I have a level 13 natural lycanthrope (human, tiger) master summoner. My GM didn't realize the hybrid form a) made me large and b) let me retain usage of my gear. He was thinking the gear would absorb like any other polymorph effect except the lycanthrope version has an exception for hybrid form. To be clear, he's fine with him being large in isolation.
So, I'm this high physical stat and mental stat character (a synthesist, essentially) doing W+17ish damage per attack with dimensional dervish and a +4 adamantine waraxe, using scrolls like a boss with a +44 UMD, claws that are law and good for DR, and summons particularly suited for encounters as he has the summon good monster feat. Compared to the rest of the party he's OP.
I really do try to play him down by keeping summons to a bare minimum and stick to essentially his weapon attacks and items. I've roleplayed this as he treats summons as if they're the actual creatures themselves since they can technically feel pain, have alignments and knowledge, etc. so he doesn't "abuse" the ability to call them at will.
My GM doesn't like the power disparity since he has to either target me else I just destroy things while they're distracted with seemingly more armored PCs (he's got a 41 buffed AC with glammered armor so he looks like he's just wearing normal clothing). Thing is, he's heavily invested in the group. He only takes things from loot that the rest of the party can't use or use well and I try to have him take last from loot splits except for the few items basically made for summoners and always poll the group like "does anybody mind I take x?" He just seems to meld into all the cracks and can use them to great effect. I did get rid of an item that was "too broken" for the build: a set of gloves of the commanding conjurer.
If I just take him out of the group there's a power gap as there's no fighter type character and a potentially great loss in gear value in the group. True, he could just slough off all his gear and go about his way but that makes no sense for the character whatsoever. He's LG with a mission to fight evil, a Ragathiel wannabe in many ways. Even then, the group with his pile of gear is largely ineffectual due to a lack of UMD in the party and no other arcane caster or not being front liners themselves and selling it would not make up for the value they otherwise bring. So, that's not really an option. It'd feel good and be a great gesture but at the end of the day the return on investment would be minimal.
I guess what I'm looking for is a way to transition him out without being a detriment to the party as he really does help pull the group through the fire so I can't just eschew new gear we come across entirely. The replacement character I'd have would be a similar front liner type to not let that role go unfilled in the group but other builds wouldn't benefit from his gear as much. His feats are nonstandard to build guides and there are better options for a fresh character any way.
So, do I force my GM to just kill him through normal play or is there a switcharoo tactic I'm not seeing to bring in something more even keel for the group?
To kind of clarify what I mean by pulling the group out of fires, my GM is fine with that. He's not okay with the fact that, as a summoner, I don't have to risk myself doing it. If I couldn't sit back and throw gobs of healing at a PC, for example, and had to navigate the thick of battle using acrobatics and so on to deliver a heal spell or whatever that'd be fine. He prefers there to be an inherent risk to such actions and my character avoids that entirely.
Multiclass into Paladin? Retrain out of Summoner? I really don't see the problem, but I think it is mostly a matter of the rest of your group not being particularly optimized. If the rest of the party is Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer that is not a group to bring a summoner into, you will usually overpower them. If the rest of your group is Cleric, Druid, Witch, Wizard you are the weakest link and not a problem at all.
We've got a ranger, cleric, gunslinger, and bard. Often times the ranger doesn't show but the rest are pretty consistent participants.
I think I'd take this opportunity to focus on roleplay opportunities. You still have plenty of time to mess up your build, after all.
If you're that overpowered, it's time to start giving back, is what I mean. Start taking suboptimal skill ranks, unusual feats; be the character you never had the leg room in your build to create.
Give the loot to your allies, lower that power gap! Consider taking future levels in something like fighter, delaying the power of your summons for a little while. Perhaps because you do not use them so often they grow more fragile?
Cleric and Bard typically are the best buffers and Ranger and Gunslinger can cover DPR well, but a Summoner of any variety is going to make them both feel like chumps unless the Summoner is much less optimized than the Ranger and Gunslinger. I think playing a Summoner in a game with anyone playing less than a 6 level caster is asking to make the non-casters feel like chumps. All of this assumes the same level of optimization across the board, I have seen a Rogue outclass full casters, but never well optimized characters. Being a natural weretiger sounds very optimal (I don't have Blood of the Moon) and I think it is one of those things that is better if everyone or no one plays them.
|
Why not just remove the stat bonuses for being a lycanthrope? You can keep the flavor, maybe gain a bonus to carrying capacity, combat maneuvers, and the natural weapons, without the insane stat growth. Much easier fix, and you get to keep your flavor.
Exactly, maybe become a skinwalker instead....
My real question is framed around this idea: You didn't become a Monster overnight. You were building this PC over the course of his career and had to see earlier on that your dude was outclassing the rest of the group and start seeing how the GM was struggling with it. Why didn't you dial it back BEFORE it became a real issue?
You don't need BotM to see what my guy has. It's just the bestiary template. Link
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ask you DM to retcon you from a natural lycanthrope weretiger to a Fanglord Skinwalker You will keep the lycanthrope feel without being completely overpowered.
You were building this PC over the course of his career and had to see earlier on that your dude was outclassing the rest of the group and start seeing how the GM was struggling with it. Why didn't you dial it back BEFORE it became a real issue?
Actually, no. There was an incredibly optimized evocation wizard that made me look like I was peeling potatoes during combat. I would do nifty, useful things but he was what basically finished fights. Other than the dimensional dervish line because I wanted a really cool trick, my leveling choices have been more "that's cool" and less "ooo this raises my DPR by 50!!" I really didn't try to optimize because of the template and summons. My MO on leveling choices have been "don't need it" more often than not. I've been holding back in several ways.
I sent my GM a text asking about getting rid of lycantrophy so we'll see how that goes. It really is the source of the brokenness. Summons are huge, yes, but that would normalize my PC compared to the rest stat wise.
You could easily be overpowered just by being a master summoner And on top of that you're a lycanthrope, a dire tiger(!) variety, and a Natural one at that. It's kind of like throwing gasoline on an oil fire.
Having the lycanthropy stripped away would be a good start.
Not dire, just tiger. But, yeah.
|
|
Cool. I usually hear about people claiming that suddenly they are getting targeted by the GM and I may have tossed a bit of that preconception into my post....apologies.
You could probably get him to easily allow a switch to Skinwalker then. I think that just limiting yourself with your summons should take care of the rest....perhaps summon sub-optimal creatures and only 1-2 at a time. If you keep dropping pouncing, holy death upon his minions and they are making short work of encounters then you may have issues later with him specifically targeting you (which could easily turn into havok for the less powerful in the group that can't take it.).
Maybe keep an Eidolon (as a mount or help if foes close in) around so you can only have one active Summons at a time?
|
I agree with the idea of turning you into a Skinwalker instead of a full lycanthrope. Not only will you take a small hit racially (many consider them rather underpowered from a racial standpoint to begin with), you won't be getting massive boosts from the natural lycanthropy, and you still keep pretty much all the flavor of your character. If after one or two sessions you and the GM feel like you got too big of a nerf because of your previous un-optimizing then maybe add back in little tidbits of the natural lycanthropy or talk to him about allowing a retrain to bring you back on par.
I stand by my original point. The problem has little to do with your race and everything to do with the Summoner class. You could blend in with Wizard, Bard and Cleric at the mid levels and the martials only lag once you hit 4th level spells. The fact that your workhorse (the wizard) is gone is the problem. If you had lost your Ranger instead of your Wizard this post would be unnecessary.
If anything, your character appears to be slightly on the weak side for a Level 13 optimizer.
If your table is starting out (lots of new players) you might want to retire this character until your table gets more advanced (the other players may have problems). If your table has been playing pathfinders for over a year and other players optimize their characters also - have fun with it.
If you had lost your Ranger instead of your Wizard this post would be unnecessary.
This is likely true. I've never had the limelight on me to any degree and I kind of feel like the defacto leader to a great degree and that's uncomfortable. In talking to one other party member he was fine with it and said I should suck it up and use all the tools I have. Another player who regularly gives me s&!! said he's fine with it and just gives him s!@@ because the character needs given s~$!. :D My problem is GM relations but I've not gotten any kind of negativity from the players.
Well I'd start by being 'cured' of lycanthrophy.
However you want an arcane caster/frontliner? Sounds like a good time for a Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple. Lawful good at that? Level or 2 of paladin. You'd keep a shapechanger feel if/when you turn into a dragon.
If anything, your character appears to be slightly on the weak side for a Level 13 optimizer.
Like I said, I didn't try to optimize. Our gunslinger probably actually does more DPR than me. I just get to essentially look scary and mean with my dervishing around enemies. If that was all my character was it'd be fine. The fact I'm a master summoner throws a kink into everything. I could solo fights. Whether or not any MS can do that is debatable but it's more that I can solo fights and still fight well myself. That I'm basically a synthesist with mass summoning potential is a bit broken to me, though.
Well, you've got two options, then.
1.) Cure your lycanthropy. It has recently been brought to my attention that in Blood of the Moon they clarified a Remove Curse spell cast by a 12th level Cleric can cure you. I think this is technically for afflicted lycanthropes only, but your GM probably won't have any objection bending that rule.
---1b.) Ask him if you can be a Fanglord due to the process not being 100% effective on NAtural Lycanthropes.
2.) ...Simply change/retrain your class. If the problem is you're a beatstick who can summon things, drop the "who can summon things" part. Be a Bard, a Barbarian (Bloodrager, even, if you want a smidge of magic), Ranger, Slayer, whatever. Anything that's not a Summoner, basically.
It seems like you are approaching the summoner the way one should 'deliberately not optimizing it'. Your problem is the lycanthropy, which when you can control it is stupid powerful for just about any character thats not like a wizard. A master summoner is already really good, even if you dont optimize, so I'd say if you want to keep the character, and you want to keep the flavor, and the role of front liner, retrain(and i mean just get your gm to approve changing your class levels) the character from summoner to the wolf shifter (just change it to tiger instead of wolf) from wayfinder #5 (available for free download). Its basically a barbarian rethemed and altered slightly to make rage the shifting into wolf form.
Ditch lycanthropy and take that as your class instead of summoner. Then you have a solid frontliner, you keep the events that have happened to the character in tact, and it wont be overpowered compared to everyone else. Obviously this is a complete rebuild of the character but your dm should be willing if its causing problems. You can even say the feral influence of the lycanthropy is preventing your use of your magic or something to explain the sudden lack of summoning.