult foes... In fact, I would say it is downright dishonorable.
Maybe so, but you could imagine honorable ways to force a big enemy to confront you directly. It is sort of a classic in samurai and other movies for the primary opponents to confront each other head to head. A could imagine a paladin honorably exploiting that, and thereby honorably protecting the others and bringing the main risk on his or herself. It would involve the paladin suggesting that the opponent and the paladin settle this between themselves once and for all...
But I agree the feat sounds broken and kind of silly in lots of settings.
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Yeah, this type of feat is one of the big turn offs of 4e, and I'm sad to see it here. The dramatic samurai showdown is dramatic because there is a story reason for it, and if your players are involved in a dramatic story, such situations can and will occur.
But making a skill check to force the evil cleric to walk through AOO alley to hit you with his fist is just mind-blowingly aggravating. Really hard to portray a villain worth any salt if the players can just tease him into giving up his battleplan and throwing a temper tantrum.
Now on the other hand, if your player is a good enough roleplayer that he could actually taunt the opponent into a rage, go for it! That's classic stuff.
...could imagine a paladin honorably exploiting that, and thereby...
...honorably exploiting...
For some reason, those two words don't quite feel right when placed next to each other. :P