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On the other hand; The bastard polymorphed my Trex into a Halfling!
That was the truly unforgivable part! Stinking grapple rules.
I'm not against to change the enemies to make a more appropriate fight, changing some feats, prepared spells, even leveling them up... be it to make a tougher fight or to make it easier depending on the players.
As long as you don't tailor all encounters to kill the PCs or make their strategies useless (nothing wrong if your main strategy doesn't work from time to time, but making it useless makes you wonder why you are playing your character), rewriting enemies doesn't seem like a bad thing to do as long as it is supported by the rules (giving 5 AoO to an enemy with 8 Dex is weird).
Said that, I am usually lazy to do it if it's not for a very good reason. I don't care that my players finish an enemy in one blow without being able to act if I know other enemies are going to be more threatening.
In a 3.5 campaign, I made a "young" Eldritch Giant from MM3 because it's CR 15, and I needed something CR 9-ish.
You made your players face a poor giant child? Evil! XD
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This is how your Paladins always fall isn't it xD
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I have a figther in my group. We are both players. He is rocking a fantastic 13 strength.
No shennagins to boost his damage. Nothing to boost his accuracy. He is twohanding a greataxe. He is aiming for whirlwind attack. He got power attack and furious focus. Otherwise he is a straight core figther. No archetypes or decent feats.
He has no ranged ability. My animal companion does more damage. He stands between our backline and gives the enemy soft cover. When he hits he adds a whopping 1d12 +5 damage. This is at level 5. So he has the damage and accuracy of a well built 1st level martial.
It is terrible.
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You made your players face a poor giant child? Evil! XD
More like a snarky teenager. Reduced size from Huge to Large, so Strength went from 42 to 34, and HD from 25 to 15 (I think). I adjusted the feats and spells a bit, but he still had Quickened magic missile and Quickened dispel magic, and a Large greataxe doing 3d6+12 thrice a round, so pretty decent action economy.
I have a figther in my group. We are both players. He is rocking a fantastic 13 strength.
No shennagins to boost his damage. Nothing to boost his accuracy. He is twohanding a greataxe. He is aiming for whirlwind attack. He got power attack and furious focus. Otherwise he is a straight core figther. No archetypes or decent feats.
He has no ranged ability. My animal companion does more damage. He stands between our backline and gives the enemy soft cover. When he hits he adds a whopping 1d12 +5 damage. This is at level 5. So he has the damage and accuracy of a well built 1st level martial.
It is terrible.
Shouldn't it be 1d12+7 (+1 from Strength, +6 from BAB +4 2-handed Power Attack)?
Is his Dex 13+ too? He can get some javelins and also Combat Reflexes and a reach weapon for AoOs, maybe even Combat Patrol with his Dodge and Mobility feats. Also, spike gauntlets.
Did he roll poorly or did he make "interesting" choices with a point buy or standard array?
You made your players face a poor giant child? Evil! XDMore like a snarky teenager. Reduced size from Huge to Large, so Strength went from 42 to 34, and HD from 25 to 15 (I think). I adjusted the feats and spells a bit, but he still had Quickened magic missile and Quickened dispel magic, and a Large greataxe doing 3d6+12 thrice a round, so pretty decent action economy.
He was probably not evil, just on a rebellious phase xD
Actually, I find the young template to be kinda powerful in some cases. In S&S there is a young water naga and I find her to be very strong for her CR as she loses some physical abilities but her spellcasting remains untouched and a water naga has some interesting SLAs.
And my infamous ability to make Dalindra's paladins fall (it only happened twice but it was so epic that he doesn't let me forget! And the fact that it was the same character the two times only makes it worse) hasn't as much to do with me being very strict as it has to me giving them situations that drove them sort of insane... The worse part is that it was mostly accidental.
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Its not that hard paladins tend to have poor dexterity all you need is a good grease spell to make them fall.
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Or grindylow. Grindylow free trip!
And my infamous ability to make Dalindra's paladins fall (it only happened twice but it was so epic that he doesn't let me forget! And the fact that it was the same character the two times only makes it worse) hasn't as much to do with me being very strict as it has to me giving them situations that drove them sort of insane... The worse part is that it was mostly accidental.
Well, last time you couldn't make me fall... so you made my deity fall!!
Wasn't that the first time?
Both times.
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I'm not evil, just misunderstood.
Now, Paladins come to me...
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I feel nothing. What a weak trap. You have no power over me!!!
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You are as much a Paladin Trap as I am, Alric. You are beyond my reach.
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I have just learned my lesson.
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MOM Kil and dal are role playing on the thread again!
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It's all Kileanna's fault!!!
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I regret nothing.
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AMAZING
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You made your players face a poor giant child? Evil! XDMore like a snarky teenager. Reduced size from Huge to Large, so Strength went from 42 to 34, and HD from 25 to 15 (I think). I adjusted the feats and spells a bit, but he still had Quickened magic missile and Quickened dispel magic, and a Large greataxe doing 3d6+12 thrice a round, so pretty decent action economy.He was probably not evil, just on a rebellious phase xD
He was the Joffrey of Eldritch Giants.
Then I reassure myself in saying you are VERY EVIL. You have created a Joffrey Giant. Some things shouldn't exist xD
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In my current Hell's Rebels game:
The player joined the game late in the campaign (level 10) and assured me that she was usually a 5th Edition player but was fully aware of the Pathfinder rules.
So I left her character creation in her court with only the most cursory suggestions:
1.) You are going to be fighting devils so get a silver weapon.
2.) In fact at this level they start to have DR Good as well so keep that in mind.
3.) If you are going to play a caster be aware of spell resistance.
Turns out her knowledge of the rules was somewhat exaggerated. In fact I got the impression that one of my other players put a lot of effort into building parts of her character. Character arrives and she has chosen to play a Ratfolk Fighter (Cad Archetype).
I check her sheet and there appears to be no sign of silver or mithral in her weapons... no ranged weapon... no ability to fly... on top of having too many feats and skill points.
I notice that her rapier has the potential of doing a maximum of 16 damage in a turn. Once again... Dirty Trick fighter so not a problem.
Immediately upon starting to play she starts trying to do damage. I think over the course of four or five sessions she just completely ignored her nearly +30 CMB to debuff enemies. I eventually talked her into using Dirty Trick... which is something she has done precisely once.
She then got frustrated when she found out that she didn't have Quick Dirty Trick and thus couldn't use her other attacks to do tiny amounts of damage and stopped using Dirty Trick again.
Don't Small PC's use "Small" equipment, which weighs half as much as regular equipment?
3.0 sizing rules are a little different, so it didn't quite work out that way.
This doesn't quite fit the bill, but whatever... (I think it may have annoyed the other players a bit, and I know my dad [also my Gm at that point], hated gnome characters, so...)
I had a gnome barbarian once, it was in the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft game, from 3.5, so it was even further out of place. This Chaotic-Good, Psychopathic Gnome had a spiked chain, and knew how to use it. I think he did end up dying, eventually, but he worked surprisingly well, but, seriously, how would YOU react to seeing a psychotic Gnome frothing at the mouth over your body, after having tripped you with a spiked chain that he is now beating you to death with?
I played vanillar Fighters, Rogues and Cavalier. All of them are nothing but disappointment.
3.0 sizing rules are a little different, so it didn't quite work out that way.
Don't Small PC's use "Small" equipment, which weighs half as much as regular equipment?
Ah, OK. So many version rules... :-)
I played vanillar Fighters, Rogues and Cavalier. All of them are nothing but disappointment.
My rogues survive up to the point they enter melee combat.
My fighters either die or I want them to die but they are so dice blessed that I can't kill them.
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Have you tried falling rocks? they usually do it.
I think the weakest character I ever played was a Ninja under the 3.5 system. A character based on throwing stars is a neat concept, terrible in actual play. 1d4 + x dmg (and xd6 sneak attack) is pitiful at higher levels.
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Have you tried falling rocks? they usually do it.
That only works of you are the GM.
A guy in my recent party made a Drake Rider Cavalier.
From level 1.
At first he carried the useless thing around in a box, then he left it at the party's house for safety. It was too dangerous to use the one and only class feature, the damned thing is a liability.
Utterly hopeless. He was playing an NPC warrior class.
Not his fault entirely, he saw the fluff, figured he could ride a dragon into combat with his lance and be awesome.
Having said that, he kept on rolling crits and his AC and HP were fine, so it wasn't a total mess. It's the fault of the writers of the poor archetype.
Actually I admire him. I dont like PCs build from lvl 9 or so, they dont feel organic.
And a Cavalier still has challenge and order, very much not a "NPC warrior class"- the order of the dragon gets :"Challenge: Whenever an order of the dragon cavalier issues a challenge, his allies receive a +1 circumstance bonus on melee attack rolls against the target of his challenge whenever he is threatening the target. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels the cavalier possesses.
Skills: An order of the dragon cavalier adds Perception (Wis) and Survival (Wis) to his list of class skills. "
So once per day he's a bard. THEN he's a warrior for the rest of the day. Sound like 3.5 Smite Evil.
He has more skillpoints and good skills- and a dragon buddy.
What is a fighter but a Warrior with a bonus feat?
If the size progression was just 1 or 2 levels faster I wouldn't be so put off by the drake rider. It definitely wouldn't be overpowered, as it still mostly comes online late game.
As I understand it, the dragon buddy is less than a familiar.
More powerful than a familiar, not as tough as a companion.
I agree
derpdidruid, the size issues are there, no riding for a medium master until lvl 13.
I think for the archetype that should have been advanced.
It has wording that makes undersized mount not work.
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I'd honestly argue that until the Drake companion gets a few size increases, it's actually worse than a familiar. The familiar at least has some utility in terms of skills, empathetic link, share spells, etc. The drake is a bit more durable in combat than most familiars, but this is offset by how much it sucks if the drake dies.
As it gets bigger and starts getting Drake powers, it starts getting usable (as in, it's now not completely worthless in combat and is starting to be able to compete with the weaker animal companions), but the drake has too few powers and has at least one ridiculous power tax (Not even allowing the thing to glide without spending a power is a crime. The fact that you need to use four out of five of your powers in order to have a smoothly flying mount is also a crime).
I think it eventually becomes better than a normal animal companion, but only if you don't try to turn it into a flying mount and instead focus on making it independently functional. Of course, by the time this starts happening, animal companions are falling off...
And this isn't going into the fact that you have to sacrifice most of your class features for this scrawny thing.
I wish I could love the Drake Companion, but as it is, it's one of the most disappointing things I've ever seen.
(Since this topic is about frustratingly weak things, I don't apologize for this mini-rant!)
Regarding new and old players. I actually don't mind new players. They may be inexperienced as far as playing but they can and do bring an excitement to the table that older more experienced players don't anymore. I don't mind helping new players learn the game or make their characters since if they have a fun useful character they will have fun and want to play.
I have met quite a few older players, including my first group who do and in my case did nothing to help me learn. They handed me a wizard said play him when I knew nothing about the class. I threw a fireball not realizing fireballs have blast radius. The player next to me yanked the character out of my hand said play this handing me a cleric. I learned how to play it and the rogue myself. I have seen this behavior a lot regarding new players. I have seen older players slam on new people because they don't know much about the game. This generates a lot of bad feelings causing a lot of new players to quit before giving the game a fair chance. This is especially tragic since some old players are nothing but cheating jerks whose goal is simply to screw with a campaign and GM. Me I'd rather have a table full of new people actually interested in the game then a table full of older cheating jerks.
I like new players too. They always try to do new and interesting stuff. It may not always be "optimized," but it's almost always fun. It helps if, whenever they say "Can I...?" the DM says "Yes!" or "Try it and find out!" as opposed to, "No, you should take a 5 foot step and do another full attack."
Oh, I remember a guy about half a year ago in a society game, he was playing an alchemist. Guy had a 10 strength and no actual weapon, used an improvised cane to constantly melee the zombies. I cant remember if he even threw a bomb through the whole thing.
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The Fighter's player that I've already talked about cannot play any class that relies on expendable resources because he'd keep his resources for the «important fights» and when the time comes he'd forget about using them. Even if he is told to use them: «the enemy seems strong, you're going to rest after this fight, why don't you rage?» he won't do it because he'd think that he doesn't need it and maybe someone attacks while resting.
Then he'll complain because that classes are too weak when he doesn't expend their resources and label them as bad classes.
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Oh actually now you mention it I once played with a guy who made a barb who never raged because he needed a real reason to get angry. Then complained the reason he was weak was he didn't have a +5 vorpal sword. He was level 3 xD