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How to kill a level 7 paladin:
* 2 Naunet Proteans & 1 Chaos Beast (CR10)
* 3 Advanced Giant Gray Oozes (CR9)
* 3 Rust Monsters & 1 Giant Advanced Otyugh (CR8ish)
* 6 Disenchanters (CR8)
* Numerous multiple enemy encounters with Fly-By Attack (CR Varies)
* Traps with DEX / CHA poison followed by traps with REF saves
When you have a paladin in your group, you absolutely have to avoid solo monsters. This is even more emphasized if the solo monster is any kind of evil or dragon. They eat through these kind of encounters like a sorcerer does through low CR mobs. Plus, by throwing in numerous enemies (my example encounters all have 3 or more creatures), you allow the other party members to target something other than the brute that the Pal is "SMITE!" killing.
When designing encounters, think of your party less as an APL X party, but more of an APL+4 Challenge Rating encounter for the Monster Party to defeat. If your monsters as a party are looking at the Epic (APL+3) tier when they're facing the party every single time (easy fight for the PC's), you might consider swinging the bar a bit, making the fights easier for the monsters (by increasing monster APL(CR)).
in otherwords, have them befriend an npc, have that npc insult iomadae, then have the party protect him from legions of good things.
he can't smite them or help in battle cause that'd be against his code.
This:
I need advice on how to kill or at least scare/challenge a paladin.
This guys is optimized and compared to the rest of the group (a rogue, a cleric, a wizard and a Cleric/sorcerer) who is less optimized i have a hard time challenging him without killing the rest of the group in the process.
... I just wanna give the rest of the group a chance to shine.
If the paladin is optimized and the others aren't, then you're looking at a situation where the paladin is effectively a level higher than the rest of the party, in terms of character power.
Even if you manage to create one or two encounters that challenge the whole party equally, the underlying problem will still remain.
Also note that the power gap between optimized and non-optimized characters will only increase as the party levels up.
If this isn't acceptable to you, then you will probably need to work with the players--either get the paladin to tone it down, or get the other players to tone it up.
@Zippomcfry: I think you are going about this the wrong way. Challenge the Paladin? That would be adding even more spotlight to it. Neutral foes are obviously the best tactic, but I wonder if the problem really lies with the Paladin.
In the party you have :
The fix is battle? Come on, there are a lot of more to the game than battle, and seriously, a 7th level wizard that doesn't control the battle field?
What are the other characters meant to contribute with? If they don't rock in combat and don't have any out-of-combat problem-solving utility then you, and they, have a problem.
The game is all about having fun. Making the paladin suck more just so the others can feel they suck a bit less is not a good fix.
Advice is hard, but here they are:
1) Talk to all the players.
2) Add some neutral foes to the fights
3) Don't use one big bad Evil boss. Have many foes in the fights so all characters - even the Paladin - can have fun.
4) Focus not only on battle, but also on problem solving and on " out-of-combat problem-solving utility".
5) Don't nerf the Paladin. If he is build to rock in combat, his " out-of-combat problem-solving utility" should be less optimized, or even close to zero. If not, then the rest of the party needs a boost. In fact they won't only need a boost but you need to talk to them. They probably need some help. If you boost the combat capability of rest of the party, you should maybe also boost the paladins " out-of-combat problem-solving utility".
6) Don't challenge the Paladin or put any more spotlight on him. Focus more on the rest of the party.
7) Use house rules and make all classes a bit more fun and powerful or let them rebuild their characters. Seriously a 7th level Cleric/sorcerer vs. a 7th level Paladin. The Paladin should rock and the wanna be Mystic Theurge should suck.
8) Add more role playing elements. Let the characters interact with Thieve's guild and the cleric's church, etc. This last advice is perhaps a bit lame, but it is for free ;-)
Most important: All of you should have fun. Make it happen together.
... I'm disappointed with everyone who liked the evil babies idea. A real paladin knows exactly what to do when dealing with evil babies: ignore them. Now if they pose a threat, a paladin should subdue them (gladly accepting the -4 hit), and if that's not an option, beat them unconscious the old-fashioned way.
Evil babies are monsters just like anything else at that point, they aren't in anything resembling actual control over themselves, and they are actively seeking to harm people. Those are things you kill if given no other option.
That's definitely not what I got when I read your post but now that I know your intention it makes sense in a sarcastic jerk sort of way, shame on you.Read the post I quoted originally. He was talking about the Paladin being too stupid in-game to move intelligently on the grid (which I've never seen as existing in the world of any game that I've GM'ed or played in.)
@Trikk- I like the grid. It allows combats to have meaningful distances and allows for triangulation, tactical maneuvering, and interesting choices. Movement modes, rough terrain, cover, all that sort of thing are much more handily represented by a grid than by description. I don't like "I move forward 30 feet, which is 10 feet away from the orc on the left but not the furthest left, and ready an action" when I can just move my mini instead. But I like a little tactical wargame in my D&D.
From this moment on in every game I run, the characters will be able to see the grid, I think it will make immersion much better
I read a series one time about an RPG game that the players had put so much into the world, it started coming to life. The story flipped back and forth from the game world to the real world. In the game world, they did indeed live on a hex grid, and each hex was a different type of terrain, forest, plain, water, desert. So the beaches were always perfectly straight as they bordered ocean hexes, the ocean had black lines floating on the water, etc.
The technological city had technology, but every hex they got away from the city, the tech began to gain activation rolls, so it flickered and worked off and on.
When they got ready to cast spells, they took out die shaped gems and rolled them to get a number, and hoped it was a high one. :) When a player took over a person in the world, the god was 'playing' them. :)
I liked the series right up to the last one, when it just went south all in the last chapter. Ruined it for me.
Yeah,
I just didn't like the last 4 pages of the third book. I found out later the guy had commited suicide shortly after finishing the books. So maybe he was in a bad frame of mind to finish it, cause the last chapter seemed very very odd compared to the rest of the series.
Anyway, back on topic.
I'm very depressed nobody liked my idea of sending kobold anti-paladins to fight the party. I think they'd be perfect, dangerous to the paladin, but not so much to the rest of the party.
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Well the thing is while I think it's a great idea to challenge the paladin it really does make him the center of attention I mean the kobolds are all going to be trying to kill him and the vast majority of the story development will be involving him and his church most likely and while the other party members can stomp the antipaladins they still won't feel like the main character because nobody will be paying attention to them. At least that's how I feel it would play out, but I don't actually know not having this group and playing out the situation with them.
With this state of mind, you shouldn't do a story based around the characters because most of them would feel like the sidekicks of said player at a given time.
Doing a story around characters is great. You just have to share this attention between different characters, using roleplay and storylines to make everyone shine.
It sounds like this is a mismatch in gaming styles that's causing the issues. Talking with the players and getting everyone on the same page is a great first step. Why not that?
Introduce the paladin to a malaugrym.
Rather than target the paladin's weaknesses, you can also build encounters that have a specific task that caters to his strengths, but also keeps him occupied enough that the rest of the party gets to shine.
Example:
A room that contains a locked and potentially trapped container that may hold an important MacGuffin. The rogue gets to work opening it, but then a bunch of goblins start to stream into the room. Everyone starts fighting (paladins usually aren't all that effective against mobs-- they're better at taking out one big adversary). Then the party hears a noise coming down a corridor-- it's a big scary demon. The paladin runs into the corridor to keep the demon away from the rest of the party.
At this point, every member of the party is doing something they're good at-- the rogue is dealing with traps and locks, the spellcasters are using area effect spells against mobs of goblins, and the paladin is engaged in a one-on-one battle with an evil outsider. Everyone's happy.
Fixing things from time to time when really needed has been done continuously in our campaign for years without it forbidding us to roleplay correctly.
On the other side, saying "change your character you've been playing for several levels with because you're just too good I can't think of a way to make things fun for anyone" or "make rocks fall" is 12 year old DMing, in comparison to talking with all players as to make things fun for everyone, and not only...
I think the best option in a situation like this is often to sit down with the player of the paladin in question (who we will assume is named Craig) and say:
-"Craig, I'm really impressed at the solid character you've built with <insert paladin name here>, he's doing such a great job that I'm having a hard time building encounters that will challenge both him and the rest of the party. I hoping that next time the party levels up I could get you to help me out a bit by:
- 1) helping the rest of the party come up with some ideas for skill/feat/tactic selection to make their PCs a bit more solid in combat, and
- 2) spending a little time fleshing out some of the non-combat aspects of <paladin's name>'s character sheet.
-
This way you're not taking away the toys that anyone already has, you start steering the rest of the party to some more optimized choices... AND you hopefully help the paladin have more fun outside of combat as well. (Optimized and Mustachioed!)
Strange idea- try sitting down with him and talking about this like two adults. "Hey Dave, I find your paladin is kind of stealing the spotlite a lot. What do you think?"
Well, if he's "mocking", then it'll probably feed his ego and he'll worsen.
But it's worth a shot!
@Zark- some wizards like not-control. Controlling battlefields is boring. Utility and control spells are important, and every wizard should have some, but ... Black Tentacles, Fireball, Lightning Bolt is a lot more fun than Haste, Fly, Wall of Stone and often just as powerful. A good wizard does what needs doing, which oftentimes means "make the bad guys go KABLOOEY!" because dead BBEGs don't hurt you back.
True not all like to play a god wizard, but if the wizard isn't powerful at level 7 he is doing something wrong.
I don't get it. Full BAB classes are damage dealers and that is what they do. Other classes shouldn't be able to keep up. Not even a wizard unless he is REALLY optimized. So why blame the Paladin?@OP: A good and smart nerf that would yet give the Paladin some more options would be: No dump stats. More Int = more skills. = more out-of-combat problem-solving utility. This would mean he would have to cut down on str or char.
@ CyderGnome and moon glum: I agree with you both.
Aberrations?
Baby Aberrations?
They are neutral inhuman, heartless, killing machines.
I read a series one time about an RPG game that the players had put so much into the world, it started coming to life. The story flipped back and forth from the game world to the real world. In the game world, they did indeed live on a hex grid, and each hex was a different type of terrain, forest, plain, water, desert. So the beaches were always perfectly straight as they bordered ocean hexes, the ocean had black lines floating on the water, etc.
The technological city had technology, but every hex they got away from the city, the tech began to gain activation rolls, so it flickered and worked off and on.
When they got ready to cast spells, they took out die shaped gems and rolled them to get a number, and hoped it was a high one. :) When a player took over a person in the world, the god was 'playing' them. :)
I liked the series right up to the last one, when it just went south all in the last chapter. Ruined it for me.
Could you tell me the name of the series?
About the kobold antipaladins: I don't like the idea too much mainly because I like paladins (and antipaladins) to be special. But then again, I always thought that paladins had to be a prestige class for fighters.
