Help with OP monk player with dimensional Dervish destroying combat challenges


Advice


Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I took over the Rise of The Runelords campaign from a friend whom could not continue the story. The players are level 15 and are on the last book. One of the players is a monk with dimensional dervish build. He is destroying the combat challenges by just teleporting around and full attacking the opponents. He is to powerful because he to quickly destroys targets and then there is not much left for the other players to defeat.
I am looking for ways to counter dimensional dervish and not all monsters can have the teleportation tactician build, but that’s one of my options. Changing out monsters with fighter monsters that can counter that power build.
I will use monsters that fly, so that the dimensional dervish will lose their attacks by falling when they teleport up in the air.
What are other ways to bring back the fun of the challenge instead of one player steamrolling his way through the playing field?


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Dunno the details, but the Runelords at least would be powerful spellcasters? Dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, project image would all be counters to teleporters. Mirror image and related spells like horrific doubles soak attacks, or caustic blood, horrific doubles, fire shield and related spells are a disincentive to flurry attacking.

Teleporting to a place that won't support you doesn't actually work in PF. If the monk can't fly he can't teleport to attack flyers. Of course he'd be one spell or magic item away from solving that problem.

If the monk gets too far away from the other PCs he might be quickly surrounded and slaughtered. Or at least badly injured and have to teleport away, which might discourage him from doing the same again. Once a character in a game I ran teleported into a room he couldn't see clearly and got promptly jumped on by the clan of ninjas in there. Despite their being half his level or less he didn't do that again for a while.


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My personal favourite is teleport trap. It's up to you where the creature is going instead, so you can introduce a nice prison subquest. Otherwise avr's first paragraph already covered many ideas.

The monk ability abundant step has the catch that it needs a lot of ki. By default a level 15 monk has 7 points + Wis mod (around 5?), which is barely enough for 6 rounds of Dimensional Assault. Now, if the adventurers are forced to deal with multiple encounters per day, with each multiple targets, even a high-level monk can run out of ki.

Beyond that, I believe in doubling (tripling, quadrupling, ...) opponent HP when PCs' damage escalates too quickly. It allows players to enjoy many hits with high damage numbers without the frustration of many misses.

Finally keep in mind you shouldn't negate Dimensional Dervish completely. The monk player invested a lot and waited a long time to see it work, so it's good if it works more than half of the time.


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Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Thanks for the advice. I don’t want to take away the characters abilities, but I do want to challenge them. This advice is sound, and will help me give fun challenges to each member of the campaign.
The teleport trap is something I can use here In the campaign, in a few places. Thanks for pointing that out.
Thanks to both SheepishEideleon and avr.

Silver Crusade

Add more enemies with more HP. +4 Con is easy to calculate and you can flavor it as they have been given part of the Runelord’s power.

If you can anticipate his DPR, add that many more enemies.

If you do initiative in secret, you can drop the extras towards the end so they don’t TPK before the monk acts.

Shadow Lodge

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avr wrote:

Dunno the details, but the Runelords at least would be powerful spellcasters? Dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, project image would all be counters to teleporters. Mirror image and related spells like horrific doubles soak attacks, or caustic blood, horrific doubles, fire shield and related spells are a disincentive to flurry attacking.

Teleporting to a place that won't support you doesn't actually work in PF. If the monk can't fly he can't teleport to attack flyers. Of course he'd be one spell or magic item away from solving that problem.

If the monk gets too far away from the other PCs he might be quickly surrounded and slaughtered. Or at least badly injured and have to teleport away, which might discourage him from doing the same again. Once a character in a game I ran teleported into a room he couldn't see clearly and got promptly jumped on by the clan of ninjas in there. Despite their being half his level or less he didn't do that again for a while.

I've played a monk with dimensional agility. First dimension anchor will probably not work, as a monk casters will have a very low chance of hitting with their ranged touch attack. Dimensional lock would work to keep him out of that area.

Nothing prevents you from teleporting into the air to punch flying things, he's teleporting so fast at this point that he counts as flanking for himself so it's hard to claim that he even falls any appreciable amount since he's only in one spot for a blink of an eye.

When I played that character, I rarely even attacked because it was high level play and I didn't have high initiative. So the rest of the party usually killed everything before it got to my turn. At level 15, without significant boosting to the enemies by the GM, aps as written combats will take 1-2 round each. Welcome to high level play.

Hint: nobody runs aps as written.


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When I GM I almost always maximize enemy's HP based on their hit dice, so instead of a d8 resulting in average HP of 9 per two levels, I modify enemy HP to be 16 for two level (8 per level) and then at a certain point in the campaign I usually just maximize and then double the HP.

That's what I consider step 1. The monster as written tend to have too little HP to not get killed in a single full attack around the time iterative attacks come online for full BAB characters. Their attack and damage bonuses and even defenses are reasonable (for fostering a fun game) they just need to be more durable.

Also, as someone else pointed out your Monk player shouldn't be able to teleport to every enemy since they're going to run out of Ki points very quickly if they do. Make sure combat consists of at least as many enemies as there are members of the party, even if the enemy is just a pathetic weakling (mook). I basically made up a rule that I would always bad encounters with mooks. They essentially were enemies designed to take up space and soak up actions. They didn't have HP, they were designed to take 3 hits from anything. Didn't matter who hit them, they died on a 3rd hit. They would miss on any attacks that wasn't a 20, and be hit by any attack unless it was a 1. They could provide flanking and block melee characters by being in the way (even though they essentially provided no threat, but their being on the board made the players feel threatened).

Throwing in handfuls of these mooks can make a battle feel way more intense even if they're basically cannon fodder.


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gnoams wrote:
Hint: nobody runs aps as written.

This right here. The BBEG and his minions are no doubt watching or hearing of the PC's tactics and abilities both individually and as a team if they're coordinated. Adjust the enemies to provide a challenge.

It does take work on the part of the GM. For my RotRL I wrote an entire adventure that wasn't in the book to fit characters, motives and mapped out the Black Tower in book 4.

In your case in the final book the barrier between Xin-Shalast on Golarion and Leng (Nightmarish area of the Dimension of Dreams) are thin presenting the possibility that teleportation magic is not as reliable causing every teleport to possible bring forth horrors from that realm or send PC's to that realm.


Contingency + Maze tends to work well with a trigger of "Enemy teleports within this 100' area of effect" No save, no damage, but takes the teleporter out of the fight for several rounds (at least, depending on their Int and the DC you decide they have to beat), and it's perfect for a Runelord, or one of their more powerful spellcasting minions

Can also be turned into a trap fairly easily


Contingency can hold a maximum of 6th level spells and can only be spells that affect the caster, so no Maze.


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It's the last book, so being able to cut loose with high-level abilities is a reward for making it through books 1-5.

But if it's impacting the other players' enjoyment of the game, try talking to the player about it. Ask them to mix things up a bit instead of going straight for a teleporting alphastrike so that the others have a chance to participate.

If it's not impacting the other players' enjoyment, then use a couple of the tricks described earlier in this thread. Just try not to shut them down completely, because they had to work at getting those abilities. And if you're throwing in more critters, or more dangerous critters, keep in mind that the rest of the party may get wiped while you're trying to give the monk a challenge.


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
Contingency can hold a maximum of 6th level spells and can only be spells that affect the caster, so no Maze.

Your BBEGs and their lieutenants play strictly by the rules? Really?


Asethe wrote:
Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
Contingency can hold a maximum of 6th level spells and can only be spells that affect the caster, so no Maze.
Your BBEGs and their lieutenants play strictly by the rules? Really?

Well, spell research is within the rules^^

Researching a spell similar to Contingency that would work with a limited selection of higher level spells and would have consume costly material components and require cumbersome casting is well within the guidelines.


Agénor wrote:
Asethe wrote:
Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
Contingency can hold a maximum of 6th level spells and can only be spells that affect the caster, so no Maze.
Your BBEGs and their lieutenants play strictly by the rules? Really?

Well, spell research is within the rules^^

Researching a spell similar to Contingency that would work with a limited selection of higher level spells and would have consume costly material components and require cumbersome casting is well within the guidelines.

YEP These are ancient Thassalonians masters of magic.

queue : Elminster's Evasion

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