OP class or just player?

[Gadzooks27]

I'm running a 3.5 campaign starting level 6 for a few friends of mine. Now I've got this Player who is just not satisfied with his level of damage output; in his mind he should be able to strike multiple foes in an area with heavy (barbarian rate) damage. It's lame that wizards can bend reality but not do any real damage.
Given that most of my Players play roguish characters anyway, his level 6 straight human DFA was already out-blasting everyone round by round. At level 9 he deals 5d10 (custom cincture), has blind sense, Draconic senses, dragon lore, and he's more well versed than a factotum; he's out-searching the rogue (thank god he doesn't have trap finding), out-damaging the barbarian (though not by much), outsmarting my pressure traps (he flies at freaking will), and he has better knowledge and spell craft rolls than the party's cleric and wizard.

My question is this: in a world where this player wants to single-handedly solve everything and seems very capable of it, how do I slow the PC down enough to let the other characters shine?

[OldTrees1]

That is mostly just the player. All those classes(except cleric/wizard) are close in power all of them(except cleric/wizard) are underpowered not overpowered(except cleric/wizard). However that is an overly simplified answer.

1) The character has a variety of toolbox abilities that trivialize common obstacles but comes after those obstacles are already becoming trivial. However with less creative PCs these obstacles can still be used by DMs long after they could be rendered trivial. There are several responses to this but here are the 2 parts I think you could benefit from
1A) Challenge the ability as part of the obstacle. Perhaps there is a windy cliff to climb. The player has the option of flying through the wind challenge or doing the climbing challenge.
1B) Build the obstacle with the assumption of the ability. Say there is a cliff with bandits at the top. A straight climb would be suicide. However the player could fly up with a bodyguard to attach a rope while defending a foothold on top of the cliff.

2) The player is creative. Responding to the player's creative problem solving with your own creative problem solving can give the player challenge while not restraining their creativity. Pressure traps are probably not a good idea alone. But put them in a combat and the flyer can quickly get separated from their allies.

[torrasque666]

Sometimes, you just need to have traps that have some sort of magical sensor and are completely new. My DM got an idea for a trap after watching Jackass, the one where they take a shot from a Hornet's Nest(the rubber bullet box thing). I believe it was 4d8 in a 30ft cone. I should know it better, I helped him design it.

[ramrod]

Sounds like the player to me. I think I'll be suffering with a similar problem in my own campaign soon. I've helped some of the party to optimise somewhat.. Now they are number addicts and will be wanting to squeeze high numbers out.

The issue is if only one or some of the party are pushing for it then the encounters will always be unbalanced. Too hard for the others or too easy for optimisers.

You just have to find a way to turn his strengths against him some of the time. Such as giving enemies feats that allow them to turn charges aside/lock against them etc. If he flies, equip enemies with spells that counter flight.

Puzzles are easy to fix, don't make them pressure triggered. Trigger them from presence, alignment detection or movement.

Start to work down on his overconfidence. Allow him to get his big numbers every so often but find solutions to whatever it is that he relies on. Once you have looked them up they just become bolt ons. You're not looking to gimp him, but force him to be more flexible and not expect big numbers all of the time.

I know because I've had a similar treatment myself whilst playing an optimised swordsage. The dm found ways of using my sneak attacks against me, making them less effective, reducing my action economy and getting around my concealment. It sucked at first, but I just had to mix it up a bit, accept that sometimes my damage wasn't as high as it could be and get on with it :)

Secondly empower the others. Casters are not always great blasters with damage, but they can aoe (lots of smaller high damage critters) or enemies with higher ac but lower resists to give casters the chance to own in different ways. If they use a lot of sos or sod spells, it's a great opportunity to use enemies with high hp and moderate resists. The optimised melee character gets his big numbers but the sos sod casters can mop up.

It really depends on what your party is comprised of but whatever you have write out a list of all of the ways that you can think of gimping each player and also empowering them. Give everyone the opportunity to shine but have struggles.

[ahenobarbi]

It's lame that wizards can bend reality but not do any real damage.

There are at least two problems With that statement. It's incorrect (wizards can easily do stupid amount of damage) and it sounds like you support game inbalance ("wizards should not only be able to do a lot of things mundanes can't do at all, they should also be better than them at their jobs").

[A Tad Insane]

Everything everyone else said, plus randomly tacking on darkstalker and the appropriate elemental resistance to enemies you think should have it and bam, he's now as useless or powerful as you want him to be

[Gadzooks27]

There are at least two problems With that statement. It's incorrect (wizards can easily do stupid amount of damage) and it sounds like you support game inbalance ("wizards should not only be able to do a lot of things mundanes can't do at all, they should also be better than them at their jobs").

That is the player's belief. And partially true- casters do not have the damage factor 100% of the time. Even if the caster nukes a playing field at one point, to do so again would require tremendous effort.
Personally I love casters. But my players are all relatively new to the game and a constantly studying spells for assistance.
"It sounds like you support game inbalance". Sure, bring on the insults without offering any advice. That's exactly why I came on here.

I'd like to thank everyone else for their advice, it's been really awesome.
One last thing, in regard to the breath weapon issue- what enemies/monsters have high and multiple energy resistances. The player has 3 or 4 different energies to use separately in his breath weapon, and the last time I used a kython he had a hard time believing that it was acid immune, AND resistant to fire and electricity . But it worked.

[sleepyphoenixx]

A lot of outsiders like demons, devils, the various archons/angels/deva etc. are immune to 1-2 energy types and resistant to 2-3 more.

[Fax Celestis]

Enemies with spell resistance should put up a fight too. I would actually also recommend counter-caster opponents who sling around dispel magic like it's going out of style.

[Faily]

Since DFA uses Invocations that are affected by Armor's Arcane Spell Failure, I am guessing he is one of those who uses 24 hour-duration Invocations and then puts on a heavy armor? Then Dispel Magic, Anti-Magic and things like that can turn an encounter around against him quickly. There are also spells that deal with impeding flight. Also remember in 3.5, if they lose enough Strength (Ray of Enfeeblement-shenanigans) and gain too much encumbarance, they aren't able to fly either.


The class in itself isn't OP, but it covers alot of things in the hands of a skilled player who picks the right feats and class features.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Since DFA uses Invocations that are affected by Armor's Arcane Spell Failure, I am guessing he is one of those who uses 24 hour-duration Invocations and then puts on a heavy armor? Then Dispel Magic, Anti-Magic and things like that can turn an encounter around against him quickly. There are also spells that deal with impeding flight. Also remember in 3.5, if they lose enough Strength (Ray of Enfeeblement-shenanigans) and gain too much encumbarance, they aren't able to fly either.

To be fair most magical flight does not carry the language associated with natural flight that prevents carrying a load heavier than light or medium.

[sonofzeal]

A Dragonfire Adept is going to be solid at area-of-effect damage. That's pretty literally the point of the class (well, that and AoE debuff). If they're not doing decent AoE damage/debuff, then they aren't playing.

They also get flight, same level that Warlocks do, and the same level that a Druid can turn into a bird for 5 hours, and the same level Wizards and some Clerics can cast the Fly spell to fly considerably faster, although admittedly not for as long. Fifth level is about the time flight starts becoming something the DM has to work around and plan for, and challenges that can be bypassed by flying are not going to be nearly as effective.



My only real question is.... 5d10? How's the DFA rolling d10's for damage? If you gave him a custom magic item that massively increased his potency, then you can't really blame the class or the player, only yourself.

The solution, then, would be to give similar prizes to the other PCs, and scale enemies accordingly.

[Gadzooks27]

The spirit dragon cincture gives a single upgrade. (5d8). At a high cost, I allowed him to upgrade it a step further. But the damage doesnt bother me. The goddamn versatility does.

[sonofzeal]

The spirit dragon cincture gives a single upgrade. (5d8). At a high cost, I allowed him to upgrade it a step further. But the damage doesnt bother me. The goddamn versatility does.

Err.... no? "Your breath weapon damage is increased by one die". That's an extra d6. Not upgrading all d6's to d8's.

[OldTrees1]

The spirit dragon cincture gives a single upgrade. (5d8). At a high cost, I allowed him to upgrade it a step further. But the damage doesnt bother me. The goddamn versatility does.

Is the versatility a problem or is it the versatility relative to the other players? Aka is it you having difficulty challenging the player or is it you feel the other players are being overshadowed?

[sonofzeal]

The difference between 6d6 and 5d8 isn't big (21 vs 22.5 average damage) but is still a buff. The difference between 7d6 and 5d10 is a bit bigger (24.5 vs 27.5), but the danger scales with level, when 10d6 vs 8d10 means your modification does 25% more damage and is going to expand further over time.

Being able to switch energy types isn't the problem. Given that the whole class revolves around the breath, DFAs need to have the tools to work around energy resistances or they'll be utterly useless the first time the PC faces a CR 5 Bearded Devil with immunity to fire and resistance to both Acid and Cold. Or heaven forbid a CR 6 Babau that's immune to Electricity, and has Resist 10 against all of Fire, Cold, and Acid (better hope the DFA's spent a Breath Effect on Thunder Breath, which your guy shouldn't even have access to yet).

At lvl 6, 3d6 damage isn't that great - just 10.5 on average, if they fail their Ref save which many won't. A barbarian with even mediocre strength should be able to do about that much at lvl 1 even outside of a rage, and if they haven't found a way to boost their damage by lvl 6 then that's probably your problem there.

The issue may simply be that DFAs scale naturally and easily. They do fine at all levels regardless of how bad the player is at optimizing. Not "great", but "fine". If the Barbarian is running around at lvl 9 doing basically the same damage just with more Rages and maybe an extra 1d6 fire damage on their sword, then that's definitely your problem.


I repeat my advice from above - if a player is falling behind the curve, give them extra help to keep them up. A Barbarian may like a belt that lets them activate Enlarge Person x/day, giving them an extra 1d6+1.5 damage and, more importantly, reach. The Cleric and Wizard are probably better off simply being pointed towards appropriate resources - a scroll of Ray of Idiocy for the Wizard, perhaps, and Righteous Might for the Cleric. Once they're making a bit better use of their spell resources, the DFA won't stick out and you can simply raise the stakes all around.

[Gadzooks27]

Thank you that is all very helpful ^^
It was more about overshadowing but I should be able to level things better now.

One last thing- what is the deal with the baleful geas invocation? We've debated so long and I went through countless forums on it.
Can someone clarify it's specifics pertaining to duration, consequence, and it's bizarre wording on the imposed continuous strength damage. Could baleful geas drop strength to zero? Even if the target is trying to fulfill the geas?

[OldTrees1]

Thank you that is all very helpful ^^
It was more about overshadowing but I should be able to level things better now.

One last thing- what is the deal with the baleful geas invocation? We've debated so long and I went through countless forums on it.
Can someone clarify it's specifics pertaining to duration, consequence, and it's bizarre wording on the imposed continuous strength damage. Could baleful geas drop strength to zero? Even if the target is trying to fulfill the geas?

Isn't that the invocation that mimic the Geas spell?

The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes.

If the subject is prevented from obeying the lesser geas for 24 hours, it takes a -2 penalty to each of its ability scores. Each day, another -2 penalty accumulates, up to a total of -8. No ability score can be reduced to less than 1 by this effect. The ability score penalties are removed 24 hours after the subject resumes obeying the lesser geas.

[Troacctid]

The description says "A single creature becomes your servant, but slowly sickens and dies." So yes, even if they obey the geas, they take the Strength damage. And it can reduce their Strength to 0, but if it does, the geas ends and they begin recovering at the normal rate of 1 point of ability damage healed per day.

Edit: It's only Lesser Geas that applies ability score penalties. Geas just deals 3d6 damage and sickens them.

[Gadzooks27]

Thanks :-)

[TheCorsairMalac]

I agree with the others. He's a skilled optimizer.

One thing I do to keep my players on their toes(Even the tricky ones!) is to have my NPCs use every tactic I know. Mid and high level bad guys have seen a lot of action, they should know the same tricks.

If he's flying, pelt him with tanglefoot bags and combat nets. If he's too heavily armored, chuck alchemists' fire at him. If he casts spells, grapple him or silence him. If he hits really hard, sunder his weapon(I love the way they cringe when I tell them the enemy's greataxe is adamantine.). If he gets too many attacks per turn, use retreat actions so he has to catch up and only gets one standard action. If he's too good with a bow, use tower shields as cover. If he...

The list goes on. Every tactic has some counter though not every enemy will have every trick. Some sessions he'll be unable to fly. At other times he'll be constantly hurt by touch attacks. Once in a while he'll have to fight on terrain that keeps him flat-footed.

I know it's not perfect advice, and maybe it doesn't fit your group. But having enemies that are immune a one of his tactics can give other players time to shine.

[Gadzooks27]

No it's good. Thank you :)

[Greenish]

They also get flight, same level that Warlocks do, and the same level that a Druid can turn into a bird for 5 hours, and the same level Wizards and some Clerics can cast the Fly spell to fly considerably faster, although admittedly not for as long. Fifth level is about the time flight starts becoming something the DM has to work around and plan for, and challenges that can be bypassed by flying are not going to be nearly as effective.Not disagreeing with your point, but DFAs and warlocks get flight on 6th level at the earliest.