How Do I Prevent These Two Players From Dominating The Group Without Arbitrary Gimping Them?


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stealth sneak attack verses low hp. They're only good against wizards that don't know they're coming and if they've got a good place to vanish.


Guys unless the rogue vastly outlevels the wizard he has no chance to kill him with one attack* even with sneak attack, PF took care of that. The problem lies somewhere between d6 hit die, the new toughness and the favored class bonus, all of those make it so that a rogue can't one hit the wizard even with sneak attack.

*by one attack i mean one attack (one hit) and not a full attack, a rogue full sneak attacking a wizard would most likely kill him but then a LOT of poeple could kill a wizard by full attacking him.


DeathQuaker wrote:
Thing is, I don't think that's the case (and as an aside, I really don't pay much attention to tiers, but the cavalier seems a solid class, so I don't know why you have it so low).

That's not my tier system, DQ, that's the one that the min/maxers have come up with. You can feel free to argue with them, but there have been many discussions, and this is what we've got. These are the guys who sit around for hours on end figuring out, sometimes to more than one decimal, just how much damage a particular build can put out.

DeathQuaker wrote:
I mean, I don't think, based on Frustrated's initial posts, that Wizard and Oracle and player were even all that "good." Let alone "Really good."

I believe at one point, he specifically referred to them as both the most intelligent and the best players he has. Whether from an objective standpoint they're "really good" is something that none of us can answer. I can only go with the info I have.


The curse system isn't supposed to be a flat negative to balance the whole oracle class. It's supposed to be balanced out by some benefit. The tongues benefit (always on minor 3rd level spell at level 15 that can be effectively duplicated by skill points in linguistics) is pretty small. The curse's limitation that language-dependent spells are usually worthless is actually somewhat limiting depending on the build -- but not the OP's build.

Quote:
When faced with a situation like this, you *have* to nerf the high tiers. There's just no other way. No kidding, the other 3 feel like they're not contributing — Tier 0 & 1 can do everything they can do, and do it better, and it only gets worse at higher levels!

I don't think it *has* to be this way. I think part of the problem with the high/low tier argument is that it assumes the GM isn't doing wealth properly and the players don't have the assumed access to magic items. If the players are allowed to maintain their assumed character wealth every level with religious diligence, I think the "lower" classes will be able to compete fine with the "higher" classes. But a lot of GMs are repulsed by the idea of rewarding so much treasure and making magic items easy to acquire. I do agree there is a disparity between "lower" and "higher" classes when character wealth isn't done exactly right. . . which is a large percentage of the time.


leo1925 wrote:
Terquem wrote:

when anyone says, "there really isn't much of a benefit from his curse"

I would like to point out that the benefit is that he gets to be an Oracle

You are wrong.

I guess I don't understand the PRD document entry for this class. And it would be nice if someone could help me understand it better.

Doesn't it list the "Curse" as a Class Feature? And does that mean that if you want to be that Class, the features define the things, from the beginning, that you basically can and cannot do? So, doesn't that mean that if you want to create a character that has all the benefits of being an oracle, spells, mysteries, revelations, certain weapons and armor proficiencies, you must also have a curse? and doesn't the description of the curse imply that there is some negative as well as some positive aspect to the curse?

In reading the description of the class it suggest to me that it is based on classical Greek Mythology, particularly the story of Cassandra (who had a particularly strong negative consequence curse), but I digress.

If the Game Master removes the implied negative consequence ( from the PRD - "In times of stress or unease, you speak in tongues" ) then in effect the character has no real curse at all, and only a boon, a positive consequence of being an Oracle.

My position is that if you want to be an Oracle you get to have a curse or said another way, if you get to be an Oracle, you have to have a curse. How you play the effect of the curse, is what I am arguing.


You are confusing the fluff of the curse with the mechanics of the curse, nothing in the curse hinders your diplomacy or bluff rolls outside of combat.

And by the way mechanically speaking, overall the curse gives power to the oracle class, it doesn't take away.

Oh and the tongues curse has a mechanical downside and the DM didn't do anything to remove it, the other players had to spend one skill point in order to learn that language and the oracle still has problems with language dependant spells, where do you see the DM removing those penalties?

Dark Archive

Terquem, once again, it's not meant to be a downside mechanically. It's supposed to have advantages and disadvantages. The oracle is not cheating by having her party learn the language he speaks in times of stress.

And to the people who said rogues are good against wizards? That's only in MMOs.


As I see it, you have party of 2 optomized casters and 3 unoptomized melee types.

The first thing I'd look at is stats. Did you do point buy or roll. If you rolled and the caster just happened to get better stats then that is the problem. If it's point buy look at the stats of the players who are feeling useless. Chances are they didn't put stats to areas that enhance their strengths. Like a ranger with high wisdom stat, while that is desirable you really don't want to get that at the expense of Dex or Str depending if you go archer, melee, or switch hitter. Now if the stats look good move to feats and rogue talents, places where players get to choose. They may have poor feat selection or rogues talents. If those look good then check wealth. Compare wealth by level to what each player has. If this all looks good then the only issue remaining is you are playing up to the strengths of casters and not the other players, doesn't sound like you are doing this though.

Between level 1 and 5 I let players modifier their character between gaming sessions with my approval. They give me a reason and suggest a change then next game I review the change if the numbers work correctly all is good. So this allow the change of class features where you have choice, stats, feats and traits. I find in most games a cool concept built at level 1 sometime shows it just isn't working by level 3 and you see with hindsight what you would or should have done. This has lead to much more balanced games if point buy is used. If you roll stats, it can be more problematic.

Lantern Lodge

The way I look at it, if the Oracle speaks Celestial in times of stress and the rest of the party can speak Celestial, then the Oracle isn't really cursed. However, I think the idea someone else posted previously would work wonders for this: have the Oracle make some kind of check (Intelligence or Linguistics) when the curse would take over. If they succeed, then they speak only Celestial. If the fail, then they randomly speak a *different* language which none of the other PCs can know. This will better emulate the Curse from what I read of it. If they balk about this, just tell them that it's a better way to represent the Oracle's curse.

Dark Archive

Undrhil, the benefits from the curse are just as minor as the downsides. The oracle can't use very many language-dependant spells, but their upside is just a bunch of languages. Meh on both sides. If you compare it to haunted where the oracle can't put things down without possibly losing them, but the oracle gets a bunch of excellent spells known, maybe it would put it in perspective.

One more time:

THE CURSE IS NOT A PUNISHMENT TO THE PLAYER, IT IS FLAVOUR AND A CLASS FEATURE BALANCED BY A SIMILAR DOWNSIDE.

Dark Archive

Each oracle is cursed, but this curse comes with a benefit as well as a hindrance. This choice is made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed. The oracle’s curse cannot be removed or dispelled without the aid of a deity. An oracle’s curse is based on her oracle level plus one for every two levels or Hit Dice other than oracle. Each oracle must choose one of the following curses.

Tongues: In times of stress or unease, you speak in tongues. Pick one of the following languages: Abyssal, Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Ignan, Infernal, or Terran. Whenever you are in combat, you can only speak and understand the selected language. This does not interfere with spellcasting, but it does apply to spells that are language dependent. You gain the selected language as a bonus language. At 5th level, pick an additional language to speak in combat and add it to your list of known languages. At 10th level, you can understand any spoken language, as if under the effects of tongues, even during combat. At 15th level, you can speak and understand any language, but your speech is still restricted during combat.

dont start changing class features and gimping people unfairly


FuelDrop wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
How is a rogue good at killing wizards?

stealth, sniper archtype, heavy crossbow? that's how i'd go for an opening shot.

EDIT: add poison for extra goodness. wizards aren't good vrs poison.

The rogue still needs somewhere to hide so that is situational. Poisons are expensive for their DC, and a wizard can get a decent fort save, just like a fighter can get a decent will save if either class puts effort into it. Most poisons don't kill either. They just make you weaker.

Of course if you put places in your hideout(since most BBEG fights take place on their turf) for people to use to hide behind then you as a BBEG deserve to die.


Okay that makes sense, from a "I can only play the game based on the denotata of the words used to describe the rules" perspective.

You may as well say the character has a "tricycle." in the same way that a duck is like a tricycle, they both have handlebars, except for the duck.

Dark Archive

Terquem wrote:

Okay that makes sense, from a "I can only play the game based on the denotata of the words used to describe the rules" perspective.

You may as well say the character has a "tricycle." in the same way that a duck is like a tricycle, they both have handlebars, except for the duck.

If you don't like the rules you can change them for your own game, but don't act like people have to subscribe to your beliefs about the way the rules should be. The way they currently are is that the oracle should not be ridiculously unhappy with their curse.

Grand Lodge

tell those players about the issues you are facing with their characters, and advanced playstyles. tell them you want everyone in the group to have a fun experience. ask them to be mindful of just how dominant they are. ask them to allow the other players to grow alongside, rather than so easily leaving them in the dust. just talk to em' about it.

Dark Archive

Run sessions that each emphasize one player's character or character specific stories.
For example, a session that requires stealth for success, such as a failed stealth roll brings down the legion of constructs on your casters.


So, both caster have high Casting stat AND high Dexterity (and/or Wisdom), depending on the PB, they could/should have low HP and Fort save...

Option 69:
1) Read/learn the rules.
2) Total Party Kill.
3) Start over while banning/changing a few things here and there (easiest way to change rules, just call it change of Universe or change of cosmic rules/laws).
4) ????
5) Profit


Mergy wrote:
Terquem wrote:

Okay that makes sense, from a "I can only play the game based on the denotata of the words used to describe the rules" perspective.

You may as well say the character has a "tricycle." in the same way that a duck is like a tricycle, they both have handlebars, except for the duck.

If you don't like the rules you can change them for your own game, but don't act like people have to subscribe to your beliefs about the way the rules should be. The way they currently are is that the oracle should not be ridiculously unhappy with their curse.

That.

Also if you don't like one class (seems that you don't like the oracle) you just ban the class for your games, you don't let a player make a character with that class and then make him miserable for playing this class.


Terquem wrote:

when anyone says, "there really isn't much of a benefit from his curse"

I would like to point out that the benefit is that he gets to be an Oracle

Why pray tell would that be a benefit? He could have skipped the curse, been a cleric, and been all around better for it. Your statement confuses the heck out of me. There is little reason to play an oracle except for flavor.

Silver Crusade

Terquem wrote:

Okay that makes sense, from a "I can only play the game based on the denotata of the words used to describe the rules" perspective.

You may as well say the character has a "tricycle." in the same way that a duck is like a tricycle, they both have handlebars, except for the duck.

I think someone else already explained this, but-- the curse has already had as much of an effect as it should have on the Oracle and the party, by forcing several other characters to learn Celestial, so that they could still communicate with the Oracle, and in limiting the Oracle's ability to use language-dependent spells on other people.

That's a little inconvenient, not hugely inconvenient. You would have to be pretty stupid to not take steps to minimize the curse's effect on your ability to be effective (play to your strengths, compensate for your weaknesses), and one would have to be a pretty obnoxious games-master to insist on nerfing a character for smart play. It does give the character as much difficulty as it's intended to. The character (in game) understands what his curse is and what that entails-- it's not meta-gaming for the character to try to find ways to compensate for his issues.


Frustrated wrote:
Spiral_Ninja wrote:

What curse did the Oracle take? Is he/she playing it?

Tongues: Celestial. The Wizard and Half-Elf also speaks Celestial so its a moot point.

This tells me right here that your Gnome player might possibly be a power gamer. Things are only going to get worse from here on out; if your players are going to Power Game, the only way you are going to challenge them is to power game right back in the ways other people have suggested. I personally use the Silence Pebble trick quite frequently on all of my PCs; it's definitely a good one.

Quote:
A) It is not OK having them dominating (hence this thread), they will b$~+! like this any time one player is noticeable more important to the party than others. Two of the player and to a lesser extent a third b!+#@ like this any time they feel less important than other party members.

This tells me that your group is suffering just as much from an inferiority complex as it is from game mechanics. You need to tell your players to grow some thicker skin; not every PC can be super important all of the time. It's not possible. If you're not coming up with situations as a GM to make every player shine, then it is a cause for legitemate concern, but if the players are taking turns complaining about each other's successes, then you don't have a very good group of players. Remind them that D&D is a team sport, and that b&@&#ing about the abilities of your comrades is counterproductive.

Quote:
B) The Rogue is the vanilla type and has high AC and has good perception. I've let him find some poisons to boost his power already. He uses a short sword and short bow. He has Boots and Cloak of Elvenkind so his sneak is very high. Trapfinding wise he's not as good as he could be.

Poisons are not a very good boost of power. They're fun and flavorful, but they're easily mitigated and far more dangerous to humanoid creatures than the encounters you actually worry about (big monsters). It doesn't sound like your Rogue is very well specialized, which seems to be his problem compared to his companions. Suggest that he settle down with a particular fighting style and take the archetypes to excel in it. He has to realize that generalizing naturally comes with a lower degree of power.

Quote:
The Ranger is a Guide and is actually surprisingly useful out of combat despite his b$$&$ing. He has a high perception, buff the group by sharing his favoured terrain bonus for Plains with them. He has the highest perception, OK stealth and is a good tracker. Several adventures have hinged on his tracking but he forgets this when its time to b**&#.

As you pointed out, the Ranger is not an amazingly strong combatant unless he goes archery. You never mentioned his combat style in your post; if he didn't go archery, suggest it. If he did go archery, he did not select the right feats. It is very easy to pound out a ridiculous number of attacks as an archer.

As a note, it is neigh impossible to make a PC feel useful through tracking. This is because the PCs feel (and usually rightfully so) that they cannot fail at tracking; even if they roll poorly, the PCs know that their GM wants them to get to the story and that they'll find the adventure, even on poor rolls. This actually can make Tracking a very poor investment in terms of characters feeling like they need it. The best way to make Tracking useful is to use it to find secret passages and other goodies; not to simply use it to get from Point A to Point B.

Quote:
The Cavalier is just an outdoor combat monster. Great Ride skill for mounted combat goodness, Lance and heavy shield on barded horse back and he has the best magic weapon in the party a +1 Shocking Flail and it along with Improved trip when on foot.

As I mentioned early, it sounds like the Cavalier, the Oracle, and the Wizard have clearly chosen roles for their character. Cavalier is going with Trip combat with a dabble in mounted combat, Oracle somehow appears to be focusing on illusion spells, and the Wizard is focusing on raising and holding a necromantic army. Since your ranger and rogue are less defined and by their very nature are skill-focused classes, they feel left out. So here's what you need to do:

A) Plan encounters where the ranger and rogue's skills provide unneeded benefits. For example, you don't want the progress of the story to hinge on a skill check, like I mentioned earlier. Rather, give them bonuses for good rolls that make the party appreciate them. Finding ways to sneak around or ambush monsters, extra loot, etc. are all good ways to accomplish this.

B) Fight Magic with Magic. You need to start using more magic-users. Do not let your necromancer simply keep his horde; take it from him with commanding magic, turn it with Turn / Rebuke Undead, or destroy it with massive AoE damage. Give your enemies methods of countering the Oracle's illusions as well. Utilize silences, creatures that aren't affected by their powers, etc.

While it is true that the game is no fun if you negate your player's abilities all the time, it is also true that the game is no fun if you never provide a challenge.


The Thread asks the question "How do I prevent these two players from dominating the group without arbitrary gimping them?" (and I suppose it should be Arbitrarily - if I understand correctly

I suppose, and I conceede, that most of you are right. I was only trying to suggest gimping one of the characters in a way that would, at least, not be arbitrary, but be partially based upon an existing bit of "fluff" that can be exploited to make things a little harder on that character. It was only a suggestion.

I once had a player, my son Wes who really doesn't like D&D all that much, play an Oracle and he chose the "Deaf" curse. He role-played the hell out of that, and I have always remember that. I guess I am basing my ideas about what a curse is and how it is played on my own prejudices and his over the top role-playing. Sorry for the confusion

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