I am DM'ing for a group of players, homebrew campaign, 2 veterans, 3 guys relatively new to pathfinder, currently at Level 10.
One of the Veterans went with a Monk(MoMS), tanky type(Snake Style counter attacking), but not really that dangerous in pure offensive power.
The three "newbies" went with Inquisitor, Barbarian, and Sorcerer. Healing gets handled via Wands of CLW, and they have an combat-useless NPC Bard Archeologist with them to handle traps and some knowledges.(Omitting all traps because nobody felt like playing a class that can deal with them felt as cheesy as using traps without giving them a chance to deal with them)
The second Veteran went with Human Ranger(Archery Style with animal companion), knowing that due to the setting most enemies will be human(and the favored enemy bonus for them gets halfed as a result...that was agreed on though before we started).
With Combat Style and Feats, he got(if i remember correctly)
Weapon Focus
Point-Blank Shot,
Manyshot,
Rapid Shot,
Clustered Shots,
Precise Shot,
Deadly Aim,
Improved Precise Shot(Combat Style)
Point-Blank-Master(Combat Style)
So if Haste Buff(usually first round of combat if no prebuffing)+Heroism(with its duration, usually on in situations with sequential combats like ancient ruins they explore) is on, thats 3 attacks at -5(first of which is 2 hits) and one at -10, but with a focus on Dex(dumped stats to get it to 18 by point buy, 20 as human, level increases, and +4 item),+2 magic weapon and full BaB+Weapon Focus thats still 18/18/18/13 which has a good hit rate against most stuff around CR11.(or 21/21/21/16 against Favored Enemy, +1 to all of those sets if point-blank range).
He uses Gravity Bow himself when possible to increase damage die to 2D6.
So average damage per hit is 2D6(average 7)+6(Deadly Aim)+2(Bow)+1d6 elemental(3.5)+1 strenght, +1 if point blank, or 19.5/20.5, +3 or +2 for his three favored enemy's against many encounters. With 2 arrows from manyshot, and assuming last attack fails, thats ~80+ damage done per round, 100+ if last hits, ~60+ if 2 attacks fail.
That, in itself, would not be such a problem, but from Monk, Inquisitor, Sorcerer and Barbarian, only the Barbarian can consistently match the raw damage output, and definitely not the range.
Anything short of total cover is useless, melee is no threat since he doesn't provoke(as point blank master he just enjoys point-blank-shot and clusters their face with arrows), Damage Reduction is more or less bypassed via Clustered Shots, ranged encounters, difficult terrain or flying enemies just play into his strenghts more.
I am kind of running out of ideas how to deal with him in a way to make encounters enjoyable for the remainder of the group too. Because just having close-combat encounters to give them a chance to do SOMETHING gets old too, same as situations that prevent full attacks(which tend to also slow down everybody else and just drag the combat out).
He's glassy, but focusing him down to unconscious ALSO gets old(despite that obviously being a reasonable tactic for smart enemies as they face), same as shutting him down via magic(been done, but I tend to not overuse magics that completely take a character out of combat for prolonged times, boring for the player.).
Making AC of enemies high enough to make hitting problematic for him makes it problematic for MAD inquisitor and Monk, too, while he can just switch off rapid shot and increase his chances.
It's a normal dedicated Build and by all means, i want him to enjoy it and have fun too, but it just seems awfully strong in comparison. And I have to admit, the last time I was DM in a campaign, there was no Clustered Shots and Point-Blank-Master, so throwing something with good DR at the group usually meant different people got to shine, and getting up close and personal was a threat too, especially with step-up and the likes.
The monk using pummeling style and barbarian using pounce, do get full attacks too, IF they can charge, but thats not every round and if not they are stuck with a single attack, and even IF they charge and get to full attack, they get one less attack(no equivalent for rapid shot for melee), they don't get an extra hit with full bonus(no equivalent for manyshot for melee), and the barbarian has to deal with DR per hit(which often offsets some of the extra damage per hit he deals putting his total below ranger against resistent enemies).
Plus if they charge a Target and their first hit kills it(because a group of numerous weak enemies or already wounded) they basically lose their remaining actions while the ranger just picks a new target(unless its a single strong target he used clustered shot on).
The Inquisitor is ranged too but underperforming because of crossbow, 3/4th BAB, MAD and feat starved compared to the ranger. Sorcerer tries to do Controller but is not very experienced at it and looking to Ranger for advice(so e.g. stuff like black tentacles is preferred)
So, after knowing my situation(and thanks for reading it all), are there any suggestions as to how to deal with it?
As mentioned, I want the player to enjoy himself too so just abusing weak Will save or sundering weapon is off.
I did use grappling and disarming(but full BAB+focus on Dex also gives him decent defense there@29), as well as situations involving magical darkness, invisibility, communal stone skin and wind wall, as well as enemies with deflect arrows-variants, a trap room that forces a move each round less it does damage and a few other things I cannot remember right now(campaign is running a while already, we all got jobs and its not that easy to find time).
Again, by all means, that Ranger gets his days in the Sun too, enjoy being the MVP and be cheered on by his fellow heros, no problem there, most of the time he gets to shine but I need some ideas for encounters that let the others feel like Heroes too.
Because as it stands now, he is dominating pretty much each encounter by raw number of hits and the fact he can basically full attack each round. Ranged combat seems to have no real weakness. And i kind of want to prevent players just dumping their chars to go with Fighter/Archer Archetype + Archery Paladin + Zen Bow Monk, because Ranged is just that much better thanks to rapid+manyshot.
I know i could e.g. houserule vital strike to work with charge/spring attack and allow rebuilding chars(never understood why it would not work with either in the first place, considering it only add's 1 damage dice per feat, compared to manyshot that works with rapid shot and adds all the boni of the arrow), but that would still not alleviate the core problem of that ranger having consistently high damage output at range, able to pool on one target or distribute to several, with no obvious weakness except will save and moderate AC/HP.
PS: Talking with the Player is not REALLY going to work, he's rather involved with his character(including backstory) and getting him to artificially weaken his build, even if he would agree, would kind of destroy his bond to his character, which i want to prevent if at all possible. If I run out of ideas, I may have to go that route, but maybe someone has some suggestions before that.
What is his wisdom/will?
If his perception isn't too high, ambushes removes his "at range superiority"
Look hard throug the bestiary... There's probably monsters with damage reduction vs. Piercing...
Enemy archers to take his focus while the rest of the group handles other threat...
Many lv.1 minions... They should die of 1 attack, but that's 1 less attack on the main baddies make them sorcs, and they can each use magic missile once or twice b4 death...
At lv 10 magic is the way to go...
How does he deal with invisibility?
Windwall?
Illusions?
Command?
I mean, you discovered the secret. Archery is freakin' amazing. There's absolutely nothing special about his build. It's a boiler plate archer ranger build.
It just so happens that archery is one of the strongest combat styles out there. Be happy he isn't using his animal companion as a mount so he can move and full attack (without penalty so long as the mount doesn't move twice in a round).
As for how to challenge him....Windwall works well. Total cover or concealment so that the enemy can get "close".
Mounted archers are basically mobile death turrets. It's really hard to shut them down without it being overt and obvious (Windwall).
The real problem here is that this build optimizes itself without the need for much help. It's completely the recommended build from Lastoth's Guide for Rangers, and has been the standard archer build. It's just really good and simple.
This is compounded by the fact that it basically seems like you're other players (excluding the pouncing barbarian and pummeling monk) aren't optimized at all or have a low threshold for optimization.
You might consider handing out bonuses to other players to try to bring them up to his level, rather than trying to nerf him down to others.
Difficult. You dont want to exploit his weaknesess (will save/sunder) so you are only left with strengths.
If someone builds a potent build I would most times let them do well. A few times? Dominate persom. Kill n ally in a single round. Or throw exactly the same at him.
If this isnt an optiom because it wont be fun, then challenging them ks not what you/Your group is after. If they are making up his weaknesses by good tactics then I would say the are at a sweet spot.
Perhaps use smart enemies that have 1 Level in acebolt/other touch AC ranged options who sniper. Theyd og for the most inmediate threat.
Flyer that uses grab and tosses him somewhere?
How many rounds Does a typical APL +2 encounter take? Assuming it consist of 1 APL+0, 1 APL -2 and 2 APL-4 guys.
Alter enemy tactics a little bit... add a few more extra guys that are ranged, and they target only him... as he is taking them out, the rest of the party takes on the hand-to-hand...
Don't be afraid to increase the number of opponents if the group is curb-stomping everything.
The spell Fickle Winds will totally shut him down, and you can start having opponents have Deflect Arrows and such...
It seems OP, but watch what happens with the Sorcerer in the group, your archer won't seem so bad.
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Terrain: indoors, there should be cover behind pillars / corners / doors.
Outdoors: weather conditions making archery harder - rain, wind, fog.
Pretty much any combat manoeuver.
Pouncing enemies: counteracts the advantages of full-attack-at-every-round.
Lingering area damage spells that encourage you to move.
Invisible enemies.
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Are the other players feeling left out of combat?
Do they think there's a problem with the archer dominating combat?
If they are and do, then you have a problem. Otherwise, instead of using combat, use roleplaying/background stuff/plot to give others time to shine and make them feel special.
Matthew Downie has some great suggestions there, WEATHER! That's a really good one.
Environmental conditions can really add a new element to combat, use Darkness, Fog... Heck, if fighting outside, have lightning hit nearby to remind them that bad things can happen randomly...
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Have the enemies play smart.
At lvl 10, it's safe to say that the party has a reputation, and it's not unlikely that intelligent, socialized creatures they run into will be aware of the party, it's members, and the tactics they employ (at least, a rudimentary understanding would be reasonable).
Even if they don't have significant understanding of the group, an intelligent encounter will adjust their tactics if necessary.
If a caster has Wind Wall available (which isn't terribly unlikely, as it's a good counter to archery, which is a universally accepted strong offensive tactic), they should use it if missile weapons become a threat. A readied Gust of Wind could have the same effect for a single round, since the Gust can "do anything that a sudden blast of wind would be expected to do;" it's not unreasonable to say that an archer cannot fire arrows effectively in a hurricane force wind. Other spells like the Darkness line, Blur, Displacement, etc. that cause miss chances are spells that any caster could be expected to have available, unless they're hyper specialized in a different direction. Additionally, mind effects are a reasonable kind of spell for the party to run into, whether they are scary things like Dominate or annoying things like Fear effects or Hold Person.
Also, if the Ranger gets into close combat with an enemy and chooses to shoot his bow, it is a completely reasonable and intelligent decision by that enemy to either Disarm or Sunder that bow, especially once they see that the Ranger is effective in melee with that bow. The fact that the Ranger chooses to use the bow in melee should be an easy indicator to an intelligent enemy that the bow is the Ranger's best attack. An enemy with Greater Disarm could render the Ranger effectively useless for a round (the Ranger would have to use both actions to move and pick up the bow). A typical bow only takes 15 HP to destroy (Hardness 5 and 10 HP assuming the shaft is 1" think).
Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that you don't need to tailor the encounters specifically to deal with the Ranger, but you need to have the enemies adjust their tactics as intelligently as possible in response to what they learn about the party. Imagine that you're the PC and the players are the encounter. If you were running a group of PCs that ran into an enemy group with the party's capabilities, how would that group of PCs attempt to overcome that encounter? Would your party use Wind Wall or Darkness on an effective Human archer? Then so should you. Would your party use combat maneuvers to reduce the effectiveness of an encounter? Then so should you. Etc.
Errant Mercenary wrote: Difficult. You dont want to exploit his weaknesess (will save/sunder) so you are only left with strengths. Swarms will work nicely. Some take half damage from all weapons, some take none at all. And the Sorceer might get a chance to shine too. :)
In fact, anything can be a swarm now.
In a word, Terrain.
Break up his line of sight.
Other options:
Displacement
Entangle does bad things to an archer -4 Dex and -2 to hit
Grapple It is like entangle, but worse. and it stacks with entangled
Sunder/Disarm the bow
Steal the quiver
Trip- no attacks from prone and no full attack if he stands up
Isolate him via various wall spells or even the lowly web spell
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Claxon wrote: You might consider handing out bonuses to other players to try to bring them up to his level, rather than trying to nerf him down to others. Down this way madness lies.
There are some really good options here, Saldiven has some great points on tactics and Downie's weather and environment ideas are great too.
I like sundering but if you are afraid of destroying the player's weapon just have the enemies target the bow string. It could also easily be a botch ruling when the archer roles a 1.
I've done this to a couple of my players with powerful archer builds. Smart players come with extra bow strings and it takes awhile, at least a full round action to restring a bow.
Also make sure he keeps up with his ammunition, firing all of those arrows eats up ammunition and can get expensive.
The Pilfering hand spell would be fun to use against his quiver.
Tower shields can be fun too.
pezlerpolychromatic wrote: Claxon wrote: You might consider handing out bonuses to other players to try to bring them up to his level, rather than trying to nerf him down to others. Down this way madness lies. Not really. You just have to be prepared as a GM to know that your party can face greater challenges. Really, it just means upping the CR of the enemies by 1 to 2 points. Which is usually best accomplished by adding in extra enemies.
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Okay, first of all, some extra info was requested:
His Wisdom is 14 or 16(12 or 14 base, +2 item), can't remember exactly if he went the "save" way to ensure he keeps spell availability without item.
His Perception is maxed, and gets boosted in favored terrains, as is his stealth. So ambushing is possible but not easy.
Strong Monsters with damage reduction vs. piercing don't really help since he pools damage before applying damage reduction. Only using multiple weak ones with DR vs piercing help, but thats the same basic premise as with communal stone skin. Force him to focus them down one at a time.
As mentioned, magic effects is what i used already. Invisibility is a problem for the group in general so they usually try to dispel/glitterdust ASAP if possible.
@Claxon, he indeed wants to use his animal companion as mount, but first he wants to get snap shot and was waiting until companion gets size increase without boon companion to ride on it(probably a wolf with overrun and trip).
@Optimization: Indeed i helped build the monk and barbarian in their current form. I will probably help the Inquisitor optimize, the Sorcerer never asked for advice, and rather asks the ranger player.
@Encounter duration: It REALLY depends on the setting and environmental effects in place. I did not keep track, but would guess most encounters take between 3-8 rounds.
@Downie: Weather conditions is an excellent point, i do not utilize those enough. The lingering area damage spells, while similar to stuff I did, is also a great suggestion.
@Valandil: We have quite a lot of social enounters, roleplaying plot/background stuff in the game, and I try and make sure all the players get something to do during those.
Unfortunately, Pathfinder is still a rather combat-oriented system, and the fact he outshines them there does not yet irk them(as i try and create situations that are geared towards them) but is present.
Mostly they wonder why ranged gets to use rapid shot and manyshot and no such options exist for melee.
@Saldiven: Aye, I try to make those encounters react smartly that can. Including using the resources at their disposal. But as said, I am looking for some new ideas. Because while it may be effective, it's also not very creative if the xth encounter they have throws a deeper darkness at the ranger.
I also have to admit that most of the time I am a bit reluctant to use dominate on him. Utterly smart tactic but most likely he would kill one of the party members instantly(which means someone is stuck playing with the NPC bard until they can get a resurrection somewhere), while obviously the party would have no such doubts regarding NPC's.
@Atzen: Indeed one of their next encounters in the current plot arc will be a Swarm, but i suppose I could use that as a repeated disposable tactic by a BBEG.
@thorin001: Prone is a good point, i missed the part about only attacking at range with a crossbow. Makes sense obviously but somehow missed that.
Also theoretically good idea with walls, but situational. Entrapment options like the Pit spells or Wall of Stone usually target Reflex which is mostly pointless to use against him(good save, high dex, evasion).
@alexd: The problem is that they are not really curb-stomping. Since they don't really have a commited combat-healer and 3 people with rather weak AC, several encounters are pretty close, with them receiving almost as good as they give. The issue is with the distribution of damage output on their side, not that it's one-sided.
As mentioned, I DID DM long enough to be able to deal with optimized builds damage outputs in general. So yeah, enemies are numerous, sturdy and dangerous enough to be a reasonable threat to the group.
But as said, I feel that there is no real "intermediate" action to take against ranged combat any more. Either he can go all-out with powerful full attacks, or I shut him down completely(hold person, wind wall, darkness, disarm...).
What I am really looking for is ways like the mentioned lingering damage-spells, that give him an option for suboptimal performance or penalize him if he aims for optimal performance.
@Buffing up the other players: i agree with pezlerpolychromatic. Only madness can result from that.
thanks to all of you for the suggestions so far!
Claxon wrote: pezlerpolychromatic wrote: Claxon wrote: You might consider handing out bonuses to other players to try to bring them up to his level, rather than trying to nerf him down to others. Down this way madness lies. Not really. You just have to be prepared as a GM to know that your party can face greater challenges. Really, it just means upping the CR of the enemies by 1 to 2 points. Which is usually best accomplished by adding in extra enemies. The problem is: What kind of bonuses. If they are in any form equipment-based or transferable, then, as a group, they will attempt to distribute wealth so nobody feels left behind. Even if that means pawning off an expensive item and buying some other stuff.
If they are person-bound, it would be rude to leave one player out.
Aside no amount of buffs would alleviate the inherent problem of ranged combat being superior to melee in most encounter situations, because you can do almost everything you can do in melee, with ranged, but almost nothing you can do with ranged, in melee.
Say I allow Vital-Strike on a Charge, make the barbarian dip lame metal oracle for ragecycling and lead blades, allow spring-loaded wrist sheats to contain potion vials and the accelerated drinker trait, that spends one round buffing up with enlarge person per potion and lead blades per oracle spell, then as enlarged vital strike with an oversized lead-bladed +2 courageous furious katana and use furious finish each round thanks to immunity to fatigue.
Sure, his raw damage output will be awesome but he will only get to hit one target per round.
Any serious optimization for melee seems like a one-trick pony, while ranged keeps being flexible. I don't really see many kinds of bonus to hand out that stop the game from getting crazy while adressing that issue.
Some Guy again wrote:
I like sundering but if you are afraid of destroying the player's weapon just have the enemies target the bow string. It could also easily be a botch ruling when the archer roles a 1.
I've done this to a couple of my players with powerful archer builds. Smart players come with extra bow strings and it takes awhile, at least a full round action to restring a bow.
This. So much this.
There are so many ways to deal with a munchkin/min-maxer/system master. I'm partial to an outside-the-game approach where you have a frank discussion with the player about how his character just isn't working out. Don't make it a rules/legality issue, but keep it as a spotlight-hogging issue. Congratulate the player if you think it'll soothe his ego "Yep, you broke my game. You have excellent system mastery! Now make a new character that doesn't leave everyone else twiddling their thumbs."
But, when that sort of tack is not what you want to do, and you also don't want to go down the "You suffer a Heart Attack. You die, no fort save." path either, then you're left with options like the one quoted.
It's not just bow-strings, either. Bows are pretty useless when there are no arrows because the quiver is stolen/sundered.
There's also the "Your Character with a Goatee" approach. Archer NPCs that are just as broken as he is that tend to focus on him instead of the rest of the party is another option. They won't massacre the less-optimized party because "Oh my gosh, we downed your acher, but now your melee is engaging us? Curses, FOILED AGAIN! RETREAT!"
I stand by my question. How long does a typical encounter take? And how do you make them? Is it one big baddy or what. Archers can be great but if you have variation in your encounters. It can be very nice. Remember the fog wizard and that almost every spellcaster can do that at level 1. It sounds like you have nerfed his favored enemy ability that will be visible from next level when he normally would have instant enemy on every major threat.
Make interesting terrain and clever fun encounters and there should be room for the rest to shine as well.
And pehaps help some of the others, like the inquisitor, the barbarian and the sorcerer if they have suboptimal builds.
MordredofFairy wrote: The problem is: What kind of bonuses. If they are in any form equipment-based or transferable, then, as a group, they will attempt to distribute wealth so nobody feels left behind. Even if that means pawning off an expensive item and buying some other stuff.
If they are person-bound, it would be rude to leave one player out.
Aside no amount of buffs would alleviate the inherent problem of ranged combat being superior to melee in most encounter situations, because you can do almost everything you can do in melee, with ranged, but almost nothing you can do with ranged, in melee.
Say I allow Vital-Strike on a Charge, make the barbarian dip lame metal oracle for ragecycling and lead blades, allow spring-loaded wrist sheats to contain potion vials and the accelerated drinker trait, that spends one round buffing up with enlarge person per potion and lead blades per oracle spell, then as enlarged vital strike with an oversized lead-bladed +2 courageous furious katana and use furious finish each round thanks to immunity to fatigue.
Sure, his raw damage output will be awesome but he will only get to hit one target per round.
Any serious optimization for melee seems like a one-trick pony, while ranged keeps being flexible. I don't really see many kinds of bonus to hand out that stop the game from getting crazy while adressing that issue.
Yes character specific bonuses. You have a frank and open discussion with the entire group in which you clarify "I've noticed that _________ is doing most of the damage for the group and was wondering anyone feels left behind in that regard?" Assuming the answer is yes (because if the answer is no then there isn't actually a problem) then you say something to the effect of "To remedy this I am going to look at each of you characters and figure out a way to buff you so that you're are closer to the same level in effectiveness". This does require hard work on the part of a GM. It may also be accomplished if you allow players a free "re-training" to look up more optimized builds and use them.
There is no madness, just more work for the GM.
Some Guy again wrote: There are some really good options here, Saldiven has some great points on tactics and Downie's weather and environment ideas are great too.
I like sundering but if you are afraid of destroying the player's weapon just have the enemies target the bow string. It could also easily be a botch ruling when the archer roles a 1.
I've done this to a couple of my players with powerful archer builds. Smart players come with extra bow strings and it takes awhile, at least a full round action to restring a bow.
Also make sure he keeps up with his ammunition, firing all of those arrows eats up ammunition and can get expensive.
The Pilfering hand spell would be fun to use against his quiver.
@Pilfering Hand,
I'll give it a whirl, but as said, his CMD and perception values are quite good.
Guess I'll have an enemy ranged bard or eldritch knight try and use his own bow against him.
May i ask, is there a precedence for sundering bowstrings? I know i can just rule it but is something like that in the rules somewhere? because it would be great to use but can't remember it.
@the roll a 1 thing, I left it up to my players at beginning of campaign. they decided to play without botches for either side in combat, figuring they would be hurt more by it than enemies.
So reintroducing that is kinda off.
@ammunition: he was incredibly lazy with tracking it. Also with the kinds of arrows he had available. I repeatedly told him off for that but did not improve despite penalties. Eventually forced him to get an efficient quiver. 50 normal arrows is enough for 10 rounds of full-attacking, with 10 blunts if needed for 2 full rounds worth.
And usually he gets to refill in-between combats. Handy Haversack holds another regular filled quiver + more arrows, and the efficient quiver another normal masterwork long bow(Earlier, his composite longbow was not adaptive, so an enemy simply used Ray of Enfeeblement to shut him down, kept a backup ever since).
deusvult wrote: ...
There's also the "Your Character with a Goatee" approach. Archer NPCs that are just as broken as he is that tend to focus on him instead of the rest of the party is another option. They won't massacre the less-optimized party because "Oh my gosh, we downed your acher, but now your melee is engaging us? Curses, FOILED AGAIN! RETREAT!"
If your players realize you are doing this you will not win any brownie points. In fact, this is "You suffer a Heart Attack. You die, no fort save", only now with more passive aggressiveness.
And your players probably will realize you are doing this, because it is really obvious.
Snowblind wrote: deusvult wrote: ...
There's also the "Your Character with a Goatee" approach. Archer NPCs that are just as broken as he is that tend to focus on him instead of the rest of the party is another option. They won't massacre the less-optimized party because "Oh my gosh, we downed your acher, but now your melee is engaging us? Curses, FOILED AGAIN! RETREAT!"
If your players realize you are doing this you will not win any brownie points. In fact, this is "You suffer a Heart Attack. You die, no fort save", only now with more passive aggressiveness.
And your players probably will realize you are doing this, because it is really obvious. You're not wrong.
That's why I think dealing with balance issues outside the game is better than trying to deal with them in game. The best way I've seen to deal with munchkins/system masters is to just commandeer OP characters and shamelessly use them as NPCs. You keep the system master "down" to a PC on par with the rest of the party, yet he gets to indulge in what he want to do. He's even encouraged to outdo his last evil creation every time the party combines to bring one down.
If you insist on dealing with them in game, there'll always be downsides. Pick your tactic and you'll pick your downside.
Cap. Darling wrote: I stand by my question. How long does a typical encounter take? And how do you make them? Is it one big baddy or what. Archers can be great but if you have variation in your encounters. It can be very nice. Remember the fog wizard and that almost every spellcaster can do that at level 1. It sounds like you have nerfed his favored enemy ability that will be visible from next level when he normally would have instant enemy on every major threat.
Make interesting terrain and clever fun encounters and there should be room for the rest to shine as well.
And pehaps help some of the others, like the inquisitor, the barbarian and the sorcerer if they have suboptimal builds.
I answered the question above, i would say most encounters take 3-8 rounds, it differs. Sometimes its one big baddy, sometimes with backups, other times swarms of less powerful enemies. Sometimes it's a wizard with summoned backup and minions, other times an ambush with ranged guys, or a group of melee utilizing a invisibility sphere to get close.
@Favored Enemy: He knew it going in. It's a rather low-fantasy world and the prevalent population + enemies in terms of impending war + intrigue is humans. Plenty of other stuff exists and backplot has undead play a role too. But most people they meet, and many encounters they have are humans. Considering that allowing him to choose them as favored enemy unchanged(seeing how on humanoid you have to choose a subtype) and stack on the bonuses seemed rather against the intent and gamebreaking.
So he had the option of either treating the different nations as "subtypes" and get the full bonus, or choose all humans and get the half bonus on THEM.(Other favored enemy choices work all normal. If he had choosen e.g. mentioned undead and piled on boni there his instant enemy would have full power, no problem.)
doctor_marshmallow wrote: Take one of these, and call me in the morning. aye, thanks.
But as said, that shuts down completely, it's very nice to have but was looking for more intermediate ways(something that diminishes efficiency rather than an on/off switch.
MordredofFairy wrote: @ammunition: he was incredibly lazy with tracking it. Also with the kinds of arrows he had available. I repeatedly told him off for that but did not improve despite penalties. Eventually forced him to get an efficient quiver. 50 normal arrows is enough for 10 rounds of full-attacking, with 10 blunts if needed for 2 full rounds worth.
And usually he gets to refill in-between combats. Handy Haversack holds another regular filled quiver + more arrows, and the efficient quiver another normal masterwork long bow(Earlier, his composite longbow was not adaptive, so an enemy simply used Ray of Enfeeblement to shut him down, kept a backup ever since).
He can just carry around a bag of holding I filled with arrows.
With it he should be able to carry over 1500 arrows. The total cost for all these arrows is 75 gp. That should last him for about 100 encounters, give or take. Not that he probably needs this many. Between spare carry capacity and extra space in his handy haversack he should be able to carry enough arrows to last several levels. If he really wants to play safe, I am sure some of his companions have some spare carry capacity left as well.
Frankly I would hand wave cheap ammo (regular and blunt at the very least). It doesn't actually curtail his power in the slightest.All you are achieving is slightly annoying and inconveniencing him unless you plan on denying him the opportunity to restock ammunition for basically ever.
Phase spiders. Possibly hired explicitly to take this guy on, possibly given class levels. A phase spider pops in and grabs him, then jaunts back to safety.
Protection from Arrows and Deflect Arrows are both nice, though hardly perfect.
Get some enemy crossbowmen/gunslingers. Have them hunch down prone and start shooting him. They get a +4 to AC vs. ranged attacks.
Dimension Door. Kinda like the phase spiders, the archer gets jumped where he thought he was safe.
Quote: I also have to admit that most of the time I am a bit reluctant to use dominate on him. Utterly smart tactic but most likely he would kill one of the party members instantly(which means someone is stuck playing with the NPC bard until they can get a resurrection somewhere), while obviously the party would have no such doubts regarding NPC's. Give them some NPC allies for an adventure, Maybe a wilderness guide or two, or a gang with a long-standing feud with the PCs' enemies.
Dominate. "Kill the dwarf brothers first."
Still a crisis, but doesn't kill anybody the players will miss too much. Meaning a PC.
The fact is, though, there's no way to make him just as challenged as everyone else, barring an on/off switch, because he is simply a more powerful PC. The only real way to fix this is to tell him to cool it on the optimizing, which you've said is impossible.
Snowblind wrote: MordredofFairy wrote: @ammunition: he was incredibly lazy with tracking it. Also with the kinds of arrows he had available. I repeatedly told him off for that but did not improve despite penalties. Eventually forced him to get an efficient quiver. 50 normal arrows is enough for 10 rounds of full-attacking, with 10 blunts if needed for 2 full rounds worth.
And usually he gets to refill in-between combats. Handy Haversack holds another regular filled quiver + more arrows, and the efficient quiver another normal masterwork long bow(Earlier, his composite longbow was not adaptive, so an enemy simply used Ray of Enfeeblement to shut him down, kept a backup ever since).
He can just carry around a bag of holding I filled with arrows.
With it he should be able to carry over 1500 arrows. The total cost for all these arrows is 75 gp. That should last him for about 100 encounters, give or take. Not that he probably needs this many. Between spare carry capacity and extra space in his handy haversack he should be able to carry enough arrows to last several levels. If he really wants to play safe, I am sure some of his companions have some spare carry capacity left as well.
Frankly I would hand wave cheap ammo (regular and blunt at the very least). It doesn't actually curtail his power in the slightest.All you are achieving is slightly annoying and inconveniencing him unless you plan on denying him the opportunity to restock ammunition for basically ever. Actually, it would be a bit less than that, 'cuz it's dangerous to carry loose arrows in a Bag of Holding. The arrows would need to be in some sort of container (like a bunch of quivers) to cover up their pointy bits.
"If a bag of holding is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag immediately ruptures and is ruined, and all contents are lost forever."
What about a prepared caster that has protections up? Say they were invisible to begin with and have cast windwall or protection from arrows, are flying and they can blast away.
Many oozes and some other creatures are immune to piercing damage. Clustered Shots doesn't help with that. They tend to annoy ranged martial characters.
Four tyrant jellies, for example, should provide a solid CR 13 encounter for your PCs. Or two for a CR 11.
EDIT: You may also want to look at Shield Focus+Missile Shield feats for NPC grunts. It accomplishes the whole deflect arrows monk thing without monastic training.
Encounter design is all about environment, tactics, and placement.
Obstacles are an important issue. If you have an encounter in the woods, make sure you map in trees large and small, as well as protruding rocks.
If the archer clearly is the one doing the bulk of the damage, the tactics of the enemy are going to shift towards nullifying him or his effectiveness. Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, the deployment of a stealthed character.. the archer can't shoot what he is not aware of.
Efficient quivers can only hold twenty arrows in the arrow slot. He can surely stuff arrows in the other two compartments, but they aren't going to be available to draw on in combat.
Do at least one survival campaign which does put your party out of resupply for long periods of time. He'll have to ration his arrow use then. And if he refuses to track his arrow use, you'll have to.
How to deal with this is something I'm all to entirely familiar with.
We have a Weapon Master Fighter & Zen Archer Monk both using Strength Comp. Longbows. At level 9 they were like A10 Warthogs dealing mini-gun strafing death to all enemies.
I ran an adventure called Cult of the Ebon Destroyers for them. The Archer characters hated parts of it, due to the number of enemy monks involved. Remember that Deflect/Snatch Arrows negates the both arrows fired from Manyshot. This ability let my mooks and BBEGs survive another round for combat, sometimes 2 rounds. Also the adventure had a flying outsider that was built just like one of the archers.
Things to help:
1. Make sure he's taking the Deadly Aim penalties.
2. Environmental penalties and Encumbrance penalties.
3. Deflect/Snatch arrows
4. Blur/Displacement/Mirror Images.
5. Water encounters
6. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/arrow -magnet (Use these if you don't have Deflect Arrows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
7. Ranged combat back at the party with Alchemist Fire to hopefully make the archer startled enough on being on fire to roll on ground next round. Theres a spell that does this too.
8. Illusion spells
9. Lots of low level mooks, wizards, sorcerers, witches, magi, summoners etc...
10. make your BBEG look like a mook and make the mooks look really really important. This throws off the whole party when a Mook gives the BBEG speech and the BBEG is the one who is looking like a hired thug instead.
11. Incorporeal creatures
12. Strength & Dex damaging/penalty spells.
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Oh, LazarX has a good idea, and I'm going to add onto it.
My group consists of a bunch of players who have backgrounds in tabletop wargames (Warhammer, Warmachine, Dark Age, Infiniti, etc.). About a month ago, the player who owns the grid mat couldn't make the game on a short notice, so nobody could pick it up from him. We play at a FLGS, so decided to run the combats TTWG style. We used a tape measure with 1" equaling 5' in Pathfinder measurements. Instead of drawing out the map board on a grid, I used terrain from the wargame shelves.
It added an interesting 3D feel to the game, especially where things like Cover and Line of Sight were considered.
The important thing I'm trying to show is that using this 3D style map really made the importance of terrain stand out, much more so than on a simple 2D grid map. Trees, rocks, buildings, or whatever that blocked LOS or granted Cover were very obvious, and seemed to have a significantly greater impact on how the players interacted with the enemy than I had expected. Forcing the Archer to move so that he has an actual open line to fire because of intervening terrain is something that will dramatically reduce his offensive output.
{Off Topic: By the way, this grid-less, TTWG style of playing was deemed to be pretty cool by the whole group. It is, however, more difficult to work with since you need modeled terrain to make it work. But, we enjoyed it enough that I have considered making templates for radius effects, sprays, line effects, etc. so that we can continue to use this style. I can't say I would necessarily suggest it to someone without TTWG playing experience, but I think that anyone with such experience might enjoy playing combats in this manner.}
I've always found the spell Obscuring Mist works really well to shut down people with reach & ranged attacks that do lots of damage.
Tanglefoot bags also can play havoc as they still suffer the stat penalty even if they make the save vs being rooted.
About using his pet as a mount. Don't be afraid to go after it. In fact, warn him that if his pet does take a active part in combat, it will become a target. I still get surprised by people demanding to know why I'm targeting their pet even after that pet takes part in combat.
MordredofFairy wrote: Cap. Darling wrote: I stand by my question. How long does a typical encounter take? And how do you make them? Is it one big baddy or what. Archers can be great but if you have variation in your encounters. It can be very nice. Remember the fog wizard and that almost every spellcaster can do that at level 1. It sounds like you have nerfed his favored enemy ability that will be visible from next level when he normally would have instant enemy on every major threat.
Make interesting terrain and clever fun encounters and there should be room for the rest to shine as well.
And pehaps help some of the others, like the inquisitor, the barbarian and the sorcerer if they have suboptimal builds.
I answered the question above, i would say most encounters take 3-8 rounds, it differs. Sometimes its one big baddy, sometimes with backups, other times swarms of less powerful enemies. Sometimes it's a wizard with summoned backup and minions, other times an ambush with ranged guys, or a group of melee utilizing a invisibility sphere to get close.
@Favored Enemy: He knew it going in. It's a rather low-fantasy world and the prevalent population + enemies in terms of impending war + intrigue is humans. Plenty of other stuff exists and backplot has undead play a role too. But most people they meet, and many encounters they have are humans. Considering that allowing him to choose them as favored enemy unchanged(seeing how on humanoid you have to choose a subtype) and stack on the bonuses seemed rather against the intent and gamebreaking.
So he had the option of either treating the different nations as "subtypes" and get the full bonus, or choose all humans and get the half bonus on THEM.(Other favored enemy choices work all normal. If he had choosen e.g. mentioned undead and piled on boni there his instant enemy would have full power, no problem.) Sorry ditent see the answer. I dont Think you need to nerf anybody if encounters take between 3 and 8 rounds.
I Think you Can do fun stuff with clever encounters. I meen encounters with several objectives. And help the not so experienced players with building there characters if they feel left behind.
Claxon wrote:
Yes character specific bonuses. You have a frank and open discussion with the entire group in which you clarify "I've noticed that _________ is doing most of the damage for the group and was wondering anyone feels left behind in that regard?" Assuming the answer is yes (because if the answer is no then there isn't actually a problem) then you say something to the effect of "To remedy this I am going to look at each of you characters and figure out a way to buff you so that you're are closer to the same level in effectiveness". This does require hard work on the part of a GM. It may also be accomplished if you allow players a free "re-training"...
Aye, but as said before, how would more optimized melee builds ever compete with the versatility of a ranged build to the point they feel reasonably competitive?
I may be a bit dense here but please point me to a melee build that rivals a optimized ranged build in basically all combat situations? Not surpasses, rivals is enough.
I can see melee being better in specific situations, but short of giving them permanent supernatural abilities and several feats to go with them, by its very nature melee is, in my eyes, vastly more limited. Because no matter if you go with stuff like greater overrun or a cleave-line, you will always be more limited in your choice of targets and the range at which you can do those attacks. Even adding stuff like dervish dances or dimensional savant will do little to alleviate those problems.
I can houserule certain things to work together, i can give them specific boni to increase their damage outputs or make rulings that reduce their MAD, but core problems remain.
The real challenge for melee to rival an archery build is being able to make full attacks every turn. The monk and the barbarian have obtained a method, in the form of pounce. As the GM, make it possible for those characters to pounce each round. A barbarian wielding a two-handed weapon with power will deal more damage than the archer. Why? Because the archer most likely has only a static +10 or so damage modifier. While the barbarian is probably rocking like a +20 or more. So the challenge is being able to make all the attacks.
Heck, if you want to make things better for all the melee types just change the rules and allow them to make a full attack after they move. It will drastically alter the game, but it will put everyone on more even footing. You would also want to allow the barbarian and monk to get rid of beast totem and pummeling style if those so choose, since those are the main features of those abilities.
LazarX wrote: Encounter design is all about environment, tactics, and placement.
Obstacles are an important issue. If you have an encounter in the woods, make sure you map in trees large and small, as well as protruding rocks.
If the archer clearly is the one doing the bulk of the damage, the tactics of the enemy are going to shift towards nullifying him or his effectiveness. Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, the deployment of a stealthed character.. the archer can't shoot what he is not aware of.
Efficient quivers can only hold twenty arrows in the arrow slot. He can surely stuff arrows in the other two compartments, but they aren't going to be available to draw on in combat.
Do at least one survival campaign which does put your party out of resupply for long periods of time. He'll have to ration his arrow use then. And if he refuses to track his arrow use, you'll have to.
Efficient Quiver per SRD is 60 arrows, though, which is usually enough to last an encounter.
Every character during creation got to choose one craft or profession and any one skill that cannot be a class skill, both of which would automatically get one skill point added on each even level but cannot be raised normally.(As in, the characters have a hobby and background craft that gets increased as long as they roleplay interest in it or can reason for it by way of playing(e.g. barbarian choose stealth and uses it for hunting, stalking his prey). I tried that a long time ago and stuck with it. Those skills at half character level are never better than "average" but it encourages players to diversify their characters and give them interesting backgrounds.
Unsurprisingly, the ranger, being the self-sufficient woodsman he is, choose to be a fletcher in craft. So in a survival campaign he would probably take to making his own arrows, regardless of the large stock he has in extradimensional storage. The only way would be to force them into an environment in which he cannot find materials to make arrows, in which case he would probably just deplete his stockpile expecting to salvage from enemy ranged or have an option to return to some place he could restock. Preventing that would basically just make him useless in combat until such time as he CAN restock. I doubt he would start "rationing" arrows until it's too late)
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Saldiven wrote: Snowblind wrote: *ammo is trivial to carry piles of* Actually, it would be a bit less than that, 'cuz it's dangerous to carry loose arrows in a Bag of Holding. The arrows would need to be in some sort of container (like a bunch of quivers) to cover up their pointy bits.
"If a bag of holding is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag immediately ruptures and is ruined, and all contents are lost forever." Ok, so he sticks the arrows in quivers, sticks them all in leather sacks(quintuple bagged), and sticks them all in the bag.
You maybe halved the amount of capacity he has, meaning he can probably fight for only 2 levels without stopping off at the local Bows'R'Us (if a normal quiver weighs as much as an efficent quiver, it takes 6.25 pounds for 20 arrows, a quiver and 5 small waterproof sacks). And you annoyed him. Again. For no appreciable benefit.
Or he could use blunt arrows. Problem solved. Again.
Tracking cheap ammo is a waste of time (still).
Claxon wrote: The real challenge for melee to rival an archery build is being able to make full attacks every turn. The monk and the barbarian have obtained a method, in the form of pounce. As the GM, make it possible for those characters to pounce each round. A barbarian wielding a two-handed weapon with power will deal more damage than the archer. Why? Because the archer most likely has only a static +10 or so damage modifier. While the barbarian is probably rocking like a +20 or more. So the challenge is being able to make all the attacks.
Heck, if you want to make things better for all the melee types just change the rules and allow them to make a full attack after they move. It will drastically alter the game, but it will put everyone on more even footing. You would also want to allow the barbarian and monk to get rid of beast totem and pummeling style if those so choose, since those are the main features of those abilities.
Yeah, only the barbarian gets 3 attacks(one from haste, 2 iteratives) with 2 of the 3 at max attack rating., while the ranger gets damage for 5(one from haste, one from rapid shot, one from manyshot, 2 iteratives), with 4 of the 5 at max attack rating.
The Archer has, as listed above, an average of 20-25 damage per shot, and can pool them vs. damage resistance.
The Barbarian gets +25 static for ~30-35 damage per hit, and has to deal with damage resistance per hit.
So if last iterative misses for both, thats 2 hits at 35 for the barbarian - damage reduction*2, and 4 hits at 20 - damage reduction*1 for ranged. Even assuming NO damage reduction and almost double damage per hit for the barbarian, he comes out 10 points short there. Add in damage reduction and the gap widens against single targets.
So he gimped his archer by making it a ranger and you are complaing...
You further gimped his ranger by halving favored enemy bonuses and you are complaining....
I seem to be in a b!tchy mood today so I will just say be glad he did not build the character as a fighter.
If you're loathe to go the Mirror Mirror route, try throwing an Arcane Archer at them. Obscuring mist works nicely, but it's even better when it forces them to move.
Just because he's got a good fort save, don't be afraid to target it! Throw a rimed Snowball at him. Sure he'll probably make the save, but he's definitely going to be entangled.
Also get some total cover going. That's not really hard to do.
See if you can give him the Staggered condition. Frightened works really well too, as does Nauseated.
Vanish is a great low-level spell against this guy. Sure, the Sorcerer can just Glitterdust, but where does he put it? The invisible guy is at least 30 feet away by now.
Speaking of Glitterdust, it works just as well against PCs as it does against monsters.
29 CMD is alright, but ANYONE who specializes in maneuvers can easily beat it. Hell, most specialists (or even just big guys) can come close to that with just their static bonuses.
Another nice spell to use is Vampiric Touch, aka Arcane Heal. Sure that archer is doing ~80 points of damage, 70 after DR, maybe less if they resist his energy damage...But when he's taking 30 points of damage while the wizard heals, it's not as 1-sided as it seems.
WRoy wrote: Many oozes and some other creatures are immune to piercing damage. Clustered Shots doesn't help with that. They tend to annoy ranged martial characters.
Four tyrant jellies, for example, should provide a solid CR 13 encounter for your PCs. Or two for a CR 11.
EDIT: You may also want to look at Shield Focus+Missile Shield feats for NPC grunts. It accomplishes the whole deflect arrows monk thing without monastic training.
The shield focus+missile shield I used. Even including with hoplite-style teamworkers that would get to take a hit for each other and allowing them to negate that(fuzzy ruleswise, but fluff and immersion trump that).
I guess throwing some immune guys in with encounters would work out, giving him other targets but including enemies naturally immune to specifically his attacks.
Eigengrau wrote: How to deal with this is something I'm all to entirely familiar with.
We have a Weapon Master Fighter & Zen Archer Monk both using Strength Comp. Longbows. At level 9 they were like A10 Warthogs dealing mini-gun strafing death to all enemies.
I ran an adventure called Cult of the Ebon Destroyers for them. The Archer characters hated parts of it, due to the number of enemy monks involved. Remember that Deflect/Snatch Arrows negates the both arrows fired from Manyshot. This ability let my mooks and BBEGs survive another round for combat, sometimes 2 rounds. Also the adventure had a flying outsider that was built just like one of the archers.
Things to help:
1. Make sure he's taking the Deadly Aim penalties.
2. Environmental penalties and Encumbrance penalties.
3. Deflect/Snatch arrows
4. Blur/Displacement/Mirror Images.
5. Water encounters
6. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/arrow -magnet (Use these if you don't have Deflect Arrows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
7. Ranged combat back at the party with Alchemist Fire to hopefully make the archer startled enough on being on fire to roll on ground next round. Theres a spell that does this too.
8. Illusion spells
9. Lots of low level mooks, wizards, sorcerers, witches, magi, summoners etc...
10. make your BBEG look like a mook and make the mooks look really really important. This throws off the whole party when a Mook gives the BBEG speech and the BBEG is the one who is looking like a hired thug instead.
11. Incorporeal creatures
12. Strength & Dex damaging/penalty spells.
some excellent suggestions there. points 1-4+9 i already implement, 5 I tried but was rather...problematic for the group as a whole(they could not find solutions to it and as result suffered greatly).
the arrow magnet is a great option but situational.
8 and 10-12 are also interesting options i'll take another look at.
Kobold Cleaver wrote: Phase spiders. Possibly hired explicitly to take this guy on, possibly given class levels. A phase spider pops in and grabs him, then jaunts back to safety.
Protection from Arrows and Deflect Arrows are both nice, though hardly perfect.
Get some enemy crossbowmen/gunslingers. Have them hunch down prone and start shooting him. They get a +4 to AC vs. ranged attacks.
Dimension Door. Kinda like the phase spiders, the archer gets jumped where he thought he was safe.
I really like the idea with the prone crossbowman, exactly the kind of idea I looked for in this thread. Phase spider would also be interesting.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions!
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First, any veteran player should be considerate enough to not build one of the highest tier damaging builds in a group with 3 new players to make them look bad. That's just rude and obnoxious. I'd have a talk with him about that.
Second, iteas:
- invisibility should be quite common at this level
- caster with pilfering hand to steal the bow from him (or improved sunder if you're feeling really mean)
- swarms
- wind wall (or some other walls)
- confusion (Our group encountered a band of bards who opened with a confusion from each of them. There were a lot of long faces when the archer failed his save and killed 2 of the other PC's.)
- narrow twisty corridors
- illusion of additional bad guys and/or all the bad guys look the same so he doesn't know who to shoot
- waves of hidden/invisible opponents, later waves know he is the danger to stop
- fast/hidden grappling creatures like mimics
Not sure how well this would work out, as it might be seen as cheesy, specifically targeted, etc. Anyway:
Hardness.
Hardness is NOT DR, therefore Clustered Shots don't work against it. Of course, it's not the sort of thing yo can bring out every encounter, but it's an option.
Of course, the Ranger can just pull out Adamantine arrows, but he probably doesn't have too many of those since he's got Clustered Shots, so why bother, right?
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