Dear sweet Pelor above. Am I doing this right?

[druid91]

Okay.

I have a player. Who is playing a Thri-kreen barbarian. Quad-wielding Shortswords.

Now my understanding is that with wielding four weapons. That you get four attacks per step on your BAB.

These attacks due to wielding a light weapon and having multiweapon fighting, are made at a minus 2.

Now currently level eleven.... But. is it normal for her to have shredded a Dunewinder, 105 HP in two or three rounds while raging?

[Jarian]

That's not how TWF (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#twoWeaponFighting)/Multiweapon Fighting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#multiweaponFighting) work by default, no.


You can fight with a weapon in each hand. You can make one extra attack each round with the second weapon.

The Improved/Greater/Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting feats grant you additional attacks at successively lower attack bonuses.

But to answer your question, that seems like a reasonable to low amount of damage for an 11th level character to be putting out.

[Veyr]

Okay.

I have a player. Who is playing a Thri-kreen barbarian. Quad-wielding Shortswords.

Now my understanding is that with wielding four weapons. That you get four attacks per step on your BAB.

These attacks due to wielding a light weapon and having multiweapon fighting, are made at a minus 2.
There's some feat tax involved; you'd need to take Multiweapon Fighting, Imp. MWF, and Grt. MWF to get all of them, I think.


Now currently level eleven.... But. is it normal for her to have shredded a Dunewinder, 105 HP in two or three rounds while raging?
Uhm... yeah, pretty much. Combat in D&D doesn't usually last much longer than that, and it only gets shorter as you go higher in level (barring a local minimum at first). Casters generally will do so much faster than melee, too. A single target like that? Any Wizard worth his spellbook should have it dead-or-as-good-as in a round.

[Keld Denar]

Keep in mind that 3 of them are offhands, and only get +1/2 Str bonus.

But otherwise, yea.

[druid91]

But I wasn't talking about a caster. She has used nearly no magic at all. The only exception being her shortswords are enchanted. And a couple of other bits of magic gear taken off slain enemies.

Unfortunately I don't think she is going to last much longer. No PC wizard, and the one she hired is only 7th level.

[Veyr]

But I wasn't talking about a caster. She has used nearly no magic at all. The only exception being her shortswords are enchanted. And a couple of other bits of magic gear taken off slain enemies.
No, I know. I'm just pointing out that with a caster, it'd be even worse. This is what 3.5 is like.

[druid91]

No, I know. I'm just pointing out that with a caster, it'd be even worse. This is what 3.5 is like.

Hmm I really need to see more of what non-casters can do...

[Veyr]

A really simple charger at that level could attack three times, for triple damage each time, so a minimum of 13.5x Str bonus in damage, assuming they all hit. Figure a +7 Str bonus, that's 94 damage from Str alone...

[faceroll]

Hmm I really need to see more of what non-casters can do...

I ran a 5 hour session last Friday. Party composition was average level 10, warlock, swordsage, warblade, fighter, cleric, and wizard. In 5 hours of play, they succeeded on killing 21 hill giants, one hill giant with 8 levels of barbarian and sick feats, 1 cloud giant, 3 stone giants, 8 ogres, and a dire bear. All at once. In one combat. One surprise round + 10 combat rounds, and everythin was dead.

It felt really long and drawn out, but when you speed it up to the 60 seconds it took them to massacre everything, it's extraordinarily badass.

For the record, the wizard was casting as a wizard 5 levels below in casting than the party average, and every non-persist cleric I've seen in play is significantly weaker than a fighter of the same level, when it comes to straight up combat. Unless the cleric gets 10 rounds of buff time. In which case, the fighter's already killed 2 dozen giants.

[Sacrieur]

I ran a 5 hour session last Friday. Party composition was average level 10, warlock, swordsage, warblade, fighter, cleric, and wizard. In 5 hours of play, they succeeded on killing 21 hill giants, one hill giant with 8 levels of barbarian and sick feats, 1 cloud giant, 3 stone giants, 8 ogres, and a dire bear. All at once. In one combat. One surprise round + 10 combat rounds, and everythin was dead.

It felt really long and drawn out, but when you speed it up to the 60 seconds it took them to massacre everything, it's extraordinarily badass.

For the record, the wizard was casting as a wizard 5 levels below in casting than the party average, and every non-persist cleric I've seen in play is significantly weaker than a fighter of the same level, when it comes to straight up combat. Unless the cleric gets 10 rounds of buff time. In which case, the fighter's already killed 2 dozen giants.

Wait your fighter was killing while your wizard and cleric were effectively twiddling their thumbs?

That's backwards. Either your wizard and clerics suck or your fighter is very good at optimization, or both.

[faceroll]

Wait your fighter was killing while your wizard and cleric were effectively twiddling their thumbs?

That's backwards. Either your wizard and clerics suck or your fighter is very good at optimization, or both.

The most efficient use of a wizard, outside of mailman-ing (which is hard to do with a level 6 ultimate magus), is battlefield control, especially against an encounter 8 levels higher than the party average and swarming with melee brutes.

The wizard used grease, grease, grease, grease, mirror image, slow, grease, ray of enfeeblement, and a handful of others. Forgot what they were. Contrary to popular belief, you still need melee to take advantage of those extra rounds the wizard just bought, otherwise it just gives your spooky-butt a few more rounds to flee from overwhelming odds.

None of those spells will, on their own, stop a monster for more than a round or two. But all the AoOs they provoked for the the polearm wielding fighter pretty much doubled his damage output, and with his trips & powerful build, he was able to defend an entire flank with the help of grease.

Practically optimized wizards in a sub-level 13 environment operate like fighter-bombers, delivering 16 million dollar guided missiles to key targets and delaying heavy armor advancement. They tend towards force multiplication. Note that anything on the SMIII or SMIV list are crap vs. heavies like giants. Absolute crap. They lack the HP, AC, and damage required to do much. Re-animate minions would be useful, but not gonna happen in a party with a RSoP.

Without persistent spell abuse, I've never seen a cleric out fight a fighter without a lot of rounds of pre-combat buffing. Not getting feats like power attack and improved trip until late in the game also puts them at a disadvantage to knockdown fighters, when it comes to killing things. This cleric, in particular, was using DMM: quicken to toss spells out and hit things, but it paled in comparison to a fighter with a 17-20x4 reach weapon and knockdown. Of course, when it comes to creating or overcoming force asymmetry, clerics have a huge advantage, as do all spell casters.