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I was musing about ways around some of the weirder builds seen here on the boards, and thought I'd commune with y'alls collective knowledge on system mechanics. Your thoughts and advice (or additional broad types) would be much appreciated. Using it as a sort of go-to for DM's to have ways of challenging their players' twinked out characters (but with some self-restraint, not completely neutralizing them--all things in moderation).
ultra-high AC build #452,007
Problems: really high AC makes early encounters an issue (not so much the later levels when spells and spell-likes are the name of the game)
Solution: hit their saves (particularly ref and will), touch AC, combat maneuvers (being tripped might put a bee in their bonnet, perhaps), rough terrain helps stop charging shenanigans.
superstitious powers invulnerable rager barbarian:
Problems: decent-to-great AC, DR/-, and that pesky superstition bonus makes for a tough nut to crack.
Solution: same idea as above I'd think, and if you MUST use magic for whatever reason, there's no-save spells and spells that don't directly affect them, like pits and walls (or illusions of walls--if they can't see you they can't charge you, and AFAIK must interact with the wall to disbelieve it).
enchanter/witch:
Problems: can end fights before they begin with scary mind-affecting abilities
Solution: mindless stuff (undead, oozes, vermin, etc.). do note that the player can get around vermin and undead with feats and traits, IIRC.
NOTE: when using these, I'd advise having a "controller" enemy (a crazy cat lady, ooze-farming wizard, necromancer, etc.) so the player doesn't feel completely useless.
Properly Built Monk
Problems: good AC and touch AC, saves, usually CMD, and surprisingly mobile.
Solution: not too sure actually. advice?
Paladin McSmiteypants (particularly oath of vengeance):
Problems: smite makes for some crazy damage, paired with their good AC and saves.
Solution: touch AC, no-save spells, non-evil targets, golems, targets with leverage (hostages, for example).
NOTE: DO NOT make the player fall if you present them with a hostage situation (or similar) and they can't (or were unable to) save them in time, that's a dick move.
Guns and all their wielders:
Problems: hitting touch AC ain't nothing to laugh at, especially with classes that can pile on the damage.
Solution: not too sure actually. advice?
all around no-save spells, flying enemies, swarms, incorporeals, and oozes can ruin people's day.
another thing you could do is simply ask your players to tone it down a bit if they're vastly outpacing the rest of the group.
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Please give more suggestions or corrections or your own methods of dealing with things, if it pleases you.
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Something that will work on most of these: hordes of enemies just powerful enough to pose a minor threat to the PCs.
Super-AC: they can't hit him, but they can just block his way.
Barbarian: he can kill one of them every hit, but there's lots more.
Monk: if he can pull off the mobility, he can actually handle this.
Paladin: smite is limited usage. You can probably kill them using regular hits, but it'll slow you down on the way to the BBEG.
Guns: kill 5 per round, but the horde as a whole keeps closing in, and will eventually mob you.
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The basic horde strategy is: for every 20 monsters, you get an average of one hit+crit threat per round.
The obvious counter to the horde of course is spellcasters; for teleportation or mass killing so that the martials have a free path to the BBEG.
High AC - True Strike, especially when used by a wight or vampire (perhaps with magus or sorcerer levels?)
Superstitious Barbarian - Remember that this barbarian is nearly immune to buffs and healing too
Witch - Hit them in the AC. It probably isn't very high, and most of them don't have Mirror Images
Monk - Monks can often have trouble beating DR of various sorts.
Paladin "McSmiteypants" - It is tempting to bore your Paladin with hordes of neutral monsters, but Succubus Anti-Paladins provide a more interesting counter
Guns - I haven't run into guns in my games yet, sorry
so what builds have you all had trouble with in the past, and how did you deal with them?
another addition to the list:
ultra-DPR dervish dance magus
Problems: lots and lots of damage, as well as utility via other spells and various arcanas. makes a surprisingly adept party scout.
Solution: lots of mooks to burn through his prepped spells should get him into the habit of using his nova more decisively. doing more than one encounter per day helps this, as does having groups of enemies scattered through the dungeon they're crawling. blindness/deafness are pretty neato, as are the usual anti-melee suspects (until he casts fly). if you really wanna get on his nerves (not that you should), things that are resistant/immune to electricity and cold will shut down some of his more popular spellstrike options.
NOTE: combine with some anti-enchanter/witch solutions for hexcrafters
I found that underwater combat throws a serious wrench in just about everyone's build, but guns more-so. They can't fire underwater without Dry Load ammunition or an Air Bubble, and they get a -2 every 5 feet that the bullet needs to travel.
ultra-high AC build #452,007
Optimized AC characters are very often offensive non-threats, so ignore them and kill their allies. There's no "aggro" mechanic, so their only hope to actually get attacked is to be too dangerous to ignore.
superstitious powers invulnerable rager barbarian
Stuff that causes fatigue. Stuff that denies morale bonuses. Flight. Ranged attackers that are hard to get to.
enchanter/witch:
Enemies with a good Will save. Never use a single big boss type vulnerable to their CC--try to make sure there are always multiple bosses. Elves are immune to the sleep Hex.
Properly Built Monk
A what? These exist? Do you mean a character with 3187561 point buy so they have 18s in Str, Dex, Wis, and Con? Or do you just mean a high AC character like the first example, except the AC is also touch?
Because if that's the case, the answer is IGNORE THEM. Monks are the easiest characters in the game to just completely ignore and walk around.
Paladin McSmiteypants
Include neutral enemies--constructs are especially annoying. Include multiple "fake boss" fights, where they think they are facing the real BBEG, but it's just an evil lieutenant--so that they blow their smites (unless they're Oath of Vengeance).
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Fake boss fights are particularly nasty, yeah. We had one of those in RotRL (though I'm not sure if the GM invented it himself;
RotRL, level 3
We entered a tomb of some kind in the Paupers' Graves area. Fought some ghouls, then fought a ghoul boss. We were wondering whether the paladin should smite; decided not to because we could handle the ghoul.
Before dying, the ghoul boss tossed a flask against the wall, breaking open an ancient Shoanti tomb. Out came a skeletal champion and an ogre skeleton. Smite, y/n?
We killed those, but then came a mummy with an earthbreaker, from the sarcophagus. SMITE!
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We successfully guessed which one was the boss fight, although it was a close call; my wizard had to tank the mummy for a few rounds when the paladin went down, the monk was down, and the druid paralyzed with despair. In the end the mummy took about 60% smite and 40% sustained barrage of acid splash (me, wizard) and jolt (sorcerer). Lemme tell you, as a wizard, a mummy with an earthbreaker is REALLY scary.
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Early levels? Weather. Specifically snowstorms and blizzards are scary in the early levels. Makes it hard to see for ranged characters, no charging for melee characters because of difficult terrain, and casters have to make concentration checks to cast anything inside (5 + Spell Level for snowstorms; 10 + Spell Level for blizzards). What's worse is that the visibility penalties from the precipitation and wind stack, so ranged characters and anyone based on line of sight is fairly... screwed. Especially in a blizzard. God help anyone having to fight people in a snowstorm, especially if the creature can see through the snow.
Definitely worth a +1 CR, if not a +2. Also fog is good for when you want to restrict visibility but people have darkvision.
I'd like to add one:
Guns — Anything incorporeal. Incorporeal creatures often have huge touch ACs and its 50% less damage from magical weapons, 100% less damage if the gunslinger has no magic weapons.
Ghosts, Shadows, and the Colour Out of Space are all incredibly nasty monsters for a Gunslinger to fight.
One solution is to give monsters the same build as one of the more powerful player characters. Just use a copy of the player's character sheet for the stats of your monster--no need to adjust anything. Cosmetically, describe it as an appropriate monster for the scenario. If there are 5 player characters, have them face 5 of these monsters. Now, if you are feeling lenient, you can make them slightly less powerful--say by removing the bonuses from magic items they don't actually have.
Against guns hit them with fog cloud. This actually works against any ranged build. Just like irl, if you can't see the enemy you are just firing blindly. If nothing else it forces them to waste actions moving to where they can see, that's when you hit them with another fog. Send in waves of blind sense melee guys and your ranged party is going to be hurting.
Also against ranged weapons proper use of cover and the prone position can go a long way towards nerfing range characters. Its a free action to fall prone IIRC... Move, stand up, std fire at PCs, free fall down.
Properly Built MonkA what? These exist? Do you mean a character with 3187561 point buy so they have 18s in Str, Dex, Wis, and Con? Or do you just mean a high AC character like the first example, except the AC is also touch?
Because if that's the case, the answer is IGNORE THEM. Monks are the easiest characters in the game to just completely ignore and walk around.
or someone who ISN'T retarded and plays a zen archer and only has to worry about dex/wiz and 14 con, or a MoMS/quinggong monk who goes str/con with 14-16 dex and wears armor (gasp!) with style feats like panther, dragon, snake, crane, or janni styles and ki powers to cover for utility.
seriously, the problem with monks is that people seem to think they can do everything at once. just pick something and stick to it.
or someone who ISN'T retarded and plays a zen archer and only has to worry about dex/wiz and 14 con
I would say a better Zen Archer would probably do Wis/Str, since they ignore pre-reqs on archery feats. That said, a zen archer is barely a monk--they are awesome, I'd just probably have considered them a separate category other than "properly built monk."
, or a MoMS/quinggong monk who goes str/con with 14-16 dex and wears armor (gasp!) with style feats like panther, dragon, snake, crane, or janni styles and ki powers to cover for utility.
I actually don't think this would be especially useful. Maneuvers are seriously limited. Dirty Trick is good, if you're creative. Grappling is somewhat effective. Sunder is good for Spell Sunder. That's kind of it.
seriously, the problem with monks is that people seem to think they can do everything at once. just pick something and stick to it.
I think the problem is that monks have contradictory or unhelpful abilities (extreme mobility/flurry of blows; lots of attacks/no damage bonus; no equipment needed/equipment is better anyway; etc.).
Anyway, for your specific styles, Panther, Snake, and Crane are solidly in the "ignore me!" category (not that they're not good, just that focusing on all of them together trades away all your offense). Dragon is pretty awesome. I didn't even know what Janni did before your comment made me look it up, and, yeah, kind of worthless.
Monk is good for dipping (especially Maneuver Master or Monk of Many Styles). Zen Archer is awesome because archery is ridiculous in Pathfinder. I am fond of Sensei/Monk of the Lotus for support. Otherwise, monks are still pretty weak.
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Guns that misfire are incredibly punishing on a gunslinger with bad luck, so disallow PCs adding the "reliable" condition onto a gun. Great way to help balance a gunslinger.
Don't do that if they're using the Mysterious Stranger archetype though, which doesn't allow the Quick Clear ability.
Keep in mind they can use regular weapons almost like a fighter as well though, though they're not built for using them in comparison to a fighter.
Guns that misfire are incredibly punishing on a gunslinger with bad luck, so disallow PCs adding the "reliable" condition onto a gun. Great way to help balance a gunslinger.
Taking it out on the player with nerfs isn't the best way to balance things out. It alienates players and can leave hurt feelings.
Create an environment. Once you get away from the featureless plain that extends in every direction, you create options.
Make characters climb, jump, swim, etc. Have shifting floors and slippery ship decks.
Have them fight in a corn field where they can only see in one direction
Or a burning building filled with smoke, and DC12 fort checks.
Create an environment. Once you get away from the featureless plain that extends in every direction, you create options.
Make characters climb, jump, swim, etc. Have shifting floors and slippery ship decks.
Have them fight in a corn field where they can only see in one direction
Or a burning building filled with smoke, and DC12 fort checks.
Good idea
Weather Also Helps as does terrain.
the problem with a lot of these allegedly overpowered characters is that they are paizo builds built around maximizing a specific aspect of combat against a lone foe in a featureless void where full attacks and charges are guaranteed, where offensive output is all that matters, and where stuff like flanking and closing the gap is easy. stuff that ignores such things as tactics, skill challenges, puzzles, and the simplest of terrain modifications.
most of Paizo's minmax builds have the following flaws
- they typically think a lone 2hander or composite longbow will win any fight with the help of power attack or deadly aim
- they typically ignore community based gold piece limits and buy the best weapon upgrade they can afford, despite the fact that such a weapon may either be uncommon, regionally inappropriate, or extremely rare.
- they often neglect the need to buy a spare
- they often neglect the fact they had to survive for 9 levels to get to 10th, and instead, deck themselves out as if they were born 10th. often using it as an excuse to play builds that wouldn't have lasted long past 3rd level.
- they often have 1 set of metal armor that makes it clearly obvious they are a warrior of some kind. usually made of mithril and often forget they often have to remove it to sleep. unless they buy an obscure 5,000 gold piece armor enchantment nobody uses.
- they neglect the prices of low level ammunition and consumables calling it pocket change. and they tend to load up on them. they don't realize the price of all those healing wands adds up.
- they assume they have unlimited time to prebuff. every round spent buffing before combat is a round the enemies also get to prebuff. or a round the enemy archers get a free potshot or few.
- they ignore and handwave limited resources, whether low level spells, rage rounds, power points, or wand charges
- they assume you can take 10 on everything and will always get average results.
- thier builds, aren't characterized, but tailored to a given level. usually somewhere between 10th-13th. said builds are often short lived because in 2-3 levels, they build a better badass more suited for the tier.
Guns and all their wielders:
Problems: hitting touch AC ain't nothing to laugh at, especially with classes that can pile on the damage.
Solution: not too sure actually. advice?
Okay, gun wielders fall into 2 categories: Gunslingers and Not-gunslingers.
Not-Gunslingers don't get to add Dex to damage. That means they're using the worst weapon in the game. Seriously! Anyone other than a gunslingers who decides to use a firearm is pathetic and should not even be considered a threat, they'd be better off with crossbows!
Gunslingers: Now, these guys have a nice punch. But then again, their will saves is not that good and their AC is decent but usually not absurd.
And you can always, you know... stay more than 30ft away from them. Now not only they have to target normal AC, they also take a -2 penalty to attack rolls.
I still don't understand why people think Gunslingers are OP.