Inter-Party Balance

[purpenflurb]

This is my first time on the forums, but there have been some disagreements within my party as to what balance is going to be like. For a bit of background, we are running two campaigns at once that are both in the same world (3.5). This is the lower level campaign that we just started, and our first real stab at high powered characters. We have two campaigns running at once, I am the DM of the longer running high level one, and this one is being run by someone who is DMing for the first time. The characters are as follows (all currently level 6)

Human Cleric 2/Human Paragon 3/Radiant servant of Pelor, Standard DMM persistent route with cloistered cleric variant, not allowing nightsticks to stack

Gray Elf Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5, Will be getting extend, persist, split ray, quicken, chain, and twin for metamagic. Elven generalist first substitution level, also has a homebrew feat that allows learning a number of spells per level equal to intelligence modifier.

Human Druid 20, House rules allow for animal companion to increase in size, has taken a vow of poverty and is planning on taking the feat to wild shape into magical beasts from frostburn, exalted feats for celestial wild shape and animal companion, and a homebrew feat to apply templates with wild shape losing 2x the template LA in maximum hit die.

Human Fighter 20/Beguiler 20 gestalt, This is probably the least planned build, using fighter bonus feats for a few maneuvers, improved feinting, and general combat abilities.


In terms of house rules, polymorph/draconic polymorph/polymorph any object/shapechange have essentially been banned. Celerity is also explicitly disallowed, and planar binding is heavily restricted. Various other spells have been restricted/disallowed entirely, mostly affecting the wizard/cleric (I can't remember the entire list off the top of my head).

We all pretty much expect that the beguiler/fighter is going to be useful but less powerful, it belongs to a player who is less interested in optimization. The question is mostly in regards to the other three, with his large wolf animal companion the druid is currently virtually soloing encounter with some BC help from the wizard, but what does everyone think is going to happen as the campaign progresses?

[Deaxsa]

IMHO the only way to truly find out how the optimization is gonna work is to play it. I mean, for all we know, that wizard could go arcane fire blasting from archmage. Vow of poverty may totally ruin that druid's day. also, are you posting the builds or...? You said they are level 6 but posted level 20? And what is this about a high level group and a low level group? Are they the same players?

Edit: also, why the bans? Is there a history of cheese?

[purpenflurb]

Currently level six, those are just builds as currently planned to level 20. I post the builds to 20 because at least a couple of them are currently fairly well planned out, and because most of our arguments have been about future balance. The bans are because of the fact that what tends to happen is that everything that can get abused is abused. And both campaigns are the same players, the basic situation is that I am in charge of anything deemed overworld (which leaves me with most of the mechanical/balance decisions) but one of those characters is actually mine, left anonymous in an attempt to be fair.

[Deaxsa]

my favorite counter-cheese argument is to allow the NPCs the very same smelly cheese the PCs reach for. in particular this discourages Save-or-suck spells(at least, if they abuse them, like casting disintegrate every other round). also, if EVERYONE is abusing mechanics, it's balanced, isn't it? (not my personal opinion but something to consider).

[purpenflurb]

The problem is less the party as a whole. If everyone is at the same place the encounters can be balanced accordingly (although the new DM is having trouble with this), but if one character vastly overpowers the others there is no balance. My current concern is that the druid is currently planning on using the feat from frostburn to turn into a 12 headed cryohydra, with the ascetic boosts on top of that, and the spell from spell compendium to give him the hydra's extraordinary special qualities. He then wants to stack templates (Magebred, warbeast, etc) on top of that to increase stats. And what concerns me most is that he wants to use the spell and templates to get things like damage reduction from mineral warrior as well. I don't think that this is a level of power any of the rest of us are really going to be able to attain, but he has been resistant to me saying that he can't use the spell to give him the special qualities of templates he adds (something which I view to be a fairly minor decrease in power in the grand scheme).

[tyckspoon]

The Druid is likely to remain the obvious power-player throughout his advancement (Dip into Master of Many Forms and hang out as a Feral Mineral Warrior War Troll? Why not.) The Wizard and Cleric can hang with him, but they have to know what they're doing with their spell applications; they may settle into just buffing/supporting the Druid, because it'll probably be easier to make him even more OP than to find the spells and tactics needed to compete with what he does.

The Fighter/Beguiler.. well, I hope he really digs social and skill encounters, because he's not going to contribute a heck of a lot to direct combat, not compared to the physical power the Druid + Companion bring and the blasting/controlling support of an Incantatrix. Remember to give him opportunities to use those aspects of his character.