So one of my players plays a samurai and I let him tweak the class because the available one didn't fit the flavor he wanted. I'm thinking he might be too powerful now. He and the other PC I'll mention are only level 3 and I'd like to nip it in the bud if possible.
In the last encounter, the samurai was forced to get on a boat filled with enemies with the other PC, a bard, among them. I figured he'd go in, making an honorable display of courage and then be quickly captured. It wasn't that smooth. Despite there being 2 rangers, a rogue, a barbarian/bard, most of them levels 3 or 4, AND the other PC (who was admittedly being very cautious not to kill him) it took 10 rounds to subdue him. This didn't seem right to me. I even fudged the numbers a bit because people were getting bored with it. He mostly fought defensively, trying for non-lethal damage, and everyone was fatigued but him because he used resolve.
Maybe it just seemed longer because there were so many people on the battlefield, but he's pretty cocky and confident he could have killed at least half of them if he had tried.
I'd need to see the character sheet, see what "flavour changes" he made, and I'd need more info on the battle itself.
He could have very well just outplayed the encounter.
|
Also keep in mind that capturing PCs is just very tricky. Many players will just continue fighting as long as they can, the whole idea of surrender isn't well-established.
In your campaign so far, has capturing defeated enemies and surrendering enemies happened? Were prisoners treated well? Players tend to expect the worst, so a "fight to the death" attitude is common because the player thinks that if he gets captured, he might as well be dead anyway.
Maybe this isn't about stats but about player expectations?
And understand that some of the new core classes are not balanced with the classic core classes. Primarily the core classes in the APG and the UC.
If you have a min/maxer they can easily make it a nightmare to a dm and to other party members. Examples include the Synthesist Summoner, the Witch with the sleep hex that can take out just about any enemy, and the Ninja which other than trap finding is in all ways better than a rogue.
I am a rules lawyer and I never allow players to alter classes since there is an existing imbalance anyway in the classes and any "tweaking" can make it worse if you arent careful.
Its about having fun and if one character is dominating combat and the other players feel like his lackey then that is where I put my foot down.
The one time I broke my rule not to allow non-standard races I regretted it. I have one friend who made a half-ogre fighter/barbarian (we balanced it by giving the other o level mod characters extra feats and free stat bonuses) who was large, had reach and used a large greatsword with great cleave and combat reflexes would literally kill everything before it even came into melee combat with the group. No one had fun and when he finally died to a Succubus I dont think anyone felt bad. With the new advanced race guide it was obvious how unbalanced he was and we now limit races like that.
I will give you one bit of advice as a DM...dont try and force situations on players. You have to be flexible and when you try and force a situation on a player it rarely comes out the way you want it. Either you have to fudge rolls which I think is the worst thing you can do (you might as well just tell them what happens)or you get lucky and it works. But its very rare that the later happens so you need to have a contingency in case your railroading doesnt work. If I knew a DM fudged rolls to get us to do what he wanted I would stop playing with him or her.
Everything you have described is something every samurai would be able to do, so if you think it's because of his tweaks you have to describe them and how they impacted the encounter. Otherwise it's impossible to tell if the character is overpowered or if you got tuckered.
I find it strange that one could think that a class that is supposed to be the ideal of martial prowess is "unbalanced" for the reason of being hard for NPC mooks to take down in combat.
Fighting defensively, no doubt put his AC into hard to reach territory add the -2 to hit for fatigued I'm not surprised it took 10 rounds.
was the group using good tactics ? flanking and other abilities to reduce his AC ?
but yeah we need a stat block or all this is just guess work
As others have said we need the tweeks, also why was another PC against him and yes being 6 characters on the battlefield and only two of them being PC can become quite boresome for the other players (especially at lower levels)
|
It's possible he's overpowered. It's possible the NPCs were underpowered. It's possible the dice were just not in favor of his being taken down.
Or maybe none of the above, as, from the description, circumstances certainly played a part. Frankly, wwhether he's overly powerful or not is something we can't know from a single incident. Post his stats, and then we can probably tell you.
Remember: 10 rounds = 1 minutes, doesn't seem too extreme for a honor bound Saumurai when the mobs are not trying to kill him.
Some thoughts:
Need PC captured tell them before hand, and just have them captured so they don't whine. Some players don't have an issue with this.
Have one or more of the lesser PCs captured and threatened by his/her captor to bring the rest of the PCs under control.
Nets are a really good option.
Have the captors attack when PC's are asleep, in a comfort zone, Cop do this to great effect all the time.
I agree w/ the majority here. We need to see what his character sheet looks like and we don't know enough information about the battle to make a decision based on your first post.