Hey guys, so what is your advice for dealing with broken characters? Not many of us have been in a game where someone brings a Nova Magus who kills monsters in a single round that would take the rest of the party at least 3 rounds to kill, or a gunslinger whose damage is insanely high, or a Zen Archer who is likewise over-the-top.
My question is, what are your suggestions for dealing with these characters? Killing them outright it the most direct method, but what about beyond that? Have their items get stolen, and leave it to the rest of the party to help them get them back?
Your thoughts?
Before the game, you say "Yeah, that's way too powerful ... I can't allow this character as-is. You need to ratchet it back a few notches."
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Stop relying on "one big monster" encounters.
Stop relying on "one big monster" encounters.
Exactly.
Have many more encounters with smaller monsters in succession, rather than one big fight and then the PCs can rest up, to go nova again on the next thing they fight, over and over.
First, there are much stronger characters than those three you mentioned.
Second, Pathfinder is a deeply flawed game because it was built on 3rd edition (which was even more deeply flawed). You have to solve these issues with Social Contract. "Hey, don't be a douche," is your only option.
I think any class can be built in a way that trivializes encounters. Require well-rounded characters and reward them with interesting challenges that use everything on a character sheet. Either don't let characters that don't fit your table-style into your game or be as creative optimizing your encounters as the players are with their characters, whichever is going to be the most fun for everyone.
Any of the three build you mention are going to have challenges with multiple opponents, so use that. Give the party rivals who are as slick as they are and work to thwart their efforts. Use all of the rules of the game in a variety of environments, cover, concealment, skill checks, saves, terrain, multiple encounter days, encumbrance, wealth, etc. You don't have to be heavy-handed, just make sure everyone is having fun and getting a chance to shine
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Sounds like your monsters stand out in open fields awaiting to get full attacked.
Stop that. Vary terrain, cramp up areas, get up in those guys faces. Put them in situations where ammo can be scarce. Stop sending one big monster at them, split them up. Send lots of little ones at them. Toss lots of small time spellcasters at them to throw down ranged attack screwing spells like fog cloud.
In other words think smarter. Your encounters are getting killed instantly by your own lack of imagination in encounter design. Teach yourself to do better and it wil be extremely difficult for builds like that to give you a hard time.
I tend to send 4-16 monsters at the PCs at a given time. I am posting this more as something people who have this problem will find after searching for the appropriate key words.
Post your suggestions, so that they can see and learn when they seek it.
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I've seen the Nova Magus and the Zen Archer rip apart all kinds of encounters consistently, so I don't think it's that. The Zen Archer is more that they can afford to easily stay away from danger and also do some pretty awesome damage. Not Raging Power Attacking Barbarian awesome, but good.
The Nova Magus that can Shocking Grasp like 15/day at around 5th level Dervish Dance and crit focus is a bit different. It's less about always having one big monster as much as they can usually pretty easily take down that one big monster that was supposed to be at decent fight with ease. More monsters will help a little bit, but not that much. A few ranged combatants that they can not easily access will help, or tricking them into blowing through basically minions every once in a while might help them to change their pattern.
In the end, probably the best thing you can do is to simply tell them that you and the other players are not having much fun any more, and ask them to tone it down a bit, let everyone have some time to shine. you can also throw some random gimmick encounters at them from time to time, where it's a lot less abut damage as trying to accomplish something as quickly as possible. Some disarmers, grapplers, or trippers. Dispel Magic. Golems are always fun.
An adjunct question to the OP. If more monsters is a good plan, how do you adjust pre-written modules and adventure paths to accommodate that? They're always chock-full of "One big Monsters", especially the BBEG's.
An adjunct question to the OP. If more monsters is a good plan, how do you adjust pre-written modules and adventure paths to accommodate that? They're always chock-full of "One big Monsters", especially the BBEG's.
My experience with adventure paths (I'm in the middle of playing through Second Darkness and have not played others) is that they already come with many weak enemies. These enemies, however, tend to fight more fairly. At the higher levels of the AP the imbalance starts to become apparent.
Grappling monsters are the BEST low level monsters. An undead owlbear has a +13 to grapple and is a CR2.
How to add enemies:
Hidden doors are fantastic. Alarm spells that notify these many foes to where the intruders are and they all charged out at once.
The One Big Monsters can be taken out and replaced with a weaker version of the monster. If you don't want to lose any of the potency then you can apply the Young template to it many times to bring it down a few levels.
I tend to either completely rewrite One Single Big monsters or have blink of it and a haunt that casts illusions each round when the monster comes in to make things hard and complicated. Detect Magic will occupy someone's entire turn, and if the monster is phasing in and out with the illusions then the party has to be defensive.
It could also be that the One Big Monster was already defeated, and the PCs have to fight the people who defeated it, or who think the PCs came and killed their "master."
If the CRs match up then you should be fine. If the party has a character that relies on a single element to do insane amounts of damage then throw in monsters that are immune to that damage--not all of the monsters, mind you, just some of them.--
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It's hard to give good advice without knowing the specific situation, because these sorts of problems can be very different. The most general answer is be more creative with your game balancing, and make sure everyone is having fun.
Killing them outright or taking their stuff is not a good solution. Players invest a lot in their characters, especially the OP ones. Taking away their goodies isn't going to make the game more enjoyable. If you really think that the character can't be balanced any other way, talk to the player about it first. It's as much their game as it is yours.
Before you even start the game, ask your players about the characters they'd like to play. If you disapprove of something, talk to them about it and try to make a compromise. Give them the okay on the races, classes, feats, and gear they want to pick up, and let them know before hand if you disapprove of something or don't think it's good for the game.
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Use smart monsters. I had one encounter with Goblins and a goblin wizard. He had one of his archers pretend to be a caster leader and throw alchemist fire at the targets while he hid in with the melee group and from cover started nuking the party. They had all moved in to a perfect formation for his attacks while all trying to get to the obvious "caster"
Hey guys, so what is your advice for dealing with broken characters? Not many of us have been in a game where someone brings a Nova Magus who kills monsters in a single round that would take the rest of the party at least 3 rounds to kill, or a gunslinger whose damage is insanely high, or a Zen Archer who is likewise over-the-top.
My question is, what are your suggestions for dealing with these characters? Killing them outright it the most direct method, but what about beyond that? Have their items get stolen, and leave it to the rest of the party to help them get them back?
Your thoughts?
Teach the other players how to build viable PCs.
If the rest of your party needs 3 rounds to deal the damage a nova magus deals in one round then they are to weak. The magus is fine as is. Can't talk about the gunslinger or zen archer.
I do think that the game does a terrible job at controlling damage, in particular how it develops over the levels. The span of possible damage per round is just too wide between different builds. If an optimized character does 2-3 times the damage an unoptimized character of the same general type does, that just makes scaling almost impossible.
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I do think that the game does a terrible job at controlling damage, in particular how it develops over the levels. The span of possible damage per round is just too wide between different builds. If an optimized character does 2-3 times the damage an unoptimized character of the same general type does, that just makes scaling almost impossible.
This is part of the problem. The amount of damage that the character types the op mentioned can do is not unique, they are just some of the more obvious ones. A well build archery fighter can do the same thing, and do it more consistently. But its not as flashy, so really hardcore optimizers tend to shy away from basic options like that.
In the end its about knowing your party and how to challenge them. Have a nova magus who blows all his resources to take down one fight? Have 6 in a day, and remind him that he needs to conserve sometimes. Have a gunslinger blowing away monsters with low touch acs? Have him fight a few monks or other creatures with high touch acs, or just spread out the battlefield, and make him move to be able to get into short range situations with all the creatures in the fight.
Very few character concepts are truly broken, though some will be considerably more powerful then the 'norm' at alot of tables. In the end, the easiest route is just add more enemies. If you had an encounter planned with four monsters, make it 8. Its automatically a harder fight. Sure the CR is higher, but if your party is blowing through encounters you want it to be highter.
Also remember the game is build on a 15 point buy assumption. If you have more then that, chances are your characters are better then the game assumes. All of the above character types are mad (multi ability score dependent). With a 15 point buy they all suffer fairly significantly or have to leave some rather claring weaknesses. Enforce the game standard, or rachet up the difficulty, but dont allow characters stronger then the standard and then wonder why your group has an easy time of it.
I'm not sure there really is a solution for dealing with them. Recently in a PFS game we had a 10th level Zen Archer and an 11th level Gunslinger took out a Balor in two rounds. *After* several 'tough' encounters.
I'd put about 60% of the blame for that extreme example on the Clustered Shot feat, but it still stands.
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I'm not sure there really is a solution for dealing with them. Recently in a PFS game we had a 10th level Zen Archer and an 11th level Gunslinger took out a Balor in two rounds. *After* several 'tough' encounters.
I'd put about 60% of the blame for that extreme example on the Clustered Shot feat, but it still stands.
Not without context it doesn't.
Especially given the balor can slaughter them both in one standard action.
How in all that is good is the gunslinger broken? I take it you haven't been monitoring the guy much and read up much on the gunslinger class have you? Until to you get to higher levels, the gunslinger is only shooting every other turn. Or he is shooting and never moving (effectively acting as artillary). Additionally, he has a VERY hard time taking advantage of the multiple attacks that the Archer is easily doing. And have you been keeping track of his ammo and money expenditures for his ammo? Unlike an archer, his ammo is actually pretty expensive and hard to get. Just keep track of his ammo and force him to actually BUY ammunition. That will make him think twice alot about wasting his precious ammo on every little thing. Also, remember, with a gunslinger, the Touch AC attack only counts if he is within his first range increment, which for most pistols is 20 ft.
As for the Zen Archer monk. They are not remotely more powerful than a archery based fighter. They are good, they can do decent damage and can maintain that damage and can sit pretty far back. But that is where you punish him. If he feels like sitting 100 yards back from the party, have as a small group ambush him and make him have to fight the guys himself (unless the main group can spare people to go save him).
As for the magus, just throw simething that has electrical resistance or immunity at them. You will be suprised how much this catches new magus players off guard (their poor shocking grasp trick no worky worky anymore lol). It works pretty well lol.
Now if you want to look at retarded overpowered builds, just look at AM BARBARIAN and cringe in fear.
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I've seen the Nova Magus and the Zen Archer rip apart all kinds of encounters consistently, so I don't think it's that. The Zen Archer is more that they can afford to easily stay away from danger and also do some pretty awesome damage. Not Raging Power Attacking Barbarian awesome, but good.
It's all in the setup and encounter design. It's a big difference when you have one big enemy or one nicely concentrated group, and another when you're in chaotic surroundings and you can't pinpoint all your enemies so neatly because they're making use of terrain, cover, and movement.
In our games, the Zen Archer is the guy most likely to face plant, because while he's nuking one target to death, he himself is being focused fired upon by some of the opposition while others are keeping the rest of the party busy.
The other part can come from being too predictable. If there is a consistent style to your encounters, your players can easily optimize to counter it. Learn to mix it up more.
Yes, but are you going to do that every single encounter? That just becomes DM vs Players, and if it is the case where it's one OP player and the rest of the party is struggling, either to keep up or to have fun this makes it even worse. It also really depends on what the issue is. It's a little bit different if they are asking this from the perspective of a player (and/or DM) that is having issues with other players than it is if we assume they are a DM. It also makes a difference if they are playing PFS or AP's, where none of these tips apply. If it is just one or two players, and the rest of the party is struggling to either keep up or to have fun, then again, a lot of this doesn't help so much. It helps a little bit with the Magus, but not in the sense that it just basically restricts the DM from using the iconic BBEG ever again. And if it's an issue of escalation, well then it gets worse and worse.
Just curios, why is your Zen Archer not looking into the Deflect/Snatch Arrow feats and getting behind cover before nuking targets? That's a big reason that makes the Zen Archer so powerful, they can use Terrain, Cover, and Movement, and also destroy enemies without really putting themselves in harms way much.
I have almost never had a TPK.
My players probably feared a TPK on a regular basis but I haven't had one that wasn't done on purpose (a total of 2 at this point -- one plot related where the party was captured and one to demonstrate the point that simply walking into a dragon's lair to kill the thing is the choice of idiots or desperate people)
I will often throw out terrain advantages, multiple monsters, ambushes magical (or mechanical) traps in the middle of fights, and mix up the adventure with easier fights (those below CR) and fights that can be avoided by other means as well as things (generally hazards) that simply eat some resources.
And my players overcome it.
Never underestimate the power of your players to work together and find a way out.
Challenge them -- if they are topping what you are use to step up your game some.
BUT tell them what you are doing! You don't want them thinking you are in a game of trying to make them look bad. Simply say, "Look things seem too easy for you all so I'm going to step it up some on my end. I'm not looking at 'punishing' anyone or making your characters useless, but it don't want this to be a cakewalk either."
As a player hearing something like that has never hurt my feelings and I have found that it leads to better play for everyone.
First: I don't think the OP examples are 'broken'. They are on the high end of the power curve, but not broken. The only things I'm pretty sure I would call broken is some synthesis builds and most master summoners that I've seen or heard about.
Second: Some builds can wreck some campaigns. If the campaign fits the builds strengths and avoids it's weaknesses, it can really mess things up. But put that same build in another campaign and it won't do so great.
Ex1: Archer paladin in an almost entirely outdoor adventure with almost every creature encountered was undead or an evil outsider. Little way to realistically have more than a few encounters a day. And can smite against every serious opponent easily from range. But next module was in natural lava caves, mostly against animal/neutrals, and weren't supposed to just kill everything. Same archer had a rough time.
Third: I think the biggest problems (at least for me) broken or not, is when there is a great imbalance.
Ex2: Group has 3 experienced players that build pretty close to the DPS hero in some guide. And also have 1 new guy who tries to be a generalist wizard using only the CRB that he just bought and still learning the rules. It is very difficult to give him his opportunity to shine and feel useful.
Ex3: Similar but opposite. Group has 3 kinda 'relaxed' players who want to try odd or sub-optimal builds because they seem interesting. The you have 1 player who wants the uber killing machine. It is often hard to challenge the 1 so he doesn't get bored yet not insta-kill the other 3.
It doesn't always work out well, but I agree that you need to talk as a group. So the group decides we are all doing mondo kill squad (helping the new guy if necessary), we are all doing average danger weirdo builds, etc...
Sounds like your monsters stand out in open fields awaiting to get full attacked.
Stop that. Vary terrain, cramp up areas, get up in those guys faces
I did notice that 2 of the three kinds of characters you mentioned were ranged characters. Ranged combat is powerful in this system, and needs to be planned for. How much do you take advantage of cover and concealment? Sometimes adding some pillars or fallen carts could end up making a huge difference since it makes it harder for the characters to stand far away from combat without constantly moving (and thus sacrificing full attacks) in order to find a good angle.
Drink, young OP. Drink from the fountain of Knowledge and grow strong.
I like the guide. Except for the fact that there is no "hill" terrain. Hills fall under the terrain category for mountains. So there shouldn't really be a secondary terrain for it.
Drink, young OP. Drink from the fountain of Knowledge and grow strong.
Just read through the entire guide and was very impressed. I recommend it highly for the OP.
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Drink, young OP. Drink from the fountain of Knowledge and grow strong.
This guide is fantastic, thanks for linking!
It's a good guide. I don't know if he mentioned it, but in other terrains (especially thickly wooded ones like swamps and jungles), the range of perception to detect someone hiding is much shorter. That's great for ambushes and sniping, as they won't get a Perception roll until it's too late.