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FuryOfMetal
2010-08-02, 04:42 PM
I'm DM for a group of 3 players. They're lvl 3 and ranging from low-op to possibly mid-op. The cast is as follows:
Tiefling Shugenja 2 (+1 LA)
Whisper Gnome Rogue 3
Githzerai Monk 1 (+2 la)

The most experienced player is the Tiefling and coupled with being a caster (albeit one i hear no praise about) will probably be the most powerful character after a while due to being, yes you guessed it, a caster. He's chosen water element focus (barring fire) and is the healer-esque character. Also he's very roleplay centric as opposed to rollplay so he's a pleasure to have.

The Gnome is played by the new guy, this being his first dnd campaign, and was created by me and will advance with the guidance and opinions of everybody else

The Gith is played by the middle ground guy. He has access to all the books via the internet, and probbaly thinks he is highly optimized and his monk could beat everything. However has also has a history (from our nWoD group experience) of creating sub-optimal characters without realising. Also being a monk doesn't help. However he does have a high enough AC for this level to be difficult to hit.

So this leaves me with a very mixed tier 3-5 party as i see the shugenja being about tier 3, the rogue as tier 4 and the monk as tier 5.

So is there anything i should watch out for?
Possible (level appropriate) loot to start dropping on them over levels 3-8?
possible bonuses to give the monk and rogue after the power difference between casters and non-casteres becomes apparent?


Sorry for a large amount of text as i'm slightly drunk whilst typing this :smallredface:

Marnath
2010-08-02, 04:50 PM
One thing that's popular is to give monks handwraps to put weapon enhancements and specials like flaming on. If you don't know what i mean, look on the DDO website for examples.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-02, 06:31 PM
The Gith's a dead man walking. He probably has 10 hp max? His ridiculous stat mods should help, but given the terrible class and the single class level, I'd be inclined to lower the LA to 1. He's a monk. It'll be fine

Marnath
2010-08-02, 06:43 PM
The Gith's a dead man walking. He probably has 10 hp max? His ridiculous stat mods should help, but given the terrible class and the single class level, I'd be inclined to lower the LA to 1. He's a monk. It'll be fine

To paraphrase a Sig i've seen around here: "Monk is pretty terrible, but you know, it's not actually worth negative LA."
that being said, yeah he's doomed. But because of the LA, not the class :smallsmile:

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-02, 06:51 PM
Offer a buyout?

FuryOfMetal
2010-08-03, 05:17 PM
Yeah i actually hadn't thought of that, i probably will lower the LA. Also i was either gonna point his towards kensai which would say on his WBL, maybe I'd advance the damage of his UAS in 2/5 levels of kensai (i wouldn't suggest go past 5 levels, although i can't for the life of me remember the reason at the moment.)

After reducing his LA to +1 he'll have monk 2, i may point him (read= strongly suggest/force) towards unarmed swordsage and give him handwraps instead of kensai.

any other ideas? does this sound reasonable?

Endarire
2010-08-03, 06:32 PM
Advise the Monk go Swordsage (Tome of Battle 16). A Githzerai is probably worth 1 LA, but not 2. Potentially exchange the Gith's and Tiefling's LA with racial HD so they can compete in skills, saves, HP, and BAB.

fryplink
2010-08-03, 08:15 PM
is the shugenja stuck on being a water shugenja? if not, have him switch to something less... heal-y, and have him bring CLW wands. The extra buff/utility spells of the other elements far outclasses water's healing ability.

take fire specialization (and rely on wands) to aviod banning the air or earth spells and play it like a batman-y scor

Haarkla
2010-08-04, 05:45 AM
is the shugenja stuck on being a water shugenja? if not, have him switch to something less... heal-y, and have him bring CLW wands. The extra buff/utility spells of the other elements far outclasses water's healing ability.

take fire specialization (and rely on wands) to aviod banning the air or earth spells and play it like a batman-y scor
Dont. It will be unbalanced.

FuryOfMetal
2010-08-06, 07:11 AM
The Bat-genja would be too unbalanced for the group :(

However with water specialty he's only barred fire, so buffing is still available

JBento
2010-08-06, 01:53 PM
The shugenja won't prolly be much of a problem - casters that go healy (or blasty) generally aren't. :smallsmile:

+1 for unarmed swordsage, and I STILL pity the gith - the LA leaves him wiht few hp. One good hit from a level-appropriate (by ECL, heh) bogie will hurt - HARD.

On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be anyone on the party that can take a beating - they seem to be more fit for hit-and-run situations. Try to build adventures where they can do just that.

Ajadea
2010-08-06, 02:21 PM
Just throwing the ability to partial-flurry and move in the same turn to the monk makes it better. Giving Wisdom bonus to attack and damage rolls is really helpful. Raise unarmed damage, and let the monk get some handwraps to enchant its unarmed strikes with. It's still very much a monk, except now it's BETTER at being a monk.

JBento
2010-08-06, 02:57 PM
well... to be fair, pretty much everything else is better at being a monk than the monk :smallsmile:

I just think it's easy to use the unarmed swordsage (and thus the player has the rules all written down and spelled out) than to alter the monk wihtout stuff writted down specifically to determine any possible interactions with other effects, but YMMV. :smallsmile:

Keld Denar
2010-08-06, 04:11 PM
Monk2 is a great jumping out point for Tashalatora as well. Its in a rather obscure book (Secrets of Sarlona, an Eberron setting book), but you are the DM so you can allow it if you want. It basically stacks Monk levels with any one Psionic class to determine your UAS damage, Flurry bonus/penalty, and AC bonus. That means he continues to advance 90% of the good things about Monks, while gaining Psionic abilities. The best thing about this is...it fits PERFECTLY in with Githzerai flavor. I'd suggest either PsyWar, Egoist (Psion), or Ardent as his Psionic class. Very good idea. Expansion is an amazing power for Monks, increasing damage, grapple mods, and all of the things that make Monks better at what they are supposed to do.

jiriku
2010-08-06, 04:17 PM
Reduce the githzerai level adjustment to +1. It's really and truly not worth more than that. Look at the revised monk I've got in my sig. It's strongly competitive with Tier 4 classes, and while he'd still lag behind the shugenja a little, it won't be so much that anyone will notice or care.