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Wahrheit
2010-07-27, 04:09 AM
So I'm running a 3.5 game, obviously, and have run into a bit of a problem. Most of the party is made of casual players with unoptimized characters, which I actually rather enjoy. They're putting more time into thinking 'what best suits the character?' instead of 'how can I obtain world-shattering cosmic power ASAP?' Except for one. We have:

Human artificer
Human werewolf martial barbarian
Minotaur martial scout
Half-elf rogue
Gnoll cleric (NPC)
Human Crusader/Duskblade/Jade Phoenix Mage

The party is level 6 at the moment; the minotaur is using a modified version of the race to make him playable at low levels. And yes, the presence of three monster races is due to some of the aspects of the campaign and not due to player cheese. Anyway, the Crusader's player spends most of his time levelling up on the optimization forums, and it's starting to unbalance the game. Last session, he opened a fight by one-shotting a phthisic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phthisic.htm). The session before that, he took 3 rounds of undivided attention from a level 9 half-air elemental druid, intended as a boss fight, without ever going beneath half health. He regularly outdamages the minotaur's charges, who's combining Powerful Charge and Skirmish with martial boosts. I've looked over his character sheet and it's all legal, no cheating required.

The other players (the scout and barbarian especially) quietly approached me to mention they felt they were being completely overshadowed by the Crusader, since he could survive melee combat better than them, deal more damage than them, and cast spells on top of that.

Anyone have advice on what I can do to try to counter him so the rest of the party doesn't feel useless?

Superglucose
2010-07-27, 04:30 AM
These classes will humble him. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm)

Specifically, hit him with some metamagicked' Ennervation. Possibly drain his strength all the way down to 0. Go after his int and drop it to 0.

But more importantly (and seriously), go talk to him.

Eurus
2010-07-27, 04:41 AM
These classes will humble him. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm)

But maybe not, depending on how they're played. Given that the druid wasn't able to do much to the crusader, that might suggest a lack of familiarity with caster tactics. (Druids aren't the best battlefield controllers, but there's always bear summoning + animal growth + wild shape, and maul someone with 3-5 giant bears).

Talking to him is definitely the best option. If you just want to try and make encounters that are more challenging for the whole party without forcing anyone to change their characters, definitely break out some casters, but any non-traditional monsters can work. Invisible Stalkers/Phantom Fungus or skirmishing incorporeal undead can force cooperation to pin them down, a well-played dragon or mind flayer can tear apart anyone daft enough to rush in without a plan, any encounter can be made more difficult with long-range backup, and then there's the ever-wonderful environmental hazard.

Psyx
2010-07-27, 06:17 AM
Talk to him and let him know that the others are starting to enjoy the game less because of it. Tell him that you run a low-powered campaign, and would prefer to keep it that way.

If he plays with other (optimised) groups, this game is a chance for him to explore some 'weaker' character concepts that he might not otherwise play (heck: I'm playing a thief-acrobat exemplar in a campaign at present for just this reason!).

If that fails, hitting the character with 'save or suck' spells will effectively nerf him or take him out of fights a bit, and give the others a fair crack of the whip.

ToySoldierCPlus
2010-07-27, 07:12 AM
Honestly, it's not terribly surprising that he's outclassing the Barbarian, Rogue, and Scout. He's combined two Tier 3 classes with a really nice prestige class, while they're playing a collection of Tier 4s. Of course he's going to do better, and he really doesn't need to optimize much to do it.

That being said, you have at least three characters vying for the melee spotlight. That's your big problem. They're going to step on each others' toes, especially the crusader and barbarian. In order to fix it, I suggest bigger encounter groups. Since he's taking things down easily anyway, throw more things at him and the rest of the party. That way, everyone has targets they can smash, and the Crusader stops stealing all of the glory.

aeauseth
2010-07-27, 05:51 PM
I don't know how you handle treasure but if it isn't completely socialistic then you could provide treasure geared toward your weaker players. They end up getting something useful for 50%. Keep tayloring treasure for the weaker players until their power is roughly equivalent to the optimizer.

There may be times when the optimizer gets the treasure you picked for the weaker players, but he will probably just sell it for half price. Eventualy you should be able to increase the wealth of the weaker players.

A more brutal tatic is to destroy/damage the optimizers equipment. A rust monster comes to mind. I'd put this option at the bottom of your list.

I believe that GP can be more powerful than XP. I'd rather be a level 5 fighter with level 10 wealth than a level 10 fighter with level 5 wealth.

aeauseth
2010-07-27, 05:56 PM
I run a DMM Cleric/Warlock. While I don't completely outclass the rest of the party I'm definaly on the top end. I read the posting about Class Tiers and somewhere it suggests that the stronger players/classes should pick powers & magic items that benefit the party instead of maximixing their personal power. Half of my DMM spells are party buffs and seems to make the party happy to have me along, instead of pissed off that I'm killing everything.

Instead of talking down to your optimizer you might try to find some way to focus his skills to benefit the party, not just himself. I don't have any specific recommendations, it would depend on the player & his personnality.

aeauseth
2010-07-27, 06:04 PM
Another thought is to find the optimizer's weaknesses, they all have at least one. Select monsters that exploit the weaknesses.

We have an enlarged fighter tripper w/spiked chain in our group. We fought some monsters with pounce which can avoid the the AAO, and thus the trip.

Our warlock has trouble with creatures with Spell Resistance.

Maybe the optimizer isn't good at range. Use flyers.

Keep in mind that you need to make sure at least one of your weaker players can do something, or you just screwed the entire party, not just your optimizer.

ryzouken
2010-07-27, 06:11 PM
You have an artificer that's hit level 6?

Why are they worried about the crusader? That artificer should be wrecking things. X random wand + 2Y random metamagic feats = dead monsters. F'rex:

Enervation + Split Ray + Twin Spell = 4d4 negative levels. Pop!
Scorching Ray + Maximize Spell + Twin Spell = 96 fire damage. Zorch!
Tasha's Hideous Laughter + Heighten Spell + ??? = DC 20 will save or no actions for you!

And this is core stuff, and only the very basics. Granted it's expensive, but even the relatively cheap form of Scorching Ray + Split Ray is doing more damage than should be available at their level.

Tell the scout to trade up for a Factotum and the barbarian to pursue the uber charger routes and see if that doesn't fix your problem.

Tinydwarfman
2010-07-27, 06:33 PM
Another thought is to find the optimizer's weaknesses, they all have at least one. Select monsters that exploit the weaknesses.

We have an enlarged fighter tripper w/spiked chain in our group. We fought some monsters with pounce which can avoid the the AAO, and thus the trip.

Our warlock has trouble with creatures with Spell Resistance.

Maybe the optimizer isn't good at range. Use flyers.

Keep in mind that you need to make sure at least one of your weaker players can do something, or you just screwed the entire party, not just your optimizer.

:smallbiggrin: You make it sound like optimizers are some kind of rare monster. "Beware the Optimizer son, but never forget it's fatal weakness... The rule of 0!" :smalltongue:

Though really, I would give some buffs to the weaker players, or make the optimizer help them build/rebuild their characters.

Yukitsu
2010-07-27, 07:08 PM
As an optimizer my vote is in the other direction. Can't you just start helping people out when they make really, really weak decisions?

balistafreak
2010-07-27, 08:54 PM
Give the Crusader a "rival"?

A sort of Quirky Miniboss who calls out the Crusader for some mano-a-mano combat.

He should have "overpowered" AoE attacks so that the best strategic move would be to take the challenge, because then the AoEs are only hitting him, not the entire party.

Of course, this only works for one/a few combats, depending on how long you can string him as an antagonist. But it's a thought.

Kythorian
2010-07-28, 09:52 AM
Yeah, when i read your list of chars, I assumed the arificier was the problem...they are tier 1, while your 'optimized' char is tier 3(though granted, the prestige is pretty good--but hes running it off of duskblade, so its not going to be game breaking no matter what he does).

Regardless, since it is one optimizer, I would try and fix things by lowering his power first, instead of attempting to convert the other four players into optimizers(In the long run, this will cause other problems too)...this can only be done without pissing him off if you take him apart and talk through it with him...Try and convince him to swap out some of his more optimized choices for his char for some less optimized ones. Maybe drop or nerf a few of the better feats...remove one or two of his best spells. Hopefully you can reduce his damage to a reasonable level. He is still going to be a very good tank simply because of his armor and high hitdice for most of his levels. Thats not really a problem though. Its easy enough to have things that don't care about hp or armor from time to time to keep him from appearing unkillable.

Edit: I DMed a game with 3 players a year ago or so...one was a heavy optimizer, and i tried to fix it by helping out the other two to make them more optimized...and it turned into an arms race between the players for who could be the most powerful. Even with heavy use of the ban-stick to keep the most overpowered spells and prestige classes out, they still ended up taking on CR's in the mid 20's when they were around lvl 15. It made it VERY difficult for me to build enemies that were appropriate challenges(since the CR of the enemies was now a worthless guidance. I pretty much had to hand-build optimized enemies for any fight that they wouldn't just run over). But more importantly, it made the game too much about the crazy mechanics of D&D and took away a lot of the fun. I have since avoided DMing D&D for that reason...If i ever do again, i would play E6 to avoid most of that.