Hello Folks,
Note: Party is level 7 as of the time of this post.
I am running a homebrew game and am having trouble getting the party to have fun while in fights because one of the players is playing an Orc Titan Fighter.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fig hter-archetypes/titan-fighter
He has a large-sized greatsword and will usually drink a potion of Enlarge Person before he charges into the fight. This means he is doing around 4d6 damage, on top of the crazy strength he has, doing more than +20 damage on top of that.
The other players are a Rage Prophet barbarian and an unchained Rogue. Both use slashing weapons, so throwing something that is immune to slashing would be death.
Now, I have thrown challenging combats at them before. In one combat I pitted them against a CR 8 bard, and it caused a lot of pain for the party because he would use confusion and hold-persons.
I am aware of what would challenge the party overall. Things like swarms, etherials, and wizards. However the only way I can think to combat this one player is by disabling him overall. Which is not-fun.
I don't mind him doing crazy damage, but some fights I want the other players to shine. Is there a good way to do that without fully disabling or killing his character?
Thank you!
If he's dominating in combat then there's nothing you can do in combat since the other two combatants are doing the same thing of hit with sword and just do it worse
multi enemies. kill by little or a lot, dosnt matter cause dead is dead. is he using the right penalties to hit with? think it is minus six.
He has cleave and cleaving finish. On top of the damage, enlarge person gives him the reach.
He is using the correct penalties, but he has about a +12 to hit regardless.
Hello Folks,
I am running a homebrew game and am having trouble getting the party to have fun while in fights because one of the players is playing an Orc Titan Fighter.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fig hter-archetypes/titan-fighter
He has a large-sized greatsword and will usually drink a potion of Enlarge Person before he charges into the fight. This means he is doing around 4d6 damage, on top of the crazy strength he has, doing more than +20 damage on top of that.
I'm assuming hes over level 3 so his penalty to hit is -3, and then with power attack he's probably at -5 to hit. That's a pretty rough penalty. Also lets be frank, you shouldn't of let him play an actual Orc.
Use multiple enemies, use higher AC, throw a Rakshasa at him, hit him with a dominate. Enervation will utterly annihilate his ability to deal damage since he won't hit anything. He's a fighter at the end of the day. His purpose in life is to hit things. He can't do anything else. Use more out of combat elements.
I'm assuming hes over level 3 so his penalty to hit is -3, and then with power attack he's probably at -5 to hit. That's a pretty rough penalty. Also lets be frank, you shouldn't of let him play an actual Orc.
Use multiple enemies, use higher AC, throw a Rakshasa at him, hit him with a dominate. Enervation will utterly annihilate his ability to deal damage since he won't hit anything. He's a fighter at the end of the day. His purpose in life is to hit things. He can't do anything else. Use more out of combat elements.
The party is level 7 right now. And I don't want to fully disable the character from the battle, because then it leaves the player twiddling his thumbs.
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Well keep in mind he is only doing 4d6 vs 2d6 with a normal medium greatsword. It goes up to 3d6 for a large greatsword (which he can wield thanks to titan fighter), but he doesn't even get bonus strength damage or anything for that. That only amounts to 3.5 extra damage on average. The potion of enlarge person ups the weapon damage by another d6 to 4d6, which brings his weapon damage bonus up by another 3.5 on average. He also gets a strength bonus, which should increase his damage by 1 to 2 points depending on what his normal strength is. So overall the damage increase is up to 9 points. At low levels this is significant, but at higher levels not as much.
If you really want to keep things balanced don't allow there to be an unlimited number or potions of enlarge person to be available for purchase, and make sure that he spend the time appropriately in combat to retrieve the potion and drink it.
Drinking the potion is a standard action which provokes. If he is in combat and drinks it when someone is nearby they should target the potion and use a sunder maneuver on it to destroy it, thus denying him the benefit as he cannot drink it.
If he does not have the potion in hand before combat he has to retrieve it, which could be a full round action depending on where it's stored. At the least its a move action.
And if he has the potion is hand, he cannot also wield his weapon since it is a two handed weapon. He can hold it, but does not threaten and cannot make attacks while only holding it. He must have both hands on the weapon to wield it and make any attacks.
If you've ignored these issues and hand-waved it, well then you know where your problem is. It's ignoring the rules.
Edit: Also keep in mind the potions only last 1 minute. That is 10 rounds. You should never allow him to get more than 1 encounters worth of benefit from the potion.
And if hes using a potion every combat he should end up with less money than everyone else to spend on other items later.
Then aim for his weapon. Sunder it, disarm him, force him to use a different side arm occasionally. Have him fight in places with low ceilings where being bigger is disadvantageous. Try grappling him- he can still act, but it'll mean he has to rely on more than just swinging his biggest weapon. Or hell, just cast reduce person or dispelled magic at him. Debuffs don't have to completely disable him. Level 7 is a completely reasonable point for pcs reputations to be known and thus tactics become infamous, and your mooks to become smart.
Swallow your mistakes, find a way to end the campaign gracefully in a way that makes people happy and start over and don't allow game breaking combos like this again.
Because quite frankly if you try any of these suggestions, your player will feel with justification, that he's being targeted, and then things will go south.
Also, keep in mind cleave is a standard action. So he can't use cleave and make a full attack. Cleave will allow him to make 1 attack, and if successful make another attack against someone that is adjacent and within reach.
It's important that the person has to be adjacent, that means any space between them prevents him from using cleave. Which actually is okay for him since cleave is actually a bad feat after level 5 because the restriction on it actually often leaves you unable to to use it because opponents should generally not be shoulder to shoulder with one another.
Cleaving finish only kicks in when an opponent is reduced to 0 hp, so if his attack doesn't knock the enemy out he doesn't get the benefit. Keep these things in mind. They can make a big difference.
If you want it, I can give you a CR 9 Bugbear strangler I made. Completely shuts down a single target, and throw weaksauce mooks to occupy the rest of the party.
Swallow your mistakes, find a way to end the campaign gracefully in a way that makes people happy and start over and don't allow game breaking combos like this again.
Because quite frankly if you try any of these suggestions, your player will feel with justification, that he's being targeted, and then things will go south.
What suggestion do you mean? Following the existing rules on action economy and how things actually work should just be the standard. If he's not doing so, then the only thing he's guilty of is not being familiar with the rules (along with the player). The only "mean" tactic is sundering the potion with the provided attack of opportunity which is valid for any intelligent opponent to do if they are in reach and he decides to drink the potion.
Edit: Nevermind, I think you're talking about the action to sunder/disarm his weapon.
So he deals 7 more damage than expected at this level? Really 3 damage since Enlarge Person is available to anyone in any game.
What's the issue, exactly? Fighters hit things. It's literally all they do.
So he deals 7 more damage than expected at this level? Really 3 damage since Enlarge Person is available to anyone in any game.
What's the issue, exactly? Fighters hit things. It's literally all they do.
Seriously. It really isn't an issue.
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It looks like the problem here is that the ENTIRE PARTY is based around dealing damage in melee.
Yeah, there's gonna be some overlap. Especially if (as I suspect) you make a habit of doing single enemy combats. You need mooks.
It looks like the problem here is that the ENTIRE PARTY is based around dealing damage in melee.
Yeah, there's gonna be some overlap. Especially if (as I suspect) you make a habit of doing single enemy combats. You need mooks.
This is true, there should generally be at least a number of opponents equal to the number of characters in the party if you want it to be a challenge at all. Otherwise action economy is so much in the party's favor the enemy will do almost nothing.
A 4 man party of 10th level characters can probably defeat up to a CR 15 creature that is by itself (especially if they know what they're going to encounter) because they have 4 times as much action economy, even if the enemy is a higher level/cr. There is only so much it can do in a single turn.
Throw in multiple low hit point monsters. If the monsters have 10 hit points, it doesn't matter if he does 12 points of damage or 25 points of damage, he still kills it one blow. Also, the others might kill them in one blow too.
You can also use ranged attacks against him, use Spring Attack against him, use all sorts of different spells (Stone Skin, Black Tentacles, Charm Monster, Confusion, Crushing Despair, Fire Shield, Walls of Fire/Ice, Greater Invisibility, Bestow Curse, Enervation, Baleful Polymorph, Ray of Enfeeblement, Rusting Grasp, Slow, Cloudkill, Stinking Cloud, etc.).
Also, try using 5 foot wide corridors and the squeezing rules. Fights that move from room to room can be fun and dynamic.
2.5 foot wide corridors occasionally for zest.
Are your PCs {in}famous in the campaign world? Then their enemies might prep for the orc with the 12 foot long sword.
And you can also increase the hit points too. I'm pretty sure your rogue is doing around 5d6 points of damage per hit. The rage prophet is probably doing 1d12+5 at least, right? Plus non-weapon stuff, right?
Are you sure the PC is doing overwhelming damage, or is it about right for a 7th level melee specialist.
A properly-built fighter is almost always going to do consistently high damage. That's also usually the only thing they CAN do. The Rage Prophet has spells, the Rogue has skills and sneak attack. The fighter just hits things.
Give him fights that let him shine, but also consider changing up encounters and challenges to let the other players also shine. Give the rogue an opportunity to sneak around and ambush. Give the Rage Prophet a chance to turn the tables with some spells.
If the player behind the fighter is genuinely interested in the whole party having fun, he'll understand you designing some encounters that don't necessarily give him a chance to be top dog. If he pitches a fit about not constantly having an opportunity to be a meat grinder, then it's a problem with the player's attitude more than it is with mechanics or GMing.
Drinking the potion is a standard action which provokes. If he is in combat and drinks it when someone is nearby they should target the potion and use a sunder maneuver on it to destroy it, thus denying him the benefit as he cannot drink it.If he does not have the potion in hand before combat he has to retrieve it, which could be a full round action depending on where it's stored. At the least its a move action.
And if he has the potion is hand, he cannot also wield his weapon since it is a two handed weapon. He can hold it, but does not threaten and cannot make attacks while only holding it. He must have both hands on the weapon to wield it and make any attacks.
If you've ignored these issues and hand-waved it, well then you know where your problem is. It's ignoring the rules.
Edit: Also keep in mind the potions only last 1 minute. That is 10 rounds. You should never allow him to get more than 1 encounters worth of benefit from the potion.
And if hes using a potion every combat he should end up with less money than everyone else to spend on other items later.
Free: Remove hand from weapon
Move: Take potion outStandard: Drink potion
Free: Drop bottle
Free: Put hand back on weapon
I have not ignored these rules. This is how it works. He does this usually on turn 1. He has enough HP and AC that taking an AOO isn't usually an issue.
I also have only been letting him use it in a single combat, because a minute passes usually for healing.
Give him fights that let him shine, but also consider changing up encounters and challenges to let the other players also shine. Give the rogue an opportunity to sneak around and ambush. Give the Rage Prophet a chance to turn the tables with some spells.
This is what the topic is all about. I am trying to design some encounters that let him still play without just throwing a Hold Person on him or attacking him with swarms.
Throw in multiple low hit point monsters. If the monsters have 10 hit points, it doesn't matter if he does 12 points of damage or 25 points of damage, he still kills it one blow. Also, the others might kill them in one blow too.
-Edited for space-
And you can also increase the hit points too. I'm pretty sure your rogue is doing around 5d6 points of damage per hit. The rage prophet is probably doing 1d12+5 at least, right? Plus non-weapon stuff, right?
Are you sure the PC is doing overwhelming damage, or is it about right for a 7th level melee specialist.
So I have been using mooks for the most part. In order to bust thier AC I have been using action economy in my favor. The problem with mooks is that they die so very quickly. So the entire party doesn't feel challenged.
One time I threw a Dire Tiger (CR 10) at the party. Mr. Orc Titan Fighter almost killed it in a single hit using Vital Strike. He did about 88 damage to the thing.
I am not entirely sure if that's considered 'normal' or not for level 7.
I am going to put repeat in caps here for emphasis however.
I AM USING MOOKS
I AM AWARE OF WHAT HARD-COUNTERS FIGHTERS
I WANT THE GAME TO BE FUN, NOT JUST MURDER OR DISABLE THE CHARACTER
I KNOW HE IS NOT 'OVERPOWERED'. BUT HE IS POWERFUL AT WHAT HE DOES.
Drinking the potion is a standard action which provokes. If he is in combat and drinks it when someone is nearby they should target the potion and use a sunder maneuver on it to destroy it, thus denying him the benefit as he cannot drink it.If he does not have the potion in hand before combat he has to retrieve it, which could be a full round action depending on where it's stored. At the least its a move action.
And if he has the potion is hand, he cannot also wield his weapon since it is a two handed weapon. He can hold it, but does not threaten and cannot make attacks while only holding it. He must have both hands on the weapon to wield it and make any attacks.
If you've ignored these issues and hand-waved it, well then you know where your problem is. It's ignoring the rules.
Edit: Also keep in mind the potions only last 1 minute. That is 10 rounds. You should never allow him to get more than 1 encounters worth of benefit from the potion.
And if hes using a potion every combat he should end up with less money than everyone else to spend on other items later.
Free: Remove hand from weapon
Move: Take potion out
Standard: Drink potion
Free: Drop bottle
Free: Put hand back on weaponI have not ignored these rules. This is how it works. He does this usually on turn 1. He has enough HP and AC that taking an AOO isn't usually an issue.
I also have only been letting him use it in a single combat, because a minute passes usually for healing.
I did say if. Regardless, you should use the AoO to destroy the potion not hit the fighter. They fighter might have a lot of bonuses to not getting his weapon disarmed or sundered, but those bonuses don't apply to a potion.
Also, how is he doing 88 damage with Vital Strike? Vital strike only doubles weapon damage dice, not static modifiers. So he would deal 8d6+ other static modifiers. You said he had about a +20 damage bonus before, so he should max out at about 68 damage, unless he gets a critical hit.
I did say if. Regardless, you should use the AoO to destroy the potion not hit the fighter. They fighter might have a lot of bonuses to not getting his weapon disarmed or sundered, but those bonuses don't apply to a potion.
That's actually not a bad idea. It doesn't prevent pre-buffing, but it's an idea. The only thing is that he has improved initiative and is usually on the top of the round before the enemies can get into melee range.
Also, how is he doing 88 damage with Vital Strike? Vital strike only doubles weapon damage dice, not static modifiers. So he would deal 8d6+ other static modifiers. You said he had about a +20 damage bonus before, so he should max out at about 68 damage, unless he gets a critical hit.
This is my bad for misremembering. He did get a critical hit in that fight.
I did say if. Regardless, you should use the AoO to destroy the potion not hit the fighter. They fighter might have a lot of bonuses to not getting his weapon disarmed or sundered, but those bonuses don't apply to a potion.
That's actually not a bad idea. It doesn't prevent pre-buffing, but it's an idea. The only thing is that he has improved initiative and is usually on the top of the round before the enemies can get into melee range.
This is my bad for misremembering. He did get a critical hit in that fight.
Also, how is he doing 88 damage with Vital Strike? Vital strike only doubles weapon damage dice, not static modifiers. So he would deal 8d6+ other static modifiers. You said he had about a +20 damage bonus before, so he should max out at about 68 damage, unless he gets a critical hit.
Prebuffing shouldn't really work. Unless the party is sneaking up on enemies and he spends a round drinking the potion while they're unaware it just doesn't last long enough for him to wander around with the effect on. Now if he does go first in combat, yeah he does have a good chance of being in position to not provoke but it is an option. Especially if someone sneaks up and attacks them.
Prebuffing shouldn't really work. Unless the party is sneaking up on enemies and he spends a round drinking the potion while they're unaware it just doesn't last long enough for him to wander around with the effect on.
Top of the initiative a lot of the time, or the rogue scouts ahead and thus they know which door they are going to knock down.
Target his weapon with a grease spell or sunder it or hit him with the command spell (drop weapon). Inflicting enough damage to give the weapon the broken condition will negate his increased critical threat range.
Curse him with a bestow curse, enervation, or anything really that affects his to-hit roll.
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HE IS POWERFUL AT WHAT HE DOES.
And this is bad because...?
HE IS POWERFUL AT WHAT HE DOES.And this is bad because...?
When did I say it was bad? It's causing the other martial characters to feel overshadowed. So I want to design some encounters where he doesn't outshine everyone.
If you want to throw in some challenges that the rest of the group can handle better, it sounds like upping the ACs occasionally may help. Also you could have an opponent withdraw into a smaller space where the rest of the party can pursue (would take a standard action to dismiss the enlarge). Also grapping (not easy necessarily) would negate the two-handed weapon, but not the rogue probably.
Toss those in occasionally, and it should even things up. Reflex saves for the rogue (entangle, grease, even fireball), and the Oracle depends on the build of course.
Unless everybody else hates it, go with it. He does one thing really well: kill things with his big sword. Let him have fun doing that.
I had a player in one game that had a large size Barbarian who used an oversized greatsword and enlarge effects such that he was rolling fireball-esque dice for damage. He was having a great time, and I'd give him swathes of things to mow down. It worked really well.
When did I say it was bad? It's causing the other martial characters to feel overshadowed. So I want to design some encounters where he doesn't outshine everyone.HE IS POWERFUL AT WHAT HE DOES.And this is bad because...?
Well, you know their strengths and weaknesses better than we do.
Is there anything they have going for them the Fighter doesn't?
Rogues are s$~&ty at combat anyway, but the Rage Prophet should at least have spells.
Again the main issue is everyone in the party is in the same niche. The Fighter is just better at it.
If throwing them small-fry isn't going to cut it, we need more info. Since most of the things that would shut down the Fighter would screw them over too.
Even if they're worse than the Fighter at combat, unless they're way behind the curve I don't know why it'd be too challenging to just triple the number of equal CR enemies. Three CR 7's or 8's.
Or maybe this is just a lesson in having a balanced party.
Throw some non-combat challenges at them. The Oracle can spell his way out and the Rogue can skill it. The Fighter can suck it, usually.
I once collapsed a temple on the party of 5, and they scattered in 3 directions. The poor cavalier (who had combat AND social skills) was alone in the one section of the dungeon with no combat or social encounters. He got to explore and kick in some locked doors. I felt really bad about that. At least I was able to cycle through the three groups pretty quickly and eventually get them back together again. But sometimes, specialists have to wallow through unspecialized activities.
Can you just ask him to lay off the potions? Is he a reasonable adult who would agree to that if you said "Hey man, the rogue and rage prophet are feeling a little bit like sidekicks, can you cool it with enlarge person?"
fighter lv7
+12 to hit for 4d6+20
rogue lv7
+5+5+2=+12 for 1d6+7+4d6(sneak)
rage prophet
+5+5+2=+12 for 2d6+9
so they are all pulling the same accuracy or so. their damage is just less. so yeah, there's not anything you can do when player 1 2 and 3 are all "i hit it" and p1>p2>p3 can't make m3 look good cause it's just doing a worse version of p1.
So you want to disable the fighter:
- flying enemies, fighter can't do jack
- Switch hitters that move more than 30 feet, fighter can't reach them
- grease spell, I bet the fighter has 20 DEX LOL, like a DC16 level 1 spell can probably prone him, or even worst, grease his weapon, having to save each single round if he fails the first one
- difficult terrain
- create pit
- fear ? this one might actually be a bit harder
- command > drop weapon
And, how is he behind an Unchained Rogue? That rogue should be around 20 DEX, DEX to damage -4 to AC against enemies, plus SA. He should be hitting as hard as the fighter. 4d6, 2d6, it doesn't matter.
Fighter has Vital Strike? Good, he has feats, that the only thing he's good at.
If he's using a double weapon his AC has to be lower, maybe Touch attacks? If you just wanna stick to HP damage.
10 Wizards spamming Acid Splash?
It all boils down on how the battlefield is played out:
Druid on difficult natural terrain, fighter loses
Flying, fighter loses
Anything that targets Will, fighter loses
Anything that targets Ref, fighter loses
Combat Maneuvers, a decent Grappler can probably stop him, he hasn't specced into that
Tanglefoot Bags
Anything that involves moving, usually ruins Martials
There's nothing you can do, unless you want to actually annoy the s*** out of him and make him completely useless. Fighters are barely good at dealing HP damage, having much better classes for that.
Anything you can do will disable him and make him feel useless.
EDIT= DR, Aligned Weapons, anything that needs special materials yo bypass. Concealment, Blur, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Greater. Darkness, Blindness
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Those options also all bone the rest of them. The Fighter can fight, that is what they do, that is all they do. He doesnt have skill points, he doesnt have spells.. Heck the Rage Prophet can rage and cast spells, Divine Spells.
Tell us what the other character are and can actually do. Then we can begin the process of solving whatever this problem actually is.
Flying enemies, swimming enemies, incorporal enemies, invisible enemies.
There's a nasty
Well the fighters speciality is the combat, so how about making the road from encounter to encounter more suitable for your other members?
If some of them have knowledge skills play more on that, have a few traps for the rogue to discover and a part of that those traps could be as simple as a alarm trap that prevent pre-buffing as things takes cover/prebuff or attack.
There is a lot of ways of dealing with the fighter, but as you say it doesnt make it fun for him nor for you if you are going to counter him outright so heres an idea:
A "split encounter" as i like to call it is that you try to design a encounter around that you have the big dude go against the big dude in some sort of a duel while the rest of the party takes care of the peanut gallery. The problem is to convey what the idea with the encounter to the players so they understand the situation.
Examples: Big dude have damage reduction that the fighter should overcome, while the room is filled with people that are a threat but are easier to hit for the benefits of the small guys, if the big dude is ignored he will go for the small players. And it may have the fighter to play as a sort of protector.
Fluffwise it could be the burly barbarian who have heard of a guy with a large sword and want to challenge him to battle, and his crew is filled with clerics with shield other or other shenanigans which the other players can hunt.
*shrug* Or "Puzzle battles", where the battle cant be won with HP loss alone but rather "solve" the tactic that allows the combat to proceed as normal.