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Reis Tahlen
2010-08-30, 05:36 PM
Hi there!

Since 2 sessions, what was a small problem began to become increasingly worrying, especially with the last session.

During the story, our 8th level group had to recover after each battle, two battles max, and each of them was very, very close. On the 8 encounters we had, three of them was a near full-group wipe, and the five others were very stressful. At the end of the session, we congratulated each other for surviving such a perilous story, and were excepting huge reward in xp. The DM made his calculation, we were already drooling on our character sheet, he rose his head, and said: 1020 xp.

We stood silent a few second. The entire group nearly died twice, some of us more than that, each fight was a trial of survival, and we gained 1/8 of level. That's when the DM revealed the encounters were around CR 5, and CR 7 for the Final Boss.

I suggested to my friends that perhaps the reason is an unbalanced group, but they seemed to disagree. I would like your advice by giving you the compo of the group:

(Me) Ratgash: Goblin Spirit Shaman . As the fight were indoors, I concentrated on buffing my teammates and blocking ennemy monsters with summons. As I took the Augment Healing feat, and rolled well, my heals were quite overkill (although near insufficient in regard of the difficulty)

Intisar: Half Orc Fighter whose strategy was to lock down dangerous opponents and keep them at bay using her 28 AC.

Wong: Human Monk, buffed each fight by my Shaman (Staff +2 to hit, D10+8 dmge, Bull Strenght, Bark Skin for AC 24)

Silfius: Wood Elf Fighter/Sorceror/Dragon Disciple, the damage dealer of the group, also buffed by my Shaman (30 Strenght, so +14 to hit and dmg, with Great Scimitar with extended critical)

Ruby: Human Cleric specialized in convoking undeads. Same strategy than my summons, except more efficient with Augment Summoning from both PHB and Libris Mortis.

We are geared with +2 (or equivalent) armor and weapons, and around 20.000gp of magic item, so stuff is not a real problem.

I know our characters are quite well made, and we never rushed like dumbasses in fight: I would not say we planned each fight, but there was at least some tactic in it.

I don't know. Either our compo isn't good, or the DM played the monsters so well that even a low CR could be treathening (sorry, I am totally unable to tell you what we fought, DM used MM2 and Ravenloft monsters, and I'm not familiar with them, except for the Glass and Flesh Golem).

stenver
2010-08-30, 05:49 PM
Your party simply isnt optimized. Your builds are probrably made badly.

But on the other hand, you give easy time to DM and you had great fun. So theres nothing wrong and unless you want to learn how D&D mechanics work for power players, stop reading guides in these forums and just have fun. A lot easier for both you and DM

power players can beat CR 14 or higher even on level 8 without any trouble. Trust me, it gets boring quick. You are in the perfect phase right now, where you believe that eveyone in party are balanced. The grass was so much greener back then....

Subotei
2010-08-30, 05:51 PM
What were you up against? Its quite common for PCs/parties to suck against one type of foe but do OK against others. Ignore me - misread your last sentence.

Reis Tahlen
2010-08-30, 05:55 PM
From memory: some blob who Confuse with his shriek and drain Con, Glass Golem, Flesh Golem, some robots thingies which act randomly and can shriek-stun, some big ugly Apes who hurt badly,... sincerly I am totally unable to be more precise.

Volthawk
2010-08-30, 06:22 PM
From memory: some blob who Confuse with his shriek and drain Con, Glass Golem, Flesh Golem, some robots thingies which act randomly and can shriek-stun, some big ugly Apes who hurt badly,... sincerly I am totally unable to be more precise.

Well, the shrieking bots are Pulverizers (CR 3), the apes are Blood Apes (CR 6, a grappler with rend). As for the ooze, not too sure.

Eldariel
2010-08-30, 06:29 PM
*shrug* You won, be happy. If you want an honest assessment of why the fights seem tougher than you think they should be, here's what I'd say: Your characters aren't especially powerful. You have a Fighter, which is a class that doesn't really give you anything; Monk which gives even less; Dragon Disciple which is alright in Coreish environment (but better in a Barbarian-shell) & a Cleric and Spirit Shaman which both are powerful...with spell selection. Fighter and Monk are mostly sums of their equipment, nothing more.

You lack a real arcane caster and it's fully possible you aren't using the strongest spells on Druid/Cleric lists efficiently. You seem to lack Knowledge-skills to identify enemy weaknesses and the particularly dangerous offensive abilities. Then there's also MM2 which happens to have some of the most under-CRd (and over-CRd) monsters in the game, which might be a part of the issue.


So...I'm not really surprised.

true_shinken
2010-08-30, 06:42 PM
Oh, damn. I was expecting that damn crab!

Really, it's probably a matter of under-CRed monsters. Your party is not fully optimized, but the CR system is not built under the assumption of heavy optimization anyway.

erikun
2010-08-30, 06:54 PM
Yeah, I think it is more due to CR strangeness. I wasn't at your table so I couldn't tell you what exactly was the problem, but it is entirely possible you just went up against monsters that you didn't have defenses against, or that you didn't have the weapons to deal with properly. Having some of your group - particularly the fighter - stunned or confused will be a problem in controlling opponents, and it doesn't look like you have anything that could easily deal with a high-DR golem.

It sounds like things went alright, overall. Your DM might look into bonus XP-rewards if he is chaining encounters with no forewarning between them. Other than that, your party has options of (attempting) optimization, ambush strategies, or purchasing something which will help in/before fights.

jumpet
2010-08-30, 06:58 PM
1. A very melee orientated party, thus very dependant upon attrition. ie healing vs damage output. Due to healing responsibilities it might be difficult to get your summoning when HP totals start falling.

2. No arcane support, which likely means little mass targetting spells. Even a single fireball can help tip the hp attrition into your favour. (There are of course much better spells than fireballl) I think this is probably your biggest problem.

3. Beware some of the later monster manuals. Experience has shown the CRs to be very wonky indeed.

4. Also mixed monsters with different abilities can be greater than the sum of their parts. It could be the DM is choosing monsters based on their tactical capabilties and how they complement each other. He could also be targetting the party's weaknesses.

5. DM's tactical skill can also make things much harder. If he plays every monster as a tactical genious, then (once again) CR really will not reflect the difficulty of the encounter.

6. What of battlefield control? Does your party use it. Did I mention lack of arcane support?

Lans
2010-08-30, 07:26 PM
Okay, lets assume that you want to increase the power of your characters.
Cleric and spirit shaman should prepare different spells, healing in combat is a big no no most of the time as well. Buffing your allies might not be the best option especially in the middle of combat.

For the spirit shaman I'm looking at Ice storm for mass area damage and a terrain hindering effect. Grab Wild Cohort feat to simulate an animal companion.

For the cleric lesser planar ally, animate dead and maybe prayer.

The others need to wait till the level up
Fighter 9 is a dead level, so he should grab a level of warblade next level, and pick up white raven tactics. A reach weapon might be a good idea if hes not already using one.

Monk and dragon sorcerer I don't really have any good advice for. Though I can imagine warblade being good for the monk so I can go with that.


What books do you have access too?

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-08-30, 07:42 PM
Try to use some sort of crowd-control effects. The Spirit Shaman should be using Entangle, Sleet Storm, Ice Storm, and next level Wall of Thorns to keep a few opponents from attacking while the party finishes off the rest. The Cleric should probably be using Summon Undead for multiple Owlbear Skeletons and can throw out a Nauseating Breath or Tremor spell to help keep opponents under control. It looks like you went up against a bunch of heavy hitters who didn't have any abilities besides dealing damage, and your party is mostly that same type of character so the fights were just a slugging contest. If those who can keep the opponents from attacking decide to do so, your party should be able to mop the floor with that type of encounter.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-08-30, 08:01 PM
Hi there!

Since 2 sessions, what was a small problem began to become increasingly worrying, especially with the last session.

During the story, our 8th level group had to recover after each battle, two battles max, and each of them was very, very close. On the 8 encounters we had, three of them was a near full-group wipe, and the five others were very stressful. At the end of the session, we congratulated each other for surviving such a perilous story, and were excepting huge reward in xp. The DM made his calculation, we were already drooling on our character sheet, he rose his head, and said: 1020 xp.

We stood silent a few second. The entire group nearly died twice, some of us more than that, each fight was a trial of survival, and we gained 1/8 of level. That's when the DM revealed the encounters were around CR 5, and CR 7 for the Final Boss.

I suggested to my friends that perhaps the reason is an unbalanced group, but they seemed to disagree. I would like your advice by giving you the compo of the group:I may not be the most reliable poster for this but I'll try to give some ideas.


(Me) Ratgash: Goblin Spirit Shaman . As the fight were indoors, I concentrated on buffing my teammates and blocking ennemy monsters with summons. As I took the Augment Healing feat, and rolled well, my heals were quite overkill (although near insufficient in regard of the difficulty)Summoning is good, in-combat healing is (generally considered) bad. Consider spending more rounds summoning and less healing (though you should top up when out of immediate danger). Anything that would drop an ally is probably a crit or similar good luck on the foes' part, in which case healing a round early isn't much help. Having another ally to draw attention from the PCs proper very much is.


Intisar: Half Orc Fighter whose strategy was to lock down dangerous opponents and keep them at bay using her 28 AC.:smallconfused: You can't keep an opponent at bay using an AC, particularly at level 8, when AC is starting its decline into uselessness. AFAIK 28 isn't particularly impressive anyway. You can keep enemies at bay with a decent reach, some AoOs and a damn solid hit to go with, however. Tripping can easily make up for a weaker hit, if necessary, and is boosted by much the same things so you could have both (size boosts, strength boosts, etc. in particular).


Wong: Human Monk, buffed each fight by my Shaman (Staff +2 to hit, D10+8 dmge, Bull Strenght, Bark Skin for AC 24) What is the total damage after buffing? I assume that's the total bonus given by the buffs, except for the AC. Again AC is not impressive. It does not force enemies to hit you over another target, nor does it protect from anything but attack rolls (and not even some varieties of them, touch for the Fighter and flat-footed for the Monk, presumably), nor are you able to make level-appropriate bruisers miss unless you really focus on it (which may do bad things to your offense). Monk is often seen as a weak class, because its features:

Are primarily defensive. Meaning foes go after other people because your features don't help to make you offensively threatening, and you have nothing to make people waste time with you instead of just plain wasting your friends.

Come too late. You get Ethereal Jaunt at a point where a Wizard could have cast Etherealness if he wanted to two levels previously. You get Tongue of the Sun and Moon whilst a caster has had Tongues (which is just as good for most purposes) for more than ten levels. One of their features which scales 1-20 is worse than a first level spell (Slow Fall<<<Feather Fall, or a Ring of the same).

Are not synergistic. You get increased movement (so you're supposed to move, right?) but your only method of decent damage relies on a. copying a charger, very very badly or b. staying still for Flurry (so that's a maybe?). The first has all its normal drawbacks plus the fact that you're just no good at it, the second requires you ignore another feature. Use the speed and you're even more offensively useless than usual (see the first item). Use Flurry and you have no need for a whole class feature, making it...

Worse than not helpful (in some cases). SR is bad! Not bad as in only just better than nothing. Bad as in actively hindering you. The disease immunity is in the first category, which is still an awful place for any class feature.
Among some other points I've undoubtedly missed.


Silfius: Wood Elf Fighter/Sorceror/Dragon Disciple, the damage dealer of the group, also buffed by my Shaman (30 Strenght, so +14 to hit and dmg, with Great Scimitar with extended critical) Looks okay, though the spells known are what a Sorcerer's power level is directly linked to. Eldritch Knight is probably a better Gish PrC than DD, but as long as they're going for melee and buffing before or on round one of combat only they should be fine.


Ruby: Human Cleric specialized in convoking undeads. Same strategy than my summons, except more efficient with Augment Summoning from both PHB and Libris Mortis.Same advice as to your character.


We are geared with +2 (or equivalent) armor and weapons, and around 20.000gp of magic item, so stuff is not a real problem.I have no idea whether or not that is anywhere near what you should have, so I'll assume it is.


I know our characters are quite well made, and we never rushed like dumbasses in fight: I would not say we planned each fight, but there was at least some tactic in it.

I don't know. Either our compo isn't good, or the DM played the monsters so well that even a low CR could be treathening (sorry, I am totally unable to tell you what we fought, DM used MM2 and Ravenloft monsters, and I'm not familiar with them, except for the Glass and Flesh Golem).

MM2 is well known for awful CRs, that may play a part. Not familiar with Ravenloft, so no help there. You seem to be relying on melee grinding down foes and somehow blocking opponents by virtue of being "the tank" rather than anything in-character or rules-based, so the DM playing enemies intelligently could put a significant damper on your abilities. The foes may also have had a terrain advantage, and you weren't familiar with them so struggling is understandable.

I suggest having some options other than "pile on more melee", which seems to be the default (as I read it), it could just be that your normal tactics were just ineffective against these foes. Or you could have had a string of bad luck. Or most likely a combination of factors.

I shouldn't worry about it unless it continues, in which case you may wish to talk to your DM about handing out XP based on the actual fight difficulty, not the predicted difficulty, or rebuilding the same basic characters with slightly more informed choices (I'm sure the playground would be happy to help optimise these characters a bit more, if you need any help).

I hope that's been informative and not too harsh.

Zaydos
2010-08-30, 08:15 PM
AC 28 is only so-so for 8th level; a CR 7 red dragon hits on a 9 without feats, or buffs (I have found close CR dragons are a good approximation of the melee power of that level). Looking at the monsters you're supposed to have been fighting, though, the fighter at least shouldn't be taking that much damage, with even the monk having the AC to avoid more than half the attacks.

If it's a one-time thing it might have been a string of bad-luck, although the characters do look unoptimal (but that's what the MMs assume).

jmbrown
2010-08-30, 08:16 PM
MM2 and Ravenloft are both horribly balanced when it comes to challenge ratings so even though you don't have an "optimized" party you're still dealing with creatures way below their CR.

EagleWiz
2010-08-30, 08:34 PM
DM used MM2 and Ravenloft monsters, and I'm not familiar with them, except for the Glass and Flesh Golem).

I don't know anything about ravenloft but I am convinced that they just rolled a D20 to come up with the CR of MM2 monsters. CR 20some non-flyer with poor magic defence? Just be glad you didn't have to fight the CR 7 that can disjunct and disintigrate at will.

Calmness
2010-08-30, 09:15 PM
Golems are immune to magic and have damage reduction, so they can be hard to kill if you lack adamantine weapons. Perhaps you should buy one or two for your fighters.

Blood Apes... i'm not familiar with them, but as a general rule a character shouldn't be having grappling contests with things that are bigger than him/her. Some ranged spells could be useful, like Biffoniacus suggested.

Saya
2010-08-30, 10:03 PM
The CR for some monsters can be iffy, mostly because most of them are done by the standard 4 (fighter, skill monkey, healer, caster), and because some of them, given enough warning, can suddenly become very easy.

Notably, you're fighting golems and oozes, those things are not fun at all for low level parties, especially if you don't expect them. The CR for those do get quite inaccurate.

In terms of optimization... your party is not at all optimized.

I can mostly only give advice on the cleric, don't get Augment Summoning feat if he/she has it. Especially if the plan is to summon undead, because you don't even get the +4 con bonus, much better to use desecrate and the corpsecrafter line of feats. A note to remember also is that unless you make your own "Summon Undead" line, the given one doesn't really have any particularly good (except zombie ogres, those things make fun tanks).

Also, feels kinda weird that of all people in the party, the sorcerer is the one that deals the most damage... in melee...

Newbieshoes
2010-08-30, 10:08 PM
Its not MM2 or Ravenloft but the confusion casting con draining ooze sounds like a Gibbering Mouther.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-30, 10:23 PM
Hi there!

Since 2 sessions, what was a small problem began to become increasingly worrying, especially with the last session.

During the story, our 8th level group had to recover after each battle, two battles max, and each of them was very, very close. On the 8 encounters we had, three of them was a near full-group wipe, and the five others were very stressful. At the end of the session, we congratulated each other for surviving such a perilous story, and were excepting huge reward in xp. The DM made his calculation, we were already drooling on our character sheet, he rose his head, and said: 1020 xp.

Well, you're being challenged, and having a good time. So, that much is going right, unless you have reason to expect a change.

Rate of progression isn't necessarily a problem. It's only really an issue when people are bored and eagerly awaiting new stuff. Is level every eight sessions too slow? Keep in mind that splitting xp many ways can slow you down...with 5 PCs, if you get any NPCs on your side, it can get rough.


I suggested to my friends that perhaps the reason is an unbalanced group, but they seemed to disagree. I would like your advice by giving you the compo of the group:

Group balance, by itself, is not usually critical. Teamwork can be, but it sounds like this isn't your issue, as you're working together well.


(Me) Ratgash: Goblin Spirit Shaman . As the fight were indoors, I concentrated on buffing my teammates and blocking ennemy monsters with summons. As I took the Augment Healing feat, and rolled well, my heals were quite overkill (although near insufficient in regard of the difficulty)

Buffs, heals and summons, it sounds like you're playing well, but keep in mind that goblin isn't a fantastic race, and it really isn't offering anything that boosts shaman. Likewise, shaman isn't a terribly powerful class.

On the flip side, CR is somewhat variable. Some monsters of a given CR are tougher than others, so it's possible that you just drew a rough lot. It happens.


Intisar: Half Orc Fighter whose strategy was to lock down dangerous opponents and keep them at bay using her 28 AC.

Half orc is also traditionally considered an underpowered race. The strength offers a boost to the fighter, but since you need int 13 for many fighter feats, the int penalty hurts you. If you're going to suck up a penalty, you might as well go full orc, and get even more strength to go with it. He would likely also gain from a couple levels of barbarian or another class that adds some variety in addition to feats.


Wong: Human Monk, buffed each fight by my Shaman (Staff +2 to hit, D10+8 dmge, Bull Strenght, Bark Skin for AC 24)

Monk doesn't make a great staff fighter. It lacks BaB, and it has some MAD issues. When compared against even fighter, the difference is enough to eat the benefit provided by having a +2 weapon. Human is a solid race, though.


Silfius: Wood Elf Fighter/Sorceror/Dragon Disciple, the damage dealer of the group, also buffed by my Shaman (30 Strenght, so +14 to hit and dmg, with Great Scimitar with extended critical)

Elf isn't a bad race, but the negative con hurts. Especially if you have levels in a casting class, like sorc. This guy is at least 3 behind on BaB compared to going pure melee, but it sounds like he's relying on melee for damage. He's not getting a lot out of those sorc levels, and dragon disciple isn't fantastic(mostly for that reason).

Golems are generally on the harder side of mobs to fight, especially for an unoptimized group. The DR is probably killing you, as summons aren't normally great for dealing massive damage, and your party doesn't seem likely to land a lot of big hits.

Consider packing a variety of weapons to counteract DR, and grabbing some ranged support. The party looks weak in the ranged area, IMO.

Greyfell
2010-08-30, 11:16 PM
I have to second (third, fourth at this point?) the concern over the lack of an arcane spell slinger, as your only arcane build seems to be a sort of half/half fighter/sorc.

The things you've described fighting also rob Monk of it's usual tricks: grappling/tripping and using stunning fist. It's hard to grapple a large golem and you sure as heck cannot stun one.

Ethdred
2010-08-31, 03:50 AM
There's plenty of good advice here so I can't add any more on that score, but are you sure that your DM knows how to calculate XP correctly? 5100 total for 8 encounters is extremely low, even for the CRs you mention.

Also, the situation of the encounter can make a heck of a difference. If you are always getting ambushed, or fighting on terrain that favours the enemy, or starting a long way apart when they have missile weapons and you don't. These can add 1 or 2 CR straight off, more if your DM is playing the monsters particularly intelligently.

DanReiv
2010-08-31, 05:51 AM
Yeah it seems unlikely.

Depends on the encounter tho, but if they were death threatening for 5 ECL8 there's a problem, houston.

free cool toy : http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm

Imho your DM got the xp wrong.

Edit : A single flesh golem (CR 7) : 320xp each, 5XCR3 : 400xp each. 8 encounters ? Yeah, he got it wrong :smalltongue:

Reis Tahlen
2010-08-31, 06:02 AM
Thanks all for the helpful advices, there are a lot of things to work on!

I will try to discuss new "strategies" with my teammates, and try new things myself: I played my shaman like any healer in a MMORPG (so heal/buff, and some control), I'll try focusing more on buff/control, and leave the heal for after fight. Also try to find some way to "boost" the others.

Thanks again!

Tetrasodium
2010-08-31, 08:43 AM
did you make any knowledge checks to see if you know any weaknesses or information about the enemy's common tactics/whatever seemed to fit the situation? Granted there really isn't a whole lot that fighters & monks can do to change compared to a caster's available spell selection of options, but just making the check and relaying meaningful information to them could be enough for the DM to give a bonus to hit/ac/damage/whatever in certain situations; other situations you have the whole "wait don't punch the cube!" value ;).

Aroka
2010-08-31, 08:51 AM
You talk about encounters having a CR, when they don't - monsters have CR, encounters have EL. This leads me to wonder if your DM, like so many others, is confused on what it all means.

EL is calculated from the CRs of all monsters involved, according to a handy (and ultimately simple-to-use) table in the DMG. CR is not calculated, it's given. CR determines XP, never EL, but EL determines whether an encounter is appropriate. Groups should mostly face level -1 to +2 encounters, with the infrequent hard encounter being EL level +3 or +4.

If you have significant trouble with properly measured encounters, then it's because your group is kinda weak. Fighter, monk, fighter/sorcerer/DD - that's serious weaksauce. Spirit shaman, hard to say - no experience there. Cleric can be great or poor, depending on spell selections.

No matter how it's sliced, though, you guys seem to have gotten around 1/4th the XP you should have for 8 level-appropriate encounters (averaging CR 8; for XP, two CR 6 monsters are equal to a CR 8, a CR 10 monster is equal to two CR 8s, etc.).

Reis Tahlen
2010-08-31, 10:29 AM
did you make any knowledge checks to see if you know any weaknesses or information about the enemy's common tactics/whatever seemed to fit the situation? Granted there really isn't a whole lot that fighters & monks can do to change compared to a caster's available spell selection of options, but just making the check and relaying meaningful information to them could be enough for the DM to give a bonus to hit/ac/damage/whatever in certain situations; other situations you have the whole "wait don't punch the cube!" value ;).

We tried, but the DM considered the monsters were too "alien" for us to know anything about them (exception: the Flesh Golem)


You talk about encounters having a CR, when they don't - monsters have CR, encounters have EL. This leads me to wonder if your DM, like so many others, is confused on what it all means.

EL is calculated from the CRs of all monsters involved, according to a handy (and ultimately simple-to-use) table in the DMG. CR is not calculated, it's given. CR determines XP, never EL, but EL determines whether an encounter is appropriate. Groups should mostly face level -1 to +2 encounters, with the infrequent hard encounter being EL level +3 or +4.

If you have significant trouble with properly measured encounters, then it's because your group is kinda weak. Fighter, monk, fighter/sorcerer/DD - that's serious weaksauce. Spirit shaman, hard to say - no experience there. Cleric can be great or poor, depending on spell selections.

No matter how it's sliced, though, you guys seem to have gotten around 1/4th the XP you should have for 8 level-appropriate encounters (averaging CR 8; for XP, two CR 6 monsters are equal to a CR 8, a CR 10 monster is equal to two CR 8s, etc.).

Sorry, my mistake: english is not my mother language, I play in french, therefore I must translate some specifi terms myself. I was of course reffering to monsters; thank god no baddies had levels.

liquid150
2010-08-31, 10:34 AM
I hate to say this, but I stopped reading when I saw:
Monk
Fighter
Fighter/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple
You could have the greatest cleric in the entire world and still have a tough time with those three in the party, since their inherent weakness starts sucking up all your spells.

Greenish
2010-08-31, 10:36 AM
Buffs, heals and summons, it sounds like you're playing well, but keep in mind that goblin isn't a fantastic race, and it really isn't offering anything that boosts shaman. Likewise, shaman isn't a terribly powerful class.Spirit shamans are actually rather nice, even though they're pretty much made by their spells since many of the class features are somewhat situational. MAD casting (if you care about spell DCs) is a bother though, unless one can grab Dynamic Priest (or something like that) from one of the Dragonlance books.

If Eberron books are available, feats like Child of Winter or Ashbound can boost your summons nicely. (The former allows summoning vermin with SNAs, while the latter doubles the durations and buffs the hit of your summoned critters.)

Spell Compendium has fun and useful druid spells, and you should probably aim towards control. Blinding Spittle, if my memory serves, is a no save blinding ranged touch attack at rather low level.

Reis Tahlen
2010-08-31, 10:43 AM
I hate to say this, but I stopped reading when I saw:
Monk
Fighter
Fighter/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple
You could have the greatest cleric in the entire world and still have a tough time with those three in the party, since their inherent weakness starts sucking up all your spells.

Its is indeed a problem: the Fighter is though, and well played, but the Monk and Dragon Disciple are healing sinks; I must often leave everything in fight and throw myself in the melee to heal their sorry butts. I'll see in the next story, which should be outdoor: as a Shaman 90% of my control spells work only outdoor, so next fights should be easier... I hope.

Lans
2010-08-31, 07:08 PM
I hate to say this, but I stopped reading when I saw:
Monk
Fighter
Fighter/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple
You could have the greatest cleric in the entire world and still have a tough time with those three in the party, since their inherent weakness starts sucking up all your spells.
Fighters can be good with a proper feat selection
Monks can be good if you replace every single class feature with ACFs, and wear full plate.
Fighter/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple can be good with very low levels of fighter and dragon disciple.

liquid150
2010-08-31, 07:30 PM
DM used MM2

Like I said in my previous response...I had stopped reading. I read it again, and oh....lookie.

MM2 is terrible. I swear the writers locked a bunch of drunk, blindfolded monkeys in a room with dartboards and took notes on which colored dart hit which number when they were assigning CR's for the monsters it has.

Tell your DM to throw the book in the garbage.

snoopy13a
2010-08-31, 08:21 PM
Honestly, you could improve your party's combat capabilites but that will just result in tougher encounters being generated by the DM. In my opinion, the DM's job is to tailor adventures to the party so a weaker party should get easier adventures and a more optimized party should get more difficult adventures. Thus, the actual combat capabilites of the group isn't as important in the grand scheme of things.

Overall, it doesn't matter what your group makeup is as long as the players are having fun. Obviously, "fun" is different for different people. Some want their characters to play a vital role (thus, there can be discontent if one player dominates combat). Others want to create the most optimal character possible. Still, some other people simply want to experience challenging encounters or just want to roleplay. Plus, these different motives for fun aren't mutually exclusive and a player could have all of those motives.

Here, the problem seems to be a lack of experience gained during the adventure based on the percieved difficulty of the encounter. The solution is simply to have your party level faster even if it means "tweaking" the XP gains.