You have a cleric and a sorcerer in your party and the fighter gets all the attention? How's that? What exactly are the sorcerer and cleric doing? At 12th level full casters can already bend the universe to do their bidding.For exemple, imagine you are faced with 5 jackal-like constructs and 2 glabrezu (second one appear later with a wizard), and after the first round, the fighter is around 30 hp...what would you do as a cleric? if you don't heal the fighter, it's probably tpk!!! During the early rounds, the cleric has managed to cast a banishment, but the Glabrezu saved! so much for SoS spell!!!..Lucky for us, the glabrezu didn't arrived at the same time with all their power word stun!! The first round the sorcerer got stun and the bard had to remove it!!
If there is one fight in which the sorc gets stunned and the cleric has to heal after one failed spell is all it takes for the fighter to dominate the group, yea, that can happen.
But in the long run, if it keeps on happening then it is not the fighter's fault.This is not about bad-wrong-fun mind you. If people like to play supporters they are welcome. But if they like it they would not complain about being overshadowed by the one they are supporting/buffing because everything the buffed guy accomplishes is a group effort.
BTW: Your using of multiple !!!!!! after every sentence "sounds" rather agitated. What in my statement about clerics and sorcs having the potential of not being overshadowed by a mere mortal martial caused that?
I don't understand why a fighter can still be the centre of attention in combat all the time when you guys are in level 12. Fighter is the easiest to counter. Especially two handed fighter, just so many weak spots. I guess he is wearing full plate, which should have even more weak spots.
If GM send a high AC boss, the fighter shouldn't be the only one that can hurt it.
From what I'm seeing, Cleric is pretty much a heal bot, there are much better way to win then healings. Bard shouldn't be healing, it should support the team or play some deadly Dirge of Doom and cast some deadly level 4 spells.
Rogue don't just stand there and sneak attack straight away, throw net, start tripping and then sneak attack. Giving +2 is not all rogue can do, rogue is awesome if you play it well, you have to think fast, think smart and think far ahead. How I would play a rogue is that he will live no matter what, and he will success no matter how long it takes to set things up. Back in the day, I spend days setting traps in the city when my barbarian drank till he's drunk. I planned it so perfectly, the enemies(the DM) can't keep track with every single thing I did, one wrong move and he fall for it. Add weather, terrain and everything into your calculation, if it's windy, don't use smoke bomb. Use ink instead.
As for the sorcerer, what is the sorcerer doing? Where are those 10d6 damaging fireballs when you need them? Touch spells won't need much to hit even if the boss got high as. Say he got high dex, you can still do something else. Where are those summon spells that so cheap and dirty that can kill any things because he has 3 huge elementals after 3 rounds of summoning? 3 of Earth Elemental doing 2 slams +17 (2d8+9) with +1 to hit if both boss and them are on the ground. If done right, fighter would not even have the space to go in and reach the boss.
That's all I can think of to help your team. I could be wrong, he might be min/maxing so hard, or your GM throw way too much items at him at this level. I never use much magical items before level 10. So far my level 8 still haven't use any magical weapon or armor at all. So yeah, good luck.
Do you fell the figthers is taking center stage because he will fall without the casters to support? Is he constantly taking damage and does the cleric gear that spending a round on somthing other than healing the figther is risking TPK? High damage, semi low defense characters can force the party to figth every battle around them like that. If that is the case i suggest taking about it in the group possibly in game. And pehaps letting the figther go Down a few times for educational reasons.
But if he is just dishing out a zillion hit points damage and not "forcing" actions on the rest of the team then i think throwing a few more minions in to every battle will make every body feel useful.
One suggestion from me: Instead of healing him when he is down the cleric could cast shield other prior to the fight. Increases the AC and saves and makes him last longer without using up actions during combat. And if the stuff hits the fan he can channel to heal them both up at the same time.
I went back and read the OP's posts. This isn't a fighter issue at all but a cleric one.
The Player playing the Cleric is not finding the support cleric role a fun one.
He is of the mind that Cleric is truly a bad arse class but not if all you do is heal!
This is a issue with MANY clerics and one hard to get out of(is why so many people don't play clerics). Once a band-aid,always a band-aid kind of thing.
He can try this.
He needs to talk to everyone else and let them know he will change characters or stop healing during combat.This will probably not go over well as to most players hearing this, what he is saying is"You are going to die".
A party can win with only after fighting healing but only be using tactics wildly different from before.
That fighter who so obviously soaked up tons of damage will need to get out of the way and let mobs beat the crap out of the cleric,the bard and the sorcerer.Only by sharing the damage can this whole thing work.
The cleric will need to learn to dish out the damage like crazy to make up for the lack of healing and kill things fast.
Really it's all about killing everything FAST and fighting smart.Also healing magic needs to become a priority for cash spent by the players.
Also keep in mind you will not be as effective as before.There is a reason the tank,healer,damage dealer rolls formed in the first place.It works and well.
You might want to talk to the DM about creating a Feat the pc's can invest in that makes drinking a potion a free action and doesn't cause Attacks of Opportunity.
The Cleric really is a great class.It's very possible to be armored up like a tank,deal out pretty good damage as a melee and being a full caster on top of that.
Being shackled with healing 80% of the time just ruins all that(even if it does need to be done at times). Some people have trouble being support especially when they realize just how kick arse they could be otherwise.
I'm not bashing clerics who go full healer. I'm just saying I can see where the trouble with some clerics comes from.
I think for most groups what is needed is a mix of the cleric kicking arse and healing when things get rough.
It's just hard for them to ween the other group members off of having heal on demand.
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I can relate to the cleric (and sorcerer if he's raising these complaints as well) on this one. Whilst yes, if you're playing a support class, there's a limit to how much spotlight you can and should have. That said, no one likes to feel like their character is merely one of the struts in the pedestal that makes another character shiny.
So, I'd honestly mimic the voice of a lot of other here, but I say it again for emphasis: Raise your Fighter's defense as much as humanly possible. You've got a rather non-tanky class in the fighter (at least compared to Paladins, Monks in the saves department, Barbarians in hitpoints/DR at this point) but he's serving in this role. Not only that, but he's specifically an archetype of fighter that's not made to tank. At best, he's using Full Plate and a Buckler for his armaments, but that still leaves much to be desired at higher levels. This means he's going to take a ton of hits, not do a good job of soaking them, and then need the cleric/bard to come to the rescue with the healing to keep him on his feet.
It's counter intuitive to some degree, but the best way to take back the spotlight to some degree and unshackle the party from supporting the Fighter is to make him tougher, give him more defense. Invest in some Adamantine Full Plate, that's 3 DR, get his AC as high as possible with as many enchantments as possible, and of course don't ignore the cool spells everyone's already mentioned. Do this and you'll probably find that while he's still tanking for the party, he's less likely to drop after one round's worth of attacks just because that's the way it is. In this way, you can make support characters still support characters, but have a greater range of options than just heal spells on repeat.
I agree, this is really a cleric problem.
I saw some stats for the cleric, but not much of the build. I'd recommend sending the cleric's player here to get some help with his build. If he wouldn't be open to that, maybe we can still help by proposing other options.
For instance, has the cleric looked at either of these?
Being able to fire of a channel to heal just your group and still casting a spell might make him feel a lot less "healbot".
This isn't really a problem with the fighter. The fighter is good at combat but it seem you have party the can really buff the fighter. That's what they should be doing. The fighter should be shining but the guys behind the scene doing the buffs should be treating the fighter as tool of battle field control and there fore they are shining just as much.
That looks solid if only lacking two good channeling feats. I have to say combat casting should go, let desna replace it!
Str 16 on a support char is fine. Ac 30 unbuffed for a second line char at 12 is fine. Yeah the feats are questionable but i for one like die hard. Seen worse clerics at that level.
Yeah channel smite eek... quick and selective channel and the cleric is good (maybe extra channel at the most extreme).
For the fighter I would suggest focusing on some ranged combat feats.
Shoot them up has they are closing, swing hard a couple of times, if things get hairy back out a little and shoot again.
What's the rogue like or is he happy?
No Quicken Spell? Seems like a must on a mid to high level caster. Metamagic rod of quicken, even a lesser one, would be a big help too.
Basically, a caster at that level should be looking for ways to do as much per turn as possible.
It might also help to know a typical spell load-out. Obviously a cleric can change daily, but what sort of stuff is the player typically prepping? That can make a big difference in play style at this level.