How do I deal with this build? Please help![3.5]

[Templarkommando]

So, I've run into an optimization problem in my campaign. Basically, my player - and I really do care about the player, he's a good buddy - he's either devised a really good build, or he's misunderstanding the rules, or something...

Let me try to post the pertinent info from his build:


Class and Level: Rogue 3/ Fighter 2
Race: Human
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Abilities: Strength: 18, Dexterity: 18, Constitution: 9, Intelligence: 15, Wisdom: 15, Charisma: 8

Saves: Fort: 5, Ref:5, Will:4
Base Attack: 4
HP: 32
Initiative: 4

Skills(counting all appropriate modifiers): Bluff: 6, Craft (Alchemy): 10 Diplomacy: 4, Disable Device: 12, Hide: 12, Move Silently:12, Search: 10, Spot: 10

Feats: Two Weapon Fighting, Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting (Complete Adventurer), Monkey Grip (Complete Warrior), Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Elven Thinblade) (Complete Warrior), Telling Blow (PHBII) Master of Poisons (Drow of the Underdark I think...) We've got a poisons house rule where poison use isn't considered evil that may require review, but I'm more worried about general melee prowess

Special Abilities: Trapfinding, Evasion, Trapsense

Weapons: Dual Wields Keen Elven Thinblades (2d6 damage, 15-20 crit range) built for a large creature. Sneak Attack gets +2d6 damage



There's more to his sheet than this, if you have questions I'll post back with more info.

Here's the problem, unless there is something wrong with the build that I'm missing, this build really shines in melee against stuff that's vulnerable to crits, and even without criticals he's still dealing 2d6 per hit per weapon. If he crits (which he's doing roughly 25% of the time from his 15-20 crit range) he gets to go ahead and apply sneak attack damage because of the telling blow feat. That means 25% of the time he's dealing 6d6+4 damage just off of one swing. (2d6 base + 2d6 sneak attack + 2d6 from crit + 4 strength)

The problem here is that I'm finding it difficult to provide an encounter that is challenging to both this character and the other members of the party. The possibilities that occur to me are:

1.) I'm a bad DM.

2.) I'm missing some rules somewhere.

3.) I'm suffering from a major optimization problem. My PC here has looked up a build that someone else made online and is min/maxing my campaign really hard.

4.) My PC is actually really well versed in rulebooks and has independently come up with a ridiculous build all on his own. In the meantime he gets to play a single player game while the rest of the party looks on in awe. (I honestly find this difficult to believe because the player - while a good friend - tries to take AoOs because someone enters a square he threatens rather than because they exit a square he threatens.)

How would you deal with this playground? It occurs to me that the rest of this campaign could be spent facing constructs, undead, and slimes and so forth, but given the plot my campaign is developing, I'd really like to hold on to stuff that is vulnerable to crits if at all possible.

I want to provide an experience that is fun for all of my players. The problem is that I get players that show up to a game, spend six hours doing basically nothing, then they go home. Generally they'll go in the other room and watch Youtube videos, or play on laptops, or iPhone or whatever while this sort of 1 player stuff happens. I would get mad about that, but the problem is that I can't blame them for it. I would probably do the same thing in their situation.

[A_S]

Unless I'm missing something, he's got one too many feats (did he take a flaw?), and he's certainly got ridiculous attributes (did he just roll really well, or what?) but that's not really the problem. Sounds like the problem is that he's going up against too much stuff he's good at.

You said it yourself: He's good at killing stuff in front of him that's vulnerable to crits. Cool, good on him for finding a niche and being good at it. Looking at the character, though, there ought to be lots of things he's not good at. Off the top of my head:
-Killing things that are immune to crits (he'd be okay at this, but not great)
-Killing things that can effectively stay out of melee (battlefield control casters, ranged opponents that can fly, etc.)
-Doing anything useful after being hit with some save-or-suck spells

Other kinds of characters are much better at these roles: Clerics hose undead well, while other types do well against other crit-immune mobs. Archers and casters can be effective against opponents who maintain range. And generally the best answer to a caster is another caster.

Do you have these types in your party? If so, present them with some encounters where they'll get a chance to shine and this melee guy isn't so hot. It's fine if he's really good at his specialty, as long as you cater to the other party members' specialties, too.

It would be a problem if your entire party is trying to fill this same role and the others just suck at it, though.

[Gotterdammerung]

He is +4 /+4 (possibly +5/+5) to hit. And has low HP. Just keep throwing appropriate CR at him. Resist the urge to just throw crit immune things at him. As the GM there is always something you can run that will counter a player. But it never leads to a fun memorable experience. You can always challenge your party plenty by just running appropriate CR enemies that are more importantly relevant to the story and are good at their schtick.

But if you absolutely must resort to countering him, you have a huge list.

AC Monkey's

Disarmer's

Sunderer's

High HP/Dmg per CR monsters

High Mobility Characters (to rob him of a full attack)

Crit immune monsters

Spellcasters who specialize in crowd control

or terrain control

Grappling monsters




His character might have high dmg but it is full of liability. I would think the real challenge is that he has boxed you into a corner. Either you throw something that he kills easy, or you pull out the other 80% of the game and he dies horribly.

[Lord Ruby34]

That build doesn't really look all that strong. It's actually pretty weak, and almost totally shut down against Undead. Remember, that 2d6 weapon damage isn't going to increase. He'll probably have horrible to hit as well. You really shouldn't worry.

[Fenryr]

Too many feats, I think. Also, he has a -4 to hit if makes a full round attack. -2 TWF and -2 for Monkey Grip.

Fortification (magic property) also works.

[Eldariel]

By most accounts, that would be considered extremely unoptimized. He needs a full attack to do damage and 2d6 isn't a lot of damage on level 6 (level 1 Barbarian outputs more than him hitting with both weapons when Raging; level 1!). Also, his To hit is rather mediocre due to TWF penalties.

What's the rest of your party like? That's probably the core matter here; everything is relative and if that's strong I can't help but wonder what's considered "average". So yeah, rest of the party? Hard to give advice on how to design encounters for a party if you only know one member (but yeah; he's melee so ranged types rock him, he's non-caster so casters rock him, his Will-save is awful so yeah, he can't fly so fliers are kinda good against him and he needs full attacks to do damage so anything that moves and attacks is going to function well against him in melee; and it's not trivial to proc Sneak Attack).

[gallagher]

why did he take monkey grip? one would think that he would try to reduce his to-hit penalty as much as possible, especially considering that strongarm bracers should be in his price range

[MagnusExultatio]

I am fairly sure that Monkey Grip and OWTF do not mix that way. Additionally, how are his weapons both Keen without a +1?

My memory of rules may not be the best, but I'm sure that two +1 Keen weapons would cost more than a 5th level character's WBL.

[Lord Ruby34]

And why does he have craft (Alchemy)? Craft (Poison-making) is a fair bit better if he wants to use poisons.

[Kenneth]

I am only seeing that he should have 5 feats

human bonus
Fighter bonus
1st level feat
Figher 2nd level bonus feat
3rd level feat at rouge lvl 1 /character level 3

also Monkey grip I am pretty sure explicity states that it allows the wielding of a 2 handed weapon in one hand, but not the dual wielding fo said 2 handed weapons.

also, as other people have said, that is an easy combo to counter, a simple grease spell does the trick. as well as anything of approtpiate CR

[Templarkommando]

I love you guys, and I'll write answers to your questions tomorrow, but in the meantime, I need to go ahead and hit the hey.

From what I read, you guys are really helping me feel better about this. :smallbiggrin:

[Quietus]

Also, those weapons? Are 8k a shot plus the cost of the masterwork weapon. WBL is 9k for a 5th level char. He's spent all of his WBL on a single item (generally frowned upon), twice (thus, double his WBL) before touching anything else.

Want to fix the problem? Hit him with a troll. Claw claw rend should fix the situation.

::Edit:: They're that expensive because in order to be keen, they have to also have a +1 enhancement bonus. Thus, a +2 weapon, or 2*2*2000= 8,000 GP. I think this is where the problem is, the player has probably missed that they need to have a +1 bonus on something before they can add special properties.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

First of all, you can only put properties like Keen on a weapon if it's already at least a +1 weapon. That means he'd have to have two +1 Keen Large Thinblades, so he has two weapons which would each cost 8,500 gp. A 5th level character should only have 9,000 gp worth of total gear value, so that explains your first problem. If his weapons are just Keen without a +1, tell him that it's impossible to make such a weapon and they're now switched to +1 Thinblades instead of Keen Thinblades, and that he can get Keen upgraded onto them when his character can afford it.

Monkeygrip is a waste of a feat, especially when you're already taking penalties to hit for TWF. His build is considerably weak relative to other dedicated melee characters of that level, though his high ability scores help make up for it. Dedicated melee characters should be good at dealing damage, because that's usually all they can do, and in the lower levels where he's at is about the only time when such characters can really shine. Sneak attack gets weaker the higher level you get just because so many more creatures will be outright immune to it, weapon size damage gets quickly outpaced by opponent HP, and his ability scores will only get him so far. Assuming this game is going to run for quite a while, he's probably going to be gradually getting weaker and weaker relative to the encounters, so just see how it plays out.

Another thing to note is that Master of Poisons lets him apply poison to one weapon as a swift action. You only get one swift action per round, and poison only lasts one hit. He still has to have a hand empty to do it, and he still has to spend a move action to grab the poison vial, so other than that he can take a 5-ft. step and make one attack in the same round as when he poisons a weapon. Ideally he should get Quick-Draw, get some one-dose poison vials, quick-draw one weapon and a poison vial, poison the weapon, drop the vial, quick-draw his other weapon, possibly 5-ft. step, and full attack. This only gives him one poison dose on a full attack, and he'd have to empty one hand to apply another dose of poison. A Glove of Storing to stow his offhand weapon to poison his main hand weapon every round would be good, but it should take him a few levels to be able to afford that.

Poison is created via Craft: Poisonmaking described in Complete Adventurer and BoVD.

[JackRackham]

Also, if you wanna nerf him a bit without rendering him completely ineffective, throw some guys at him with uncanny dodge and (later) improved uncanny dodge. He'll crit, but no sneak attack.

[Seffbasilisk]

Don't give him a melee fight when he's crossed the line.

Have crossbowmen or archers at a distance (behind a wall, some rubble in the way, etc etc)

He can't charge them, and they can pepper him with bolts. His HP sucks, so poisons back at him (he has a 10% chance of poisoning himself each time he applies poison unless he has poison use IIRC), and things that require fort saves.

Check his feats.

Make sure he's made both weapons +1 before making them keen.

His to-hit should suck, but he'd have...decent I suppose damage. Give him a problem he can't hack through and he'll need to get creative.

If it helps, I've never seen a build that like touted online by anyone but amateurs. Most people see Monkey-Grip as a waste of a feat, and it takes the rare optimizer to find a window where it's good.

[Krazzman]

The Damage should be: 2d6 Base + 2d6 Sneak + 2d6 Crit + 2 (from being +1) and + 8 (from Strength) being 16-46 damage on a crit... You can make more damage with a level 5 character...

Even so, that seems to be a valued One-Trick-Pony.

Let it be and bring a bit less Melee-Combats to this scene. More Archers = More Fun :D

Hope that helps.

[Zaq]

Yeah, this guy does acceptable (but not nearly as godly as it looks) damage when he hits, but he'll almost never hit often enough to matter. He's all flash and no bite. When he hits, it'll hurt, but if you average out the amount of damage he actually does per combat? Yeah, it's not that impressive, unless he's extraordinarily lucky. As other folks have mentioned, his weapons are illegal, so that's another thing.

Also, just flipping through the MM to find a few CR 5 critters . . .

Huge animated object (no crits): 84 HP
Greater barghest: 67 HP
Cloaker: 45 HP
Dire lion: 60 HP
Young black dragon: 80 HP
Green hag: 49 HP
Six-headed hydra: 66 HP

6d6 + 4 is an average of 25 damage. If he actually gets two crits and confirms both of them (exceedingly unlikely), the cloaker and maybe the green hag will be in danger. Anything else will eat him alive. That's assuming that he starts his turn next to them (gotta full attack for two swings, after all), rolls a natural 15+ for both swings, and confirms both of them. (OK, actually, the +4 from STR would be doubled on a crit, but that doesn't make an enormous difference here . . . and since he should only get 1/2 STR from his offhand attack, we'll call it even.) Of course, if you compare his attack bonus (which I get to be +5 . . . 4 BAB + 4 STR + 1 weapon – 2 TWF – 2 Monkey Grip) to the AC of these critters . . . let's just say that the chances that he'll both hit and confirm are tiny. The hydra's the lowest, at 16 . . . and he needs an 11 on the die, so a 50% chance. The hag has 22 AC, so he needs a 17 on the die to even hit (no, even if he gets a 15, it's not a critical threat if he doesn't hit). This is, of course, assuming he has his overpriced +1 Keen weapons, which probably isn't the case.

Long story short, this guy's not a threat. When he hits, it's nasty, but his average damage is practically nothing.

[Socratov]

apart from what is allready mentioned, remember that you apply full penalty and half bonus from strength on dmg on your offhand, it's not much (yet), but at least something. On another note, throw some undead against him. he wont be able to sneak, no crit, and dr/bludgeoning. that will shut him up. Indeed AC mosnters are great too, his to hit will suck. ! more thing, a rit isn't autohit. Only on a nat 20 will he be able to autohit

[Dictum Mortuum]

So, I've run into an optimization problem in my campaign. Basically, my player - and I really do care about the player, he's a good buddy - he's either devised a really good build, or he's misunderstanding the rules, or something...

Let me try to post the pertinent info from his build:


Class and Level: Rogue 3/ Fighter 2
Race: Human
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Abilities: Strength: 18, Dexterity: 18, Constitution: 9, Intelligence: 15, Wisdom: 15, Charisma: 8

Saves: Fort: 5, Ref:5, Will:4
Base Attack: 4
HP: 32
Initiative: 4

Skills(counting all appropriate modifiers): Bluff: 6, Craft (Alchemy): 10 Diplomacy: 4, Disable Device: 12, Hide: 12, Move Silently:12, Search: 10, Spot: 10

Feats: Two Weapon Fighting, Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting (Complete Adventurer), Monkey Grip (Complete Warrior), Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Elven Thinblade) (Complete Warrior), Telling Blow (PHBII) Master of Poisons (Drow of the Underdark I think...) We've got a poisons house rule where poison use isn't considered evil that may require review, but I'm more worried about general melee prowess

Special Abilities: Trapfinding, Evasion, Trapsense

Weapons: Dual Wields Keen Elven Thinblades (2d6 damage, 15-20 crit range) built for a large creature. Sneak Attack gets +2d6 damage



There's more to his sheet than this, if you have questions I'll post back with more info.

Here's the problem, unless there is something wrong with the build that I'm missing, this build really shines in melee against stuff that's vulnerable to crits, and even without criticals he's still dealing 2d6 per hit per weapon. If he crits (which he's doing roughly 25% of the time from his 15-20 crit range) he gets to go ahead and apply sneak attack damage because of the telling blow feat. That means 25% of the time he's dealing 6d6+4 damage just off of one swing. (2d6 base + 2d6 sneak attack + 2d6 from crit + 4 strength)

The problem here is that I'm finding it difficult to provide an encounter that is challenging to both this character and the other members of the party. The possibilities that occur to me are:

1.) I'm a bad DM.

2.) I'm missing some rules somewhere.

3.) I'm suffering from a major optimization problem. My PC here has looked up a build that someone else made online and is min/maxing my campaign really hard.

4.) My PC is actually really well versed in rulebooks and has independently come up with a ridiculous build all on his own. In the meantime he gets to play a single player game while the rest of the party looks on in awe. (I honestly find this difficult to believe because the player - while a good friend - tries to take AoOs because someone enters a square he threatens rather than because they exit a square he threatens.)

How would you deal with this playground? It occurs to me that the rest of this campaign could be spent facing constructs, undead, and slimes and so forth, but given the plot my campaign is developing, I'd really like to hold on to stuff that is vulnerable to crits if at all possible.

I want to provide an experience that is fun for all of my players. The problem is that I get players that show up to a game, spend six hours doing basically nothing, then they go home. Generally they'll go in the other room and watch Youtube videos, or play on laptops, or iPhone or whatever while this sort of 1 player stuff happens. I would get mad about that, but the problem is that I can't blame them for it. I would probably do the same thing in their situation.

Most posters already said that his build is actually bad. Very bad I might add.

I'm under the impression that you let him auto-hit if he scores a natural 15+. That's actually wrong; only a natural 20 is an automatic hit - you need to actually hit your target's AC with a natural 15+ and even if you do, you need to confirm it.

[Templarkommando]

A_S: You're right, I think he did take a feat too many. I watched him roll those stats, so I have difficulty telling him to reroll, and his abilities aren't really what I feel the problem is.

Some of the ideas you gave I think are going to be pretty effective as far as letting other players shine, the problem is that most of them are gunning at a very similar niche based on the way their classes fall. Other than the guy we're talking about we're really melee heavy. I want to just give general information on my party, unless someone is really interested in how the builds mesh.

1.) Halfling ranger. He specializes in throwing daggers.

2.) Human Rogue - he's a brand spanking new player, and it's the type of class he wanted to play.

3.) Dwarf Cleric - He's essentially a healbot and a reserve front line fighter.

4.) Human Sorceror - He's probably my only real non-melee guy. He's got a good array of evocation style spells as I recall.

5.) Human Bard - This one is really my big roleplayer. He's in there for story and not really a combat specializer. He does carry a shortbow around and a rapier though.

gallagher:

Let's see if my math adds up with yours for his to hit bonus:

Base Attack Bonus: 4
Two Weapon Fighting Penalties with two weapon fighting feat: -4/-4
Monkey Grip:-2/-2
Strength Bonus: +4/+2
Masterwork Property +1/+1

The total bonus is gonna be something like +3/+1 I may be missing a couple of numbers there somewhere, and the more I read feat descriptions, the more I think he can't use a one handed weapon for a large creature in his offhand.

It looks like those strongarm bracers ought to be in his purchase range before too much longer, but considering that his weapons are about to both revert to +1 weapons rather than keen, I'm worried a little less about it.

MagnusExultatio: You're right, I hadn't realized that before now, but you do have to have a +1 bonus on a weapon before you start taking special abilities.

Lord Ruby 34: I think his thinking was that alchemy is a little more versatile than poison-making.

Zaq: The thought that he was saying he was auto-hitting on a 15 had occurred to me, and I'll keep an eye out for it, but as far as I know that's not the case. I've made the auto-hit rules fairly clear at least three times now, so I hope the party would have dropped that assumption. I'm pretty sure I ask for what number he hit and if he didn't hit the AC it's not an auto-hit.

I feel like we may have solved my problems for the moment, I really appreciate what everyone has said to give me a leg up.

[docnessuno]

strengt attack bons applies equally to both weapons, it's strenght damage bonus that gets halved on the offhand, so with masterwork (or +1, the bonuses don't stack) weapons you are looking at +4/+4 (quite low for a lvl5 character)
The damage is high, but not nearly in the unmanagable range (2d6+5 / 2d6+3) even when factoring 2d6 from SA. Consider a standart small sized shortsword wielding lvl5 rogue with 20 dex (2 racial) and weapon focus is attacking at +8/+8 for 1d4+3d6+1, all of this with 0 str bonus.

That character is not really optimized, and it's just benefitting from the very high stat he rolled (one of the reason i prefer point buy).

[Fenryr]

TWF with Oversized TWF is only -2. He can use a non-light weapon in his offhand. And because of Monkey Grip and a bigger weapon, he has another -2.

And yes, check the criticals.

[HunterOfJello]

Another rule worth bringing up is the PHB2 errata that put in a slight change to Telling Blow:



Page 83 – Telling Blow [Omission]
Add the following sentence to the end of the
“Benefit” section: “Skirmish or sneak attack
damage is added only once, even if you meet other
conditions for adding damage, such as if you
scored a critical while the enemy was flat-footed.”

If the PC attacks a flat-footed target, he gets sneak attack damage only applied once even if he crits.

~

It's also worth remembering that Sneak Attack dice are not multiplied when someone crits. (Although they can be added to a non-sneak attack in this situation.)

~~~~~~~

The text of Monkey grip is also worth bringing up:



MONKEY GRIP [GENERAL]
You are able to use a larger weapon than other people your
size.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1.
Benefi t: You can use melee weapons one size category
larger than you are with a –2 penalty on the attack roll, but
the amount of effort it takes you to use the weapon does
not change. For instance, a Large longsword (a one-handed
weapon for a Large creature) is considered a two-handed
weapon for a Medium creature that does not have this feat.
For a Medium creature that has this feat, it is still considered
a one-handed weapon. You can wield a larger light weapon as
a light weapon, or a larger two-handed weapon in two hands.
You cannot wield a larger weapon in your off hand, and you
cannot use this feat with a double weapon.
Normal: You can use a melee weapon one size category
larger than you are with a –2 penalty on the attack roll, and the
amount of effort it takes to use the weapon increases. A larger
light weapon is considered a one-handed weapon, a larger onehanded
weapon is considered a two-handed weapon, and you
cannot use a larger two-handed weapon at all.

If I've read this correctly (which I may not have), then he should not be able to use a Large Elven Thinblade in his offhand without a significant penalty. This is obviously one of the reasons by Monkey Grip isn't really a great feat and is really just a trap feat.

If the character is using a Large Elven Thinblade in both hands, then that's a -4/-4 for Two Weapon Fighting without a light weapon (medium sized) in the offhand and a -2 to all attacks for using Monkey Grip in the first place.

-6/-6 really isn't worth it to turn 1d8 into 2d6 for weapon damage.

[Basket Burner]

Con score 9.

Solution: Hit him once or MAYBE twice with any CR 5 enemy. There will be one more hit (him hitting the floor) and that will be all she wrote.

If you're stressed about 18 damage a hit with very low accuracy the problem isn't with him.

[faceroll]

Give the cleric a wand of healing and let him use his spells for more fun things. Better yet, give the players belts of healing so they can waste their turns getting healed instead of the cleric's.

[Godskook]

1.) I'm a bad DM.

New != Bad, so lets dispel that one right now. Bad DMs do stuff like making snap judgements about optimization and then stick to their guns despite overwhelming arguments that Commoners just aren't that overpowered.


2.) I'm missing some rules somewhere.

1.Crit-threats must still hit normally in order to actually do anything. Just cause you rolled in your threat range does not mean it is an automatic hit. Only a nat-20 carries this special rule.

2.As others have mentioned, he's running a lot of attack roll minuses. Count them up and see how bad his attack rolls really are. Monster AC at CR 5 should be ~20+, so its quite likely that he'll be missing most everything.

3.His AC might not be that great, so monsters with high attack rolls are probably a strong counter, as dead men don't fight very well.

4.His HP is 1 short of his max for his level and con. Considering that this implies he rolled his HP, maxing 4 of 5 HD, and near-maxing the 5th is reason to call foul on his dice-rolling. See #5.

5.How did he generate his stats? 2 18s and 2 15s is a really good stat array, so I'm wondering how he got that.



3.) I'm suffering from a major optimization problem. My PC here has looked up a build that someone else made online and is min/maxing my campaign really hard.

No. This is not true optimization. A dragonfire bard would be giving the whole party 2d6 or more sonic damage on their attacks(thus bypassing most energy resists and all DR).

A Dragonfire Adept would be dealing 2d6 AoE with an entangling rider status, that ignores friendlies.

An unoptimized Artificer would be dropping bane on everyone's weapons by now(+2 attack, +2d6+2 damage) as a short-duration buff. An optimized one will have far more ludicrous things available to it.

A swift hunter(scout+ranger)(no more powerful than a rogue), would be dealing +2d6 skirmish damage with an easier trigger that bypasses some creature immunities.

A goliath warblade wielding a large greatsword can deal 4d6 base damage without str or critting. At level 2.

His optimization isn't too impressive.


How would you deal with this playground? It occurs to me that the rest of this campaign could be spent facing constructs, undead, and slimes and so forth, but given the plot my campaign is developing, I'd really like to hold on to stuff that is vulnerable to crits if at all possible.

Let's see: Crit immunity is a common worry among mid-level casters, and not that hard to get. The heart of X spells do it quite well for arcane casters, and comes fully online at level 5 spells. Delay Death is a level 4 cleric spell that essentially makes the BBEG immune to damage long enough to kill most of an unprepared party, especially if they're mostly melee.

Otherwise, start developing tactics much like sane people do. Melee is a bad place to be, and most smart people force as much ranged combat as possible in order to thin out the assaulting force.

[ILM]

I have a similar-ish situation in my game. One of the players, with my own help and encouragement may I add, is a Barb 2 with all the right feats and ACFs he needs to deal upwards of 16 damage on a regular hit with a decent attack bonus, and more if stuff is set up just right. He tends to cleave in two stuff that the rest of the party takes ages to take down. So far he hasn't been any trouble, but if his output ever becomes an issue, I know I can tone him down:
- difficult terrain and/or flying enemies
- archers and ranged characters
- enemies you don't want to be in melee with (flame shield-type abilities)
- miss chances
- multiple weak enemies that he can't handle one at a time
- anything that targets his will save should shut him down easily
Hell, last time I just threw a CR3 Large Monstrous Spider at them and grappled him (yes, grappling the mage would be better usually, but I have a gentleman's agreement with the player and he's not stromping through every encounter). As levels increase, my options keep broadening while his don't, aside from dealing more damage (new player, his choice, will get a chance in a few levels of tweaking his build a bit if he wants more versatility). Your guy, well he's pretty much the same, only his attack bonus is lower and his damage is a little more circumstancial (hello undead). And he has 9 con - who does that?

He wanted to play a guy with two oversized weapons buzzsawing through everything. If that hurts the other players' fun, you have ways to challenge him without hurting the others as much, and you have enough of them to mix them up and not make it seem like every encounter now has a caster with Hold Person prepared. Or, instead of (or in addition to) doing that, you could also prepare encounters that make other players shine, in ways he can't replace. How about a fight in an environment where everyone takes damage every round and the healer is all that stands between them and inevitable death? Or a flying member of the ranger's favoured enemies? Mix it up, be creative :smallsmile:.