Psionicly overpowered

[slithas]

So there's a little block of text here giving more detail to my situation if you care to read.

For a good while now I've been DMing a weekly campaign, and I've hit a slight problem I can't really figure out without feeling like I'm rewriting the rules for classes. After one of the players lost his character through a portal to the prision realm Carceri, he asked to make a psionic Wilder character next, and thusly I agreed, intending for psionics to be part of the campaign later on storywise anyway. However we quickly hit on a small problem at the amout of damage output he was doing each turn.

Basically, with Wild Surge each turn, it is like having a 11th level caster in a 8th level party, dealing an average of 38.5 damage per turn (11d6), give or take depending exactly on the ability. If he uses a empowered Energy Burst he rolls 9d6*1.5, dealing an average 47 damage to everything within 40ft. Now I know that is a one-off per encounter, but it is still devistating, especially to creatures with poor con or fortitude who are supposed to last a few turns at least (using +50hp of damage in one hit, fort save or die rule). When it comes to Energy Ray though, it gets annoying. Aside from the ability to adapt the damage type to the most damaging for a particular creature (such as cold against red dragons and such), with all the feats and abilities he's chosen he gets a +14 ranged touch attack which makes him very rarely miss doing 11d6 per turn.

if you want the short version, basically the Wilder's Wild Surge is overbalancing the power in my games to a point of making all other party members obsolite in damage output per turn. What's the best way to try and fix this?

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

[Righteous Doggy]

Erm, he's rolling his chance to be dazed and burning up power points right? and expending psionic focus from using a metamagic? At least its not chain save or die...
Edit: and what exactly is he overpowered compared to? I've got barbarians that do more damage than that at his level sometimes.

[Mari01]

So there's a little block of text here giving more detail to my situation if you care to read.

For a good while now I've been DMing a weekly campaign, and I've hit a slight problem I can't really figure out without feeling like I'm rewriting the rules for classes. After one of the players lost his character through a portal to the prision realm Carceri, he asked to make a psionic Wilder character next, and thusly I agreed, intending for psionics to be part of the campaign later on storywise anyway. However we quickly hit on a small problem at the amout of damage output he was doing each turn.

Basically, with Wild Surge each turn, it is like having a 11th level caster in a 8th level party, dealing an average of 38.5 damage per turn (11d6), give or take depending exactly on the ability. If he uses a empowered Energy Burst he rolls 9d6*1.5, dealing an average 47 damage to everything within 40ft. Now I know that is a one-off per encounter, but it is still devistating, especially to creatures with poor con or fortitude who are supposed to last a few turns at least (using +50hp of damage in one hit, fort save or die rule). When it comes to Energy Ray though, it gets annoying. Aside from the ability to adapt the damage type to the most damaging for a particular creature (such as cold against red dragons and such), with all the feats and abilities he's chosen he gets a +14 ranged touch attack which makes him very rarely miss doing 11d6 per turn.

if you want the short version, basically the Wilder's Wild Surge is overbalancing the power in my games to a point of making all other party members obsolite in damage output per turn. What's the best way to try and fix this?

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

Well for starters are you actually rolling for his psychic enervation?

[eggynack]

The best way to lower psionic power is to simply send a few more encounters per day. If he goes all out on an energy ray at 9th he's using up 1/8th of his power points on a single attack. If he's nova'ing out every encounter then make that nova its own price tag. I also don't see what he's doing that's so overpowered. He's dealing more damage than an unoptimized wizard of his level, but wizards suck at damage, and he's using more resources to do it. Wilders aren't very versatile either, so he can't really contribute in situations that don't require raw damage output if two of his five powers known are damage based.

[Andry]

Wilders are basically only good at one or two things with the crippling lack of powers the class offers. So he chose to pick powers that let him blast so that is his niche.

What are the other classes in the party? Are the other players complaining? Is everyone having fun? If so who cares who is doing the damage,

[dsmiles]

Yeah, between Psychic Enervation, losing their Psionic Focus on Empowering, and knowing only 5 powers (at least two of which are blasty) this wilder is getting the short end of the "overpowered stick," as it were. In order to manifest like that you'd have to be rolling really well (in the character's favor) on the percentile rolls to avoid enervation, and they would have to have the Psionic Meditation feat to get their focus back so quickly (and even then it's still a move action).

Something smells fishy, here.

[Ernir]

What are the other players playing?

[Soranar]

A few tips when dealing with damage dealers.

-Have him deal with multiple encounters per day, make him run out of power points or at least afraid to run out.

-Give him many targets to hit that are far apart ( to prevent AoE powers), don't be afraid to ambush the party. The threats don't have to be significant either, many small meaningless encounters can still wittle down power points. Say you fight a necromancer that keeps sending zombies and skeletons.

-There's always tuckers' kobolds.

-Make him fail his concentration checks, threaten him with an enemy with mage slayer (due to transparency it would apply to him too).

-have other inferior damage dealers attacking him as he casts (prepared action to do so) so he fails his concentration checks

[Magikeeper]

The issue with this thread thus far is that a many (most?) of the people on this forum play at mid/high-op, myself included. Thus, you are getting a lot of "why is this overpowered???" responses as a wave of 47 damage is quite nice, but not crazy at mid-op. At high op it would just be decent in a "you have earned your exp" sort of way. At crazy high op levels it wouldn't even be that.

So, we need to know the context of this situation.

First question: What are the other party members like?


Edit: You are also getting a number of "have multiple encounters per day" suggestions. That would solve any nova issue, but again, this advice might not be applicable if your campaign doesn't have a lot of combat.

If the player rolls the enervation roll (which I have them do, as does my current DM), then it might not come up very often if they are a dice g/d.

Spreading out the enemy would work, unless you usually have combats in close quarters or if the players ambush the enemy a lot.

[wayfare]

Yeah, it seems like you are dealing with a mail-man type in what is perhaps a low-op party.

My group tends towards low-op, with a few savvy players that can steal the show. Thing about wilder is, being able to dish out more powerful effects is kind of their thing -- its the balancing factor to a tiny powers list. If your party is lacking in other option-heavy classes, then the Wilder will look like a god. If you're playing with a psion or an artificer, things shouldn't be as dire.

If you do have a relatively low-op party that is unhappy with the Wilder stealing the show, suggest retraining or prestiging into classes that can compete, like:

Fighter/Barbarian into: Warblade, Duskblade, Warmind, Psychic Warrior
Ranger into: Scout, Master of Many Forms, Beastmaster
Paladin into: Prestige Paladin, Crusader
Rogue into: Psionic Rogue, Beguiler, Factotum (which i hate), Chameleon (which i love)

[Flickerdart]

So he blows a huge chunk of his PP, his psionic focus, and runs a good chance of dazing himself and losing more PP, all for the benefit of doing 47 energy damage at level 8. That's only about half the HP of a CR8 range monster, which is already supposed to be a trivial challenge at best. If said monster makes its save, then it's even sadder. The fact that the monster is within movement range of the wilder's tasty d6 hit die makes it saddest of all. Oh, and if the party is anywhere near him, they get to catch fire as well.

11d6 is only about 38 damage average, so it's not even as good as the waste of time above.

Teal deer: Use opponents that aren't pushovers.

[eggs]

If damage is his schtick and at level 8, he's doing 47 damage per round a couple times a day, you might want to give him some optimization pointers.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

You have a wilder that is aiming to optimize for 'Nova-ing'. That is actually not a very optimal way to make a wilder, but in a low to mid-OP group they can be quite devastating.

Just remember this is about the only thing he can do. Grant him his superblast insta-kills, it makes him happy (apparently). Diversify the encounters and make sure there's two-three, maybe four, encounters per day and you will find he starts running out of PP, leaving foes over for the others to deal with. Getting a higher than normal manifester level is the Wilder's thing, it is where the juice of the class is, so don't take that away from him. Give him one guy, or even two, to blast away with his PP. Occasionally, let him end a single-foe, tough encounter but then again, create foes that are hard for him to deal with (PR, high touch AC, good saves, immune to psionics, huge hp pools (a lvl 10 barbarian can have 120 or more hp), etc.).

He is good at what he does, but what he does does not necessarily solve all problems. When he starts noticing his I-win button does not allways work and his PP are finite, he might start making different choices.

[ericgrau]

"Overpowered" is relative to the gaming group so for his group this does sound overpowered. Sure other builds can do 100 damage or take energy substitution abilities, but his group probably doesn't do these things. I'd divide the energy powers into one power per energy type and reduce the damage and/or targetting ability (size of area or number of targets) of anything that isn't fire. Especially acid and sonic. That way foes know to prepare for fire instead of having no clue, as with most Player's Handbook spells. Psionic damage powers are slightly beefed up compared to normal, so you may want to reduce the damage even on fire but only slightly.

That said, a level 8 splatbook-free melee should be averaging about 30 damage in a round. Once you average in the rounds that the wilder is stunned, saves and misses he isn't doing that much more. Make sure you are giving out enough treasure so the non-caster/non-manifesters can keep up.

And conversely the more splatbooks your group is using the more you should ease up on the wilder. With melee damage tricks, energy substitution feats and good non-fire spells you should allow the wilder as-is.

[Mithril Leaf]

That is how hard my core only barbarian hit at level 4. Throw harder enemies at the group and possibly give a few optimization tips to the others in the group. Can't level 8 hellfire warlocks hit about this hard all day anyway? Just give them enemies. Wilders aren't broken. Psionic shapers like I'm playing in my current game that can churn out black lotus extract by the cubic foot at level 4, those are broken.

[Flickerdart]

Take your basic Barbarian, 8th level. 18 STR, +2 gloves, +2 from levels for a total of 22 - he's not even an Orc or anything. Let's say he went Human and took Weapon Focus or something. He picks up a +2 Greatsword (9 damage) and rages (+4 STR for a total of 26, or +8), whacking dudes for 21 damage per swing, on average. His to-hit (+19/+14, against average AC of 20 for CR8) ensures that he can afford to channel some points into Power Attack. For simplicity's sake, let's assume he always charges (+2 to hit) and will PA for max (-8) for a +16 bonus to his damage, because he's not very smart. He will still hit at +13, meaning that he hits his target about two thirds of the time for 37 damage, and 6% of the time (crit + confirm) that is 74 damage, which leaves us with an average damage of around 32. For the chumpiest chump of a Barbarian who makes poor choices even when he makes good choices. Another weapon-related feat (even Improved Critical) will kick the damage up above and beyond the Wilder's average.

The Wilder's save DC will be about 21 - 10 + 5 for augmented level + 6 for Charisma. The average Reflex save for a CR8 monster is +8, meaning that the Energy Burst will also deal full damage about 66% of the time - a total of 39 damage on average. If we factor in the 15% enervation rate which kills repeated actions, that average drops to 33, which is only 1 point higher than the Barbarian.

The opportunity cost for the Wilder is higher - in addition to the one feat spent (Power Attack/Empower Power) the Wilder is also using a precious power known, a limited resource, expends psionic focus, and has a 15% chance of wasting the next round. The Barbarian, meanwhile, can do his thing every round of 3 encounters of the day, and never risks hurting allies. Even with the terrible choices he's made.

Teal deer: Only nerf the powers if your players are literally less capable than someone that takes Weapon Focus.

Important caveat: How does the Wilder know what element to use? He doesn't have any Knowledge except Psionics as a class skill. Unless it's obvious (like a Fire elemental) he should have no clue what it resists.

[erikun]

Yeah, I will ask similar questions that everyone else is.

Are you rolling Psychic Enervation, the 15% chance of being dazed until the end of next turn and lose 9 PP?
Is the character spending a move action (assuming the Psionic Meditation feat) in order to regain their psionic focus in combat before doing it again?
Are you rolling monster saving throws?


If you are, then I'll assume that the group is just low-OP and such a character is overpowered in comparison.

Most likely, you're just throwing a single big-CR opponent at the group. This makes the Wilder's strategy ideal: if they can blast their opponent with a single high-powered shot, then they don't need to worry about regaining focus (since the target is dead) and both daze or even PP loss are minor.

I would recommend larger groups of (relatively) weaker enemies. Four enemies of CR -4 compared to the group are an equal encounter, and four enemies of CR -2 make a good challange. Your Wilder may not care about potentially burning through 18 PP with a single target, but such a strategy will hurt when trying to take out three opponents (especially without Psionic Meditation and spending a turn to regain focus). Larger groups also mean the Wilder can go crazy and tear apart several opponents, but other characters still have something to do and can shine at the same time.

[Flickerdart]

I would actually go for the opposite, since the Wilder will be tempted to use Energy Burst on weaker opponents, and thus hit his allies. A CR+2 opponent will increase AC and Reflex saves by 1 point, but will almost double in HP, meaning that it will take about 3 or 4 successful hits by the Wilder to bring it down if he was acting on his own. The chances of a Psychic Enervation putting a hole in that plan are severe, and the PP drain is serious regardless.

[Red_Dog]

Basically, with Wild Surge each turn, it is like having a 11th level caster in a 8th level party, dealing an average of 38.5 damage per turn (11d6)


The difference between an 8th lvl wizard and an 11th lvl wizard is that an 8th level wizard can stop inter dimensional travel, nullify most ranged attacks and melee opponents with a wave of his/her hand and generally be bad ass, while an 11th level wizard will turn you into a frog, or a pile of dust, a statue than steal a kings army and bind a succubus as his/her secretary... And not just deal 3d6 more damage = ]

P.S. Don't be offended, its a joke = ], but over all yeah. Leave your poor wilder alone, he/she really have not done anything and as a class wilder truly lag behind most casters they, I think, are at the level of shadowcasters... = ]

[shadow_archmagi]

Is the extra 3d6 really making that much of a difference? Additionally, the wilder only gets seven shots like that per day, assuming that he never fails his psychic enervation check (Which he'll probably fail at least once a day.)


So yeah. He's got the candle that burns twice as bright for half as long.

Of course, it's possible that your combats are few and far between, in which case, yeah, a character that specializes on being extreme for short periods of time is going to have an advantage.


Also 8d6 is 28 damage per turn, while 11d6 is 38.5 damage per turn. I'd hardly call being able to deal 25% more damage than the next best guy that impressive.

[slithas]

Thanks for all your feedback thus far :)

In response to the rest of the party, we have a lv 8 monk, lv 8 cleric, lv6 rougue/lv2 shadowdancer, and the lv 8 Wilder. First off the cleric finds herself rather useless in melee due to a natual str of 9, so she just casts and heals. The rogue is normally dealing around 20 damage on a sneak attack but normally less than 10 on a regular hit. The monk's damage is around 13 per hit armed and 8 unarmed (he wields a shocking ki longsword), so if he is in melee he's doing decent damage, but not at range. The party is used to fighting in close melee with the monk and rouge double-teaming enemies while the cleric buffs and the sorcerer (now replaced by the wilder) would hold other enemies at bay. Instead now the enemies who are incoming are all dealt with by the wilder while the others deal with one enemy.

Yes he has been rolling for Enervation, and thus far has been very sucessful with it (only failed it once last session). I actually considered doubling the risk to 10% per level added to actually make it less trustworthy for balance. He also does expend his psionic focus on the Empower, so that's a one off per encounter, but still can leave a large hole of dead enemies where it goes off.

As I'm unused to Psionics and Wilders I probably have been approaching it wrong, normally they'll face one or two encounters per day due to it not being a kick down the door style of game and they don't go trapsing through caves and dungeons all too often.

During one encounter last session I had a bunch of CR4 kobold fighters surprisingly sucessfully keep them at bay. But when their leader showed up, a CR 10 half-black dragon kobold fighter, he one-hit-KO'ed it, even though it was supposed to last for a few turns at least (he only had 57hp, but he had good armour and resistances. Unfortunately not to an electric Energy Ray)

The guy playing it knows when is best to use fire or cold for reflex or fort saves against the rays and burst. Smart play, but leaves no one for the others to play with. He normally will dimension door into the middle of an oncoming crowd, or simply tell the others to run away to give him space, and then uses his burst. He also has Inertial Armour and Force Shield, which when both active boost his AC to 27, making him difficult to hit too.


Thanks for the suggestions on tactics, I shall be employing a number of them in the upcoming session :)
I'll probably throw a few more encounters per day at them too, that should probably help alot.

[willpell]

Being a glass cannon is pretty much what a blaster-Wilder does. Really it's not the best choice of power for the class; they get armor and weapons and skills to make up for not having as many powers as psions, so a wilder shouldn't be using a power to do something he could do with a magic bow or a dorje or something.

[eggynack]

In response to the rest of the party, we have a lv 8 monk, lv 8 cleric, lv6 rougue/lv2 shadowdancer, and the lv 8 Wilder.

I can see how that party composition could cause some difficulties in power level. By that level the cleric should really be dominating the game, but if the player doesn't know the spell list that well it can be tricky. I don't think the wilder necessarily needs to be nerfed, because adjusting encounters should be enough. If the most efficient damage dealing engine is likely to one-shot the final boss, making adjustments to the boss could make sense. Change the format of encounters to tend towards endurance matches if you can't stick to the recommended four encounters per day system and the wilder will run dry pretty quickly. There are infinitely more ways that the cleric can break the game than the wilder, but that will likely cause even more problems for the low-power duo. One possibility is recommending the cleric towards melee buffing spells to make the monk and rogue more efficient.

[slithas]

By that level the cleric should really be dominating the game, but if the player doesn't know the spell list that well it can be tricky.

Yeah, she's only just started playing the Cleric, she was a Druid beforehand, and her strength is only 9, her con 11 and her dex 14, but her wisdom is a natural 20 now, 22 with periapt of wisdom. She just needs to learn what spells are best to use to help everyone.

[eggynack]

Yeah, she's only just started playing the Cleric, she was a Druid beforehand, and her strength is only 9, her con 11 and her dex 14, but her wisdom is a natural 20 now, 22 with periapt of wisdom. She just needs to learn what spells are best to use to help everyone.

I would suggest giving advice to her, but then you'd create a party with a cleric played to full potential, and a monk. Divine power means that strength isn't that important, and in one level righteous might continues that system if meleeing is what she wants. Outdamaging a monk and rogue is pretty easy, which might be the actual source of your problems. Monks especially have a tendency to get outclassed by everything in every way imaginable. I don't think that it's necessarily the fault of the wilder's player, or the class itself, that is causing the problem. I can't think of too many suggestions on how to fix the monk, but the trick with rogues is two weapon fighting to maximize the number of attacks and something for consistent sneak attack. Ironically, one of the best ways to solve this problem on the monk front could be more psionics. If you change his build from monk8 to monk2/psychic warrior6 with the tashalatora feat things could work out a bit better for his character. I don't know if retconning is something either you or the players is ok with.

[Ingus]

An easy fix: enact magic-psionic transparency and add in SR/PR bosses, which shoud come more often in play by that level anyways.

Example: a 11th level drow fighter should be a CR12 (affordable for a 9th level party as a boss like encounter) and have a SR/PR of 22 (= 50% of failure by the wilder in his one-shoots).
This will balance his powers and, being the player a smart one, force him in more complex tactics (party support anyone?)

[sonofzeal]

Your problem:

- The Wilder is more highly optimized than the other characters

- The Wilder in question is, additionally, extremely well-suited to your campaign.



Thus, three solutions present themselves...

A) Reduce the Wilder's power. Discuss it with the whole group, with everyone there. If everyone agrees to a nerf, then raising the enervation chance is a nice way to go. The other method would be lowering his starting ML slightly; if Wilder ML progressed at a 3/4 rate, they wouldn't be dealing as much damage. If you go this route, though, I'd recommend throwing a bone in return - perhaps an extra power known every level that they lose ML, or bumping them up to full BAB. This reduces their fundamental Wilderness in both directions, but it's the Wilderness you're having trouble with.

B) Increase everyone else's power. The Cleric will start kicking arse after a few levels anyway, and any boosts there will outmatch the Wilder fairly quickly, but a chance to retrain physical ability scores might help in the short term. For the Monk... ugh. Monks are notoriously difficult to play effectively. I'd forgo advice and just houserule in something. Give them a boost to their ability scores, or let them Flurry as a standard action, or both. The Rogue, well, Rogues aren't really combat brutes, and he should be contributing even if all he does is plink. That said, "Craven" is an excellent Rogue feat, especially since it keys off Character Level so it doesn't matter that he PrC'd out. Also, he should consider going back or finding a different PrC; Shadowdancer is a nice way to pick up Hide In Plain Sight, but otherwise is usually sub-par. And there's the "Darkstalker" feat from Lords of Madness that he should love.

C) Change how you handle encounters. Pour on the pressure; if he can wipe out an entire attack wave, have more attack waves. Reward them for succeeding despite this, of course - more gold, better xp, whatever - but by raising the stakes you can balance out his power. Also, he'll be weak against battles of attrition, enemies with SR, enemies with Evasion, enemies with unexpected energy resistances, and single huge enemies with buckets of hp. Throw out a Giant, then some Drow warriors, then some Bugbear Rogues, then a massive wave battle against a hundred orcs. Stuff like that. Keep it varied, keep him on his toes, and avoid over-using encounters that cater straight to his strengths. I was in a campaign like that, and I outright told the DM repeatedly to please stop sending in the one type of encounter that I could totally crush. I told him exactly what types of enemies I was weaker against. And he never took my advice, so I kept steamrolling everything. Don't be that DM. Adapt.

[Ingus]

[Throw out a Giant, then some Drow warriors, then some Bugbear Rogues, then a massive wave battle against a hundred orcs.

Hey, man! There are monks out there! :smallbiggrin:

[sonofzeal]

Hey, man! There are monks out there! :smallbiggrin:
Well, not all at the same time! Monks should do fine in most of those, though.

Giant - My experience is that decently-built monks (ie those making use of unarmed-strike boosters like Improved Natural Attack and Monk's Belt) can deal high damage against low-AC enemies, like a Giant. A poorly-optimized Monk might not do so great, but they're certainly not at any particular disadvantage against the Giant.

Drow - Low Con means direct damage that ignores SR is usually a decent call against them, and unlike the Giant they're potentially vulnerable to Grapple. Monk should be fine.

Rogues - Monks have high Wis and Spot/Listen as class skills, not to mention Uncanny Dodge. He might actually contribute above average here!

Orc Horde - Many enemies with low AC, and can probably be taken out with a single punch each, and are likely to be swarming in allowing full use of Flurry? He'll do alright.



None of those fights are particularly bad ones for Monk. He might struggle anyway, but it'll be average Monk suckiness rather than the encounters being weighted against him. But they are weighted against the Wilder, meaning his performance will suffer while the Monk's will remain about where it always was. The gap may not disappear, but it should narrow.

[Amphetryon]

normally they'll face one or two encounters per day due to it not being a kick down the door style of game and they don't go trapsing through caves and dungeons all too often.This is what strikes me as central to the problem you're having with the Wilder. In 3.X, Classes were designed to be balanced (to certain definitions of "balanced") around 4 - 5 encounters a day. With only 1 - 2 encounters in a day, the Wilder doesn't have to hoard, or even especially manage, PP expenditure per encounter, making the nova-tactic much more viable, and accounting for a much better damage output per encounter.

General commentary: The Cleric in your group is choosing to self-nerf by taking on the role of the combat medic, so the other big gun in your group doesn't appear especially strong, and you can mitigate the Rogue's damage as DM with a variety of enemies and tactics to reduce SA, making him more or less as strong a combatant as you wish. Meanwhile, your Monk will only be doing damage comparable to the rest of the party if the Cleric and Rogue are nerfed (they are; see above) AND if he's using Decisive Strike instead of Flurry of Blows in order to increase his expected Damage/Round output a mite. The group's playstyle may not lend itself toward optimization, but it does appear to lend itself toward more encounters per day as a balancing factor for your glass cannon.

[shadow_archmagi]

The group's playstyle may not lend itself toward optimization, but it does appear to lend itself toward more encounters per day as a balancing factor for your glass cannon.

Or, as has been already mentioned, more enemies per encounter. So yeah. That encounter where they fought a ton of low level kobolds, and then a dragon? Why not have the dragon do a flyover and drop off paratrooper kobolds?

[slithas]

Thanks all, I shall be thowing more encounters per day at them next session, that seems to be the main way I can optimise it from what you've said. You've all given me some good ideas on ways I can deal with it, and interesting encounters that'll last longer than others previously have. Thanks! :)


Why not have the dragon do a flyover and drop off paratrooper kobolds?

My, that does sound amusingly fun :P

[Spuddles]

I can see how that party composition could cause some difficulties in power level. By that level the cleric should really be dominating the game, but if the player doesn't know the spell list that well it can be tricky.

How does a 9 strength cleric dominate the game at level 8? I just don't see it happening without DMM optimization.

Clerics auto-win is a myth. They're on par with NPC warriors in combat, and that's WITH divine power up. A cleric can be powerful if they have a half dozen buff rounds, but without a lot of quickens or persists, the battlefield will be cleared out by the time the cleric has enough spells up to even be NPC capable. And let's not forget how few spells a level 8 cleric has. If he wants to be melee capable in every fight, all his spells have to be the weakest kind of spell- pretend to be a fighter spell.

If DMM persist is allowed, along with night stick stacking, then yeah, I will agree that clerics are very good. But very few games allow that level of metamagic abuse, in my experience.

[erikun]

normally they'll face one or two encounters per day due to it not being a kick down the door style of game and they don't go trapsing through caves and dungeons all too often.

(he only had 57hp, but he had good armour and resistances. Unfortunately not to an electric Energy Ray)
If you're wondering why your Wilder feels so unbalancing, this would probably be why. Most CR 10 opponents have around 200 HP, and only one or two fights means there's no reason to hold back on the PP.

If you're only going to be using one fight each day, make it a significant one. CR+4 is supposed to be large enough to be dangerous without making it fatal, and gives the Wilder more targets to fight. Rather than a single CR 10 dragon and some kobolds, you could use four CR 7 dragons (110 HP for Black Juvenile) and around 70 kobolds for a CR ~12 encounter. I think your Wilder will have a much, much harder time nova'ing that entire group, even if you keep some in reserve to avoid overdoing things for your group. (If only 40 kobolds and two dragons seems like it was a good fight, just stop there.)

[eggynack]

How does a 9 strength cleric dominate the game at level 8? I just don't see it happening without DMM optimization.

Clerics auto-win is a myth. They're on par with NPC warriors in combat, and that's WITH divine power up. A cleric can be powerful if they have a half dozen buff rounds, but without a lot of quickens or persists, the battlefield will be cleared out by the time the cleric has enough spells up to even be NPC capable. And let's not forget how few spells a level 8 cleric has. If he wants to be melee capable in every fight, all his spells have to be the weakest kind of spell- pretend to be a fighter spell.

If DMM persist is allowed, along with night stick stacking, then yeah, I will agree that clerics are very good. But very few games allow that level of metamagic abuse, in my experience.

Not every cleric has to go around swinging a sword. Clerics are tier one because they're full casters and thus have an answer to most situations. Around that level is where the cleric starts getting answers to entire types of combat. Against archers, they have windwall, grapplers are stopped by freedom of movement, summoning is stopped by the magic circle line, and so on. Clerics have options that monks and rogues just don't have, and in a level her power will multiply from having 5th level spells. Clerics can outfight monks and maybe rogues with intelligent casting, but to claim that that's all they can do is incorrect.

[ericgrau]

So the second issue seems to be that nobody else in the party is a damage dealer, everyone is some kind of support character. That's why even the rogue is doing 10-20 damage instead of 30. When you pull 3 guys down a notch and 1 guy up a notch, the gulf looks even wider.

Traps, scouting ahead and other skill based challenges will favor the rogue. Find the correct DCs, remember there are no nat 1s, and don't forget to allow taking 10s most of the time when he isn't in combat. Skills provide low benefit for success and high danger for failing, so don't freak if all that makes him easily pass a lot of checks. The monk I assume is using stunning fist through his ki focus weapon so things with low fort saves and low AC will favor him. He's also tripping or disarming I assume, so either medium foes or weaponed foes favor him. Humanoids may be good. Status effect monsters (disease, poison, ability damage, etc.) and undead will favor the cleric, though undead aren't good for the other 2 guys. Drop the cleric some scrolls in the treasure to remove status effects and so on.

Though I also think the group has too many support guys with no one to support but the wilder. I wouldn't make anyone play something else, but if anyone wants to I'd let him. The remaining support will benefit too from having more allies to support, though they still won't get the limelight.

[eggs]

Clerics auto-win is a myth.
Melee clerics aren't so hot without a way to clear up the action economy, but it's a full prepared spellcaster. Its class abilities list is several hundred pages long. And those are powerful abilities - just compare the Summon Monster line alone to a Rogue or Monk in terms of versatility or power.

[Red_Dog]

slithas=>

Are Spell Compendium and Complete Divine in play? If so, yor cleric is few knowledge skills away from in-character dominating every encounter from now till the end of campaign.

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Second comment.
Stating NPCs is trial and error. It took me some time to learn how to do that well. Don't be discouraged though, just try and try again.

Also perhaps mod the XP system so its based on "you get XP when I say you do". Its less fair, but more DM friendly and likely to increase WBL of the party which counterbalances the loss of XP a bit(There is a reason why Fighter players are better WBLmancers than Wizards They HAVE to be or they die. Xp system favors casters so slow it down a notch = ] )

And just for you, here is a Kobold Para trooper build for CR4. You'll need Unearthed Arcana & Cityscape.

Kobold
Fighter 4[Probably Hit-n-Run from DotU & Cityscape Ride-to-Tumble swap]
Feats[2+3Fighter]=>Skill Knowledge, Dodge, Mobility, Roof Walker, Roof Jumper.
Skills=> Balance & Jump & Tumble
Swag => +1 Armor of Landing[totally legal as it reduces the fall, NOT cancels it!]*You can describe armor differently than MiC does as its description is vague. You can make it look ala elysian drop troops from warhammer 40k, just with magic instead of tech = ] Perhaphs two "magic rocks on two semi wings"*
Something along the line of what they have on their back.
http://homepage.mac.com/james.clay/iblog/B233824576/C1744031705/E20070328212509/Media/IMG_3369.jpg

[B]How to ODST like a BOSS=>
>Tumble DC15 to get safe 10ft
>Jump DC15 to get safe 10ft
>Graceful Drop[roof walker] to get extra 10ft on Jump DC15
>Armor of Landing [MiC p.12] gives you extra 60ft and you always land on feet

Total from Cityscape, MiC & PHBI alone is => 90ft drop with NO dmg to the kobold. This also allows you to execute charge attack that deals extra 8d6 damage! ODST like a Kobold BOSS.

Enjoy your areal lvl4 ODST Kobolds = ]

[Red_Dog]

Ah shucks... There is one flaw in my build.

Roof jumper somehow isn't a fighter bonus feat even though its a tactical non-magical feat... So... If I was a DM, I'd handwave that and make it fighter bonus feat. Otherwise, you can still drop from high altitudes without much harm, just not with dealing good damage...

For bonus points, the "vehicle"[dragon or some huge flying creature that they tamed/allied with] can either hold ropes with kobolds hanging from them, OR have some sort of harness that kobolds would attach themselves to and readied actions and than using free action pull a rope or something and fall as they pass over an intended target. ^^

P.S. Incidentally I now have a great goblin CR8 "storm trooper" build ^^.

[slithas]

heh, thanks for that, it'll be entertaining to run and surprising for the players :P