Issues concerning White Raven Tactics

[Jacque]

Hey all,

I DM a group of 5 players. They are all level 12 and are fairly optimized.

I have a problem with two of my players' characters. One plays a Factotum with a lot of inspiration points which he uses to power his combat abilities. The other is a prestige paladin/clericzilla who uses Battle Blessing to buff up. Both have a couple of warblade levels and both have White Raven Tactics.

They use their White Raven Tactics on each other to deal two times full attack and combined deal about 300 dmg, which is enough to completely destroy most enemies including those meant to be memorable like BBEG battles.

Have anyone else felt that the White Raven Tactics maneuvre results in too much burst damage and felt the need to change it?

[Ernir]

White Raven Tactics is pretty busted. You not counting as your own ally for the purposes of WRT, and no creature being able to receive the benefits of WRT more than once in a given encounter should start making things more sane.

But more directly related to the issue at hand... are you sure your enemies are powerful enough defensively in general? I mean, a party of competent 12th level characters can present a seriously powerful offense, WRT or not.

[Righteous Doggy]

Your allowed to say no, they aren't allowed to Iron Heart Surge Rule 0 unless you allow them. If you don't want them to go twice every turn don't let them, it can be pretty ridiculous. Or throw a big long encounter at high levels and remind them they need to do nothing but a standard attack every other attack just to reset. No worse than haste that way(worse in fact).

[Jacque]

But more directly related to the issue at hand... are you sure your enemies are powerful enough defensively in general? I mean, a party of competent 12th level characters can present a seriously powerful offense, WRT or not.

We are playing through the Age of Worms storyline and they are, as level 12, plowing through the part which is meant for level 15 characters. Only an encounter involving enemy Blasphemy has been a challenge to them so far. Then again, this is partly also due to the (bad) design of Death Ward which turns deadly enemies into trivial encounters.

[Duke of URL]

You don't have to stick to the pre-written encounters exactly. For a highly-optimized party, given them tougher encounters to keep the challenge level up. Possibly also consider slowing XP gain somewhat so that they eventually fall a few levels behind where they're "supposed" to be in order to even out the challenges.

[sonofzeal]

+1 for "beef up enemies", especially on the defensive side of the spectrum. D&D is very offence-oriented and a good party at that level can mop the floor in the surprise round. I always give enemies more hp (double usually works), and often sprinkle in resistance/immunities to SoL/SoD (not on every fight of course, just enough to keep them on their toes), and that usually makes the game more fun.

[Answerer]

Published adventures have a tendency to be standardized against the lowest common denominator, which means they're expecting those things to be challenges for level 15 Weapon Focus Fighters, Fireball Wizards, and healbot Clerics.

[Diarmuid]

It's also a matter of working within the confines of the ability. To use this most effectively they have to wait until both have acted in the round so one of them isnt wasting a set of actions. They also have to be within 10' of one another to use it.

Sure against 1 big enemy, this is going to go badly for that guy but making them spread out will limit them.