Starting up a new campaign. As I'm allowing a bit of expanded access beyond the core and advanced player this time around. I'm wondering if any of you have encountered any feats/archetypes/traits etc. that did too much.
Starting up a new campaign. As I'm allowing a bit of expanded access beyond the core and advanced player this time around. I'm wondering if any of you have encountered any feats/archetypes/traits etc. that did too much.
Many 3rd party feats, classes, archetypes are on a different power scale. Not all are bad but I would not recommend allowing them to new GMs.
The Summoner can easily pose a problem, especially the master summoner.In my opinion the traits that allow you to reduce metamagic feat penalties (magical lineage, wayang spell hunter) are too strong.
I'm going with nothing that cannot also be done with just core and apg, perhaps just in an easier, more exotic or different way.
So, instead of such an open question, a bit more information about what you consider too much?
I would define too much as something that either bogs down the game speed (like master summoner) or does something too well for its cost (my example being snake style: +2 to sense motive and lets you use your sense motive roll as your ac. The cost being improved unarmed strike, 1 rank in acrobatics, and 3 sense motive.)
Snake style is rather weak. Using sense Motive as AC is an immediate Action so can only be done once per turn.
If you see that as too strong you should only allow core and ban all casters.
Snake style is rather weak. Using sense Motive as AC is an immediate Action so can only be done once per turn.
If you see that as too strong you should only allow core and ban all casters.
-FACEPALM- missed that little tidbit whilst reading it over. Okay bad example. Thank you
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I would define too much as something that either bogs down the game speed (like master summoner) or does something too well for its cost (my example being snake style: +2 to sense motive and lets you use your sense motive roll as your ac. The cost being improved unarmed strike, 1 rank in acrobatics, and 3 sense motive.)I'm going with nothing that cannot also be done with just core and apg, perhaps just in an easier, more exotic or different way.
So, instead of such an open question, a bit more information about what you consider too much?
In that case: All summoning spells. All save or die spells. Slumber hex.
I wouldn't touch sacred geometry and the other feats in that book with a 100 ft. pole, those are real speedhogs :)
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I don't know what you consider problematic or what categories "etc" should include, but based on my past experiences here are some game elements I'd look out for:
- Dazing Spell metamagic (offering a new save each round might be a good fix)
- Terrible Remorse spell (be sure you've got the most current version!)
- double barreled guns (make it a standard action to fire both barrels)
- fast bombs (maybe disallow TWF with bombs)
- force bombs (very powerful - just be aware)
- Greater Forbid Action (allow a new save each round as for Greater Command)
- Cacophonous Call (add a new save each round)
- Fear (allow a new save each round to reduce the condition to shaken - if that seems too watered down perhaps try 1d4+1 rounds of frightened and then shaken for the duration)
- Gentle Rest (allow a save against the Sleep effect)
- Awesome Display oracle power (we actually didn't find this one too excessive in play, but you should at least be aware of it)
- Weird Words from the Soundstriker Bard archetype (These are either very powerful or nearly useless depending on how you rule)
- Slumber Hex (I made up a house rule of removing the Fort save from Coup de Grace partially to nerf my own Witch's Slumber Hex, which had been ending encounters in boring ways)
Many or even most people might disagree with anything or everything on that list, but these are things I've seen problems with at first hand, so I'd imagine that they could cause issues in some other games too. Around half the time I was the game breaking offender, but I'll sometimes also suggest house rules to reign things in.
Yeah, man, Snake Style uses immediate actions (so you cannot use a swift action next turn and you cannot do it more than once).
You should really try to get the full grasp of these spells, feats and archetypes before making statements like that. The fact that you consider that a monk feat could be game breaking really boggles my mind.
Things I'd ban:
- Dazing Spell feat (too strong)
- Fortune's Favoured trait (too strong, badly written)
- Metamagic reduction traits as mentioned in this thread
- Master Summoner/Synthesist Summoner archetypes, or the summoner altogether (too stronk)
- Witch's Slumber Hex (while it's not THAT bad as most people think, it can be pretty bad)
- Divine Protection feat (ridiculous, makes strong classes stronger)
- Dual Cursed Oracle archetype (so many rerolls...)
- Primalist Bloodrager archetype (this is a personal preference. I think rage powers should not be accessed by the Bloodrager, to make each class different)
- As usual, take care if high level spells. Wish, Simulacrum, etc. Those are the source of overpowered builds in my view.
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To avoid more facepalms, as a rule of thumb, never ban a monk/fighter/martial thing...
Though I've modified natural attack mechanics and pounce for my games.
I haven't run into any issues with using any Paizo product I own, or even the limited 3PP stuff I own.
The biggest issue I have isn't with options that are too powerful, but rather options that are too weak and end up getting my players slaughtered. Rogues and monks need a boost of they're to lee up with the other classes.
Mythic adventures is probably too powerful for a standard game, so I'd avoid that based on your premise. Sacred geometry can be rediculous, although my players have never even used it.
Depending on what level you are and what you consider to be too powerful, the wizard is the most powerful class in the game, all Paizo material and most 3PP included. That's a straight high level wizard. I generally think that rather than tearing a class down, I'd rather build up the other classes and make them more fantastic - more fantasy-style powerful.
If you think the master summoner bogs down the game, might as well ban a conjugation focused wizard, too - bogs down the game just as much and is considered the most powerful wizard school. Or do what I do - require summonses to already have the stats for their summons right in front of them before they cast the spell. I even keep a binder at my table full of summon monster stats by level (with and without augment summoning). I originally made it for my own conjugation specialist, but have found it a valuable tool for anyone at my table waning to summon.
And lastly, I have a general rule that if I haven't read it, it's not allowed in my games. So if my players want to add something to the game (a feat, a new class, etc...) I have to read it, understand it, and approve it first. Here, the online content of most of Paizo's material really helps, since I can just use the PRD or PFSRD to look up an ability. Additionally, the Paizo community really helps out; many people here are honest and intelligent and are willing to give some good advice about a particular ability. You can even get a decent feel just by how much back and forth argumentation there is (a lot of it means it may be too powerful of an option for your game), quick concise thread only a few pages long or less often give a good clear answer right away. Either way, you can judge people's opinions and arguments for yourself and then form your own opinion. From this, I have allowed every class from Paizo in my games, and have even added some 3PP stuff, like Ultimate Psionics and Rogue Glory (for that boost to the rogue I mentioned earlier). I'll be adding other stuff, I just haven't read and analyzed it yet.
There is one thing I haven't allowed into my games yet: advanced firearms from Ultimate Combat. I still only use early firearms. Even in my Iron Gods campaign, because other posters here in the messageboards have warned that the advanced firearms are a better mechanic than many of the guns from the Technology Guide, and I want my players to not have to choose between a modern weapon and a futuristic weapon.
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What you are asking is such a subjective matter of perception that you are unlikely to get the type of answers you are looking for in a usable framework.
Because the answer is, it depends.
If your group isn't real big on optimizing, the summoner seems very powerful since it is so easy to almost accidentally optimize.
If you don't have someone that really carefully triple checks the build, eidolons are easy to accidentally make too powerful because they aren't really legal.
If your group is really good at optimizing, some of the possibilities with the ACG and brawler are surprising.
If the campaign has short adventuring days, the magus can nova a monstrous amount of damage in a very short period of time.
If the player doesn't keep track of all the problems and issues, the gunslinger is suddenly more powerful.
If the campaign gives a lot of information and prep time to the PC's wizard's and arcanists are almost unstoppable due to always having the perfect spell available.
If the opposition never targets or goes after them, archers and gunslingers can dominate.
If the campaign has piles of low to moderate undead, a force channeling aasimar life oracle is unapproachable.
Heck, if the group really builds as a team with bunches of teamwork feats, almost any builds are nearly unstoppable.
If you player(s) are not very organized and knowledgeable; summoning, mounted combat, compulsion spells, illusions, and/or multiple stacking buffs can grind things to a halt.
If the campaign mostly takes place in a city with 'standard' classed opponents, trip/disarm/grapple builds will easily dominate.
Depending upon interpretation of certain fiddly rules, some of the bard builds can have sky high capabilities in nearly every single useful skill, have fairly powerful mind influencing magic, and still buff the rest of the part to the point of nearly unstoppable.
If the party is always in control of the combats and the opposition doesn't target them, any primary caster who doesn't have to worry about defense is very dangerous.
Ect...
Sorry, it depends.
Plus if you are a grognard like me and comparing to 2nd Ed. Everything (even including the CRB rogue and monk) seems too powerful.
Give us a bit more information about your group, yourself, and your campaign. Then we should be able to give you more useful information.
While Snake Style isn't that impressive Snake Fang seems really nice. It probably doesn't need to be banned, but it could surprise some DMs. Regarding summoning, in groups I play with limiting summons to 1 active spell per caster is often part of table etiquette if not a strict rule.
I'll also add that many folks find magic item crafting feats to be too powerful. Some are concerned with the amount of choice the feats give PCs over their equipment, but most are more worried about the potential increase to WBL. If you're concerned about this perhaps ruling that crafting an item costs 75% as much as buying it could make you feel better.
I have the opposite view from bookrat's in that I would rather bring everybody down to a level which seems reasonable to me than fire up the turbo and take everybody to the highest level. Other than some potential changes to the touch attack mechanics the stuff listed above represents most of what I'd be likely to change based on experience though. There are also some theoretical problems in the game, but tracking all of those down would be a little more work.
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I always ask my players : what are your intentions in the future.
what tricks do you want to pull out of your hat.
then I check with them if they feel too powerful/imbalanced with the others.
for those who don't plan, I check level by level, but those are probably not trying to do things "out-of-scope"
being warned in advance is a good way to prevent the problems or to give the same tricks to NPC and see the PC's reactions.
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If the player doesn't keep track of all the problems and issues, the gunslinger is suddenly more powerful.
I think this is probably the best general advice for this question. Players tend to concentrate on the positive side of the build ("what does this let me do"), and the negative side of it ("what problems does this cause") is often overlooked.
A couple of examples:
There are a lot of threads about players being able to dump Charisma with no real penalty, because there is no concrete, in-game mechanical side effect for a Charisma penalty. As a GM, you have to decide if you're OK with letting your non-Charisma based players essentially have a boost to their other stats for free. (In a point buy system, this can be an additional 5 points to spend on other stats. In a rolled stat build, it basically lets players just ignore their lowest roll by placing it into Charisma.)
On this thread, someone mentioned that Snake Style can only be done once a round because it takes an immediate action. In addition to that, an immediate action takes up your swift action from the next round, so a monk using the Snake Style abilities can never spend a ki point. (Actually, just keeping track of swift and immediate actions will reign in a lot of overpowered builds--that reigns in magi, monks, inquisitors, etc.)
Spells that take a full round to cast (like Sleep) are much more powerful if you mistakenly let them go off as a standard action.
Someone mentioned the dual-cursed oracle. It's very easy when playing an oracle to forget about your curse, especially the ones without a strict mechanical enforcement (like Tongues and Haunted--those often get completely ignored during play). Even the ones with strict mechanical definitions (clouded vision can't see beyond 30 feet, lame has reduced movement speed) are easy to overlook during play.
Medium and heavy armor reduce your speed--there is in fact a downside to that +6 or +8 to your AC. (Encumbrance reduces your speed, too, and it's one of the most overlooked disadvantages in the game.)
And so on...
As a new GM, you should carefully read all your players' abilities and identify the downsides. Make the players know these and know you'll enforce them--or decide that you don't want to enforce them.
There are a lot of threads about players being able to dump Charisma with no real penalty, because there is no concrete, in-game mechanical side effect for a Charisma penalty. As a GM, you have to decide if you're OK with letting your non-Charisma based players essentially have a boost to their other stats for free. (In a point buy system, this can be an additional 5 points to spend on other stats. In a rolled stat build, it basically lets players just ignore their lowest roll by placing it into Charisma.)
This is actually a feature, not a bug.
A Fighter needs 5 good stats (STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS). Having a dump stat is the best thing in the world for them.
I'll also add that many folks find magic item crafting feats to be too powerful. Some are concerned with the amount of choice the feats give PCs over their equipment, but most are more worried about the potential increase to WBL. If you're concerned about this perhaps ruling that crafting an item costs 75% as much as buying it could make you feel better.
THIS. Ban Crafting feats.
I always ask my players : what are your intentions in the future.
what tricks do you want to pull out of your hat.
then I check with them if they feel too powerful/imbalanced with the others.for those who don't plan, I check level by level, but those are probably not trying to do things "out-of-scope"
being warned in advance is a good way to prevent the problems or to give the same tricks to NPC and see the PC's reactions.
This is very good advice.
The Gunslinger in general can cause some problems at higher levels. As CR's go up, regular AC's scale up also, Touch AC's, however, come down.
Dotting for future reading.
But what I've seen so far is a lot of good advice.
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Charisma as a dumping is one reason why a tough DM of ages past instituted the "Luck Check", which is a d20 based Charisma check you make when you want to see who gets the extra arrow, who the shambling mound shambles towards, or maybe whether there are some coins or a poisonous spider in the couch cushions that a PC decided to check for treasure. When the DM wants to know which PC a really nasty monster should randomly attack he or she will sometimes call for an "Ugly Off". I guess we're getting way off the original topic though.
Banning the crafting feats might be right for some games but seems heavy handed to me, especially considering the fact that most games are set in worlds fairly chock full of magic items. How to best adjust the feats probably depends on the style of the game in question, but there's probably no need to get really deep into those discussions here unless the OP wants to.
Divine Protection is a good one to ban.
Charisma as a dumping is one reason why a tough DM of ages past instituted the "Luck Check", which is a d20 based Charisma check you make when you want to see who gets the extra arrow, who the shambling mound shambles towards, or maybe whether there are some coins or a poisonous spider in the couch cushions that a PC decided to check for treasure. When the DM wants to know which PC a really nasty monster should randomly attack he or she will sometimes call for an "Ugly Off". I guess we're getting way off the original topic though.
Because Oracles/Sorcerers needed a boost in power...
I've spent a little more time thinking about it and so far I haven't really been able to say any thing (except maybe the modern firearms) has really caused a significant problem in most or all games.
The only one I can think of is I know a guy in several different game groups. He is using approximately the same build in each of them. It is a druid (Saurian Shaman), with a little bit of summoner (don't remember which archtype), and eldritch heritage for a familiar. he takes the powerful dinosaur forms, has a dinosaur AC, and summons dinosaurs, and has a familiar for a wand monkey.
But even that isn't so much a problem with the rules as it is the GM's and the near impossibility of anyone keeping track of all that. His turn takes forever while he is trying to manage everything. He is constantly saying "Oh I forgot about X, yeah this one gets a free grab..." Plus the GM's are letting him and his dinosaurs fight underground and in rooms where they just plain don't have room to exist, let alone function properly. The fight might take place on a bridge or ship that should collapse under their combined weight. No enemy no matter how intelligent has ever tried to banish (or usurp) his eidolon or summoned creatures. None have target his familiar that is running around the combat with a couple of wands making things tougher. The GM's let his fairly smart animal take actions that would be difficult for intelligent creatures (like describing the weakness in a fortification).
{Also, I won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure his companion dinosaur has too much gear for what is allowed by the rules.}
So even for that monster build - The GM's are letting him get away with too much, the GM's not enforcing the penalties/problems, and the player is slowing things down because he isn't organized and knowledgeable enough (not sure many people could do all that much better with that many things to keep track of).
I think if the GM's actually enforced all the rules, problems, and issues along with a player that was super organized and prepared; even this uber build might not be too much of a problem.
Now as I said, I have seen LOTS of builds that with this specific campaign/group/GM end up being problems. On both ends of the spectrum. Too powerful and overshadowing everyone or too weak and can't really contribute.
The Luck Checks started back in 2e before there were any Charisma based classes. The joyous schadenfreude that players feel when a PC gets unlucky has kept the Luck Check in use for many years now, and I'm not sure that game balance concerns would sway the players I know from keeping with Tradition. That said, if Sorcerers and Oracles don't get an extra arrow from a group of archers once in a while I don't think that's probably a big game balance issue.
Enforcing all the rules can definitely cut down on shenanigans, but remembering all the rules can be a tough job. I find that abilities which work outside of the PC's turn are especially tough for folks to remember and keep straight. As folks have mentioned, an immediate action burning up the next turn's swift action is easy to forget. Move actions are another thing which tend to get forgotten a lot. Wands, potions, rods, etc often mysteriously appear in people's hands as they're needed.
... As folks have mentioned, an immediate action burning up the next turn's swift action is easy to forget. ...
I actually never knew that. I will have to go look that up now.
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Charisma as a dumping is one reason why a tough DM of ages past instituted the "Luck Check", which is a d20 based Charisma check you make when you want to see who gets the extra arrow, who the shambling mound shambles towards, or maybe whether there are some coins or a poisonous spider in the couch cushions that a PC decided to check for treasure. When the DM wants to know which PC a really nasty monster should randomly attack he or she will sometimes call for an "Ugly Off". I guess we're getting way off the original topic though.
There are enough penalties for low charisma.
This kind of stuff falls in to "dick behavior", in my opinion.
Charisma as a dumping is one reason why a tough DM of ages past instituted the "Luck Check", which is a d20 based Charisma check you make when you want to see who gets the extra arrow, who the shambling mound shambles towards, or maybe whether there are some coins or a poisonous spider in the couch cushions that a PC decided to check for treasure. When the DM wants to know which PC a really nasty monster should randomly attack he or she will sometimes call for an "Ugly Off". I guess we're getting way off the original topic though.There are enough penalties for low charisma.
This kind of stuff falls in to "dick behavior", in my opinion.
Indeed. Everybody needs a dump stat or has at least one stat that yields only minimal gains if you invest in it. For the majority of martial characters, charisma gives no benefit besides charisma linked skills.
Do you want to start penlaizing arcane caster because they don't have a strength more than 10? And they only kept that for carrying capacity early in the game.
A list in no particular order of stuff I suggest reading before deciding on your own.
Feats:
Spell Perfection
Dazing Spell
Sacred Geometry
Divine Protection
Leadership
Spells:
Blood Money
Planar Binding
PrCs:
Diabolist
Classes:
Summoner
Rogue
Archetypes:
Invulnerable Rager barb
Empiricist investigator
Anything that is just "class+"
Favored Class Bonuses:
Be careful and make sure to read them. Human FCB for Barbarians is crazy.
Since Gwen brought up Charisma dumping as a potential concern I mentioned a "time honored" house rule that mildly punishes it. It might be worth repeating that I didn't make the rule up. It was actually instituted by a DM somewhat reviled for his many house rules and oppressive demeanor, but unlike his other "innovations" people seemed to really enjoy this one for some reason. Most of the people I play with like the crit and fumble decks too. There have been a few objections to fumbles which hit and crits which make you drop your weapon, but most folks take it in stride as something which makes the game a little less predictable and therefore, in their opinion, more fun.
I'm personally not vindictive about people dumping stats, but a low Str caster is likely to get killed by a Shadow. The fact that Charisma is a better stat for a Fighter to dump than Wisdom implies that the two stats have different values. I think that's what some folks object to. One of my PCs dumped them both due to MAD concerns. He has paid practically no price for dumping Charisma but it almost unplayable due to his low Will save. I guess I tried to pack a little too much into the build and left a bigger defensive gap than I usually allow. Now I'll have to cover it with feats and magic items whereas I was able to cover the Charisma gap completely with the Brusing Intellect trait.
Anyhow, sorry for the extended derail here. When criticized in obscene terms I felt the need to respond somehow though.
Classes:
RogueArchetypes:
Invulnerable Rager barb
Empiricist investigator
Anything that is just "class+"
Wat
This is silly. Rogues are not in a great place but there's no need to ban them. Give them extra uses of rogue talents, access to ranger combat styles, allow them to be able to skip Combat Expertise... But don't ban them.
The archetypes you listed are also completely harmless. So you can't drop the Barbarian and the Empiricist does well in most skill checks... Big whoop.
Dumping stats is a time honoured tradition too.
Cloth casters dump strength.
Armour casters dump the mental stat that least concerns them (for Bards, Wisdom; for Paladins, Int)
Armour martials dump their least needed stat (Fighters dump Charisma; Rogues SHOULD dump Intellect but don't for some reason)
Each has its trade off.
Dumping cha also makes you prone to get killed by Charisma drain.
This is silly. Rogues are not in a great place but there's no need to ban them. Give them extra uses of rogue talents, access to ranger combat styles, allow them to be able to skip Combat Expertise... But don't ban them.
A list in no particular order of stuff I suggest reading before deciding on your own.
What is this talk of banning? I see no mention of banning. I saw him say to read stuff before judging. What one person dislikes can be perfectly fine for another player (which you just illustrated).
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Enforcing all the rules can definitely cut down on shenanigans, but remembering all the rules can be a tough job. ...
I absolutely agree. But when I find one character doing way more than seems possible - I go looking at the rules being monkeyed with. Almost every time I find that either I wasn't enforcing some rule, the player didn't enforce some rule, this particular campaign just happens to be perfect for that build, build was optimized way more than the rest of the group, etc...
I've never seen one that ended up being 'that is just too powerful' and needs to be banned. At least not in my opinion.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my games I really hate dumping, so I did something nice.
If players are gonna feel inclined to dump a stat to 7 because it's absolutely useless for them and it nets them an additional 4 PB, why not just give them the extra points?
My houserule is as follows: You don't gain additional Points for dumping a stat.
Then we play at 24 Point Buy.
If you need a low stat for role play purpose, then sure go and gimp yourself for the sake of fun, but I don't want people making mongrels because they want enough HP to stand on the frontlines.
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Agreed Insain Dragon. I actually just decided to use a stat array a long time ago. I give 16/16/15/14/13/11. I find this is usually strong enough for the most MAD classes to be playable, without giving anyone a too strong (20) score early on. Honestly I think it's worked pretty well. I do offer a 20 point buy with no selling of scores below 8 as an alternative (if you really really really want that 20) but you basically have to pay through the nose to get and aren't able to get much else. Compared to the other more well rounded option I haven't had players use it.
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I'll also add that many folks find magic item crafting feats to be too powerful. Some are concerned with the amount of choice the feats give PCs over their equipment, but most are more worried about the potential increase to WBL. If you're concerned about this perhaps ruling that crafting an item costs 75% as much as buying it could make you feel better.
I second this. Crafting should make it cost 75% instead of 50%. Craft Wondrous Items will still be the best feat in the game if players are allowed some spare time. The money you save will be able to replace other feat-benefits many times over.
Many have touched the subject of missed weaknesses or restrictions.
I agree that ignorance, not knowing or forgetting the specific penalties to odd situations can make an ability seem overpowering. The dinos in a cave (not atleast squeezing) and on a wooden bridge (that atleast should be cracking) are good examples as the strongest stuff typicly also come with the most severe penalties.
The Dual-Cursed Oracle is very strong with it's additional Revelations but the curses tend to even it out at lower levels. If you don't adjust for the Oracle's limitations you will see how they become less flexible with skills and often add difficulties for the party (deaf, lame). But the Misfortune Revelation is powerful. But don't forget the target first receives a Will save = 10+1/2Oracle levels+Cha, before they even *might reroll.
Charisma as a dumping is one reason why a tough DM of ages past instituted the "Luck Check", which is a d20 based Charisma check you make when you want to see who gets the extra arrow, who the shambling mound shambles towards, or maybe whether there are some coins or a poisonous spider in the couch cushions that a PC decided to check for treasure. When the DM wants to know which PC a really nasty monster should randomly attack he or she will sometimes call for an "Ugly Off". I guess we're getting way off the original topic though.There are enough penalties for low charisma.
This kind of stuff falls in to "dick behavior", in my opinion.
Indeed. Everybody needs a dump stat or has at least one stat that yields only minimal gains if you invest in it. For the majority of martial characters, charisma gives no benefit besides charisma linked skills.
Do you want to start penlaizing arcane caster because they don't have a strength more than 10? And they only kept that for carrying capacity early in the game.
You could do the Fire Emblem thing and make spellbooks obnoxiously heavy. For frame of reference, Fenrir (the heaviest spellbook) has a weight of 18. A steel axe has a weight of 15.
Dumping attributes might be something you don't like, but its not overpowered.
This thread is about that.
Only in relation to each other. I have no problems dealing with a high op group or a low op group. The pain starts when a low op player joins a high op group (or the other way around, but only if the player is a jerk) and feels useless (or godlike.) There is no way to let both high op characters and low op characters do their thing in the same game. If you try everyone gets angry and quits. The high op players are angry that you are bending the rules for others and not them. The low op players feel stupid and useless because they know they need the rules bent to function while others don't. The GM is often angry at the high op players for not "toning it down" while the high op players are angry at the GM for asking them to. The low op players sense the hostility and leave quietly so as to not make anything worse and everyone is upset and frustrated by the experience.
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... The GM is often angry at the high op players for not "toning it down" while the high op players are angry at the GM for asking them to. ...
Rather than ask them to 'tone it down' I have seen a GM ask them for something special.
"I know it is not a very powerful concept, but can you run something really weird for me? I don't want a GMNPC to have a mojor impact in the plot, but I would like a unarmed combat arcane trickster in the party. I think you are the only one in the group that knows the rules well enough to make it work. The others are just too new to the game system. If it simply can't be made to work after a few months will try something different."
Then the GM went and wrote something into the campaign specifically for an unarmed combat arcane trickster to do well in that part.
Worked pretty well.
I use Sacred Geometry in a game, and our house-rule for it is this: Spell time is increased to a minimum of a Full Round, but as soon as I declare I'm casting it, play continues. Whenever I find the answer the spell goes off. If it gets back to my turn without me finding an answer, the spell fails, or I burn the turn to 'keep working.' I do have a calculator that I wrote for it, however I'm only allowed to use it out of combat. For the record, the character using this is in the Carrion Crown AP and is looking forward to unloading a Threnodic Color Spray on some poor zombies. When it comes down to it, if your players aren't good sports about stuff like this, I recommend banning it.
Sacred Geometries doesn't look OP because it can easily fail, it just seems like a bloody time waster honestly. I wouldn't bother banning it entirely, just from people who can't math quickly enough for your liking.
Yes I used math as a verb.
Sacred Geometries doesn't look OP because it can easily fail, it just seems like a bloody time waster honestly. I wouldn't bother banning it entirely, just from people who can't math quickly enough for your liking.
Yes I used math as a verb.
2 things.
1. It becomes mathematically impossible to fail after a few levels.2. There are now programs made for this feat that get you your results as quickly as you can put the numbers into the program.
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While Snake Style isn't that impressive Snake Fang seems really nice. It probably doesn't need to be banned, but it could surprise some DMs.
It looks really nice but in practice I find it's pretty circumstantial. I got it early and without the lacklustre prerequisite Snake Sidewind thanks to MoMS and I still haven't not much use out of it. Admittedly that's partly because on a few occasions I've forgotten to take my AoO on a miss. But it's also because I took Snake Style to make up for a poor AC, and that means I'm usually only missed once a turn. Some of those misses are ranged attacks, out of range of UAS AoO. And if I'm missed in melee I've usually already used my immediate action for Snake Fang, so I can't use the second UAS Snake Fang allows with an immediate action. If you have a higher AC you can use Snake Fang more, but then Snake Style itself is less useful.
... The GM is often angry at the high op players for not "toning it down" while the high op players are angry at the GM for asking them to. ...Rather than ask them to 'tone it down' I have seen a GM ask them for something special.
"I know it is not a very powerful concept, but can you run something really weird for me? I don't want a GMNPC to have a mojor impact in the plot, but I would like a unarmed combat arcane trickster in the party. I think you are the only one in the group that knows the rules well enough to make it work. The others are just too new to the game system. If it simply can't be made to work after a few months will try something different."
Then the GM went and wrote something into the campaign specifically for an unarmed combat arcane trickster to do well in that part.Worked pretty well.
One high op player is rarely a problem, because most GMs have the tact to do as you suggest. Try asking one of three and watch the other two unravel. The problem is usually one where a longstanding group adds a low op player and a bunch of issues that were undetected start showing up.
Stat dumping really gets over-stated, especially in a point buy. A 7 is functionally as far from average as a 14. It's a -2 to your rolls as opposed to a +2. You see people in the real world with 7s in a stat every day. You probably don't even think of them as disadvantaged.
I have a 7 in probably everything except INT and CON.