My party consists of level 16 group of Rogue(unchained), Barbarian(Unchained), Techslinger and Sorcerer. I think all of them built their characters in rather decent way, picking up proper feats and abilities as they leveled. The problem is, the game became very unbalanced in favor of Barbarian.
Currently she is using Chainsaw +1 for two weapon fighting, which with all the critical feats, accurate stances, power attacks and other things comes up with absurd damage numbers. On critical attacks all modificators add up to +84, with 9d6 damage rolls. This coupled with critical range starting at 15 and improved numbers for confirming criticals leads to many rounds where there are 2 criticals in a row, each hitting for 120+ damage. Metweska died to that before doing anything, really. I've looked into future bosses and for example Bastion? Yeah, that will die in two hits, especially since it's vulnerable to criticals.
This leads to battles that lack tension, are uninteresting and, the worst part, make the barbarian steal the show completely. I understand the fact that's the most combat oriented class, but the gulf is so big it's not even funny.
Let's compare it to techslinger. She had to painfully work to get multiple working technological guns and rifles to cover multiple elements, but they still look like mosquito bites next to Barbarian. The class is really only about combat as well, and very often opponents will outright have immunity to all elements she has, making her stand there doing nothing. I sometimes pretend monsters do not negate her damage completely so she has some fun. Even in best case scenario full attack from Techslinger pretty much equals to single critical from Barbarian (and those happen every turn, basically). Not only getting all those weapons is very hard, expensive, she has to worry about ammo(for a long time she had to scrape for any nanites she could, because she only had Inferno Pistol), she has to reload, she has to use timeworn weapons(and uses her ability to use fake charges, so she can use that forever, but loses some of her attacks).
Rogue, sure, she shines in skill checks, and is even better at using wands than sorcerer. She disables devices, fixes stuff, and knowledges everything. Okay. And yet in combat she dies, gets disabled, nearly never hits and so on. She went for two-weapon fighting and is as effective at it as Metweska was. Her attack numbers aren't even exactly that bad, her full round action has +22/+22/+17/+12 versus Barbarian +26/+21/+16/+11. But the damage is laughable unless she can get Sneak Attack - which she most of the time does. But she needs to work for that sneak attack, losing some move actions (and thus doing only 1 attack) just to position herself. Even then her damage numbers are around 40. So she gets 1 attack for 40, as opposed to Barbarian doing 4 attacks, 1-2 of them at 130.
Sorcerer is the only one who can kind of keep up, because of flexibility of spells. Even if he has no damage output spells there are always buffs, tricks and such. Obviously he can run out of slots - that takes forever and usually is not a problem. But Barbarian is even slower to run out of her rage rounds.
The other thing is ease to take them out. Barbarian is Armored Hulk, and has best AC in the group, health pool twice as big as any of other heroes(if temp HP are included), has DR 10/- and has all 3 saving throws high. Sure, if monsters on board can deal touch attacks that bypass DR they can, after many many hits get Barbarian to feel in danger, but in most battles attacking Barbarian is so unlikely to have any effect that I just attack others. Sure, there are battles like the one against Deacon Hope where Hope is immune to crits, has many Mirror Images and does touch attacks and bypasses DR. That was hard battle for Barbarian... but it also made Rogue pretty much unable to deal anything (bye bye Sneak Attacks), he was immune to all elements (byebye Techslinger, go do something else). And even when doing 6d6 force + 6d6 sneak, plus 1d4 int drain Will DC 22 it took nearly forever. It wasn't possible to get sneak attack every time, but most of the time it was. So that's only 20-40 damage per round. Against 200HP that's 5-10 rounds of hitting mosquito bites, since rest of the monsters didn't have anything against barbarian.
Obviously there are battles where I can disable barbarian for a bit. For some reason Viper Vines had so high grapple levels that I could keep barbarian pinned down most of the battle(she was still immortal, but at least immobile, giving rest of the team time to shine), but except for extreme situations like this there's nothing that can be done. Confusion? Yeah, sure, everyone fails, but Barbarian. Other status effects? Barbarian just passes save throws, monster just lost a round. Anything that could even remotely try to slow down barbarian to level of other players? Nah, sorry. Meanwhile Techslinger just needs to run into someone with resist or immunity to elements, and Rogue just needs to run into situations they can't easily get sneak attacks. Also, because most common way for her to get Sneaks is to Flank with Barbarian her performance relies a lot on what Barbarian does, so she is pretty much becoming bonus damage for Barbarian.
I mentioned Rogue is often doing only 1 attack - that is because she is positioning herself for Flanking, does 1 attack. Next Barbarian unleashes the fury, one-hits all enemies around Rogue and Rogue needs to move up to her speed just to be near other opponents. Another thing is - recently large and bigger monsters staring appearing, with very high CMDs. That means that she has to use Acrobatics to move trough Threatened spaces just to get close... and then she dies, because attack of opportunity happens. She has very high Acrobatics. Until recently Acrobatics was sure way to move without getting attacked, but recently CMDs grew so much it's about 40% chance or so.
Also, Barbarian just can not care about anything to be the best. Meanwhile Rogue. has to use Adamantine weapons or Bane weapons to get trough DRs and/or Hardness. Barbarian just doesn't care - what is 20 hardness against 120 hit, especially when the monster is Vulnerable to critis, so that 120 is actually 180?
In the end something is out of whack. I don't know if the monsters are too weak, Barbarian too strong, other players too weak, but I see that combat situations recently became unacceptable. Help!
Quote: In the end something is out of whack. I don't know if the monsters are too weak, Barbarian too strong, other players too weak, but I see that combat situations recently became unacceptable. Help! I agree, it sounds like your intraparty balance is a bit out of whack. The barbarian is too strong vs. other characters that are trying to be primarily damage dealers, like the rogue or techslinger. The player behind the barbarian has just done a better job at optimizing their character for damage than the rest of the group.
That said, the kind of accuracy with the kind of damage the barbarian is doing is not actually that unusual for high level martial characters. In fact, its actually a bit on the low end (unsurprising because the barb is still using a +1 weapon at 16th level).
Normally if your whole party is overperforming, you can compensate by pitting them against stronger foes and more deadly challenges. But it sounds like that would pose too deadly a threat to the rogue and techslinger. This leaves you in an awkward position if you want to present challenges that are appropriate for the whole group at the same time.
That said, you're on Book 6 and the end is in sight. I'd sit down with your group and ask your players how they feel about the current situation. If most people are fine with the barbarian and their own characters, I'd change nothing and let them roll through the rest of the adventure. The barb might find it a little dull, but the other players will still be challenged, so it should still be fun. If your players are upset about the situation, consider asking either the barbarian to rebuild to a weaker character or the other two to rebuild to stronger ones. Vanilla two weapon fighting rogues are notoriously weak characters, sadly.
I suspected that might be the case. I don't think this player will nerf his character, and the team is more interested in seeing the end of the story than be stars of the battle. At least Barbarian destroying everything in two hits means we will finish quicker ;)
How is the Barbarian doing Two-Weapon fighting with a two handed weapon? or was that a typo?
I don't know exact spot where you see that, but:
Barbarian - two handed weapon, no two weapon fighting, strong.
Rogue - two daggers, two weapon fighting, weak.
Both are Unchained versions. Barbarian in stuck on +1 weapon, since getting magic chainsaws on market is impossible due to Technic League policies. Rogue has powerful magic daggers, more up to the level they are on.
Problem is that rogue as a class is not actually good for damage dealing, tech weapons suck because they are so easy to counter and the barbarian class is built to do damage. And the chainsaw is really OP weapon.
How is the barbarian doing 9d6 on criticals, it is 18-20/x2 weapon? Base is 3d6, add gravity clip for 4d6, enlarge person for 6d6 and bane for +2d6 so on criticals he could be doing 14d6+bonuses.
Barbarian needs to reach the monsters to do damage. Dispel the barbarians means of flight, box him in with walls of force, trip him with superior reach. Use spells that do not allow saves. Like Anti-life shell and watch as the barb is completely useless but the gunslinger or sorcerer are not affected at all. The rogue can use a bow and sneak attack invisibly with it.
The sonic cannon thing from the gargoyles and heavy weapon harness will help the techslinger somewhat. If you feel like she is struggling with weapons why not have her find some +x construct bane sonic weapons? Or those weapons that deal force damage? Techslinger is very dependent on gear so give her some.
She is going to really struggle in the final fight as the foes are downright immune to energy damage except sonic if I recall correctly.
But if she has sonic weapons she might be the only one able to seriously damage those pesky digital things in the final fight.
Why is the techslinger still struggling to find silver disks to her weapons? The ship is full of places to recharge them.
Why is the rogue not using invisibility or greater invisibility to get sneak attacks?
Be thankful the barbarian did not apparently take Come and get me to basically double his damage like our groups barb did.
Haven't the players basically wiped out the Technic league at this point? Besides they should be able to upgrade the chainsaw anywhere there is a guy with Craft magic arms and armor, Technic League politics not withstanding.
Areinu mentioned Viper Vines, which are page 39 of The Divinity Drive, so the final module of Iron Gods has only 16 pages left. Thus, let me ask: are the players happy enough with the situation to let the combat inbalance endure to the end?
There are situations where the barbarian could keep a dangerous opponent busy while the others deal with technical matters in the background. For example, Unity could be trying to launch the shuttle in the final room A17, the barbarian and sorcerer could keep the Overlord Robot busy while the rogue and techslinger disable the shuttle's propulsion. Likewise, battling Ophelia in area G, the Computer Core, could have an important action involving the computer core and the entrance to the Godmind that involves technology and thievery rather than combat. The PCs could cleverly teleport Ophelia into an inactive part of the Godmind rather than physically beat her.
I don't actually know how difficult combat is in those encounters. My players extremely derailed The Divinity Drive and won by sabotage rather than combat. They did defeat Unity's Avatar in the Godmind in the form of a CR 23 unadvanced solar angel in a grueling 10-minute battle where their primary combatant, a fighter in powered armor, had to deal with DR 15 and regeneration 15 and the primary battlefield controller, a gunslinger, repeatedly shot weapons out of the avatar's hands.
Quote: How is the barbarian doing 9d6 on criticals, it is 18-20/x2 weapon? Base is 3d6, add gravity clip for 4d6, enlarge person for 6d6 and bane for +2d6 so on criticals he could be doing 14d6+bonuses. The barbarian used to be half-orc, but went murder hobo against people around torch, only to be caught and beheaded. Rest of the team went trough sidequest to restore his finger and reincarnate him(that was meant as part of punishment). Roll went to halfling.
So the Chainsaw had to go trough process of making it smaller, thus it's now base 2d6. Add gravity clip for 3d6. Lethal Accuracy increases the multiplier to 3x.
Even with enlarge person halfling will only become medium sized creature, and thus will have 4d6 with the clip.
Although small changes due to amount of d6s aren't as devastating as the bonuses themselves(+84). 14d6 is average of 49, 9d6 is 31, so that's 18 points difference.
Quote: Why is the techslinger still struggling to find silver disks to her weapons? The ship is full of places to recharge them. No, no. Now it's alright, recharging is easy. During first chapters, when she was using Inferno Pistol from 1st book boss she needed Nanites, which were very expensive and hard to get. I've dropped tons of those here and there to help though.
Quote: (shortened) techslinger gear Yeah, I've dropped her some good weapons in the past and removed timeworn from some weapons that were to be found timeworn. It put her on workable level in the past, but apparently in this part of the module it's not enough. I looked ahead and saw there will be tons of good weapons in this book so I didn't want to drop anything for now.
Quote: Why is the rogue not using invisibility or greater invisibility to get sneak attacks? Is. But his wand got blocked and they continued to on for many encounters.
Quote: Be thankful the barbarian did not apparently take Come and get me to basically double his damage like our groups barb did. Ouch. I think it's not available for Unchained Barb though.
Quote: (shortened)suggestions I really like them. I'll try to incorporate them to balance out the battles. Next session is on Saturday, over roll20(thanks pandemic), so I'll let you know how it went.
Quote: technic league Well, they pacified main headquarters, assumption was a lot of TL agents are out there in the wilds, many of them trying to calm riots in Starfall due to king change. They moved power over TL into hands of Zernebeth under deal of change of policies, so yes, they could now get the stuff, although the riots didn't stop at that point so they might have assumed there's no easy way to do so. Now they are resting after Deacon Hope fight (which they didn't win) outside of silver mount, so I'll start next session by telling them the riots have now died down, life comes back to normal, restaurants are opening and social distancing is not needed anymore :P
Quote: There are situations where the barbarian could keep a dangerous opponent busy while the others deal with technical matters in the background. Yeah, the points you're mentioning are still to come. After clearing secondary deck they traveled to habitat pod (resolving stuff there), and then to recreation deck, so most important encounters, and most interesting in my opinion, are still before them. Also, I'm pretty sure they will stick to the end. Although I think they will want the shuttle to succeed, but take them into spaaaace instead of Unity, heh. So they'll probably try to take over the place (with combat, I guess).
When reading the book ahead I was kind of underwhelmed with the fact the digital unity is just Solar Angel, no special stat block, no mythic... The Overlord Robot seems like much more fun encounter actually.
Isn't Unity supposed to have a different form depending on how much the players have disrupted him? We fought him as a star archon who had some movadic/monadic(?) devas for support. The anti-magic field from the devas was really really annoying as we did not have any ranged weapon users except for the cleric who was not really built for it.
Yes, that's true. There are many versions of that encounter. I forgot that the Avatar can change as well, I thought only his minions did. Whoops.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
Small correction on enemies that are vulnerable to critical hits: Robots don't take extra damage from critical hits, they just have to make a DC 15 fortitude save or be stunned 1 round, or staggered on a success.
Since we are talking about module 6 at this point, enemies are going to be very effective and tactically sound, assuming they aren't mindless. Your barbarian is relying on a series of attacks to properly do his Barbarian level damage, so any capable enemy will ensure that he won't be able to full attack and will have to work to get each hit. If he doesn't have access to flight, the enemies can just fly away for example. The Overlord robot will run right over the barbarian if he just runs in, and the Godmind fight is all flying creatures that will gladly stay out of reach.
What is giving the barbarian such high saves compared to the rest of the party? Barbarian's will make the fortitude saves, that is generally a given, but even with the bonus from rage, the Will save will still be dragging a bit, and Reflex will be worse especially with the low dexterity of an Armored Hulk.
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