Is high DPR a bad thing?

[Arbane the Terrible]

Arachnofiend wrote:

It always surprises me when I double check the Aboleth statblock and see that they are CR 7. Even if they were tuned down to not be as deadly as they are that wouldn't feel right; I mean, it's an Aboleth! It's supposed to be a potential Big Bad! Why the hell is it rated as being as tough an encounter as a Dire Bear?

Newsflash! CR system still borked, Major Image at 11.

(Consider your average level 7 Fighter - poor will save, base of +2. Even with a decent 14 Wisdom (another +2) and Iron Will (another +2) and maybe a +1 from a trait and +2 from a Cloak of Resistance, they'll still fail that DC 22 save 65% of the time.)

[richard develyn]

Aboleth's are odd because that Dominate Monster ability is the only offensive SLA they have and their offensive capabilities otherwise are quite weak.

When the encounter is set up right, however, as it was in this case, they can use their illusions to keep the party occupied while they get their three goes at Dominate without being spotted (Illusory Wall is one hell of a spell for that, BTW).

Richard

[Raynulf]

Snowblind wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

If you're failing the multiple will saves required to be dominated and start killing your friends, you're spending too many resources on damage and not enough on defenses. It's a precarious balance but striking it is the responsibility of a martial that wants to get buffed.

Pretty much this.

The problem you are having isn't that your party has high DPR martials. The problem is that you have glass cannons and vulnerable squishies. Shoring up on defenses can make the problem go away.

The alternative (cutting down on party DPR and trying to tank attacks) just creates a similar problem in that you can't actually kill the other team fast enough to avoid getting worn down by their attacks. Since trying to defend against an offensively orientated aggressor is generally a losing proposition in Pathfinder, this alternative is even worse.

In short: This.

Pathfinder, like 3.5 before it, is pretty much a DPS race: You kill them before they kill you. If you deliberately wind back your damage output so that it's not as scary when things dominate you (maybe 1-5% of encounters), you'll just handicap yourself on the remaining 95-99% of encounters.

A lot of people try to take logic from WoW and similar MMORPGs to the table. It doesn't work, because this isn't a game about overspecializing in a single niche with hard mechanics to control (and thus predict) monster behavior. Everyone needs to manage their own defensive and offensive capability.

(And on a related topic: If someone makes a glass cannon and gets smooshed, it's not the Cleric's fault for not healing them fast enough, nor the fighter's for not (somehow) copping all the claws to the face. Survival is everyone's responsibility.)