Party Balance Concern

[SleepyShadow]

I've been mildly concerned about the balance within the group for a while now, but only recently has it become a drastic enough issue to ask for help. Just as a preface, I'm not interested in rants about Monks vs. Casters, or 'Melee Can't Have Nice Things' or anything like that. As the DM, I would legitimately like some advice as to whether or not I should help out or just leave things as they are. To start, here is the party in a nutshell:


Favored Soul 4/Ordained Champion 2: This guy is the most experienced player of the group, so he's the party leader by default. He's the backbone of the party as well, since he has the highest melee damage, 'tanks' as best as he can, and heals everyone up after the tougher fights.

Paladin 2/Battle Sorcerer 4: He has some nice charisma synergy, but typically throws around blaster spells when he isn't poking things with his rapier. IMO, he's sitting comfortably in the middle of the party power spectrum.

Rogue 1/Wizard 5: Aside from the level in rogue, this character is fairly straight forward so far. She hides in the back of the party and wins every fight for them with battlefield control as most wizards typically do. She has her feats invested in archery so she isn't useless on the rare occasion that she doesn't cast a spell.

Monk 3/Cleric 3: At last, we come to the problem child of the group. She has no real defined role in the party, and she's been struggling to keep up in damage output. The only saving grace she has going for her is Combat Reflexes, and that "Sacred Fist looks totally cool".


A long winded set up, but I wasn't sure how else to present the information. I don't want the new girl to feel useless, but at the same time I don't want to coddle my players or show favoritism or anything like that. Any advice?

[hex0]

I'd reduce the Monk level by 1 and change the Rogue level to Spellthief for starters. And yeah, Sacred Fist actually is pretty cool so I wouldn't count it out.

Edit: I mean you don't want to just re-write their characters but you can have a conversation about having balance and throw out suggestions.

[skycycle blues]

If you use Sacred Fist as full casting, your Monk Cleric will probably catch up in power pretty easily. If I'm remembering it correctly, it's full BAB and full casting that way, which should provide a nice power boost.

[HunterOfJello]

Next time the monk/cleric levels up, have the PC replace a level of monk with cleric. Waive the Combat Casting feat requirement (since that feat is worthless) an have the PC enter Sacred Fist at level 7.

Any other recommendations I would give would involve dropping Monk altogether. If she's interested in an unarmed PC that does lots of damage while casting spells, there are better ways to do it and you can find them online.


As far as being a better cleric goes, look up the cleric handbooks and get a better idea about how the class can be played. The same generally applies to the monk. There are probably some guides floating around about how a monk can be played without being useless in a party above level 2.

[Novawurmson]

Let them switch out their monk levels for Unarmed Swordsage and use that to get into Sacred Fist?

[SleepyShadow]

I took a look at Sacred Fist, and I agree with Skycycle Blues. By allowing it to gain full casting progression, it should at least allow her to keep on-par with the paladin gish in terms of damage output and general usefulness for the time being.

However, I don't think letting her swap out monk levels for swordsage would be a great idea. I love Tome of Battle, but swordsage does not provide two of the three feats that monks get for free that are required to enter Sacred Fist. Hand waving Combat Casting is one thing (even though she already has it >_<), but hand waving Stunning Fist and Combat Reflexes as well is pushing it too much.

As the character stands, she should be able to go into Sacred Fist next time they level up. My concern after that point is how well she will compare once the gish and the wizard PrC out.

[Randomguy]

Introduce the cleric to DMM persist and throw a couple of nightsticks and charisma boosting items her way. All day buffs would make her a much better melee-er. Also make sure she casts (when she's high enough level) magic weapon and magic vestment each day.

[Silva Stormrage]

Buff monk so it has BAB and the full casting option should help. I wouldn't suggest trading out any of his class levels though. Try dropping some good monk loot like "Gloves of increase natural weapons 1 size" or something else that would help the monk catch up. Also try removing the penalty on Flurry of Blows so it stops being flurry of misses >.>

[SleepyShadow]

I like the idea of pointing out DMM, but while the friendly and helpful sales team at the Adventurer's Mart is more than willing to point out the nightsticks for her, she's still going to have to pay for them. Charisma-items I'm willing to doll out as treasure though, since those are less obviously intended for the monk.

As far as changing the actual mechanics of the monk class, I don't like the idea of that. Again, I'm trying to help my new player without blatantly favoring one person over the others. It wouldn't be fair to the others IMO.

[Telonius]

What does your Cleric's typical spell selection look like? That might be a good place to start, for increasing effectiveness. Low-level Cleric stuff can seem kind of lackluster, and it looks like your Favored Soul might actually be a better caster than the Monk/Cleric at the moment. That will change as she gains in levels, but the first few can be frustrating, especially with three lost caster levels.

Otherwise, there are some non-mechanical things you can do to help her out. Find out what her skills are invested in, and make a few encounters that play to those strengths. Maybe drop in a few plot hooks where her character would play a pivotal role. Somebody really needs to see a cleric of (whatever) for some reason; a noble you need to influence is particularly devout in the faith, etc. Yeah, it doesn't make up for bad mechanics, but as long as a player has something fun to do, it can make the suckage a bit more palatable.

[big teej]

I've been mildly concerned about the balance within the group for a while now, but only recently has it become a drastic enough issue to ask for help. Just as a preface, I'm not interested in rants about Monks vs. Casters, or 'Melee Can't Have Nice Things' or anything like that. As the DM, I would legitimately like some advice as to whether or not I should help out or just leave things as they are. To start, here is the party in a nutshell:


Favored Soul 4/Ordained Champion 2: This guy is the most experienced player of the group, so he's the party leader by default. He's the backbone of the party as well, since he has the highest melee damage, 'tanks' as best as he can, and heals everyone up after the tougher fights.

Paladin 2/Battle Sorcerer 4: He has some nice charisma synergy, but typically throws around blaster spells when he isn't poking things with his rapier. IMO, he's sitting comfortably in the middle of the party power spectrum.

Rogue 1/Wizard 5: Aside from the level in rogue, this character is fairly straight forward so far. She hides in the back of the party and wins every fight for them with battlefield control as most wizards typically do. She has her feats invested in archery so she isn't useless on the rare occasion that she doesn't cast a spell.

Monk 3/Cleric 3: At last, we come to the problem child of the group. She has no real defined role in the party, and she's been struggling to keep up in damage output. The only saving grace she has going for her is Combat Reflexes, and that "Sacred Fist looks totally cool".


A long winded set up, but I wasn't sure how else to present the information. I don't want the new girl to feel useless, but at the same time I don't want to coddle my players or show favoritism or anything like that. Any advice?

out of curiosity, are you using the monk as written? or a monk fix?

I've started using the monk fix linked below and I feel it dumps the monk comfortably in the realm of "meaningful contribution"

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150122

[SleepyShadow]

@Telonius: I don't have access to my player's character sheets, but as far as her frequently used spells I remember Bless, Protection from Evil, and Bull's Strength being the most common non-healing spells, and most recently she's been using Shield Other on the Favored Soul. And yes, Mr. Party Leader is more effective at pretty much everything than she is so far.

I believe she's been maxing out skills like Jump, Balance, and Tumble. She likes doing things like jumping over people to attack someone behind them, fighting while perching on precarious objects, using dead hobgoblins like shot put, and other thematically entertaining but mechanically ineffective things. Her last "great achievement" was sliding under a table and kicking it across the room and into a squad of hobgoblin archers.


@Big Teej: I run the monk as written, since she's the first player in three years that's taken more than two levels of it.

[Randomguy]

If she likes jumping and stuff point her towards power attack and leap attack. It's not great with unarmed strikes, but it would be very effective with a quarterstaff. If she doesn't have the feat slots than just point her towards the feats and add a brand new custom magic item of 5/day heroics to the magic mart (or the sorcerer or wizard could learn the spell), so she can just take power attack and get leap attack through magic.

[Telonius]

I believe she's been maxing out skills like Jump, Balance, and Tumble. She likes doing things like jumping over people to attack someone behind them, fighting while perching on precarious objects, using dead hobgoblins like shot put, and other thematically entertaining but mechanically ineffective things. Her last "great achievement" was sliding under a table and kicking it across the room and into a squad of hobgoblin archers.

This description is really just screaming for some Tiger Claw maneuvers... no chance at all to swap out Monk levels for Unarmed Swordsage? If not, Martial Study feat to give her one maneuver. Soaring Raptor Strike was a favorite of one of my players.

[skycycle blues]

I took a look at Sacred Fist, and I agree with Skycycle Blues. By allowing it to gain full casting progression, it should at least allow her to keep on-par with the paladin gish in terms of damage output and general usefulness for the time being.

However, I don't think letting her swap out monk levels for swordsage would be a great idea. I love Tome of Battle, but swordsage does not provide two of the three feats that monks get for free that are required to enter Sacred Fist. Hand waving Combat Casting is one thing (even though she already has it >_<), but hand waving Stunning Fist and Combat Reflexes as well is pushing it too much.

As the character stands, she should be able to go into Sacred Fist next time they level up. My concern after that point is how well she will compare once the gish and the wizard PrC out.

I think it would be fair to waive Stunning Fist though. If I remember correctly, Sacred Fist doesn't do anything that ought to require it, unlike Enlightened Fist (that's the arcane monk right?).

[SleepyShadow]

@Randomguy: Sacred Fist specifically states that members of that PrC cannot for any reason use weapons or they lose all abilities for the day. Leap Attack+Shock Trooper+Combat Brute seems like a losing proposition anyway. If you turn the noob into an Uber-Charger, then the others ramp up their builds. If the others ramp up their builds, the noob is left behind again. If the noob is left behind again, we turn her into a Persistent-Buff-Uber-Charger. If we do that ...

It's like giving a mouse a cookie :smalltongue:


@Telonius: I did point her toward the swordsage, and she does seem interested in going into it after Sacred Fist. Doubt the campaign will last quite that long, but if it does I'll be nice and let the wisdom mod AC bonuses stack.


@skycycle blues: Ehh, no point in hand waving anything at this point, since she already qualifies. With full BAB and casting it seems like it would be a solid PrC if it wasn't for the poor chassis being used to enter.

[navar100]

The monk/cleric needs work. Aside from Wisdom synergy they don't quite work well together. The BAB stagnation alone hurts. Encourage the player to go into a prestige class that combines monkish stuff with cleric spellcasting. If you can't find a published one to her liking, even hand-waiving prerequisites, create your own. Since she already has a BAB hit, make it full BAB and full spellcasting. Splash in monk-type stuff as prestige class abilities. One idea is to allow her to use her Wisdom modifier to hit instead of Strength. Strength is still used for damage. Make the prestige class have a roleplay reason to exist in the game world. It's an organization of some kind the character belongs to. Roleplaying membership will enhance the fun.

To prevent the wizard from winning the combat single handedly, out number the party with bad guys anywhere from two to one up to three to one. She uses her control spells to take care of a good number of bad guys like she's supposed to. There are still a number of bad guys left for the rest of the party to take care of.

[Metahuman1]

Have her do some Retraining as described in the Players handbook II.

Have her pick up Travel devotion and the DMM: Persist trick. Give Sacred Fist Full Caster progression. Full BAB is helpful short term but not mandatory since in a DMM: Persist build it becomes useless after Divine Power comes online.


As part of the Rebuild, show her decisive strike form PHB II and Robilars Gambit form the same book. A Few DMM Persist Buffs to help her do all day fast healing and take more damage and get reach, and she could get very, very powerful using double damage once a round and then double damage on an attack of opportunity every time an enemy closes with or attacks her.

And if possible, get her to take a level of swordsage either in place of a preexisting monk level (Monk 3) or as soon as she finishes Sacred Fist. Let the Unarmed damage progression stack to be nice. Point out choice Maneuvers. (Mountain Hammer, Stone Vise, Emerald Razor Strike and that first level Setting Sun Maneuver that let's you throw the target and Steel Wind are great when it's your turn and you use Decisive strike. And let us not forget Iron Heart Surge, Wall of Blades, and the Diamond Mind Concentration check instead of saving throw line for getting out of messy situations. )


That, a few Wis and Cha boosting Items and some Night Sticks? She'll be just fine.

[SleepyShadow]

The monk/cleric needs work. Aside from Wisdom synergy they don't quite work well together. The BAB stagnation alone hurts. Encourage the player to go into a prestige class that combines monkish stuff with cleric spellcasting. If you can't find a published one to her liking, even hand-waiving prerequisites, create your own. Since she already has a BAB hit, make it full BAB and full spellcasting. Splash in monk-type stuff as prestige class abilities. One idea is to allow her to use her Wisdom modifier to hit instead of Strength. Strength is still used for damage. Make the prestige class have a roleplay reason to exist in the game world. It's an organization of some kind the character belongs to. Roleplaying membership will enhance the fun.

To prevent the wizard from winning the combat single handedly, out number the party with bad guys anywhere from two to one up to three to one. She uses her control spells to take care of a good number of bad guys like she's supposed to. There are still a number of bad guys left for the rest of the party to take care of.

The monk/cleric is already going into Sacred Fist, a full BAB/Full Casting PrC that advances monk abilities plus gives a few others. It's in Complete Divine.

As for the wizard, it hasn't really been an issue. She is certainly on-par with the favored soul in terms of action productivity and general usefulness, but 90% of the time the group has been fighting either large squadrons of enemies (bugbear zerg rush?) that prevent her from affecting everything at once, or a small number of foes that are strong enough to to SR/Save against/Ignore whatever spell is cast on them.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Perchance, do you have the monk's attribute scores on hand?

Going off what navar said, there's a feat in Book of Exalted Deeds that allows you to use your WIS modifier on to-hit rolls instead of Strength. It's called Intuitive Attack, if your monk player is interested. Being able to cue (yet another) combat-related attribute off of WIS will help make him less MAD, and will also make item distribution a little easier as well.

It also wouldn't kill you to treat monk as being full-BAB for the purpose of this character. It's a +1 BAB difference, but that alone affects when iterative attacks will come online (it means a second attack at level 7, for instance), and how much he can give away for Power Attack.

[SleepyShadow]

Yup, I have all of their character sheets after the game session last night. They hit level 9, so she's got a couple levels of Sacred Fist under her belt, which definitely seems to be helping. Her damage output is now outperforming the gish hit for hit, now that she has had Improved Natural Attack pointed out to her.

She rolled some pretty impressive stats: Str 16, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 20, Cha 15.

I'll take a look at that exalted feat, and if that turns out to be worthwhile I'll direct her attention to it. As far as the BAB, I may lean in that direction, but without Power Attack it seems less of an issue.

[Phaederkiel]

Telonius is right, the place to work on are the spells she chooses.
Show her some of the good stuff in the SpC. Downwind for example.

What are her domains?

and point her towards travel devotion. This is an incredibly solid feat.

[SleepyShadow]

She has War and Sun domains.

[tiercel]

Any time you have a character that's aiming for an "more or less advances two classes together" sort of PrC, there is going to be an "ugly duckling" moment before the character can get in and feel the benefits of it making them a really nice multiclass.

So... at least part of what you've been feeling is just that. (As you've noted!) It happens to mystic theurges and gish as well, generally, especially if you aren't using Max Optimization Tricks to speed entry.

Though I'm generally loathe to push [Divine] feats (because they make a strong class even stronger), with her Turn Undead stuck at a low level, she might as well be turning those Turn uses into something useful (even without the horror of DMM: Persist, something like Divine Vigor boosts her already crazy speed and gives her a little buff of temp hp).

By the same token, she could cash in her Sun domain power (depends on actually Turning undead) for Sun Devotion (for undead smitage that's character-level based, not cleric-level based).

[ericgrau]

Wis higher than str? Let her swap them. Even a straight battle cleric has str higher than wis. Other than that the stats are passable. I might swap dex and con, then cha and int, but whatever those are fine. Hitting foes as if she were 2 levels higher will make a big difference. Even her stunning fist is useless if her fist doesn't hit.

Ya let her drop down to 1 monk level because that's all she needs for sacred fist. Maybe 2 for a feat and evasion. That's a bad multiclass combo no matter what you think of the base classes. Warblade 3 / wizard 3 would be the same way. Though ya it'll get better once she's in the PrC regardless; right before entry into a dual prc is the worst point to look at.

Likewise let her get a replacement domain for the sun domain, because her turning won't progress. For the war domain I hope her diety favors a monk weapon.

Monks are really hard to play, especially for new players. Besides the wis focus another common mistake I bet she's making is making all her attacks unarmed. A masterwork weapon will hit more often, and tends to do as much or more damage. Have her save her unarmed strikes for stunning fists only. Later she can get a ki focus weapon so she can stun with her weapon.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Though I'm generally loathe to push [Divine] feats (because they make a strong class even stronger), with her Turn Undead stuck at a low level, she might as well be turning those Turn uses into something useful (even without the horror of DMM: Persist, something like Divine Vigor boosts her already crazy speed and gives her a little buff of temp hp).

By the same token, she could cash in her Sun domain power (depends on actually Turning undead) for Sun Devotion (for undead smitage that's character-level based, not cleric-level based).

Domain feats are great for this, essentially giving her something to do with her swift actions, and being less terrible than most swift actions that one can get.

The Travel Devotion feat mentioned earlier is particularly good for Sacred Fist types, because it allows you to use Turn Undead uses to move up to your movement speed as a swift action (read: Fast Movement for monks), which allows you to move up to your full movement speed and still make a full-round action (read: Flurry of Blows for monks).

I'm not sure what god offers both the Sun and War domains, but see if they offer travel as well. And if they don't, hang the rules and let them take Travel Devotion anyway! It's just THAT good for this concept.

[SleepyShadow]

Well, the Sun Devotion is not terrible, since it allows her to add her character level to her damage, but I'm definitely going to let her take Travel over War Devotion. You would think War Devotion would add to-hit and/or damage, not AC while fighting defensively :smallannoyed:

As for what ericgrau pointed out, I'm a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to stat swapping. As for her attacking unarmed, yes she does do that, but I allow the use of cestus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestus) for unarmed attacks. I've ruled that such items only add an extra 1 damage, but they can be enhanced like weapons, so she is currently equipped with +1 flaming caestus.

[ericgrau]

Well the str/wis swap and levels are to fix player mistakes, as her primary stat is not her high stat. Buff spells don't use wis. Stunning fist is useless if her attacks don't hit. AC is no better than dex. The remaining stats are fair trade-offs and I can see not allowing take backs on them.

I know people underestimate a +2, but she really might as well be a level behind the rest of the party because of that, on top of being at the worst level in the career of a dual class character. I mean her offense is 2 levels behind. I'd say the same about her lost caster level except she gets a movement speed boost at monk 3 which is nice.

So... fine, maybe everything else is passable in some way (except the domains which you're already fixing), but at least let her have her primary stat for her classes.

[SleepyShadow]

I see no reason to have her swap levels around, since she would be losing out on one of the class feature's she's been enjoying the most (i.e. fast movement). Buffs spells take up spell slots, and a higher wisdom gives more of them. Her BAB is the second highest in the party, so her Stunnning Fist hits fairly frequently.

It's not that I'm underestimating the +2 bonus she would be getting from swapping strength and wisdom, but with the three levels of Sacred Fist that she has, she caught up to the Favored Soul in terms of spell casting and BAB, is now outperforming the gish in terms of straight damage, and is otherwise proving to be a fairly useful party member.

Optimization is easy. Maintaining party balance is hard :smallwink:

[ericgrau]

It's been 4 days. When did everyone gain 3 levels? :smallconfused: Oh well whatever keeps things even. My long winded explanation was conceding that she shouldn't swap levels because at least she got something from what she has. Only the str/wis makes a big difference. But true, a boost doesn't help if everyone is already equal.

[Alienist]

She likes doing things like jumping over people to attack someone behind them, fighting while perching on precarious objects, using dead hobgoblins like shot put, and other thematically entertaining


Sounds awesome. I love to role play with creative people like this. They really make the game come alive



but mechanically ineffective things.


Well, I figured out what the problem is.
It is the DM who decides how effective things are, not the mechanics.

[SleepyShadow]

@ericgrau: I noted somewhere up there that the party gained three levels last session. They did quite well for themselves in the battle to defend the city against the hobgoblin hordes.

@Alienist: I agree wholeheartedly. Just because the rule books say that it's a bad idea for a monk to not full attack doesn't mean she knows it :smallbiggrin:

Jumping over the heads of the fighters to get at the wizard? Well what do you know, she caught the wizard flat-footed with that trick. Using a chair as both a platform to fight from and a means of fending off those hobgoblins? Sounds like a +1 elevation bonus to me. Flinging a full-plate wearing hobgoblin? I'd wager that's about 250 pounds, and wouldn't you know it? Even the rule book says 250 pounds of dead hobgoblin are going to deal 5d6 points of damage when it hits you in the face.

I'd hate to stymie my player's creativity by telling her it's more productive to stand there and full attack :smallcool: