Stopping a charger?

[Pippa the Pixie]

So in my new game I have a player that charges all the time. At first it was normal enough, but the group just got past 10th level. And now the charging character is going right through foes and killing them..often in one hit.

The character is a human psychic warrior with a maul. Using psionic lions charge and/or hustle to get more actions/attacks. And power attack, and leap attack. And powerful charge/greater powerful charge(+2d6 damage). And furious focus(Pathfinder, no - to hit for first power attack strike). Plus shock trooper.


So what can be done to slow this character down a bit? Just so he does not smash and kill everything?

[Merellis]

Rough Terrain.

Really, that'll stop his charge completely. Also give them wings, give them abilities like Blink.

Sure the ones that are in his way will be slaughtered, but anyone flying is out of his way, and anyone tossing down Caltrops or other things has now stopped the slaughter.

EDIT: Also suggest varying the creatures so some will be killed by him, and others will involve different things from this charger.

[Big Fau]

Difficult Terrain, Grease spells, concealment on your encounters (darkness basically), not bunching your creatures up so he has plenty of targets to attack when charging, multiple groups of enemies, anything that can use Immediate actions.

Let's see, am I forgetting something? Oh yeah! Swordsages with Setting Sun maneuvers, Crusaders in general, and Warblades with Wall of Blades.

But really, you are dealing with a Tier 3 melee character. There's not much you can do to stop him without dipping into Tier 2. Ask him to tone it down if it really bothers you that much, but do remember that he is doing his job as a party member.

[sonofzeal]

An ubercharger is a binary build, if done well he OHKO's almost anything he can hit, but isn't very flexible on that. Flying and Incorporeal enemies will make him cry.

[DeltaEmil]

Enemies with reach that trip the uber-charger. Enemies with reach that grapple the enemy. Enemies with readied actions that trip or grapple if they don't have reach. Enemies with allies that have reach. Enemies that have cover, which counts as difficult terrain. Enemies that can counter-charge. Spellcasters with spells.

It's not that difficult to defeat an uber-charger.

[Ravens_cry]

Yeah, a good charger can do that. But is it really fair to suddenly invalidate an entire character? I am not saying enemies should play dumb, but I would discuss this with the player first.

[Vandicus]

The build doesn't need to be stopped necessarily. Its possible to still give him enemies to smash up while varying the rest of the encounter with flying creatures etc that aren't effectively attacked by chargers which the rest of the party can fight.

[Midnight_v]

Wow. There was another thread on this like ... 1 week ago right?

You can also stop him by creatures that have more reach than him, and combat reflexes if needed when flat footed. . When he charges and provokes they just grapple/disarm/trip... etc. Ruining his charge.
This is cool, cause its kinda what happens when you charge a grizzly.

Also having more than one target. A... wall of mooks if you will, a lot of times
keeps those guys busy since you need a straight line.
The Tome of Battle actually has a counter charge manuever, but thats kind of a 1 time thing in a campaign unless its heavy tob.
Charing is pretty easy to stop.

So now that you have a few ways of stopping him. Make sure you don't rely on any 1 of these things too often. I mean actually LET him do his trick still, but at least you have the things in your arsenal to keep the bosses alive.

[FMArthur]

Have weaker enemies in the frontlines. Fight in areas littered with obstacles and difficult terrain. In fact as a rule I try to make my battle areas as varied as possible so that the players can use the combat environment in creative ways and to make combat less dull. I don't ever go out of my way to hamper charges and yet this simple design rule I made for myself does it anyway.

Remember that...

...if any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge.

In an area with lots of difficult terrain, even with Leap Attack it is unlikely that the difficult terrain is so precisely spaced that you can jump over it for the charge unless the players set up the fight. Creatures with reach are capable of messing up charges fairly easily, especially when used to trip. All weapons can be readied against a charge, but many weapons have the ability to deal double damage when you do so. Longspears can do this and are even reach weapons. Steadfast Boots even let you constantly have a readied action to brace your weapon against a charge, and at only 1400gp it's plausible for groups of creatures to be able to afford them.

If you really want to, you can bring down a charger with a group of tightly-packed enemies holding longspears and wearing Steadfast boots, and kill him before he can even attack his target. If you do go for such an extreme measure, use it against him in smaller numbers at first so that he has some idea of what the consequences of his actions are when charging larger groups with longspears. That way it doesn't seem to be purposely sprung on the player as an evil trap.

[aquaticrna]

give someone "elusive target" it negates all power attack damage dealt, he'll still hit him reasonably hard, but with out his power attack damage it's unlikely he'll be able to 1 hit kill. Since your players are used to him hitting and killing virtually everyone it should scare them quite a bit when the uber charger hits with everything and the guy looks mostly unharmed.

[herrhauptmann]

Steadfast Boots even let you constantly have a readied action to brace your weapon against a charge, and at only 1400gp it's plausible for groups of creatures to be able to afford them.


Awww, you took my spot. I always mention those for counter chargers!

Jokes aside, yeah those are a great way to stop a charger. Now give them to a giant.
He gets the readied attack at double damage, and an AOO for movement.

If the giant has enough reach, he could charge the psywar (not using the 1-hit KO stuff). Then psywar charges the giant. And promptly takes the readied attack and AOO.

Have you mentioned to the psywar that he'll need to start using other tactics eventually? That eventually the main bad guys (not random encounters) are going to be geared to stopping him because he's the most credible threat in the party.
I don't recommend a complete and total nerf of the guy in ALL fights from this point, but having the main enemy and his minions develop tactics to stop him is a good idea.

edit:

give someone "elusive target" it negates all power attack damage dealt, he'll still hit him reasonably hard, but with out his power attack damage it's unlikely he'll be able to 1 hit kill. Since your players are used to him hitting and killing virtually everyone it should scare them quite a bit when the uber charger hits with everything and the guy looks mostly unharmed.

Oh god oh god oh god...
Send Jack B Quick (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869062/6_hits_to_1:_Jack_B._Quick) at them.
They're level 10, so a level 14 fighter (level 12 if he's got 1 flaw) with a few supporting mooks shouldn't be an overpowering encounter.
Not only does he ignore the psywars power attack damage, he hits him multiple times and dumps him on the ground. And then Jack takes his own turn...

[Telonius]

I'd say that you could use some of these tactics just as a once in a while thing. Basically, don't make everything impossible for him to hit, just give that particular character a special challenge once in awhile.

One way of doing this is to use three feats (fourth optional), and one item.

Feats: Combat Reflexes, Hold the Line, Improved Trip (Proficiency: Spiked Chain optional)
Item: Steadfast Boots (MiC)

Spiked Chain works best, but Guisarme (or any other two-handed trip weapon) will do. The boots let you attack with any 2h weapon as though you'd readied it against a charge. So here's how it goes.

Charger charges, and comes 10 feet away. This triggers Hold the Line attack of opportunity with your weapon. After that is resolved, it triggers the attack readied against the charge (per boots), doing double damage if it hits. If you have a Guisarme, use this attack to Trip him; he's now prone and his turn ends. If you have a Spiked Chain, the player continues the charge, and has exited a threatened square. This triggers another Attack of Opportunity (made possible by Combat Reflexes). Use this one to trip him.

Results: most importantly, he hasn't completed his charge. He's probably taken three hits (thanks to Shock Trooper AC penalties). Furthermore, there's a good chance he's prone.

Like I said, don't use this every time! Just as a way to let him know that not every problem should be charged at recklessly.

[Scarlet-Devil]

The best stuff has been covered at this point, but a couple of other options include staying close enough to him that he can't charge (have a big monster get in his face and see how he likes it), and discouraging him from charging every enemy with dangerous, but possibly avoidable, things like wall of fire, blade barrier, caustic mire, etc.

[Ravens_cry]

The build doesn't need to be stopped necessarily. Its possible to still give him enemies to smash up while varying the rest of the encounter with flying creatures etc that aren't effectively attacked by chargers which the rest of the party can fight.
Of course. In fact, I think that is an excellent idea. Lots of things can make them less destructive, without shutting them down entirely.

[HalfDragonCube]

A first level spell that comes in handy with chargers: Blockade.

It creates a 5ft3 wooden block that lasts for a little while. If a caster readies an action to cast it, then the ubercharger is blocked easily, yet they're right next to stuff so they can still be of use.

[Person_Man]

Simplest answer is to just throw more enemies at him, and/or enemies of a higher Challenge Rating.

Also, while I think we're all in agreement that it's good to challenge players with different enemies and force them to use different tactics from time to time, I think it goes without saying that you should just let him have fun being an ubercharger most of the time. You don't want to punish him for playing a Tier 3 build with fewer resources.

[Tvtyrant]

Mooks are the way to deal with this; he can't tumble charge so let him/her butcher the outlying enemies. Up the numbers and you deal with the problem without punishing them.

[Soranar]

A grappling creature (say a snape/ape, plenty of monsters/animals with large grappling bonuses).

As long as the grappler gets the drop on him he's stuck wrestling with it for a while.

[Grendus]

The biggest difficulty with a psywar is they can Hustle (and, though I'm unfamiliar with PF psionics, if you're using 3.5 transparency there's an xph feat and a CS skill trick that lets you turn during a charge), which makes rough ground less useful. I would suggest using readied actions and reach weapons to make your mooks a little more tactically dangerous and less... roadkill. For boss types, a little concealment, rough terrain, or a feat/dip in a martial adept class will disrupt his charge and force him to stand and slug it out in a traditional manner. Unless he's built himself so horribly that all he can do is charge (he does have other powers, right?), it should just be a matter of shuffling up the battlefield.

Don't overdo it, and set it up in such a way as to make it clear to the player that charging recklessly at enemies with longspears is a bad idea before you start doing it in a large scale, but a little diversity can turn the game back into a mix of roleplaying and strategy instead of "let the psywar handle it, I'll be back in 15 minutes with coffee".

[Curmudgeon]

One simple answer is forest encounters. Trees make long, straight line paths very rare things. Trying to follow a travel journal that describes how you get somewhere relative to forest floor landmarks, or hunt someone by their tracks, will make the PCs stay on the ground in the woods for days at a time. When the longest straight path is under 20 feet the charger will have to find some other techniques to use.