My campaign has not started yet but it looks as if one character will be absurdly more powerful than the others.
So against my better judgment I have allowed a player to create a Half-Dragon and Half-Fiend character for a campaign I am running. The character will be immune to fire, poison, sleep and have devil resists, as well as wings, telepathy, breath weapon 3/day and all the nastiness of being a rogue (sneak attack, large skill list). He has min-maxed his dexterity and intelligence and I fear that he will be too overpowered. Unfortunately I have agreed to the concept of his character and since its a close friend I dont want to irritate him by going back on my word.
What can I realistically do to curb his power besides a permanent level adjustment?
Monsters as PCs (or why half-dragon/half-fiends suck)
First off, his effective character level is ungodly, and I mean that in a bad way for him. The half-dragon alone makes his minimum CR 3, which means he is treated as a 3rd level PC. Then you add a +1 CR for half-fiend of 4 HD or less (and the CR will increase to +2 when he finally hits 5HD, and higher still later on).
So even if you allow him to begin with this character at 1st level, he's going to need to amass a truly huge amount of experience points just to reach 2nd level. I really hope he enjoys being a 1st level rogue with 1 HD for a long, long time.
I'd like to see his statistics, but honestly it looks like he could be taken apart in a jiffy by some 1st level warriors to me. Toss a net on him (ranged touch attack vs entangled, which drops AC by 4) and then beat him to death with some reach weapons. Your basic orc wielding a glaive deals 2d8+6 points of damage after a potion of enlarge person (50 gp). Personally, I think it would be a minor miracle if he ever lives to see 2nd level, if the NPCs are fighting like they want to live. Even DR isn't an issue. Oils of magic weapon are 50 gp, and most of my NPCs carry around one or two for dealing with troubles that need enhanced weapons (such as certain types of monsters or mages with protection from arrows).
Since his spell resistance is HD + 11, it's going to be 12 for a long time. That's a 50% chance to ignore it by merely being a 1st level caster. Magic missile looks like something that will pretty much own his face most of the time. Magic missile wands are pretty cheap, based on caster level.
Unless he's got a really awesome disguise, he's basically got a huge sign over his head saying "kill me ASAP", what with him being a fiendish scaled dragon-monster thingy with big bulging Arrrrrrnold muscles and such. Unfortunately, he's still stuck with his 1 HD body, which means even with a really great Con, he's probably got less than 20 HP.
It appears to me that he's still a rogue, and thus his Will save probably kinda sucks. Bestow curse is only a 3rd level cleric spell. A permanent 50% chance to lose his action every round, a permanent -6 to his favorite ability score, or a permanent -4 to all checks can really water him down quickly. Especially if said caster gets off more than one on him (you can be multi-cursed afterall).
Sneak attack is the least of your worries. He cannot use it anytime his foe possesses cover or concealment. Dropping a smoke-stick or casting obscuring mist means his sneak attack is gone. Unless he has low-light vision, dim light means no sneak attack. Magical darkness means no sneak attack. There's a mountainous list of things that mean no sneak attack. But sneak attack doesn't matter, because it'll be +1d6 until he hits somewhere around 7th level worth of XP.
Which template was applied first? He's either a Dragon, or he's an Outsider. Outsiders are subject to a lot of quirky weaknesses, including the ability to get summoned and controlled via lesser planar binding, which basically means he gets to be someone's b@@*&-minion. Also spells like magic circle can prevent him from approaching people unless his spell resistance wins, but since his HD is really low for his effective character level, his SR kinda sucks.
Whether evil outsider or dragon, both are broad creature types, and thus bane weapons are all the rage for both. Since dragons are surprisingly common, including pseudo-dragons, half-dragons, wyverns, linnorms, true dragons, and various other dragon-typed monsters, it is a popular favored enemy and bane weapon type among rangers and adventurers. Evil outsiders are even more popular, as that includes every demon, devil, daemon, kytons, half-fiends, and the like; so again, favored enemy (evil outsider) or evil outsider bane arrows are all the rage.
Again, due to his weaksauce hit dice, he's stupidly vulnerable to effects of things like energy drain. Wights will literally 1-shot him at a level where parties are expected to face them. Vampires will eat him for breakfast. Enervation deals 1d4 negative levels with no save, which means it will threaten to kill him when he's around 8th level in XP value; and so forth.
I don't advocate going out of your way to kill him. Just noting that in my games, it would be a minor miracle if he ever made it to 2nd level, and a bigger miracle if he ever made it to 5th...
You should give him some SLA's. Wish sounds good in that case.
Half-devil, the character is NE and will quickly come to the conclusion that if he is to survive he must cooperate with the Paladin. Same idea for the the Paladin, LE has to work with Evil sometimes in order to destroy a much greater evil.
I sincerely hope both players are agreed on this.
The group I am running seems a bit bored with "by the book" so I have attempted to create an off-the-wall campaign with custom traps, souped up undead and letting people generally play what they want.
I appreciate that players must play the characters that they want, but you NEED to impose limits. Otherwise the guy that declares "I want to be infinitely powerful" wins the game.
I told the Paladin he can be Lawful Neutral if he still upholds the Paladin code, he seems to be toying with the idea of playing an OCD perfectionist Paladin that simply regards evil as unsightly and a threat to his personal need for order and control.
When you break the rules, you break 'em good and hard, don't you?
Having a group of hippie NG humans going around to save the world gets a bit stale after awhile in my opinion.
I have always found that playing heroic - truly heroic, as opposed to a bunch of thugs claiming to be heroes - characters is a much bigger challenge than evil ones. Evil characters - just do whatever the hell you like. Good characters have to try.
In any case, I am only concerned that I will have to resort to cheese of my own to properly challenge this party. Is there a way to avoid that?
Dude, you just handed the party the cheese board off the cheese platter in the biggest cheese restaurant in Cheeseville. It's way to late to try and avoid the cheese.
Looking at the char sheet now.. 106 life and 36AC, 32 CMD (8 wisdom, 4 from dex, 4 from bracers armor, 2 amulet natural armor, 4 dragon natural armor, 2 from ring protection +2, 2 from Monk AC bonus with monk robe..) at level 6, 15 will save, 10 fort, 11 reflex, attacks 4 times for 1d8+18 damage. Add 2d6 +2 vs undead. +18 to hit, +20 vs undead. Fly 50 ft since monk fast movement and 110...
So basically you let him have a machine gun that can detect anything, anywhere, and let him mount it on an Abrahms tank which doubles as a helicopter gunship. Short of shipwrecking the characters on the islands with all their gear washed away or eaten by disenchanters, your only option I can see is playing for the laughs at this stage or scrapping the game and starting afresh.
Do you even read what EVERYONE is trying to tell you in this thread?
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You pretty much broke the rules to let this character exist. No, by the rules (if you include 'level appropriate' CR ratings ) there is no way to even touch this character.
As for the interesting roleplay: The paladins player decided on a world view that pretty much dissolves all conflict potential he would have with the group and makes everything on the island you described so far walking targets, the monk has his interests set on pretty much destroying his enemies that are abundant on the island. Yep, I see much interesting roleplaying here...
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Sorry if the last post sounded snarky - the game is yours and if you have fun with the party described, all is well. However, since you were asking for advice, that is the sitauation in a nutshell:
1) If you don't bent (I don't take rule 0 into consideration here)the rules further (you did bend them for character creation), you will not be able to challenge a character like that. You will have to look for appropriate enemies by AC, Hitpoints, Damage outpu and BAB, possibly by special attacks/spell like abilities, disregarding their supposed CR.
2) Everything you described about the PCs motivations and backgrounds points to a hack and slash game. They seem to avoid reasons for in-group conflict (I don't mean violent conflict here) and since the scenario you described does seem to focus on combat and exploration, don't expect much RP to happen.
Bracers of Armor +4, Cloak of Resistance, Amulet of Natural Armor, Ring of Protection and Monk's Robe + undead bane bow...
Level 6...
3 levels lower than the rest of the party and with less gold
57,000+ gold pieces worth of treasure (+13,000 more than level 9's suggested guideline). I really don't even want to know what everyone else has.
His stats are pretty much on-par for a level 10~ or so character, so I'm not sure you subtracting 3 levels has really changed much.
The Paladin thinks it will be interesting to roleplay. The island, of course, won't let them kill each other. So the Paladin will be forced to cooperate in order to destroy a far greater evil and prevent global destruction, a fair trade for even the most LG of douchebag Paladins.
I can't see much RP here, but I have been wrong before.
The (now Lawful Evil) Monk will decide that the demons and CE undead here are probably his natural enemies and must be vanquished.
...after which?
There has to be some way of dealing with Zen Archer monks, right?
There are many. Unfortunately your player has all those basses covered:
Cover - see in darkness.
Swift moving attackers - he can fly.
Closing immediately to melee - he can fly, and if they can fly, he has great AC.
Counter-fire - he has an untouchable AC.
Unless the island happens to be the butt of the sleeping tarrasque, I'd say you got problems.
Wind wall can shut down his offense. It makes all arrows miss. Concealment will also help. He can see through darkness, but he can't see through smoke and the like.
Then you just need to immobilize him. He'll lose all of his AC from dexterity, wisdom, and his monk bonus to AC.
Anything that gets him to medium or higher encumbrance will neutralize a lot of his monk bonuses as well. I don't think a creatures can fly with more than a light encumbrance either.
Creatures with touch attacks will be able to bypass his natural armor at least. Creatures that deal stat damage on successful touch attacks will probably help.
Ray of exhaustion should work fairly well.
Also, he only gets the monk speed bonus to his land speed. Don't let him try to take it on his fly speed.
tell him he can play it but he only has one arm and one leg. Or he's a hermaphroditic eunuch.
Undead Island?
Put him in a small smoke/fog/mist filled room (with a high ceiling), then have a dread wraith or two pop out of the walls.
Dread Wraiths have spring attack and 10 foot reach, to go along with lifesense (which means the smoke/fog doesn't bother them). This means that the dragondemonguy is pretty much going to be flatfooted (and even when he is not, the dread wraith has a good chance to hit him). Also, Fort is his lowest save, so he'll rapidly start losing Con.
When he flies up higher to try and get away, he'll actually just be isolating himself from the rest of the group (and possibly provoking an AoO or two), which will make it easier to focus on him for the dread wraith(s).
Without ghost touch, it'll take him a long time to kill the dread wraith.
Anyhow, that's basically how I'd do it. If you feel the party needs to be distracted, put a lower level wizard in the room. Have him cast ground-based crowd control spells like Black Tentacles or whatever. That'll isolate the dragondemonguy even better, then you can have the dread wraith waiting inside a wall or something.
Edit: Also, incorporeal undead with class levels (Shadows, for example) can be fantastically fun (for the DM).
My campaign has not started yet but it looks as if one character will be absurdly more powerful than the others.
So against my better judgment I have allowed a player to create a Half-Dragon and Half-Fiend character for a campaign I am running. The character will be immune to fire, poison, sleep and have devil resists, as well as wings, telepathy, breath weapon 3/day and all the nastiness of being a rogue (sneak attack, large skill list). He has min-maxed his dexterity and intelligence and I fear that he will be too overpowered. Unfortunately I have agreed to the concept of his character and since its a close friend I dont want to irritate him by going back on my word.
What can I realistically do to curb his power besides a permanent level adjustment?
Let everyone else play half dragon half fiends, then jack the CR up. Make a campaign out of it.
Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
i.e. the whole thing is a fustercluck. start over from scratch, require core races or at worst CR 1/2 races, and stick to wealth by level.
Why should the other players play but to add to this character's glory?
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Every character has a weakness - be it touch, ranged attacks, spells, combat manuevers, disarm/sunder, explosive for a few fights then useless the rest of the day....find where the holes are in his build and exploit them.
If that fails, get a really creative dungeon/traps that challenge the actual players to think outside the realm of their abilities and dice and attack their minds!