How to Fix a Charger

[Arel of Dawn]

In a new campaign that I'm starting one of the players wants to play a Frenzied Berserker. The players are ok with this so I'm ok with this. The problem comes in the fact he wants to play a character based around charging. I don't want to outright ban feats or put a damage cap on him. So what can i do to make charging Good but not broken? What feats could I change to make them balanced or even if there's no other choice outright ban?
Any help is appreciated.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Hit him with small, annoying attacks from invisible forces. Every time they do, he has to make a will save or TPK the party. Eventually, he's going to fail, and the party is going to get annihilated when he does.

That's why I don't let my players play FB... it's just a walking TPK.

[tacho101]

you don't have to limit him at all, make charging nearly impossible to accomplish via rough terrain, mook it up so he cant make it to the desired target, or just put random obstacles in his way as to make i harder to apply the trick, this should make him think tactically before throwing out a ubercharge, that and make him suffer with readied against charge. [edit* steadfast boots]

if its the bbeg your worried about, up his miss chance to the sky, and with all this, if he finds a way to pull it off, he deserved it.

[Arel of Dawn]

Hit him with small, annoying attacks from invisible forces. Every time they do, he has to make a will save or TPK the party. Eventually, he's going to fail, and the party is going to get annihilated when he does.

That's why I don't let my players play FB... it's just a walking TPK.

The Frenzied Beserker Isn't the main problem for me. That's really between him and the party I feel. They are ok with it so I am too. Will it cause complications? Probably but I'm sure they will be quite humorous. At least for me. I'm just more worried on how to balance the various charging feats and tricks, leap attack, Shock Trooper so on and so forth.

[Greenish]

make him suffer with readied against charge. [boots of the battle charger]You're probably thinking about Steadfast Boots, since Boots of the Battle Charger are, as the name suggest, for chargers (they allow charging as a standard action 3/day, I seem to recall).

[ericgrau]

I'm against "fixing" by making the character's build nearly impossible to use by altering the entire world to set it against him. That's worse than banning, because at least with banning the player can do something else. Just ban the worst offenders like the editing mistake called shocktrooper* and include terrain and so on only as often as you would anyway. How much you disallow depends on the power level of your gaming group.

* As in, most high op builds focus not on this feat, but 1/3 of this feat, and neither the other 2/3 of that feat nor a single feat in the same section even get mentioned since they're so minor.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Use spears or some other weapon with the brace ability. Make it so there are multiple opponents, he can only hit a couple per round if he has pounce.

[Greenish]

As in, most high op builds focus not on this feat, but 1/3 of this featI very much doubt most high OP builds are chargers.

[ericgrau]

In the context of melee builds, naturally.

[Arel of Dawn]

I'm against "fixing" by making the character's build nearly impossible to use by altering the entire world to set it against him. That's worse than banning, because at least with banning the player can do something else. Just ban the worst offenders like the editing mistake called shocktrooper* and include terrain and so on only as often as you would anyway. How much you disallow depends on the power level of your gaming group.

This is how I feel too. I don't want to punish the player for his feat choices by making his character useless. I was planning on banning Shock Trooper If I couldn't find an alternative. As far as power level goes I would say we are medium to medium high power level.

[tacho101]

it doesn't have to be to a ridiculous degree of charging stoppage every single time. its just measures to make sure other chars also get to shine. i imagine it isn't great to lose the bbeg in one turn because of a charger, making him set up his charges is better than nerfing i think. the game world doesn't have to be completely against him, but if he's finishing every fight the same way, its not like no one would ever prepare something for him.

it just a measure of control available to the dm to control his damage output. and control the fighting experience

[ericgrau]

Mmm and he can jump over some terrain, later fly, avoid the guys with spears, etc. Throwing in a few of these as is realistic is both fine and makes the game more interesting. But not most fights, which means he shouldn't be able to 1 shot everything in those remaining fights either. It's a middle ground wherein he still gets high damage most of the time, but not enough to one shot a non-minor foe and sometimes (but not usually) he has trouble even getting his damage multipliers.

[Hiro Protagonest]

This is how I feel too. I don't want to punish the player for his feat choices by making his character useless. I was planning on banning Shock Trooper If I couldn't find an alternative. As far as power level goes I would say we are medium to medium high power level.

So, the druid took natural spell and the wizard focuses on battlefield control/scrying/buffing/debuffing? You'll have no problem with the charger than.

[Darthteej]

I know this is your opinion, but as a DM you also have a lot of say in your player's build choices, and I'd say more than they do.

Fact is, the Frenzied Berserker is a broken class, and not just in the powergaming sense. It's basic design is deeply, deeply flawed. It possesses a damage output easily capable of destroying everything it gets it's hands on, and unlike the Cavalier, an FB does it whenever he damn well pleases. At the same time, it is literally immune to death by mundane causes past a certain level! It is not a melee class, because nothing melee can beat it. Tarrasques, Hetachioneres, and Neutronium golems will all be destroyed by a frenzied berserker that can manage to consistently break through their defenses while having nothing to do other than damage which doesn't do anything.

The "balance" to this is a significant chance of TPKing the party upon being hit by a well placed rock. At which point everyone has to roll new characters and hope it doesen't happen again.

Look, as a DM it is your right, and NOT your players, to ban something which is going to require you to significantly redesign encounters in order to deal with one player. And that's something you will have to do since the alternative is to make every. Single. Opponent. fly or be invisible in order to avoid the berserker.

[Kenneth]

really?

Chargers are probably the most simple concept to counter ever. I will go over a few that are very common and easily explained.

uneven terrain.

mobility. (i.e flight, climb, teleportation etc)

More than 1 target to figh.t

spears, pikes, halberds, tridents and other such weapons.

readied actions.


The only problem with chargers is when you put everyfight in an open field against one oppoent with no weapons who just stands there. Mobility is the biggest counter to chargers.

if you are worried about enough about a charger to post on the forums, what in the world will you ever do agianst full capability casters?

[Morbis Meh]

What is the rest of the party made up of? If the rest are druids, wizards, clerics, and/or any other tier one/two class then leave the poor guy alone. Let him have his niche and just plan encounters to have more than one enemy so everyone has a chance to fulfill there role while the FB gets to wreak some carnage. Have an encounter full of low level mooks and allow the FB to slaughter to their heart's content. Now, with that said if the FB is in a party of Samurai, Monk, Truenamers etc etc then maybe ban Shock Trooper because the rest of the party will have a damn hard time keeping up.

[Arel of Dawn]

really?

Chargers are probably the most simple concept to counter ever. I will go over a few that are very common and easily explained.

uneven terrain.

mobility. (i.e flight, climb, teleportation etc)

More than 1 target to figh.t

spears, pikes, halberds, tridents and other such weapons.

readied actions.


The only problem with chargers is when you put everyfight in an open field against one oppoent with no weapons who just stands there. Mobility is the biggest counter to chargers.

if you are worried about enough about a charger to post on the forums, what in the world will you ever do agianst full capability casters?

I know how I can counter chargers. While there will certainly be times where countering him would only make sense that wont be the case 100% of the time. I would rather find ways to make charging a viable build but not a broken build. If Not allowing Frenzied Berserker will help that Cause then I'll do it. I'm not a fan of out right banning things if it can be helped. I would rather find a fix or a way to balance it out.

[Kenneth]

I would just like to point your attention towards my last 2 lines of my post.


again. THE only time a charger is even remotley unblanced is when you put the SOLE bad guy in the middle fo a level open field standing all by himself with out any preparation at all. literaly it goes like this 'oh a charger, step to the left"


Casters are going to demolish your world with unbalacning acts ( and from CORE only) and somehow you are worried about a charger and the billions of instances in a normal gaming session where the charger cannot use his/her one trick.

[tacho101]

what do you mean by broken exactly? because if its just damage output, that usually is only applicable to the [1, 2] enemy[ies] he can reach on that charge. if there are multiple enemies, he shouldn't be all that ridiculous. as a melee char, he's just doing his job killing via damage, is it a problem if he one shots 1 mook in one round, and thanks to proper spacing he is unable to get others?

it'd be a issue if he literally ran into an encounter and off'd 6-9 enemies in a single charge no matter what, but that will most likely never be the case. and if there is a melee[charge] build capable i'd love to see it.

what about your other players? what are they?

[JKTrickster]

Why not use the multiple enemies thing then?

Multiple enemies makes fights more interesting anyway, especially if they are varied (e.g. some melee mooks, a lieutenant, some magic users and even some aerial support). This way the Charger kills some of them, but the rest of the team takes care of the others?

It's not a complete shutdown; just giving the others a chance to do something.

In case of bosses, I would have them know of the FB part and just hit him and trigger it. It'll be an interseting thing to see your most potent team mate turned against you :smallwink:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Reach + Stand Still (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#standStill) = charge never reaches the target. Wasted a full-round action to get into melee reach of opponent with affecting him. Have fun surviving HIS full round attack. Have a nice day.

[Vandicus]

By using terrain and varied enemies you can easily allow him to make a significant contribution and allow other players to make significant contributions as well.

More importantly, the Frenzied Beserker thing can be a real pain. If he fails a roll to end his frenzy and continues to be in a frenzy while there are only allies around, it might result in the death of a fellow party member and general frustration all around. I'd recommend helping him build his character so he's an effective charger, but avoid Frenzied Beserker.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a

The Streetfighter option is pretty nice for this.

[Silva Stormrage]

Another thing to suggest: Miss chance. Greater Mirror Image really screws over a charger. Combine it with displacement and it will very rarely hit the caster. Grease is also a personal favorite of mine against barbarians because he auto fails any balance check due to rage.

I would suggest letting him do his SUPER AWESOME L33T HAXOR damage against fodder troops. It makes him feel like he is contributing. 90% of the bosses or tough troops should be able to stop him from killing them in one shot.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Wasn't there a feat that let you negate power attack bonus damage?

Elusive Target from CWar. There we go. Build neutered.

[Godskook]

See, here's the thing that most of you are missing:


8) Don't over do it. Seriously. There are plenty of ways to get thousands of points of damage per round. But the Tarrasque (www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm) only has 858 hit points.

It isn't hard to optimize your damage to the point where you smef* everything you hit, and a lot of characters can do it. Past level 6ish, there's also tons of ways to prevent encounter loss by hit-point damage(Cleric's Delay Death being an easy example).

Honestly, if you need to 'fix' somebody who requires melee range to work, you're going to have a lot of problems with any kind of decent optimization. As an example, what's your response to a dragonfire inspiration bard with draconic heritage in a force dragon? What about a swift hunter with improved skirmish? Or this? (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=265125)

*sudden mass existence failure

[Zaq]

90% of the bosses or tough troops should be able to stop him from killing them in one shot.

If he's truly optimizing for PA, he'll be getting upwards of three digits of damage per swing, let alone per full attack (which, with Pounce, is likely). Frenzied Berserkers who know how to tweak out PA multipliers are among the kings of raw HP damage (Hulking Hurlers and the like aside, naturally). If you make it so he can't kill them in one shot, either he's not optimizing hard enough for you to really worry about, or nothing else the party has will be able to kill them through HP damage.

[gomipile]

Grease is also a personal favorite of mine against barbarians because he auto fails any balance check due to rage.


Except that it doesn't work that way. "While raging, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride)"

Source:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/barbarian.htm#rage

[Zaq]

Except that it doesn't work that way. "While raging, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride)"

Source:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/barbarian.htm#rage

FB is more restrictive.

[LordBlades]

We still don't know what the other players are playing. You say you guys play 'medium to medium high power level'. If that means for you what it usually means to this forums, then you have at least a couple decent casters, that make decent use of battlefiled control and '(no) save or lose'

A charger's attack is pretty much a save-or-die except he needs to have a line of charge and hit, that without having any ways to bypass very high ACs and miss chances. A wizard's save or die requires line of effect and at most a ranged touch attack and a save.

[Hirax]

Skip frenzied berserker and go for 4 levels of bloodstorm blade. You already win at damage, you don't need the FB's power attack multipliers. Bloodstorm blade combined with flying or jumping (be a dragonborn or something) eliminates just about all problems that you can feasibly eliminate from a charger, since you don't need to get close to your targets.

[Gnaeus]

Give him some drugged food, find someone with a sharp scalpel and lots of ranks in Heal and remove the part of him that makes little chargers.

Unless you are a breeder necromancer, neutering or spaying is a humane and ethical element of caring for your pet melee.

That's what we are talking about, right?

[Aharon]

Give him some drugged food, find someone with a sharp scalpel and lots of ranks in Heal and remove the part of him that makes little chargers.

Unless you are a breeder necromancer, neutering or spaying is a humane and ethical element of caring for your pet melee.

That's what we are talking about, right?


:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

That's evil.

[Thalnawr]

Give him some drugged food, find someone with a sharp scalpel and lots of ranks in Heal and remove the part of him that makes little chargers.

Unless you are a breeder necromancer, neutering or spaying is a humane and ethical element of caring for your pet melee.

That's what we are talking about, right?

I was just going to suggest using a pair of hedge clippers, but this has more style.

[Talya]

You know, thinking about this...

Why don't more people include Swashbuckler in their charger builds?

7 levels of swashbuckler might not be the only way to get Acrobat Charge, so perhaps there is a better way, but it seems to me that if a charger wanted to have a greater chance of always using their primary combat schtick, it'd be seriously worthwhile. I know weapon finesse doesn't fit the average charger's style, but it's not impossible. There are several finessable two-handed weapons that can be used with power attack. And nothing says they HAVE to use weapon finesse just because they have it...

[Hirax]

You know, thinking about this...

Why don't more people include Swashbuckler in their charger builds?

7 levels of swashbuckler might not be the only way to get Acrobat Charge, so perhaps there is a better way, but it seems to me that if a charger wanted to have a greater chance of always using their primary combat schtick, it'd be seriously worthwhile. I know weapon finesse doesn't fit the average charger's style, but it's not impossible. There are several finessable two-handed weapons that can be used with power attack. And nothing says they HAVE to use weapon finesse just because they have it...

Bloodstorm blades (ToB) do it better, and in only 4 levels. Though it's a prc, so you need to be ECL 9 to reap the full benefits. Assuming you have pounce, if you don't 2 levels and ECL 7 would suffice. Terrain becomes irrelevant when you get the throw anything feat for free, any weapon you wield gains the returning property, and you can treat ranged attacks as melee attacks, giving you all your power attack goodness. Combine that with flying and jumping and only tier 1/2 magic users can stand in your way.

So yeah, OP might want to look out for this if the player in question starts asking about bloodstorm blades.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Wait, so the DM can't control the mele